by T. Frohock
She shrugged. “I can’t find Prieto, so I don’t know what he says. Engel wants to talk to Alvarez.”
The revelation jump-started Diago’s heart. Does Engel think I’m working with Prieto? If so, Diago suspected any “talks” with Engel wouldn’t be pleasant. “What does he want with me?”
“He didn’t say.”
Guillermo’s features could have been cut from stone, but Diago saw a spark of anger flash in his eyes. “Then he doesn’t see Diago. He should have submitted his request through a Spanish angel, or directly to me. Kidnapping one of my Nefilim and using her as a messenger isn’t how we conduct business in Spain. I don’t know anything about this angel, so until I have evidence otherwise, I’ll consider him a rogue.” He produced his lighter and thumbed the lid open and shut. “Now you tell me, Amparo: who are you working for? Engel, or me?”
“You, my king.” She knelt before him and kissed his ring. “But Garcia’s fidelity wavers. He spoke at length with Engel.”
“I know all about Garcia and Engel.”
The remark was calculated to elicit a reaction from Amparo. It was a technique his friend had used in the past.
Surprise flitted across her features.
Got you, Diago thought. “Agents provocateurs,” he said. “He’s using your own Nefilim against you.”
Amparo’s eyes narrowed at him. “Are you suggesting my loyalty is suspect?”
He’d flustered her even more. “Just making an observation.”
Guillermo took Amparo’s hand in his and made her rise. He reached into his pocket. She tensed until she saw the wad of banknotes in his fist. “Take this.” He separated several notes from the roll. “Go to Valencia. I have a safe house there. Ask for Rosalía Yglesias. I’ll send for you when things quiet down here. Stop at Santuari tonight and pick up provisions. Rosalía will let me know when you’ve arrived.”
The money disappeared into the folds of her coat. “My lord king.” She bowed and when she rose, she shot Diago a scathing glare. Then she slipped out the door, shutting it with a soft click.
Diago asked, “Do you trust her?”
“No, but there isn’t much I can do right now. I’ll have Rosalía keep an eye on her. Lock the door.” Guillermo went into the bedroom. He returned with a guitar case, which he put on the table. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Diago was certain. To run from the daimons was to invite a chase. For Rafael’s sake, he couldn’t afford a long-drawn-out confrontation. He needed to stabilize his son’s life, not bring more chaos to him. “I’m positive.”
Guillermo nodded and opened the case’s lid to reveal several blades, alongside brass knuckles, a revolver, and two speed loaders for the revolver. Diago chose a dagger. Although knives meant closer fighting, Diago preferred them over guns in the tunnels. Less chance of ricochet, and the blades also made excellent conduits for a spell, especially for one that needed the sharp edges necessary to cut a life-strand.
Guillermo chose a heavy knife with a wide blade. He took the case back into the bedroom and shoved it under the bed.
Instead of returning to the main room, Guillermo took off his tie and suit jacket and gestured for Diago to join him. “Save your good clothes. You should be able to find something to fit you.” Opening the wardrobe, he tossed a heavy turtleneck to the bed’s coverlet.
Diago joined him and selected a wool sweater for himself. They quickly changed clothes and shoes. When they were done, they looked more like two ruffians than a doctor and a landowner. The bulky clothes also gave them more freedom of movement and hid their weapons.
Diago’s sweater was too large. He rolled up the sleeves. “Do you think Suero has had enough time to get back to Santuari?”
“We’ll give him another hour.” Guillermo rummaged through the various sizes and styles of shoes in the back of the wardrobe. “Ah. I thought I’d left it here.” He emerged with a crowbar in his hand. “We’ll be going under, I presume?”
“Yes.” Diago returned to the kitchen and searched for some paper. Shoved in the back of a drawer were a dirty pad and a blunt pencil. He sat beside Guillermo and drew the sewer passages he recalled from his days of hiding from the Church. Within moments he had sketched a labyrinth of intersecting tunnels. He darkened the route he intended to use.
“Here is what we’re going to do.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Outside the rain pissed cold hard drops into the alley. A stray dog licked an empty food tin against a wall, while a cat huddled on a stoop and watched with envious eyes.
The rain had almost stopped by the time Diago found the manhole cover they needed. He dragged the toe of his shoe across it as he surveyed the area. No one was around, nor did anyone appear to be lingering near their windows.
Guillermo jammed the crowbar into the cover and slid the metal aside.
Diago went first, shimmying down the slick ladder. When his foot touched the concrete walkway, he moved aside to give Guillermo room.
Within the darkness of the tunnel, the piercing fear he’d experienced with Garcia on the subway returned.
It never goes away, Garcia had said.
Maybe. Diago knuckled down on the emotion. But I have to control it; otherwise, the daimons will smell my terror and use it against me. He inhaled deeply, calming himself with thoughts of Miquel, Rafael, and the warmth of their love. From the back of his mind, he heard Rafael singing his lullaby.
Sleep, child, sleep.
Diago’s crippling anxiety slowly reverted into a dull throb of uneasiness. The apprehension remained, but it was manageable now.
The grinding of metal against brick was loud in the shaft as Guillermo maneuvered the cover back into place. He descended the ladder more slowly.
Electric lights, spaced several metres apart, rendered just enough illumination to see. Great patches of darkness lay between the lights. Two narrow walkways flanked a canal containing black water. The stench was magnificent. Diago breathed through his mouth.
Guillermo reached the bottom of the ladder. He drew the crowbar from his belt and offered it to Diago. With a shake of his head, Diago declined the weapon. Instead, he drew his dagger with his left hand.
They followed the tunnel until they reached a junction of two passages. There, Diago motioned for Guillermo to go right.
The larger Nefil took a place in the darkness where he could watch for Diago’s return.
Diago ventured into the left-hand tunnel. The floor sloped downward. He switched the dagger to his other hand and trailed his fingers along the damp concrete as he walked. At the next Y-junction, he felt both walls. To the right, a slight hum indicated the tentacles of Moloch’s bridge were close. He followed the passage.
The tunnel narrowed until it became a crumbling stairwell, which led down to another level. At the bottom of the stairs, a small metal pipe jutted from a wall and leaked water into a canal. The new passage broadened until it was the same size as the one Diago had just left.
The bridge’s hum was stronger here, almost audible. Diago sensed the vibrations on his skin like an electrical charge.
He should be close enough for his father to hear him. “Alvaro?” he whispered. He wanted them to find him, but he didn’t want to be obvious. “Show yourself if you can. I’ve come to help you.”
The only answer was the slow trickle of water through the canal at his feet. He edged farther down the passage. A circle of darkness in the wall caused him to slow. As he neared, he saw it was a large overflow drain, the top of which reached his hips.
He paused and hummed a light into existence. Squatting beside the drain, he sent the glowing song into the concrete pipe. Rats squealed and clambered over one another to run around a distant bend in the duct. His magic died and left the conduit in darkness once more.
Satisfied the drain was devoid of any supernatural threat, he stood a
nd continued on his way.
He reached another curve and eased around the corner, calling his father’s name. Still nothing. Diago hesitated. Judging by the wall’s vibrations, he was close to the bridge.
I’ll go four more metres, and if nothing happens, then I’ll return to Guillermo. He counted his steps as he moved forward, stopping twice to whisper his father’s name, only to be greeted with silence.
It was no good. He wasn’t going to trip whatever ambush the daimons planned for him. Damn it. There was nothing to do now but go back to Guillermo and devise a different strategy.
Just as he turned to retrace his steps, the light over his head dimmed, and then brightened again. The wall vibrated more strongly beneath his fingers.
Maybe I haven’t failed, after all.
He wasn’t sure whether to be glad or afraid. Fear won. Sweat crawled across his scalp as he looked over his shoulder. In the blackness between two electric lights, the bridge’s purple tentacles oozed into the tunnel. On the other side of the bridge, the faint outline of a person wavered as someone approached the border.
Diago squinted and tried to detect whether the silhouette belonged to a male or female. It was impossible to tell. He tried again. “Father?”
The shape became clear. “Diago?” It was Alvaro.
Diago exhaled slowly.
The colors of Moloch’s magic still encased Alvaro’s soul. He touched the border of the bridge. The boundary’s shadows flowed around him, bursting into vibrations of reds and deeper shades of sangria. The darkness momentarily obscured the sight of him.
Alvaro retreated until the explosion of color faded. “You came.” His voice was weak, probably strained from fighting Moloch’s chains. “Help me, son. Take my hand. Help me cross over.”
The pain in Alvaro’s voice was so real, Diago took a step toward him before he caught himself. Careful. Look closely. Guillermo was right. I must see what is true, not what I wish. “You crossed to the mortal side at the metro. Why can’t you cross now?”
Alvaro appeared unruffled by the question, almost as if he expected it. “Moloch punished my transgression. He strengthened the chains holding me to his realm.”
The beams of the electric light over Diago’s head barely reached his father’s face. Yet the word LIAR seemed fainter. Could it be a trick of the light? He examined the scars. Although the cuts still oozed black drops of blood, the wounds seemed to be healing.
Diago frowned. Blood. If he was a ghost, how did he bleed? And his eyes. What has happened to his eyes? No longer green like Diago’s, red and umber sparks floated in place of Alvaro’s irises and pupils.
Shocked, Diago forgot any pretense at deception. His disbelief was real. “What has happened to you?”
“Moloch has changed me. He holds me captive.” Alvaro tried to push forward again, sending off another disturbance through the currents of the bridge’s song. Defeated, he fell back until the colors dimmed. “I can’t do this without you, Diago. You’re my only hope. You have to save me.”
Did he? Diago reexamined Moloch’s vibrations, which surrounded Alvaro. The corrupted sound waves of puce and gray pumped Moloch’s magic into Alvaro’s ghost. The threads of the spell pulsed, not like chains, but like an umbilical cord. Another hot wave of fear washed over Diago.
This was a birthing song.
How did I miss it? He tried to reconcile the enchantment before his eyes with the image he had glimpsed from the subway car. Everything was the same, the colors, the song—all that had changed was his focus and his proximity to Alvaro. On the train he had been intent on the words Alvaro shaped from the smoke, a sleight of hand which had distracted Diago from the spell around his father. But the words were unimportant. Alvaro tantalized me with a mystery so I would come to the bridge for answers.
What he’d missed on the metro was obvious to him now. Moloch was changing Alvaro into something else—a creature never before encountered by either daimon or angel.
“You lie,” Diago finally said. “You are being reborn.” And his father was obviously at a critical point in the process. If he crossed into the mortal realm, and the link was accidentally severed, then they would have to begin again.
Alvaro didn’t deny it. “Moloch is turning me into a new kind of soldier. An experiment. Like you.” He couldn’t hide the pride in his voice.
“You’ve sold your soul to them.” Diago wasn’t sure why he felt so betrayed. Because I’d hoped—in spite of everything I knew about Alvaro, I’d hoped I was wrong—and Guillermo had seen my hope, and it made him afraid for me.
“It’s not what you think.” Alvaro’s voice was slick like oil and his words just as treacherous. “The blood I drank throughout the centuries bound my spirit to the mortal plane. I was dead. I was not. Every womb I tried to enter rejected my tarnished soul, and I could not be reborn. Moloch captured me. He and the other daimons branded me.” He pointed to the word LIAR on his forehead, but the gashes were fainter, more like welts than cuts. “They hold me captive and force me to do their will. Please, I beg you, save me from this hell, Diago.”
If the daimons had truly branded Alvaro, the wound would never close. Yet the cuts on his forehead were healing. Diago was certain of it now. My eyes are opening, and I am beginning to see like a Nefil once more.
Another thought jarred Diago. He’s distracting me with his chatter. Throwing me off guard so Lamashtu can attack. He glanced over his shoulder. The ambush was in place. The others should come now. But the passage behind him remained empty.
Where was Lamashtu? On the other side of the bridge, closer to the subway tracks? If she remained within Elena’s body, then she might take longer to arrive. And Moloch’s other two ‘aulaqs. Where were they? Did they guard the injured daimon? Or were they circling through the passages to cut him off from Guillermo?
Surely Moloch hadn’t sent Alvaro alone.
Alvaro seemed to guess Diago’s thoughts. “There are no others,” he said. A drop of black blood seeped into his eye and sizzled in the fires burning within. “Help me, Diago, like I helped you deceive Moloch.” He reached out his hand. “We cheated him of his deepest desire—to feed on a dual born child.”
No. That wasn’t right. Diago thought back to his initial encounter with Prieto. “Prieto said Moloch demanded the child of a Nefil in exchange for his idea. He said nothing about a dual born child.”
Alvaro frowned. “Why do you think Candela chose you, my son?”
The memory of the angel’s enchantment rose to haunt him. She promised me a song and insisted no other Nefil would do.
Now he knew why. The facts clicked together and formed a seamless tapestry of deceit. Both the angels and the daimons had spent centuries experimenting with genetics in order to create the perfect Nefil—the perfect soldier. The angels possessed the ability to give Moloch what he needed—the angelic spirit—the one thing the daimons couldn’t replicate in their Nefilim.
That explained why Moloch worked so closely with the angels. He used his idea for the bomb as both incentive and bait to lure the angels into creating such a child. But why?
Because it wasn’t Moloch’s plan—it was Ba’al’s. The thought struck Diago like a blow. The daimon king had unified his divided tribes. While the angels were distracted by the rivalries within their own ranks, Ba’al prepared his daimonic armies to take full advantage of the conflict with a new race of Nefilim.
“You son of a bitch.” Diago’s breath was tight in his throat. “You’re using me to create a new breed of Nefilim.”
Alvaro opened his mouth, but Diago cut him off before he could speak. “Moloch never had any intention of feeding on Rafael. He wanted to raise the child as a daimon. The only reason he allowed Prieto to dictate the terms of the meeting was because the daimons wanted to test my allegiance one last time. When you saw I’d substituted a golem for Rafael, you went along
with my deception, knowing I would inadvertently lead Moloch to Rafael.”
“Think about it, son.” Alvaro narrowed his eyes. “Moloch murdered me. He murdered your father!”
Look closely at his lies. Think like a daimon. Prieto was right. Alvaro’s allegiance had always been to the highest bidder. His father’s pride about his new form was the second clue. The patterns fit together neatly.
Diago said, “You were tired of crawling through the night, sucking the blood out of drunks and addicts. The only way you could change was to die, but Moloch wasn’t going to allow your death to be wasted. It was all merely a matter of timing for maximum effect. Yet another test for me.” He glanced over his shoulder again. The tunnel remained empty. “Moloch simply underestimated Rafael’s power, and my love for my son.”
Alvaro’s fingers curled like the legs of a dying spider. “Love? You don’t know what love is. Love is giving up your child for a greater cause, like I gave you to the daimon-born Nefilim. I taught you betrayal. I taught you hate. I gave you to your aunt so she could train you.”
Cold now, Diago watched his father the way he would observe a viper. “You told her to sell me, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. How else were you going to learn your true nature?” The fires in Alvaro’s eyes flared.
“And I wanted to believe you had some good in you. But I know what you are now.” Diago spat. I know and I will never wonder again. While the closure should have brought him some sense of relief, Diago felt nothing but sorrow. It was as if Alvaro had died.
Not Alvaro. It’s my hope that has died. I mourn any chance my father might have loved me. Diago backed away.
Alvaro didn’t follow him. He doesn’t because he can’t. He’s already stretched to the limit of Moloch’s umbilical cord.
