Brimstone Angels

by Erin M. Evans

  “What then?” the elf woman demanded.

  “It …” Yvon squinted at the remains. “It is hard to say. It wasn’t a willing mark. Or a very powerful one.” He plunged one hand into the wet mess of the orc’s organs and squeezed his heart, gently, as if testing the ripeness of a peach. Ah—there. The patterns were distinct, and he’d felt this one before. “Sixth Layer,” he said after a moment. “He was a Glasyan.”

  “So,” Lector said. “An orc marked by Glasya sought to openly murder an Ashmadai adept.”

  Yvon raised a finger. “A warlock,” he said, “and a supplicant. She has not taken the mark of Asmodeus yet.”

  “Always precise,” Sekata said.

  Creed snorted. “Nevertheless. She’s a tiefling—and we’re blessed by the king of Hell—and a warlock bound to the Hells. And a supplicant is still Ashmadai enough for bloody Glasyans.”

  “And,” Imarella added, “he did try and kill us all.” She nudged with one foot the axe that the orc still tightly clutched with one foot. Not once in the entire process had he loosed it.

  Lector smiled wickedly. “The Glasyans have obviously not learned their lesson.”

  “Perhaps if there were fewer,” Yvon said, “it would be a simpler lesson to retain.”

  “One moment,” Sekata said. “Are you suggesting we go up against the Glasyans again? You’re clutching at a creek here. All we know is that Glasya—or someone in her service—claimed his soul. That doesn’t mean he’s been acting on Glasyan orders.” She wrinkled her nose at the orc. “Besides, I’ve never seen such an ugly Glasyan.”

  The female tiefling scoffed. “You would do anything to avoid your duty.”

  “Well, have you seen such an ugly Glasyan, Imarella?” She turned on Lector. “Mordai Vell told you not to go starting trouble with the rest of her cult without having good purpose. Said we were drawing too much attention.”

  “We were establishing the proper order,” Yvon corrected.

  “Both of you, quiet!” Lector said. “Sekata is right. We shall simply have to determine by usual means whether or not this signifies a return to the Glasyans’ … obstinacy.”

  The portal at the edge of the grove opened with a gust of heat, hot enough to brown the needles of one of the nearest branches. A cambion leaped out. He took in the scene with a look of mixed disgust and confusion. His eyes fell on the robed adepts gathered beside the gutted orc and widened as he seemed to recognize the situation.

  “Oh damn you twice over, you stupid orc,” he said. Then he vanished.

  But not before five pairs of eyes registered the pendant hanging boldly from his neck: the scourge of Glasya.

  “Well,” Yvon said after the portal had closed. “I think we can all agree that’s a tidy enough sign?”

  “Where exactly are we heading?” Sairché asked, her voice dripping sweetness.

  “The chandler,” Farideh replied. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I haven’t been before.”

  Sairché gave the ruined buildings around them a skeptical eye, and Farideh flushed. When Sairché had told her about Bryseis Kakistos, one thought overtook Farideh’s mind and steered her feet: keep Sairché away from Havilar.

  If Farideh was so valuable for being this Bryseis Kakistos’s descendent, then so was Havilar—more so, because there was no Lorcan in the way of claiming Havilar. Farideh had only been thinking about avoiding the House of Knowledge when she crossed the Dolphin Bridge and entered the Blacklake District.

  The buildings of Blacklake had once been much larger and much grander than anything on the other side of the river. They made for spectacular ruins and vast piles of rubble. Here and there, reconstruction efforts shored up an ancient mansion, and reclaimed lumber crisscrossed the proud facades of villas overrun by the opportunistic. There were no shops, as far as Farideh had seen. This would be the next bit of Neverwinter to rise from the ashes, but not for some time. She was running out of options.

  Sairché didn’t know about Havilar, Farideh felt sure. Most of the time they walked, Sairché had kept up a nearly constant stream of chatter about all the ways she could improve Farideh’s situation. There was a smugness to the way she described powers Farideh didn’t have, devils Farideh didn’t know. Sairché thought she’d won already. She didn’t know there was another piece in the game, one that no one had played.

  And why had no one played her? Lorcan had chosen Farideh instead, but he knew about Havilar. Was he, like Sairché, searching for a devil to pay the right price for his reserve Kakistos heir? Or was he keeping her for himself, ready for Farideh to snap or break or even just threaten to leave?

  Havilar, who was reckless enough to summon a devil or run out into a strange caravansary or coax strange boys back to their room—what would a devil be able to convince her to do with careful words and subtle pressures? She thought of Lorcan’s barely suppressed impatience—what would another devil do when Havilar refused to do what they wanted? She might be lost. She might be corrupted. She might be killed.

  Farideh couldn’t let Sairché find out.

  “Your tour of the city is terribly droll,” Sairché said as they threaded their way down another street littered with broken lava rock and slipped pillars, “but don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Farideh stopped walking. She didn’t know. She couldn’t. “Oh?”

  “There is no chandler. You’re stalling until my brother finds us.” Sairché let go of Farideh’s arm. “If you don’t want my help yet, you only had to say so.”

  “Thank you,” Farideh said, trying to keep her true gratitude out of her voice. “I’ll consider it.”

  “Of course you will. Just remember: You will come back eventually. You will accept my offer. It’s just best if you decide to do so on your own.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Sairché smiled. “Well, it’s not an invitation to take tea. Now I’m sure Lorcan will have plenty to say when he swoops in to rescue you.”

  Farideh narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need rescuing from you.”

  “Precisely,” Sairché said. “I don’t make messes like Lorcan does.”

  The portal opened between two fallen pillars, and Lorcan bounded out, looking fierce and frazzled. He spotted Sairché, and without a pause, pulled his wand from his belt and let a burst of flame loose at her. Sairché ducked away from it and behind Farideh.

  “Fool,” she said. “Fire’s not going to—”

  The second bolt struck the ruins behind her, and Sairché leaped out of the way as a rain of stones clattered down where she’d stood. Farideh scrambled out of the way. When Lorcan reached out to catch her, Sairché sprinted behind him and through the lingering portal. With a nearly noiseless pop, it closed.

  “Shit and ashes!” he snarled.

  “Where have you been?” The words came out without Farideh wanting them to—a demand, a supplication, a plea for him to take control of this unbearable situation.

  Lorcan said nothing, scowling at the space where Sairché had been, tense and angry and thinking of something else, someone else. Of course, Farideh thought. I’m just a piece in his collection. I don’t matter.

  “Where have you been?” In the braver corners of her thoughts, she didn’t want to say any such thing. She didn’t want him to save her, not even this time. But she couldn’t forget that he had barged into her life nearly every day for the last half year on the merest of pretenses, and this time he’d left her with his wicked sister, who could take everything away. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking now that Sairché was gone. Sairché couldn’t take Havilar.

  “Solving larger problems,” he said. He grabbed hold of her arm and led her to a more open part of the street. “We need to go.”

  “Where? Why?”

  “Neverwinter’s not safe. Not anymore.”

  “Because of Sairché?”

  “No, because you’re toying around with …” He bit off the words. “Stop asking questions and come along, darling.” />
  She pulled away. “If it’s dangerous, then I need to get Havilar and Mehen. And Brin.”

  “We don’t,” he said snatching at her, “have time for that. I’ll get them later.”

  “If it’s safe enough to leave them, then I can leave the normal way.”

  His anger made sharp pains lace her scar. You’ve given over the reins already, they seemed to say. There is nothing you can say to change that.

  “I know about Bryseis Kakistos,” she said.

  “Bloody Sairché,” he all but growled. Lorcan’s mouth curled into a sneer.

  “Well then, darling, you must know everything. You must know how to stop the Hellish civil war we seem to have set off, and how to crush the nest of vipers you’ve blundered into?” He grabbed her arm again, yanking her close. “Ashmadai and Glasyans, and goddamned Rohini, the biggest viper of them all—for such a wide-eyed girl you stumble on a lot of villains. You must know how to lock Sairché in the Hells away from my warlocks and turn back time to keep that orc from being sacrificed to the king of the Hells, since you know bloody everything now.”

  “Orc?” Farideh said. She pulled free of his grasp once more. “What orc?”

  The rage on Lorcan’s face slipped behind his flippant mask. “No one,” he said. “It’s a matter of politics. You don’t need to worry about it. What you do need to worry about is being in Neverwinter when the wrong people find out. So let’s leave.”

  She twisted away as he reached for her.

  “Don’t lie to me—”

  “Come now, darling,” he said, the edge creeping back into his voice. “I’ve never lied to you.”

  No, she thought, you only talk me into circles. Not this time.

  “Did you send that orc?” she said. “The one who shot Havilar?”

  “Of course not!” he cried. “Lords, what do you think I am? I have no interest in killing your sister. Let’s be on our way.”

  She dodged him again. “To kill someone else? Did you send him to kill Mehen? Brin?” She hesitated. “Me?”

  Once more Lorcan’s insouciance shattered. “You always think the worst of me,” he said. “What exactly do I have to do to convince you I’m not going to kill you? Obviously saving you from the middle of a Hellish civil war isn’t enough?” Farideh folded her arms.

  “Answer the question, please.”

  “I didn’t send an orc to kill you.”

  “And the others?” Farideh asked, growing angry.

  “I told you before, darling. What would I be doing with orcs?”

  “Yes, you did say that. Did you send an orc to kill someone?”

  But she didn’t need him to answer. What he wouldn’t say was answer enough: he’d sent the orc to kill Brin or Mehen or maybe even Tam, and even if he hadn’t meant for Havilar to be hurt, she had been.

  Because Farideh hadn’t cast off Lorcan’s pact. There it was: Mehen was right. It had been her fault. Her flaw.

  “It sounds like you’ve already decided my guilt,” he said. “I did come to your aid in the midst of that unpleasantness, or did you forget that?”

  “You came,” Farideh said, growing angrier. “But it wasn’t because Havilar was in trouble. Or because I was in trouble, was it? You weren’t watching. Because you already knew the orc would come, and someone was supposed to be dead.” She met his smoldering eyes. “It was meant to be Brin, wasn’t it? The way you said he should have stopped the arrows … I thought you meant by stopping the orc.”

  Lorcan’s eyes narrowed and he tried to grab her again. Farideh struck his arm aside and stepped back.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “I was trying to protect you—”

  “From what? From having another person to talk to? From having someone remind me you can’t be trusted?”

  “From having him fill your ears with lies!” he said. “From having him convince you to strip away your pact because he’s afraid of it.”

  “You’re just afraid you’ll lose your set,” she said. “I’m not going with you—not without Havi and the others.”

  Her scar was screaming now, and without meaning to she clutched her arm with her opposite hand, as if she could stem the pain. Lorcan’s eyes were burning, the air between them boiling. He twisted his ring.

  The portal swirled.

  Farideh threw her hands up as he darted forward. Anger and instinct drove from her lips the triggering word for the blast. The crackling purple magic swelled in the few feet that separated them. The spell had struck Lorcan full in the chest before she realized she’d cast it.

  He stumbled backward and pressed a hand to his scorched armor, shocked. Farideh stared a moment, appalled, elated. Then her scar caught fire again. Lorcan spread his wings, and in his own hands, a spell of flames danced.

  Run, she thought.

  She bolted. Deeper into the city, scrambling over lava flows and ruins, Farideh didn’t know where she was heading—only hoping, hoping that she would lose Lorcan in the twisting streets. But as she sprinted across a square she heard a heavy, gusting sound—he was flying, not running. The streets made almost no difference at all.

  She turned a corner, skidded in the rubble that made the road, and crashed down on her hip, rucking her robes up to her waist as she slid. The leather leggings kept the gravel from embedding in her leg, but not her unprotected tail. And they did nothing for the bruises that screamed as she rolled back to her feet to start again, Lorcan’s wingbeats growing closer still.

  Farideh’s throat ached, her lungs burned, and her heart pounded as if it were trying to pump a well dry, but still she ran.

  She turned a corner, and there, as if an angel from above had deposited it especially for her, was a small temple, shining silvery in the moonlight. As brightly as it shone, the temple had to be new. Maybe with a priest. The doors were wide open and she made for them, pressing herself on with everything she had in her.

  “Farideh, no!” She heard him land, but she didn’t dare look back. If there was one place he couldn’t chase her down, it would be the hallowed ground of a sanctified temple.

  She sprinted up the steps, but as she made to cross the threshold, Lorcan caught hold of the back of her robes. She screamed and wrenched against his grip, the fabric tearing—as she fell into the temple.

  Her fall pulled Lorcan’s hand into the doorway, but as his knuckles reached the point where the temple began, they may as well have struck a solid wall. He let go of the fabric, furious and panting. He threw himself shoulder-first against the empty doorway, and yet again, an invisible barrier threw him off.

  Farideh scuttled backward into the temple, trying to catch her breath.

  “Darling,” Lorcan said, his voice sharp as a knife, “come out of there.”

  She shook her head. “Leave.”

  “Come out of there, right now!”

  She held her hands up, ready to speak the words of the spell. “Get away from me, you bastard, or I’ll do it again!” She would, she thought, tears streaming down her cheeks. She’d hit him with everything she knew. Burn him to ashes if he tried to drag her away again.

  Lorcan snarled and punched the invisible barrier. He sprang into the air and a moment later she heard him pounding and cursing at the temple’s other windows. They all held.

  Limping, Farideh entered the sanctuary of the temple. Incense scented the air, and the silvery light of the risen moon lit the temple instead of torches. Rows of benches faced a platform where the icon stood. From the altar, a statue of a goddess framed by silver eyes and silver stars regarded Farideh benevolently: Selûne.

  Farideh sat on one of the benches and covered her face with her hands. She didn’t belong here. She was as good as stealing Selûne’s protection while she snatched at the powers of the Hells. And while Lorcan howled and cursed at her for being so fickle.

  Gods, she was such a little fool, trapped in an empty temple and crying when she knew exactly what she needed to do. She wondered if Yvon could help her find a safer devi
l than Sairché could. The thought undid her, and she sobbed into her hands.

  The pain of her scar lessened as she sat, and the warm air and the scent of the incense made her eyelids heavy as her pulse slowed and her breath deepened. The temple was empty—surely no one would mind if she just lay down a moment.

  Lorcan was scared, she reminded herself. Scared of Rohini? Scared of … what had he said? The cult of Asmodeus? Ashmadai? She could still hear him pounding on the barriers of the skylights, and she curled her arms around her head to block the noise.

  Scared or not, he was still dangerous. Mehen was still right.

  She had to get out of the temple. She had to get back to Havilar and Mehen and Brin before anything bad happened, before Sairché caught Havilar, before Rohini—whoever she was—struck, before Lorcan did something worse. She shut her aching eyes, just for a moment.

  Please, she thought to the statue on the altar, please just make him go away. Please just keep them safe until I can get rid of him. Please …

  You need to leave, a voice said, clear as a bell in her thoughts.

  AT THE CORNER OF MARKET STREET AND CLOCKMAKER’S WAY, SINCE long before the ruin of Neverwinter, a stone building full of narrow, private rooms had hidden the Cult of Glasya behind the facade of a brothel. In some decades it was plush and fine, in others rude and dirty, but in all times—even, quietly and secretly, when the rest of Neverwinter was empty—the altar in the basement to the copper-skinned princess of the Hells was varnished with fresh blood at regular intervals.

  That day, the blood of its previous worshipers made the varnish.

  Yvon surveyed the carnage. Twenty bodies—or rather the combined parts of twenty bodies—lay butchered on the floor. Sekata had stopped Lector from branding them all with the mark of Asmodeus.

  “Eventually they will start to stink,” she said, “and you don’t want the Lord Pretender getting ideas. Let him think it was adventurers.”

  Lector had reluctantly agreed. He wiped his dagger on his robes, subdued. The Glasyans had managed to kill Imarella. Yvon felt a stab of pity for his old friend. If a lover had to die, better it was by one’s own hand.