...And as the knife slipped like butter into his stomach, he let the small flame flicker and die out.
***
The day was as dark and ominous as it had been the day the world ended, and Lalael's heart was no lighter. The angel paced, a nervous wreck, imagining all sorts of terrifying and horrible things that could have happened to the demon.
When the jolt of fear-pain-terror had struck him, Lalael wasted no time. He flung himself towards the sky, scrambling through the air to the highest tower, and with a force of will stronger than any he had yet accomplished, bound the power to his will and then cast it out again like a huge net. And then he felt it; one of the threads of his net vibrated faintly. To the northeast. Lucien.
As he plummeted to the ground and landed on his feet, he was already shouting for Mara, for everyone to stop anything they were doing and go out looking right now. Now. NOW.
***
Six hours later: Result. “They found him!” A lookout came running back, and suddenly everyone around was screaming for Lalael. He flung open the door of the audience chamber and strode down the hall towards Mara, who came running to him.
“Is he alright? Mara, answer!” he shouted when she hesitated. The priestess's mouth trembled. “Where is he, Mara?”
“They found him,” she pointed one violently shaking hand towards the small crowd entering the temple and ran away.
Lalael cursed. The followers laid their burden gently on the floor and backed away, faces grim and ashen as Lalael charged through them and stopped.
When he saw the Fallen laid out, he froze and clapped a hand against his mouth to hold back a wave of nausea. “Where did you find him?” he breathed through his fingers. He felt like his heart had stopped in his chest.
“Over by the other side of town,” Andrew answered, and then he too left as quickly as he could.
Lucien was drenched in blood and dark ichor, mostly naked, and what clothing he had left was ripped to shreds that stuck in his wounds. Dozens and dozens of wounds. His skin was scratched, gouged, abraded, torn. One arm was at an unnatural angle, the shoulder shattered, with two unclean breaks, both of which had shards of bone beginning to cut through the skin. His upper chest was a mesh of shallow cuts; across his stomach was a deep, ugly wound, running diagonally from the left side of his ribcage to his right hip. It had stopped bleeding. His right leg was relatively intact, but for a few places where the skin had been rubbed off. The left, however, was mangled beyond all recognition.
His face was untouched.
“We found this with him, my lord,” one of the men said quietly, holding out a glinting bronze knife.
“All of you get out.” The gathering crowed murmured and began to back out again, slowly. “Now!” A crackle of energy accompanied his words, sparking a rush to the doors. Lalael dropped to his knees next to Lucien's unconscious body and began pulling the shreds of cloth away.
“You're such an idiot, Lucien!” Lalael growled. “May you Fall a thousand times!”
A follower came in with a bowl of water and a box of gauze. Lalael seized the bowl and spat in it. That ichor was something as purely evil as was possible to exist in the world; plain water wouldn't have cleaned it out, would have left it (Lalael somehow knew) stained and painful forever, if it even managed to heal. Lalael cleared away the last strips of shirt and began to clean him.
Mara crept in the door as the follower left. “How did he survive with wounds like that?” Mara asked, shivering. Her eyes were bright red and her face was puffy with tears. “He should be dead.”
“Yes. He should,” Lalael said coldly. “I know exactly why he isn't. He should be dead. Clear off, and shut the door, and keep the others away because this could be dangerous.”
Mara shut the door; Lalael took off his coat and shirt so they wouldn't get in his way, bunched up the shirt and used it as a sponge to clean off Lucien's wounds. He let his wings manifest, the ones Mara had seen... And then he brought out the second pair, the new ones, which shone even brighter, perhaps, than the sun. They even hurt his own eyes to look at.
When the water touched the black slime, it hissed and let off clouds of noxious vapor, which Lalael blew swiftly away with steady, slow fans of his wings. Under the ichor, the skin was gray and dry. Lalael dabbed at these patches, with whispered apologies and damnations, but not even a soft cry of pain crossed the Fallen's lips.
“You're alright now, Lucien, we've got you, you're fine.” Slowly, the angel worked; when he had finished cleaning off the blood and tar-like muck, he stood at Lucien's feet and fanned, and fanned, and fanned. He held out his hands and pulled as much of the belief available into him; there was plenty. If he listened carefully, he could hear them praying.
He stopped any further blood loss, healed the lightest of the wounds, began to knit the worst. He set Lucien's broken arm, got the stomach wound to just barely close, poured all the energy he could into healing the Fallen, and fanned life back into him.
“Why'd you go?” Lalael hissed furiously, working as swiftly as he dared. “Why'd you leave? I didn't leave you first, you bastard, you left me when we were there in the forest, so you'd better not use that excuse when you wake up, or I'll hurt you worse than whatever did this.” He knelt again and gently turned Lucien on his side when he felt it was safe to do so.
Lucien's back resembled ground meat more than a back. Lalael's stomach turned. “Not your wings. Please, not your wings.”
Another hour passed before Lalael finally collapsed – exhausted physically, emotionally, mentally. He put his wings away, wrapped the bronze knife in his bloody shirt. Lucien was taken up to his room by the followers, and Lalael trailed behind. He collapsed on the floor and succumbed to darkness.
***
Lalael had no idea how much time had passed since Lucien had been brought in as a bloody mess. Mara claimed only a day and a half, but Lalael didn't believe her: It felt more like a month. When he was energetic enough to actually think, he felt a little foolish for sitting by Lucien's bedside waiting for him to awaken, but that was only once in a long while that he felt up to stringing a thought or two together. Sleeping was good, he thought, weary to his bones, and now he knew what that meant, he'd never have to wonder again. In fact...
...He had almost forgotten the feeling of the dreams. How they were soft and giving, yet restricting and suffocating like he'd gotten tangled in the sheets. He'd been having a rather silly dream about black and white things - wings, zebras, penguins, text – that kept telling him to give back the color he'd stolen from them, when the images blurred over and – slickslick – went into a vision's trademark Technicolor.
The images moved frantically – blurring, sharpening, shaking – whirls of color and feeling and knowing. There was a cloud of inky hair, here was a gleam of golden skin, a flash of too-pale blue eyes – Jocelin. With the realization came clearer pictures – Jocelin alighting upon the roof of a filthy warehouse; Jocelin's lips moving as the angel stared into the distance, chanting, chanting; Jocelin, furious, screaming at a blur of white, red, and black.
Tight zoom into the blur: Pain that beat into Lalael's chest in dull pulses, dark eyes glazed from it and crying, darker curls falling into them; the fine line of the jaw, a scornful twist of thin lips – Lucien.
The pictures came even faster now, dark shapes jostling and shoving at Lucien, the only sharp object in the picture, shining less and less with every moment. Fear, pain, betrayal, pain; Lalael cried out at the darkness ripping at his heart, yet the images, one by one, burned into his eyes. Jocelin standing proud, watching, murmuring silently as the darknesses brought Lucien to his knees. The Fallen, struggling, refusing vehemently, scratching and fighting, overwhelmed by the sheer number of shadows around him. Rage, fury, sorrow, loss –
Slickslick.
Lucien struggling again, obviously some time later, torn and filthy, being dragged in by the shadowy figures, still taunting, still fighting, still pulling at his restraints.
&nbs
p; Jocelin, draped in white and gold, shining, yet rage and darkness shadowed the angel's face. A sharp, unheard command. The sound of silence roared in Lalael's ears.
Lucien and Jocelin, the angel again snapping an order, the Fallen raising his face proudly, bruised and bloodied, refusing. The darknesses engulfing him once again at the graceful gestured from the dark angel. Forced to kneel before Jocelin, as the angel rose from his throne. Jocelin gently touching Lucien's face, the Fallen himself flinching away, accompanied by a wave of malicious amusement.
Focus in on Jocelin, fingers under Lucien's chin to raise his face to the dark angel. Lucien glaring into the angel's eyes.
Slickslickslick.
Blood. Such a lot of blood. Loss. Darkness. The strength and betrayal and rage that had underwritten the shocks of emotion trickled out, along with the images and the color, until all that was left was Lalael, standing before a vast deep abyss, feeling the darkness reaching for him, twining around his ankles, dragging him closer to the edge, rising, rising...
Drowning in despair and loss and sorrow and weakness, and, finally...
Defeat.
As Lalael gasped into the Void, he became aware of a breeze through his hair, of a light behind him, of something brushing against his face. Of a voice on the wind, whispering his name...
“Lalael, wake up.” The voice was weak, quavering, lost. Lalael forced the abyss away, tore his feet from the darkness, turned towards the light, struggled from the vision, reached, and was embraced...
“Wake up. Wake up.”
He did. He had to.
***
“Lucien?” He gripped the feverish hand that was touching his forehead. Alert and kneeling next to the Fallen in an instant. “Lucien, speak to me, please, don't go again...”
“Shh, sh.” Lucien had his eyes closed tight. “Lael, it's – it's dark.” He gasped. “I opened my eyes and I couldn't see and I thought I was blind –” Lalael dove at the nightstand and turned on the lamp. He had simply expected it would come on.
“It's alright, it's light now. Come on, Lucien, come back to me, open your eyes.” He clutched Lucien's less injured shoulder.
“I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't.” Lucien's voice broke.
“Trust me. Trust me, Lucien,” the angel whispered thickly, his chest aching. “Never lied to you, have I?” His eyesight was blurring enough to make the visions look clear by comparison. Lucien groped for Lalael's hand; the angel took it. “The light's on, open your eyes, look at me, see me. You'll be able to see.”
“Promise?”
Lalael didn't know if he could promise. He hadn't thought to check Lucien's eyes since the rest of his face hadn't been touched. “I promise,” he said firmly. “I promise. Please, Lucien, open your eyes.”
And he did. He had to.
Lucien took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. He looked at Lalael, pulling his hand from the angel's suddenly lax grip and raising it shakily to Lalael's damp face.
“I'm not crying,” Lalael said sharply.
Lucien let his hand fall in exhaustion and closed his eyes again. “I know.” He swallowed. “Is this real?”
Lalael took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“It was...” Lucien closed his eyes and swallowed. He licked his lips; there was a glass of water someone had set on the nightstand. Lalael seized it and gave it to him.
“It was Jocelin, wasn't it?” Lucien gave a tiny nod as he sipped slowly. “Can't get you in here, I promise.”
“Nightmares,” Lucien whispered. “'They come snatching in the night.'”
Lalael took the glass when Lucien handed it to him. The Fallen closed his eyes and sank back into the pillows. He had bruising all over him now, and deep shadows under his eyes, and Lalael could count his ribs. “Lucien,” The angel paused. “You should have been dead.”
Lucien coughed faintly. “Alive and kicking.”
“No kicking right now. You promised me you wouldn't die, remember? You promised,” Lalael said quietly. “That's the only reason you're not...”
Lucien nodded. “I remembered.” He coughed again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Over the next few days, Lucien made encouraging progress. Lalael slept on the floor of his room and sometimes, when he didn't sleep, he stood at the foot of Lucien's bed and fanned healing power at him. In a week and a half, he could stumble around the room on his own with a cane, snarking about cabin fever.
“Lucien,” the angel said one day, while he was sitting on the window seat and watching Lucien pace and complain about the priestess, and Lalael, and their insistence on bed rest. “What happened?”
“When? Yesterday when Mara brought the new girl to meet me and she ran off crying and giggling? Not. A damn. Clue.”
“You know when I mean.” Lucien looked haunted and shifty. “Don't try to change the subject,” Lalael sighed. “I did have the vision, and I haven't told anyone about how you wake up at night. Something happened, and I want you to tell me.”
“Blunt today, aren't we?” Lucien said, sitting on the edge of the mattress facing Lalael.
“I just want to know.”
“Jocelin came on to me, I was furious that you'd gone without telling me, so I shouted and threw them out. Told Jocelin I didn't want to see them ever again, Jocelin left, I left a bit later, wandered around, passed out, woke up in Jocelin's lair, was tortured for a little while, given to the Nightmares to play with once Jocelin got tired of me.” Lucien paused in his recap, eyes lifeless. “Jocelin stuck me in the gut with that knife, left me for dead, and I woke up here. That's all.”
“No, it's not,” Lalael said casually. “But alright, I'll go along with it for now.”
Lucien nodded once, stiffly. “I can't... I can't tell you the rest of it,” he mumbled.
***
“Want to see something amazing?” the angel asked later that day. “You'll like it.” Still sitting at the window, leaning comfortably against the window-frame, he tapped his pen against a stack of papers on his lap.
“What I want is to be out of this room,” Lucien growled, poking the remains of lunch around his plate. Gods and minnows, but he hated oatmeal.
“If you let me show you, we'll go outside. Deal?” Lucien sat up straighter and looked attentive and brighter. “But you have to finish your food.” He slumped again and glowered. “Look, I can close your wounds –”
“Wish you'd tell me how.”
“And I can stuff you full to bursting of healing –”
“That too.”
“But I can't replenish your energy just like that. You have to eat. And rest.”
“I don't have to,” Lucien protested. “I can survive without.”
“Just finish,” the angel said, crumpling a sheet of paper into a ball as Lucien prodded morosely at the soupy porridge. “And here, catch.” Lalael tossed it underhand; Lucien caught it easily, just before it hit him.
“And?”
“Toss it back.” The Fallen shrugged, and did so.
Lalael raised his right hand and jerked it forward, palm out and fingers spread. The crumpled paper slowed and stopped dead in midair. He smiled as Lucien stared and dropped his spoon into the oatmeal.
“Show me.”
Lalael's smile widened further; he twitched his fingers and the ball flew into his hand.
Lucien grinned. “Show me.”
Lalael said nothing, but turned and opened the window, flinging the glass panes wide, and climbed onto the sill.
“Couldn't we,” Lucien began suddenly, then averted his eyes and fiddled with the spoon. “Couldn't we just walk?” The angel turned and looked at him quizzically. “I mean,” the Fallen continued, voice shaking, “My bum leg, you know, I should exercise it, and flying takes an awful lot of energy, and I'm sure the others would like to know I'm up and about.”
The angel smiled. “Like Mara and Andrew aren't giving them hourly updates.”
“Well, let's just go say hi, then. I don't mind walking.”<
br />
Lalael blinked. “Since when?” he demanded.
“I just think that I won't be able to fly out that window. I mean, it's awfully narrow,” the Fallen said, edging towards the door. Lalael looked at the window-frame he crouched in, single pair of wings relaxed and still with plenty of room. “I haven't seen the girls in ages. My fans must be missing me something fierce.”
Lalael pinned him with a sharp glance. “Why haven't you let me see your wings, Lucien?”
“Nothing to see,” the Fallen mumbled.
“What if Jocelin injured them?” Lalael asked sharply. Lucien shrugged. “If they're hurt, I should fix them now. I can't when you have them put away.”
“Nothing to fix.”
“Then fly with me up to the tower,” the angel insisted. “It'll be easier to show you things if we're higher up.”
Lucien turned away and leaned his forehead against the wall. “No,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the quaver out of his voice.
“Why not?” Lucien heard the angel jump back off the window-frame, felt Lalael touch his shoulder. He shrugged the hand away.
“Because...” He shook his head and turned his face away from the angel. His eyes burned; his throat felt too tight.
“Because?” The angel prompted.
“Doesn't matter,” Lucien said, swiping at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve.
“Tell me,” Lalael said quietly.
The Fallen swallowed around the choking lump in his throat and crushed his palms to his face, sable curls falling over his fingers. He spoke, whispering his answer so softly he wasn't sure he'd made any noise at all. Lalael made a questioning noise: “Because,” Lucien said, breathing deeply, trying to tamp down the feeling of ripping away part of his soul.
In the moment before he continued, Lalael cast out a single little line of power and suddenly felt everything, the piercing, despairing clod of icy, pain in Lucien's chest that was overwhelming the dull, numb feeling that had filled the room, which was coming into sharp focus, stark and bare as the skeletons of trees. “Because Jocelin took them.”
In the End Page 23
