Conspiracy of Angels (22 page)

“What do you mean when you say I bear the mark of Nefer-Ka?”

The holes you bear above your heart, my brother. If not Nefer-Ka, then one of his chosen. Yet the Eye of Nefer-Ka must be buried and lost to the sands. He stood on the mountain and swore the oath, as did all the firsts of our tribes. Such things are binding.

“His eye?” I asked with sudden urgency. “Nefer-Ka is the Nephilim primus, right? What do you know about ‘Neferkariel’s Eye’?”

In days long passed, each Primus shaped an icon, his power thus to share with those who were his heralds.

Icons again. Buried symbols of power, Remy had said. And here I’d dismissed that stuff in my patchwork PDF.

Terael paused and I felt a quavering touch, like fingers made of smoke trailing against my skin. A heartbeat later, the Rephaim recoiled within my mind, nearly blinding me with a burst of animal terror.

Scenes of death and warfare cascaded through my mind in a stupefying jumble before he sufficiently recovered to frame comprehensible words. Though he had no lungs, he sounded breathless.

You bear the Stylus. Two Icons unearthed. The wars have come to us again.

Stylus? My thoughts flashed unbidden to my own memories of war—visions of the temple, that thin bone tool etching lines of pain across Dorimiel’s brow. Writing his sentence.

A pen.

A pen lay buried in the lining of my coat. I’d felt it when I’d retrieved the envelope. With nerveless fingers, I dug through the hole in the pocket. When I connected with the hard length tucked against the seam, Terael’s terror of the object spasmed in my mind.

I withdrew a carved and yellowed length of bone not much longer than a No. 2 pencil. One end was shaped into a wedge. The other tapered down to a wicked point. Scrimshaw symbols spiraled along its length, elegant and fearsome as striking cobras.

The Stylus of Anak. Please, brother, please, do not take it up. We have left the wars behind us, traded blood for simpler ways.

“Anak,” I breathed. My tongue moved thickly in a mouth stone-dry with shock. “You mean Anakesiel, don’t you? This is the icon of the Anakim primus.”

The Holocaust of the Idols, all the burning shapes and shadows in the wretched Hinome valley—so many Names bound and shattered. My brother, please, do not take us there again.
Terael was genuinely panicked, words, emotions, and images spilling in such a riptide through my head that I had to cling to my own thoughts, or else get swept away.

“I’m not going to use it,” I cried. “I don’t even know why I have it.”

But if I had it—it was a good bet Dorimiel had the Eye. That was what the cipher had been telling me.

“The Eye of Nefer-Ka,” I said. My heart thrashed desperately against my ribs. “Tell me, Terael. What does it do?”

It took him several moments to settle down.

As the Stylus breaks and binds, the Eye swallows memory and power. It drinks it with a touch. All the skills of Nefer-Ka are gifted to those who pay the blood.

Understanding blossomed as he brushed minds with me. I struggled to frame a response, but Terael’s panic surged again.

They swore, they swore!
It rang like a clarion in my head.

“I need to be very clear on this,” I said. I touched the hollow ache above my heart. “You’re telling me that someone can use the Nephilim icon to take memories away.”

Not merely take, but to devour, so the knowledge feeds the one who eats it.

White-hot fury blazed within me, till all my thoughts were fire. I had stood in Sal’s throne room, practically spelling out an attack with the Nephilim icon, while she and Remy pretended it was nothing.

Lil was right—and Remy was as bad as Saliriel. They were all involved. How the hell else could two of the fucking icons of the primae be rattling around right under their noses?

I was being played.

“Is Kessiel one of the Nephilim?” I growled. I already knew the answer.

In a tiny voice—or what served him as a voice—Terael answered.

Yes.

I wrapped my fingers around the Stylus as the item whispered promises of power.
Breaking and binding, hunh?
It would be so easy—but what was the cost? Forbidden artifacts were usually forbidden for a reason.

Shaking with emotion, I pulled open the inside pocket of my leather jacket. With an effort of will, I slipped the ornate stylus of yellowed bone back against the inner seam. Best to forget about it completely. With luck, no one would be able to sense its presence the way Terael had while he connected with me.

“Is that pulse-sucker still in my office?” I demanded.

He gathers those things for which he came.
Terael’s mind-speak came across as pensive, bewildered even. I caught images of the Stylus flashing intermittently through his thoughts.

“I wasn’t kidding,” I assured him. “I’m not going to use it. I don’t know how I got it, and I don’t think I want it, but you keep your mouth shut about it, OK?”

I keep many of your secrets. I will swear it on my Name.

“Just keep Kessiel from leaving till I get there,” I responded. “He’s going to explain a few things.”

Heedless of the threat of guards now, I shouted my power till my hands danced with blue-white flames. While Terael’s place-knowledge still sizzled in my brain, I sprinted through the warren of back halls.

There would be hell to pay.

T
here was only one back office with lights on. In a fury, I kicked the door wide. It opened onto a space that was larger than I expected—part office, part lab, judging by the furniture.

On the far side of the room, a man with a long blond ponytail leaned over the drawers of a filing cabinet, yanking out photos and papers and stuffing them into a canvas messenger bag. He was at least my height, maybe a little taller. With his distressed jeans and stylish button-down shirt, he looked less like a robber and more like a model for some trendy men’s cologne.

The way he jumped when I kicked the door open, he wasn’t expecting anyone to disturb his larcenous search, though he recovered quickly enough.

“You!” he cried in a voice eerily reminiscent of Remiel’s. Baring his fangs theatrically, he pulled out a gun. I did that preternatural speed trick and threw myself behind a big metal desk situated at the end of the room. As I crouched there trying to determine my next move, I reminded myself to find that Kimber Lil had mentioned, and reacquaint myself with its use. It sucked dodging bullets without the luxury of being able to return fire.

At least he wasn’t shooting yet.

“Kessiel, I presume?” I called from behind the desk.

“I didn’t believe it when they said you’d survived that leap from the ship. We’ve made a game of searching for you, you know,” he taunted.

“I’m flattered. Really.”

In answer, he put a few bullets into the desk—as if they were punctuation. It wasn’t fair. The gun had a silencer, so I barely heard it when he squeezed off a shot. The sound of the bullet smashing into the metal was louder than the little cough it made exiting the chamber.

Kessiel took a few casual steps—no hurry—and moved to flank me. Keeping my body low, I darted from behind the desk, heading for a long, freestanding counter with heavy cabinetry underneath. There were two of them, arranged parallel to one another in the approximate middle of the lab, both covered with equipment, sorting bins, and other important-looking clutter.

He squeezed off another shot and it smashed into the wall just over my shoulder. He wasn’t even aiming.

“You having fun putting holes in my office?” I called out. “You’re a worse shot than most storm troopers.”

“I’m not supposed to kill you, Anakim,” he sneered, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you. So why don’t you save us both some pain and tell me where you stashed the things you stole? We’ll start with the easy answers.

“Where are the demon jars?”

That threw me for a loop. Last I’d checked, I was the researcher, not the crook.

“What makes you think I’d tell you?” I replied.

“You know, he can give your woman a jar of her own, even without the Stylus,” Kessiel said. “He’s swallowed enough of your tribe for that. It’s only a matter of time before we recover it. Cooperate now, and he’ll consider her release.”

He wasn’t even pretending to be sincere.

Realization flashed bright as a magnesium flare. The demon jars were soul prisons—not just for demons. For anything. That’s why Remy had been offended that I’d kept their presence a secret. There was no telling what—or who—was in them.

“Fuck you, fang-face!” I shouted.

“Give us the location of the jars you found, and perhaps he’ll leave you enough of a mind so you don’t shit yourself.” Then he added, “There are worse things than death, Anakim. He’ll bind you both and feed you to the darkness in the depths of the lake.”

Another bullet whined past me, closer this time. I duck-walked down the length of the counter, relying on my psychic impressions to keep track of my opponent. The bullets were a serious problem. The minute he stopped fucking around, I was going to get shot. I needed to get my hands on his gun, but if I was going to do that, I had to get the drop on him. I started to call power to my hands.

The air of the room crackled around me, reminiscent of a crossing. My racing thoughts flashed to Terael’s statement about giving me my own domain in “his” museum. I had an idea now what he’d meant, and it gave me a plan.

Even if I pulled it off, it was going to hurt.

“Alive doesn’t mean it has to be pretty, Anakim,” Kessiel said. “He can rip the information from your screaming wreck, as long as you still have a pulse—and I’ll watch.”

Stalling, I asked, “Isn’t sucking my gray matter against some kind of peace treaty? I thought there were oaths and things, after the Blood Wars.”

Again Kessiel laughed, reminding me of every bad Bond villain.

“There are loopholes in any oath. Only the primae swore. You didn’t think items of such power could stay buried forever, did you?” He planted another lazy bullet into the wall. “Your whole tribe has earned a reckoning, Anakim. One by one, he’ll swallow your memories, your powers, and every dream you’ve ever held dear.”

“Yeah, yeah. Mr. Ooky-Spooky and the Eye of Nefer-Ka,” I taunted, using the sarcasm to deflect my own bitter terror. I listened for another cough from the silencer. Once it came, I jumped up from behind the counter—then stepped straight into the Shadowside.

It was just like I thought. The entire room was a crossing. I whispered a silent thanks to Terael, even as the rapid transition tore the breath from my lungs. Slamming through that hard and fast was about as painful as I’d expected it to be. I stumbled, but managed to stay upright and maintain my momentum.

The space went dark around me and all the angles grew strange. Most of the furniture disappeared, as it didn’t seem to exist on this side. Maybe it was too recent. The room itself seemed larger, as well, and while the differences were minor, I did my best to keep track of them. They were important for what I was attempting.

On this side, I had wings. Functional wings. All it took was a jump, paired with one powerful down stroke, and I closed the distance between us, overshooting just enough to place myself behind Kessiel. I strained to keep track of where the filing cabinets were located so I didn’t run the risk of reappearing inside one of them. I had no idea if that could happen, or what it might feel like if it did, but I was reasonably certain I didn’t want to find out.

As with Lil in the alley, I could perceive Kessiel from this side of things. The Nephilim shimmered imperfectly through the veil, a pulsing red mist in a vaguely human shape, with dimmer parts of it arcing out in wings.

I was seeing his blood—his blood and his power.

I didn’t take the time to contemplate the nauseating truth of that. Instead, preparing myself for a jarring reentry, I pivoted in the space behind him and slammed myself back through.

I was rewarded with an instant headache and lancing fire through all my limbs. I pushed through the pain, reaching around from behind to seize the gun. Kessiel snapped his head back into my nose, but I buried my face against his shoulder. I had one hand on the slide, but he kept control of the grip. I dug the fingers of my other hand hard into the tendons on the underside of his wrist.

He tried twisting away, and we grappled. A shot went off, burying itself into one of the counters.

He was stronger than me, which only figured. As a vampire, he had an automatic edge—faster, stronger, more fashionably inclined. I danced back a few steps before he could seize hold of me and really make things difficult, but I got the gun out of his hands. The pistol skidded halfway across the room, coming to rest underneath the metal desk. He didn’t go for it.

Instead, he turned to face me.

“Hand-to-hand?” he spat. “Are you really that stupid?”

“Just shut up and fight, you over-dressed bastard.”

“I’ll swallow what’s left of you myself,” he replied. Then he lunged at me, fangs bared.

I tried dodging but was half a second too slow. He slammed into me and, with a leg sweep, sent me sprawling. I recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. He pressed his advantage, working to pin me up against the counter. I could feel his breath hot along my throat.

Not good.

I landed a few quick rabbit punches into his gut, twisting away, but he was just as lithe and spindly as me. He tackled me again, clinging with a strength I couldn’t hope to match.
Damned vampires.
He got me down a second time. I dug for his eyes, shoving hard with both thumbs. That at least got him to back the fuck off.

This wasn’t quite going the way I’d hoped. I edged away a few steps, struggling to regain my breath. It hitched in my throat in the next moment as Terael thundered through my head.

I wish no disrespect, brother, but I can feel your distress through the walls. Do you need my assistance?

Desperately I shouted, “Assist away!”

I was trying to get a leg up to kick at Kessiel—belly, groin, any soft spot would do. In the next moment, the lights flickered and the sprinklers came on. The sudden downpour of water, though harmless, shocked the Nephilim enough to let me land the blow and squirm away. I scrabbled backward on the now-slick floor, finding my back against the big metal desk.