A Temptation of Angels

by Michelle Zink

  They wound through several rooms, each as nondescript as the last. There was not a single candle. Helen was led only by the white of Darius’s shirt in front of her and the occasional sound of the girl’s voice. It was a comfort to have Griffin at her back, though she did not know him at all. He was a calm sea in the presence of his brother’s tornado. One might rock you to sleep while the other would turn on you with a moment’s notice.

  She was nearly dizzy with disorientation when the girl stopped before another door. After producing a key like the others from the folds of her gown, she bent to the large iron door. It opened as suddenly and quietly as the one in the entrance.

  This time, Helen did not need to be prompted. Stepping through the frame, she was relieved to see light flickering from sconces set against the walls. Tables were scattered across the well-appointed room and yet more light spilled from several lamps sitting atop them.

  The girl closed the door behind her, fitting one of the keys into another strangely shaped lock. Gears rumbled to life within the walls, followed by a series of creaks that ended with a solid bang she could only assume indicated a large and complex locking mechanism slamming into place.

  The girl was just straightening when a high-pitched whine sounded from an adjacent room. She looked toward it with surprise. “I’ve forgotten the water! Wait just a moment, and we’ll take tea with Father in his office.”

  She hurried toward the sound of the whistling kettle, disappearing through a doorway without another word. Darius seemed to relax, and Helen wondered why he seemed so ill at ease in the other girl’s presence.

  But Helen did not spend long contemplating Darius’s mood. It was the first moment she’d had alone with the brothers since arriving at the strange residence. She wanted to make the most of it.

  She turned to Griffin. “Where are we?”

  “We’re at the lab—”

  “Griffin!” Darius interrupted his brother, forcing his name through clenched teeth.

  Griffin’s voice exploded into the room. “She’s already shown us her pendant! What more do you need?”

  Stubbornness radiated from Darius as he folded his arms across his chest. “Her story will be confirmed. Then we’ll tell her.”

  “Fine!” Griffin threw up his hands in resignation. Helen knew the battle was lost when he avoided her eyes.

  She had nothing to gain by letting her frustration loose on Griffin and Darius. It seemed answers would be forthcoming with the mysterious Galizur. She calmed her own rising temper by surveying the room.

  If the meandering way into the building resembled an abandoned factory, the room in which she now found herself was a comfortable, aged parlor. Two sofas sat near a crackling firebox and several high-backed wing chairs were positioned near reading tables throughout the room. The wooden floor, though worn to a soft sheen, was glimpsed in between rugs not unlike those at home—or in the home that used to be hers.

  She shook her head against the thought as the girl returned bearing a teapot and several cups on a silver tray.

  “Shall we?” A smile touched the corners of her mouth as if it weren’t strange that they hadn’t been introduced yet. As if it weren’t strange that they were standing inside a locked and barricaded fortress in the dark of night.

  Darius moved to a door beyond her, opening it so that the girl could pass through with the tray. Helen felt her eyebrows lift at the show of chivalry, though she was quite certain no one noticed.

  The girl smiled into Darius’s eyes, and something moved between them.

  Helen stifled her surprise.

  She didn’t know why it should seem strange that Darius fancied someone, but even as little as she knew him, it already seemed improbable, though not as improbable as someone fancying him in return.

  Griffin nodded toward the door, and Helen followed the girl into a short hallway that opened suddenly into a large, dimly lit room. It was almost identical to the parlor from which they had just come except for the enormous carved desk dominating the room. The girl made her way toward it, setting the tray on its gleaming top and turning to call into the room.

  “Father? Our guests have arrived.”

  Helen did not have time to register the expectation in the girl’s words before a voice came from a set of stairs that descended to the left.

  “Yes, I expect they have, Anna.”

  A silver-haired man appeared at the top of the stairs, wiping a pair of spectacles on a cloth held in his hands. He peered at them, squinting though he was only a few feet away.

  “This is her, then? This is the girl?” His voice was gentle, and Helen somehow didn’t mind his inquiring after her, though they had not been officially introduced.

  Griffin nodded. “She’s shown us the pendant.”

  She braced for another round of doubt from Darius, but he did not say a word while the man walked toward her, stopping when he was but two feet away. He studied her face with sadness in his eyes.

  “Helen. Daughter of Palmer and Eleanor Cartwright.”

  The sounds of her parents’ names spoken into the unfamiliar room took her by surprise. “I… Yes. But how did you know?”

  Something fell from his eyes. She could not help but think it might be hope itself, though it made no sense at all in the present moment.

  “Come, let us sit and have tea while I explain. I imagine you’ve had quite a long night.” He took her arm, leading her to one of the sofas near the blazing fire.

  His gentleness nearly undid her. Perhaps it was simply because he reminded her of her father. Or perhaps it was because she knew what he would say. In any case, she sat on the sofa that was, upon closer inspection, quite tattered and worn. Though the Cartwrights’ furniture had always been meticulously maintained, this place still somehow felt like home.

  The girl named Anna poured tea as Griffin made himself comfortable on the sofa and Darius lowered himself into one of the chairs. It was obvious from the easy manner of the brothers that they had been here many times in the past.

  Helen liked Anna’s father even more when he brought over the delicate teacups, brimming with freshly brewed tea, holding his daughter’s while she became situated on a chair near Darius. It was unusual to find a gentleman willing to wait on anyone. Helen had only ever seen her father do such a thing. It made her miss him with a vengeance.

  “We have been forced to take great precautions, as you will soon understand, Helen.” The older man spoke suddenly and without preempt. “They are necessary, yet I doubt they have allowed time for proper introduction. I am Galizur and this is my daughter, Anna. May I ask how you found your way to Darius and Griffin?”

  “My mother. She gave me a slip of paper with their names and address just before she… before she hid me in the wall of my chamber.”

  Galizur nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be hidden within a chamber wall.

  “Was this when they came for them? For your parents and the others?” he asked.

  She was stunned into momentary silence, unable to fathom how Galizur, a man she had never met, knew about the event she was still trying to process.

  She swallowed around the sudden dryness in her throat as a sense of foreboding crept like too much sun across her skin. “How did you know?”

  SEVEN

  Galizur crossed the room to the enormous desk, stepping behind it to one of the bookcases that ran from the floor all the way up to the towering ceiling. Reaching toward the polished mahogany shelves, he pulled a burgundy-bound volume from its place. Helen thought he might give it to her. That it might hold some secret that would tell her what had happened to her mother and father. But he simply placed the book aside, reaching into the pocket of his trousers.

  He removed a rings of keys, identical to the one Anna had used to open the doors leading to the hidden home of her and her father. The recess left by the book was shadowed, but Helen presumed it must harbor a keyhole, for Galizur plucked another looped and whorled key from the
ring and lifted it toward the darkness shielded from view by the books still on the shelf. A moment later, the floor shook slightly, the fringe on the shades of the table lamps swinging to and fro as the bookcase shuddered.

  Torn between fascination and a rising panic, she watched as the bookcase moved back, sliding behind the one next to it until she could make out a panel of brass tags set into the wall. She felt herself falling further into the abyss of utter strangeness.

  Galizur peered at the wall of brass tabs, his eyes moving from one to the next until they came to rest near the top of the second row. Reaching out, he pulled one of the tabs and a long wooden box emerged from the wall.

  He presented it to Helen with reverence. His dark eyes spoke of things she did not want to know.

  She took the box.

  “It’s yours.” Galizur’s eyes met hers. “You may open it whenever you wish.”

  He held her gaze until she lowered hers to the box resting atop the skirt of her gown. The wood was not finished like that of the bookcase. It was rough and fresh-scented, as if it had been chopped and fashioned only hours before.

  Lifting her hands to the top, she attempted without success to separate the flat lid from the base. Her fingers told her there was no seam, no place where the top joined the bottom. When she held the box level with her eyes, she knew why.

  Using her thumbs, she pushed back on the top. It slid away from the base, revealing its contents a little at a time until the lid broke free and she could see everything nestled inside.

  The first thing she saw was the currency. There was a lot of it, and it took her a moment to notice the smaller objects lying amid the paper bills. There was a cameo necklace that had been her grandmother’s in one corner of the box and an envelope in another. She knew as soon as she saw the narrow lettering spelling her name—Helen—that it was written in her father’s hand. Something about it, about the slant of her name written by her father against some future circumstance, forced her to confront the truth.

  She raised her eyes to Galizur’s face. “My parents are dead, aren’t they?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said, gravely.

  She dropped her gaze back to the box. She didn’t understand how Galizur would have come into possession of the things inside—things obviously meant for her.

  “Where did it all come from?” she asked him.

  “From your parents, child. They knew what was coming. We all did. They wanted to see that you were provided for, as all of the Keepers’ parents did. I’m only sorry that so many of the boxes have been unclaimed.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll have to show her the Orb.” Griffin’s voice was soft. She looked up, blinking at him in surprise. She had forgotten he was there at all. “Otherwise, she won’t believe any of it.”

  “Yes, you’re quite right.” Galizur nodded her way. “Come along, then.” He started for the stairs, stopping to look back when she didn’t follow.

  She looked down at the box in her hand, hesitant to let it go. She didn’t know everything it held. Not yet. But she knew it was prepared by her parents. She knew it was all she had left of them.

  Galizur’s eyes softened. “It’s as safe here as anything can be in these troubling times. You’ll be back for it before the night is through.”

  She looked at Griffin, though she could not have said why his was the reassurance she sought.

  He stood and crossed the room to stand beside her. “The box will be fine here until we come back up.”

  She rose to her feet, only vaguely registering his use of the word “up” as she turned to place the box on the chair before plucking the letter from inside it. If she could leave the strange house with only one thing this night it would be her father’s letter.

  Galizur continued across the room, leading them to the stairway from which he had emerged when they first entered the room. Anna and Darius followed him down the stairs. Helen clung to the iron banister at the top.

  “It’s all right.” Griffin’s voice came from her right, and she flinched at the feel of his hand on hers. “Trust me.”

  His voice was gentle, and when she looked into his eyes, instinctively, she did trust him.

  She braced herself against the fear that rose inside her as she stepped, once again, toward the unknown. At first, she could only hear the footsteps of the others in front of them, but as the dark closed in around her, she believed she could smell smoke all over again. Fighting the urge to cough with the memory, she kept her hand on the smooth railing, letting it lead her downward. It was only the sound of Griffin’s boot steps at her back that kept her from returning to the top of the stairs.

  She noticed the light before she reached the bottom of the staircase. Faintly blue, it reached to her from below. It was not bright, but soft and insistent, even when she finally stepped off the last stair to the cool stone floor. She wondered if they were near a window or door, for she was certain she could hear the wind rushing somewhere through the tunnel, empty save for her and Griffin.

  “This way.” Griffin’s hand was light on her arm as he led her down a tunnel not unlike the one she had used to escape her burning home. But this passage, at least, was not dark. Torchlight flickered against the damp stone walls, casting shadows that licked toward the ceiling. She did not mind the stone against her bare feet. The ground here was as spotless as the rooms above.

  Helen was surprised when a curve in the tunnel opened onto a large room where Galizur, Darius, and Anna waited. The ceiling now rose far above them, the space expansive in every direction. Hulking machinery lurked in the corners and against the walls, a low humming resonating from its steely forms.

  But none of this, as strange as it was, is what commanded her attention.

  It was the globe, enormous and rising all the way to the ceiling, that stopped her in her tracks. A perfect, massive replica of the Earth, the orb glowed from within, turning slowly in place on an invisible axle. The wind was not so much a wind as a breeze, and it was not rushing through the tunnel because of a draft. It moved softly around the globe through the sheer force of its size and movement. Helen’s hair lifted in the current caused by its turning. She took a step back almost without realizing it.

  “I… It… What is this?” She did not even have the presence of mind to worry about sounding like an idiot in front of Darius.

  Griffin led her gently by the arm. “Galizur will explain.”

  She stumbled forward, even as she wanted to shrink in fear. In the end, her hesitation had no hope against the part of her that was drawn to the object as clearly as if it were calling her name.

  It was beautiful, the azure oceans seeping into the green and gold landmasses that morphed slowly into ridged mountains. As the globe turned, the water seemed to undulate, the sand of the Sahara sifting from one side to the other. She caught the scent of salt water, wet earth, wind, and rain.

  “It’s the Terrenious Orb.” Galizur’s voice broke through the trance brought on by the object in front of her. “It’s a measure of our world and how secure we are in it.” He gestured at it with one hand. “And as you can see, things aren’t going very well at the moment.”

  EIGHT

  Galizur paced the floor in front of the globe before stopping, his gray eyes piercing hers.

  “Let us begin with a story of sorts, shall we?”

  Helen nodded. “If that will help me understand all this.”

  She didn’t believe anything would help her understand everything that had happened in the last few hours, but clearly Galizur had information. And information was her only hope of making sense of it all.

  “A long time ago, a group of lesser angels were—”

  “Lesser angels?” Helen interrupted.

  “They were not archangels,” Griffin explained, “though they were of the same blood.”

  “Quite right.” Galizur nodded, continuing. “In the beginning, three of these lesser angels were appointed to
watch over the Earth. To keep it working, so to speak. Of course, the world quickly became too complicated for only three of them to manage, so that number grew, until finally, there were twenty, as there are today. Now known as Keepers, they’re chosen before birth by a counsel of spiritual leaders known as the Dictata. The identity of each Keeper is kept secret—even from themselves—until they reach Enlightenment.”

  “Enlightenment?” Helen couldn’t help repeating the word. It carried almost mystical connotations.

  “At seventeen, the point at which the Keepers learn about their position,” Galizur said. “After which they don’t age, though they can still be killed by certain rather extraordinary means.”

  “What kind of extraordinary means?”

  He waved the question away. “Let’s not worry about that for now. Suffice it to say that on the rare occasion such a thing comes to pass, another Keeper—always a descendant of the original lesser angels—is appointed in their place. For eons, it has only been mildly worrisome. A new appointment is not often required, and there are always nineteen other Keepers to keep the world turning until the new one comes of age.”

  Griffin spoke softly from Helen’s left. “But that was before.”

  Helen looked from him back to Galizur. “Before what?”

  A sigh escaped Galizur’s lips. “Before someone began murdering them.”

  Helen thought of her parents. Of the intruder who had killed them but had obviously been looking for her.

  As if reading her mind, Galizur’s eyes found hers. “You are one of the last Keepers, my dear, as are Darius and Griffin. The only three to have survived a string of mass executions that have taken place over the last few months.”

  The words hung in the room, winding their way around her like the smoke that had threatened to choke her in the hidden room of her burned home. She wanted someone to say something. To laugh aloud or even accuse her of being too young, as Darius had done.