Covenant

by Sabrina Benulis

  There was no time to waste anyway.

  Angela burst out of the bedroom and grabbed Nina by the wrist, dragging her down the stairs. She didn’t bother glancing at any of Sophia’s few possessions as they raced out the front door of the Emerald House. The necklace that linked Angela and Sophia together remained and that was enough. Everything else just hurt her inside.

  “You shouldn’t move too fast,” Nina said. “You’re still injured.”

  “We have to move fast. I can’t explain, but something bad has just happened and it might have been Sophia who was hurt this time. I don’t think Lucifel would kill her before I enter the door but—we can’t be too sure of anything.”

  Every second that passed was a treasure lost.

  Traveling from the area of Luz near the Grand Mansion back to the Emerald House had been too slow and difficult. Troy, Juno, and Fury could stick to the shadows and rooftops, but Angela and Nina were human beings with human feet. With Nina’s expert guidance she and Angela had taken a lot of back alleyways and tunnels, but they had been in constant danger. Blood heads were being stopped everywhere on the streets for questioning, maybe worse.

  They’d been lucky to reach the House.

  Troy had agreed to Angela’s wish to return so that Angela could change into an outfit much more suited to Hell than a blue evening gown. She couldn’t even look at the dress Camdon had sent her and had thrown it onto the floor and left it behind without a second glance. Her intuition about it being tailored specifically to resemble Raziel’s angelic outfits had been correct. Whatever demon had helped Camdon was also toying with her deliberately.

  “I don’t understand why Lucifel would kill her,” Nina said as Angela shut the door. “Lucifel needs the Book of Raziel, right? At least, that’s what I learned before I died. Let me know if the game has changed, why don’t you?”

  Angela stared into Nina’s hazel eyes, searching her out. “You do have a point. But—I can’t help feeling that Lucifel knows something I don’t. Or maybe she’s just completely insane by now.”

  “Maybe,” Nina whispered. She looked uncertain.

  “Whatever she’s planning, though, it’s not like I have a choice. I have to reach Sophia.”

  Nina nodded, snowflakes kissing her hair. She smiled. “Same old Angela, though you seem a lot more confident than you used to be. I like that.”

  “Glad to cheer you up,” Angela said. She still found it difficult to talk to Nina so frankly when she’d been dead for so long. She rubbed her left hand and took a deep breath.

  It was like she was hallucinating or talking to a ghost.

  “Now what?” Angela said, sighing. “You mentioned that you know where the door is?”

  Nina’s expression was even more anxious. “I do. I already told Troy and Juno, and they’ll be meeting us there. But, Angela, there’s something that’s bothering me. I know you don’t have time for explanations, even though I have a million questions. What have you been doing? What happened with Kim, with Stephanie? I don’t even know, and I want to know more than anything in the world. But tell me this—how do I know where this door is? I’m afraid it has something to do with the demon that brought me back. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you more than help you. That you shouldn’t go through the door no matter what I say.”

  Angela held her breath, considering.

  Nina was right. But—

  “You know I can’t leave Sophia with Lucifel,” Angela said, trying not to sound too harsh.

  “Of course not,” Nina said, pulling her back again. “It’s just that it all seems too perfect. I’m afraid they want you and Sophia in Hell for a terrible reason, Angela. I’m afraid that you won’t come back once you get down there.”

  Just like Stephanie had said. And what if she and Nina were right? Maybe it didn’t matter if Angela was the Archon—maybe she was going to lose this round of the game no matter what she did. But she had to try.

  Angela held Nina’s hand and steadied her as best she could. “You came back, Nina.”

  Nina’s eyes widened. “You’re right. I was in Hell and I came back.”

  “So what do you remember from your time in that place?”

  “Nothing.” Nina shook her head. “Nothing worth remembering anyway. My time there is already becoming a blur. Once I died and my contact with the angel Mikel was severed, I was no better than any other ghost in the Netherworld. That’s what bothers me, though. I should have departed to that high place where the other souls that promised to help the Archon had gone, but something or someone held me back. And here I am.”

  “We’ll get through this,” Angela said. “And then I’ll answer all your questions. But I’ve made up my mind, Nina. Take me to the door.”

  Nina opened her mouth but shut it again, visibly forcing her lips into a tight line.

  “And, Nina?”

  “Yes?” she said, brightening again, seeming hopeful Angela had changed her mind.

  Angela surprised her with a sudden and tight hug that almost sent them both reeling. Angela clasped her close, letting warm tears fall on Nina’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back,” Angela whispered, shuddering and trying to hold back more tears. “When you died, I couldn’t—I didn’t . . .”

  “I know,” Nina whispered back, also letting tears slip down her face.

  “I won’t let it happen again,” Angela said, wiping at her eyes. She let go of Nina and smiled.

  Nina smiled brighter. She rubbed at her tears. “I know.”

  Without another word, Nina began to guide Angela as far from the Emerald House as possible. At first, the streets were unfamiliar ribbons of ice and cobblestones, and then they began to sink down into the lower abandoned levels of the Western District of Luz. Very few people walked the alleys, and even fewer inhabited some of the ramshackle homes and apartment buildings. Those they happened to meet regarded Angela with open fear, sometimes running in the opposite direction.

  At last the candles disappeared from the windows. The wreaths stopped gracing moldy wooden doors.

  They descended into a maze of streets that became more familiar with every step, and then Angela and Nina stopped at the grandiose decay of St. Matthias Church. This was where Angela had finally found the beautiful angel who’d haunted her dreams since childhood.

  Israfel.

  The church was exactly as she remembered it.

  Angela crunched through the snow up to the chain-link fence surrounding St. Matthias, curling her fingers through some of the metal openings. The wet and the cold seeped through her gloves, and she let go after a short time, just listening to the heavy silence. Snow drifted in front of her, joining the pristine whiteness already covering the ground. More whiteness draped the building, reflecting the light from distant candles in a faint golden aura. Otherwise, the rich darkness of Luz’s new and never-ending night hid the weathered statues, the forbidding doors, the sad cracks and gaping holes in the stained-glass windows.

  St. Matthias was now boarded up, ready for repairs, but except for a few workmen’s tools half buried in snow, it was hard to believe anyone had visited for weeks.

  There were a few footprints around the tools. Bird tracks, maybe from Fury. Troy and Juno were sure to be inside already if this had been their destination. But Angela wasn’t a Jinn, and she didn’t have wings.

  Angela jiggled the lock on the gate. It refused to budge.

  I suppose there’s only one way in. Just like last time.

  “All right,” she muttered to herself, “here goes nothing.”

  “Need help?” Nina said, offering a hand to push Angela up.

  Angela waved her away. “Thanks. I might as well do it myself though.”

  “Whatever you want,” Nina said. She shrugged and began scaling the fence.

  Angela hitched her boots in the links at the fence’s bottom and started to climb, up and up, until she reached the barbed wire and had to swing her leg wide, hoping her skirt didn’t hitch on the razors like last time. Ang
ela swung her second leg over, and then lost part of her footing. She fell sideways, trying to catch herself with her hands on the way, slamming into the fence bottom on the other side. The metal jangled. Her hands chafed even through the gloves. A sharp pain raced up the side of her thigh.

  Damn it all. She’d cut herself anyway.

  A thin stream of blood oozed from where the barb bit her skin. She pulled off one of her gloves, dabbing at the cut until it stopped bleeding, peering into the darkness while the snow and silence seemed to increase.

  Nina dropped down beside her on both feet.

  “Since when do you have the reflexes of a cat?” Angela almost felt like glaring at her.

  “I was always a good climber,” Nina said, kneeling beside her. “I used to run errands for a curiosity shop when I was in high school. Climbed one too many fences in my day. Always thought I was going to die doing that, honestly.”

  “Curiosity shop?” Angela ventured.

  Nina shrugged. “It was owned by a fortune-teller named Mother Cassel. She happened to be a blood head too, though she had to work in secret, because the Vatican hates blood head fortune-tellers. They’re pretty much illegal in Luz. Sometimes I got the impression she was trying to turn me into an apprentice of some sort, or even pass on the shop to me. She always thought I had unusual psychic talents for an everyday person. Couldn’t quite figure it out. She used to help me try and interpret my dreams about dead people, because we’d given up on stopping them. It was a lost cause.”

  “Well,” Angela said softly, “not quite.” She stood and brushed off the snow from her legs. “So why do you think the door is here at St. Matthias?”

  “I don’t know. I just do. Is this place important to you? It seems like you recognize the church.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Nina waited for an explanation, but Angela motioned her toward the door. “Come on. The sooner we get in there, the better.”

  They ascended the stairs, and Angela listened to the gentle shift of the snow beneath her shoes.

  She’d opened the doors easily last time, as if by magic. Hopefully, she’d have the same luck tonight.

  She gripped the brass handle, pushing on it. God, it was like holding ice.

  Locked.

  “Great,” Angela whispered, stepping backward. She kicked at the doors, but they held firm, snapping back against the weight of her boots. “That’s just great.”

  A shudder ran through the doors. The wood groaned and splintered, buckling outward.

  Angela jumped aside, trying not to scream as Troy’s bony arm emerged from the hole and continued to make a space wide enough for Angela to step through. She waited for Troy to pull away and stepped into the church, ducking beneath jagged sections of door with Nina behind her.

  Troy waited in a corner mired by darkness, Juno near her legs.

  “You could have just used the knob,” Angela muttered.

  “Practice for later,” Troy said, hissing under her breath. She disappeared for a moment, and then she and Juno reappeared farther away, watching both girls delve deeper into the abandoned church. Fury croaked somewhere high in the rafters, her bird chatter echoing eerily.

  The church’s interior seemed to waver in the half-light, and it remained cloaked in white where snow had fallen through holes in the roof. Angela stepped down the aisle, cringing when her boot cracked through a frozen puddle.

  Unwillingly, she remembered Israfel’s voice, his breathtaking beauty, their dance together, and the falling feathers he’d turned into a sparkling rain of crystals.

  She remembered their kiss.

  Where are you now, Israfel? Whose side were you on in the first place? Maybe Raziel’s, but I don’t know about mine.

  Her angel had even called Angela by Raziel’s name.

  She closed her eyes as the memories came rushing back, faster and faster. Angela proceeded cautiously, trying to make as little noise as possible, failing miserably whenever she hit another puddle she couldn’t quite see. Then she was in front of a familiar and oddly pristine stained-glass window with a young woman, an angel, and the lily that was the gift between them. Angela turned around, certain that Israfel would be standing behind her like a dazzling star in the darkness, just like he had that incredible night.

  Instead, Nina stood behind her, appearing bewildered that this shell of a church held some kind of importance.

  But there was one problem.

  Perhaps it no longer did. “Nina,” Angela said with real fear. “I don’t see a door.”

  Thirteen

  My mother named me out of guilt. She’d dreamt before I was born that a red-winged angel stood over my cradle. He told her to name me Hope, but she looked at my hair and refused. —ANGELA MATHERS

  “That’s impossible,” Nina said gently. “The door is right here.”

  Angela spun around, her gaze darting wildly here and there. “There’s nothing here, Nina. I don’t see any kind of special door anywhere.”

  At least, not like the one from her vision.

  Oh God, this couldn’t be happening. Angela couldn’t have lost the game already.

  Troy snorted impatiently from her perch. Obviously, she wasn’t about to offer any further help. Perhaps she had none to give.

  Nina paced and rubbed her forehead, trying to think. She paused. “Have you been given any other clues?”

  Angela rubbed her arms, desperate to rein in her rising panic. “Just that the door was right in front of me, and that it could be anywhere.”

  “I KNOW it’s here,” Nina said firmly.

  Angela huffed in exasperation. She slumped into a mildewed pew and cradled her head in her hands. “This is awful. I feel so close, but so far.”

  “Try to stay calm. We’ll figure this out,” Nina whispered. It was clear she was forcing herself to sound more confident than before. “Why don’t we just take a minute or two to really think, okay? That couldn’t hurt things. Just a minute or two.”

  “Okay.” Angela nodded. “That’s true. Maybe I do just need a few moments. There has to be a connection to the door and this church. But what?”

  Angela closed her eyes and tried her hardest to block out the world—the relentless cold, the shivers running up her arms, the throbbing Grail, her desperation—and to think. Her mind wandered here and there, and she pictured the church and Israfel inside of it as he had been that long-ago day when they’d met. That was the one real tie she had with this place. She’d been trying so hard to paint his image, as if to hold on to something she’d lost, and had at last figured perhaps she should lose it after all. Now, she began to find it again.

  She could see his eyes, so large and so piercingly blue, the shade of the deepest seas.

  His hair shone a gorgeous color between starlight and silver.

  His wings stretched like white banners between heaven and earth. Israfel’s voice beckoned to her more achingly than the nightingales of so many poets, and for one cruel and impossible moment, Angela heard her heart respond.

  A powerful wave of longing rushed over her—the nostalgia for what had been, for what could have been, and for what should possibly be. Angela had decided to hate Israfel rather than love him. He had abandoned her and taken her brother away forever.

  So why, right now when she looked deep inside of herself, did that decision hurt just as much?

  It was like she’d lost a very crucial piece of who Israfel really was.

  And for some reason, it was her task to find that piece and put it back where it belonged.

  It was painful to admit but Angela would do anything at this second to see Israfel again and complete that task. She had to. Unlike the recent necessity of protecting Sophia, this was a mission that had been with her from some mysterious beginning.

  You would do anything? A familiar and gentle voice echoed from within her.

  Yes, her heart said without hesitation, I would do anything.

  With a sudden shock that sent Angela’s heart hammering
, she realized the voice in her head was Raziel’s.

  She opened her eyes again and saw the door.

  It appeared exactly as in her vision, except solid and completely real and directly across from her, set against a wall of the church as if it had been there all along.

  Nina gasped. Fury soared down from the rafters screeching in triumph. Troy dropped to the ground with Juno beside her, already inspecting every inch of the door’s black wood with blazing eyes and suspicious growls. She slid a nail along one of the carvings set in the door but paused at the metal doorknob shaped like a snake—the same one Angela had drawn away from in fear while steeped in her vision of Kim and Sophia.

  “This is it,” Angela said, approaching the door quietly. She feared if she made too much noise it might disappear and leave only ashes behind. Nothing about it seemed real now. Angela carefully eyed the creatures carved into the wood, part of her worried they might be eyeing her. Her gaze lingered for a moment on a strange horse with a menacing horn.

  Troy snapped her wings open, sheltering Juno behind them. “It is the same door that Sariel entered.” Troy’s voice was crisp with frustration. “But I could not get in myself.”

  “Sariel?” Nina said.

  “That’s Kim’s given Jinn name,” Angela said. “His father was a Jinn like Troy.”

  “Oh . . .” Nina looked like she wanted to ask more and her face paled, but she bit her lip.

  Angela reached for the snake-shaped knob, her heart racing. “Here goes nothing—”

  The metal snake came alive like a horrid nightmare, its long fangs snapping cruelly for her hands.

  She drew back in shock.

  “Now, now, dear,” a voice whispered from between the snake’s reptilian lips. “You should introduce yourself before gripping me in such a familiar way. Your name?” The snake returned to its original position and glared at her with orange eyes. Unlike Troy’s eyes, they bored through Angela in a different way that was also entirely unnerving. But this wasn’t the instinctual stare of a hunter. Angela couldn’t name what it was at all—and that made it ten times worse. “Come now, even I can see you’re in a hurry.”