Beloved Purgatory (Fallen Angels, Book 2) (31 page)

"Sort of. I don't get why demons can change things in
the world, and you can't."

"That's an astute observation for one such as
yourself to make," he said.

"Angels can, too."

"They are the hands of God. They can do anything, as
long as they don't go against His will."

"So why can demons heal on earth, then?"

Forneus' lips curled into a private smile. "You
should ask Azazel that question yourself."

The way he said that unnerved me. It sounded like he
was in on some horrible joke at my expense. I didn't like the way I
began to doubt myself and Oz, either. "So, why do you let Lucifer
decide how much you take?"

Forneus chuckled again, lower. "You are trying to
irritate me, aren't you?"

"No," I said truthfully. This time I actually wanted
to know.

He held my gaze for a long moment before folding up
the handkerchief. I guess he was done digging. "Lucifer's official
reason for controlling its distribution is to make sure his
subjects don't deplete this resource. It's not an unfounded
concern, but there is more to it than that--he wants to make sure
the rest of us never gain enough power to overthrow him by keeping
us dependent on his benevolence. I, too, am still paying for a
contract I made hastily and out of naivety, back when I was looking
for something to fill the terrifying void that afflicted my
consciousness after I fell."

I didn't like feeling this close to him. "Why are you
telling me this?"

He brushed his slacks off as he stood. "All of it is
common knowledge. If you wanted, you could sneak into my house and
destroy the
Rukah-Hayim
in my room. However, that isn't my
only, or even largest, collection."

He advanced until he was less than an arm's length
away. Slowly, he brushed the hair out of my face. My lower jaw
trembled. He caught the tip of it between his index finger and
thumb.

"If you somehow found a way to take everything from
me, you would only find yourself in more danger. Like I said,
you're going to need a devil's help to complete your quest, and I
am the best one for you to ally with."

"I doubt that," I whispered.

He let go. "I hope you never find yourself in a
situation that proves those doubts wrong."

His unfocused gaze rested on my lips, then leisurely
moved down along the length of my throat. I saw his eyes shift,
once, before he covered them with heavy lids.

A chill shot through my body.

His fingertips ran over the chain around my neck,
then rested on the locket. "I should take this."

"Why? I thought you said--"

"You trust me to fulfill my end of the agreement,
don't you, Devi?"

I took a step back. My hand curled around the locket.
It felt cold in my palm. What was he talking about? "Of course I
don't trust you."

"You should learn to, from now on," he said, coming
closer. "Take it off."

I was almost to the wall. The
Rukah-Hayim
squirmed on the back of my neck. I didn't dare retreat any further.
"I thought you said it protected me."

He smiled, again--that slow, slight, secretive smile.
"Do you really think I'd go to such lengths to hide you only to
give you up? If that's what I wanted, I wouldn't have given you
something so precious in the first place. Down here, there are
other things that will protect you. Now, turn around."

I didn't move.

"Are you going to make me use force?"

The locket's spring bit into the wound he'd given me
with his knife. I sucked in a breath.

"You're just going to hurt yourself if you resist."
He placed his hand on my shoulder and turned me around. I let him,
even though I could feel his cool touch seeping through my shirt,
making me shiver. What could I do, anyway? Kick him, I suppose, but
he would only heal instantaneously. Here, I couldn't even hope for
dumb luck as a last resort.

His thin, long fingers looped beneath the chain,
undoing the clasp. The chain was caught in my hair, but that didn't
stop him from ripping it out.

I cursed.

"Are you ready to see your father?" He asked,
ignoring my discomfort as he placed the locket in the front pocket
of his slacks.

I nodded.

Even though I don't think he'd been looking at me, he
noticed my assent. "Take my hand, then."

I did. His skin was oddly clammy, and his grip
strangely tight, as he led me deeper into Purgatory in silence.

The further we went, the more lush and thick the
Rukah-Hayim
grew. Each time we took a step, it brushed
against our legs, quivering as it recoiled from contact. We left
black footprints in our path--the crushed remains of bruised
petals.

"Almost there," Forneus said.

I looked up. Just ahead, a wall of white light
blocked our path. It bleached out the vibrant purple of the
Rukah-Hayim
. In fact, the plants nearest to it were gray,
though they were the fullest.

I looked over at Forneus. I'd always secretly thought
his skin had the consistency of newspaper, but he truly looked like
he was made of it now--a crisp picture, hot of the press, inked in
black and white.

His grip on my hand tightened. "The lost spirits here
are like ghosts. They wander in circles, replaying their traumas
over and over again in their minds. In order to find your father,
you must speak about your life together. At first, it will seem
like nothing is happening, but eventually he will remember himself
and come to you."

I shivered. What event was he eternally remembering?
The moment he realized, on that day I'd come home alone, that Kai
had disappeared and he was left with me? Or was it the day he ended
his suffering with a bullet--or, at least, tried to?

He looked away first, back to the wall of light.
"There's something else. His pain has probably poisoned him. Don't
take it personally if he says something cruel, and don't worry if
he tries to hurt you. Shades can't harm us."

That didn't sound good. What was he getting at? I
parted my lips, but before I could make a sound he stepped forward,
pulling us both into that world of white.

I collapsed. It felt like the bones in my body were
bending in on themselves. Like my skin was dissolving. Like my eyes
had sunk to the back of my throat.

Something rubbed my back--Forneus' hand. "You'll get
used to it in a few minutes."

Get used to it? I wanted to slap him away, but I
couldn't move. My body only trembled. Even my hands wouldn't curl
into fists.

"It hurts because you don't have a spirit. There is
nothing like you here."

Is this what Heaven would feel like, then?
I
wanted to ask, but my eyes rolled to the back of my head. I gasped,
sucking in the scent of...nothing. Everything was white. There was
no floor, no sky, no horizon, and yet the two of us somehow stood,
without a shadow, in complete emptiness.

I shifted back and forth, trying to swallow my
nausea. I don't know if 'getting used to it' would have described
how I felt, but I could tolerate it. Sort of.

"You should have warned me," I whimpered.

He grinned. "I didn't want you to back out."

"I wouldn't have."

"Oh really? You had a fit when I scratched your
hand."

Since when did stabbing someone in some bloody ritual
count as a scratch? Alright, it was a small cut, but it freaked me
out. "That still hurts, by the way," I said, rubbing the raw skin
against my pants.

"My point exactly," Forneus murmured, setting me on
my feet.

"Now, call your father."

Was my skin was sliding off my bones? Every part of
me ached. Even my lungs felt as if they were made of tissue, and
each breath I took seemed to rip them apart.

Ignore it. You have to speak
. "Father," I
croaked. "It's Devi."

The space before us wobbled. Gasping faces dropped
forward. Their eyes were shut, their skin white, as if they'd been
dripped in Titanium paint. Hands reached for me--hundreds of thin
fingers grasped the air, like the legs of beetles after being
tipped on their backs.

My mouth went dry. How many lost spirits were
there?

Behind, I heard Forneus' clipped command. "You need
to be more specific. Right now, every shade that was a father and
knew someone named Devi has come forward."

Great. I teetered back and forth and sucked in
another tasteless breath.
Don't think about the other spirits.
Just think about
..."Father."

My voice sounded distant. My chest started to pound,
and not from the pain of being in Purgatory. I hadn't expected it
to hurt this much to think of him, or for my heart to beat this
fast, or for images to pass through my mind so quickly that I
couldn't hold onto a single one.

There were only the words I'd wanted to say to him.
I'd rehearsed them in the mirror as a little girl in the weeks
leading up to his death. I spent so much time rehearsing that I'd
lost the opportunity to speak them aloud. I'd always wondered if
things would have turned out differently if I had.

"I know you wish that you'd only had a son. I know
you think I betrayed you, and Kai. I know you didn't love me. But I
always loved you.

"I remember tip-toeing into the kitchen to watch you
make pancakes for us. I still use your recipe. Mom does, too. And I
remember how you put your hand on Kai whenever he snuggled up next
to you, and how you always did the same for me, even though I don't
think you wanted to even touch me. Still, you did your best to
treat us both equally, and I loved you for that as well."

My voice broke. My legs buckled. I fell forward,
steadying myself by clutching onto my shaky knees.

"Don't stop. You're doing great. He'll come,
soon."

A chill passed through me. I was bearing my soul in
front of Forneus--Forneus, who felt nothing, cared for nobody. Did
that devil even know how much speaking like this hurt?

The taste of salt slipped between my lips--the first
thing I'd tasted since entering this forsaken place. That's right.
It didn't matter if he was here, or how much I embarrassed myself,
as long as my father was released.

"I know I wasn't the one you wanted. I know I wasn't
good enough for you. But why did you have to leave?" I whispered.
"Why did you want me to be the one who found you on that white
couch? Did you really hate me that much?"

"Devi," Forneus interrupted.

I sighed. "First you want me to keep going,
then--"

"I think he's here."

I looked up.

I saw my father's long, crooked nose; in
kindergarten, when we made pictures of our family, I drew it as a
lightening bolt. I'd also made him taller than the trees. He'd
always seemed too big for every room he'd walked into. That wasn't
the case anymore. The light made the edges of his body hazy, and
without any other objects to compare him to, he seemed fragile.

Fragile
. That was a word I'd never thought to
apply to him, even though he'd been so pale that he used to joke
that the only thing whiter than him was our couch. But, in
Purgatory, his skin looked like it was made of chalk, and like he
would crumble of I exhaled to quickly.

"Devi," my father said without emotion.

"Dad?" I tried to rush forward, but something latched
onto the back of my shirt.

"Don't go to him," Forneus whispered. "I don't want
to have to wander around Purgatory for ten hours looking for
you."

I glanced at my dad shakily. That would have been a
good thing to know before we'd come. "Should I keep talking?"

Forneus chuckled. "Yes. If he disappears, we'll have
to call him out again."

I didn't want to stay here a second longer than I had
to. The only reason why I was still on my feet was because
collapsing would hurt too much.

"Where is Kai?"

My father's desperate voice interrupted my
pity-party. "Um, he's not here."

"I want to see Kai," he cried. "I look for him all
the time, and I never see him. I can never find him."

"I want to see Kai, too," I admitted.

He stepped forward. The crease in his brow, deepened.
"Why are you here? Why did you call for me? Why is it you--why is
it always you--instead of Kai?"

His words stung.
Remember what Forneus told
you--Purgatory poisons lost spirits
, I told myself, but I knew
it was more than that. This was how my father truly felt.

"I love you," I told the shade. "And now I want you
to be free."

"What did you do to him?" He continued, as if I'd
said nothing. "Did you watch them when they took him? Did you want
them to take him because you were jealous?"

No. Never. But I couldn't blame him with the same
unflinching passion. Instead, I babbled: "I couldn't. There was so
much light--"

"He loved you more than anything. He loved you even
more than he loved me." He jabbed his finger into my chest--or at
least tried to. I felt nothing as the pasty image sank through my
shirt, right above my heart.

My father didn't notice that his touch didn't make
contact. He didn't know how fast my heart beat, or how much it
ached. "He loved you so much, and you still let him go. He would
never have left you. Never."

It didn't take me long to answer. "Yes," I whispered.
It was true. If someone unknown had reached for me, Kai would have
latched onto my arm. He would not have been distracted by the
light. No part of him would have wanted to go to it.

"Nothing in this world was as beautiful as Kai.
Nothing. I used to wonder how something so perfect could have even
existed, and then I would remember you."

He stepped forward, gray eyes blazing. "I knew
something was wrong the first time I saw you."

My mouth fell open. A chill spread across my arms.
"What are you talking about?"

"In order for something that beautiful to exist,
there had to be something equally horrific. How could it be
otherwise? It wouldn't make sense."