Black Wings bw-1

by Christina Henry

  The tree was so large that it was almost hard to grasp its size. I had seen the forests of redwoods in California; this tree made redwoods look like dwarves. The trunk was nearly as wide as the base of the John Hancock building, and great gnarled roots as large as city buses twisted around it. It stretched high above me, so high that it disappeared into the low-hanging clouds that circled the mountains. The bark was white as starlight, and it gleamed in the dull gray that surrounded it.

  “What now?” I asked.

  Evangeline approached the base of the tree. I clambered after her, climbing over the roots, pulling myself over them with frozen hands and feet. It took me several minutes to reach her. She floated patiently next to a knot the size of my fist that marred the white face of the tree. I climbed over the last root and stood at her side, panting.

  We must enter the tree, she said, and did that twirly thing again with her finger in the air. A circle of flame appeared on the bark of the tree. The inside of the circle opened to darkness.

  “Where does this go?” I asked.

  To the Valley of Sorrows, on the other side of the mountains, she said, and floated inside. Come, Granddaughter.

  I stared after her into the darkness and felt all the misgivings I had been pushing aside come surging up. She could be leading me anywhere. Hell, for that matter, she might not be Evangeline at all but some kind of trick sent by Antares or Focalor or Ramuell’s master.

  This is a great time to realize that, I thought sourly. But I had committed myself to this course of action, and there was no way home without Evangeline.

  The circle of flame closed behind me as I stepped inside and plunged into blackness. I could barely make out the glitter of Evangeline’s form several feet in front of me. As my eyes adjusted I realized it wasn’t completely black. The walls sparkled with a kind of green luminescence, almost like algae on the ocean at night.

  Evangeline called for me to follow her again, and I picked my way toward her, cautiously putting one foot in front of the other. The tunnel was narrow enough that I could touch both sides with my arms outstretched. The walls felt like smooth rock beneath my fingers and the air inside the tree was surprisingly warm and humid. I felt all of my frozen parts thawing out rapidly. After several minutes of walking I unbuttoned my coat and folded it over my arm to carry.

  The path was some kind of fine silt and felt slippery beneath my feet. It sloped downward for several feet, then leveled out. I didn’t encounter any roots or rocks to trip over, and after a while I picked up the pace. I’d lost all sense of time and wondered how long I’d been gone. I wondered if Beezle would be worried. I wondered if my father had saved Gabriel. A fist squeezed my heart when I thought of the half angel lying bloody and still. I wished that he was with me now.

  Evangeline stayed several feet in front of me. She did not speak at all. There was a sense of urgency about her now that infected me. I walked more quickly even as I grew more anxious about what awaited me at the end of the tunnel.

  After what felt like an hour, the path started to slope upward again. Unlike the beginning of the path, the incline wasn’t gradual. The grade steepened abruptly and I was forced to scramble for purchase several times, digging in the silt with my fingers. I fell flat on my face once and slid backward at least ten feet before I managed to dig the toes of my boots into the dirt and halt my progress downhill.

  My coat fell from my arms and tumbled down to the bottom of the slope. I’d have to retrieve it on the way back. It was far too cold on the road for me to even consider going outside in nothing but a sweater.

  Evangeline turned with an impatient huff.Granddaughter, hurry, please. We have no time for this.

  I pushed to my knees and glared at her. “I’m not enjoying this, you know. Some of us can’t just float along.”

  No, but you could fly, she snapped.

  “Flying. Right,” I said, feeling amazingly stupid. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. Maybe because I was still unaccustomed to using my wings for any purpose other than in my role as an Agent. I was used to acting like a human, not a supernatural being.

  As soon as I thought of it my wings pushed out my back. I brushed the dirt from my face and sweater and then flew to Evangeline. She turned without another word, moving faster now, and I stayed easily at her side.

  We continued upward for a few more minutes; then the path abruptly leveled out again. We were in a small, round anteroom, just a few feet across. I realized that as we’d traveled, the luminescence in the walls had increased gradually. The room was not as shadowed as the rest of the path, and I could see a door with an arched top and a squared bottom in front of us.

  The door gleamed in the faint light. It looked like heavy metal, warm and yellow like gold. There was no knob, but there was a series of bolts—seven in all. I fluttered to the ground and folded my wings to my back. Evangeline hovered impatiently beside me.

  Open it, she said. What you seek is behind that door.

  “What I seek, or what you seek?” I asked, but I was already pulling the first bolt free. It didn’t really matter anymore if it was my wishes or hers that had brought me here. I still had a duty to fulfill, and Evangeline was part of it.

  I pulled the last bolt free and felt acid on the back of my tongue. I stepped back so that the door could swing inward. Beyond the door was an empty cavern, high and wide. The rock was gray and white and veined with silver so the walls glittered even in shadow. There was something that looked like firelight flickering around the bend just past the main room.

  And there were noises. Horrible noises—squelching, grunting, screeching, metal clanging against metal.

  “What is that?” I asked, suddenly afraid.

  Evangeline shook her head and drifted forward, beckoning me. I wanted to turn around and run the hell down that hill and out into the desert and take my damn chances with hypothermia and radiation poisoning. Anything would be better than facing whatever was around the corner. Instead, I followed slowly, my heart pounding, sweat trickling down the back of my neck. I rounded the corner, wondering if she was leading me to my death, and stopped dead.

  We were in a giant cavern. It was like being inside Soldier Field and looking all the way up to the nosebleed seats. But this place wasn’t filled with beer-drinking, brat-chewing football fans. It was filled with nephilim.

  The nephilim hung from metal cages in the ceiling and the walls like so many grotesque birds. Even though they were caged, their wrists were shackled and attached to chains that were bolted to the floors of their prisons. As I stood there, gaping, a nephilim brushed against the bars of its cage and shrieked in pain. It seemed that the bars were enchanted with some kind of magic. It also seemed that the cages were just small enough so that the nephilim would be unable to sit, lie down or relax in any way without touching the bars. All of the creatures moved restlessly within their prisons, seeking repose and unable to find it.

  Most of the nephilim looked like Ramuell—taller than any man, red and raw-looking skin, black claws. Some of them had wings, and some didn’t. Some looked . . . squishier than others. Their forms had less substance, like the glob demon that had visited my front lawn. And two of them had yellow skin covered in green and bulging sores. When one of these nephilim would brush the bars of their cage, the sores would burst, spraying a jet of foul-smelling pus and causing the nephilim to writhe in agony.

  “This is the mercy that the Grigori showed their children?” I muttered, sickened. “Why didn’t they just kill them rather than force them to suffer like this?”

  Evangeline did not answer. I glanced around and realized that she had disappeared.

  “Oh, wonderful,” I said. “Great-grandma abandons me just when we get to the scary part of the story.”

  I wasn’t sure what else to do so I started across the cavern floor, skirting close to the wall and trying to go unnoticed by the monsters suspended high above me. That didn’t really work out. I don’t know what gave me away—
the scrape of a shoe, my terrified breath, the unusual movement at the bottom of the cave. But I wasn’t incognito for long.

  The first one that saw me gave a roar that nearly shattered my eardrums. It echoed throughout the cavern and the other nephilim ceased their restless pacing, growing still and silent.

  “Meeeeeeaaat,” the first one crooned, and it closed its clawed fingers around the bars of the cage. It seemed unaware that its hands were smoking. The air filled with the scent of burning sulfur. Its yellow eyes were fixed on me and I just barely suppressed the urge to cover myself with my arms. I had a feeling that the nephilim was sizing me up for something a lot worse than lunch.

  The nephilim directly above me couldn’t see me but I could hear them sniffing the air. The ones that had me in their sights followed the example of the first nephilim. They lunged to the bars of the cage, some of them reaching through and clawing their fingers in the air.

  “Meat, meat, meat,” they chanted, first softly, then louder and louder. “Meat, meat, meat.”

  “Oh, crap, crap, crap,” I said, and started to run. I had no idea how strong those cages were but I was not going to stick around for a test.

  The nephilim’s chant grew louder and louder. I was soaked in sweat and terrified beyond belief. I couldn’t think of anything. I just needed to get away, just get the hell away from the monsters. I passed beneath the last of the cages and rounded another bend. The nephilim’s howls of frustration followed me, echoing into the chamber beyond.

  The view that awaited me there was not much better than the one I had left. The chamber was smaller, and completely empty except for its two occupants.

  Ramuell and an angel I had never seen before were, well . . . getting busy. It was disgusting beyond imagining to see a creature of light copulating willingly with the nephilim. At least, I’m pretty sure it was willing. She was making a lot of screeching noises but they seemed to be noises of pleasure. She had the same ethereal beauty as the other angels I had seen—the pale skin, the blond curls, the white, feathery wings. But her beauty was tainted by the horror that she willingly touched.

  The nephilim was behind her and they both faced me, but the angel’s eyes were closed. While his skin still looked shredded and burned from our last encounter, some of Ramuell’s wounds had begun to scab over. He saw me and stopped mid-stroke, pulling out of the angel and roaring. I covered my eyes with my hands.

  “Oh, my fucking lord, I am blind,” I said, and felt bile in my throat. “That wasgross. Gross, gross, gross.”

  I pulled my hands from my face as Ramuell pounded across the cavern toward me, giving me just enough time to shoot into the air and avoid a deadly swipe. My magic surged up, practically forgotten in the horror and strangeness of the last few hours. I gave Ramuell a blast of nightfire and flew higher, staying away from his deadly claws. The nephilim screamed in fury but he could not touch me.

  There was a tinkle of familiar laughter a few feet away from me, and I turned from Ramuell to see a pair of blazing green eyes.

  “Hello, Ariell,” I said to the angel who hovered before me.

  She gave a little half bow, a smirk on her perfect pink lips, and then she shot a bolt of lightning straight at my heart.

  21

  I DODGED OUT OF THE WAY AND THE LIGHTNING SIZZLED across my upper arm instead. Ariell’s magic smelled kind of peppery, not the cinnamon that I associated with angelic powers. I gritted my teeth at the pain in my arm and sent a blast of blue nightfire at her.

  She blocked my magic easily, her tinkling laughter echoing throughout the chamber. Her laugh was getting on my nerves. It was the laugh of the head cheerleader in high school, the one who was so perfect and popular and smug about it that you wanted to kick her. Or, at least,I wanted to kick her.

  “Is that the best you can do, Azazel’s daughter?”

  “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve,” I said. I did have a few tricks—I just didn’t know how to use them on her. But she didn’t need to know that. I gave her another quick blast of nightfire and she dodged me again, shooting a string of lightning bolts at me so that I was forced to retreat rather than attack.

  Ramuell grew excited by the violence and paced frantically beneath us. He swiped at my heels if I drifted too low and I was careful to stay out of his reach. I wondered why the nephilim didn’t use blasts of magic on me the way he had when he fought Gabriel at Clark and Belmont. Maybe the binding that controlled the nephilim limited their powers here in the Valley of Sorrows. If their powers weren’t bound, perhaps they could blast themselves out of their restraints.

  I tried to concentrate, to think about ways I could hurt Ariell, but it was hard to focus on my abilities when I was trying not to get killed. She launched another bolt at me and I did the flying equivalent of a scurry as part of the rock wall behind me was blasted apart. Ariell giggled.

  “You are as weak as your mother,” she said.

  I felt the magic inside me bubble with anger. She had been responsible for the death of my mother. She had set a nephilim on Katherine and trapped her soul inside a monster for all eternity. There was no way this bitch was leaving the cavern in one piece.

  I looked at the rock wall, and at Ariell, smirking in midair. And then I sent a blast of nightfire at the ceiling above her. She wasn’t expecting that.

  Huge chunks of rock tumbled out of the ceiling and she wasn’t able to avoid all of them. One of them smashed into her left wing and sent her spiraling to Earth with a heavy thud. A few more rocks tumbled on top of her and she cried out in anger and pain.

  The nephilim hurried to her side like a dog to its master. Ariell brushed Ramuell away as she struggled to her feet.

  “Get off me!” she shouted, striking him as he attempted to help her.

  Ramuell growled in response. “Be careful, angel.”

  Ariell glared at the nephilim. “You be careful, monster. Remember, Samiel can re-bind you at any time.”

  Samiel. That must be Ramuell’s other son. I wondered where he was.

  I saw Ramuell’s claws curve into his palms and thought that Ariell had better watch herself. Whatever power she thought she had over the nephilim would be moot if Ramuell lost his temper and mutilated her.

  Still, now would be a good time for some of those handy magical abilities, or maybe some assistance from Evangeline. Since Great-grandma seemed to have disappeared, time for a dose of magical concentration.

  I thought of the match flame inside me, and of the electricity that I’d used on Antares. And just like that, my magic responded. It probably wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t had a few seconds to think, but Ariell considered me such a weak opponent that she could essentially turn her back on me while she argued with her—ick, ick, ick—lover. My hands shot out, crackling electricity, and I caught Ariell by surprise.

  She screamed as the electricity danced through her body, over muscle, into bone, under skin. Some of her feathers caught fire and she slammed herself frantically into the walls of the cavern, trying to put out the flames.

  Ramuell stumbled away from her and I blasted him, too. The nephilim roared in pain, writhing in the dirt, and an answering cry came from its brethren in the next chamber.

  “Yes,” I said, and blasted her again. Her screams became louder and more terrified, and I kept on hitting her with the same spell. “Yes.”

  I started to laugh, and as I laughed and hit Ariell again and again I felt something twist inside me. I knew it wasn’t me that gloried in the terror of another.

  “Show yourself, Evangeline,” I said, and curled my hands into fists, trying to stop the maniacal flow of magic.

  She deserves to suffer for what she has done, Evangeline said, and her voice was inside my head, my blood, my muscles and bones. My fists uncurled of their own volition and magic flowed through me, from me, to torture Ariell. The angel arched on the floor and screamed as electricity burned her up from the inside. She clawed at her skin, just as Antares had done, and the flesh fell away in thin
ribbons as she tried to get the magic out.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. I was nothing but a puppet to Evangeline. “You have no right to murder her for your own vengeance.”

  It is your vengeance as well, Granddaughter. She is responsible for the death of your mother, of your friend.

  She was right, and part of me did want to kill Ariell and Ramuell for that. But defending yourself in battle wasn’t the same as cold-blooded murder. Like I’d told Gabriel, I was supposed to be the good guy.

  Ramuell started to rise and white fire poured out of my palms, setting the nephilim aflame. He screamed in torment and the cavern was filled with the stench of his cooking flesh.

  “We can’t kill them!” I cried out desperately. “It’s wrong!”

  Wrong? Evangeline’s voice was cold and furious. Wrong? It is wrong to punish those who took me from Lucifer, who would have murdered his children in cold blood for their own aims, their own petty lust for power? It is wrong to punish those responsible for the deaths of my grandchildren, who destroyed my direct line so utterly that you are the last survivor? It is wrong to punish those who murdered your mother and who would murder you the same way? No, my granddaughter. It is not wrong. It is wrong to show them mercy.

  I struggled to close my fists, to shut off the flow of magic. I wanted to capture Ariell, to have her brought to Azazel for her crimes. I didn’t want to be an instrument of murder.

  But Ramuell, I thought to myself. Ramuell, I wouldn’t mind killing. If I killed him, Katherine might be set free.

  “No,” I said out loud, and as the conviction in me grew I felt Evangeline in my mind, grasping for control. “No. I’m not like them. I won’t be a monster.”

  And then I heard Beezle’s voice in my head saying, “Concentrate, concentrate,” and I did. I thought of the little match flame inside me, the one that was blazing like a bonfire at the moment. I thought of Evangeline, lurking in my blood. I knew I wouldn’t be able to shut off the flow of magic while she was inside me. But Gabriel had said my will was strong. That was how I’d overcome the spell he’d put on me, the one to make me compliant.