Archon (30 page)

Twenty-nine

I have often debated which Supernal is the greatest among the Three. But perhaps the better question would be: which is the most dangerous?

—
B
ROTHER
F
RANCIS,
An Encyclopedia of the Realms

I
t had felt like a dream.

Stephanie, racing for Angela, swiping at her with that hellish sword of her own blood; a vision more frightful than Troy, if only because Stephanie was
human
. Thinking about the danger she’d so narrowly escaped, Angela had only two things to be truly grateful for. One was that Stephanie had been too distracted by Naamah to actually steal the Grail. The other was that Israfel had kidnapped Angela and Sophia far away from everyone and everything else.

Kim’s amber eyes haunted her, even more than the Eye suspended near her face.

The Grail swung like a pendulum in front of her nose, beckoning her to take it back. Instead, Angela stared at Sophia until a breeze entered the church through the open ceiling, blocking her vision with thick strands of hair. She pushed them aside, sighing at the sudden awkwardness, the difficulty of dealing with people—even things that merely looked like people—and the pain they caused her.

She actually is a doll, and now I’m afraid.

Sophia was Raziel’s toy. His walking, talking creation. “It can’t hurt me,” she said, indicating the Grail. “Because of what I am.”

Her voice sounded horrifically tired.

Angela shook her head, examining a blackened pew. The church seemed so quiet compared to the last time she’d entered, searching for Israfel. But that of course had been because the world felt that much more alive.

Sophia grabbed for Angela’s palm, her own skin strangely clammy and moist.

“No.” Angela held her at arm’s length, wrapping Sophia’s slender fingers around the Eye again, blocking its terrible vision. “It’s better off with you right now.” She took a step backward and fingered the vicious slash in her blouse, cringing at the texture of shredded fabric. A red line, sticky to the touch, swept across her chest at a diagonal; one more scar to mix with the others. “I don’t need him to see it. I don’t need any more problems. Or anything else to—”

To come between us, she wanted to say.

Thankfully, the words stopped at her lips.

It was almost too much—the enormity of what had happened only an hour ago. Here, in this abandoned shell of a church, the carnage felt as far away as a true dream. Yet it had been all too real, because Angela was still suffering from Israfel’s manner of traveling, especially traveling such a distance in a short space of time. He’d grabbed both her and Sophia, and there had been a roar, the intense rush of wind, and a light that could have melted her eyes. Then, nothing. Until she stood in the church at his side, dazed, disoriented, and sick to her stomach. He’d left her alone with Sophia in their little alcove, leaving for some room that connected to the altar, visibly disturbed by how nauseated she looked. Whether it was because he cared or not—that hadn’t even entered into her thoughts. Maybe because she’d had none. For what felt like forever, she and Sophia had simply sat side by side in silence.

Leftovers of the storm rumbled overhead.

Faintly, Brendan’s voice spoke amid the thunder, still screaming, still accusing her of every ounce of his suffering and every sliver of pain. But Angela knew it was only her imagination. Her brother was dead. Gone. The last person connecting her to the past, he’d been ripped out of her life just as quickly as he’d returned to it.

Yet the tears wouldn’t come anymore.

Despite her best efforts otherwise, she was also seeing Brendan’s face in his final moments. Without a doubt, it had been the face of a person lucky to be put out of their misery.

“Angela . . .”

Sophia glanced at the broken ceiling, her gesture too human to be anything else.

Then she looked back at Angela, her eyes darker than the sky, grievously vacant, and all her tormented words about Hell and waiting for the Archon sounded clearer than what she said now. “I don’t mind. If you have to talk about your brother—”

She cut off abruptly, noticing what Angela knew was an expressionless haze over her face.

The silence seemed to go on and on even longer than before.

“If you need me,” Sophia finally whispered, “I’ll be here.”

There was a terrible loneliness in her voice, but Angela couldn’t acknowledge it. The shock was still too fresh. The pain of knowing Sophia’s true identity gnawed at her trust like a worm. Suddenly, her new friend seemed so much less helpless and so much more of a nightmare.

Angela needed—
wanted
—space.

“I’ll be here for you,” Sophia said again, as if she hadn’t heard. “I promise you that.”

Without another word, she slipped into the shadows, disappearing like a ghost. She hadn’t been crying as she left, but a gentle sobbing mixed with the low thunder. A moment later, Israfel stepped beside Angela, and she instantly forgot everything else that existed, frozen by his proximity and the elation of a dream she’d always prayed to come true, now doing so ten times over. He kept silent, but forced her to face him directly, examining the wound on her chest. His fingers were smooth and unspeakably soft, like sculpted pearl touching the skin above her left breast.

“Does it hurt?” he said at last.

The music in his voice was subtle, but the disgusted look had left his face, replaced by what could have been concern.

“No.” She nodded at the cut on his neck, remembering how he’d reacted the last instance she’d touched him without permission. “You?”

His lips pursed together. There must have been pain, but not the kind he’d admit to.

Israfel’s hair, already feathery, had become windswept and careless, wisping delicately at his shoulders. He took the strands and stroked them to the tips, his distinctly graceful movements somehow more comprehensible than Sophia’s. “You should have let me kill him and be done with it. Why did you stop me? Out of affection for him?”

Angela kept silent.

“Although I feel more grateful by the minute. The smell of his half-bred blood would have been less than pleasant on my hands.”

No answer would have been a good one. Which was fine, because too many of her own questions took up space in her mind anyway.

Why was perfection like him living in this horror at all? Israfel resembled a star thrown into a puddle of mud, so above everything surrounding him, that even light lost its luster next to his brilliance. Worse yet, he knew he had that effect. Angela strove to conquer her awe, desperate to pick out the real, though barely perceptible flaws, trying to remind herself to keep her head. He was beautiful, and it was very difficult, but . . .

Yes. She’d found it again.

There was that languid decadence in him that unnerved her somehow. Israfel was obviously used to everything in creation kissing the ground he walked upon, and it showed in the teasing way he toyed with her, with anyone, instinctively moving in ways designed to infatuate. It should have been impossible to resist him—but whenever Brendan’s face flashed before her—suddenly everything shone a little less divinely.

Israfel had left her to sit in a nearby pew, his wings tucked away to give him room.

Now he glanced at her again, and there was a sharper tone in his voice. “Why was the Jinn present?”

He folded his legs, waiting for her to explain.

Everything he did felt like an unspoken invitation for Angela to throw herself at him. But she’d been given a second chance to make a better, less idiotic impression, and she was definitely taking it. “Troy . . . She’s related to—the priest who held the knife.”

Kim. God, why did it always have to be like this? It would have been so much easier if—

If what? More people had died?

And whose deaths would have made it all better, Angela?

No one’s, of course.

Israfel rubbed the cut on his neck. “How fitting, then, that he was a demon in disguise.”

Now it was her turn. She was still in too much shock to cry, but the more she talked with Israfel and remembered, the more terrible those memories became and begged for their own explanations. Angela worked up her courage, trying to hide the growing bitterness in her voice. “Why did you let Brendan die?”

Silence.

She’d either startled him or made him angry.

Angela drew in nearer, eager to close off a new gap before it widened any further. “How did you even know each other?”

“You would question my wisdom? When you’re only human?” He spoke softly, and with the slightest hint at her danger. But she already knew there was something keeping him from punishing or hurting her. Whenever Israfel looked at Angela, it was there behind his large eyes: recognition, and maybe by a long stretch, affection. She suspected both had more to do with Raziel than her own miserable self. “But I suppose you deserve that much for the trouble he caused you. He was your brother?”

“Yes. He was.”

Israfel smiled. “Well, I’m sure what you thought of him, and what he was, were two very different things. What is your name, girl?”

“Angela,” she said, flinching at the irony of it, and at the idea that she was a
girl
to him.

A child.

He invited her to sit, careful to lean far enough away from her touch that she wouldn’t become overconfident again. “The universe can be an amusing place, can’t it?” He laughed delicately. “Actually, your brother mentioned you the first day we met. He had been eavesdropping on me for hours and hours. Can you guess why, Angela?”

She arranged what was left of her skirt, trying not to feel so uneasy. That laugh always sounded like it hid more behind it.

“Because”—Israfel blinked, the movement oddly majestic—“he wanted something from me.”

“What could that have been?” she said, her mouth dry and scratchy.

Already, the answer seemed to reveal itself in the way her heart hammered, her cheeks flushed. Either he hadn’t noticed, or he was even more encouraged by her reaction.

Israfel smiled less rigidly and turned his head toward the altar, like a flower twisting in the breeze. “Yes. I gave your brother everything he wanted. But whether that was good for him or not was none of my concern. It was enough that he wanted it, and that I found his desires useful. So if you are smart,” he turned back to her, his gaze steady, “you will not mourn his passing. The fact remains that his soul was beyond saving. I simply exposed the darkness in him before he did it himself.”

She breathed hard, sick again inside, unwilling to show it a second time.

“I understand, you see. I had a sibling who was much the same. Only I haven’t had the satisfaction of seeing justice done. Far from it.”

He sighed.

In it, Angela heard the whisper of Lucifel’s name echoing throughout the church.

“But that, like all things, is only a matter of time.”

Why couldn’t she speak anymore?

Was it fear? Infatuation? The staggering power of his presence?

Angela gazed at the kohl around his eyes, wondering at the sloping perfection of his nose. She sensed the honesty, the logic of what he’d said. Angela had never wanted to acknowledge it before, but her brother wasn’t nearly the saint her childhood memories made him out to be. Unfortunately, it had required a tragedy for her to believe it. Tonight, Brendan had shown his true colors in the worst manner possible. It was the how and why that bothered her, much like how she was taken aback by the Supernal’s self-satisfied pride. This was horrible. Her mind was turning in circles, and she barely noticed that Israfel was leaning in, closer and closer.

Then his fingertips brushed her face.

“Who are you?” he said, gentle as ever. “You have Raziel’s hair and eyes, but not his soul? Though I am appreciative that you’ve chosen to take your brother’s place in my service.” His breath was rich with a sweetness like honey, and he could have actually been caressing her with slight, but real, desire. Once again, she knew with a kind of stinging pain that he saw someone else. “It is only fitting, considering the torment we have endured tonight. For a few hours at least, we will enjoy ourselves, you and I.”

Now she felt too exposed.

Angela clutched at her shirt, shivering both from the breeze and the implications of his words.

She imagined Kim’s searing touch and the tickle of his lips on her neck.

And she hated herself for wanting it all without having to choose.

Israfel’s wings folded, disappearing with a flash of light. Slowly, he slipped out of his coat and tossed it at her, nodding tersely in a way that demanded she wear it. “Come,” he said, and while he left to glide for the altar, he looked over his shoulder to smile at her. “I want to show you something, Angela.”