Conspiracy of Angels

by Michelle Belanger

  Only a heartbeat later, she was standing there whole, and then she was running from the mouth of the alley to that same spot. She flickered again, and now she was struggling with another figure, indistinct and featureless, like an imperfect projection.

  The whole scene flickered again…

  And then the alley was empty.

  Memories. I was looking at memories burned so deeply into the space that they had substance and weight. The events replayed continuously, flickering against themselves. I was somehow standing on top of them and in them at the same time.

  I couldn’t shake the intelligence in the woman’s eyes, though. She wasn’t simply an echo. She seemed like a real person trapped in that awful moment where another human being had stalked her, violated her, then tried to erase her very person-ness by hacking her to pieces.

  So I looked away. I had to. Each time she flickered through the space, she stared at me as if she expected me to do something—yet I had no idea how to help.

  Then I had bigger things to worry about. A chillingly familiar sound echoed from the mouth of the alley. There was an answering hiss a short distance away. Cacodaimons. The other two lurched into view, one just behind the other. On this side of reality, they cast shadows that were darker yet, their blacker-than-black forms both sharper and more intense. The bodies they rode were little more than husks—dull and hollow and not worthy of attention.

  Abruptly light began to spill from the arcs of my wings, hissing against the darkness. Before I could even think about it, I was running full tilt down the alley toward the newcomers. Shrilling my name, I called the blue-white fire to my hands, and though I was aware of a painful tugging sensation at my very core, the power came—and it came in force.

  The heat and brilliance coalesced into the wickedly curved blades and I closed my hands around their comforting weight. Fueled by a terrible fury, I gave the riders no quarter. I slashed them with single-minded purpose, gravely wounding one even as the other tried latching onto my shoulders. I felt searing pinpricks of cold at the back of my neck and the base of one wing, but most of its burrowing appendages scrabbled uselessly against the jacket’s thick leather.

  With the first one down and dispersing, I turned my attention to the other, reaching backward to pull it off while at the same time flailing with both wings. All of my perceptions narrowed to the fight with my prey. The cowardly thing turned tail and attempted to flee. Determined not to lose it, I launched myself after the scurrying shadow just as it whipped out of the alley.

  Then I learned that the wings weren’t merely for show. With a massive down stroke I leapt and caught up to the rider, all in one swift motion, driving both blades into its back and pinning it to the ground. It shrieked and writhed, and I slashed the knives down and outward, yanking them through the meatiest portion of its form.

  With a final agonized hiss, the cacodaimon dissolved into so much black goo.

  A coughing roar drew my attention from the kill. The big cat trotted up behind me, causing me to pull back. It chuffed once, then bumped its head against my hip as a rumbling sound somewhere between a growl and a purr poured from deep within its throat. Its jaws were flecked with an oily black substance that seemed to drink in what little light was present in this not-quite physical space.

  My diamond-edged fury swiftly fading, I turned to meet the creature’s eyes. It lifted its head as if to acknowledge me, then shouldered me aside and began to eat the cacodaimon. I swallowed thickly, trying desperately not to imagine what one of those horrors might taste like.

  The big cat didn’t seem to care, however. It hunkered down over the kill and tore great gobbets of dark flesh with its powerful jaws, swallowing them hungrily. At least that explained why the cat hadn’t joined my fight with the other two.

  It had stopped to eat the first one.

  22

  This still left me with a problem, and it was a big one. I didn’t know how to get back to the flesh-and-blood world.

  At least I knew where Lil was waiting. Amidst all of the shadows crowding this place, it was hard to miss her glow. So I headed in her direction. It was slow going, however. Had I really chased the cacodaimon that far?

  As I moved, aches flared to life all over. In the middle of combat, I’d ignored the various stings and blows. Now there was no denying the pain dished out by my adversaries. Points on my hands, legs, neck, and wings all throbbed unpleasantly, and an answering pulse pounded in my head. If this was what victory felt like, I really didn’t want to try defeat.

  I tottered as I fought to stay upright, each step costing me more than the last. My wings hung like weights against my back, and the thundering pain in my head progressed to the point where all I had was tunnel vision. Only a pinprick of sight remained, edged with pulsing patterns of light and void.

  It was my name that pulled me out of it.

  Not Zachary. The other one.

  * * *

  Lillee leaned over me as I lay blinking up at clouds backlit by early morning sunshine. I think she might have slapped my face a few times, though if she had, I’d hardly felt it.

  “Get up!” she demanded, jerking on my wrists. “What were you thinking, staying in there so long?”

  Groggily, I let her try to hoist my lanky frame. Getting up. Getting up was good. Getting up meant I wasn’t dead.

  As Lil wrestled me into a sitting position, I started feeling as if I could breathe again. My vision cleared by degrees, though my arms and legs were still watery with over-exertion. It felt like I had run a marathon. Scratch that. It felt as if I had run a marathon of marathons. Finally I lurched shakily to my feet, then waved Lil off, doubling over and holding my gut.

  “Sick,” I announced, then proved it by tossing my breakfast all over the pavement. Lil danced nimbly away from the splash zone, guarding the polished leather of her expensive boots.

  “Serves you right,” she said. “Crossing into the Shadowside is like deep-sea diving. You can’t stay down indefinitely. Why didn’t you come out when I told you to?”

  “Didn’t know how,” I croaked, scrubbing at my mouth, my other hand on the wall to steady me. Then I gestured at the two crumpled forms at the mouth of the alley. “Plus, cacodaimons.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Lil responded, glancing significantly at the two bodies.

  They were twitching. More like convulsing. Pinkish-gray sludge seeped from their noses and the corners of their eyes. Seeing it, I almost threw up again, only this time there was nothing left to spew.

  “What the hell’s going on with them?” I managed.

  “Something that shouldn’t be happening,” she murmured quietly. “This whole thing—it’s not right.”

  I watched with mounting horror as the two well-dressed business people who had played host to the cacodaimons thrashed and jigged in the dirt. Their mouths were working to form words, yet nothing but gibberish came out. The sound swiftly degraded to an awful keening as unnerving as the insectile call of the cacodaimons themselves.

  “Can’t we help them?” I asked.

  “You see that goo leaking out of their ears?” she said. “That’s what left of their brains. Their nervous systems are mush. They must have been ridden for two or three weeks for that to happen.”

  I stared at the two, unable to find words.

  “I told you, cacodaimons are pure chaos—the antithesis of form,” she continued. “You know the line, about ‘the darkness upon the face of the deep’? Cacodaimons are what was here before. They don’t fit, and when they crawl in, they tear apart anything they touch.”

  She shouldered my backpack and started walking.

  “There’s a reason there’s a Shadowside and a skinside, Zack. If things like the cacodaimons manage to slink out of their holes, they have to hijack a body in order to interact. Generally, though, for them to even touch a vessel like that, the host already has to be broken.” She frowned, and stepped around the two convulsing forms with the air of someone avoiding nasty road k
ill. “These really don’t look the type. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but we have got to go.”

  “But they’re not dead yet,” I objected. “We can’t just leave them like this.”

  “Yes, we can. They’ll be dead soon enough.” She produced a folding knife from somewhere on her person and held it up, the blade gleaming despite the shadows. With a wolfish grin, she asked, “Unless you want me to put them out of their misery.”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to say.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded.

  She gave a careless toss of her head that sent her russet curls cascading down her back. She started walking away—then stopped once she realized I wasn’t following. Her eyes flicked restlessly around, peering across the train tracks to the run-down houses on the other side.

  Looking for witnesses.

  Ignoring her, I knelt unsteadily next to the two seizing bodies. Neither of them could have been much more than thirty. The woman wore a wedding ring—I wondered if she had a family. Her kids couldn’t be very old.

  “Oh, come on, Zack,” Lil growled. “The police are going to be here any minute now, and there might be more cacodaimons lurking around. There shouldn’t be, but given what’s happened here, we can’t count on any of the rules.”

  As I leaned over the woman, her lids snapped open, and I jumped. Her eyes were filled with blood, sightless and twitching. She spasmed so hard that her whole body arced up. Her collar pulled back and I caught sight of marks on her throat. They looked like fingerprints, deeply bruised, and they looked fresh.

  My eyes flew to the man.

  The marks were there, too, on his temple, under his ear, behind his jaw. If I didn’t know what I was looking at, I might have mistaken them for birthmarks.

  “Lil?” I called, stumbling backward. “You said for cacodaimons to ride someone the person had to be broken?”

  She grunted, still vigilant.

  “That’s the way it works with living people, anyway—drug addicts, crazies. Fresh corpses are easier. They’re already empty.” Then she started to leave.

  I pressed a hand to the space above my heart where wells of void tunneled through my being.

  Empty. I had a little taste of that.

  I gazed one last time at the fallen couple. Whoever they were, they’d been gone the instant those marks were seared upon their skin. There was no helping them. So I hauled myself to my feet, and caught up with Lil.

  23

  She took the long way around to her car, and I nearly didn’t make it. I’d exhausted myself with that trip through the Shadowside.

  Lil started talking about getting a room at a hotel. She wanted a nap and a shower, and thought we’d both be better off after a little rest. I couldn’t have agreed more, but I didn’t like the idea of bunking with someone who had cheerfully offered to slit the throats of a couple of innocents.

  So I pulled the keys from my pocket and rattled off the address printed on the insert in the fob. When we arrived, she eyed the place suspiciously from the street, almost as if she was trying to remember why it annoyed her. I didn’t tell her it was Remy’s safe house until we were standing on the porch.

  If looks could kill…

  As safe houses went, I was expecting something less ostentatious than a three-story Queen Anne, but maybe that wouldn’t have been Remy’s style. There was nothing small or subtle about the rambling old Victorian. Painted a heather gray that looked suspiciously close to lavender, it had white gingerbread wainscoting and an honest-to-God turret. If this was Remy’s guest house, I wondered what the heck his real digs looked like.

  “Remy gave you the keys?” she spat. “Remiel? We wouldn’t be here if I’d known this was where we were headed.”

  I just glowered back at her, so far beyond exhausted that I didn’t care whose keys opened the lock, as long as a hot shower and a bed lay beyond the door.

  “Stuff it,” I growled. “So far, he’s the only person who’s gone out of his way to help me.”

  “Don’t mistake enlightened self-interest for charity,” she responded, planting her feet and making a grab for the keys. “Let me list the reasons this is a bad idea.” She held up her hand and started counting off fingers. “Remy is Saliriel’s bitch. There is no point at which Saliriel can be trusted. Your message connects the Nephilim to Lailah’s disappearance. Remy and Saliriel are both what? Nephilim,” she answered before I could speak. “And if that little cipher of yours is accurate, your tribes are at war. Again. Now I’m out of fingers. Got it?” She looked at me as if I were an idiot.

  “Look, Lil,” I said, dodging as she tried again for the keys, “I’m filthy. I’m tired, and I hurt all over. All I want is a shower, a nap, and a little privacy. There must be somewhere you need to be for the next couple of hours—one that doesn’t involve hovering over me.”

  Giving up on the keys, Lil switched to blocking my path. It was kind of comical, really, considering she was almost a full foot shorter than me. She fixed me with a withering glare, but by this point, I’d endured so many of those from her, I’d become immune, and was consumed with a single-minded purpose—to find a shower.

  “Get out of my way.”

  “You look like hell, Zachary,” she said flatly.

  “Thanks for noticing,” I replied.

  “You’re tired and worn-out, and that’s precisely why you need me. If you won’t listen to reason and go to a hotel, then I’m coming in with you. After that stint in the Shadowside, if you don’t recharge your batteries soon, you’ll be no good to anyone,” she said, “but you need someone watching your back, especially in a house owned by one of the Nephilim.”

  “I’m not so sure that someone should be you,” I responded. Wearily, I hefted my backpack and tried to push past her, but she pressed herself very close to the front of my body and did that shoulder maneuver that practically spilled her cleavage out of her top. She cranked up the charm, till she smelled like sex on a stick. That’s how I knew I was really exhausted. I got a noseful of her spice and vanilla musk—and I simply didn’t care. Her sex appeal only irritated me more.

  “Seriously,” I said. “Get out of my way. Now.”

  I said it with a little more force than I’d intended, but maybe that was a good thing. She tried staring me down for a few moments longer, then relented.

  “You get your ass killed, and I’m hunting you down through your next six incarnations, just to kill you again,” she warned. I was too tired even to ask. “I’ll go chase down a few leads I may have, then I’ll be back here by seven. Make sure you’re ready.”

  Half a dozen responses leapt to my lips, none of them kind. And as much as I wanted that shower, I waited till she was at least halfway to the car before I put the key in the lock. Once I was through the door, I threw the deadbolt behind me

  The interior of the house was all dark woods and deep colors. Heavy curtains cloaked all the windows—though that didn’t come as a surprise, really. Between the décor and the antiques, I felt as if I had stepped onto a movie set for The Great Gatsby.

  Then the security system started chirping.

  Just my luck.

  I turned around, expecting to see a little keypad mounted by the door. There was nothing of the sort—even though that’s where the sound was coming from. It might have been my shredded nerves, but it seemed as if the beeps were getting louder with each passing moment. As the sound escalated, my eyes finally locked onto a decorative wooden box mounted at about shoulder height to the left of the door. The spectral glow of LEDs was just barely visible through the spaces of its ornate filigree.

  I flipped the thing open, revealing a very modern-looking keypad with a message in scrolling green digital letters that prompted, “Alarm… code?” over and over again.

  The LED screen continued to prompt me to enter the code while the chirping sounds grew louder and more insistent. I had a sinking feeling that once the chirps reached a certain pitch, the system wo
uld send signals along to the police or some private company.

  Wracking my sluggish brain, I tried to recall whether Remy had mentioned anything about a code, back in the stairwell. No, despite the cloak-and-dagger feel of that entire conversation, nothing about alarms or codes had come up.

  Dammit.

  I fisted my hand around the house keys till they dug painfully into my palm. Maybe if I booked out the front door, I could catch Lillee and we could drive away before the police came. I hated the idea, though—I’d never hear the end of her gloating. There had to be another way.

  Glancing down at the fob of the keys I white-knuckled, I saw it—a six-digit number written neatly on the last line of the little insert. Hoping beyond hope, I punched it into the keypad. My hand trembled, and I tried vainly to swallow the panic I felt welling up from my chest. Each key I punched merely added to the incessant beeps. Then I hit the final number in the code.

  Silence. Blessed silence.

  A moment later, the LEDs prompted me to arm the system. Alongside the number pad on the security interface were three big buttons. A green one stamped YES, a yellow one stamped NO, and a bright red one stamped with EMRGY. I pressed the green button and armed the system.

  Then I turned and really took in the luxury of Remy’s impeccably decorated home. With all the dark wood paneling and heavy antique furniture, there was a kind of unassailable weight to the space around me. Instinctively, I knew the security system wasn’t the only protection on the place. Cacodaimons and anything else from the Shadowside would have a hard time violating this sanctum.

  Feeling truly safe for the first time since dragging myself out of Erie, I headed off to find the shower, moving with the single-minded purpose of Ponce de Leon seeking the Fountain of Youth.

  24

  After the shower, I found a massive four-poster bed and climbed in, wearing only my jeans. Unfortunately, I did not find sleep. I almost did—and then my brain did that thing that brains often do when they’re far too stressed. It fixed on something important that had otherwise slipped my mind.