Grim Tidings (20 page)

L
eo was skeptical of my plan.
Skeptical
wasn't even the right word—he complained all the way back to Kansas. I would have been more annoyed but it was actually kind of nice—just the two of us in the car, like it had been before we'd gotten to Minneapolis and stepped on the hornet's nest.

“So you want to go
back
to the bunker where the crazy undead serial killer held you prisoner and bust him up?” Leo said. “I get this right?”

“That's the short version,” I said. The roadblocks were much farther out now, and the real army was here, with convoys on the highway and Black Hawks overhead. I could see the chaos seeping out in the pinched face of the woman who handed me a cup of
crappy to-go coffee at the truck stop and the thump of the rotors overhead, the random checkpoints set up by local police.

Leo burned a fake ID getting us within the quarantine zone and back to the hospital where Hank was recovering. I made him wait outside when I went in—I didn't want Hank to flip his wig when he met the Grim Reaper up close and personal.

“Ava,” he said, smiling at me. He looked stronger, but he was still pale and full of tubes.

“I need to ask you something,” I said. “It's a lot, and I understand if you can't do it.” I looked at the steady blip of his monitors. “There's a chance you'll die.”

“Is there a chance you'll die as well?” Hank said. I nodded. He sat up in bed, his face crinkling with pain.

“Then say it.”

“Your grandfather did something to the Walking Man the first time we ran into him,” I said. “He actually managed to slow him down. Do you know how to do that?”

Hank chewed on his lip. “Jacob was a powerful mystic. He had talents that I just don't.”

“Anything would help,” I said. “Even a word, a spell . . .”

Hank shook his head. “It doesn't work like that. It's not like conjuring, where you can read from a book and smear some blood on the ground and be good to go. You have to have the talent and you have to be Jewish.” He swung his legs over the bed, his slippers whispering against the linoleum. “And since you're neither of those things, where are we going?”

I tried to stop him, but he waved me off, limping over to a wheelchair and flopping down. “Are you okay to be, you know . . . outside?” I said. Hank shrugged.

“I'm as healthy as anyone who got their arm chopped off by a power tool,” he said. “I managed to survive the virulent infection that filthy auto shop floor gave me, and I'm not craving the blood of the living. Overall I'd say it's a pretty good day for me to go be heroic.”

“You really don't have to do this,” I said. Hank shook his head.

“I do, though. You forget, Ava, I can see how this all ends.”

He didn't say anything more as I wheeled him into the corridor, except to grunt when Leo joined us. “Who are you?” he said as we walked out the sliding doors into the freezing wind.

“Leo,” he said, and left it at that. I was grateful. I figured if we lived past Part One of my half-assed attempt to save the world I could properly introduce the two of them.

We all made
it to the fence around the bunker, Hank leaning heavily on Leo, but I stopped them there. “If he sees anyone besides me, he's going to go nuclear. Let me get him outside.”

Leo chewed on his bottom lip for a second, and then sighed. “Yeah. I really fuckin' hate this but okay.”

I stood on tiptoe so I could kiss his cheek. “I'll be fine.”

He touched the spot with the tips of his fingers. “It's not you I'm worried about, dollface.”

I mimicked the touch and tried to show him my most confident smile. He returned it. I turned and headed for the bunker. I could still lie to Leo when I needed to. I didn't feel good about it. I wanted one person I couldn't lie to, one person who saw all of me, even the ugly parts.

The walk to the bunker seemed a lot shorter than the crazy
sprint away from it a couple of days ago. Still, the stone of dread I'd swallowed was just as heavy.

The light dusting of snow was still disturbed from where I'd run. I removed the broken post, stomped on the hatch, and waited. After a few seconds it popped open, hydraulics groaning in the cold. There was nobody there, just darkness. I sighed and climbed in, feeling the stale, humid air ruffling my hair.

Cain met me at the bottom of the hatch. The lights were off, and in the soft red glow of the emergency bulbs he almost looked human.

“Little bird,” he said. “You look almost happy to see me.”

“Speaking of birds, you're a strange one,” I said, getting straight to the point. “I couldn't figure you out at first—you're a necromancer, clearly, or started as one. I don't know what kind of convoluted sequence of bad luck you had to go through to end up like this, but if you've been at it this long you must enjoy it.”

Even though every survival instinct I'd managed to pick up told me not to, I took a step toward him, under one of the red bulbs, letting him see me. “But then I remembered when I woke up in the employ of a reaper. My soul wasn't my own. Not even my body was my own anymore. I was alive but I felt like I was on strings and someone else was pulling them. I thought about how a hundred years of that made me feel and then I multiplied that by an order of ten.”

Cain didn't speak. As far as I could tell he wasn't even breathing. “You're the boogeyman,” I said. “But even you have a boss. You don't want this any more than I wanted to spend a hitch collecting deadbeat souls. But I know what you do want.”

Cain's rasp startled me. “Do you?”

“You want to die,” I said. “That's why you were so happy when you thought the world was gonna go tits-up. You want it to be over.”

“I don't see how this is important,” he said. “It doesn't change anything. The Fallen will still do what he has planned to do and he will still usher in a spring thaw with the fire of a reborn world.”

“You don't have to be here to see it,” I said.

“Nothing can kill me,” Cain muttered at long last. “Don't you think I've tried everything?”

“Every thing like you knows what will end it all for them,” I said.

“Why do you care so much, little bird?” he sighed. “This world has offered both of us nothing but pain. I tried to save him, you know. The man I slew. And when I couldn't I tried to use my gift to bring him back but all it brought me was a thing with his face, and I have been walking this earth with that nightmare for a thousand years, and a thousand more.”

“I guess I'm not as jaded as you,” I said. “This world sucks but it's all I've got. I died, and I got a fucked-up second chance, and then I got a real one. I was tempted to waste it and give everything and everyone the finger but I'm here. There's a fallen angel trying to end the world. I guess it's good I'm here because of that.”

Cain reached for my face, and I jerked back. “No,” I said. “I'm as good as my word, but we're not doing this again.”

He could still use his thrall on me and I'd be stuck here. I dropped my eyes and backed up to the ladder. “If you want what I'm offering, then you have to do as I say for a change.”

I turned and climbed, faster than I had the first time. Being
back down there in that stale air was nauseating and I sucked in a long breath when I was topside.

Hank straightened up when I came to the fence and nodded at me. Leo's jaw tightened. “What if he doesn't come out of that hole?”

“He'll come,” I said. “He wants me too badly not to.”

Hank gripped the chain link to stay upright, and as we watched, Cain's shadow emerged ahead of him in the pale sunlight.

“Holy shit,” Hank murmured.

“You have no idea,” I told him, as Cain approached.

“You can't kill me, little bird,” he called. “Not even your man there, Scythe or no, can do it.”

He reached out his hand, and I felt the tug before I could look away. “Now forget them, and come to me. We will live out the end together.”

I started to walk, unable to help myself, when Leo's hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Ava,” he said quietly. “It's all right. You don't have to do that.”

“She bends to my will,” Cain called to Leo. I groaned. The inability to walk was painful, the compulsion to obey like an ice pick through my skull.

“She bends to no one,” Leo said. “But I care about her and I protect her, so if you want her, then come and get her.” He considered and then added, “Dickhead.”

Cain stalked across the frozen ground, coming on like a tank, and I felt a scream start to form in my belly, but then he stopped, jerked, and clawed at his body.

Hank let out a sigh of relief as his power took hold of Cain,
dragging at him like hooks sunk into his skin. “Thank God,” he said. “I wasn't sure that would work . . .”

Cain let out a scream of rage, and I used his distraction to push the thrall off me, like I had back in the silo. “I lied,” I called over his wailing. “I don't have the faintest idea how to kill you. But I do know that if the Fallen holding your note can't use you, sooner or later they'll deal.”

I looked at Hank. “Those barriers will hold him?”

“Yeah,” Hank said. “They will.”

“Now it's your turn to be staked out as bait,” I said to Cain. “And for what you did to me, I hope it takes your boss a long fucking time to show his face.”

Cain raked his hands over his face, like he was trying to claw his own skin off. “I will tell you!” he shouted. “You were right. I know how I can die. I was the first of my kind. In the beginning all life and knowledge sprouted from a tree. The first of its kind. A stake carved from the tree can kill anything that walks, no matter how old.”

“Really?” I said. “A stake? From an old tree.”

“Not any tree,” he said. “It has a lot of names from a many different peoples. I only know it as a story. I have looked and I have never found it. Once you've been mortal, even if you aren't any longer, a veil drops. I think only things that never stepped on the earth are meant to know.”

“This is bullshit,” Leo murmured. I nodded.

“Probably. Let's find Uriel and get this over with.”

“You can't turn away from me, little bird!” Cain shouted. “You will return, and you will beg to stand by my side!”

“I'll keep that in mind,” I said, and turned my back on him.
It was a strange feeling, walking away from the boogeyman after he'd occupied such a huge space inside my head, but Cain wasn't that. Not now. Not ever again.

“You should get back to the hospital,” I said to Hank when we reached Leo's stolen car. “We can take it from here.”

Hank started to get in, then looked back at me. “It won't end the way you want,” he said. “I can't see what's coming for you, or for Leo. That should scare you. It should make you stop trying to do whatever it is you're doing.”

“Hank,” I said, “I know this is a dumb, shitty plan, but it's all I've got.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “That's part of what frightens me.”

L
et me see if I understand,” Uriel said. I'd convinced Leo to let me meet him alone, and to not try to beat the crap out of him the second he showed up. “You staked out Cain as bait for the Fallen and you want me to do . . . what exactly?”

“I want you to tell me who the Fallen is based on the look I got,” I said. We were standing out of view of Cain, in the shadow of the trees that blocked the bunker site from the highway. It was after dark by this point, and freezing, but Uriel didn't even shiver. I did. “I want to know what we're up against.”

Uriel sighed. “Back up and explain to me how you saw this bastard's face but don't know who he is.” He massaged his temples with one finger, stopping when he caught me looking.

“You're putting out a lot of fires,” I said, using his line.

Uriel blinked once. “But this is the only one threatening to burn my ass.”

I started to tell him about Lilith, and her games, but Uriel stopped me. “You know that was incredibly stupid, right?”

“I figured it out when I almost died choking on my own puke, yeah,” I said, glaring at him. He held out his hand. “It's best to simply show me.”

I looked at his hand, then at his face, my own displaying my distaste. “After what I've been through?”

“I'm not tricking you, Ava,” he said impatiently. “I value you. I'm not a psychopath who hurts people for the enjoyment of it. Let me take a glance at your memory and I'll tell you if I recognize him or not. Either way . . .” He nodded toward the bunker, where Leo stood watch over Cain, who was still letting out long, inhuman cries into the wind. “Good work,” he said. “I do believe this new alliance with you and Mr. Karpov was the right move.”

“Don't tell Leo,” I said, slapping my hand into his. “He hates your angelic guts.”

Letting Uriel into my head wasn't like Hank, or Lilith, or anyone else who'd poked around in there. It didn't feel like an intrusion so much as a connection, like our hands had extended into our two minds and we stood side by side in the same room Lilith had shown me.

The Fallen looked even more frightening now that the haze of Lilith's blood had worn off, pale as the snow under our feet back in Kansas. His eyes were that strange, animal gold that only angels possessed but the rest of him was freakishly pale.

I looked over, starting to realize Uriel was beside me. More shocking, though, was the look of fear on his face. “Oh shit,” I said,
as he shook his head, his usually neutral face contorting in anger. “What? Who is he?”

“I thought he was dead,” Uriel said softly. “I was so grateful.”

I stepped back, reflexively trying to shield myself with Uriel. “Who is he?”

As quickly as it had slotted into place, the connection between us broke, and we were standing in the snow again. Uriel rubbed his forehead. “Somebody I'd very much hoped I'd never see again.”

“Well, he's got Leo's Scythe, Cain, and a good jump on the apocalypse,” I said. Uriel sighed, looking cold for the first time.

“That sounds about right.” He blew into his hands. “His name is Belial. He was one of the angels who led the rebellion in the Kingdom. He was supposed to have died in the Fall.”

“Looks like you got bad intel,” I said quietly. Uriel turned around and hit the tree behind him, so hard the wood splintered around his fist.

“We have a list of
every
Fallen who survived,” he said. “If he's here then he's kept himself hidden for a very long time.”

“Yeah, well, Cain claims he can only be killed by a magic tree branch, so you're not the only one who's heard some wacky shit today,” I said.

“What did you say?” Uriel grabbed me by the shoulders, and I squeaked. Leo started toward us but I held up a hand. “Tell me
exactly
what he said,” Uriel demanded.

“He said in the beginning there was a tree, and that they were both the first of their kind, and only a stake carved from the wood could kill him.”

Letting go of me, Uriel stalked away, then back. He looked
almost human, his face flushed and his hair falling in one eye. “That's how he did it,” he said. “Belial. It's where he's been and where he's keeping the Scythe.” He threw his arms out, laughing. “I'm so stupid!” he shouted, turning around in the few snowflakes beginning to drift down.

Leo came up beside me. “So has Clarence finally cracked?”

“I heard that!” Uriel shouted. “I heard that and I don't care, because you two beautiful creatures have solved the biggest mystery currently plaguing me!”

He came to me and held out his hand. “Belial will be here soon to see what's become of his pet, and you and I have work to do before he does.”

Leo stepped between us. “Whoa, pal. She's not going anywhere with you alone.”

Uriel regarded Leo, and Leo stared him down. I could have told Uriel he was going to lose that contest but then he coughed and looked away anyway. “I assure you I'll return her in the same condition she is now. Neither you nor Ava have anything to fear from me.”

Leo sneered, and I nudged him. “Stop. You want this to be over as much as I do.”

“Sure,” he said. “Doesn't mean I got to suck up to the heavenly host over there.”

Uriel returned Leo's shitty smile. “‘Because I would not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.'”

Leo ground his teeth and Uriel patted him on the shoulder. “I know you were too busy slinging crystal meth to pay for your mother's own habit to pay attention when they covered Emily Dickinson in your English class. Look her up. I think you'd enjoy that poem.”

Uriel guided me away before Leo could haul off and stab him in the eye. I pulled away, frowning up at him. “You're a dick.”

“It's one of my many charms,” Uriel said. “If we're going to save the world together, Ava, you should learn to love me as I am.”

I rolled my eyes. “I cannot wait.”

Traveling between the
beads on the string with Uriel wasn't anything like when Lilith had taken me to Tartarus—I didn't pass out in pain, there was no jerk of my atoms separating and re-forming in another place—just a quick “Watch your step” from Uriel as we left the field, a click like a flash in my eyes and I stood alone with Uriel in one of the white sterile halls like I'd woken up in after he'd pulled me from Tartarus.

“Nice,” I said, turning in a slow circle to admire the shiny floors and walls and soft recessed lighting. “You get a big new office after the Lilith thing? Company car? Parking spot to go with it?”

Uriel led me down the hall to a blank set of double doors. “We're not in my office.”

A single light shone down on us when he pushed the door open, the purest and cleanest sunlight I'd seen in a long time bathing a heavy silver pendulum, as big as my fist, swinging back and forth. Sand flowed from the tip with a soft hiss, spreading in thin, even lines over a white marble floor veined with lines that looked random, but as the sand connected them turned into roads and highways, rivers and borders before the sand shifted and showed another part of another world, miles away from the first.

The light reminded me of the sun on the mountainside where I'd grown up, the only time anything around me besides the woods and the river looked clean.

“We're in the Kingdom,” I breathed.

The pendulum swooped by me and Uriel pointed. “You know the Three Fates? The line that can show you anything, including when and where your life will end?”

I nodded. “I thought that was, you know, three old women.”

“Yeah, and the tree was in an apple orchard run by an ornery snake in some versions,” Uriel said. He pointed at the center of the room. “Stand there. The sand is—I don't know. I'm old but I'm not that old. There's a lot of things in all the spheres older than I am. It works, though.”

“Are you sure?” I took a tentative step into the room, my boots ringing on the marble, waiting to see if I got electrocuted or just burst into flames like a bad guy in an Indiana Jones movie.

The pendulum swung around me and a line started to form almost immediately. “I don't know how to do this,” I whispered. “I'm uncomfortable around this sort of thing. Angels. Demons. I just want to keep myself safe. Myself and the person I need to protect. It's my
job
to protect . . .”

The outline got thicker and fuller, connecting the black veins of the marble. The veins flowed and re-formed like they were alive, like I was standing on the back of something massive and cold-blooded.

I almost screamed when Uriel came to stand beside me, looking down at the shape. “Any luck?”

The outline was unmistakable now, and I almost wanted to laugh looking at the square-boot shape with the star-shaped scribble at the toe end. It was either laugh or scream. “Of course it would be there,” I said, as vines and cypress roots and moss and rotted, rusty iron fences played out all around the map.

Uriel frowned. “Louisiana?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Louisiana is where I died. And for some reason fate just won't let me stay away.”

Uriel looked without
expression at the overgrown mound of brick and iron that had been a plantation house. Not a single drop of sweat coursed down his perfect hairline, even in the heavy heat of the swamp.

I tried not to look. I'd seen it all. The cypress roots and the heavy blanket of greenery were the last thing I'd seen.

“This isn't really the place you died,” Uriel said. “You know that, right? This place looks different to everyone who visits it.”

“Are we even supposed to be here?” I said, stripping off my jacket as sweat soaked through my top.

“Nope,” Uriel said. “Places like this are strictly off-limits to angels. I'm going to have some very unpleasant conversations when I get back to the Kingdom.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “But this is way more important, so let's find the tree, find the Scythe, and get the fuck out of here.”

We slogged through the mud for what seemed like hours. The old plantation where I'd died wasn't anywhere near this large. This swamp just kept going, getting murkier and hotter until I was panting trying to move in the heavy air. “We could have used Leo,” I said, leaning against a cypress root and wiping a handful of moisture off my face. “A locator spell would be nice about now.”

“I don't think putting all three of us in one place is smart,” Uriel said. “You and I can be replaced but the Grim Reaper is needed.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I'm used to hearing that.”

We walked in silence after that, until the land started to tilt up, mud instead of dirty water squelching under our feet. The long gray curtains of moss parted, and Uriel cocked his head.

“I thought it'd be bigger.”

The tree was little taller than I was. The trunk bent to the left, and the gray and gnarled branches looked almost dead. Only a few leaves clung to the ends of the smallest twigs, wilting in the heat. What really got me was how green everything around it was. It wasn't just the green of a hot, moist environment. There was grass, and flowers, all the most brilliant colors that almost hurt my eyes. Bluebells cascaded down the bank, crushed under our feet, and thorny vines loaded with roses tugged at my hair. Even the air was sweet, no longer like sucking on a wet rag. Sunlight filtered down through the haze, catching every droplet in the air and casting tiny rainbows down around us.

“Wow,” I said quietly, because what else can you say when faced with a primal force?

“It's really beautiful,” Uriel said quietly. “More beautiful than I ever thought.”

I tore my gaze away after a moment, even though I hated to let go of the feeling of calm and certainty that pervaded the air around the tree. “We need to find the Scythe,” I said quietly.

Uriel blinked. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. Even we don't see things like this very often. Life in the Kingdom is pretty dull, really—”

I turned back when his voice trailed off, and saw him standing still. His face went slack, and his gaze dipped, like I'd just profoundly disappointed him. His mouth turned down in a sad frown and then his knees buckled and he fell in the mud, the black-green
muck splashing up onto his dove-gray suit like he really had been shot in the wing and crashed to earth.

Gary smiled at me, holding a short black blade carved from some kind of gleaming stone or glass. “Ava,” he said, a grin spreading across his face like kudzu. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”