Archon (14 page)

None at all
.

Naamah had made that clear from the beginning. Perhaps the moment was now. Otherwise, even her mother might not find her useful anymore, and Stephanie wanted her love as a living, breathing person—not a corpse.

“You knew from the start what kind of person I was,” Stephanie hissed at Naamah. “Well, if you need proof that I’m the Archon, you’ll have it soon enough. There’s no way some scarred bitch is going to take that Throne away from me.”

One twist of her hands snapped the bird’s neck.

She tossed the body back onto the floor, breathing hard.

Naamah smiled in her terrifying way, gathering Stephanie close for a surprisingly affectionate embrace, her voice cool and comforting. “There, there. Don’t feel guilty for being ambitious, dearest.”

The demon’s cold lips met her cheek.

Stephanie fought with her shivers again, unable to stop when the tears reappeared. Soon, deep sobs followed, her anguish increasing whenever she glanced up and saw only darkness. There was still a shred of conscience in her. It was stupid and pathetic, but for the first time in a long time, she wished the bird was still alive, flying free. She knew she probably could have staked her claim some other way, and it made her sick enough to die.

To imprison herself in the blackest pit imaginable.

“As they say . . .” Naamah actually sounded proud. “Like mother, like daughter.”

Thirteen

Witches are defined by blindness.

—
T
HE
D
EMON
P
YTHON, TRANSCRIBED FROM
The Lies of Babylon

K
im lifted his hood, letting the rain stream onto his cheeks.

The weather had never looked so foul. It was as if all the darkness in the universe had gathered around Luz, intending to swallow it whole. From his spot on the veranda porch, the city spread out to the west, glimmering with decay and a dampness that never seemed to disappear. Lights from thousands of candles flickered dimly, struggling to brighten a world that could no longer tolerate it, and the towers twisted around him, some leaning so precariously it was a miracle they hadn’t tipped into the abyss below. Many poor souls would be swept into the ocean tonight. Even within the Academy grounds, poverty equaled death, the most needy students forced into dormitories that would put a wet jail cell to shame. If the water rushed in—an accident no matter how much the Vatican was at fault—then the will of God would certainly determine the survivors.

“Enough of patience . . .” Troy said. Her hiss sounded faintly above him, erupting from a sagging gable. She herself was lost amid the silhouettes of other statues, some of them perched with the same predatory talent. “Your newest mate had better come.”

“She will come,” Kim whispered back, unable to stop seeing Telissa’s arm. Her ring. He struggled with the bile in the back of his throat.

“. . . or I will break her open myself . . .”

Then Troy was gone. Like a shadow.

Kim scanned the second level of the Bell Tower, unable to find her yellow eyes boring into him. Fury stood alone, preening her black feathers near a saintly carving, her occasional croaks almost imperceptible below the storm.

“You’re nervous.” Stephanie appeared by his side without warning, her ponytail streaming behind her in the wind. Now that the Halloween party had ended, she’d slipped back into her sorority overcoat, its red pentacle glittering beneath the lights of the chapel. More so than ever, he noticed her skirt, too short and flapping in the breeze. Her legs were long, soft. That—and her demonic friend—was all she had in the end, when he really thought about it. “Don’t be. I have everything under control.”

“You weren’t under control this afternoon.”

She’d been crying again, and deservedly so.

“This won’t be like last year. I’ll allow Nina Willis to be present—for Angela’s sake—but she won’t perform the actual summoning.”

“You’re going to use her as the Sacrament?” He shook his head, chuckling softly. “No matter what you do, this time there’s going to be a real challenge. The demon is using you, Stephanie.”

She glared directly at him, calm and dangerous. They both knew his words were also a challenge. “And I’m using you. But I don’t see you complaining.”

Touché. But that warning would be his last kindness. She was repeating his mother’s mistakes all over again, and though it would be fascinating to watch her go down the same path, his lingering feelings justified a red flag of some kind. Even if Stephanie, like all ambitious witches, was too power hungry to notice it.

“You know, I never asked you,” she said, her eye shadow running with the rain. “Why did you get involved with me to begin with? Was there any reason beyond the obvious benefits?”

She was mistaken if she thought his loyalties went deeper than her usefulness.

But with Stephanie, there was also that hidden question, and this time it centered around her desire to be the Ruin—a perverse desire that had attracted him along with her attributes in the very beginning, but had died considerably even before his night with Angela Mathers. Now, Angela’s paintings haunted him most of all, perhaps more than his latest glimpse of Troy’s blood-encrusted mouth. The gray angel especially clung to his nightmares, screaming the obvious. Somehow, in some way, Angela had seen Lucifel. The Black Prince herself.

And if Stephanie was asking whether that really mattered, then, yes.

Yes. It did.

“There was no other reason,” Kim whispered. “Besides the thrill of putting you in your place, tell me, Stephanie, how does it feel to be on the other side of a lie?”

Stephanie stared at him. She lifted her hand as if to smack him violently across the face.

Then she lowered it, trembling with the effort. “Whatever you say, the truth remains. I own this school. I own you.” She spoke in the same monotone she often used after visiting her demon. Like all the brightness in her life had been stamped flat. “And I allow you to sleep with other women and smirk about it because it’s fun—knowing that I could crush you, and them, like flies at any second.”

“Flies. How ironic. They are her symbol, you know.”

“Whose?”

He smiled. “Lucifel’s.”

Stephanie’s courage evaporated, but for a mere second. “She has no power anymore. She’s caged, and when I prove myself to be the Archon, I’m going to go to Hell, slaughter her, and take her goddamned place.”

An insane idea. Maybe Stephanie had already tried to open the Book after all. It wouldn’t surprise him if the demon had brainwashed her into such foolishness, half hoping the wish would come true. Kim understood better than anyone else what it meant to be schooled in shadows.

“And if she escapes that cage? How will you deal with her then?”

Silence.

“Because she will find you.” Kim ran fingers through the wet mess of his hair. “And then she will extract the information she needs out of you, and suck your life away without a touch. By all accounts, it will be a painful way to go.”

“Why do you care?” Such a soft whisper. For the second instance since Kim had met her, Stephanie sounded truly anguished. The first was when she’d slept with him and then sat up all night crying, like a little girl who’d had her candy taken away. As if he’d forced her into bed at gunpoint. But whatever had taken place with the demon this Halloween night, something had changed. She was blatantly hurt and failing miserably at hiding the scars. “You never tried before. Why start now?”

Kim grabbed her hand before she could leave the balustrade. “What will you do if Angela is the Archon?”

Stephanie ripped her arm away. Her lips quivered. And then her jealousy finally won out over her pain. “I’ll kill her. But it doesn’t even matter. She’s not the One. And we’ll prove it tonight. And then she’ll have no choice but to serve me for four long, miserable years. Now make sure everything is ready,
priest,
” she said, her tone so soft, but so fatal. “It’s time to teach your newest girlfriend a lesson.”

Westwood’s leading blood head marched back inside of the chapel, dignified.

Yet, despite her confidence, the night could turn out to be a disaster in many ways.

If Stephanie misplaced even one of her carefully planned steps . . .

Kim lifted his hood again, its edges flapping in front of his face. Above him, Fury screeched into the incoming storm, lifting into the air and spiraling up, up, up into the black and gray clouds.

Human evil could be terrifying, but also so petty compared to the real thing.

Fourteen

This is the night of spirits. This is the hour when veils are thin. Far be it from me to make demands on what I cannot understand.

—
A
RCHBISHOP
G
REGORY
T
.
S
OLOMON,
U
NOFFICIAL
C
ORRESPONDENCE

“S
omeone might die tonight,” Nina said, muttering to Angela under her breath. Her eyes looked even more bloodshot than usual, practically crimson, and her hair stuck out from its bun in a hundred messy tangles. “Or so I’ve been told. I had the worst dreams you can imagine early this morning. There were so many people talking to me. Young. Old. Ugly. Pretty. And they all looked the same as when they died—frozen in time. The worst are the people who’ve drowned. Their skin has this nasty bluish color to it.”

Angela kept her fingers wrapped around the doorknob. Soft light emerged from below it in a strip, like the orange hue of a dying fire. She’d chosen to be deliberately late, missing the dancing, the drinks, and the music.

Now the silence suggested she’d missed a little too much.

They stood on the creaking stairwell, two young women surrounded by a vertical shaft of stones, as if they were two Rapunzels locked away in their tower. Rain seeped through little chinks in the rock, sliming the interior. It was cold, almost chillingly so, but that could have had more to do with Stephanie summoning spirits than the actual weather. Above them, lost to the murky shadows, the stairwell continued to a third chapel and the Bell Attic. Below, there was little but cobwebs and the occasional window.

“Did you happen to see any angels?” Angela said, careful about what she might be insinuating. “Any that died? Maybe—tragically?”

It sounded even crazier out loud than in her head. And she felt a little guilty, aware of how she shouldn’t keep shoving her own much happier dreams in Nina’s face. Last night, she’d seen the bronze-haired angel and had been fascinated by his strange anger and the petulant smile on his lips. The black makeup around his eyes was even more intricate than she remembered, precise circles of shade and ink that brought out the unbelievable sea of his irises. His wings were so perfect, and she’d awakened wondering at their softness; the way that down would feel, caressed between her fingers. It was probably heaven compared to the ghostly visitations that haunted Nina.

“Angels,” Nina said, taking one last drag of her cigarette before they entered the room. Her hands shook, peppering her boots with ash. “No, sorry. I don’t even think they
can
die.” She raised her eyebrows. “Can they?”

“Apparently so.” Angela grabbed the cigarette and pitched it down into the darkness.

Nina watched it tumble away, sucking in her bottom lip. “You really do hate those things, don’t you?”

“Smoke. It brings back bad memories.” She turned the knob.

“Like of the fire that didn’t kill you?”

Exactly. And if Stephanie pisses me off enough, maybe I’ll try another.

Angela sighed, pushing the door open. “Let’s get this over with already.”

She’d expected more of a dungeon atmosphere, but the deconsecrated chapel glowed cozily with the light of hundreds upon hundreds of candles. They had been set in ritualistic semicircles throughout the room, framing a pathway that led to an even larger, closed circle, complete with a pentacle carved deep into the floor.

There were no signs of a party. Not even a broken bottle or two.

Just the faint odor of herbs and alcohol.

“Angela. And here I was afraid you’d chickened out again.”

Stephanie stood in the middle of the candles, robed, her porcelain hands on her hips, smiling at Angela and Nina like she’d been waiting for them all her life. The other members of the sorority, at least thirty strong, had adopted regular spots near a porch that opened to the storm. Behind the shallow veranda, the storm bubbled smoky gray and violent.

“So what do you think?” Stephanie spread her arms, indicating the decorations around them.

Angela stared at the peeling paintings, the worn frescoes, the marble altarpiece completely split in the middle. Yet the chapel was strangely cavernous, and most of its outer reaches extended into unreadable darkness. Besides the leftover junk, everything was too clean. Too orderly. Like someone had been sacrificing so many animals here, they’d decided to make it home.

“Luckily, it didn’t take as long as it looks to set up.” Then Stephanie lost some of the soft sweetness in her voice. “I’m glad you came, Angela. Tonight is an important one to the sorority.” She paced inside the pentacle. “Or didn’t you know that? You are somewhat out of the loop, I think. Just like your brother. Who, by the way, will not be here with us.”

Why the hell is she bringing him into this again?

“Why not?” Angela said, keeping a firm grip on Nina’s arm. Nina’s teeth were chattering, and she was tensed and ready to bolt. Any kind of proximity to Stephanie seemed to terrify her.

“Because as you saw this afternoon, he insulted me.” Stephanie made a visible effort to smile. “And because he’s lost it. Don’t you think I’m right? And now that he’s also lost my favor, he’s going to lose a lot more. At least with the sorority, you can always count on your sisters.”

There was a rustle from a corner of the room.

Angela caught a glimpse of Sophia, huddled in the darkness near the veranda, far enough away from the candles that her soft curls blended in with the shadows. Her eyes shimmered, like two black pools of oil, and her lips had parted, like she was astonished by something. But soon her mouth sealed into a grim line, and before anyone else noticed, she quickly turned away and stared out into the night.

That left one more missing person. Kim.

He’d promised to be here, but Angela couldn’t make out any of the other hooded people in the room.

“So are you finally interested in joining us?” Stephanie sounded triumphant, like she knew Angela’s decision already.

“Yes.”

Nina gasped. “Angela, you don’t know what you’re—”

Angela tugged on her arm, shutting her up. It was all an act, but Nina didn’t need to know any of that. Only Kim would know, and if he was there at all, she could imagine him grinning at her boldness. “So what do I do? How do I join?”

Stephanie was smiling genuinely now. “You prove yourself. If you’re a true blood head, you should be able to summon a spirit.”

“You mean an angel?” Angela said, scanning each robed figure for the foreign blonde with the braids. She was there, somewhere, maybe hoping for Stephanie to accidentally plummet off a cliff. The chapel suddenly felt heavy with evil intentions. “Or do you mean a demon?”

“Lucky you if that happens.” Stephanie resumed pacing. “But you could give it a try. Realistically, I’m sure you’ll end up with something subpar. Like most blood heads and”—she glanced at Nina—“gifted people. Maybe a dead human who can pinch people who tick you off. That kind of superficial stuff happens more often than you’d think. Nina Willis could tell you all about it, I’m sure. Which reminds me, Nina, I didn’t welcome you back properly.”

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

“Welcome back.”

Nina breathed hard, her skin beneath Angela’s palm clammy and moist. “I’m not here to summon a spirit, Stephanie,” she said, her words shivering with her. “All I want is to get rid of them.”

“Get rid of what?”

“The voices and visions in my head. You know what I mean.”

“Good luck with that,” Stephanie said. Her voice lowered, suddenly dangerous. “But you’re not here to be cured. You’re here to be a
Sacrament,
Nina. You don’t think we’d let you back without good reason?”

“What?” Nina’s face became paper white. “A Sacrament?
But I’ll become possessed
—”

“You knew what the price was, to come back here, to interfere. So make the choice. Take your place as Angela’s Sacrament or prepare for your next year to be hairless, voiceless, miserable, and wretched. Either will do. I’m not in the most compassionate mood tonight.”

“Enough,” Angela said, forcing them both to pay attention to her again.

God. She’s crazy.
Why would anyone join this sorority at all? Unless they’re masochists—

Or social pariahs like Nina, aching for a reason to be accepted by anyone. It might have been the first time in her life, but now Angela was on the other side looking in, and something about that seemed wrong. She wasn’t meant to be a witch, or anything like Stephanie at all. Instead, she was meant to crush her. For a brief second, Kim’s hope that Angela was indeed the Archon held so much gratifying weight, her whole self burned with it. If Hell really had any demons, and they needed company, she’d be sure to send Stephanie home to roast with them.

But I’m not the Archon. I’m just a psycho with a sense of morality.

“If you want to get started,” she said, horribly aware of the echo to her voice, “I’m ready.”

“Oh, of course.” Stephanie blinked away her previous comments, as if Nina’s presence had been nothing more than a fly on her shoulder. The storm continued rumbling inland behind her, and without warning, a fierce wind suddenly rushed into the room, blowing out the candles and throwing the chapel into blackness. “Time to see what you’re made of.”

The pentacle relit itself, beckoning.