The Resurrection Game

by Michelle Belanger

  No wards glimmered around the double-hung frame, and I wondered if that might have been intentional. Ripping quickly through the external screen, I yanked it off and tossed it onto the patio rooftop. The big rectangle of aluminum bounced once, then stilled, making less noise than my boots had.

  Digging my fingers into the weathered wood of the bottom sash, I tested to see if I could lift it. There was a simple flip-lock on the inside and while someone had thrown it, they hadn’t done a very good job. Only a small corner of the mechanism tucked under the brass lip that held the window closed. Calling energy into both hands, I focused my strength and heaved upward.

  The lock surrendered with a tortured-metal screech. From there, the rest was easy. I shoved the bottom portion of the window as high as it would go, clambering awkwardly through the gap. Sheer curtains tangled around me but I just pressed forward, letting my momentum tug them loose. Zuriel had to know I was there, but still I moved as quickly and quietly as my lanky frame would allow. Holding a hand out to help me navigate the darkness, I found a carpeted stairway and followed it down, hoping the access to the basement was close to the bottom.

  This fight would end in the cellar. I had no doubt.

  Trading the carpet for a tiled hallway, I angled sharply to the right and checked for a door. It was there—that had to lead to the basement. Pallid light sketched thin lines around its loose-fitting frame. I smelled the blood before I saw it—a smear still tacky on the handle, and a little pool just in front of the door.

  I knew from the scent it was Nephilim blood. I could almost taste how it was different. With a convulsive swallow, I tried not to ponder how I could be so certain, even as the flesh of my left palm began to itch.

  Drawing a blade in one hand, I opened the door with the other, getting blood on my fingers and wiping it quickly onto my jeans. The stairs leading down were steep and unusually long, walled all the way to the bottom, so it was impossible to see past the landing. Gray cinder block and puffy pink insulation were the only décor.

  Along the descent, rusty smears stood out at shoulder and waist height, dark against generic eggshell white. I went to put my foot on the first step, but caught a glimmer from the corner of my eye. Halting and glancing down, I saw a soft shimmer of magic scribed upon the lip of the step.

  I recognized the sigils of an alarm, but there was only one way down, and no way to avoid stepping over Zuriel’s little warning system. Any method I might use to pick the spell apart would give off as much energy as the alarm itself.

  Not worth it.

  Silently, I wished for the convenience of a relic or a Crossing. The Stylus might work as a relic, but to take it from its warded box was to reveal its presence. A dangerous prospect, especially since I was dealing with another Anakim.

  I’d shut my phone off, but I knew the countdown app was finished. No more time to dick around. I took a deep breath and planted my steel-toe boot firmly on top of the line of sigils across the step. A pause, then power burst around me like a flash-bang, sending a harsh wind against my clothes and making my ears hum. Otherwise, it was harmless.

  Adjusting my grip on the dagger, I loosed a hissing invocation of my Name. At the sound, Zuriel’s cackle rose from the depths of the cellar.

  “You’re thirty seconds late, bro,” he called, “but I’ll give it to ya.”

  Ears still ringing, I bullrushed the bottom.

  My momentum faltered once I saw what awaited me there.

  47

  A single light burned in the basement, but I would have preferred the dark. Then I wouldn’t have had to see this—my brother’s torture.

  Remy hung face-forward in an elaborate webwork of rope anchored to a block and tackle high up in the basement’s rafters, his shorn hair plastered wetly to his face. There was a cruel art to the bondage, interwoven cords locking every major joint so my brother had no hope of leverage, no matter his vast strength. One thick cord threaded through his mouth like a horse’s bit. It yanked his head sharply back, distending his jaw to expose all his teeth. Deceptively delicate, his fangs curled against the wad of damp fiber, partly pinning it in place.

  His features were a ghastly mockery of the man I knew, skin stretched so tight across his sunken cheeks, he looked skeletal. His arms winged painfully behind him, elbows lashed together with such severity, the ball joints of his shoulders strained visibly in their sockets. Zuriel had stripped him to the waist, and where it wasn’t covered with gore, his skin was white as marble—far too white for anything alive. Vicious cuts covered his chest and limbs, their patterns curving like sadistic arabesques. The edges of the wounds gaped and rippled, the flesh ticking as it strove to knit itself—but there was too much damage, and not enough energy for the task.

  The cuffs took care of that.

  The Thorns of Lugallu glinted at his wrists, their bitter magic sucking the Nephilim’s prodigious power. Not that freedom would have come cheaply, even without the magic writ upon the cuffs. Remy hung in a heavily warded circle, trapping the vampire within as surely as it kept me out.

  “What have you done?” I breathed.

  Zuriel offered no answer. He just stood beside the captive Nephilim, grinning as if my trussed-up brother were the ultimate big game trophy. His Tuscanetti charm was missing, probably lost in the struggle with Tabitha, so he wore his own creepily youthful face, blue eyes cold and flat and completely absent of anything human. One hand gripped a solitary blade—the same fluted punch-dagger that he’d used in his fight with Marjory’s daughter—his pale energy licking brightly along its edges like magnesium flame.

  There was so much blood. Remy’s body practically wept it, a steady rain of crimson. Dark and pungent, it pooled across the floor, dimpling at the warded edges of the circle, and I strained to imagine how any fleshly being could surrender that much of the substance and still live.

  The worst was the stake.

  Zuriel had sharpened what might have been an old mop handle, fixing the worn and grainy staff of wood to a stout weight bench positioned in the middle of the floor. Carved all over with gleaming sigils, the wooden shaft had been infused with such deadly power that without a doubt it would drive the Nephilim from his body once it fully pierced his heart.

  Remy was partially impaled already, an inch-and-a-half of wood punched through his diaphragm so a slow stream of scarlet trickled down the makeshift pike to add to the spreading mess on the floor. A lead line ran through the block and tackle, connecting all Remy’s bonds, and Zuriel gripped it in his other hand. Every time Zuriel moved, Remy shifted downward onto the stake. The wood made obscene squelching noises in the gooey puncture beneath his ribs, and, silently, I screamed for him.

  Every instinct clamored for me to rush across the basement and seize my wounded brother, but I knew Zuriel would drop Remy onto that spike the instant I so much as twitched. Even with my speed, I didn’t think I could make it past the magic of the circle in time to keep him from being impaled.

  Briefly, I considered shooting Zuriel. Without his illusion to wreck my aim, I couldn’t miss. Not at this distance. But if he dropped the lead line, that would be the end.

  “I was hoping you’d make the deadline, so I wouldn’t have to kill him right away,” the kid said. Idly, he tugged the thick coil looped around his hand, grinning with hungry fascination at the horror on my face. “Once you know where and how to stick ’em, these guys fade so fast. No fun, really.”

  With every leashed tremor, Remy’s whole body twitched, his face a rictus of anguish. Blood—dark and sluggish—bubbled thickly from the ragged edges of each wound. There wasn’t only one puncture, but several clustered together. My breath snagged on a sympathetic ache.

  “I’m here,” I responded. “Let him go.”

  The words were a token recitation. I knew that, but I said them anyway. Just standing there felt worse than useless. Vainly, I tried to catch my brother’s gaze, to offer some tiny reassurance, but I wasn’t even certain he could see me. Remy’s eyes roll
ed to their whites in his head, only a slim crescent of blue visible beneath fluttering lids.

  “Is that how you think this works?” Zuriel sneered. “This isn’t some kind of hostage exchange, bro. We’re way beyond that.” With the razor tip of his blade, he opened a fresh line along Remy’s bare chest, tracing the soft valley between two prominent ribs. The cut was shallow, mostly for show—Remy barely flinched. “This is pay-per-view. Or maybe, pay-per-not-view.” Zuriel pressed harder at the edge of the cut, slowly driving his blade deeper. The vampire’s skin was already drained so white, it was like watching someone draw blood from a statue. “I ask a question. You answer. I like your answer, I don’t cut anything off that’s too important. Got it?” As punctuation, he gave the blade a vicious twist. Steel ground against bone and Remy bit down convulsively against the gag.

  Numbly, I nodded, because telling him “no” or “stop” was exactly what the little shit wanted. Zuriel craved my pain like a drug, and Remy was his current delivery system. The kid could ask me all the questions he wanted, but none of this was about getting answers. We both knew it. This was torture for the sake of torture.

  Flashes of Marjory’s brutalized corpse vied with the scene around me, and I strove to think past that horror, to take in the room to its smallest detail, to see some way of getting Remy out in one piece. The lighting was shitty—one brass floor lamp tilting on a dented base, positioned at the farthest corner behind Zuriel. Its tattered shade choked more than it diffused its light, stretching all the shadows weirdly. The basement itself was cavernous, the extra-high ceiling making it feel like some kind of cinder block tomb.

  The web around Remy was so elaborate, I wondered how long Zuriel had planned to murder someone in this subterranean space. The weight bench, mop handle, and pulley system might have been happy accidents left behind by the movers, but the extensive coils of rope suggested planning.

  So did the circle. Zuriel might not have finished warding the windows on the second floor, but he’d put a shit-ton of energy into that circle. The magic was so tight, it didn’t even let Remy’s pooling blood escape around its boundaries. I could pick it apart eventually, but it wouldn’t be quick.

  Remy needed quick. Even without the looming threat of the stake, blood had to be an issue. He’d already lost so much, he looked shriveled.

  I can help you.

  The words resounded through my thoughts without warning. Every muscle stiffened. I knew that voice. It was the one that had spoken out on the beach, to issue its mysterious warning. Since then, it had been a lingering murmur in the back of my mind, one that had crested close to consciousness once or twice, only I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge its presence. Neither clearly male nor female, it felt wholly other, patient and alien in ways I could barely comprehend.

  I hardly dared to think the Name, but it rose, unbidden.

  Neferkariel. The Nephilim primus.

  Who else? the voice asked. As if the manic tickling of the scar across my palm wasn’t answer enough.

  “I owe you a few cuts for ignoring my texts,” Zuriel said. He dug his dagger even deeper, then twisted with a flourish. “Rude, bro.” Flesh parted and Remy squirmed. The wood of the stake ground against his sternum, and in my mind, that alien presence coiled like a vast boa constrictor, tightening its hold one slithering thought at a time.

  This is how it happens, I thought. This is how I lose everything I am.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked, just to keep the conversation going. If Zuriel noticed I sounded breathless, he didn’t care—probably thought my look of naked panic came from what he was doing. I didn’t disabuse him of that illusion. Neferkariel’s presence pressed harder against the vault of my skull, and my world split-screened between the reality of the blood-soaked cellar and the suddenly crowded realm of my thoughts.

  “We’ll get to that,” Zuriel answered. “But, seriously, bro, can we talk about how you’ve got a fucking vampire for a dad?” He yanked sharply upward, so the spike sucked wetly out of Remy’s chest. Then he dropped him just as fast. The stake drove hard into the ragged wound—two, maybe three inches. Not enough to kill, but it was close. “How’s that even work?”

  “My dad?” I choked.

  “Wrong answer!” Zuriel snapped. “Do you think I’m stupid? I saw the photo, you dumbass. That’s why I stuck it front and center, so you’d know I knew.”

  Before I could even begin to organize the working parts of a response, words oozed through my thoughts, sucking me away from both Remy and Zuriel. Slow, sweet, suffocating… it felt like I was drowning in honey.

  48

  I cannot make you do anything you do not wish to do, nor do I have power to stop you from acting against my own wishes, Neferkariel purred. Were that the case, I never would have allowed the vengeance-drunk Dorimiel to feast on the Unmakers.

  Get out of my head, I demanded. I slammed up every shield, tried every trick I knew as I stood there frozen between the stairs and Zuriel’s grisly spectacle. The mental protections helped me focus a little, but nothing made it stop.

  It is far too late for that, little Anarch. I could not leave, even if that were my desire.

  Every fiber rebelled against those words. I wanted to scream my defiance, to shout that none of it was true. For Remy’s sake, I swallowed the anger and the terror and fought to focus on the room.

  A bitter taste like ashes rose at the back of my throat, and with weary revelation, I recognized it as defeat. Ever since I’d paid the blood-price to the Nephilim icon, I’d known something like this was likely to occur. Each time I’d tapped that damning power, whether through conscious intention or not, the red monkey on my back had dug his claws a little deeper.

  Was it Goose that finally did it? Probably. I’d reached some crucial saturation point and tumbled across my personal Rubicon.

  * * *

  “Time to pay for your mistake,” Zuriel sneered. Magnesium fire lasered my attention to his blade. “You know what they say. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” My stomach clenched. Adjusting his grip on the rope, Zuriel stepped closer to Remy, pressing the burning edge of his dagger along his captive’s nearest cheek.

  The vampire’s flesh sizzled.

  * * *

  Your skepticism is well-deserved, Neferkariel said. But I can help you stop this so you may focus on the greater threat.

  Greater threat? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t, not in that moment.

  All my horror and righteous fury hung upon that gleaming blade. Zuriel angled the tip against Remy’s lower lashes, gradually increasing his pressure.

  * * *

  “I think the bloodsucker’ll miss his pretty eyes the most, am I right?” The pale skin dimpled, a single drop of crimson weeping around the charged steel.

  Remy’s breath came in huffing, awful rasps as he tried to strain away. He squeezed his eyes against the weapon. Zuriel only pressed harder.

  “No!” I roared. My own dagger blazing, I surged forward, prepared to bull my way through the fucking circle.

  I didn’t even make it as far as the edge. Zuriel reacted swiftly, whipping his blade away from Remy’s cheek. A weeping, blackened slash gaped in its wake. Leveling the weapon in my direction, he bellowed his power.

  A bolt of white fire erupted from the tip of the dagger, brilliant and cold as an alien star. The blazing projectile flew straight for my chest, striking harder than any fist. It lifted me, driving me back until my shoulders smacked against the wall at the base of the stairs. Breath rushed out of me in a painful whoosh and all my teeth rattled.

  Sliding to the ground like a bug on a windshield, I just crouched there for a moment, aftershocks jolting through my limbs.

  “You so much as twitch again, I take them both,” Zuriel growled. All the blue of his pale eyes bled to gleaming white. His mortal boy-voice cracked, but two other tones resonated deeply in his chest. The chord they struck was sour.

  * * *

  I give this freely, Neferkariel s
aid. Listen, and see.

  Before I could resist or even think to object, the clock of the world spun down. Zuriel lofted the dagger, aiming once more for Remiel’s poor eye, but he seemed to move in slow motion. Even the flames that licked along the blade rippled with a curious languor, as if they wavered from within a thick fluid, rather than clear air.

  My internal perceptions sped in counterpoint—and more than that. Lotus-like, the physical world unfolded, revealing layers of sound and texture I had never imagined, and could not readily name.

  The house, above and around us, filled with stealthy sounds. Footfalls. I knew without fully comprehending the faculty, the distinct sound of each person’s tread. Tanisha, on the second floor, just beginning to creep from the room with the open window. Ava, on the far side of the house, stopping to bend toward something at the base of the wall. Javier, heavy and plodding, moving into position just out of view of the nearest basement window… and Sal’s light step close behind his.

  Outside, near Ava’s position, there was the soft squeal of rusted metal. A door of some sort, but tiny. A muttered word.

  “Ready.”

  What’s the price, you snakey bastard? I demanded, unable to fight the uninvited flood of awareness. What’s the offer I can’t refuse?

  I give this freely, Neferkariel repeated.

  I still didn’t trust it, but that didn’t make the perceptions stop. The room around me rippled. Light and shadow shifted, sharpened. Some colors deepened, others faded out.

  Odd textural details leapt out from every surface—the steep ridges and valleys in the grain of the rafters, the warp and weft of individual threads in Zuriel’s jeans, many of them worn. I could see the fibers there, too, every tiny strip of cotton minutely twisting to make the whole.

  Then the circle. To my Anakim eyes, the sigils still glimmered with energy, but I saw beneath that, as well—to every stroke and flaw in each individual symbol. Every trace of every physical motion it had taken Zuriel to craft the inscription. The moments where his fingers had shaken, where his pressure had changed, and where the lines skipped uncertainly over cracks in the floor. Most were miniscule, but one or two were large enough to interrupt the crucial flow of energy.