Iridescent (Ember 2) (13 page)

“Then tell me,” Candra demanded and took extra caution to keep her expression guarded. “Who do you believe I am?”

The hinge in the drawer caught, making a clinking sound, and Lilith met Candra’s eyes again. The green twinkled like emeralds in the light. Candra hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed to have lost some of their luster. Although still arresting, they weren’t quite as dark anymore. The difference may not have been discernible to anyone else, but Candra knew those eyes as well as her own, and she was positive of it.

“You are like me,” Lilith told her, apparently perplexed, and her eyebrows drawing down to from a tiny vertical line over her nose. “At the same time, you are everything I’m not. What you are is the thing that makes me incomplete.”

Candra narrowed her eyes dubiously, virtually to slits, sure Lilith was reaching because she had nothing to hold over her. Her damp palms slid over the smooth wood beneath them. “Are you really giving me the ‘you complete me’ line?” When she was met with a blank expression, she wondered if any of them would ever get her pop culture references.

“I’m not sure I understand.” Lilith sat back without removing anything from the drawer and pushed a loose stand of hair behind her ear. She frowned, dismissing Candra’s words, and continued. “You are a reflection, an opposite of me. For darkness, there must be light. One does not exist without the other. It’s symbiotic, the most beautiful part of existence. You were created to balance me.”

“I was created to kill you,” Candra corrected her with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Sebastian warned me you would try to trick me.”

“No.” Lilith shook her head empathically. “You were born to cast me into darkness, not to destroy me. I cannot be destroyed…even Sebastian knows that. The Arch made you and molded you so the most powerful of his children would protect you just so he could keep me from what I deserve. Except…” She paused. “If you do manage to figure out how to trap me downstairs, I’ll be bringing some new guests.”

She was using Ivy as leverage. All of a sudden, an image of Ivy floating downward into murky water flashed through Candra’s mind. She desperately wanted to shake her head in disbelief. She wanted to swear, stamp her feet, and say it wasn’t so. Except for one tiny problem: it all sounded so damn reasonable. In a twisted way, it made perfect sense.

“You mentioned a proposition?”

“Yes.” Lilith smiled, appeased by the knowledge that Candra didn’t disbelieve her. She reached for the drawer once more.

Candra gulped when she pulled out a knife and carefully laid it on the table between them.

“Do you know what this is?”

Candra bent forward for a closer look and lifted her eyes, unsure. “A dagger?” The dubious quality of her voice surprised even her.

Lilith laughed gleefully. The sound reminded Candra of something she couldn’t quite place, but it wasn’t a pleasant memory. Then it came to her as a tidal wave of nausea rushed over her. It was the dream she had awakened from time and time again, the sound of the tinkling of glass hitting the ground all around her. She closed her eyes briefly and did her best to regain her equilibrium, but it felt as if the room had tipped sideways and the only thing holding her still was her grip on the armrests of her seat.

When she opened her eyes, Candra licked her lips. She wished she’d taken Lilith up the offer of tea. The cup of cooling liquid on the table in front of her taunted her queasy stomach. To distract herself, she took a keener look at the knife. The blade wasn’t a markedly impressive weapon—it was essentially a ragged-looking, old thing. The handle was a knotted piece of wood that appeared to have seen some wear. The pointed tip embedded into the handle couldn’t really be described as a blade at all. To the naked eye, it was glass or a crystal of some kind and polished to a high shine. Candra supposed the blade would shatter under any type of force.

“This,” Lilith said, skimming her fingertips almost lovingly over the length of the handle, “is the Creation Blade.” Her gaze flickered up to Candra, and seeing no recognition, she continued. “Ambriel should have been more thorough about your education.”

A spike of rage stabbed into Candra’s belly. She fought the emotion back down because, on consideration, she honestly believed the comment a mere observation rather than something meant to provoke her. “I think if we are going to get anywhere, we need to leave my family out of this.”

Lilith didn’t lift her head, although Candra saw the edges of her lips quirk up in a smile. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously as a warning, despite Lilith not being able to see.

“The blade is from a fulgurite formed when the first life was instilled on the Earth.”

“Fulgurite?” Candra raised her eyebrows in confusion.

Lilith’s laughter tinkled again. It wasn’t helping Candra with her tentative hold on her temper.

“It’s what’s created when sand or silica in soil fuse in the immense heat from a lightning strike.”

Candra nodded, satisfied. Honestly, why would she learn such an obscure piece of information?

“The handle is cut from the tree of knowledge,” Lilith went on almost reverently.

Candra leaned in for a closer look. Surely such a weapon would be visually impressive, if it existed at all. The dagger in front of her looked like it had been thrown together by a Boy Scout. “So you brought me here to show me your toys? I’m impressed. Can I leave now?”

“I’m not holding you here,” Lilith corrected her, pushing her seat back and away from the desk to cross her slender legs. “You are free to leave if you wish.”

Without a second thought, Candra went to stand.

“But,” Lilith said, cutting off Candra’s movements, “we haven’t discussed my proposition yet. Aren’t you the least bit curious why I have come here?”

Candra wished she could say no and leave anyway, but unfortunately, knowing what Lilith wanted was vital to working out how to get rid of her. She sat back down, recalling how the last proposition offered to her had played out. It had all been a lie…and that had come from someone who was on her side and an angel to boot.

“How can you believe that I would ever trust you enough to take anything you say seriously?”

Lilith ran a fingertip lightly across her bottom lip before answering. “I believe that you wish to avert what’s coming.”

Candra sighed, suddenly trapped by those words. Lilith was right, and she knew it. Candra despised giving in with every fiber of her being, but she couldn’t think of another option. Lilith knew her better than she wanted her to.

“Even if I hear you out, Draven and Sebastian will never agree to whatever you are after,” Candra warned, feeling the need to attempt to gain the upper hand.

Lilith’s shoulders lifted and lowered when she pulled in a deep breath. “Neither Draven nor Sebastian possess the ability to stop me. The only one who could is gone. I, on the other hand, can destroy them both.”

“Do you think you will endear yourself to me by threatening them?”

“I don’t care one way or the other if I’ve endeared you. I’ve already won, Candra. With the Arch gone, there simply is no way to defeat me. Your only consideration now is how badly you lose. Do you send your angels home, or do you send them to their death in a bloody war?”

Candra’s jaw locked, and her teeth pressed down so hard, she imagined them shattering. Her instinct was to fly across the desk at Lilith. Inside, her heart pounded, and her muscles tensed. There was too much at stake to lose control. She had to remain calm.

“It’s very straightforward. Ivy’s soul got me here, but it isn’t strong enough to sustain me.”

“What do you want?” Candra asked in a flat tone. Her patience with Lilith was wearing paper-thin.

“I want you.”

Candra barked a laugh and shook her head. “That’s your proposition? That’s the best you can come up with?”

Lilith went on unperturbed, her serene features giving away nothing to suggest her internal reaction to Candra’s outburst. “I am offering you a gift. Do not try my patience by flinging it back in my face.”

Candra cleared her own expression of incredulity. The whole situation seemed entirely too familiar. “What is it you would plan to do with me?”

“I plan to possess you.”

Candra narrowed her eyes. “One thing you and I should get straight is no one owns me. I am not property to possess.”

Lilith smiled condescendingly. “Oh, don’t be dull-witted. Haven’t you been paying attention? I need a vessel—a body to possess. I can’t die, but you don’t want to see the mess I become if I don’t feed. I would go through humans like tissue paper. Angels are not accessible to me.” She paused and tilted her head, likely taking in Candra’s startled wide eyes. “You are one of the Nephilim, stronger than any human. You will be my vessel.”

Candra’s mouth opened to respond, but she had no words, and her mind was utterly blank. She couldn’t think of a smart retort or any kind of comeback at all. The idea was incomprehensible. She swallowed thickly, and her stomach heaved to the extent that she darted her eyes around the room for somewhere to vomit.

“Think about it, Candra. Without me, you are only a half-breed—a mutt. You will never be equal to the Watchers you surround yourself with, and you will never be human. You will grow old and die. Even then, you know your torment will never be over. You will never know the true heaven. You will be without almost everyone you love for an eternity. You have an angelic body and a human soul, both of which I require to remain here…and I intend to remain here. Think of all those humans you could save.”

Candra’s stomach convulsed violently. She would have left immediately if she could stand. The problem was she knew it was at least possible that Ivy’s soul was trapped in there somewhere. She had seen with her own eyes; the body was already degenerating, although most wouldn’t notice yet.

“I could make you stronger. Together, we would be greater than you can imagine. With me, you would never have to die.”

“But I would be imprisoned forever, inside you.”

Lilith nodded once, conceding to Candra’s statement. “Well, there is that, but wouldn’t the tiny sacrifice be worth it? Your friends wouldn’t have to die. I can give them their heaven. I want this world. It’s what I was promised. It belongs to me. I wasn’t lying when I said you can send them back. Give yourself to me, and I will give you the key. No one else has to die.”

Candra shook her head, and each breath she took was splintered metal, tearing her apart. “No, it’s a lie. You’re lying.”

“No.”

“But you’re tied by free will. That’s the catch. You can’t take my body unless I agree to it.”

Lilith’s lips pressed together in a straight line, and her pupils dilated, confirming what Candra pointed out. Lilith couldn’t just take her.

“What if I don’t agree? I could just kill myself.”

“Oooh, spirited little solider, aren’t you? You could, but are you prepared to risk what I will do to your angels after you are gone? What about your friend Ivy? Eventually, she will become like the others inside.”

Lilith rocked the chair back twice and laced her fingers across her stomach. Candra forced herself to look away from her eyes when all she saw was Ivy. It hit her that this was part of the plan too. If she saw some part of Ivy in Lilith, it would make it harder for her to say no. Once again, the burden of being a catalyst to impending war weighed on her shoulders.

“Come, come now. Suffice it to say, I am not alone. Did you think I brought you here to reveal all my secrets? What kind of nemesis would that make me?”

“No.” Candra sucked in a shallow breath, not caring anymore that Lilith had the upper hand. There was no denying she was capable of more than Sebastian warned. Lilith threatened war against the Watchers; Candra had to take that threat seriously. Lilith was the danger approaching, the root of the darkness in the city, the thing she was created to stand against. “But I am grateful you reminded me that you aren’t holding me here.”

Candra stood to go with an overwhelming feeling the conversation was a waste of time as far as gaining an advantage went. Everyone would be angry with her, and she’d gained no information she could use to excuse her decision other than the existence of a crusty old knife.

“Thank you for your time.” Candra nodded curtly.

Lilith clucked her tongue and smiled, rocking back in the seat again. “Ah, yes, time. It’s something I have in abundance, and you don’t.”

Candra looked over her shoulder to see Lilith placing the knife back in the drawer. She didn’t have to be reminded of her mortality. She had been born; she aged…would continue to age and die. It was something she’d already thought about. As their situation stood, death would eventually separate her from Sebastian. Lilith offered a separation of another kind. Lilith knew exactly what she offered. Taking Lilith’s deal guaranteed a one-way ticket to heaven for Sebastian and anyone else who wanted it. Lilith had found her weakness.

Candra decided she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else study-related for the day, and it would be better to go home. She needed to digest what she’d learned from Lilith. She couldn’t share anything with the others, not yet. Lilith’s offer was too simple: send the Watchers home, save humanity from becoming dinner, and all for the price of her life. She had to figure out the catch. There had to be something else.