My next smile was authentic.
"I still can't believe it. You were amazing."
She shook her head, causing her hair to fall in front of an eye and framing her face in the most beautiful way possible. "I was desperate."
"Not that much of a difference."
Walter wandered back over and Charis ordered a bottle of champagne. I imagined it was expensive, but this was our construction - we didn't need to think about money.
"So," I said, pausing. "I think this is the first minute we've had to rest since we met. Even that was... how long ago? It feels like a week and a lifetime both."
"Yeah, everything's been pretty rushed. Then again, time has little enough meaning here."
"Or out there." I remembered my battle with Abaddon, and what he had said. Ten thousand years, and for what? Looking at Charis, at least there was something to be grateful to have eternity for. "It's just... I don't know... if this were a normal relationship I'd be asking you about your childhood, and your folks, and your hopes and dreams. I already know all of that stuff."
"Maybe, but I think some of my opinions of those memories are going to be changing. This place is changing us. How could it not? I remember what he did." Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her plate.
Walter saved the day, returning with the champagne. She snapped out of her pain and watched him pop the cork and pour.
"Are you ready to order?" he asked.
"We're good with the champagne for now," she said.
"As you wish." He left again.
She raised her glass to me. "To you, and to Clara. Two bright points of light in the darkness of this hell."
I had raised my glass with hers, but I flinched at her toast. "We'll get out of here. I promise."
Her smile was hopeful but unconvinced. We tapped glasses and took a long pull on the bubbly, and then poured some more. I lifted it to drink, but she put her hand on my wrist to stop me.
"Not too fast," she said. "I want you to remember this moment, this setting. Commit it, just in case. One speck of normalcy in our lives."
I nodded and took in the picture of the restaurant, the vision of her, the breaths I was taking without being on the run. I'd been dead for five years, and only now did I feel any sense of peace at all.
It was interrupted when the other Charis went storming past, Joseph following behind her. She looked angry, and he looked remorseful. I knew what he had done, what he had said. I knew what had happened after, in the heat of the apology and the tide of the emotions. Everything was always so urgent. Despite our shared affection and the fact that here we had a child, we'd had no time for that.
Her look was mischievous. "You have a look in your eye," she said.
I could feel my face flushing. "Just a thought. Maybe a regret. There's something about you that Joseph knew, that I don't. Not personally, anyway."
"I could say the same about you."
I laughed. "No you can't, and you know it." Nobody knew me that way. I'd never had the chance.
She licked her lips, and then pushed her chair back and stood up. "We should do something about that."
My heart began to pound, the heat in my face intensifying. "What about Clara?"
She came over and took my hand. "She's fine in the car. She'll let us know if the Beast shows up. Come on, love."
I stood up, and her lips met me there, soft and warm and filled with passion. We stayed that way for too long to be appropriate, and when she broke the kiss I was a puddle of goo. I reached into a pocket and found a wad of cash, which I dropped onto the table.
"That should cover it," I said. Charis started dragging me towards the door.
We were out of the restaurant and passing through the bar. It was a stroke of luck, bad or good I'm not sure, that I noticed anything at all other than Charis, and even better or worse luck that I saw the smoke.
"Charis, wait," I said.
I stopped and stared at the wisp of white air rising from the bar. It curled up into the sky and then spread apart into perfectly formed angel wings. I followed it back down to a slender cigarette, and the cigarette to dry lips mixed into a white beard. The head shifted just a little, just enough so that I could see that the smoker knew I was there, and knew I was looking at him.
"It can't be."
I looked back at Charis, who seemed just as shocked. I had a sudden feeling our consummation of the relationship would be waiting a bit longer.
I walked over to the bar. Charis and I found a space on either side of the man, and leaned in. We were nice and close, and when I made eye contact I was sure.
"Avriel. How are you here?"
"Who are you?" he asked, suspicious. "How do you know my name?"
I stared at him without answering. Avriel wasn't supposed to be in the Box. Avriel had been set free. What the hell was going on?
"Well?" he asked again. "Who are you, and how do you know my name?"
Something had changed. Was Avriel himself, or was he Ross? Had he recovered that quickly? "Are you Avriel? Avriel the Just?"
He was deliberate, taking the cigarette from his mouth and stamping it out in a nearby ashtray. "Who wants to know?"
"My name is L-"
Before I could finish, he'd pushed his bench out of the way, and a wrinkled hand was headed for my face. I ducked under it just in time, but didn't avoid the knee that caught me in the gut and bent me over.
"Get away from me," he shouted. "Both of you. Get away from me." He pushed his way past us and ran out the door.
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water," I said.
Charis kissed my cheek. "I guess you still owe me."
We ran after him.
Clara was waiting for us outside, leaning up against the side of the limo. I did a double-take when I saw her, because she had grown up again. She was barely a child anymore, now a teenager with all of Charis' looks.
"Which way?" I asked her, skidding to a stop. She tilted her head behind her, and I saw his back vanish over the wall and into Central Park. "You could have stopped him."
She smiled. "I didn't know he was running away from you."
"Ross?" This wasn't part of the original memory, I was sure.
"No. He's not strong enough. Not yet."
"Come on." I hit the gas again, and the three of us ran across the road, playing Frogger with the cars and vaulting the wall behind Avriel. We raced along the path, dodging pedestrians and keeping an eye out for a suit with long white hair, but he was gone.
"Lost him," Charis said, pulling to a stop and looking around.
"Clara, you can't find him?" I asked.
"Sorry, Pops. I've got nothing."
I spun around, searching the trees. There was nothing but shadows. I walked over to Charis and put my forehead against hers. "Whatever he is, he's gone. We might as well go back to plan 'A'."
"Guys... gross." Clara joined us, her eyes sparkling in the starlight. In the moment, I wished more than anything that we were normal, and she were real. Was it crazy to love a figment of your imagination?
"How long until Ross levels up?" I asked.
"You know time is meaningless, but if you want some kind of measure... three hours? Maybe four or five? Until he catches up anyway."
Time wasn't as meaningless when you could never get enough of it. I took Charis' hand and started walking back the way we'd come. If plan 'A' was out, we could at least relax at the restaurant for a while, instead of standing around outside.
"Are you coming?" I asked Clara. She was standing behind us, just watching.
"Wait," she said. I stopped and turned around. A dark shape was passing behind her.
"Clara!" Charis tried to warn her.
She must have known what would happen. That was the only thing to explain why she didn't move. The creature pounced towards her, dark and slick and formless. A wraith, I knew. I had fought one before.
It was only inches away when Avriel burst from the trees, sword in hand
, and slammed into it. Caught by surprise, it howled and stabbed out wildly with a dozen spears of sharp oil that the seraph avoided with seeming ease, twisting and hopping to the side, then charging back in with his blade.
Its face snapped out at him, sharp teeth in a huge jaw trying to wrench his head from his body, but he planted a fist into it and forced it to retreat. The sword came around in a wide arc and smashed through the blackness, sizzling in the night air and bringing an intense smell of frankincense with it. The demon howled and tried to run, but it didn't make it very far. Avriel pounced on it and stabbed it a dozen times or more, until it finally lay still, and then vanished.
"Wraiths," he said, probably the closest thing to a curse the angel could manage. He looked over at Clara. "Okay, fine." He walked to where she was standing, unfazed by the whole sequence of events. The seraph fell to his knees and held out his sword. "I've been waiting for you."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rebecca
The ride was shorter than I expected, and it didn't make me happy to learn I could have jogged there in the time I had waited for Max to show up. According to the demon, the name of the ruins was Tambomachay. At least, the mortals who were there saw only ruins. He insisted that it was much more than that, and had been for nearly four thousand years.
Unless you were into archaeology or history, it didn't look like much; a few stone walls sticking out of the side of a hill, with a picturesque landscape surrounding it. At the top was a row of four square arches that had been filled in with stone to keep people from trying to get inside, and two more of these arches rested near the bottom right, looking like they should have been going somewhere.
According to Max, they were. What we were looking at was the newest version of an ancient home to the djinn, a complex that had been built by the Inca in order to both worship and serve the Divine. He couldn't say what had happened in its history to put it in its current state, but he was pretty sure somebody had done something to piss the djinn off.
"Glamoured?" Obi asked.
We were standing right in front of one of the arches, looking at the cement.
"Not a glamour you're used to," Max said. "Djinn are a little... different."
Obi knocked on the cement. It sounded solid enough. "'Ha-ha' different, or 'oh crap' different?"
"Just... different. It isn't the glamour that makes it, it's the power that keeps anyone out that the djinn don't want in, both mortal and Divine alike."
"We can't get in?" I asked.
Max laughed "Oh, we can get in." He reached into a pocket and withdrew a simple wooden ring. It wasn't one of mine. "I took this from that djinn the witch was controlling. Possessing something of the djinn's should be enough to bypass security."
When had he taken it, while the djinn had his knife to my throat? I found the stone in my pocket, and gripped it tight. It was easy enough to picture needing to call on the sword, and finding that Max had stolen it again.
He walked up to the cement and pushed the ring against it. There was no sound, no fancy glowing lights, or anything that would suggest the ring had done anything.
"Perfect," he said. He handed the ring back to Obi. "You can't see it until you touch it."
"Kind of lousy security," Obi said, taking the ring and pushing it against the cement. "A retina scanner would be more effective." He handed the ring to me.
"Trust me, muscles, only a fool walks into the home of a djinn uninvited."
I put the ring against the cement, and it vanished in front of my eyes, revealing a long corridor lined in marble and gold, with flaming sconces providing illumination.
"I guess that makes us fools," I said.
Max nodded. "Quite right. Let's go."
We walked in. There were no djinn here that we could see, but I was sure they couldn't be far away. They had to know we were coming, so I expected we were walking right into a trap.
On purpose.
Again.
The corridor split at the end. To the left, the floor sloped downwards, deeper into the earth. To the right, it stayed flat, but ended soon after at an ornately carved wooden door. From here, the carving seemed to depict two of the djinn's favorite things - alcohol, and sex.
"Not there," Max said. "This way."
We took the downward slope. It continued for a few hundred yards before evening out and branching to four corridors. These hallways were lined with simpler doors that gave no indication of their purpose. Somehow, Max knew where we were supposed to go.
"The gathering room should be riiiiggght... here." He stopped and made a right hook, leaving us staring at a smooth wall. "Of course, they don't want just anyone to get into their most important places. The ring?"
I pushed the ring against the wall, and passed it on. The smooth wall became a simple archway into a much grander room.
It explained the reason the floor had sloped, because the ceiling was a good two hundred feet away. The walls were mosaic, a menagerie of rainbow colored glass with an ethereal light behind it, casting bright shadows everywhere as though the room was encased in faceted gems. At the distant rear was a collection of fur carpets, large round beds, huge pillows, and a single golden throne, which sat empty. The Damned was clearly visible, hanging from the wall above the throne, a mottled and chipped chunk of iron with a midnight black hilt laced with gold.
Resting on one of the giant pillows was a woman, short and petite with long golden hair, dressed in a billowy purple velvet gown and covered in enough rings, chains, and bracelets to fill the display cases at Tiffany's.
"Hmm... this is unexpected," Max said.
I didn't have to ask him what he meant. In two rows running off-center of the room were cages, glass cages. Inside every single one of the cages was a djinn. They stood, sat, and floated, and looked generally unhappy with their predicament. A collective gasp rose up at the sight of us.
"Not a witch. A coven." It made sense. A single witch couldn't control a djinn, but a coven could combine power to do some pretty heavy lifting. "I take it the bitch on the bed is their leader?"
"I heard that," she said. She leaned forward onto her elbows and regarded us. She looked young, but I doubted she was. "You're fools to come here."
"That's what I said," Max replied.
The witch stared at us, amused. "You've come for the Damned. I'm sorry Samael, but you can't have it."
I looked over at Max. Was he Samael? Was that name supposed to mean something?
The djinn in the white suit stepped out from between the rows of other djinn. He had shed his top clothes, leaving himself bare chested, with two swords strapped to his back.
"Abaz," Max said under his breath, ignoring my questioning glance. He motioned with his head to the cage closest to the witch. Inside was a diminutive djinn in a green vest and black pants. His head hung against his chest, defeated.
She looked at Max. "Come, Samael. Don't pretend that you don't know me."
"You may know that name, but I don't know you." He didn't sound convinced.
She slid to her feet and put her hands together. "I wonder... You don't know me, you don't remember me, or you don't want to remember me? I was just a child when you brought the sword to Abaz, and asked him to keep it for your master. I was hiding in the shadows, watching. My name is Abalita."
"Abalita?" Max's eyes shifted back to Abaz, who had lifted his head to look at the woman. "I didn't think it was possible."
"For a djinn to have a child with a mortal? Neither did he, or my mother, but here I am."
"You threw your own dad in a cell?" Obi asked. "That is messed up."
Her eyes burned in green and gold. "Do you know how the djinn live, Obi-Wan Sampson? The alcohol, the gambling, the sexual gratification? They take on young girls like my mother, force them into a life of service in exchange for a thimble's worth of power, and don't even notice when they've died. They believe the world is for their pleasure, that all of life is for their pleasure. Did you know there are no female djinn? No
t anymore. Where did they go, I wonder?" She looked over at Abaz. "I imagine they just got tired of it and left, and none of them even noticed."
"I loved your mother," Abaz said, getting to his feet and putting his hands to the glass bars.
"You did? How long ago did she die? Do you even know how old I am?"
Abalita seemed to forget about us, storming to the cage and pushing her hand against Abaz's chest. He cried out in pain and fell back.
"You can understand though, can't you Reyka?" She turned back to us, and approached me. She didn't seem at all afraid that we could harm her, and I doubted she was counting on the one free djinn to be her sole protection. "You killed your father for the things he did to your mother, and to you."
And would have done to Landon. "What's your point?"
"You understand the need to take care of yourself. To look out for yourself. To count on no one. You did what you had to do. You can't have the sword, because I need it. To protect myself, and to care for my family. The sword has more uses than to simply turn light to dark."
"Abalita, the sword is Cursed," Max said. "Whatever power you are pulling from it will darken your soul."
"More than growing up in this place, an afterthought to the whim of immortal children? I doubt that. The seraphim and the demons have a purpose for humanity, as despicable as it may be. The djinn use us as nothing more than toys, playthings easily forgotten and discarded. So I learned to harness the power of my birthright. I adopted the women brought in to worship them. I taught them how they were being deceived, and trained them to fight back. Now the djinn are our trophies. Samael, you know how strong the djinn are. The power of the Damned is the only thing that keeps them in their cages."
"We need the sword," I said. I understood her pain, and her desire to punish those who had caused it. In another time and place, I may have been more sympathetic. I may have even sided with her. Not today. Not when collecting the blades was the only way to get Landon out.
"I know."
She turned her back on us. I pulled the stone from my pocket and willed the obsidian spatha into my hand. The floor began to vibrate, and Abalita's sisters poured into the room. They were witches, all of them, their power that of the djinn. I didn't know if the blade could kill them without taking their heads. I didn't even know if I would get to find out.
Bound (The Divine, Book Four) Page 13
