Hunting in Hell (37 page)

More importantly, he needed a space apart, one of complete solitude, because he was unique.
 
Not in body - just like every other angel, he became mortal during the Abdication, his skin no longer impervious to pain or injury.
 
No, it was his
destiny
that set him apart - and his destiny required sacrifice.

If only I had known before the gears were set in motion, before the suffering and the bloodshed.
 
Instead, it had taken centuries of watching his peers slay each other and defile everything they once held dear before the realization came to him.
 

He was to be the new God.

In that moment, he had conceived of the Pentarch.
 
With the fearlessness of one chosen, he had labored to bring it to fruition, sacrificing the lives of so many on the altar of justice - including his own Cleopia, for he could not afford to let his own humanity jeopardize the good of the masses.
 
He had drawn the Angels into the net of his
kevra
, and it was not long before each of them saw the light and recognized the legitimacy of the Pentarch to rule - or died.

Even fear has a place.
 

He was ascending, but his new godhood came at a price - isolation.
 
Although he had eradicated most of the opposition, pockets of the Damned still attempted to destroy the new order he had created; he had no doubt they labored after his own death.

They would push us back into a bloody, endless war.
 
What madness.
 

Even his strongest supporters watched their words and kept their distance.
 
Is that not as it should be?
 
There can be no familiarity with a God.

He reached his chambers.
  
The doors were giant wooden slabs, the paint dark carmine and covered with strange circular smudges.
 
He had no guards, for to depend on another was to exchange security for hope and trust - a trade he refused to make.
 
Instead, he relied on the doors and their impenetrable magic.
 

He pulled his sword out of its scabbard, until the sharp blade protruded almost an inch.
 
Expressionless, he ran his finger along the edge and dropped his hand.
 
A single bead of blood bloomed, swelling until gravity overcame it.
 
It trickled down to his fingertip.
 
Swiftly, he pressed it onto the red door, and it opened.

He dropped the strange crystal upon a side table, his mind wrapped up in the matters he had to attend to now.
 
How did Laufeyson disappear?
 
What was the involvement of this stone?
 
There was also the matter of planning a public sentencing - although the death of the Enforcer had been pushed back in his own mind, he doubted the other angels would be so forgetful.
 
So great and many were the issues demanding his attention in that moment that he cradled his head in his hands.

Over the many voices screamed one louder than the rest, one that would not be denied its place.
 
Cleopia
, it wailed,
she is here.
 
After hundreds of years, she is here.
 

Could you have not found some other way?
 
One better than her banishment?
 
He rejected the thought, shaking his head.
 
He was a God rising; now was not the time to examine his past and wonder if he had been in error.
 
Gods didn't make mistakes.

And yet, he could not control what happened next.
 
Safely hidden from the eyes of his subjects, his head still in his hands, he leaned against a wall.
 
The tears began, a torrent that flooded from his eyes with a vengeance.
 

Cleopia, my love, why did you deny me?

#

"You are … here?"
 
He was unbinding her hands, one eye on the jackal that keened by the door.
 

The idiocy of the question riled her.
 
Yes, she was here - betrayed by Laufeyson, the Mademoiselle, the Oracle, and Alsvior.
 
In short, she was here because every major actor in her life had conspired for her to
be
here.
 
She'd not soon forget that.

His task finished, he circled around until he faced her, the rope trailing from his hands. "And …
Bluot?
"

It was as if he saw through her mask to the pain that losing her gun brought her.
 
He sighed.
 
"I am sorry."

His brow wrinkled.
 
"And what of Alsvior?"

It was too much.
 
She had spent hundreds of years as a mercenary, serving a sentence for a crime she couldn't remember.
 
She had been led into Hell by dreams and haunted visions of her lost past, but no matter how many configurations she tried, the scenes just didn't make sense.
 
She had been tricked, bound, beaten, sold - but nothing was worse than the object of her most concentrated hatred asking stupid questions.

"
You!
" she screamed, launching herself in the air.
 
She slammed into Laufeyson, her hands eagerly seeking his throat.
 
"Damn you!
 
It all goes back to you!
 
It's all your fault, whatever you are!"
 
She squeezed hard, feeling his muscles stiffen as he strained against her.
 

She had not expected him to fall.
 
They went down together, him turning just enough to slip out of her grasp.
 
She regained her footing and launched herself at him again, but he was prepared and managed to sidestep.
 
They circled each other, the dance repeating - her attack, his evasion.

"Why won't you fight back?
 
Fight me, coward, for I have waited long for this moment!"

"Because you're in here, and that means all is lost!"
 
The rage vanished from his face, and he dropped his hands and reached towards her.

His outburst had startled her, but it was his surrender that unseated her.
 
She paused, her hands still reaching for his throat.
 
"What is lost?"
 

Outside of their cell, Garmyr followed the scene with great interest.
  
Momentarily, De la Roca wondered how they looked to the jackal, to any observer.
 
Was their hate obvious?

"With your
kevra,
you are our only hope.
 
We need you, both for what you are, and for what you can do.
 
And if you are in here with me, then we are all doomed."

Her eyes narrowed, untrusting.
 
"We both know what I can do.
 
But
who
, exactly, do you think I am?"

"I
know
who you are.
 
I was the one that saved you.
 
I was the one that set you free."

"What?" She realized she was no longer poised for attack.
 
Instead, she was backing up, protecting herself from what he would say next.

"I loved you." His voice had dropped further, the flush of anger long forgotten.
 
"You were my whole world."

She could feel her face drawing in on itself, the eyes squinting as the lips puckered and the brows came together.
 
"You thought I would believe that?"
 
She had expected something else, something better, something that would rescue her from her own Hell.

And maybe, something that would have given her hope.

"Think of the kiss, De la Roca.
 
Didn't it feel - well - too real?
 
Didn't the idea of us together - didn't it feel like a memory to you?"

The mercenary stiffened.
 
She
had
, in fact, experienced a sense of déjà vu, although she would not admit it - not here, not now, and not to him.
 

"We were lovers long before.
 
Your name was Kalima."

"Kalima?" she said, her voice shaking.
 
She hated herself for not recognizing the name, and wondered if he was lying again.
 
She needed to hate Laufeyson, to stonewall him, yet she wanted to find out about her past just as badly.
 
The two desires were suddenly tearing her apart, although she dared not show it.

"We had…"
 
Laufeyson stopped, his face suddenly contorting with hidden pain.
 
"We had a child."

TWENTY-SEVEN

G
iven a choice, he never would have revealed it to her like this.
 

He had anticipated it, all of it - her surprise, her hurt, her anger.
 
He had expected that she would attack him, arms outstretched, desperate to punish him for insulting old wounds.
 
That was the only way he managed to catch her, to pin her down before her anger made her unstoppable.
 
He had no doubt that she would have willingly broken her own arm for the chance to claw his face out.

"Just listen to me!" he cried, his air coming in gasps.
 
"I can explain everything.
 
Don't you want to know about her?"

De la Roca went limp, and he could hear the ragged whisper of her breathing.
 
"
Her?
"

"Yes.
 
We had a
daughter
."

There was a moment of reflection, and then he heard, "Speak now, before I change my mind."

He could feel the yearning of a shared past that had been forgotten.
 
He didn't know, though, where to begin untangling the story, and his start was clumsy.
 
"I was … a high ranking member of the Consortium.
 
And you … you were …" he struggled for a moment, "you were everything.
 
You were my light and my breath.
 
When we discovered that our union had produced a child - you could not imagine the
fear
I felt
.
"
 
His eyes sought the floor, and he willed them back to her face.

"An Unauthorized Child … how can I explain it?
 
There are a thousand angels in the Consortium - no more, no less.
 
It is the number that Golden, and therefore the Pentarch, requires - the perfect number that allows him to maximize the power and control of his
kevra.
"

He could feel the muscles in his forearms straining as his hands clenched into fists.
 
He willed them open, but they refused to obey.
 
"Don't you understand?
 
There is only one way to keep the number so constant - the Pentarch breeds us to replace those lost due to war or defection.
 
They can't afford to let us mate on our own, for love - not only would that raise our number above the thousand, but it steals loyalty away from the Pentarch.
 
It would force us to choose between their future for us, and a future for ourselves."
 

His eyes were stinging.
 
There was a time, once, when he had cried endlessly -
had those tears not been enough?
  

"They killed our daughter, De la Roca.
 
They would have killed you, too."

"And why not you?
 
Are you blameless?"

Her words twisted in his gut, sharper than even she knew.

Shame tore through him, until the contact of their bodies was too much.
 
He released her and pushed himself backwards, creating a physical space that mirrored their emotional divide.

"On the night you would have been executed, I was sent to verify the final arrangements."

"Oh?" she asked, her lip curling up in a sneer.

"I was to be your executioner."

He could see the shock in her eyes, and it hurt him even more than her hatred.

"I went to your cell with a prisoner named Cleopia and I-" his breath caught.
 
He continued, ignoring the way her eyebrows had perked up at the name, "I switched you."

"You
what
?"
 

"I made a pact with Muninn."

Her mouth fell open, and he knew she was remembering the phoenix, the giant tail of images that showed every step of her life in a massive fan.
 
Muninn had known everything, known it all because her memories were his.
 

But De la Roca couldn't remember, of course, how Muninn had received them.
 
She'd never suffer as Laufeyson did, the memory burned forever into his brain.
 
It haunted him every night -
Muninn sucking out her soul and life - the chill of his blood as he watched her scream in pain - the demon's groan as he feasted on her memories - the retching noise as he spit up what was left of her essence into the new body.