Sword's Blessing (9 page)

“I’ve always wanted to say that,” the man cackled out.

Samantha pursed her lips. “You’ve said it. Who is he?”

“Fuck lady, for being the latest big-ol-scary Inbetweener, you’re sure stupid. Who else is gonna tell me a pinpoint location of a former Damned?”

Eli stood up straight. “Lucifer.” He looked up at Giselle to see her reaction, then caught his breath. “Samantha. Where’s Giselle?”

“She…” Samantha frowned as Armand rounded the building. “I thought she went to get Armand.”

Not good. “How’d you get down?” Eli asked as Armand jogged up to them. “Where’s Giselle?”

The other man stopped dead. “I climbed down the roof onto the fire escape,” he said, thumbing back. “She was just right here.”

Eli growled, turned, and stomped a clawed foot onto the other Damned, leaning his whole weight onto the claws until the man squealed in pain. What was it with women getting kidnapped around him? “I’m going to give you one chance. Just one. Where is she? Why kidnap her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The man wheezed. “He just said go here and you’ll find an Angel.”

“That’s it?” Samantha demanded. “The Angel? Not the Damned, the Inbetweener, or the Mortal?”

“He didn’t even mention you guys. Just the Angel.” He groaned. “Get your claws off me, traitor!”

“Shut up. You’re not even up to five thousand souls.” Eli growled. Damnit. He’d enjoyed the Angel’s company, and now she was more than likely dead, or as good as. “What the hell is he getting at?”

“He was bait,” Samantha shook her head. “A distraction. Even Giselle would have had no problem taking him down. They knew we wouldn’t just kill him and be done with it, we’d talk to him.”

Working his jaw, Eli nodded. “And that gave him an opening to come in and kidnap her. But why?”

Samantha chewed on a lip. “Could it have something to do with Cyrene?”

“Could, but I don’t know how.” Eli glanced at Armand. “You’re awfully calm about this.” He well remembered the panic of looking for Samantha, but the other man only stood by silently.

Armand was grim. “What can I do? Can you two go get her?”

Samantha and Eli glanced at each other, tight faced. “No.” Eli finally said. “The Lucifer could have her anywhere, and even together we can’t challenge him.”

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to trust her, won’t we?” Armand frowned. “She’ll come back. She has to.”

* * * *

Giselle woke to cold and darkness. Gasping, she started against her bindings which held her fast, glowing softly in response to her struggle. Soul bindings. Giselle stared around. Her wings emanated soft light, enough to make out she was in an extremely plain room with only herself and a wooden chair.

Her feet were not bound. There was no door. She was in nothing more than a concrete box. It might have been terrifying if she needed air, blessedly, she did not. Still, the layout of the room was troubling. No door meant they had teleported in. Whoever ‘they’ comprised of beside her. Teleportation meant someone of Eli’s level or greater had grabbed her. But who?

Her first thought was Cyrene. That couldn’t be right. There had been no laughter, no gloating, not even a battle. Cyrene’s hallmark was not subtlety. Whoever had done this had done is as quickly and quietly as possible. Who? And for heaven’s sake, why?

She licked her lips. “I am awake. Show yourself.”

“I’m well aware of your consciousness, Angel,” a voice returned, smooth as honey and twice as sweet. The air in her cell shifted, and a man stood in front of her, illuminated by a small, intense dram of fire which danced above one claw. “Believe me.” He smirked. “I do not come at your call.”

She bit back a cry. The Damned standing before her was small in stature, but she could feel the press of souls around him like a shroud. Every inch of him was compressed greed, ambition, selfishness, the rope of his soul winding for age upon age, tied back to the beginning, back to the fallen star, and it shook her to the core. “Lucifer.”

“
The
Lucifer.” The man tossed the fire up and into a lamp above her head. Giselle couldn’t help herself, she ducked and flinched. He rolled his eyes. “Come on. If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Honestly, show a little backbone.”

“Why am I here?” she whispered. She’d been kidnapped by the Lucifer. Of all the beings. “What do you want with me?”

“Right down to business. Much better.” The Lucifer nodded and began a slow walk around in the cramped space. “I’ll have you know it wasn’t my intention to kidnap you at first. It just became necessary.”

Lips set in a grim line, Giselle braced herself as he made his way around her shoulder.

“You see, I have a problem, and her name is Cyrene. She’s been rather volatile the last few months, and has ceased communication with us.” With a curious air, he stroked her wings for a moment.

“So?” Giselle worked hard.
Don’t twitch, don’t twitch
… “Take care of her.”

“Normally we would. Normally, she doesn’t go four weeks over twenty-five thousand souls before leaking.”

“You mean you know about that?”

“Of course we do. Your files only note it because way back in the seventeen hundreds she killed a big one and went mad for a bit. The Angels wanted to kill her. Huge hunt, the whole nine yards. She escaped because of the leak. You couldn’t find her. First you were looking for a fifty thousand, then a forty-five, then a…ah, you get the idea.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t there, but it was apparently pretty funny.”

“Why does it happen?” she asked. “A safety measure?”

The Lucifer shrugged. “Maybe one Lucifer made way back when she was Damned, maybe a curse from her original damning. The point is for some reason, the leak isn’t happening this time. It’s been six months and the souls I gave her are still quite attached. I was fine when she was jacking up Angels and Mortals and going after troublesome Inbetweeners, but she’s started going after my kind. I decided I should lend a hand in her capture.”

“How generous.”

“I like to think of it as practical.” He studied his nails. “Anyway, I contacted your Messiah to talk about taking her down. He said it was being looked into, and I should talk to your Fore, as you were most recently assigned to Cyrene. When I asked your Fore, he refused to illuminate why you weren’t around but finally–most grudgingly–admitted you had gone rogue, and if we could get you back, it would make him most accommodating.” He smiled blandly. “Essentially, you’ve been kidnapped by the Lucifer at the behest of your former Fore.”

Giselle stared, breathless. “To do what? I won’t go back to the fold until Armand is with me.”

“A boy? Really?” The Lucifer chuckled. A chair appeared, and then slid silently across the floor.
 
He sat down across from her, leaning forward with burning eyes. “Your Fore seemed to think you’d gone mad. Let’s hear your real reason for desertion. It’s incredibly rare, you know. The Damned, not as rare–once every twenty-five, thirty years? But Angels? Desertion without Damnation is notable.”

“We are bound.” Giselle replied stubbornly. What did she care if she told Lucifer something he should not hear? Her own kind had betrayed her more thoroughly than she ever could have betrayed them! “Our wings were blessed in the same moment, and they tricked us into a trap in order to kill him and break our bond.”

The Lucifer raised his eyebrows, then pulled his lips to the side, looking about to burst out laughing. “Damn, lady, and you think
we’re
bad?”

“It was for our own good!” Giselle snapped before checking herself. Why was she defending them again? She took a breath, bowed her head. “Or so they said. He wanted to marry me.”

“Ah ha, and the whole Angelic curse. I can see why they’d be worried. Repeating the biggest embarrassment of their race.” He leaned back. “Okay. I’ll give you a few options. A choice of damnations, if you will.”

Giselle frowned. Those were never kind words, but at least she might be able to choose her hell.

“Choice one.” The Lucifer held up a finger. “We do just as your Fore asked. You ship back, I get my access to Angelic info on Cyrene.”

“No.”

“Patience, patience. You might find that the best option. Number two.” Another finger. “I raze your mind for every shred of information you’ve ever absorbed about Cyrene, remembered or not. I’ll be as careful as I can, but they don’t call it razing for nothing. Then I’ll dump you back with Eli and whatever that Inbetweener’s name is.”

“Samantha. Option three?”

Lucifer grinned. “You become my bait. You faced her once, right? And got away because of Samantha and Eli’s intervention?” Giselle nodded. “Good. She’s probably angry at you. Very angry.” His eyes burned. “You go out there. You stand and look her dead in the eye again. And you try and fight her. You might walk away, you might not. It depends on how quickly I can trap or kill her.”

Giselle swallowed. “Is that the end of the options?”

“Yep.” The Lucifer leaned back, an easy grin on his lips. “Up to you. Certain entrapment, certain madness, or the tiniest chance of going back to the man you gave up your blessings for?”

“I thought you said this was a choice of damnations,” she said.

“I like to give people a chance to fight,” he replied, chuckling. “Lends a certain chaos to the world, because the unexpected almost always happens. Can I take that as ‘option three’?”

Giselle took a deep breath, looking at her hip. Her sword still hung there, polished and reflecting the light of the Lucifer’s fire. She shivered. This wasn’t for the Lucifer. This was for Armand. For Manas. “Yes. Option three. I will be your bait.”

He chuckled. “Perfect.”

* * * *

They were still in the southern United States, she knew that much. They were in a pine forest though, fragrant with sunlit needles. She could also smell the musk of swamp water. Giselle stood fast, waiting. The Lucifer had said if she just stood in one area for long enough, Cyrene would find her eventually. If she moved from the area, they had agreed he could take that as permission to deliver her to her superiors.

“What about the Messiah?” she asked, “Did he condone this?”

The Lucifer chuckled. “The Messiah is a lot like The Lucifer. We don’t give a damn, so to speak, about the little things. He’s probably too busy trying to keep the balance in order.”

Giselle sighed. He was right, of course. Though the Lucifer took an interest in the balance, in the end it was down to The Messiah to keep it steady, and if rumor was to be believed, that was getting more and more challenging. Still, it stung she could be forgotten, their lives could be laid down into option one, two, or three. So she stood where she was and hoped Cyrene at least found her soon.

The forest went silent. Giselle drew a breath and felt out, as Armand had described in Las Vegas, for the miasma of madness. She licked her lips. Yes, now that she had felt it once, it was impossible to miss. She was here. Slowly, Giselle drew her sword.

“There you are, little miss.” Cyrene’s voice was rougher than it had been last they met, and Giselle frowned. With one powerful swoop of the wings, she took to the air, just as Cyrene lunged. She pulled up her feet and Cyrene passed beneath. “I’m amazed you’re alone. The boy abandon you?”

She made kissing noises as she turned around, and Giselle caught her breath.

Damned had a tendency to look flashy, but Cyrene just looked ill. Her skin was ashen, her eyes sunken. She’d looked bad in Nevada, now she was practically a walking corpse. How could a Damned of such power look so terrible?

“No.” Giselle stayed in the air. She just had to wait for the Lucifer to come in, and she was released, free to go, even if she never engaged the other woman. She had to keep her talking. “You look awful. What’s happened to you?”

Cyrene sneered. “How sweet of you to ask.”

She put a hand to one of the long, straight pine trunks and pushed. Giselle had to make a quick aerial turn to avoid the wood. Cyrene head twitched to one side, and she growled. “Shut up. I’m Damned.”

“No, Cyrene,” Giselle was curious. She hadn’t said anything. And she certainly was aware Cyrene was a Damned. Who was Cyrene talking to? “No Damned should look as you do.”

“You’re right,” Cyrene snapped, and leapt against the still swaying trunk. A whip cracked next to Giselle’s ear. Giselle dodged her attack, then another, and climbed higher. Cyrene stayed attached to a tree trunk, shaking her head again. “No Damned
should
look like me. You hear that?”