Angelus

by Sabrina Benulis

  “It was the only way to restore your memories,” Sophia added hastily. Her voice cracked with pain. “Please understand. I went along with this only for your sake. It was Kim’s idea, and I agreed to it of my own free will. Neither of us could stand seeing you suffer anymore. Your visions—I know they’re frightening and terrible—”

  “How could you know that?” Angela whispered. She slumped against the cold table that had been her bed, trying to take everything in. Python had been the cause of all her misery mere months ago. He’d been responsible for luring Angela into Hell in the first place. And Sophia and Kim had bargained with him?

  “I know,” Sophia said, tears rolling down her pink cheeks once again. “All you need to do is believe me. Just like every other time. Please do that for me . . . Angela.”

  Sophia gently touched her arm.

  Angela bit her lip. She sighed and glanced at their surroundings. The gilded room was little more than a glittering prison cell. There were no windows. The velvet-draped furniture lay in heavy shadows, and the serpent mosaics on the ceiling played with her eyes this time. They watered as more incense drifted by. She spotted the doors on the far side of the room. Perhaps they were unlocked.

  Angela’s eyes widened.

  “Lilith. She knows how to open you, Sophia. We have to get out of here!”

  She ran to the doors and yanked on them hard. They didn’t even budge. Locked, just as she’d feared. They were trapped.

  “Do you know a way to get out of here?” Angela said. “Come on! Come on!” she shouted, stumbling as her grip slipped on the ornate door handles. “Help me open these doors. If we pull together—”

  “That won’t work,” Sophia said. “Python has a strong seal on the doors. Besides, he’ll know if you break them and get out.”

  “So that’s it then?” Angela said. She glanced around the room frantically.

  “Well—there is one way out. But it’s not ideal.”

  “Anything,” Angela said. “Just show me what to do.”

  Sophia sucked in a deep breath. She looked around the room, as if suspecting eavesdroppers. Then she motioned Angela toward its center. Now Angela noticed that a slab of carved onyx lay flat in the middle of the room. It was large enough to be suspicious, but small enough to escape notice without proper attention. A coiled serpent with glittering garnet eyes had been carved on the surface. “Help me push,” Sophia said, and she knelt down, already starting to edge the slab to the left.

  Angela knelt and helped her. The onyx scraped and screeched against the stones where it rested. As it moved, a thin strip of darkness appeared. A dank musky odor drifted up from the hole they were gradually uncovering. Finally, they’d pushed the slab completely to the side, exposing a circular hole resembling the mouth of a stone well. Angela stared down into the inky blackness that greeted them. “How in the world did you know this was here?” she said, turning to Sophia again.

  Sophia continued staring into the hole. “I suspected this was a sacrificial chamber. Python probably sends prisoners here for sport. There were many demons like him in the old days. Lucifel eradicated most of them—they were wild, rebellious, truly dangerous types that even she found repugnant. Python, though, had his mother, Lilith, to protect him.” Sophia shook her head sadly, as if mourning for so many unnamed victims. “Typically, this hole would be uncovered. Despite the decadence and luxury of the room, eventually anyone would go mad from being confined for so long, especially without food. Once they can’t bear anymore, the prisoner has no choice but to escape using this hole.”

  Angela felt all the blood drain from her face. “And? Then what?”

  Sophia looked back up at her. “Well—that’s what we’re going to find out, I suppose.”

  Angela stared back down into the hole. She couldn’t see a thing, and the Grail that was her left Eye wasn’t helping or making a difference.

  The incense in the room continued to nearly suffocate her. She’d hated smoke ever since her family had perished in a fire. Now, with those visions that had been assaulting her day and night, she’d grown to hate darkness as well.

  Angela’s vision began to swim again. “Angela!”

  Angela jumped as Sophia’s fingers brushed her cheek, revealing all her inner torment and concern.

  Angela held Sophia’s chilly fingers, and as she looked down, she saw that the white sapphire pendant she’d given Sophia no longer sparkled. “What happened to the stone in your necklace?” she asked weakly.

  Sophia dropped her gaze to the floor. “Its fire has gone out,” she said. “Perhaps because we’ve been down in Hell for so long. Everything eventually changes in this awful place.”

  Angela pawed her own chest, rubbing the gem of her matching necklace with her thumb. Even with her memories temporarily erased, her reasons for cherishing the symbolic gem had somehow never vanished. “Well,” Angela said. “We haven’t changed. We’re still together, right? We always lean on each other for the most important things, right? That means much more than a gemstone.”

  “Yes, we do share everything with each other,” Sophia whispered. But her smile was faint and sorrowful.

  “Then I think it’s about time you told me,” Angela finally said.

  Sophia paused. She peered carefully at Angela, clearly startled. “Tell you what?”

  “What that lullaby you sing really means. Israfel sang it, using it to guide me to him the first time we met in Luz.” Yes, Angela thought, on that long, long ago day in Luz. “And you told me it was a lullaby. And that even he, the great angel that he was, doesn’t know what the lyrics really mean. Because it’s your song. So tell me what they mean, and how in the world Israfel’s song can be your song at all.”

  Sophia’s eyes went glassy. Her face masked over with distress.

  “Well?” Angela said insistently, unable to stop. “Where have you been for so long that Israfel learned a lullaby from you, Sophia? How did you survive in the Abyss so that Raziel could find you?”

  They should have left by now, but Angela couldn’t help thinking about her vision whenever she looked at Sophia. As if the answers were right in front of her. But nothing about it really made sense. Even though Lucifel had remarked on Angela’s likeness to the Father more than once, Angela was a human being, not a god. Her soul was said to be mysterious, but Raziel had chosen her to be the Archon because it was the best choice available to him at the time.

  She wasn’t special. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be. Angela wasn’t sure she even knew anymore.

  Sophia’s lips parted. She looked at Angela and back to the black hole in the floor, as if tempted to jump inside to avoid the question. Then she shook her head. “No. You wouldn’t understand. Not yet.”

  “That’s what I don’t get. How could I not understand? I’ve understood everything else about you, haven’t I? I think I’m more than ready to grasp the rest. Why are you trying to evade the question?”

  “Because you’re not ready to know everything about me,” Sophia said softly. “That’s why.” She sighed painfully. “It’s time for us to leave, Angela—”

  “No. I’ve had it. Enough secrets.” Angela held her tightly by the hands. “What was the punishment you suffered, Sophia, that was so great? What could you have done to merit being in darkness that deep? When I look at you, all I see is kindness, and compassion, and beauty. You’re not a murderer or a thief. So what did you do and how could you be so impossibly ancient?”

  “I told you I died in childbirth,” Sophia whispered. “And that wasn’t a lie. And that’s why I’m what you see before you now. I’m just a soul trapped in a body made from scraps of my original one.”

  “Fine, scraps then. But what does that mean? I hate these riddles!”

  Sophia set a finger on Angela’s lips to silence her. “See? There’s no way you can understand right now. But trust me when I say you’ll know everything, and you will understand, soon enough.”

  “And then?”

  Soph
ia stared deep into Angela’s eyes. She pushed away some blood-red hair from Angela’s cheeks and then cradled her face with both hands.

  “You’re so sad again,” Angela said softly. “Why are you always looking at me like that?”

  Sophia kissed her on the forehead. Angela’s eyes watered and she looked down at her feet.

  “You’ve come such a long way,” Sophia said to her. “From that self-loathing girl I met at Westwood Academy not so long ago. That young woman couldn’t separate dreams from reality. She’d been abused by parents who’d labeled her as a freak and a murderous monster even before she was born. So she shut herself off and shut people out. Because she thought it was better to be alone forever than to feel the pain of a broken heart. So what happened? Well, once she saw that even angels aren’t perfect, she learned to forgive herself. She stood taller every day and grew prouder of how she’d survived so much pain. Finally, she walked tall and I could only walk feebly by her side, admiring what she’d become. That was the young woman who braved Hell and the Devil to save me from death—or what she thought would be my death. That was the person who said she couldn’t murder me to save the world, because she’d learned there is light in that world and hope. Angela, you asked why Raziel chose your soul to be the Archon’s. You asked why he chose you to make the ultimate decision to save the universe or silence it like Lucifel wishes to.

  “Have you ever stopped to consider, it’s because of the person you are?”

  Sophia caressed the matching pendant resting on Angela’s chest. “I never knew how, I never knew when, but in the end, I always, always believed you would set things right.”

  She’s speaking in the past tense. How could she know I would set anything right if we never knew each other back then?

  Angela shook her head. She didn’t want to just drop the topic, but the time to escape was slipping by quickly. Without another word, she squeezed Sophia’s hand and looked back at the dreadful hole in the floor.

  “Are you ready?” she said.

  The heavy incense in the room smelled as sacrificial and ominous as Sophia had suggested. It was starting to choke off air as much as it screened light.

  “I’m not fond of entering potentially bottomless pits.” Sophia sighed. “Unfortunately, I know my answer has to be yes.”

  Angela commiserated with a frown. She knelt down and felt along the inside rim of the hole. Her fingers brushed metal rungs. “There’s some kind of ladder. Thank God.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll go first,” she said, trying to be noble and brave, but feeling less courageous the more she pondered what might be waiting at the bottom.

  Carefully, she maneuvered herself onto the first set of shockingly cold rungs. Angela had to force herself to hold on to them as her palms began to numb. Slowly, she used the sole of her shoes to feel below for the next rungs, one at a time. A dank breeze wafted beneath her black nightgown. Of course she was stuck wearing the worst possible outfit for whatever happened next.

  Angela was already in utter darkness when she heard the rustle of Sophia’s dress as she followed, both of them plunging deep into the shadows to survive.

  Angela couldn’t imagine how Troy, despite being a Jinn adapted to darkness and tunnels, could live like this for so many centuries. The thought of her made a cold knife of guilt twist in Angela’s soul.

  Is Troy even alive? She saved my life when we first entered Hell, but I never found out if she and her niece Juno escaped. And then I lost my memories. I wonder if she thinks I betrayed her? I wonder where she could be? More than ever, we could use her help.

  Angela knew that last thought was foolish.

  Certainly, wherever Troy was, she was far, far away.

  “Sophia,” Angela dared to whisper. Her voice echoed against the stone walls of the hole anyway. “Do you know what happened to Troy? Is she alive?”

  Sophia paused suddenly on the rungs above Angela. She stayed silent for a while, as if she didn’t quite know how to respond. “She’s alive,” Sophia finally said.

  “How do you know?” Angela pressed.

  Another long pause. Angela could sense that Sophia’s mind was working. When Sophia spoke again, her voice sounded almost frantic, as if she’d forgotten something crucial. “Quickly,” she whispered. “We need to keep moving. There isn’t much time.”

  Angela knew that already. So Sophia must have been referring to something else that might happen soon. Without trying to pry any further, Angela forced herself to descend faster.

  She remembered that Sophia didn’t know where Kim had been taken.

  Maybe we can find him down here.

  Or perhaps someone else will find him first.

  Nine

  Troy squeezed her eyes shut. The lights of the room, however dim for her, cut into her brain like claws. After weeks of being forced to fight for her life in Python’s noisy Arena, the sudden silence stifled her, and her eyes throbbed painfully.

  The demon hadn’t been kind enough to blindfold her this time, but he’d of course remembered to muzzle her. She licked her lips, wishing for a way to chew out of her prison. Manacles had also been clamped around her wrists, and a collar with a leaden chain attached her to her iron cage. She’d stopped trying to slip her wrists out of the manacles hours ago, but remained saturated in the stench of her own blood.

  She was certain she’d heard Sariel—her half-Jinn cousin known to others as Kim—and the Book of Raziel speaking to Python. She’d even dared to hiss at the sound of his voice.

  Now, she knew that perhaps it had all been a dream.

  She was too hungry and so confined that the world was escaping her. If only she could see through the velvet drapery thrown over her cage. For months she’d been jailed like this, forced to fight for her life for the demons’ amusement, the thought of her niece Juno traveling alone through the plain near Babylon torturing her at every other moment.

  Footsteps paused nearby. Python’s distinctive scent wafted through the drapery to her like a poison.

  Troy couldn’t stop a growl of rage from bubbling inside of her. The fabric lifted from her cage and she narrowed her eyes to slits. The demon stood right next to her, leaning over the upper bars.

  She turned on him, glaring from the darkest corner of her little prison. Python was decadently dressed in a black overcoat studded with red gems. A serpent brooch glittered below his neck. He paused, probably alarmed by the predatory hatred shining behind Troy’s eyes. But Python’s fascination soon overcame his fear. He knelt down to what they both knew was a dangerously close position. Behind him, the dull haze of the chamber cast a reddish glow onto his hair and back.

  “The High Assassin of the Jinn,” he whispered proudly. “But thanks to me, no better than a flightless bird in a cage. Do you think you can keep winning your battles with only one wing? I’ll admit it’s certainly entertaining to watch. I see that the wound has healed over nicely—” His hand reached for a few feathers sticking out between the bars.

  Troy lunged.

  Python snatched his fingers away, but he smacked them accidentally against the bars, cursing.

  “It will heal even better,” Troy hissed, “when I medicate it with your blood.”

  “Always so feisty,” Python said, winking at her. He examined her fearlessly, shaking the pain from his hand. Troy stared right back at him, wishing he could see her teeth more clearly and feel her nails ripping into him all over again. The scar over his left eye always sent a thrill of satisfaction through her. That deserved wound had been Troy’s handiwork, after all. “It makes me wonder how you’ll behave,” he continued, “when you see who your next opponent will be—and how much you’ll owe me the satisfaction of making him suffer.”

  “It will be another Jinn,” Troy snapped at him. “You’re too boring to try anything else. And once again, I refuse to kill one of my own race.”

  “I just love your confidence,” Python whispered. He gritted his teeth. “The simple fact that you’re wrong makes me so warm
and tingly inside.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Tell me, Troy, what’s it like to be little more than a mangy beast? Of course you’re more attractive than most of your race—dare I say it, even beautiful. I could have made a lovely scarf for myself with those feathers of yours. Oh, and those piercing golden eyes. So enchanting. I can see how you hypnotize your prey so easily. Everything about you is dainty, and elegant, and lethal. I almost admire it. Almost, because—”

  He dared to lean in close and whisper into her flicking ear.

  “—because, of course, you’re in the cage and I’m not. Tell me, then, who is the better hunter? All those little victory bones and teeth tied into your ragged mess of hair, but you’ve only ended up another rat in a trap, haven’t you? Well, it’s high time I added to my own trophy collection.” His voice lowered meaningfully. “I expect you’ll go on doing your best to continue entertaining me. It’s your duty to enthrall on demand. It’s because of me that you’re the new Jinn Queen, after all.”

  He pounded the bars and laughed.

  Troy’s head rang. She would have grabbed his wrist in that split second and broken it, but her own hands were manacled and so she could only lurk, and wait, and continue to nurture the deadly promise of utter destruction she’d made to Python those few months ago when he first captured her.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just a few more minutes and you’ll be free for the short time I grant to you. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to release you from a safe location. I just can’t trust that bloodthirsty instinct of yours.”

  A purplish mist rose from the ground and covered his body until Python disappeared.

  Now, if you’ll be sweet enough to give me a moment. Python’s voice remained, echoing in the dank, musty room that was more a dungeon than any actual kind of chamber. Embers flickered on the onyx walls. Grotesque creatures had been carved in the stone. Troy recognized only a few of them. She tended to concentrate more on the wards written in demonic Theban meant to help cage her if she ever escaped from these iron bars.