Archon (33 page)

Thirty-three

The Devil does one thing well. She plans.

—
M
ONSIGNOR
J
OSEPH
M
AUSS, UNOFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE

A
ngela had wandered out of the church and deeper into the western side of the Academy, vaguely aware that she was circling around Memorial Park. She’d recognized some of the stairways Kim had used that night, and without anything else to guide her, felt that it would be best to try what she knew rather than take a chance and get lost. The streets seemed utterly deserted and it wasn’t even nighttime. At one point, Angela skirted one of the lowest levels of the city she’d visited yet, and the subtle chop of the ocean water beneath sounded ominously soft. Luz seemed to be waiting for something and had hushed everyone and everything until that something happened.

Her footsteps cracking apart the quiet could have intimidated the city.

Luz reacted like a living thing to the atmosphere and people inside of it, and though that was perhaps more an analogy than fact, Angela had the creeping sense that she made the place darker and less inviting the more she stomped around. Like an aura of fear preceded her, and even the cobblestones bowed to keep her happy.

She turned a corner, startled to see a familiar tunnel, and Nina standing in front of it.

So I did see her. It wasn’t just my imagination.

Nina’s hair stuck out around her face in a frazzled mess, and her face appeared paler than usual. It was hard to tell if her eyes were still red because of Mikel, or if they were just back to their usual bloodshot mess.

“I knew you’d be back,” Nina said. “She told me so. They told me so.”

A sharp breeze blustered Nina’s hair and skirt, and the tunnel behind her seemed to sing, its dark mouth open wide. She didn’t budge as Angela drew closer and closer, until they were almost nose to nose.

“Who am I talking to?” Angela said. “Tell me the truth. I don’t have time for anything else.”

But Nina’s irises were back to their usual dull color. Tiny bits of leaf and twig hung in the frizz of her hair. “It’s me, Angela. I’m myself now. Or I should say, I can speak to you again. Mikel and I have reached an agreement about that, thank God.”

“Is that why it took you so long to wake up?”

Nina laughed, scuffing her boot across the stone. “You could say that. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so long, but so poorly, my entire life.” She arched an eyebrow, scanning Angela up and down. “You look—different.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I’m not just talking about your clothes.” Nina shivered a little and lowered her head. It wasn’t particularly cold outside. She just seemed as oppressed by Angela’s presence as the rest of Luz.

“You said that Mikel told you I’d come back here? How much do you know about what happened—”

“Everything. I know about the faerie, and about that creature—Troy. Why does it feel so appropriate for you to make friends with a devil who eats people like candy bars, Angela?”

Angela shook her head. “We’re not friends. I Bound her to me. Trust me, she’d eat me too if she had the chance.”

Nina raised both eyebrows now, but said nothing.

“It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, and I know
we don’t have time for it
.” She sighed, folding her arms. Yep, same old Nina. “So are you ready? To free them?”

“What?” Angela peered at her intently. “Free who?”

“The dead. The human souls in the Netherworld.” Nina glanced at the black sky, its clouds swirling inland with the crushing silence of an impending hurricane, though by the looks of it, this was something worse. Something that had more to do with the same dead people who wanted out of limbo, and the Devil rattling her chains down in Hell. If Israfel could step out of history and show his face—then maybe Lucifel could too. “They were speaking to me all night, all day, and the rest of last night into this morning. They’re ready, Angela, but time’s running out. They’re saying that She’s coming. That She’s almost arrived.”

“Who? You’re talking about the Ruin again, right?”

Nina shivered again. “What has Stephanie done since I’ve been out of the picture?”

Angela’s voice sounded hard and icy, even for her. “Killed my brother, taken over the Academy, and shown her true colors.”

“God. Anything else?”

Israfel and Sophia were gone for now. No need to mention what could only complicate things further. And Kim—that still hurt her too much to explain. Besides, Nina would simply say, I told you so.

“No. Except for the fact that I’m going to make sure Stephanie either suffers or joins Naamah in some lake of fire.”

“Naamah?”

“A demon. Stephanie summoned a demon to Luz. That’s the person who threw you off the Bell Tower the other night, when I summoned Mikel. They want you dead now, because for some reason, Mikel pisses them off. I think either she knows details that would make life very difficult for them, or she’s a threat.”

“Let’s say a threat,” Nina said, laughing. For a second, her irises were blood red. Then they returned to normal and her face became as icy as Angela’s. “When it comes down to it, I’d be pretty miffed too if an angel imprisoned me in some body I never wanted and then tortured it. As for the
real
me”—she relaxed her arms and gestured for Angela to follow her through the tunnel—“I don’t remember being thrown out of the Tower, but I’d sure like to do the same to Stephanie.”

Angela stepped over a miniature moat and entered the tunnel behind her, the blackness around them crushing but rich with the squeaks and scampering of rats and cockroaches. “You broke some bones too.”

Nina cursed under her breath. “Assholes.”

“I
f you don’t enter the Netherworld and do this yourself,” Nina was saying, “Naamah will encourage Stephanie to do it for you. Even if she isn’t the Archon, that would play right into Lucifel’s plans. Without anyone to protect these souls, she’ll simply wipe them out of existence—and the imbalance will be worse than it is now.”

“Why would she even bother?” Angela said. She watched Nina scrape over Troy’s symbols left in the dirt, her fingers deftly moving the thick twigs, reinforcing the sigils that resembled constellations and strange, alien things. Tileaf’s tree hadn’t changed, except that its branches might have been more bare than the other night. This felt like déjà vu. “What can Lucifel accomplish killing souls that are already dead? Is that even possible?”

“You heard Tileaf. Lucifel wants to start over, Angela. Just not in a positive way. For her, the end is the beginning, and she intends to keep it an end rather than trying something new. Have you ever heard of the symbols alpha and omega?”

This had to be Mikel talking.

Nina couldn’t possibly know what she was saying. Maybe on a distant level, if her mind was connected to the angel’s. But not consciously.

“Think of Lucifel as the omega point. But with her, there’s no goddamned alpha anymore. Ever sit back and think how horrible it is that some souls suffer for their sins, burning inside, eternally tortured for what they’ve done?”

That depends on their sins.

What circle of Hell could Erianna and Marcus be in? Maybe the bottom, where it was all ice and darkness. Angela must have learned a thing or two from Dante after all. From what she remembered, that was the special place for traitors, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t spare some room for two abusive, perverted, deadbeat parents. They’d betrayed their own child—that had to count. “Yeah. I guess. I always wondered why God would do that to people . . . I mean, if He’s merciful and just . . .”

“Well, that’s just the thing. It
is
a mercy, because otherwise, they simply wouldn’t exist. Torture and endless pain are bad. But what would you think about being erased from reality entirely? No pain. Just nothingness. And you’d never know it, because there’d be nothing left for you to know it with.”

She’s right. That sounds far from ideal too.

“That’s how Lucifel thinks. That’s what she’ll do. Opening Raziel’s Book will just be the clincher. If she can start on erasing everything now, she will.”

“Why now? Why is everything happening
now
?”

Nina stood up from her handiwork, glancing over the sigils to make sure they were appropriate. “Because she has the freedom now. For some reason, the dimensional layers that make up the material world, and Heaven, and Hell—they’re coming apart. Lucifel can’t escape her cage just yet—not unless she’s physically freed—but I wouldn’t be surprised if she finds a way around that and soon. Enough to come after the Archon anyway.”

Then, entering the Netherworld was the only way to stop Stephanie from destroying Luz and Angela’s life, and perhaps stop Lucifel from erasing every dead human soul from whatever existence it had, however miserable. Angela wasn’t the Archon—so said Troy, and for a while, Kim—but apparently that no longer mattered. She wasn’t trying to open the Book, so at least she wouldn’t go insane. Though it bothered her, that she felt like the world was crumbling beneath the weight of her feet, yet she had very little to prove that was really the case.

No—they were missing something here.

Angela gripped the Grail, surprised again by the Eye’s warmth.

“Are you ready?” Nina said, her skirt swaying in the breeze. Tileaf’s tree creaked and groaned, like it was protesting over being awakened again. “But there’s no going back once you’re in there, Angela. You’ve got to be resolved about this.”

Troy’s dried blood must have still been good enough to resuscitate the Fae. Before Angela could answer Nina, the eerie wind began, the intense green light flickered throughout the grotto, and the branches and leaves around them glowed with that strange, unearthly color. While it had seemed to take forever for Tileaf to show herself the first time, this was different. Angela had less than a second to adjust her eyes and blink, and the Fae stood before them as groggy and tormented as before, maybe even worse, her eyes shifting wildly until she saw Angela. The collar of light around her neck seemed to choke off her voice.

“Now—you will keep your promise?” Tileaf beckoned Angela near.

“I have to go to the Netherworld.”

I sound like such a selfish bitch.

She was still angry. Her heart raced, but with a fire coming from somewhere different than before. Now, people and things that were in her way would have to step aside, and whenever she needed them to.

Tileaf smiled. “I know. Don’t worry, you’ll do what I asked. You must—if you want to enter Azrael’s domain. Luz is connected . . . to the Underworld. My tree rests over the only way inside and out.”

That explains so much about this city.

“So I have to kill you just to get in there?”

“Yes,” Tileaf sighed, as if a great weight were being lifted from her shoulders.

Angela wrapped her arms around herself, sucking in a deep breath. This was it, then. But promising Tileaf that she would kill her was much easier than actually doing it. Her parents’ deaths were an accident, even though they probably got what they deserved. Besides, Angela had a hard time squashing bugs, and suddenly she had to murder a Fae who’d lived for centuries. If Troy was anywhere nearby, she could have commanded her to do it, but there had to be a reason why Tileaf hadn’t asked that Jinn to maul her to death. “It has to be me?”

The Fae trembled, and she sank down next to her tree, her spider-silk dress rustling through the leaves. “No.”

“Then why me? Or—why the Archon?”

“Because,” said the faerie, her anguished eyes shining, “that would be an honor.”

“All right.” Angela couldn’t even look at Nina. Her only friend at the Academy was going to watch her murder Tileaf in cold blood. The bile rose in the back of her throat. “If there’s no way around it . . .”

Angela didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t have a clue. How was this going to happen?

“This is your world,” Tileaf was saying.

And I made the rules.

That voice in her head. It was more familiar than ever, speaking in tandem with hers.

“I can’t do this.”

“You can. It’s your right.”

It’s my right. Because I made the rules
 
. . .

Angela took out the Grail, folding her hand around the Eye. How could she do it?

She and Tileaf were only a few feet apart. Angela clambered over the thick roots at the base of the tree to where Tileaf rested near the oak’s trunk, her tattered dress splayed around her bruised knees. The Fae gazed at her intently, motioning for Angela to reveal the Grail. “Take back what’s rightfully yours.”

I’m taking back what was once mine.

A sharp pain seared into Angela’s palm. Troy’s chain snapped and flew to the left, landing in the leaves. She opened her hand, amazed and vaguely terrified to find the Eye fusing into her skin. Her flesh opened and enclosed around it like a new kind of eyelid, and yet as it settled there, becoming part of her whether she wished it to or not, her fear faded into a grim resolve that flowed throughout her entire frame. When she looked at Tileaf again, the Fae had closed her eyes, like a child waiting for her mother’s goodnight kiss.