Archon (26 page)

The courtyard in front of St. Mary’s was empty, the surrounding towers dark and silent. Everyone had locked themselves indoors, far from the violence of the rain and wind.

Fury croaked to his left, emerging for a second through the sheet of water, her wings flapping frantically. She screeched, the chill sound echoing from stone to stone, and flew back into the downpour like a lost shadow.

An alarm call.

He reached for the knife in his pocket, gripping the handle.

The wind changed, rushing on him from above. Kim slammed to the ground beneath its force, the breath knocking out of his chest, hot pain racing along his torso. A new shadow, like Fury’s but so very much larger, descended on him with a falcon’s speed and fury. He whipped around, fending off two black wings the length of his own body, their feathers beating against his skin. Screaming, he tore the knife out of his pocket and slashed wildly.

The rain parted, revealing a male face with green eyes.

Then the angel swerved out of his reach, disappearing behind the water, its wings missing the knife again by a hairsbreadth.

Another deep peal of thunder shook the ground, ripples of lightning highlighting the world with silver.

There, to the right.

The angel had landed nearby, standing like a tall, black nightmare behind the curtain of rain—examining him for a weak spot.

He hadn’t expected this. A demon, yes. Israfel, maybe. The Supernal must have had bodyguards, servants, or children. But whoever this angel truly was, he didn’t want Kim in that building, already seeming to understand how important it was that he eventually get inside. Kim had nothing to save him but his instincts and his skills, and they wouldn’t count for much when he could barely see his opponent.

“Is that all, you sneaky bastard?” Kim shouted over the storm.

Silence.

The angel was waiting for him to make the next move.

Fair enough. Kim reached for a prayer ward on the inside of his coat and lifted it into the rain. The ink melted off the paper, its once crisp edges folding over with moisture. He tossed the ward as far as it would go, meaning to give himself that second’s worth of protection before it disintegrated. “
Libera me a malo!
”

The angel backed off into the shadows, vanishing amid the towers.

Yes—it was working.

Kim pushed onto his feet, laughing a little. This would be easier than he’d thought.

More wind. He pitched backward onto the street, crushed beneath the fury of two white wings hammering the air above him. This time, a female face broke through the sheets of water between them, her eyes a perfect match for the male’s, green with venom. He swiped at her with the knife, cutting the side of her shoulder. “
Libera me a malo! Averto absum!
”

She screamed back at him, more enraged than hurt.

Then, with an infuriated shiver of her wings, she fought through the needle-sharp pain of his words. He aimed his blade at her throat, but before he could touch the angel, her fingers wrapped around his neck. Kim coughed, straining to wrench her hands away, his back arching up from the stones. They struggled, rolling on the ground, but the angel held tight and already the world was fading into a giant swirl of gray, every bit of his pain lifting like a fog before morning. His body began to numb over. He relaxed and stopped clawing at his murderer’s perfect face.

Another surprise. He’d never imagined Angela would be his final thought.

T
he slow, sarcastic clapping from the side entrance of the altar sounded suitably horrific.

Brendan appeared seemingly out of nowhere, marching through a rank of novices who parted like twin waves. Hideous bruises bloomed on his face and neck. Sophia glanced at Angela for the first time since she’d entered the cathedral, biting her lip, visibly nervous. Beside Sophia, Naamah frowned, flexing the knives buried beneath her nails.

Brendan doesn’t know about the demon. If nobody does anything—he’ll die.

“Oh, it’s you,” Stephanie said, letting him get close. Too close. “Good timing, Brendan. You can do me a favor and join your sister.”

Brendan laughed, the noise abrupt and harsh, ringing against frescoes and stone. “Really, I’m impressed. You’ve done it this time.”

“And you sound—and look—as ridiculous as I expected.”

“I just find it ironic that you’re threatening my sister, when you’re the one about to burn.” Brendan pushed the greasy curls from his head, appearing unwholesomely careless. The expression on his face was disturbing. Older, more mature, but in the way of a person who’d sunk his teeth into forbidden fruit, losing all his innocence the more he tasted it. The sight was a terrible one, but Angela knew better than to open her mouth. She’d have her chance to act.

Besides—this wasn’t her brother anymore.

“Remember when I said, ‘nice knowing you’?” Stephanie folded her arms. She beckoned to Naamah, encouraging her nearer. “I lied.”

“One of your friends from Hell, I’m guessing?” Brendan’s lazy grin hadn’t changed.

Naamah stepped up to the altar, unperturbed by the closeness of any holy objects, people, or pictures. But it was fast becoming apparent that only part of what Angela knew about angels was the actual fact. Latin hurt them, yet a holy object seemingly had no effect whatsoever. Darkness oppressed the cathedral as Naamah climbed the stairs, and the priests cringed, some pressing against the walls. They could sense the wrongness of her.

She glared at them, her eyes blacker than two pools of oil.

Then the head priest made his mistake. “
Vade, daemon
.” Despite the thunder, even murmuring the Latin sounded louder than a trumpet blast in the quiet cathedral. “
Anima vestras ad infernum remittite . . .”

Naamah flinched, like he’d stuck her with a needle.

She rounded on him, teeth gritted. Those nightmarish blades slipped out of her fingers.

The archbishop blanched whiter than death, still mumbling under his breath while she advanced on him. Her braids resembled a coil of miniature snakes attached to her head, and she loomed over the novices, tall and perfect and completely lethal.

He tried to speak, but she snapped her fingers, their metal clanking together.

His mouth sealed shut.

“That’s funny.” She leaned into him. “You’re suddenly speechless.”

Stephanie sighed in the background, impatient and unsympathetic. She folded her arms, leaning against a stone column with her ponytail swinging against it, ropelike. “Get on with it.”

Naamah’s mouth twitched, and she stiffened ever so slightly. Stephanie’s tone of voice had bothered her.

There was a tense silence.

The demon swung her arm.

The priest’s head rolled down the altar steps, its face staring at her in disbelief. It seemed to take forever for the archbishop’s eyes to glaze over, for Angela to catch her breath again.

For the tremendous panic to begin.

Students burst from their pews, stampeding in thunderous chaos to the doors, the windows. The screams were deafening. Glass smashed. People howled, stepped on by others, by friends. Outside, the storm continued, relentless and terrifying, and as the doors held fast and the windowsills sat too high for anyone to climb through them, the pandemonium increased by the second.

Angela dashed from her own pew and snagged Sophia by the arm, holding on with real pain while the novices swept by, screaming with the others. Those brave enough to challenge Naamah had already died, either bleeding or collapsing from an invisible blow to the head, the chest—it was too hard to tell.

Everything was madness.

There’s no way to stop her. Even I can’t do it. If I try to use Latin, she’ll kill me, or at least shut me up.

Then the singing nearly brought her to her knees.

Every person’s reaction was instantaneous. Those in a blind panic paused to listen, rapt with amazement. Many of the novices’ eyes widened large as saucers, and they picked themselves out of the mayhem, stepping closer to hear. The priests froze like deer sighted by wolves, staring in shocked reverence.

Stephanie looked like her face had been dipped in bleach.

Naamah trembled, her unfurled wings spasming with either rage or wretched fear. More skin than bloody feathers, her wings were riddled with patches of tendon and bone. Metal had been ribbed through them, as if to keep the ragged mess together.

Sophia squeezed Angela’s hand, shivering.

Brendan looked ecstatic as Israfel appeared, gliding from the shadows that veiled the altar’s side entrance, a white, graceful, lovely perfection that broke apart the darkness, the bloody light, the hell that the cathedral had become. His wings were all white feathers and elegance, trailing behind him like a prince’s robe, and his embroidered coat shimmered like a newborn star. Platinum chains, sewn to the fabric, jingled musically whenever he took a step. There was a sudden flowering of scent, like musk and lilies and salt water.

Israfel was so beautiful, he was more an apparition than a reality.

And he’s mine.

The second Israfel stopped singing, Stephanie screeched at Naamah, wild-eyed, red in the face.

“You said HE WAS DEAD.”

The demon wasn’t listening. She stared at Israfel like he’d risen from a grave right in front of her, her fingerblades clenching and unclenching with indecision.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? JUST KILL HIM.
”

The storm raged over Naamah’s first sentence, and barely revealed the next. “. . . a Supernal. If you take one more step closer, I’ll cut his throat.”

She meant Brendan, of course. He was laughing loudly again, but so close to Naamah that she merely grabbed him by the shoulders and put her fingers to his neck, snapping out her demands.

“
Stay back
,
angel.
”

Now it all made sense. Israfel’s plaything was Brendan, Angela’s own brother. She’d probably never know how they’d met—whether it had been coincidence, an honest mistake, or deliberate seduction—but Brendan’s nasty comments in the cafeteria suddenly meant so much more. Whatever kind of activities he’d been participating in the last few weeks, they’d either changed his personality, or brought out a darkness inside of it that he’d managed to hide for quite a while.

Stephanie had ironically met her match—she had her demon and Brendan had his angel. Now, they were on frighteningly equal footing.

They never loved each other to begin with. Love can’t turn to a hatred this strong.

Then she recalled Tileaf’s memories of Lucifel, and that certainty took wings and flew from her, never to return.

“H
e’s mine, crow.
” Troy’s voice echoed from far away, its anger burning the soul like living fire.

A piercing howl tortured Kim’s ears.

The Throne’s cruel fingers unclenched from around his neck, Angela’s ghost disappeared, and he crashed onto the drenched cobblestones, sweet oxygen burning into each lung, his body gasping and boneless with pain. The female angel writhed beside him like a worm on a hook, blood streaming from a wounded wing, the other flapping maniacally, scraping his coat. Troy lunged again from the shadows, snapping her teeth, careful to stay out of arm’s reach. Then she connected with the angel—and both of them tumbled to the ground in a flurry of nails and feathers, holding nothing back.

Fury circled overhead, a black silhouette croaking in alarm.

It was another warning, one that Kim would be wise to pay attention to again. He could have been beaten by a club, his muscles felt so sore. But he was also a half-Jinn, and fueled by the blood and the sound of Troy’s wrath, he was back on his feet with surprising speed. The rain continued to fall in buckets, and in an instant, his cousin and the angel disappeared, lost to Luz’s gray waters.

Wings rolled a thunder greater than the storm’s. The male angel was returning.

The knife. He needed the goddamned knife. Kim had lost it while the female had him by the neck.

He dropped to the ground, pawing the stones, barely missing outstretched fingers ready to wrap around his throat again. Kim swore, hissing more curses, finally feeling the familiar curve of the handle settled inside his palm.

He turned, swinging his arm in a wild arc, desperate to fend off the latest shadow.

Troy swooped out of the rain and down to the ground, the female following close behind. The angel was a picture of white rage, almost as frightful as the Jinn who’d torn a gash in her wing. Her cheeks flared with red stripes, like elegant, terrifying war paint.

These angels fought like rabid dogs.

Troy galloped on her hands and feet, closing in on Kim. When they met, she pressed against his back, spreading her wings in a threatening display, gnashing her teeth furiously at the white angel who leaned over them both, tall and furious. Troy’s pinions rubbed Kim’s shoulders and arms, the feathers on each stiff and unforgiving as razor blades. “Do it,” she shrieked. “Before the male returns.”