by Cate Corvin
I was about to ask what stars, because there was no light, just the shadows pawing at my ankles, and I could barely see where I was supposed to do, when a little flurry of stars drifted around a corner made of stacked books and shimmered in front of me.
They were just bright enough to see by, enough to know if I was about to run into anything or trip on an unseen step.
I followed them through the library, frowning as things shifted at the corners of my eye. Once, I could’ve sworn a hand with fingers slipped between the pages of a book on a stand, alone on its shelf.
When I looked at it directly, it was just a book. Leave it to Azazel to have a library of terrors.
The stars guided me without incident to a large open space in the center of his library, where a circular indentation was sunken into the floor. Azazel’s back was to me, but he was leaning over a massive obsidian orb, his shadows weaving around him.
“What happens if I touch them?” I asked, glancing askance at the cover of a dictionary that looked distinctly hairy.
He didn’t look away from the orb, but his voice no longer echoed eerily. “I would be very upset if you read the wrong thing and started hemorrhaging out of your eyeballs,” he said dryly.
“Only upset? Not devastated?” I wasn’t going to look up. There couldn’t possibly be a swarm of books flying overhead like bats, no matter what it had looked like.
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” he demanded, finally turning away from the orb. “Not the part where you bleed to death from your eyes, but that I said upset?”
I smiled at him. “I finally got your full attention.”
Azazel stared at me, and finally relaxed, striding up several shallow steps to meet me at the edge of the circle. His violet eyes burned in his pale face, and dark circles showed under them, stark against his skin.
He was burning the midnight oil, and although he didn’t technically need to sleep, he’d been using vast amounts of magic to search for his sister and Lucifer. I couldn’t fault him at all for not answering to my summons through the bond.
I sank into his arms when he hugged me. “You were never supposed to come in here,” he said, lips moving against my hair. “It’s a dangerous place. Not the sort of place I’d have you wandering around in.”
“Well, this is important.” I looked up at him, still remembering the dream with fresh clarity.
And I told him every last detail.
19
Melisande
By the time I was done telling Azazel everything I could remember about the dream, some of the lines of exhaustion had left his face.
Now he looked like he’d been electrocuted back into life. It was almost possible to see the questions zipping around in his head.
“So, he finally left his body,” he said. He was pacing back and forth on the middling step of the sunken floor, rubbing his chin as he walked. He’d pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, showing the corded muscles of his arms. “It was only a matter of time. He took on the dragon’s body eons ago, but… eventually he would’ve realized he was missing out. Of course he’d want something more enjoyable, even if it’s less durable…”
I sank into a leather chair that hadn’t been there minutes ago. Now that I’d done the important thing, it was starting to hit me just how tired I was. Even two weeks without flying was enough to put my muscles out of practice. “He’s going to be far more dangerous this way.”
Azazel glanced up at me, giving a quick nod of agreement. “Far more. The dragon had brute force and size on his side, but his mind will slowly adapt to fit the shell. He will eventually be capable of more rational thought than before, like he was in the days before he stole that body. The problem with exchanging the essence of a god is that they will take on the capabilities of the vessel. In the dragon body, he was at least somewhat predictable, more simple of thought. Now he’ll regain the intelligence he lost in those millennia.”
“Not just that.” I absently rubbed the mark on my chest. “He’ll be faster, able to use weapons. I would’ve taken a dragon before a man, when it comes to him.”
Without Lucifer to stop me, I would’ve had the Dragon when he was fleeing. Now he’d be capable of walking anywhere, sneaking in, just like his puppet-bodies he used to abduct Vyra and sneak into my arena. Only he’d be solid flesh and bone this time.
The Dragon had been slow despite his strength, and I’d been prepared to become the world’s most murderous gnat. Now I’d need every skill I had to wield the Sword to its full potential.
“Azazel, why did he run to Irkalla?” I caught my mate’s eye, refusing to look away. “What’s the draw of that place, when he could’ve gone anywhere else in Hell? He didn’t even need to run. I was already taken down and the Sword destroyed by Lucifer when he fled.”
He looked down at the floor, his brows drawn together. “Irkalla is… a terrible place. A place where he likely believes he’ll find a sympathetic ally.”
“What ally?” I stood up, determined to poke and prod him into telling me what the Hell was there in that wasteland that might appeal to Satan. “Azazel, I know you don’t like to share your thoughts with people. But… please. I can’t help but feel like there’s something connecting us to that place, and that was before we knew where he was.”
Azazel finally met my eyes. There was an ancient sadness there, and something else.
My heart thumped unevenly. Was that fear? There was nothing Azazel needed to be afraid of.
“Irkalla is where I was born.” He pressed his lips flat, jaw tightening as he looked away. “That’s all we’ll discuss of it now.”
My fists balled at my sides. “Does this have to do with your so-called ‘dreaded bloodline’? Who are you, Azazel?”
His eyes flashed when he looked back at me. “What does it matter? You knew what I was when you accepted the mate mark.”
So that’s what this was about.
Just like Tascius believed he was doomed to repeat Gabriel’s evil, Azazel knew perfectly well what he was and where he came from.
He was the monster that lurked in the darkness. And there might always be that fear in him that he’d be pushed away for it.
“I did. And I wouldn’t give it up for anything.” I took a step forward, holding out my hands. He didn’t try to move away when I touched him, reaching up to stroke the sharp line of his cheekbone. “I don’t care what you are, Azazel, but please don’t do what Lucifer did. Tell us before everything goes to Hell. There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me hate you.”
He let his head rest against the palm of my hand, his lashes fluttering shut. “The last thing I want is to start a panic. I could be completely wrong. But if my suspicions are correct… he means to travel to Kur, a sister city to Dis. The Queen of the Dead, Ereshkigal, rules there, and she was once quite enamored with Satan.”
“So he does have an ally.” I cursed under my breath. And she was a Queen. Lovely.
“Not just any ally, Melisande. The worst one he could’ve chosen.”
I searched for some tiny thread of optimism. “But it’ll take him some time to get there, right? Let’s search now. Head him off before he can meet with this Ereshkigal.”
A smile that was all bitterness, no amusement, crept onto his face. “We’ll search. But Ereshkigal is no laughing matter.”
“I’m not laughing.” I rose up on my toes and kissed him. “You can look for him more clearly now. Let me help you.”
He broke away, glancing at the massive orb behind him. “This isn’t the sort of art you should be present for.”
I leaned to the side, getting in one tiny, full-on look at the orb before he covered my eyes with his hand.
“Don’t look into it,” he said, not ungently. “What’s in there is not for you to see.”
I frowned. “I’m not waiting outside. This involves me, too.”
Azazel’s exasperated sigh ruffled my hair. “You don’t have to sit outside. Just keep your distance, and
don’t look directly into it. Try to keep it out of your peripherals, even. I’m going to search Irkalla for his power signature, and you sit over there.”
He took his hand off my eyes and pointed to the chair the library had helpfully procured for me. Doing my best not to grumble like a thwarted child, I sat down in the chair.
It spun around of its own accord, forcing me to face a wall of books instead of looking directly at Azazel. I had only the vaguest sense of him moving around, but the emotions coming through our mate bond were more than a little troubling.
He was worried. Very worried, and there was a tinge of fear in there, the same look I’d seen in his eyes.
My skin prickled as magic began to rise in the air, a cloud of pure energy that reached out and touched me, dancing against the fire inside me.
It took every last drop of willpower not to turn and watch him, even when the magic in the room reached an uncomfortable degree. I felt like ants were crawling all over my skin, biting and stinging, even though Azazel’s magic was usually friendly towards me.
Many long minutes passed in silence, only the sound of shuffling pages and my own breathing reaching my ears. My legs were starting to get stiff from sitting so still when the magic around me popped, sending a sharp pain through my ears.
I spun around. It was impossible to sit still through this.
Azazel was bent over the orb once more, his fingertips pressed to the dark stone, but his eyes were completely devoid of life.
Shadows rose from him, curling around his arms and legs and vanishing into the air. Even as I watched, a thin film of ice spread from his fingertips and began to grow over the surface of the orb like a lacy spider’s web, holding his hands in place.
“Azazel!” I took a step forward and stopped myself in my tracks. What if I looked into it, and I was caught too?
But he wasn’t coming back or breaking away. The shadows grew denser, forming shapes like dark hands that twined around him, tugging on his clothes, running over his face. He exhaled shadows on his breath.
And his eyes. They were no longer violet, becoming the pits of electricity they only became when he unleashed the monster within.
I stepped forward, trying to keep the orb out of my line of sight, but it was impossible if I wanted to see Azazel, too. I tried as hard as I could to keep my eyes on his face, but the reflection in the orb wasn’t what stood in front of me…
I glanced at it for only a second. I could’ve sworn it was only a second.
But when I tugged my gaze away from the creature in the orb, the several pairs of electric eyes and the mouth full of fangs, the dark feathered wings studded with eyes that blinked in a frenetic pattern, I felt like I’d been standing there for a hundred years.
Something else moved within the orb as I moved towards Azazel, mimicking my movements.
Something tall, with six enormous wings. Something with a blackened halo spinning over its head, sucking in all the light and spitting it back out as pure darkness.
My heart jumped into my throat. I ripped my eyes from the orb and squeezed them shut, reaching out blindly for Azazel.
“Wake up!”
I shook him hard, getting two fistfuls of his shirt and tugging him away with all my might.
Ice cracked, and we went flying backwards together.
Azazel sucked in a gasping breath. His hand was on my leg, freezing cold, and he’d gone paler than usual.
“What happened?” I dared to crack one eyelid. When I was absolutely sure I wasn’t looking anywhere near the orb, or at the thing in it with wings and halo, a monstrous perversion of an angel, I dared to open both eyes. “Your magic went haywire.”
To my surprise, Azazel let out a hoarse laugh. “They felt me. Irkalla knows its bloodline. Satan took advantage of the moment. He had my mind trapped.”
I shuddered under him, sitting up in the tangle of arms and legs. “Are you… all you, now? Or did you bring some of him back?”
He touched my face, checking me as much as I was checking him. “I didn’t bring him back, no. I’m not a novice with wards, Melisande.” He gave me the dry look I was so used to. “You didn’t look in it, did you?”
For a split-second, I considered telling him I’d looked, and what I’d seen looking back at me.
“No.” I hated to lie to him, but I wasn’t ready to face the reflection there. Maybe I’d known it all along… but the orb only confirmed what I’d feared when I first fell. “I didn’t see much of anything, just you frozen.”
There was a knowing in his eyes. The knowledge that I wasn’t being truthful.
That maybe it was a little too much truth right now.
“No damage done, then.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “But I can confirm your dream was real. Satan’s power is still registering on a massive scale, but it doesn’t have a draconian feel to it. I caught only a faint glimpse of them, but the dragon is dead. He’s adapting to a new body now.”
I chewed my lower lip. “We’re going to have to rethink everything. But if this is as bad as you think it is…”
Azazel nodded grimly. “It means we need to move on Irkalla as soon as possible. Before he reaches the Queen.”
20
Melisande
Azazel brought us back down to the Seventh Circle as ethereal mist, dropping in through the ceiling of my arena.
Into total chaos.
Belial whipped around, scowling furiously as Azazel materialized us into our solid bodies.
“Did you need to steal her in the dead of night, Azazel?” he demanded. “I woke up with an imp battering my head with this, telling me it’s for her-” he gestured to me with a rolled-up scroll- “And she’s nowhere to be found.”
“Technically, I stole myself out into the dead of night.” I sidled up, slid the scroll out of his hand, and kissed his cheek. “Meet in the war room? We can finally make real plans.”
Tascius’s shoulders stiffened, but all three of them followed me into the darkened halls. I was practically shaking with excitement over the scroll, because there was only one person I knew of who sent imps like little battering rams to deliver his messages, but first they needed to know what we’d discovered.
Everyone settled into their chairs. Belial still cast dark looks at Azazel on occasion, but the Watcher studiously ignored them.
And I told them everything.
Azazel filled in the little details as I went, but their faces gradually went from annoyed to incredulous, and finally landed on shock.
“He changed bodies?” Tascius’s look was somewhere between disgust and disbelief.
Azazel inclined his head, his fingers steepled under his chin. “It’s possible for the Prime powers. Their physical bodies are more constructs to house their essences. But the body he’s chosen won’t last long; a power as strong as Satan’s will eventually batter that corpse into pieces. He’ll need something more powerful, either a Prince or an archangel, or another god, to use a new vessel for the long term.”
Tascius’s upper lip curled. “So we’re going to go directly to him, thus handing him a Prince, an archangel, and a death god on a plate. It’ll be a buffet for him.”
I stared at him, my chest contracting. I hadn’t considered the possibility that any of them might be in direct danger of being possessed by Satan’s essence. “Fuck.”
“He has Lucifer on a leash, and he didn’t consume him,” Belial pointed out.
I resisted the urge to chew on my lower lip until it bled. “Because Lucifer is useful to him right now. If we go, any one of you is a prime target.”
If I were Satan, Azazel seemed like the most ideal body to possess… but with his twisted sense of humor, he’d want Tascius. An archangel’s body.
“Not if you kill him first.” Belial raised an eyebrow and nodded to the scroll. “Let’s get the Sword and go after him. Let’s finally end this.”
Azazel touched my hand, stroking the back of it with his fingertips. “Melisande. Don’t worry
about us. As long as we reach him before he reaches Ereshkigal, we’ll stand a fighting chance.”
“You’re all just trying to placate me. This is a terrible idea.”
“It’ll feel less terrible when you have the Sword again,” Tascius said.
I frowned at him. “You, too? A week ago, you were all for caution.”
He toyed with the feather in his hair, frowning right back at me. “It sounds like we really don’t want him to meet with Ereshkigal, and it’s going to take us weeks to get there. We don’t really have time to lose now, friend.”
“We absolutely don’t want him to meet with Ereshkigal.” Azazel scowled, the air darkening around him. “We don’t want to be anywhere near her radar. This is of prime importance now. Perhaps we made a mistake in choosing to wait so long, but it was necessary. Now it’s time to collect the Sword and go.”
They all looked at me, waiting for me to get on the same page with my usual enthusiasm.
But there was no way I could be enthusiastic about this. With Satan’s essence on the loose and moving around, every single one of them were in abject danger, and they didn’t seem to care at all.
Belial smirked. “Now you know how we feel about you rushing into danger.”
I glared at him.
“He’s right,” Tascius said quietly. “But we still support your wishes regardless of the dangers. If we want Lucifer and Vyra back, we must do this.”
“Come on.” Belial pushed back his chair and sat up, holding his hand out to me. “Let’s go to Wayland. Tascius, do what you need to do with Michael. Azazel… go do whatever weird shit you get up to. Pinpoint us an exact location.”
Azazel gave him an exasperated glance. “I’m not a compass.”
“Just do it.”
My entire body felt like it was made of wood as I got up and followed Belial, his warm hand enveloping mine.
He looked down at me as we left the arena. “No fear, Princess Wrath. When the Sword is in your hand again, you’ll do what you need to do.”
