by Karen Duvall
Unfair as it was, I knew that to be true. The Arelim were powerful and possessed some magical abilities, but it was their fallen brothers who topped the charts on spells, charms and curses. The knights took mostly after their Fallen fathers and not the Arelim angels their fathers used to be.
“How can you be sure it was Xenia?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“Because I reburied the heart the night the Hatchet murderer almost killed me and Natalie.” It made perfect sense now. Xenia had watched me from our bedroom window and she’d run to tattle on me to my grandparents. I could have done without the drama. “She must have seen exactly where I buried it. Maybe you saw, too.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
He cocked a hip and met my glare. “Are you accusing me now?”
Rafe would prefer Aydin be out of my life completely and keeping Shojin’s heart would just about guarantee it. He couldn’t lie to me. It was against Arelim law.
He gave me a smug grin and wiggled his fingers in the air. “You know very well I can’t touch anything associated with a gargoyle.”
I frowned, realizing he was right. He couldn’t have taken it.
Looking bored, he asked, “What will you do now?”
“Now I find Xenia and take it back.”
* * *
Quin drove Elmo’s Studebaker along the dark city streets of downtown Denver. My heart stuttered when we rounded a corner and headed toward the same street the Vyantara fatherhouse had been on.
He must have seen me stiffen because he asked, “Are you okay?”
I breathed out a shuddering sigh. “Fantastic. This is good for me, really.”
“There’s a lot to be said for facing your fears.”
“I’m not afraid.” At least I didn’t think I was. All the things I feared were either dead or gone. “If I fear anything, it’s my past, which is ridiculous because it’s over.”
Quin nodded. “I know it’s over, but I think you’re afraid of losing what you finally have now.”
How did he get to be so smart? “You’re a wise man, Mr. Dee.” I had no problem facing a dozen gargoyles or a dozen nasty sorcerers, but threaten to take my family away from me and I’m shaking in my boots.
“I’m here for you, Chalice,” he said. “And so is Elmo and Aydin and…” He stopped for a theatrical pause. “So is Geraldine.”
I turned in my seat to stare at him. “You’re in touch with her? Through the veil?”
He grinned. “Almost every day.”
I should have known. I’d sensed something between those two, even if one of them was a mummified head. She wasn’t dead, just altered in a nonliving sort of way. Besides, I’d be the first to admit that physical looks meant next to nothing when you cared deeply about someone. “You’re in love with her,” I said.
The dark of night wasn’t enough to hide his blush. “It’s still too soon to say. We have a few obstacles to overcome.”
If anyone could relate to obstacles in a relationship it was I. “I know what you mean.”
“I believe in my soul that Geraldine will be whole one day,” he said, his tone wistful. “But I often find it hard to be patient.”
I was both happy and sad for them. I knew firsthand how painful it was to love someone you couldn’t have. “Does Geraldine feel the same about you?”
He shrugged. “Possibly. We’re staying good friends for now.”
That was the sensible thing to do, at least for the time being.
“I figured you would want to talk to her as soon as possible,” he said.
He was right about that. Though it was after three in the morning and I’d had no sleep in over twenty-four hours, we couldn’t afford more delays. I needed to change my sleep schedule back to days anyway. Operating under the cover of darkness was safer for everyone, especially innocent bystanders. I preferred being out and about when the rest of the city was asleep.
Quin steered the car to the curb in front of a magnificent church with spires tall enough to pierce the sky. It still looked like a great white dragon crouched in a city of asphalt and concrete, but the sight of it didn’t induce a feeling of awe this time. I had nearly died here, murdered a gargoyle here, and watched my adoptive sorcerer father bleed to death at the foot of the altar. The Cathedral Basilica had become a beautiful horror for me. And seeing as how Quin had parked the car here, I assumed it’s also where I’d be having my chat with Geraldine.
“I realize this church makes you uncomfortable,” he said, looking sheepish. “But it’s the only place Geraldine can come through.”
I heaved in a breath. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.” When I opened the car door to step out, my feet felt weighted and I had trouble standing. I didn’t suspect any supernatural forces at work, just my own mind playing tricks.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, I followed Quin to the back door and waited for him to pick the lock. He used a key instead.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “How the hell did you get a key?”
“I forgot to tell you,” he said, while opening the door. “The church is no longer owned by the Vyantara.”
That was good news, but it didn’t answer my question. “So who owns it?”
“The Arelim.”
I chuckled. “Very funny. Angels can’t own things.”
“Says who?” He preceded me inside and I hesitated at the threshold. “There are no ghosts in here,” he assured me.
Maybe not the woo-woo kind, but my mental ghosts were almost as bad. I followed him to the stairs leading down to the basement, where Geraldine’s tomb used to be. I stopped to gaze toward the front of the church, where mayhem had ruled less than two months ago.
“All traces are gone,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Go see for yourself.”
I sniffed the air and smelled dust, remnants of stale sweat from the occasional transient, and furniture polish on the pews. All blood scents were gone, as was the dead-animal stench that attached to Shui like a second skin. The church smelled clean, but I had to see it to believe it.
I headed down the aisle between rows of pews and approached the altar. I cued up my super vision and scanned every corner. Not a stray piece of shattered gargoyle in sight. Gazing upward, I marveled at the stained glass windows that shimmered in the moonlight. It had to have cost a fortune to replace what Shui had broken. If the Arelim now owned this church, it wouldn’t surprise me if the angels themselves had created the windows.
Feeling cleansed of concern, I turned to head back to the stairs. Shadows in the corners appeared more menacing in the dark than they should have. I chalked it up to a heightened state of paranoia and tried to look away, but my eyes refused. My vision pierced the gloom and I discovered the outline of a figure. At first I thought the murderous Maria had found me, but the body belonged to a man. He was impeccably dressed, his silver hair combed stylishly, and his black eyes stared at me with such intensity I thought they’d burrow a hole straight through my skin.
“Quin!” I shouted. I froze in place, unable to move. Nothing physical held me, but my own shock was paralyzing enough. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Quin!”
He ran up to stand beside me and I pointed at the shadowy figure in the corner.
“Chalice, what’s wrong?” He gazed in the direction of my pointing finger. “What do you see?”
My mouth was so dry I almost couldn’t speak. I managed to croak, “Gavin. It’s Gavin!”
Quin touched my arm and I yanked away.
“You told me there were no ghosts here.” My anger and terror twined around each other to make my voice shake. “Gavin’s dead. His ghost is haunting the church!”
Quin shook his head. “I promise you there are no ghosts here. The Arelim made sure of it.”
I jabbed my finger toward the menacing figure of Gavin, who continued to glare. “Then what the hell is that?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see anything.” He started to walk toward the shadowed corner and I screamed at him to stop.
He did. “Okay, I’ll have the Arelim sweep the church again. I’m sure it’s just a bad memory rearing its ugly head.”
“It’s not moving, but its eyes are glaring at me.”
“I bet it’s only a soul-stain,” Quin said. “Gavin’s death was so tragic and sudden that his dark soul must have stained the air inside the church. Nothing a little spectral bleach won’t wipe clean.”
I’d heard of soul-stains, but had never actually seen one until now. Ghosts were shells of those who passed on, and soul-stains were imprints of souls that died in rage. They were supposedly harmless, but a soul-stain of Gavin Heinrich could never be harmless. He’d been my master far too long and if anything could force his soul to cling to this plane, it would be his hatred of me.
I shuddered and headed for the stairs, rushing down them so fast I nearly tripped over my feet. Not even Gavin could make me run away from this church and stop me from talking to Geraldine.
An ornate tapestry used to hang over the vault door to Geraldine’s tomb. It was gone now, as was the door. The tomb with black walls and a rickety old table in the center now looked like a room out of Better Homes and Gardens. A wood laminate floor covered the twentieth-century tiles and the brick walls had been painted pale sage. Floor-to-ceiling curtains in a garden print hung on one side, and the other walls held ornate light sconces along with several framed photographs of lush flower gardens. A cream-colored chair and love seat were artfully arranged around a green braided rug. All that was missing were flowering shrubs and potted plants.
The room helped lessen my shock at having seen Gavin’s soul-stain. The colors and light were so lifelike I could have sworn it was spring.
“Wow, Quin, did you do all this?” I asked him.
“Mmm-hmm.” He straightened a pillow on the love seat and ran his hand along a bookshelf. He blew on his finger. “Time for the feather duster.”
“It’s lovely.” I lowered myself to the chair and surveyed Geraldine’s shrine. A pity she couldn’t enjoy it for herself. “Very peaceful. A perfect place to meditate.”
“It’s even better than that, Chalice.” He closed his eyes and within seconds the shimmering surface of the silver veil appeared on the curtained wall. It rippled in rings of undulating sparkles before parting to allow a woman through.
Not just any woman. It was Saint Geraldine, in the flesh.
I stood up so fast I almost lost my balance. Geraldine looked elegant in a long white toga-style dress with her golden hair cascading in soft waves over her shoulders. Her crystal blue eyes were pinched nearly closed by a broad smile that stretched from one ear to the other. “Chalice!” she said, arms open wide.
I leaned forward to embrace her, and only then noticed the transparency of her body. I could see through her to the rippled veil and delicate floral curtain behind it. When I reached out to touch her, my fingers contacted nothing but air.
“I honestly wish I was able to hug you,” she said, and lowered her arms. “The gesture was sincere.”
“You’re a ghost?” I asked, not liking that idea at all.
She held out one hand and tilted it like the wings of an airplane. “Sort of, but not really. I’m not dead.”
“Does this mean all your body parts have been reunited?”
Quin shook his head. “No. That’s why she isn’t solid.”
“As long as my head is with the Arelim I can take physical form even if I only appear wispy as a cloud.”
I didn’t mind. I preferred this to the shrunken mummified head I’d had to talk to before. This seemed more…natural. I twirled around slowly. “I love what you’ve done to the place.”
“Isn’t it incredible?” she asked, beaming at Quin, who colored with the compliment. “Quin knows exactly what I like.”
“It’s the least I could do for you,” he said.
The two of them held each other’s gaze for several long seconds and I suddenly felt like a third wheel.
“I wish this was just a reunion visit, Geraldine,” I said. “But I’m here because I need your help.”
“Already back to work?” she asked. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to speak with you while you recuperated on this side of the veil. The Arelim have a strict policy regarding the knights who visit. No mingling allowed.”
How could I forget? When Rafe wasn’t training me to control my senses, I’d been bored out of my mind. Yet the peace and tranquility behind the veil is seductive enough to block most yearnings. I must have been a special case because I got antsy to leave on my first day.
“It’s about your daughter,” I said slowly, gauging her reaction by watching her face.
Her brows made a little twitch and her perfect peach-colored skin maintained its healthy glow. She wasn’t real flesh and blood so her complexion couldn’t actually tell me anything. But her eyes grew round and filled with ghostly tears.
“Maria,” she said, as if tasting the word. She moved slowly over to the love seat and sat down. I marveled that her insubstantial body didn’t fade right through it. “I haven’t spoken her name in centuries.”
“We believe she’s still alive,” I said.
She stared at me then, her forehead wrinkling. “That’s absurd. It would make her over nine hundred years old.”
I sat back down in the chair. “My grandmother said that as a child she heard rumors about Maria still being alive.”
Geraldine pressed her lips together in a bitter line. “Dark fairy tales. Cruel stories about a motherless child who didn’t know how to deal with whatever powers she was born with.”
The chair felt suddenly too hard and I shifted forward to the edge of the seat. “It’s possible she found a way to survive all these years.”
“How?”
“By feeding off the blood of the Fallen,” Quin said.
Geraldine gasped and her ghostly fingers fanned out against her throat. “My baby, my Maria.”
“If she’s who we think she is, Maria’s not a baby anymore,” I said. “She may be the one responsible for murdering the knights.”
Geraldine shook her head slowly. “A Hatchet knight would never knowingly kill her own sisters, especially not without cause.”
“She’s not a knight,” I told her, and Geraldine snapped her head around to stare at me. “I mean, she was never admitted into the knighthood. She’s never been trained or mentored by her guardian.”
She blinked. “When Maria disappeared after my death, I assumed she had died and her soul taken to hell because of who her father is.”
“We think her father is the one who took her, and she might be living with him now.” I watched as Geraldine stared off into the distance, possibly replaying ancient memories inside her head. “What we don’t understand is why she waited until now to begin her killing spree.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Geraldine said softly. “I never thought a child of mine would be capable of such cruelty.”
“I’ve seen her,” I said.
“You have?” she asked. “When?”
“When she tried to kill me.” I licked my lips and scooted so far forward on the chair that my butt balanced on the edge. “I couldn’t see her face because it was hidden under the hood of her cloak. She stole the breath from my lungs and I almost suffocated.”
“Dear God.” Geraldine leaned back on the cushions, grabbing a pillow to hold close to her chest. I saw through her arms to the patchwork fabric underneath. “Her father could steal breath. It’s how he vanquished his enemies.”
I was fairly certain that confirmed the identity of our killer, but now came the question of where, and how, to find her.
thirteen
“WE NEED TO FIND MARIA’S FATHER,” I SAID. “What’s his name?”
Geraldine sucked in her lips as if trying to stop herself from talking. Names were powerful magic and saying someone’s name could potentially give them power over you. I guessed that’s why she hesitated.
“The Arelim will protect you,” I told her. “Tell me
his name and I promise not to speak it aloud unless I have to.”
She seemed to summon her courage by closing her eyes, but they flashed open with the whispered name “Pharzuph.”
The sound of it fluttered through my ears and shuddered down my spine. It made me feel dirty. “His name sounds wicked.”
She nodded. “Pharzuph is the fallen angel of fornication and lust.”
I didn’t consider sex bad, but associating it with this creature made it seem filthy. My heart went out to Maria for having been raised by this fiend. I knew what it was like to be kidnapped by a sociopath, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine her having to live with a sex maniac all her life. I’d managed to escape my kidnapper with limited damage. Maria, on the other hand, had been adversely affected. Something had driven her to murder and she enjoyed killing.
“Where do you think he is?” I asked Geraldine.
“He’s probably where all fallen angels go. Beyond the black veil.”
According to Barachiel, the black veil didn’t appeal to all Fallen. He wanted nothing to do with it.
“How do I get there?”
Quin took a step closer to me. “You don’t want to go there, Chalice. I doubt you could even if you wanted to.”
“We know very little about the Fallen’s domain,” Geraldine added.
I’d thought the Arelim would glean all the intel they could about their enemy, though come to think of it, no one ever said they were enemies. Estranged brothers with opposing interests, yes, but one had never directly threatened the other. They each kept to their own side of the fence. I had a strong feeling that whatever was going on with Maria was about to tip a precarious balance.
I remembered the black feather that had sent Natalie’s mind down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole. I slipped it out of my coat pocket. “Maybe this will help me.”
Quin stepped in front of Geraldine as if to protect her. “Put that away.”
“Why?” I asked. “It’s only a feather.”
“It could be more than just a feather,” he said. “What if it’s enchanted? It might even be like one of those bugs you see on the telly.”
