by Nazri Noor
“Now, here’s the rub. As grigori – as one of the fallen? I’m not entirely certain how the rules work. I’ve been cast out of heaven, and clearly, I’m not wanted back. But I have my wings, don’t I?” He stroked his chin, talking more to himself than to me. “I wonder if I would regenerate if I died.”
“How?” I muttered. “How would you know?”
Samyaza chuckled. “Only one way to find out.”
What? “No,” I said. “Sam. Don’t.”
Samyaza sighed. “Heaven’s allegations were true. My brothers and I loved humanity too much, and for that we were condemned to earth. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps our affection for mankind was always meant to lead to our downfall. Our demise.”
He raised his hand, gesturing at one of the walls. In my head, Vanitas protested.
“Dust,” he said. “Dust, can you hear me? Something’s happening. He’s pulling me. How is he doing that?”
“Don’t know,” I thought. “Don’t know how.”
Sam curled his fingers, beckoning for Vanitas to come. Even without seeing I could tell how quickly the blade soared through the air. And by how Sam jutted his chest out, I could tell what he meant to do.
“Sam,” I mumbled. “No. Why?”
“Because you have so much more to do, Dustin Graves.” He set his jaw, clenched his fists, then favored me with a smile. “Because your story isn’t over.”
Vanitas thrust at Samyaza full in the chest, spearing him clear through his torso. Sam screamed, a flash of searing blue light bursting from his body. Then he gasped, and slumped to the floor, Vanitas still stuck in his chest. His head hit the ground, his face turned to my own. The life had gone from his eyes. They were blue, like a clear sky. Like heaven.
Samyaza’s corpse shuddered as Vanitas pulled himself free, his blade smeared with the angel’s blood.
“I’m sorry,” Vanitas said. “He asked me to do this.”
“What are you – ” I started to say.
I didn’t get to finish. Vanitas stabbed through my body, his blade thrusting through flesh, through meat. As the sword met the cement underneath me, the star-metal clanged, like a death knell.
Chapter 30
I gasped, choking, sputtering out a mouthful of blood, what little of it I had left.
But Vanitas had started something. On the floor, Samyaza’s blood rippled, as if disturbed by wind, like water stirred by a pebble on a pond. Then it whirled, and sloshed, and it began to move.
I cried out again as Vanitas lifted out of me, leaving a deep gouge where he had stabbed me. Yet through the open wound I felt warmth returning to me, my torn muscle stitching back together, the shattered fragments of bone mending and reshaping as the many, many fractures and breaks all over my body began to repair themselves. My chest was swelling, filling with something new, yet so very familiar: raw, unfiltered power.
My hands pushed at the ground as I climbed to my feet. The pain was gone. I reached for the Null Dagger, tucking it into one of my pockets, marveling at how I was no longer on the brink of death.
I stared at my fingers, my skin. I could breathe normally again. I felt better. Not just better than when Bastion had battered my entire body, but stronger than ever. Samyaza had given me his essence, inoculated me with a dose of divinity. In the process, he’d surrendered his life in exchange for mine.
And I was going to make it count.
“Smash,” I thought. “Break his shields, V. Tear them down.”
Wordlessly, Vanitas set to work, assaulting Bastion from both sides. The smile was gone from his lips now, and I noticed that even Adriel had lost focus, his eyes flitting towards us, his mouth curling into a sneer. He hadn’t expected this. He was beginning to worry.
Good.
I raised my hand, my fingers clenched into a crooked claw as I strained to call on the elemental force of flame. The heat came easily to me, and faster than ever before, streaming towards the palm of my hand in a swirling, blistering spiral of white-hot air. It gathered there, shuddering, screaming for release, and as Vanitas’s two halves collided repeatedly with Bastion’s shield, I rushed forward, commanding the fire gathered between my fingers to manifest, to rage and to burn as they pleased.
My knuckles met with the gleaming rim of Bastion’s force field, the impact of my punch amplified by a gout of fire that roared with all of a dragon’s fury. I had never felt more strength, such arcane might coursing through my veins. I cried out as I struck another blow, and another, knowing that I would never wield this much power ever again.
Under our combined onslaught, Bastion’s shield fractured. It fell apart in a huge spray of glistening shards, tinkling and shattering with the noise of so much breaking glass. His eyes went wide with shock as Vanitas came shrieking for his head.
“At the last minute,” I commanded. “Stop at the last minute. Don’t kill him.”
Vanitas grumbled, but I didn’t have to tell him after all. Bastion lifted his hands, raising yet another shield, the glassy flicker of its edges showing me that he’d only shaped enough to protect his front.
Perfect.
In a flash, I vanished instantly into the Dark Room. For once I didn’t have to wait to step, or to sink into the shadows. For once I didn’t have to run. As I entered the chamber, the path was instantly clear before me. One step was all it took to reappear in the Comstock studio, the effect of the power that Samyaza had lent me. One step was all it took to materialize directly behind Bastion.
Null Dagger in hand, I stabbed him in the back.
Bastion’s shield failed immediately. Vanitas’s sword point stopped mere inches from his throat. Bastion fell to his knees screaming, stretching over his shoulder, screaming again when the blade tore at more of his skin and his muscle. It felt horrible seeing him in so much pain – and so much confusion, now that the Null Dagger had dispelled Adriel’s enthrallment. But Bastion did try to kill me, after all. What’s a little bit of backstabbing between friends?
“No,” Adriel shouted, his spell interrupted. The Tome of Annihilation slammed shut. “You’re more of a nuisance than I thought.”
“I’m going to be a pain in your ass until one of us dies, Adriel.” I cracked my knuckles, mentally beckoning Vanitas to my side. “You first.”
“Human filth.” Adriel bared his teeth, his eyes wild with rage, and to either side of him he stretched out the fingers of each hand. From every finger, from the blood clotted there sprouted a long, razor-sharp talon. “Cockroach.”
“Make up your mind,” I said, gesturing at the ground, already conjuring the mists of the Dark Room. “I’m flattered either way, but pick one.”
Adriel growled as he slashed at me, his crimson talons grown over a foot long, droplets of blood trailing in the air after every vicious sweep. One false move, and he would rake my face off. Vanitas battered at him from each side, and Adriel lashed out in his rage. Good, I thought. Divide his attention. Then he wouldn’t be prepared for the shadows.
“Surrender,” Adriel said. “You cannot – you will not defy the will of heaven.”
“Samyaza was right,” I said, dodging another of Adriel’s swipes. “This is all you, Adriel. This isn’t the will of heaven at all.”
“Filth,” he screeched again. So much like Thea, I thought, and yet so different. He rushed at me, hand upraised, prepared to strike, and to skewer me with talons as sharp as sabers. He came dangerously close to slashing me, to drawing blood. But not today.
I snapped my fingers. The shadows erupted in a tangle of hooks and blades, each somehow larger, sharper, more wicked than before. Adriel screamed as they caught his flesh, as spikes pierced his body from so many angles and pinned him in place. He struggled, just the once, and howled at the pain.
“Checkmate,” I said. “Give this up, Adriel. It’s over.”
“Kill him,” Adriel said. He was commanding the humans, the Comstock workers. Hell no, I thought. No way was I risking more innocent normals in this. “Kill him,” he said
again. “He who dares to defy the will of heaven.” He glared at me, his eyes filled with venom. “I will return, cockroach. I will heal, then rally my brothers, and we will hunt you down, no matter if it takes days, months, years.”
Adriel threw his head back, his hair cascading in a wild, fiery mass. A huge pair of wings burst from his shoulders. They gleamed under the studio lights, every feather shining with the luster of pure silver. He was going to escape.
I vanished into the shadows, but not so quickly that I missed the look of surprise on Adriel’s face. A second later I reappeared behind him, precisely where I’d intended. I placed a hand on each of his wings, then leaned in to whisper.
“This is for Sam.”
Flames burst from the palms of my hands, furious, blazing, and hungry. Adriel turned over his shoulder, his eyes huge with terror, his mouth frozen in a scream.
“No,” he wailed. “Please, no. You cannot.”
The sheer horror, the sharp despair in his voice might have moved me if I hadn’t already lost all sympathy. I stepped away, the flames licking at my fingers slowly fading, and I watched with dark satisfaction as the fires I’d created with the last of Samyaza’s power burned away the very divinity from his mad brother.
“No,” Adriel screamed, unable to move, to beat out the flames that consumed the last thing that linked him to heaven. Certainly not his piety, nor his faith. I shook my head, wondering how a fallen angel could have so much more integrity than a celestial who claimed to hold his realm’s ideals so dear.
I slammed the door to the Dark Room shut. Adriel groaned in pain as the blades receded, and he fell to his knees, blood dripping from so many holes in his body, his glorious wings singed to blackened stumps. I looked to Samyaza’s corpse, hoping that he had clung on to life long enough to see justice delivered. But he was long gone.
Adriel knelt in a growing puddle of his own blood, the auburn tangles of his hair spilling about his head, his horrible talons shrunk back into fingers. He clutched at his face as he wept, his tears streaking the blood at his cheek, at his chin.
“Kill me,” he begged. “I am nothing without heaven’s light. Please. Kill me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said. “Enjoy being human.”
Adriel wailed anew.
Carefully, I picked up the Tome of Annihilation and placed it in my backpack. “Hop in,” I told Vanitas, securing the flap when he disappeared into the pocket dimension. He mumbled something about slashing the grimoire to pieces if it so much as rustled its pages. Good old Vanitas.
I rushed to Bastion’s side. Around us the Comstock employees slowly regained their autonomy, muttering to themselves, to each other. Bastion was still on the ground, dumbstruck, staring at the spectacle that we’d made of the entire studio. He was still bleeding. I had to get him out of there, and soon.
“Come on,” I said, helping him to his feet. “We have to go.”
“You stabbed me,” he stammered, his face white. “You stabbed me, Dust. Get this thing out of me.”
“Not the best idea,” I said. “We’ll work on that when we get out of here, okay?”
“And where do you think you’re going?”
I blinked, and suddenly he was there. Royce. I groaned from deep inside of myself. This again. Fucking Royce, and all four of his Hands. We really should have restrained them.
“I am really, really not in the mood for this right now,” I growled.
“You really think I care about that?” Royce barked. “I’d like to see you explain yourself out of this. There’s a dead angel over here, what looks like another one that’s stabbed full of holes over there, and you’ve clearly shoved the same knife you used on me right in Sebastion Brandt’s back. Dustin Graves, I hereby arrest you – ”
“Fuck this,” I said. I reached for Bastion’s hand. “Bastion? We’re going home.”
He looked at Royce, then the Hands, then back at me. “Where are we going? And how?”
I tugged on him as I sank into the shadows, pulling him with me. He hesitated, eyes large with fright.
“It’s okay, dude. We’ll get you out of here.”
“Stop him,” Royce bellowed.
Bastion took my hand, and he watched, mouth agape, as his own body melted into the Dark Room.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, smiling, knowing this time that we would be. “We’ll be okay. Just trust me. Just trust in Dustin.”
Chapter 31
The demon was waiting for me in a pool of light under a street lamp, its bare feet wet in a puddle of molten gold. On a different night I might have found the encounter clandestine, mysterious, but I was too tired and too pissed off. I clenched my jaw as I approached Mammon, the Tome of Annihilation held tightly under one arm.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” I spat, no ceremony, and once more totally in defiance of entity etiquette.
“And a lovely evening to you too, thing of shadows.”
Mammon’s grin was strangely tight, meant to tease and cajole, except that I could see the tension in the line of its mouth, the twitch in the corner of its eye, the fluttering of its fingers as it reached for the Tome. Ah. So even the demon prince of greed was subject to the clutches of its own dominion.
“Sure. I had a great night. I had my bones broken and my blood spilled, then put back in place, and a friend had to die to make that happen, but yeah. Fantastic evening.”
Mammon’s smile dropped. “You are unhappy. Mammon understands. But is this not for the better, Dustin Graves?”
“Is it, though? Really?” I folded my arms across my chest, squeezing the Tome against my body in the process, prominently displaying its cover. Mammon’s eyes glinted. “An angel died to bring me back to life.”
Mammon’s gaze flitted away from the book, and it curled its taloned fingers into a loose, hungry fist. “Is that what your friend told you? An angel, was it? One of the grigori. Yes. A fallen angel. But no matter. A dead angel is a dead angel. One less member of heaven’s host for the princes of hell to worry about.”
My lips drew back, a curse forming somewhere behind my teeth, but I bit it back. Mammon is a demon, I told myself. A prince, no less. Sympathy wasn’t in their nature. Samyaza’s death meant nothing, and would always mean nothing to the infernals.
“Forget it. Here’s your damn book.” I extended the Tome, and Mammon’s lips parted with what looked like erotic anticipation. None are greedier, then, than the prince of greed itself. But Mammon couldn’t simply take the book from me. Avarice or no, a demon’s contract was binding: I had to hand it over willingly. “But tell me something.”
Mammon’s smile was frozen, humorless, its eyes burning with want, and with anger.
“What do you want the book for?”
“Mammon desires it,” the demon said, wiping at the corner of its mouth. Was it drooling? “To keep in Mammon’s library. This Adriel’s plan was foolish, so characteristic of heaven’s zealotry and blind devotion to its singular goals.” Mammon rubbed its hands together, its nails gleaming like slivers of gold. “Let humans be humans. Hell benefits from your debauchery, feeds from your corruption. Less humans means less power for the infernal court.”
“Then you’re saying that you won’t use its magic to harm humanity?”
“Give it to me!” Mammon shrieked, clawing at the air, unable to leave its pool of molten gold.
I stood perfectly still, feigning defiance, the fear bubbling in my belly. Mammon’s face had changed then, its beauty sloughing away to show the dread dragon that lived beneath its alabaster skin.
Mammon sank back on its heels, its body seeming to grow smaller, and it clasped its hands. “Mammon – apologizes for this outburst. The Tome has long been a desired addition to Mammon’s library.” The demon smiled, its teeth wet, its lips curved in an enigmatic manner. “Mammon wants the book for some pleasant fireside reading. But never to cast from it, oh no. Then it would flee again, and where would that leave poor Mammon?”
So I d
idn’t have to destroy the book in the end. The heat from within my core receded, the flames that had threatened to burst from the palm of my hand dying before they even fanned into life. The last thing I needed was one of hell’s princes holding a grudge against me.
“Here it is, then,” I said, stepping forward to place the book in Mammon’s hands. The demon accepted gratefully, making a soft squeal, embracing the Tome like a long-lost friend, rubbing its cheeks against the leathery skin of the book’s cover.
“Mmm. This has been a most profitable exchange, thing of shadows. Most profitable indeed. Mammon was wise to make an investment in a man so cunning, and so talented.”
I pushed my hair back, feigning humility, but Mammon’s words were buttering me up pretty successfully. “Pssh, whatever,” I said.
“Until next time, Dustin Graves. This contract is complete, the exchange made.” Mammon snapped its fingers, and a tattered, scorched piece of parchment – the contract? – appeared in the air between us, then just as rapidly, vanished in a puff of smoke and fire. “The princes of hell may require your services again. Mammon will be in touch.”
“Yeah. Sure. Don’t call too soon.” And I meant it, too. I’d had enough of angels and demons to last me a lifetime.
Mammon sank into its puddle of gold, the Tome of Annihilation cradled in its arms, a smile of childlike elation on its lips. Its head melted into the pool, and the gold itself seeped into the asphalt, swallowed by the ground.
“Interesting friends you’re making, Dusty.”
I looked over my shoulder, half-annoyed, half-smiling to see Bastion back on two feet. He had his hands cupped under each elbow, hugging himself to stave off the cold of the early morning. When we fled the Comstock studio, I’d somehow managed to safely shadowstep both of us all the way back to the Boneyard. By rights my mind and my body should have been too fractured to succeed. We would have been dead it if it hadn’t been for Samyaza’s sacrifice.
