The Prison of the Angels (The Book of the Watchers 3)

by Janine Ashbless

  All the breath left my lungs. This was unthinkable. Something was emerging that I’d never seen in him.

  Egan. Egan. Egan.

  “But—” He looked away abruptly. “You wouldn’t want me. If you knew me… I’m not right for you, not right for anyone. The Church will have me. It can use me. It makes demands and it is correct to do so. There’s a wall between us and that is the way it should be—for your sake. Not mine.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “If I knew you?”

  “I’m not right, Milja.” Distress was showing now, perhaps even visible to anyone watching from a distance; he lifted his hand to his head, but didn’t touch it, as if he were afraid the brush of his glove would detonate a mine planted in there. “I’m a fuck-up in ways you can’t imagine. I can’t give you what you want. I wish I could. With all my heart… I want that, more than anything. But it’s not about wanting. I just can’t.”

  I didn’t know what to say. That’s not true was on my lips, but I knew I was way out of my depth. I had no idea what Egan was referring to. I knew so little about what he’d done in his life, except that much of it had been awful and bloody and terrifyingly isolating. He’d confessed that he’d had a nervous breakdown. He’d fled to the Church because it gave him purpose and righteousness and a goal in life. And absolution. From the look in his eyes it was absolution he’d needed most of all.

  Father Giuseppe had asked him how far his candor stretched. ‘To the doors of the confessional,’ he’d answered.

  Egan, what have you done?

  Several figures emerged from the guard-hut and began walking toward us. At least two of them were holding rifles.

  “Egan,” I said swiftly, because we were out of time. “I don’t know what’s wrong—but I love you, and you love me, and if we both get through this you can tell me. Anything. Maybe you’re right, and that’s the end of us. And maybe not. Give us a chance.” But I need to know.

  He pulled the sunglasses back down over his eyes. And at that moment something dark shot across the snowfield in an arc, close enough to make me flinch.

  I spun, trying to work out what it was.

  A bird. A big bird, black as sin, with stiff, wide wings; a carrion crow perhaps? It swung past us again and I saw its inky eye flick momentarily to silver.

  Azazel!

  The Norwegians were talking excitedly.

  It swung in for a third pass, and this time it landed on my left shoulder. It took every nerve in my body to keep still and upright. I squinted up at an axe-head profile and a dark beak heavy enough to punch clean through the back of lambs’ skulls.

  Egan took several steps backward.

  “Pruk-pruk,” it said in a deep voice.

  Not a crow. A raven.

  Even as I wondered if ravens were native to the Jotunheimen Mountains, and—if not—how far he’d forced this body to fly, a second bird swooped down into view. I lifted my right wrist and it dropped down to perch, its flapping wingtip fanning my face.

  This one had, very briefly, eyes of molten gold.

  “Hugin,” came the voices of the Norwegians: “Munin.”

  “Oh,” mouthed Egan. “Very clever.” I saw with a pang that his face had closed again to that inscrutable, all-too-familiar mask.

  But he was right. And I knew instinctively that this was Penemuel’s particular brand of cleverness in action. The Norse god Odin, I recalled, had two attendant ravens: Thought and Memory. There could hardly be a clearer demonstration than this, to the pagan faithful, of divine favor bestowed on a völva.

  And hidden away like that inside living bodies, the two fallen angels were invisible to the Host. Even on consecrated ground.

  Ravens represent wisdom, don’t they? And death too. How horribly appropriate for these two.

  “This way, Lady Milja,” Harald called. “They will take you to the goði.”

  I gave Egan one last look, longing to have a few minutes more conversation with him, yearning to connect to those masked depths. But he’d already turned away, unknowable.

  We trudged across the snow to join the guards, who stared wide-eyed and spoke in undertones to each other. I wished I could understand Norwegian. The ravens weren’t nearly as heavy as they looked for such big creatures, but it was still an effort to hold my arm steady under Penemuel’s weight and I was relieved when she flipped off my wrist and landed on Egan’s shoulder instead. He flinched but didn’t bat her off, not even when she ran her beak along his cheek and nibbled at him gently.

  They walked us through the outer gate and up a slippery track of beaten snow to the inner fence. One of the guards stopped there and waved us onward, through an electronic gate with a security keypad. Harald and two remaining guards accompanied us all the way to the building. The prefabricated structure nestled against a sheer cliff-face, and I took a good look and decided that there must be more to it than was obvious. It’s not big enough. They’ve tunneled back into the mountain, I bet.

  “This way,” said the guards gruffly at the door.

  I won my bet. The single room inside was nothing but a cloakroom for outdoor clothes, with racks of skis and a bank of lockers and a deserted reception desk. Everyone started to shed their outer layers—those of us who had bothered with insulation. Egan was wearing a fleece hoodie beneath his outer snow-coat. He had the gun concealed somewhere, I knew.

  They won’t frisk us, I told myself. They won’t spot we’re armed.

  Almost as if they’d heard me, the ravens hopped onto the counter and scuffled up and down uttering raucous croaks, providing a welcome distraction. The guards weren’t sure whether to laugh or be nervously impressed, but every time they took their eyes off the birds, one would flap up onto their heads as if playing with them. In the end they just waved us onward.

  We stepped through a set of wooden doors, then a set of black glass ones, and found ourselves in the lobby proper.

  It was like a different world. Outside, austere and freezing. In here, the heating cranked up to max, in what appeared to be the atrium of a very upmarket hotel. Little circles of upholstered chairs surrounded coffee tables. There was a polished leather-faced bar, evidently well-stocked, with attractive young staff. There was an unsupported, cantilevered staircase of polished wood leading to a balcony floor. There was a baby grand piano—How much did it cost to fly in a piano by helicopter? I asked myself—and chandeliers that reflected a constellation of LED bulbs. But what really drew my eye was the Tree.

  “Wait here,” said the guard, pointing us at a cluster of armchairs.

  I sat obediently, open-mouthed, while Harald disappeared with the guards toward the rear of the lobby.

  The Tree; it dominated the room. Bare branches stretched up and met a vaulted wood-clad ceiling. The trunk was so large I couldn’t have circled it with my arms, and was richly carved. Glass leaves sparkled. It was a forest oak stripped and varnished and brought up here to a mountain where no tree grew, just to awe visitors.

  The ravens flew up into the branches immediately, and hopped about muttering to themselves.

  “Lot of money in this place,” said Egan in a low voice. He hadn’t sat down; he stood over me protectively, arms folded. His gaze flicked around the room, and the people loitering there. “International clientele.”

  I noted a heavyset middle-aged man with an obvious trophy girlfriend. He had a loud voice and a Russian accent; he was talking at the bar to a trio of what looked like Japanese businessmen. The conversation, in English, appeared to be about hunting.

  ‘There are groups, you know,’ Roshana had warned me. Groups of people organized to exploit the captive Fallen. ‘They’ve had a long time to network. Not very pleasant people, most of them.’

  But I wasn’t really interested in the guests; I was too fascinated by the Tree. It wasn’t entirely decorative, I recognized as my engineering instincts kicked into action; under that wood cladding was a steel structure that supported the disguised roof. Which must be, given how far we’d walked
indoors, hewn out of the living rock of the mountain. The only visible metal was a python-sized bronze snake knotted extravagantly around the bare roots.

  I jumped impulsively to my feet and closed in for a closer look. The trunk was carved with animals seemingly chasing each other: four stags, a squirrel with tufted ears, an eagle. Right at the base were three female figures, hand-in-hand. And there were wooden plaques hanging from the branches overhead in color-coded groups, like oversized Christmas tree decorations. The red ones, I worked out after squinting, were carved with dogs, the green ones with horses. None of the others were low enough for me to discern.

  “Nine times nine,” I muttered.

  “Nine specimens of nine male creatures, including Man,” Egan said in my ear.

  “What’s that?”

  “The sacrificial trees at Uppsala. Except that those victims weren’t wooden.”

  “Ugh. What’s with the snake?” It was a particularly evil-looking serpent, so much so that I considered Eve would have to be an idiot to be tricked by it. “I thought this lot weren’t Christian?”

  “It’s the Nidhogg, gnawing at the roots of the World Tree. When it finishes, bam—the tree falls and it’s the end of the world.”

  “Ragnarok.”

  “Uhuh.”

  I swallowed, my throat dry. “In Serbian stories back home, Veles is the snake at the roots of the world tree. He comes up to fight the thunder every year and that’s how the seasons happen, wet and dry. I never thought it had anything to do with the angels.”

  “There are snake-gods and dragons in every culture, they say. Even places with no snakes.” Egan looked up into the branches. “There aren’t any snakes in Ireland, you know. Saint Patrick drove them all out. Plenty of monster serpent stories though.”

  We are on the side of the serpents, I thought miserably.

  Our guard reappeared. “Come this way. Kjell Lunde will see you.”

  Both ravens dropped from the branches at my glance. One to my right shoulder, one to my left arm.

  He led us down three carpeted steps and then through another door, polished wood like the tree and carved like it too, with a complex knotwork of snaky-looking beasts.

  The room beyond was a different world again. Nothing modern this time, nothing bright. A tall hall clad entirely with dark paneling, with low and flickering bulbs that hardly illuminated the tapestry hangings and the shields on the walls. A double-row of pillars, each individually carved, marched away to either side before me. This place had the unmistakable proportions and atmosphere of a religious space, without concession to human comfort. At the far end of the hall, where you’d expect the altar in a church, were three bigger-than-life carved figures, hunched and seated; not a Trinity I would recognize, I suspected. Unlike Roshana I had no innate sense that told me if I stood on consecrated ground, but every instinct insisted that this was a place dedicated to the gods. How that would affect the angelic Host’s ability to hear what was said here, I had no idea.

  I peered into the shadows and saw men spaced at regular intervals like a security detail, watching us. They looked like security guys too, except that most had beards and long hair, and they carried short axes at their belts.

  Axes?

  In the center of the hall was a raised fire-pit, more red glow than flames, and close by it a big chair where a man sprawled, knees spread in a display of insouciant dominance. On a high stool at his shoulder perched an older woman with a tall staff tucked between her thighs. Harald stood before them both, waiting for us, but as soon as we approached, the seated man waved a hand to dismiss him and he nodded his head and walked off in the direction of the foyer.

  I was a bit sorry to see him go. At least he’d seemed friendly.

  “I am Kjell Lunde,” said the seated man, looking at me appraisingly. He had a broad Scandinavian face with colorless eyes set wide apart, and gray-blond hair cut very short. “I am goði of this hof. You are called Milja?”

  “Yes.”

  “Harald tells me you are a völva.”

  I took a deep breath. “He’s right.”

  “You were not invited here.”

  “But I came anyway.” This was no time, I thought, to be self-effacing. “I want to see Loki.”

  He smiled faintly. “You are American?”

  “Not originally.”

  The woman said something in a whisper. She was much older than her goði, with skin like parchment and milky eyes. Her white hair was as thin as mist, and despite the heat of the fire she was wrapped in a fur cloak of many colors. Cat-skin was my guess. A whole lot of cats.

  “Aslaug is my völva. She says you come from the Black Mountain far away to the south.”

  I felt a chill crawl up between my shoulders. “Yes.”

  He glanced at Egan. “And your companion?”

  “Egan,” he said.

  “Irland,” whispered Aslaug. “Polen.”

  Kjell smirked. “You are not of the Northern blood. You have no right to be here. Go home.”

  “Bullshit,” drawled Egan amicably, when an immediate reply failed me. “We’ve seen your clients. This place isn’t about racial purity; it’s about money.”

  Kjell’s eyes didn’t leave my face. “Then how much are you, like them, prepared to pay for access to our cultural heritage?”

  I had nothing to offer. Nothing except a chance at new, untried Watcher blood. “Well,” I answered through dry lips, “I was thinking; you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  He smiled slowly. “That interests me. What’s the name of your jötunn?”

  Ah. I racked my memory for names of Viking giants. The jötunn came in different sizes and were monstrous or beautiful, kindly or malevolent, seemingly at random. I didn’t dare use Azazel’s name, not here. If it were overheard…

  Penemuel’s claws tightened on my forearm, and I felt her talons pierce my skin. In my mind’s eye rose up an illustrated page from my book of legends that featured a line-drawing of Loki striding onto the battlefield of Ragnarok, flanked by his children and allies: a wolf, a half-rotted woman, a sea-serpent writhing from the shore. And towering behind them all, a vast black-bearded figure, trailing smoke and bearing a sword wreathed in flames.

  “Surtr,” I said. “He is the Lord of Fire; the one who will burn this world to ashes. His blood is like liquid flame, but perhaps it would be too much for you.”

  Kjell looked over his shoulder at Aslaug, who had fixed me with her milky stare.

  Can she even see me, or is she blind?

  She nodded, tightly.

  “Well,” he said. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? I’ll tell you what; here is the key to the Bound God’s chamber.” He held out his hand, flat, and from beneath her robe Aslaug produced a strange-looking iron key to place there.

  She wore fingerless fur gloves, I noticed, but the rest of her skinny arm was bare and I wondered if she was naked under the fur wrap.

  “There is the door, behind the altar. Open it.” He dropped the key onto the raised fire, right in the center of the burning wood, and a little flight of sparks rose up. The metal was heavy enough to sink down into the glowing bed of embers. “If you can prove you are what you say you are.”

  I swallowed, and felt Egan stir beside me as if about to protest.

  Can I do that? I’m proof against cold, but fire—is fire another level altogether? Is this a trick? Witches burn, after all. Don’t they?

  What do I do?

  There was no clue forthcoming from Penemuel this time. And the longer I took to think about it, the closer terror crowded in on me. I had to act fast or not at all.

  “Alright.” I took a step to the fireplace, and pushed up my sleeve. At the motion both ravens took off, flapping.

  This will not hurt, I thought desperately, reaching out. The flames hung in the air like transparent petals. Not moving.

  Not moving at all. Not even hissing. There was no sound at all in the room. It was so quiet I could hear the bloo
d in my ears.

  Oh no, said the small voice of warning at the back of my skull, and I looked up from the fire. The ravens hovered, impossibly, above my head, their motionless wings spread. The two seated figures stared, unblinking and unbreathing. Egan was tilted forward, one hand slightly lifted as if to touch me, a little frown creased between his brows. There was no motion visible in the hall anywhere.

  Ah, except down there in the shadows, where someone I’d taken to be one of the guards was walking out toward me. I clocked that he definitely wasn’t an example of Nordic exclusivity a half-second before I actually recognized him as the Archangel Raphael.

  “Oh crap,” I said weakly.

  “Milja.” He stopped and spread his hands. “Come on; did you really think we weren’t waiting for you?”

  I clamped my hands together and shrank back, my mind nearly blank with shock. My impulse was to call for Azazel, but I had just enough sense to bite it back. I didn’t look up at the ravens again. I didn’t dare. I stared at Raphael like I could hold him in place with my eyes.

  “Don’t look like that,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to talk.”

  He’s not looking at the ravens. That’s good.

  “Talk?” I asked hoarsely.

  “We both know where this is going.” Underlit by the fire, he looked both eerily menacing and impossibly beautiful. His tone was soft though, almost conciliatory, as if he really wanted me to listen, and his eyes were pure silver, not reflecting the red of the fire at all. “You’re searching out the Great Serpent. It’s an obvious move; so obvious that I’ve been hanging out here since the day you freed the Writer.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. Must have been pretty boring for you.”

  He’s not looking at the ravens. Azazel and Penemuel are right in front of him, frozen in time—why doesn’t he see it? He could just snatch them out of the air. Or cut them into pieces. But then Uriel had also overlooked cats possessed by Azazel, in the monastery in Montenegro and in Podgorica. Blind spot?

  He smiled, acknowledging my sarcasm. “But you are here now, and I’m asking you not to do this, Milja. It will end in death. Your death, and your man there.” He nodded at Egan. “He loves you; don’t do it to him.”