by Carol Oates
Draven raised an eyebrow and wondered what else this woman kept behind the bar.
“No one carries at The Devil’s Snare. Isn’t that right, Harry?” she said aloud—Draven presumed not only for his benefit, but for the rest of the clientele. “My bar, my rules.”
The guy narrowed his eyes and smiled humorously. Sandal reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small brown package. She placed it in front of the guy. When his eyes fell on the packet, Sandal quickly turned to Draven and winked. She was back peering at the guy sternly before he detected anything amiss. The guy laid his hand on top of Sandal’s, similar to the way she had done to Draven moments ago. An unmistakable gratitude softened his weathered face when their eyes met. She slid her hand away, leaving the man to stuff the brown packet into his pocket. Sandal finally poured a shot of whiskey and walked away.
Draven bristled, thinking he had almost been taken in by the beautiful fallen. She was nothing but a low-life drug dealer. He should have known better than to let his guard down here. It almost felt like a betrayal of some sort; his affection wasn’t easily given, yet he’d liked this fallen within minutes of meeting her.
“It’s passion flower and clonidine. Helps with the withdrawal,” she explained in a muted voice so the guy wouldn’t hear and at the same time fixing glasses close to Draven.
“What?” His voice had turned harsh. Ice prickled over his scalp, and his blood singed through his veins.
“He thinks it’s something else.”
“Oh,” Draven muttered. The sudden blaze of anger in him quelled as quickly as it appeared, and his heart returned to its normal pace…well, almost. His heart always beat a little quicker outside his usual surroundings.
Sandal pursed her lips, scrutinizing him. He didn’t doubt that she had him weighed perfectly and knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
Astute as well as beautiful, forgiving and hardworking, he surmised. He would have followed up that thought by thinking what a waste to have such a creature wallowing in the underbelly of the city, but she seemed perfectly at home. It seemed the underbelly suited her just fine.
“Redemption is a beautiful thing. Everyone deserves a second chance, if they choose it.” She threw down the gauntlet with one piercing look. A tiny flutter shivered in his stomach, as if he might be on the verge of busting out a laugh.
Her eyes were fiercely intelligent and brave. Those eyes would never look away, no matter what horror presented itself. So much so, Draven could have sworn he still saw the gold glittering in the depths of gray. He concluded there and then, with or without wings, this woman was still an angel and found himself bowing his head as a mark of respect to her. She mirrored his movement with a quick nod and a smile.
His skin still pulsed where she’d touched him. If only they had met long before now, they would have been friends. If they had met before Candra, maybe Sandal could have been more to him.
“You’d better go see what your boys are up to,” she suggested.
Draven blinked out of his reverie. He had been staring at her, and far from flushing under his admiring gaze, she appeared to bask in it, fluttering her eyelashes a little more than necessary when she peered at him over her shoulder.
Is she teasing me? Flirting?
Sandal pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and Draven stood a little shakily, having forgotten he wasn’t barefoot. His unsteady movements elicited a tantalizing chuckle from her. If only things were different, he contemplated. If only he had time to explore the possibilities and his tangled emotions.
The thought snapped him back to reality as if a lasso had wrapped around his midsection and caught him before he toppled from a sheer rock-face. What was he thinking? Dillydallying with a pretty girl while the world teetered on the brink of devastation, flirting self-consciously like a pimply-faced teenager when he had business to attend. He pulled a bill from his back pocket.
“On the house,” she said quickly.
No one raised an eyebrow, leading him to suspect the gesture was something she did often. He didn’t argue. Instead, he slipped the money back into his pocket and nodded again in acknowledgement of her kindness—something unexpected in this place.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DRAVEN MADE HIS WAY to the back of the dimly lit bar to where Gabe had disappeared behind a beaded drape earlier. He stopped at the narrow entryway and stepped to the side to obscure himself from view.
“I can’t, Gabe. You don’t understand. This is the only way I can give you all a chance.”
Clearly drunk, Sebastian sat on a high stool behind a pool table. The felt had dulled with age, and the leaded glass shade above it was cracked in places. He appeared to be propping himself up with the narrow end of a cue.
“You don’t have a choice,” Gabe scolded him from somewhere nearby but out of view.
“No. I don’t.”
Draven got the impression that Sebastian’s answer wasn’t in agreement to the same thing.
“Sebastian—” Gabe started gravely.
“Gabe, I am ordering you to back the hell up and let me handle this.” Sebastian’s words were cutting. Draven was sure he meant to sound firmer than he was capable of in his inebriated state.
Gabe came into view and made to snatch the glass from Sebastian’s hand. Even drunk, he was faster and pulled the tumbler out of reach, sloshing liquid onto the floor in the process.
“Not this time, old friend.” Gabe groaned, clearly irate at Sebastian’s behavior. “You are in no condition to be ordering anybody to do anything right now. You’ll more likely get yourself killed than protect anyone.”
“Probably,” Sebastian muttered and swallowed the remnants from his glass.
Draven listened to every word, wanting desperately to toe his sneakers off. At the same time, he knew he could never get comfortable in this part of town if he were shoeless. He might step into anything. His distraction interfered with his focus and his ability to separate all the sensations colliding in his body. He would smell emotions and taste the vibrations of sound in the air soon enough. Already, the subtle movements of the bodies around him made the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise.
He internally cursed Sebastian and leaned down to remove his sneakers and socks. Draven stood and almost sighed aloud at the relief flooding his body once he was barefoot again. The wave of awareness swept back like an outgoing tide, dulling all his senses to the point that he almost felt normal once more. He leaned his head back against the wooden partition and gave his full attention to the conversation beyond the hanging beads.
“You’re not making sense.” Gabe grunted from sheer exasperation.
Draven heard a ball roll down the length of the pool table and bounce off the cushion. It stopped abruptly, as if snatched up. Music buzzed from the jukebox, and with his hearing back to almost human capability, he just about missed Sebastian’s strained whisper entirely.
“It’s my fault.”
“We’ve been through this,” Gabe reasoned with him.
“She said it was my fault…” Sebastian’s voice cracked with emotion.
What the…is he crying?
“She said I could have stopped it all, if only I had spoken up, if I had cared enough about them, or about anyone besides myself. What kind of angel allows a massacre?”
There was a pause before Sebastian continued. Draven wasn’t convinced his ramblings would be of any use in finding out what he’d been up to. His eyes flickered momentarily toward Sandal working the bar and pretending they weren’t there at all. If it hadn’t been for meeting her, he would have chalked the entire evening up to a waste of his precious time.
“So you see, I have to do whatever I can now. There will be a battle, and I need the blade to send her back to the hole where she belongs.”
Draven heard Gabe pacing back and forth. “We’ve been through this, Sebastian. You know you can’t trust one word Lilith says. She’s working her way inside your head. You must let us help you.�
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“Not Lilith.” Sebastian’s words were punctuated by a shuffling, as if he’d climbed down off his perch and staggered. He didn’t fall, and Draven presumed Gabe caught him.
“Not Lilith.” Sebastian laughed. “Do you think I would allow that monster to twist me into the knots I’ve been trying to unravel?”
“It looks like you are already unraveling, brother,” Gabe observed, sounding agitated.
Silence. There was nothing but pronounced silence between Gabe and Sebastian, not even breathing. Draven’s stomach sank with foreboding, and he likened it to the pause before the narcissistic villain exposed his devious plan. He rooted himself to the spot…waiting.
“Ananchel. Ananchel is the reason Lilith is here.”
Draven stiffened. Liar. Somehow, when every physical and emotional instinct told him to confront Sebastian with his vicious accusations…he couldn’t. His heart pounded against his ribcage, and a cold shiver clawed its way up his throat. It was as if concrete engulfed his lower body and held him down to the place where he stood. Nothing could make him move until he heard what Sebastian had to say.
“After the war, she was so angry…at me, at the Arch…at the world, who knows. She released Lilith and told her how to claim the Creation Blade.”
“The Creation Blade,” Gabe echoed, and Draven mouthed silently, biting back the snarl burning in his lungs.
“Ananchel wanted to destroy everything.” Sebastian chuckled blackly. “She remembers, but not fragments or dreamlike memories. Ananchel remembers everything. Her plan was to let Lilith get rid of the Arch and to reclaim heaven for us. Only, her plans changed; they became even grander. Now, Ananchel wants everything, and she wants me to help her get it.”
“Sebastian,” Gabe breathed, a quiet pity lancing his tone, “why would you keep this to yourself? What can you possibly hope to achieve? Draven has to know—”
There was more shuffling, followed by glass shattering against the floor.
“No, you can’t. I have to get the Creation Blade first.”
The ache in Sebastian’s voice sliced through Draven. Agony seemed to reverberate inside him. His own pain was a smoldering fire in a room filling with gas and ready to erupt to something uncontrollable at any moment.
“I need Ananchel to get the blade, and she will only help me if I give Candra up. If I concede to Draven.”
“Damn it, Sebastian, is that the reason you ripped her heart out?” Gabe asked.
“Ananchel is Draven’s twin. Who do you think he’ll side with? If I don’t get the blade, Lilith will take Candra. She wants her as her vessel. If I get the blade and trap Lilith, Candra will be with Draven, but at least she will still be herself. She will have a chance. Everyone will have a chance.”
“Really, Sebastian, do you have so little faith in her? What makes you or Ananchel think she will fall into his arms so easily?”
“She already has.” Sebastian snorted viciously.
“Because you pushed her. Admit it, you got scared, and this gave you the perfect opportunity to run. You should have trusted us. You need to talk to Draven.”
Draven had heard enough. He threw his jacket to the ground, stepped through the doorway, and wasted no time unfurling his blue-black wings. It made the dingy place look darker, blocking off what little light filtered through from the bar area and leaving only the muted glow from the lamp hanging over the pool table. Sebastian’s chain smoking made the air thick as fog on a winter morning. The scent immediately irritated Draven further. The sight in the midst of the cloud appalled him. Sebastian looked like death warmed over.
For a fraction of a second, Draven pitied him for how he loved Candra. Such a terrible burden for him to be so close to his desires that he could practically reach his fingers across the void and feel a vibration of them stir. To taste the need, but never be sated. To be on the fringe of heaven and forever denied. It made Draven glad he remembered only shades of what it was like for them before. To carry that for all time would be enough to drive a person insane.
Sebastian stumbled backward and caught himself on one of the high stools scattered around the room, shocking Draven further with the wide-eyed expression of terror that morphed his features into someone unrecognizable. He didn’t release his wings as Gabe did; he should have. Even with the liquor in his system, protecting himself should have been instinctive. Draven couldn’t wrap his head around the change in the Watcher before him.
“No,” Sebastian raged, clutching at his hair. His eyes darted to Gabe, crazed and angry. “How could you do this to me?”
Gabe’s eyebrow drew down sharply. His hands lifted, palms forward, as though attempting to temper the over-reactions of a small child or approach a frightened animal. “Sebastian…”
“Enough,” Draven thundered. They didn’t have time to pussyfoot around Sebastian’s delicate sensibilities or to pander to his usual tormented bad boy antics. He hoped Sandal had the sense to keep any human customers from paying attention. However, even if they did hear anything, no doubt they would write it off as the demented ramblings of a lunatic.
“You are a damned idiot, Sebastian.”
As if a light switch flicked on, a visible shudder wracked Sebastian’s body before his wings burst forth. The radiant white and gold captured the meager light in the room, reflecting it back like glass. With the three of them exposing their true form, there was barely an inch of space to move without inadvertently brushing off another.
“I was damned long ago, Draven,” Sebastian said blackly. “Now you know why.” The slight quake of his fingertips betrayed that he hadn’t sobered completely.
Evidently, Sebastian managed to convince himself somewhere along the way that he was responsible for everything that had happened to them. Draven had always known Sebastian carried the weight of the war on his shoulders and dragged it behind him like iron chains, something that always kept him living in the past. This went one step further, as if he’d stepped off the edge, fallen into some form of deranged lunacy.
“I don’t know what I know,” Draven fired back.
How could Ananchel remember the way Sebastian accused? He would have known. Draven trusted her with his life. He had trusted her with Candra’s life. A spike of pain ripped through his gut. As much as he wanted to dismiss it, a niggling doubt bristled over his skin, and the hairs on his arms rose. Nathaniel’s warning about Ananchel slammed into him like a sledgehammer to his chest. Maybe a part of him had known and had tried to write it off.
His hate for Sebastian bubbled up, hissing in his muscles and craving to take over. Draven wanted nothing more in that instant than to tear Sebastian limb from limb but held tightly to the reins of his control. He wondered if it was because he knew it was possible Sebastian had stumbled across a verity that held the potential to decimate Draven’s closest relationship—his family.
“Are you saying you were oblivious to all of this?” Gabe asked, his massive warrior shoulders rolling back. His eyes tightened reproachfully, but he stayed well back. Draven suspected it was so he wouldn’t appear threatening or provide a spark to this already combustible situation. Gabe had come here as a mediator, not as an instigator to a fight between them.
Still, the question offended Draven, the insinuation he’d played a willing part in Ananchel’s scheming, if there was any at all. He wasn’t entirely convinced…yet.
“What? You actually believe this bullshit?” Draven waved his hand, making it clear he referred to Sebastian’s presumptions. “You believe Ananchel has devised some master plan to destroy the Arch and is in cahoots with Lilith against me?”
“Not against you,” Sebastian reminded him. “For you.” His lips twisted into a sneer. He raked his fingers through his hair roughly, clearly reaching the end of his rope and evidently still drunk, but sobering quickly. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes shadowed by purple smudges.
Acid filled Draven’s stomach, and his mind reeled, scrambling for some excuse, anything that would dismi
ss the charges levied against Ananchel. Pain drummed inside his skull, as if accusation was a battering ram repeatedly slamming against a door. His toes curled against the grubby wooden floor, allowing the stimuli flooding his body to escape. The sights, sounds, smells…it was all too much to assimilate on top of his raging emotions.
“It’s not possible,” he murmured. His wings pulled in to settle along his spine as his argument deflated. All these years, he’d kept Ananchel as his closest confidante. He, of all people, appreciated what she was capable of doing. “Tell me everything.”
Sebastian recounted his story, every single sordid detail of his encounter with Ananchel, how he had taken Candra to the lake and allowed her to read into his words. Sebastian glared at his rival while explaining how Ananchel had convinced him Draven couldn’t be trusted.
By the time Sebastian finished, Draven was convinced his slow placing back and forth should have worn a groove in the wooden floor. He watched Sebastian now and then from where he sat, head in hands on one of the low stool scattered around. Gabe remained by the side of the pool table. All three still displayed their wings but kept them folded in.
“How could you think I would betray Candra so badly…and the Arch?”
“How could I not?” Sebastian retorted coldly. “You turned your back on the Arch long ago, and you can’t deny your connection to Candra. How can I trust what you are capable of?”
Draven shook his head sadly. “You never understood, did you?” He looked up to see Sebastian’s jaw clench and wondered if they were wasting their time. He wasn’t sure Sebastian would listen to reason at this point. Perhaps this situation had already gone too far. His eyes stung from so long in the smoky atmosphere, and his body felt like he’d been dragged through a wringer, as though it had been an eternity since he’d rested.
