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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: City Infernal
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Then all that Etheric energy collided into Lissa.... Lissa just laughed, shaking her head.
Cassie stared in horror.
“That hocus-pocus doesn’t work on me,” Lissa remarked.
She raised the sledgehammer high into the air, arcing up over Hush’s severed head.
Cassie collapsed back against the couch.
“Get ready to eat shit forever, you little Goth floozy!” Lissa celebrated.
The hammer hovered. The eyes in Hush’s severed head widened in terror, her mouth opening in a voiceless scream. And just as the hammer’s flat face would be slammed to the floor, crushing Hush’s head and sending her soul into the physical body of some hellish vermin—
The room rocked.
It began to tremor worse than the force from Cassie’s last projection.
But ...
It’s not me,
Cassie realized.
Some
other
force had entered the room, and after the following triage of sound—
Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
—Cassie knew what it was.
Three more Nectoports opened in their concussive wallops and wobbling flashes of swamp-green light. In less time than it took for Cassie to register her next thought, Blackwell’s Victorian chamber was full of the armed black knights of the Contumacy. They surrounded Lissa in a deep circle, their broadswords at the ready, the points of their halberd shafts and spears forming a ring of metal teeth around Lissa and the stone dolmen on which lay Hush’s decapitated body.
The room fell pin-drop silent.
Lissa cast the sledgehammer aside. She seemed unafraid, as well as unimpressed by the sudden invasion of insurgent soldiers.
Behind the mass of knights, Cassie was tended to by several more black guards; one picked her up and held her in his gauntleted arms, while others stood before her as living shields. Between the figures standing before her, she could barely see anything, but she could see enough.
Lissa stood with her hands on her hips, a sly smirk on her face.
“Well?” she said. “Come out, unless you’re afraid.”
Through the ranks, then, Ezoriel stepped forward in his bloodied battledress. His burned wings were drawn in behind his back, and his bronze helmet gleamed in spite of the dents from countless blows. In his large hand he grasped a sword.
“Might it have been a stray whisper from God that led me to this place?” Ezoriel’s luminous voice issued.
“God’s not here,” Lissa said back to him. “He cast you out. Remember?”
“Then perhaps it’s just that I’m smarter than you.”
“You probably are smarter than me, but so stupid in your faith. Faith in
what?”
“I’m not sure. But that hardly matters.”
Lissa smiled. “We used to be friends. We can be again. Consider the power here, Ezoriel. We’ll share in it—if you give your faith to me.”
“On the coldest day of winter, I wouldn’t give you the steam off my shit,” Ezoriel replied.
“So what now? You’ll stand aside and watch your peons chop me up. You know how pointless that would be.”
“I suspect so.”
“Just you and me then—unless. of course, you’re still a coward.”
Ezoriel dropped his sword and helmet to the floor.
Lissa looked back at him, displeased.
Then she said, “Fuck off,” and simply disappeared.
Chapter Seventeen
(I)
The little that Cassie could see and hear of those final moments in Blackwell’s chamber were utterly inexplicable. Too much had happened just too quickly for her to properly calculate any of it.
About the only thing she
could
comprehend, though, was Lissa’s diabolical hatred of her twin sister, which left Cassie feeling even more morose and helpless. Who else could Lissa blame for her damnation but Cassie? Thinking back to that night in the bar—the night Lissa had shot Radu and then herself—it had been Cassie’s own drunkenness and inner-angst that had spurred the weakness which had urged her into Radu’s arms. His own sexual designs for her were really no excuse, nor was his deceit, his overt lying, and his willingness to cheat on Lissa.
In Cassie’s heart and mind, none of these facts could ever pardon her from what had happened that night.
And she knew she would carry that blame around with her, like a satchel of heavy bricks, for the rest of her life.
It was a burden that would never fully be relieved.
(II)
After the showdown at Blackwell’s, Cassie had been safely Nectoported back to Ezoriel’s hidden fortress, to the Fallen Angel’s chateau and the very headquarters of the Satan Park Contumacy. By now she was used to the queen-like treatment, considering her power as well as her status as an Etheress and the First Saint of Hell. She was washed, fed, and cared for by every conceivable personal attendant and metaphysical doctor, then left under guard to recover from the incapacitating aftereffects of her manipulation of the Power Relic. The much-needed rest rejuvenated her much more quickly than she would’ve thought.
As for Ezoriel and his militia, their defeat at the Flesh Warrens was a considerable one, but not a fatal one. Countless thousands of the Fallen Angel’s soldiers had been destroyed, though their loss was not totally in vain. This largest invasion of the Warrens provided them with much in the way of logistical and intelligence information, and such surveys would serve them well in future assaults against the Demonocracy of Lucifer.
Of that, Cassie felt sure.
There would be more assaults indeed. Ezoriel and his army would never retreat from their goal of deposing God’s former-favorite.
But the question of Lissa continued to nag at Cassie’s sensibilities. There was so much to assess. Lissa’s ploy, at least, was now much easier to see after Cassie had had time to think about it. Certainly her masquerading as “Xeke” via the latest and most sophisticated techniques of Transfiguration surgery would allow for a simple yet effective infiltration among the likes of non-Hierarchals such as Via and Hush. As a Bi-Facer, Lissa could easily pose as one of them, undermine their confidence, pretend to share in their ideals as renegades of the damned. The specifications of a true Etheress would be just as easily reckoned by Lissa, a sexual virgin in the Living World, and the twin sister of another virgin: Cassie.
The rest was elementary, simply by the designs of Hell itself, and the diabolical motivations that were the status quo there.
Eternal damnation breeds eternal hatred.
And eternal greed.
What cruxed Cassie the most, however, were some of the very last things she’d witnessed back at Blackwell’s chamber before her rescue.
For one, how had Lissa 50 quickly disappeared from the spot, and why? Cassie could only assume that since her sister was clearly in league with the Agency of the Constabulary, she must’ve had access to other, newer provisions of the Constabulary’s sorcery-based transportation technologies. No Nectoport had appeared at that last moment to secret Lissa away.
Instead, she’d simply vanished.
Odder still were Lissa’s final words. She’d acted as though she
knew
Ezoriel. She’d implied that they’d once been friends.
Cassie couldn’t figure how such a thing could be possible—
Until she asked Ezoriel himself.
(III)
She stood on a high rampart, on the highest turret of Ezoriel’s fortress. This hidden track of the Nether-Spheres seemed to defy all understanding of geography, even in Hell. Was it a fortress in the clouds? Did it exist in some other domain of the Mephistopolis? The first time she’d come here, Via had even told her that the Nether-Spheres occupied a plane of physical existence in some proximity to Heaven.
But here, she knew, a simple inch could equal a million miles by her own understanding.
The sky wasn’t scarlet here; instead it seemed indescribably colorless, yet wisps of blue-tinted clouds breezed by, and the air was so fresh it seemed to mildly intoxicate her. Paradise in the domain of the Damned. But in all its luxury and freshness, this stronghold of Ezoriel proved his dedication. He could elect to simply spend eternity here amid this beauty—quite a powerful temptation, in this place that had been created by temptation—but instead he choose to brave the horrific streets and alleys of the city in order to pursue his battle against the injustice of Lucifer and his government.
The breeze caressed her living skin. When she peered into the infinite distance, she thought she saw a sparrow fly by.
Footsteps approached.
When she turned against the stone rampart, she saw Ezoriel, in a shining silver breastplate, coming toward her along the narrow passage.
His voice continued to remind her of bright light. “Have you any needs, Holy One?”
“No,” Cassie said.
“Though our battle was lost, we’ve gained much—to fight again. And that is how it will always be. Your presence has blessed us, and for that you have our eternal thanks.”
“I didn’t really do anything,” she said. “I tried to but it all got screwed up.”
“You’ve done more than you can ever imagine. Not only have you served Lucifer the greatest insult of his reign, you’ve given myself and my legions a gift beyond measure.”
A gift? she wondered. “What gift?”
“Hope,” the Fallen Angel said. “In the realm of the hopeless.”
Cassie shrugged, despondent.
“Even if you never return to Hell—a circumstance that I ardently advise—your time with us will never be forgotten, ever. Your spirit and your presence has granted us an unflagging strength.”
“Well, that’s nice of you to say,” she limply replied. “I’d like to come back and help you sometime, but ...” What could she say? That she was scared? Of course she was. “I have a father—and a life—somewhere else.”
“Of course. You don’t belong here.”
If I came back, I could get killed,
she realized. How many times had she nearly died already?
Her voice darkened. “What happens if an Etheress dies? I mean, if she dies in Hell?”
“I cannot say,” Ezoriel’s voice shined. “It’s a secret.”
Terrific,
Cassie thought, leaning against the rampart with her chin in her hands. But Ezoriel was right, and even if it was fear that most motivated her to never come back here, she was right too. Her life—her living body and mind—was a precious thing; life itself was precious, and she knew that now. Being in Hell, being among all this misery and endless despair, had taught her that at least.
She cringed to think back on the times when she’d hated her life, and the times she’d wanted to end it. Now she knew better.
Now she knew she would never take the Living World for granted again.
Then the thought rekindled as she remained there on the rampart with the Angel.
Lissa.
“When we were at Blackwell’s,” she began, “Lissa said some things I couldn’t understand. She indicated that she knew you, didn’t she? She said that the two of you had been friends once.”
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“I trust you noticed the brand on her abdomen,” Ezoriel said. “The pentagram. It was a band of Transposition. In your world, ranchers brand their cattle to prove ownership. It works similarly here, too, but there’s something more.”
She figured at least this much: the brand meant that Lissa was
owned.
By someone here, someone in Hell. “Transposition,” she spoke the word. “Wasn’t it a Transposition Spell that allowed me to use the Power Relic, to put my spirit into the bones?”
“To
transpose
your spirit, yes. Your spirit left your physical body, to occupy something else.” Ezoriel looked down at her. “So I hope that you will find at least some solace.”
Cassie’s own glance back showed him that she didn’t understand.
The voice, like strange light, explained. “Just as your spirit was transposed, so was the spirit of your sister—hence, the brand.”
“You mean—”
“It wasn’t actually Lissa whom we confronted in Blackwell’s chamber,” the Fallen Angel said. “It was Lissa’s body, transposed with the spirit of someone else.”
Someone else....
“Who?” she asked.
“Someone I used to be friends with,” Ezoriel said.
(IV)
“You get drunk again last night?” Mrs. Conner whispered fiercely to her rather disheveled son. Had she been home, she wouldn’t be whispering, she’d be yelling. But she didn’t dare yell at him now, not here at Blackwell Hall. It simply wouldn’t do for Mr. Heydon to overhear a family spat.
Cain’t have that wonderful man thinkin’ we’re just a bunch of backwoods hillbillies,
she told herself.

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