“Hello, Miss. Are the Rose brothers expecting you?” The housekeeper asked.
I cocked my head to the side and surveyed her coolly. I said nothing.
“I can’t let you in if you don’t speak, deary.” Her voice was fluffy, like Mary Poppins.
“Samuel Rose,” I replied curtly. The woman stepped aside when she took in my face. I knew that my silver eyes were shining like a beacon. I was becoming less inclined to hide them. It wasn’t as if I had a reputation to uphold anymore. I also wore the body and face that Lucifer had designed for me. Dahlia Clark, as she was known in London, looked entirely different.
The monochrome tiling continued into the entrance hall and I gripped my hair between my palms and rung the excess water from the rat’s nest. The housekeeper made a horrified noise at the back of her throat and then quickly stifled it.
“I would run along and get him. I don’t have much time before my personal Angel arrives and blesses us with his sanctimoniously annoying presence.” I kept my voice light. The woman scarpered away.
I hadn’t meant to use Uriah’s presence as a threat, but the possibility of his sudden appearance was very real. The Commander of the First Choir had made it his mission to watch me.
I felt the daemonic energy claw at the air around me before I saw them both. They walked together in time, twin reflections of each other, side by side as they descended the stairs in the entrance hall. The only difference between them was the scar on Samuel’s face that ran from his bottom eyelid to the top of his lip. It was a clean cut, and made before he had become a daemon.
Vincent’s hair was unrulier than Samuel’s if that were possible. His eyes shone with interest, which did not say much. In the short time that I had known him, Vincent had the attention span of a small child and the obscure hyperactivity to match.
“A strange woman comes into my home and demands an audience.” Samuel’s smirk showcased the flash of the smug man that had confronted me in his office. His voice held a bite of aggression that did nothing to threaten me.
I slung my hair over one shoulder and it slapped against the bare skin of my back. Samuel eyed the pool of water on the floor that I had left behind.
“A Pureblood?” Samuel’s nostrils flared as he sensed my magic. I would never disconnect myself from Hell again. I was willing to take the consequences of that. “What do you want?”
I cleared my throat and ignored him entirely. “Vincent Rose. A pleasure to see you. May I say, I particularly like your piano-key tie.”
Vincent flattened the cravat against his chest and smiled broadly at the compliment. “You flatter me, my Queen.”
Samuel’s brow furrowed as he tried to place my face. Vincent obviously recognised me immediately. The benefit of madness, I supposed, was that he could see through the veil.
“I’m not your Queen though, am I?” I crooked a brow.
Vincent waved his hand as if that did not matter. “A Queen is a Queen.”
Both redheaded males crossed their arms over their chest. Samuel wore a scowl, but Vincent mirrored his brother purely out of some game that he was playing inside of his own mind.
“I need a favour,” I stated simply.
“No,” Samuel said.
“She can return Nora.” Vincent sang.
Silence.
“I can.” I offered helpfully.
“In exchange for what?” Samuel sneered. “I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”
“I doubt you could throw her at all.” Vincent reached inside of his pocket and pulled out a lollypop, he started to fiddle with the wrapper. Samuel studied me from head to toe. No one said anything as Vincent struggled with his candy wrapper.
“It’s always clever to curry favour with the Hellions.” Vincent popped the lollipop in his mouth and moved it to his cheek with his tongue. He was surprisingly lucid as if his previously giddy nature had been an act.
“Look how that turned out with Asmodeus and Sophia Taylor.” Samuel hissed. “I told you not to get involved.”
Vincent shrugged.
Samuel’s gaze swung to mine. “What do you want?”
“I need passage to Hell. Or a message to Charon. Whichever one suits.” I said.
“How many times have you walked through my clubs, for passage to Hell, without asking? No. I don’t believe you’re asking for something that simple.” Samuel shook his head.
Vincent took the candy from his mouth and surveyed the pink and white lollipop. “You don’t see it, do you brother?”
Samuel’s response was a scoff.
Vincent brandished the candy in my direction like a club. “She can’t just ‘pop’ into Hell like any old Pureblood. Not anymore.”
“It’s called Lacing.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I knew that Elite Daemons could not do it but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t get the terminology correct.
Vincent waved his hand as if my words were unimportant. “One little Angel. All in white. Tried to get to Heaven on the end of a kite.” His words were rhythmic and I guessed that the song that he sang was a children’s lullaby.
“The kite was broken and down She fell. She couldn’t get to Heaven. So, she went to Hell!” Vincent shouted the last sentence and gripped his stomach with his boisterous laughter.
“I don’t know you,” Samuel said. “I don’t trust you. I don’t do business with people that I don’t trust.”
I stayed silent. Vincent’s laughter grew in volume.
“Plus Daemons can't venture into Hell,” Samuel added with a snarl.
“That’s a fallacy.” I waved my hand as if his objection was unimportant. “Don’t tell me you've never walked through any of the doors in your own clubs?”
“I went to the Hound Races once.” Vincent added chirpily. I shook my head indulgently, and Vincent began to giggle. I soon grew impatient with the banter between the brothers and cut directly to the chase.
“Don’t you recognise me, lover?” I said, once Vincent’s laughter had tapered off. The three of us stood in silence as the realisation of my identity hit Samuel full force in the chest. His lips twisted into a sneer and he bent low as if he was a tiger ready to spring. My wings unfurled without my permission, spread wide and pompous like a peacock’s feathers.
All the energy sucked from the room, like water circling a drain. Samuel’s eyes flared pale ice blue. He was quick but I was quicker.
He launched himself across the foyer of the entrance hall before human eyes could catalogue his movement. I reached out and grabbed his collar, holding him as if he were a naughty puppy. Samuel snarled and leaned back, throwing his long arms around my neck. His clasped my throat, as if suffocating me was a viable option in combat (it wasn’t. I didn’t breathe).
I released him and shoved my leopard print-heeled foot in the small of his back and kicked him forward. My magic wrapped around him, shifting his perception until it became almost impossible for him to determine where I stood.
I brushed off the front of my damp dress. Samuel did not look much better; his red hair stuck up in tufts as if he had been wildly fucked. His chest heaved, not from execration but rage.
“You took Nora from me.” He hissed. Samuel darted forward to grab me, but I watched from a distance as the hallucinations that I had planted inside of his mind led him on a merry chase.
“She’ll wake up your little bird, brother.” Vincent’s voice held a singsong quality. From his tone, it was not clear if the situation amused him or aroused him.
Samuel grasped at empty air as I circled him slowly. The only clue to my location was the clack of my heels against the Victorian tiles.
“How do I know you’ll do it?” He snarled. His eyes were a milky white, as I sucked his vision from his body like a milkshake through a straw.
“Take me to her.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ll wake your little bird, and you can deliver my message to Charon. Win-win.”
“Chin-chin!” Vincent raised his loll
ypop in a mock toast.
Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his forehead. He appeared to be getting a tension headache. I could relate, any length of time around the Rose twins was a trial to my patience.
I could tell that Samuel resisted the urge to grasp the top of my arm and frogmarch me to wherever his sleeping beauty rested. I tucked my wings away shortly after the energy in the room calmed down. Samuel’s eyes watched me with the intensity of a predator. I remembered the hardness of his body and the intimacy that we had shared when Luc wore his face like a costume.
Shapeshifting and possession were two very different wheelhouses. You were still inherently the person you always were with shapeshifting. It was easy for someone with Magic to recognise someone, regardless of what their face looked like. Possession was akin to burrowing inside of another person’s mind and waiting until their guard dropped enough that you could control them like a puppet from the inside. Lucifer specialised in the latter.
To my surprise, Samuel did not take me to the hospital to visit Nora Bleu, the woman I had brained in a fit of jealousy five years prior. Instead, we walked into the depths of his mansion until we reached a bedroom that appeared to be hidden away next to the servant’s quarters.
The room was fit for a queen with off-white walls and enough bedding to swallow the frail body of the young woman that I had dug inside of and ripped apart.
I had tampered with the consciousness of very few people in my life, but each of them swirled like water in my stomach. I could sometimes hear their screaming when I bothered to listen for it.
Nora Bleu had the most vibrant blue eyes that I had ever seen on a human before. That was the extent of what I had cared to know about her. I no longer cared, once I had found out that she was not going to be the mother of Lucifer’s child.
I refused to hang my head in admittance of my petty jealousy, but it did not stop the niggling pang of guilt that rushed through my chest when I advanced on the bed with careful steps.
The heart rate monitor emitted a consistent beep, and her hair looked like it had been brushed every day since she had fallen asleep. There were tubes attached to her nose and I surmised that was how Samuel must have been feeding her.
In typical circumstances, the person would have died after what I had done to them.
The corpse was well taken care of. Even I could see that.
Samuel shifted from one foot to the other. He rung his hands in front of him, before he caught me watching the nervous action and put his hands in his pockets.
It was the first time that I had seen his attitude as anything less than sneering and superior with little reason to be.
“Can you wake her?” He asked, not taking his eyes from Nora’s face.
I reached forward and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. I caught Samuel’s flinch at my actions, as if it pained him that I was close to her.
“If you’ll send a message to Charon for me, then yes,” I said in a low voice. Not taking my eyes from the still human form. I lifted her hand and pressed my thumb into the centre of her palm and felt the sluggish ache of her pulse against her paper-thin skin.
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Samuel snarled.
My head snapped in his direction and Samuel raised both of his hands in surrender with his eyes narrowed.
“I am not suggesting that I do not want this deal, but I don’t want to deliver a message only to get caught in a Circle war.” Samuel took a step back.
I shook my head to myself and picked up Nora’s hand again. “Your eyesight must be poor if you did not see the wings that seem to be protruding from my spine.”
“I assumed that they were a Pureblood trick. Angels don’t exist.” Samuel walked to the other side of the patient and sunk into a plush ivory armchair that has been carefully placed by her side. The chair was worn, and a stack of books rested on the table beside it. He must have spent a lot of time there.
“No trick.” I muttered, “And Angels are very real.” I leant over to place both of my hands on Nora’s cheeks.
Samuel held himself back when I touched her, but I could tell that he hated it. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, sinking deep inside of my body until I could locate the swirling mist that I had ripped from the fragile human inside of my arms.
“You’re an angel?” Samuel asked, his voice boiled with barely concealed rage.
“The Lord has a cruel sense of humour.” I did not open my eyes as I searched for Nora’s conscious. I felt the flutter against the edge of my own mind, like a butterfly’s wings. I had found her. I fed her mind back into her body like a rope over a cliff. I could see the energy that flowed from my body and into hers, but I doubted that Samuel could.
When the job was done, I staggered back and placed my hand on my chest to centre myself. For a brief second, I had mixed with Nora Bleu in a way that was too intimate for my liking.
Samuel was frozen, watching the scene with a harsh gaze.
I stepped forward and leant over the human, as I sensed her rise to the surface and what I had stolen from her rushed back into her body like a wave.
I saw the enchanting blue of her eyes flutter open, quickly following by a hot ripping that radiated from my side.
Samuel Rose had gotten what he wanted, and he’d stabbed me for it.
Chapter 7
I slammed, palms first, onto the dusty floor of Exulted. I ripped the knife out of my liver and threw the flimsy steel across the room. I realised quickly that I had Laced directly to Uriah when I had felt threatened. I rubbed my bloody hands over my face and sunk onto my haunches to try and find an excuse for my reaction. Uriah and his large dog had been the only thing that had made me feel somewhat safe with all the tumult and change in my life.
I looked up and was greeted by the sight of Uriah’s sculpted body, wearing only a pair of black silk boxers. He was attaching wet clothing to a drying rack with care. He looked down to the bloody knife that had missed his foot by only an inch.
“Who did you piss off this time?” Uriah focused on his task as he spoke, but his lips hinted at a smile.
“I’m just glad I wore a backless dress.” I stood up and pulled off my heeled shoes. I walked to the threadbare soft and sunk into the dusty fabric. “That knife would have sliced clean through. This is Marc Jacobs.”
“You named your dress?”
I gave him a look that could curdle milk. “I did my good deed of the day. I am not sure why I was stabbed for it.”
“I can imagine why,” Uriah said in a dry tone. I focused on my hands so that he wouldn’t catch me checking out the rather fascinating lines of his human form. I ignored the uncomfortable tension that made the palms of my hand's itch. It lingered from our previous fight. I was not ready to address any of the statements, however false, that Uriah had made.
“I woke a woman from a coma,” I said defensively, crossing my arms over my chest. I felt the cleanly torn flesh begin to knit together.
Uriah crooked his brow and gave me a chastising look.
“I am also the one that put her in the coma.” I rolled my eyes and then prodded the clean and freshly heeled skin on my side.
“Why didn’t you go to your Hellhound?” He asked, sitting on the patchwork armchair in the corner.
“And risk scarring my daughter for life? No thank you.” I eyed him shrewdly once I realised what he was doing. Uriah knitted his fingers in front of him and leant forward. His body language spoke of openness and the willingness to listen.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said.
“And that is?”
“You’re a warrior. Not a therapist.” I waggled my finger.
Uriah shrugged and leant back. “We are your guardians now. Trusted by the Lord of the Summerland that you will not come to any harm.”
I waved my hand at my side. “And what does this count as?”
“You can heal yourself.” He said simply, as if I was an idiot.
I narrowed my eyes, u
nable to read him and what his end game was. “You've changed your tune from our conversation a few hours ago.”
“I spoke to the Lord and was reminded that my service is to her. I have no use for petty squabbles with dirty demons.” Uriah said the words without venom, but they still made me flinch.
“I’ve had enough of chasing my tail. I need your help to get into Hell.” I told him.
“Even I needed a Lydian coin to be able to venture into your world to retrieve my brother. What makes you think that I know how to help you?” Uriah’s smile was condescending.
“I will offer you one favour in exchange for your help.” I held up my finger. His eyes were drawn to it, and I had a sinking feeling that the Angel had already decided what he needed from me.
He nodded and walked over to his laundry basket. He took out a clean shirt and threw it at me. “Bathe. Change and then we leave.”
The British Museum was full of ‘meanderers.’
Meanderers were people that had no concept of others around them as they walked around with their head in a cloud. Crowds parted for them in the way that a pedestrian would jump out of the way of a moving vehicle. I had often wondered what Circle such blissful ignorance would slot into. Somewhere between Vanity and Sloth. Stupidity was not a sin, but merely a side effect of a variety of things. I hoped it was not vanity. If I ever saw a ‘meanderer’ in the First Circle, then I would reign down a league of pain.
Uriah snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You’re snarling.”
We stood in front of a glass case full of all manner of antiquities from the crusades and early Anglo-Saxon period. “The Asian floor has a rather nicely preserved set of Samurai armour,” I remarked casually.
Uriah pointed to a huge tome that was open, under a spotlight, in a box in the centre of the room.
“This is the Voynich Manuscript,” Uriah informed me as we walked towards the ancient book. “Named for Wilfrid Voynich, the polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912.”
I reached the glass and was jostled by an elderly woman as she reached inside of her tapestry handbag for a cheese sandwich. I exhaled deeply out of my nose to try and hold onto whatever calm I could.
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