Conspiracy of Angels (31 page)

“Screw this,” she spat.

She snapped the charm at her throat. I felt more than heard the sound as it broke. A sudden backwash of power surged against my wings. I twisted to gawk behind me.

Lil was nowhere to be seen.

Sal’s voice cut imperiously over the waters, triumphant in her argument with Jubiel. The other Nephilim nodded grudgingly, then leered in my direction. The smile he flashed was all fangs.

Fuck me running. Here it comes.

“Remiel!” Sal cried with thunderous authority. “Incapacitate the Anakim and bring him to me.”

“What?” I choked, amazed the oath allowed me that much. “No!” Behind me, Remy loosed a stricken breath.

“I am so sorry, Zaquiel,” he whispered.

He was still apologizing as he knocked me unconscious, the blur of his fist too swift to track.

T
he world returned in stages, each punctuated by the ache in my head. Rough hands seized my jaw, tilting my face till my neck kinked. Someone pried my right eye open, peering so closely that all I could see was an indistinct smear of shadow.

Everything swam.

They did the same with the other eye then released my jaw with a dissatisfied grunt. My chin dropped forward bonelessly, and only part of that was an act. The world spun, its axis fixed to a throbbing lump at the base of my skull. I’d been dumped into a chair. It had a hard back, all metal. Bolted to the floor. Loops of rope coiled from my ankles to my knees. The deep throb of machinery vibrated through the floor.

“I’d be happier if you took him below decks. We have cells where we keep the Anakim. Warded.”

Jubiel.
From the way his voice resounded, we were in a relatively small room. Both his voice and the mention of warded cells stirred unpleasant memories—bright stabs of guilt and desperate fury. His naming of my tribe incensed me, as well. I wasn’t the first Anakim they’d held on this vessel.

Lailah’s down there, too.
I knew it with jangling certainty. With any luck, Lil had figured it out, as well.

“And I tell you again, he is
my
prisoner.” Sal flung her words like ice chips. “I will not budge from this room until I speak with my fellow decimus. My bargain is for his ears, not yours.”

Gentler fingers tested the ropes that bound my arms behind me. Remiel, most likely. Despite the dead-fish stink of Erie, I caught a whiff of his cologne.

I played possum and listened.

“Then you’d better get comfortable,” Jubiel said. “My decimus will be a while. His work cannot be hurried.”

There was a sudden change in the pitch of the machinery.

“What’s he doing, exactly?” Saliriel sighed the words, as if she were bored. Her heels tapped a slow circuit through the room.

Jubiel snorted. He wasn’t fooled.

“You can ask him yourself, once he’s topside.” With simpering sarcasm, he added, “I wouldn’t want to speak above my rank.”

“Far too late for that,” Sal snapped.

A tense silence followed, the stretching seconds punctuated by that constant, rhythmic hum. I cracked a gummy eyelid. Sal stood with her spine straight, vibrating with pent-up fury. Her head came close to brushing the low ceiling. Jubiel lingered a few feet away, a defiant sneer twisting his lips. Caleb hulked against a corner, clenching and unclenching his fists. He liked this situation less than I did.

Jubiel’s head swiveled to me.

“The bastard’s awake. Can’t you feel the change in his pulse?” Before anyone responded, he shot forward and struck me. Stars exploded and the world tumbled end over end. “Keep him unconscious,” he snarled. “I need to check on something.”

I was just getting my eyes to open when he popped me again.

* * *

“I don’t think he broke anything.” Remiel’s voice was hushed.

“Let me take a look.” Cool fingers touched the side of my face, testing bruises along my cheekbone and my jaw. It took me a moment to realize that delicate touch belonged to Sal. I jerked my head away with a snarl.

“Don’t.” The shape of the word opened my split lip. Spittle or blood traced a slow line down my chin, but at least I could talk. So much for the “follow-Sal’s-lead” part of the oath. But we were on the damned boat.

I tested my freedom by thrashing in the ropes. Nothing bound my movements save the tight coils of hemp. Remy took a halting step back. The fabric of his neatly pressed slacks brushed my bound hands as he drew away.

“I’m so sorry, brother,” he said miserably.

I didn’t dignify it with a response. I’d heard it all before. Blearily, I forced my eyes to focus.

We were in a chart room. Streamers and swaths of orange and black drapery had been tacked to all the walls with patterned duct tape. Crepe bats and toothy jack-o’-lanterns dangled from the ceiling. I blinked again, and Sal read the incredulity spreading across my battered features.

“I wasn’t joking about the Halloween party,” she said. Conveniently, that put them near Cleveland just days before the break-in. Like that was a coincidence.

“I guess this time they decided not to take any chances,” I said. “Or do I have Remy to thank for the ropes along with the lump on the back of my head?”

His silence was answer enough.

Saliriel dropped her voice to a whisper. “To sell this kind of deception, Zaquiel, certain performances must be convincing.” She stood, smoothing her skirts. “You’ve always needed a little help.”

“Yeah?” I replied. I spat blood, aiming for her fashionable beige pumps. “Your boy Jubiel nearly ‘helped’ me into a concussion.”

“He’s not mine,” she replied tersely. “He’d have more manners if he were mine.” She sniffed, and with grandiose dignity found a crumpled napkin on a counter, using it to wipe away the blood.

“How shall we proceed?” Remy asked. He framed the words with barely any breath.

“Damn you, Remy,” I growled, “when did you switch sides?”

“I haven’t,” he responded.

“It’s hard to believe you when I’m tied to a chair,” I said. “Let me up already.” I twisted my wrists against the ropes. They wouldn’t budge.

“Where do you plan to go? Both Jubiel and Dorimiel have anchors and agents all over this vessel,” Sal responded. Without waiting for an answer, she strode to one of the windows—portholes—and peered out. With the edge of one sleeve, she wiped away a film of moisture, then cupped her hands for a better view of what lay beyond. “The man they had at the door isn’t there any more,” she observed. “We should get our stories straight before Jubiel comes back. We have a little time, I think. He appears to be occupied with something aft—they all are.”

“We’re missing Lilianna,” Remiel reminded.

“She had the right idea,” I grumbled. I tried the ropes again, cursing when no one lifted a finger to help me. Straining forward, I felt an angular weight pressed against my ribs.

No one had taken the gun.

As I tried to process that puzzling bit of information, the persistent, mechanical hum that had underscored all other sounds dropped away. My ears rang dully in its absence.

Immediately it was replaced by shrill and desperate keening. No one but me reacted. I pitched forward and only the ropes around my torso kept me from hitting floor. The horrid sound rose in volume, till the inside of my skull felt shredded by it.

“What the hell is that?” I managed.

Sal, Remy, and even Caleb regarded me with varying degrees of astonishment and confusion. I writhed, certain my ears were bleeding. Remy knelt to loosen some of the knots that were biting into me. Sal stopped him, motioning further for him to step away. She backed away herself, her calm mask crackling around the edges.

A concussion of power rushed abruptly from beneath the ship. It slammed me in a cold and oily wave. My cowl shredded away, and my vision bled to darkness. All the breath rushed from my lungs as thoroughly as if I’d been thrust face-first into a vacuum.

The effects lasted only an instant, then the power—whatever it was—sucked back upon itself. It threatened to pull me under with it. I slumped within my bonds, blinking a scrim of shadow from my vision. The shrill wail left a crushing silence in its wake. I couldn’t even hear Remy as he bent and took me by the shoulders. Urgently, he shook me.

A shadow passed between us, close enough to touch. A man in faded jungle greens. I twitched my face away, but he passed through us with barely a whisper of his presence. Another phantom soldier bent at the table to my right. Ghosts? I opened my vision further to my otherworldly perceptions, and was startled at what I found.

The ship had seen some action—enough to leave a solid imprint on the Shadowside—and at the moment it felt like a single, gigantic crossing.

Remy asked what was wrong, but his words came slowly into focus. Wanted to know if I was OK, what was happening to me. I shook him off—or tried to. It wasn’t easy with my hands still bound behind my back.

I ignored him.

“Hey, Sal,” I called over his shoulder. “Fuck your plan.”

Gulping a breath, I willed myself across the weakened barrier, and left my brother clutching empty ropes.

R
ed mist boiled around Sal and Remy as I made the transition. Before the blood-soul of the Nephilim obscured her features entirely, Saliriel flashed a knowing smile at me. She appeared intensely… pleased.

It wasn’t the look I was expecting.

Remy’s grip upon my abruptly empty bonds sent him tumbling backward to the floor. He raised his voice in dismay. Broken snippets of his words carried across to the shadowed realm in which I stood.

“…can’t do that. Not… all this water!”

“…told you… find a way.” Sal’s smug satisfaction rang unmistakably.

The red-mist wings of my brother’s Shadowside presence twitched as he got back to his feet. Not all his movements translated clearly, but I could still picture the way he fussed to straighten the lines of his suit jacket.

“…don’t understand,” he objected. “…not safe… over the lake.” Whatever boundary stood between us stole half his words, but the worry was clear in his tone. I could almost see the shape of the emotion agitating the crimson echo he’d become. Saliriel’s blood-soul vibrated calmly, both brighter and denser than Remiel.

“…wasn’t safe… this side,” she answered. “…done it before… part of the plan.” She turned as if that should be the end of it.

Bitterly, I wondered which plan, and how much of it she’d bothered to share with either of us. While I pondered Sal’s intricate machinations, a phantom soldier flickered to life near my elbow. Reflexively, I stepped out of his way. The deck beneath my boot buckled startlingly. Swiftly, I found surer footing—but it wasn’t easy.

Not every aspect of the old gunboat translated perfectly. Uneven portions of its gray-tone corpus appeared eaten away. The edges of those holes glimmered with a substance slick and black as a cacodaimon. I shuddered, supposing what that might mean. The soldier walked through me again with all the self-awareness of a video replay.

Picking my way across the uncertain flooring, I headed toward the door. Closed tight on the skinside, it sketched a filmy echo on the Shadowside. A current of repeated mortal passage flowed through it, weaker even than what I’d encountered at the museum. I still felt the eddies plucking at me. Lil was out there somewhere, searching for Lailah. It was high time I joined her.

As I passed between Saliriel and Remy, more broken conversation crossed the boundary.

“Again… his life at risk…” Remy swept a gesture, agitation painting swirls upon the air. He took a confrontational step nearer to Sal. “…play that card too freely… Providence—”

I halted, straining to make sense of Remy’s words, even as I caught Sal’s answer in frustratingly tiny scraps.

“…debt… he bargains… as freely.” The gleaming crimson shadow tossed its head, an intimation of hair floating thin as spider webs. “…know… how he is.”

“…too well,” Remy assented. His wings slumped in weary resignation. Crossing the room, he bent to the memory of a window. “…do now?”

“…assuming… demon jars… few moments… Jubiel.” It dropped in and out like a bad cell-phone connection, yet I took the Nephilim’s name as my cue to get moving.

The oppressive weight of the Shadowside would quickly wear on me. Ghosting from the chart room, I emerged upon the
Scylla
’s open deck. Washed-out images of Vietnam-era soldiers wavered around me. At the far end of the vessel, a subtle splash of crimson stood out against all the muted grays.

Jubiel.

Other hazy echoes fluttered around him. They held hardly any substance. Then something collectively focused their attention. Whatever it was, I couldn’t make it out, and I wasn’t curious enough to waste a walk that far across the vessel. He had mentioned prison cells below decks. If Lailah was still on board, I was sure to find her there.

As I turned, something careened into my ankle. It tangled in my pants leg with an irritated hiss. With a string of curses, I studied the shadows pooling near my boots and saw—of all damned things—a weasel. Scratch that. It was a ferret. A sleek, squirmy little ferret with blonde fur and bright eyes. It was looking right at me. The minute it noticed that I was looking back, it did this weird, spastic maneuver, arching its spine and dancing from side to side while it chattered urgently.

Lil
, I thought.

Almost as soon as I did, the chattering increased and the ferret—which was softly glowing in the Shadowside’s perpetual twilight—bounced itself off my ankle again. Scrabbling, it snagged a bit of my pants leg in its teeth, and tugged.

So it wasn’t just the lioness that could come out to play.

Lady of Beasts
, indeed.

I followed the excitable creature as it led me toward a covered set of stairs built in the deck. They disappeared into the darker levels below. To my left, the formless waters of the lake stretched to the horizon, a thin memory of rusted railing between me and the yawning deep. Despite my fear—or perhaps because of it—I felt an irresistible urge to peer down into those dark waters. The ferret snarled and yanked on the hem of my jeans, fighting me every step of the way.