by Karen Mead
We can neither lie nor forget.
“What should I do about her?” she asked. This felt right; this is what she should have been asking all along. “She needs me, but I don’t know how to help her.”
Take care of your sister, and the world began to melt away.
“What? That’s it? What did you even bring me here for?” she cried.
Take care of your sister.
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First, the Leviathan blew a jet of water out of his mouth to put out the various small fires that burned nearby. Only when the flames had been reduced to a few eddies of smoke, it lowered its snout to feed on the fresh corpse on the ground. Aeka stroked its long neck as it did so, content. The Leviathan ate every part of the demon, bones snapping in its powerful jaws. Creatures that only truly fed once every few hundred years couldn’t afford to be picky.
This was definitely how things should be: no mess, no fuss. Clean.
However, when it went to devour the demon that was still alive, she gently placed her hands over the rough and patchy skin of its snout, shaking her head.
“That one’s my sister’s,” she said. She may not have any property herself, but she was pretty sure you were supposed to be careful with other people’s. She was pretty sure that was important.
The creature made a low thrumming noise in its throat, irritated.
“I know. But if you have to eat him, at least wait until my sister is done with him. They don’t live very long, you know.”
Pacified, the creature nuzzled her side with its head. Aeka moved to where her sword lay abandoned in the mud; the Leviathan must have spit it out at some point. When she went to slice through her wings with a quick motion, the Leviathan wrapped its sinewy body around her waist, stopping her from moving. A forked tongue flicked out and licked her breastplate, enjoying the feel of the cold metal.
“No, see, my sister has lost her wings,” she explained to the quizzical creature. “I don’t want anything she doesn’t have. And I won’t need them, where I’m going. Besides, this way you’ll get another meal.”
The Leviathan disentangled itself from her, lowered its head to the ground. It’s black, nearly sightless eyes were overflowing with liquid—tears, and something darker, more viscous. It poked at the mud with its tongue, listless, then made a squeaking noise—a pathetic, helpless sound. It began to clean the remains of the demon out of its teeth with its claws, making another thrumming noise as it did so.
“You’re getting them whether you want them or not,” Aeka said curtly. Then she readied her sword once again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
There was the bracing first-thing-in-the-morning shower and the refreshing after-workout shower, but as Sam was rapidly learning, the next-day-after-fighting-all-night-and-nearly-being-eaten-by-a-Leviathan shower was the best by far. He felt like life was being restored to his tired muscles, especially the ones in his aching back, although his magic would take longer to replenish.
He exited the bathroom with a towel around his waist, ready to get dressed and face the day. Well, what was left of the day; after last night’s festivities, they had all slept into the afternoon, sleeping wherever they could find a surface that wasn’t covered with books. He’d let Cassie and Miri share his old bed and slept on the couch, gentleman that he was—or at least, tried to be. Aeka seemed to be mad at Cassie for some reason, and had slept under the table in the kitchen, of all places.
Ever since he had found her, crumpled next to him in the mud after he woke up, there had been no trace of her brilliant armor. She was just a girl again, albeit an extraordinarily beautiful one. Only she could tell him what had happened after she’d summoned the Leviathan and he’d passed out, but he had no plans to ask her. He had a strange feeling he was better off not knowing.
He ran into Miri in the hall, wearing an orange sundress and looking like a rich socialite on her way to a summer barbecue. “Hello there, shirtless hottie,” she said, gazing at him in his towel. “You could use more definition in your abs, you know. Bennet’s got you beat there.”
“Yeah, because I care,” said Sam. He tried to enter his room, where his duffel with spare clothes was, but Miri blocked his path. She began running her fingertips over his chest.
“Uh, Miri?”
“I’m in a good mood, you know? I killed a demon. Eugene will be so proud.”
“That’s, err, nice. But what are you doing?”
“Feeling you up,” she said dreamily.
He grabbed her hands and pushed them away. “You shouldn’t be doing that. I’m not your boyfriend,” he said firmly.
She threw back her head and laughed, a beautiful tinkling sound that reminded him uncomfortably of Aeka’s voice when she was in her full angelic form. Why a vampire would sound like an angel, he had no idea.
“You have no idea how this sort of thing works at all, do you? You and Cassie are just so adorbs together,” she said, sashaying away.
Shrugging inwardly, he went into the room and dressed quickly. He liked the vampire, but he wasn’t going to waste his time trying to decipher any of the frankly daft things she said. He put his dirty clothes in the duffle, swung it over his shoulder, and trotted down the stairs. They would be leaving soon, and he wanted to put his things in the van.
Cassie was sitting in the living room, reading a book. She had showered before him and was sitting with a cup of hot chocolate in front of her, looking thoroughly content. She was dressed simply in jeans, and a certain blue sweater that he liked. She looked up at him and saw him carrying his duffel bag.
“The van’s out, Bennet and Serenus took it into town to go get us some food,” she explained. “All Helen has in her refrigerator is Guinness. Bottles and bottles of Guinness.”
“Having met her, are you really surprised by anything at this point?” he said, tossing his bag by the doorway next to Cassie’s. Where the door had been, someone had hastily erected a thin replacement with magic; it didn’t quite match the rest of the house, but it still looked an awful lot better than the gaping hole that had been there before. He was going to have to thank Bennet for that. “Where’s Aeka?”
Cassie made a pained face and shrugged. “In the basement, watching TV. She’s mad at me.”
“I noticed. Why?”
Cassie seemed to struggle to find the words. “I did something really bad. I made her a promise I can’t keep.”
“Oh,” Sam said, looking down. He thought of inquiring further, but decided to drop it; let angels, and teenaged girls, have their secrets. She would tell him if she wanted. He stood with his hands in his pockets, at a loss for what to do.
“Hey, Sam?” she said, dropping her books. “Can I talk to you?”
“You are talking to me.”
“I hate it when you go all literal,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “I’m going to need a new protection amulet.”
“Yeah, I’ll make you one when we get back.”
“Can you make one so there’s a special penalty if someone touches my boobs? Like, they lose a hand or something?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Isn’t everyone who touched you already dead?”
“…Yeah?”
“Well, I think we’ve confirmed that your breasts are treacherous enough as it is.”
“I’m serious! It’s easy for you to joke about it, people aren’t grabbing you all the time!”
“I promise, I’ll make you a new protection amulet with all sorts of special penalties for people who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Now that Aeka’s on our side, we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone taking it off….” he paused, lost in thought. “She is on our side, isn’t she?”
Cassie shrugged and picked up her book again. “I think so.”
Just then, Sam wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air. “I’m going to check something,” he said, walking out the front door.
He found his mother standing in the front yard, smoking.
“Since when do you smoke?” he asked, coming up behind her.
“Since Sammael made me young again. I started doing everything I could to speed up the aging process out of spite.”
“Ah. That explains the refrigerator,” he mused, moving to stand next to her, upwind of the smoke. He did a double-take; she looked different. Her brown hair was peppered with a few streaks of gray, and the corners of her eyes were marked by the beginnings of crows’ feet. She still didn’t look her proper age, but she looked closer to 45 than 30; much more like the Helen he remembered from his childhood.
“You two compromised?”
“Something like that,” she said, blowing a blue plume of smoke.
“What are you doing here? I thought you two were going to be out partying for months. Or whatever your version of partying is, I don’t want to know.”
She smiled. “He has a meeting, so I asked to be dropped off here for a little while. I’m going back soon.”
“I see,” he said.
They stood together, side by side, mother and son. At first, he was just going to let the moment pass, enjoy this one oasis of relative calm, but he found he couldn’t stay silent. There was still so much he didn’t know.
“You ordered the pizza before you even knew we were going to be attacked last night,” he began. “And you could have ended that whole situation once you had gotten Dylan in the house. Quentin and his partners were powerless at that point, you could have made Dylan slit their throats with his knife and it all would have been over. There was no need to even call Father.”
“And force a 19-year-old boy to become a murderer? What do you take me for?” she said with mock-outrage. “Besides, it’s better this way. Now, you’ve gotten an ability that should have been yours to begin with, and you’ve earned your father’s respect.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Sam. Then he took a moment to really think about that. “Really?”
“Oh yes, he was impressed with the way you fought. We were watching, you know,” she said, blowing smoke rings with finesse. “He’d never admit it, but I could tell he was proud.”
“You abandoned me,” he said quietly. “You left me there, tied up, and made me fight my way out. Did you plan that whole thing?”
Helen paused before she answered. “I had total confidence in you winning, darling.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“For the record no; despite what you may like to think, I don’t have everything planned out decades in advance. I’m just an opportunist—much like your Cassie.”
Sam didn’t even know where to start with that. He saw the black van turn a corner way down the street: Bennet and Serenus had returned with food.
“What?” said Helen bluntly. “I can tell you have another question for me.”
“The Book of Succession…is there any truth to it? Bennet thinks so.”
Helen shrugged, dropped her cigarette and put it out with her shoe. When he raised an eyebrow at that, she flicked a finger and the butt disappeared. She had no tolerance for littering.
“You know how so-called seers are. So many of them write down predictions for the future, some of them are bound to get it right by random chance, more than anything else. Some prophecies are bound to turn out true, more due to probability than any sort of psychic power. You never can tell.”
“But is there any truth to that one in particular?”
The van pulled over near the house and Serenus hopped out, pausing when he saw Helen. She waved at him.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Why do I not believe you?” he said. “I think you’re lying. You never lie to father, but I think you lie to me all the time. Why is that?”
She laughed, and for once it was a totally human sound; no angelic bells, no otherworldly echoes; just the sound of a middle-aged woman enjoying herself. “Isn’t it obvious? Because I love you more, you stupid oaf.”
She took out a pack of cigarettes, tapped it and looked up at the sky as Serenus and Bennet approached with shopping bags.
“Will I see you again anytime soon?” asked Sam. It was a strange question for him to ask, but if she and his father were reconciled, there was no telling when she’d be back.
She turned to him and smiled. “Very soon. I’ve been called to testify at your hearing.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
When he reached the Grand Hall, Sammael rushed to the marble conference table in the middle of the room; he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Fortunately, everyone else was there already.
“This better be important; you’re interrupting my second honeymoon,” he said, taking an empty seat near the head of the long table. He reached for the pastry tray and frowned; it was all muffins, again. They always had muffins because Asmodeus favored them for some reason, but usually, there were other options. To Sammael, a muffin was just a cupcake that was missing the good stuff.
Muffins: the cupcakes you eat in hell.
The demon lord took a banana-walnut muffin and began popping large chunks of it in his mouth, waiting for someone else to speak.
From the head of the table, Asmodeus steepled his fingers. “My apologies, Lord Sammael; the circumstances required your presence.”
“Right. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that my son killed one of yours last night,” Sammael said through a mouthful of muffin. Some of the other lords shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, with Belial looking particularly uncomfortable.
“Oh give it a rest Bels, you know we’re good,” said Sammael, popping the rest of the thing in his mouth. These tedious meetings always made him peckish.
Asmodeus’ yellow eyes glittered with malice. “This isn’t about a children’s squabble. It’s about the strange, unholy things that seem to surround you. A demon burdened with an angel’s conscience. Two angels who leave nothing but mayhem and destruction in their wake. A vampire, a creature of death brimming with life, with a voice out of heaven.”
“All is breaking down, losing form, merging together and becoming one,” said Beelzebub. “Definitions merging, changing; concepts growing and shedding skin.”
“I still don’t see why any of this should supersede me banging my wife,” said Sammael, reaching for a second muffin.
Asmodeus exchanged glances with some of the other demons, then continued. “Your son is the catalyst for all of this. You and your paradox maiden have created an apocalypse waiting to happen.”
“Hey, that’s my little boy you’re talking about,” said Sammael, leaning back in his chair. He would never admit it, but actually, he was enjoying this tremendously. If he knew that this was what the meeting was about, he would have been here on time—well, actually no. But closer to on time. “Are you saying he doesn’t play well with others? Or that he plays too well?”
There was a murmuring from the other end of the table; he wasn’t reacting to this as they’d expected. They expected to see denial, much rending of garments, grand protestations of any wrongdoing. Well, that just went to show that they didn’t know him very well; he was the new kid on the block, after all.
“Now,” Asmodeus said, leaning forward; he was closing in for the kill. “Some of us have a theory—that perhaps, this isn’t just an accident borne out of your sick, pitiable obsession with that foul woman. That this was a plan of yours all along, to use your bloodline to exert undue control over all the realms. From the moment before you fell—perhaps, even before.”
Sammael yawned. “Plans, eh? Who can be bothered? I’d rather play golf. Or maybe video games. Are you familiar with those, by the way? It’s really quite ingenious, what the humans will come up with if you give them enough—“
Asmodeus slammed his hands down on the table. “Stop. Playing. Around!” he bellowed, and all the ornate fireplaces that bordered the room threatened to explode with blue fire. Sammael rolled his eyes; the guy had always been such an insufferable
show off.
Asmodeus took a moment to collect himself, then stared at Sammael with murder in his eyes. “Sammael. Have you been planning— for thousands upon thousands of years— to recreate the world in your own image? Yes or no?”
All heads swiveled to look at him, dozens of pairs of beady red and yellow eyes filled with malice, curiosity, and—this was the best of all—the tiniest touch of fear. This was the best day he’d had in a long time, and when he got home, for once his wife would be waiting for him. Life was good.
He gave in and broke out into a huge grin; his favorite smile, the kind that showed all of his teeth. “Ah, what can I say, you found me out. I like to play the long game.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cassie felt eyes on her back, and looked up to see Vladmira glaring down at her from on top of a lamppost. They had been afraid the little bat was injured or dead after Quentin hit it, but on the way back home, Serenus had noticed her following the car in his rearview mirror; she seemed to be indestructible. No one else seemed to notice her now, but in the darkness, the brown shape was hard to see.
Since it was intensely devoted to Sam, she was glad the thing was alive, but it still creeped her out; it seemed to look at her with naked malice. How she could tell what a bat was feeling, she had no idea, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t just imagining it. The fact that the bat had once dived for her head was also kind of a tip off.
She unbuttoned her jacket as she walked. It was still winter, but strangely, she always felt warm lately. She had felt a little strange ever since coming back from North Carolina—it might have been due to coming down off the adrenaline high, but it sure was taking a while.
She turned her attention back to Ethan, who was chattering away. Ever since they’d told him that he would have a permanent home with Eugene Buckley, he’d become much more talkative.
“And then, and then, my friend Malcolm, who lives two doors down from me, I used to go with him to the game store there, it was called Game Worlds, where his brother worked, and sometimes we would watch the tournaments—”
