Queen of the Damned

by Debra Dunbar

  He stared at it, then turned to Bencul. “Is this true?”

  The angel swallowed a few times. “I have not often been in the presence of the archangels, but I do believe I have heard of Michael using such a conveyance when the occasion called for it.”

  Holy shit, that was the best lie-not-lie I’d ever heard. I might hate Bencul, but the dude had skills.

  “Then I thank you, Iblis, for such a generous gift.” Remiel placed a hand on my shoulder. I tried not to flinch. “Do you have any questions of me before we begin?”

  Yes. Yes, I did. “What the fuck is that on your head?” I couldn’t help but stare at it. It was hard to take the guy seriously with that stupid thing.

  I hear a noise from the blanket on the ground beside me. Gimlet was either snoring, or laughing.

  Remiel spread his wings, his voice so deep it nearly shook the ground. “It’s a helm.”

  “That is the ugliest helm I’ve ever seen in my life. What’s it supposed to be? Eight antlers? Actually it looks like a dead spider. Like when they’re dead and they lay upside down with their legs kinda curled up and pointing in different directions? That’s what you’ve got on your head—a giant, upside-down, dead spider.”

  “It’s a helm. The mighty helm of…”

  I had no idea what he told me about the notable qualities of the helm because I was too busy wondering why someone would want to stick a big dead spider on top of their head. I mean, I’ve put a decapitated head on top of my head before as a joke, but Remiel didn’t strike me as the joking type. I was convinced he had no sense of humor whatsoever. Which made it all the more funny that he was wearing a dead spider as a hat. Or helm.

  “Awesome,” I replied when he was done with his speech. “You’ll look majestic in Aaru with your dead spider helm riding on top of the Suburban. Are we ready? Let’s do this thing before we all melt to death in the heat. Your army has to be dying standing here in their armor. Let’s get going.”

  Remiel leaped on top of the Suburban and sat right on top of the sunroof glass. Then he waved his hand and with a quickly hidden look of horror, Bencul climbed up to sit to his right.

  “Prepare!” Remiel’s voice rang out. I touched the side of the Suburban, and prepared to teleport.

  There was a blinding light, a deafening crack of thunder, and then we were gone.

  Chapter 25

  I’ll admit that I’d never attempted to gate myself into the seventh circle in all my attempts to try to break into Aaru. I’d always appeared in the fourth, which was Gregory’s circle. The wild gate in Sharpsburg went there, and all my efforts always placed me there as well. It’s where Gregory was. It was his home, it was a part of him, and thus the only section of Aaru that I gave a damn about.

  Maybe it was Remiel’s un-banishment. Maybe it was me touching the Suburban. Maybe it was that the seventh circle was truly a weak link that I’d never found before, but we got in, me included.

  It was beyond weird to be at the very edge of Aaru in corporeal form with a bunch of winged Ancients in armor, and a dude riding on top of a Suburban with a giant dead spider on his head. I felt the typical itchy sensation, as if I wanted to shed my physical form, and looked around, expecting the Ancients to return to their spirit-selves.

  None did. We all just floated there in nothingness, looking like an army of undead monsters. I looked at Bencul and saw an odd expression of discomfort on his face. He glanced over at me and for the first time he looked scared. Then he shimmered, shedding his corporeal form. Still, the Ancients remained the same. Not sure what to do, I retained my physical form as well.

  The paint on the SUV blistered as it began to decay as all physical things did in Aaru. The army stood poised, ready, their swords raised. Then Remiel frowned.

  “Where is everyone? I don’t feel anyone.”

  “Are we so cut off from the source that we can no longer sense our brethren?” one of the Ancients asked. “Are we so far gone that we cannot hear the song of Aaru?”

  Remiel scowled. “It must be because we are not fully in Aaru proper. Advance. Quickly before they sense us and prepare. As we completely enter the seventh circle, we will sense the angels and know where they are.”

  He hopped off the Suburban and led the Ancients forward. They were a wall of armor and tattered wings, surging around the vehicle and pushing me against it. I waited for an opening, hoping to blend in with the crowd and make it completely inside.

  It was then I realized that Remiel had forgotten about Bencul. The angel was still on top of the Suburban, looking for an open spot to descend. He was the only angel I could sense, and I could feel his uncertainty. Without instruction from his beloved, he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.

  Finally, he found an opening and hopped down. I squeezed in behind him and we marched forward. Demons and Ancients were entering Aaru. I could feel the press of the edge of heaven, the line that delineated where the seventh circle began.

  One of the Ancients held back, touching my arm and leaning over to my ear.

  “I can’t shed my physical form.” It was Doriel.

  I looked up into her face. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t. I tried and I can’t. What if I can’t when we’re inside? What if I can’t ever exist as a being of spirit again?” Her voice rose in fear. “What if all this time cut off from the source has destroyed our ability to live outside a corporeal form?”

  If that was the case, they would die. All the Ancients would find their corporeal forms disintegrating until they were no more. And if they could not exist as beings of spirit, they would die with those physical forms.

  “Remiel?” I called out. “Remiel, wait. Stop. Emergency. Stop. Stop.”

  The army halted. The crowd parted and a winged being with a spider on his head came forward.

  “An ambush, Iblis? Do you sense something?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” I took a deep breath. “Rid yourself of your corporeal form.”

  He tilted his head. “I won’t be able to until I am completely inside Aaru.”

  “No, you should be able to now. Look. Bencul has. Do it. Shed your physical form.”

  He stared at me. “It has been too long. I need to be further inside Aaru before I can resume my spirit-form.”

  “What if you can’t? Remiel, you need to turn back. You and all the Ancients need to go back to Hel. It’s been too long. You’re no longer able to do this. You’re trapped inside your physical form, and if you stay in Aaru, you’ll die.”

  “No. No, that’s not possible. You have been here. You have brought demons here.”

  “The demons I brought stayed in physical form and were only here for a short time. And I’m different. It’s not just that I’m the Iblis. I stole part of an archangel’s spirit-self, I devoured it and incorporated it into my being. I can exist here as a being of spirit, because I carry part of an archangel within me.”

  “We were angels once,” he announced, pushing back his shoulders. “We are angels still. I still have feathers in my wings. I still retain my power. I still am a being of spirit. We will enter Aaru. And once we are within our homeland, it will all be as it was before.”

  He spun around and the army once more closed in his wake, moving forward. Each step caused my chest to tighten. It felt like a huge hand pressing down on the top of my head. I felt the barrier, saw Remiel pass through it and realized that it had worked. What remained of the original Angels of Chaos had returned to Aaru. One by one they entered. The banishment of two-and-a-half-million years ago had ended and the Ancients were taking their place once more in the heavens.

  I just wasn’t sure they would be able to stay.

  As the barrier neared, the pressure became almost unbearable. I’d never felt this before when I’d entered Aaru, but I’d never come through this way in the past. I looked around to see if any of the Ancients were feeling the same. They looked worried, uncomfortable, but not as though they had a two-ton weight sitting on the top of
their heads. We edged closer to the barrier, and I noticed Bencul. He’d resumed his physical form and was gritting his teeth, shuffling his feet as if every inch forward caused agony.

  We reached the barrier at the same time, both of us extending our hands forward. A thousand white-hot needles shot through me, and I froze as the barrier quivered, pulsed, and exploded.

  It hurt. It hurt when the explosion hit. It hurt being hurtled across dimensions. It hurt when I bounced onto the not-so-soft sands of Dis, bones snapping, muscles and tendons tearing. It hurt, but I’d felt this before. It was the pain of being torn out of Aaru and thrown to the ground. Last time I’d landed in the company of my own demon army and the entire heavenly host. This time I expected to see a bunch of bewildered Ancients, some demons, and an angel.

  I recreated my form, fixing all of my injuries, got up and looked around and saw the demons from my household…and an angel. An angel and a horribly crushed SUV, and a snoring form under a blanket that used to be in the back seat of my Suburban.

  Bencul healed himself and stood, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead as he looked around. “What happened? Why am I back in Hel?”

  “Because you’re banished,” I told him.

  He stared at me. “I’m not banished. I’m an Angel of Order. The Angels of Chaos were banished after the war, but not us. I never was banished.”

  “You were banished, you just didn’t know about it. Actually, nobody outside of the Ruling Council and a few select others knows about it. It happened a few months back, and since you were in Hel, you didn’t notice.”

  “You are the worst liar ever.” He curled his lip at me, then continued to look around. “Did my forgiveness not work? Where are the others? Why aren’t they here? Why are the only ones rejected from Aaru you and your household, that stupid vehicle, and me?”

  “Your forgiveness worked. They’re in Aaru where they’ll either stay until their physical forms rot and they die, or until they realize what the fuck is going on and come back here.” I waited for it to sink in that he and I, my household, and an SUV were the only things thrown out of Aaru. “You’re banished. He’s not. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  There was a glimmer of fear in his eyes as he realized that I wasn’t lying. “No. No, I can’t be banished. I’m an Angel of Order. We control Aaru. Aaru is ours.”

  “Remember how you couldn’t feel the presence of any angels in Aaru, even when we pushed past the boundaries?” I waited for him to nod. “Well that’s because there weren’t any angels there. Aaru is empty. Well, it was empty, until now. All the angels were banished. The only beings in Aaru right now are the Ancients and a handful of demons.”

  His eyes widened. “Who banished us? Was it Samael? It had to be Samael. He’s still alive. He used the sword of the Iblis and banished the angels in revenge for the war—”

  There was that moment when he realized what he was saying. No one had seen Samael for millions of years. And I was the one with the sword of the Iblis.

  “You…you nasty horrid cockroach. I’m going to rip your wings off one feather at a time,” he snarled and lunged toward me. I took off and darted behind the only object nearby—the Suburban. We did a few laps before Bencul dropped to his knees and dug his hands in his hair.

  “Why? Why did you banish us? You’re part of the Ruling Council. You’re an imp. You’re not even a thousand years old. What would you care about revenge? You don’t want Aaru, you don’t even like Aaru.” He looked up at me. “Did one of the Ancients pay you to do it? So that they could take Aaru without a fight?”

  “Seriously? Until you and Remiel had your thing, they couldn’t get in either. Aaru has been empty for the last two months. Nobody could get in. Even I can’t get in. Didn’t you notice that I fell back to Hel along with you? I banished the angels and myself and my household. It was a complete fluke that by tossing you into Hel, I inadvertently brought about the redemption that allowed the Ancients to take Aaru. They’ve got it. Uncontested. No one else can get in. No one. The rest of us all are banished, except for demons, and they don’t want it. I don’t even think they could live there if they did want it. I don’t think they can shed their corporeal forms. We’re banished. Everyone but the Ancients is banished.”

  My voice was reaching the upper octaves of panic. I know Gregory was resigned to this scenario, that he had hope that eventually they would be able to return to Aaru, and he had faith that even if they couldn’t the next generation of angels could. But the whole thing made me want to crawl under a rock and hide for all eternity.

  “Why?” Bencul snarled. “Why would you do this to us? Do you hate us so that you would condemn us to the same torture that the Angels of Chaos suffered? I know you hate me—that’s why you threw me into Hel—but why do that to the entire heavenly host?”

  I felt tears sting my eyes. “The host was fractured. Rebels were trying to take Aaru and remove the archangels and their supporters. There was a battle, and the rebels were winning, and the Archangel Michael was overwhelmed. They were going to kill him and I didn’t know what to do. I tried to banish the rebels, to keep them from killing him, and instead I banished everyone, myself included.”

  He tilted his head, an odd expression on his face. We were kindred spirits, this horrible angel I’d once hated. He would do anything for his love, for Remiel. Anything. And I would do anything for the angel I loved. I had done everything for the angel I loved, including ripping him and his siblings away from their homeland possibly forever.

  We weren’t so different, Bencul and I.

  “If I could let them back into Aaru I would,” I told him. “If I could let you back into Aaru I would.”

  “I’m banished.” He looked upward, his shoulders slumped. “Never again will I be able to shed this physical form. Never again. What a horrible twist of fate that I am denied heaven even though through me Remiel has regained his grace.”

  “He can’t stay. None of them can,” I told him. “They can no longer exist as beings of spirit.”

  “They can. I’m sure it will just take a little time. They’re still angels underneath it all,” he said confidently. “They’ll live in Aaru as angels were meant to be.”

  “They won’t,” I insisted. “And that’s a good thing. It means that Remiel will have to come back. He’ll return to you.”

  “He has to come back anyway. It isn’t supposed to be this way. We were all supposed to be in Aaru. But now…” His face tightened with fear.

  “He’ll be back,” I told him. And I hoped it was true. Surely Remiel would be back once he realized Bencul wasn’t able to join him. Or once he realized he could no longer live as a being of spirit.

  “He’ll return because he loves me.” Bencul didn’t sound particularly confident. “He promised we’d be together. He promised me…many things. He’ll give up Aaru and return to Hel because we were meant to be together. Nothing can separate us. As much as he loves Aaru, he loves me more. Once he realizes what has happened, he’ll be back.”

  I hoped so. But in the meantime Bencul was in Hel, an Angel of Order. And he was attracting quite a lot of attention with his gold-tipped wings and pretty physical form. The demons in my household who’d fallen with us were eyeing the angel as if he were a particularly juicy steak, and several other demons were gathering from the streets of Dis. He needed to get out of here or I’d find myself having to defend the angel with the pointy end of my sword.

  “So, you’re going to hang out at Remiel’s until he gets back? I’m assuming he’s got some household there that can protect you?”

  The fear in Bencul’s face intensified, and he glanced at the demons surrounding us with poorly hidden panic. “His household went with him to Aaru. I can stay there. There are wards.”

  Remiel’s household wouldn’t have harmed Bencul even with the Ancient gone and risked his wrath, but the other demons in Dis wouldn’t respect the mark the angel bore. Everyone had seen the armies, knew that the Ancient was gone and that his angel-t
oy was here without a protector. It would be a temptation that few demons could resist, and wards could only hold for so long.

  “You’re Fallen. You’re part of the fifth choir, and you’re mine,” I told the angel.

  He recoiled. “I’m not yours, and I’m not Fallen. How dare you…” He looked around at the demons and understanding dawned on his face.

  “Mine,” I announced. “As the Iblis I claim you as part of my household.”

  The demons stepped back. A few wandered off, muttering curses and promising to slice this angel to bits if they got a chance. I took their threats seriously.

  “Until Remiel comes back, you’re staying with me,” I told Bencul. “I’ve got a bunch of Lows in my household, but most of them are still on the other side of the gates, so you won’t have to put up with their crazy shit. Just don’t leave my house. I’m hoping everyone will forget about you if you’re not out walking around the streets of Dis.”

  “I have no intention of walking around the streets of Dis,” Bencul snapped. “Just give me a private room with food and drink and decent wards, and I’ll be fine. Remiel should be back by morning at the latest, so I won’t need to stay for long.”

  I hoped not, because if a mob of demons decided to attack my house and take the angel, I wasn’t sure how long I could hold them off. Although Ahriman’s former house was pretty badass when it came to confusing labyrinths of passageways and wards. And worst-case scenario, I could always hide Bencul in the dungeons. There was no way anyone who didn’t know that house inside and out would find the entrance, and no way Bencul could find his way out.

  But there would be no need for that, because Remiel was coming back for his angel. Definitely coming back.

  Chapter 26

  My warmongers were pissed. My greed demons were pissed. Hammer was especially pissed. If I had to hear one more time about how he wasn’t getting any more angel wings and hadn’t even been able to stab anyone, I was going to scream.