Death's Dancer

by Jasmine Silvera

  “The human book was not wrong,” he said. “Mucked up by dogma is all. The world’s ending will come on angel wings. The same chaos that created it is capable of its destruction.”

  Azrael stood back, shaking his head. “The murders were just a distraction to keep us busy chasing a killer when we should have been trying to stop her from unleashing an angel.”

  “Once she has the spell, what will she need to cast it?”

  “An aedis,” he said thoughtfully. “Like Zeman’s hidden room or mine downstairs. Something large and located near water. Or a place of the dead would have the most potential energy. A spell that big would require an enormous amount of power—casting it at the right time would also help.”

  “Like a full moon?”

  Azrael didn’t laugh. “Power is energy. Water, gravity, the pull of planets on one another affects energy. In this case, a new moon would be better.”

  Isela looked up, remembering suddenly she’d been ready to ask her sister-in-law about the queen. “My phone. Bebe called twice, and maybe the coven can help find her. I have to call her back.”

  She ignored his expression, racing from the room. She’d left her phone on her bag in the ballroom. It was still there.

  “My god, Issy, we’ve been trying to get ahold of you.” Bebe picked up the phone immediately.

  She heard voices in the background, angry, conflicted.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been. . . insane the last couple of days. I—”

  “You have to get down here,” Bebe cut her off. “The doctor says he doesn’t have much time now. You need to say good-bye—”

  “Good-bye?”

  Isela looked up at a noise to find Azrael standing in the doorway. She instinctively turned away from him, curling her body around the phone.

  “Beebs, what are you talking about?” she said when she could manage a breath. “Bebe, who?”

  “Your dad,” Bebe said, and Isela heard the grief in her voice. “He’s dying.”

  Isela stumbled to her feet as the call disconnected. She spun, all thoughts of angels and apocalypse fading into a dull noise in the back of her head. She didn’t feel Azrael’s hands on her arms until she realized she was no longer spinning.

  “You have to calm your breath,” he instructed, black spots marking his face in her vision.

  She had never seen him look so. . . concerned.

  “Isela, if you hyperventilate, you won’t get there in time,” he snapped. “Dancer! Do it, or I will make you.”

  Azrael shook her once, gently, but her teeth clacked together anyway, and she bit her tongue. Pain shot through her, clarifying. She felt the air entering her lungs slowly and modulated her exhales to match. The black spots began to fade. But she couldn’t feel anything.

  “I have to go,” she said, trying to free herself from his grip. “I have to go somewhere.”

  Azrael’s eyes never left her face.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, struggling for her next breath. “You don’t need me now. I just need to go out for a few. . .awhile. I’ll be back soon. You can send Rory with me. I won’t try to get away.”

  For a long moment he said nothing as she tried to pry his fingers free. At once, without warning, he released her. She stumbled away.

  “Wait in the courtyard,” he ordered her. “I’ll send the car around.”

  Isela bobbed her head, and gratitude made it difficult to hold back tears. She fled the room.

  Tyler met her with a coat and a scarf. She didn’t notice him helping her into it, tying the scarf around her neck.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Vogel,” he said, paler than usual.

  She shook her head, unable to speak. But he did not leave her until the chili-red, two-door Tesla pulled up in front of the building. He opened the door as she stumbled through. The cold should have been like a slap, but nothing registered. She was numb.

  It wasn’t until she climbed in that she realized it wasn’t Rory at the wheel.

  “What are you—”

  “Lysippe will start the search without me,” Azrael said, putting the car in gear. “Seat belt.”

  He whipped away from the curb. He was a more cautious driver than Gregor but only by a hair. Her eyes stayed on the road, open wide and seeing nothing. Gradually, she was aware that he was talking.

  “. . .descended from a long line of Amazons who fought on the battlefield at Troy,” he said. “After the city fell, they migrated south and were taken in by tribes of North Africa. Myrine, Lysippe’s mother, saved my life when I was still young enough for ordinary weapons to be a threat. Even heavy with Lysippe, Myrine and her axe could match any man in combat.

  “I put myself in her service, and she tolerated me.” He smiled faintly. “Myrine’s skill and reputation was such that no opportunity to repay the debt presented itself and, eventually, I asked her to be the beginning of my Aegis. She refused. When a plague swept the tribe, I could not save her. On her final day, she asked that the debt I owed her be passed to Lysippe. So, I raised her as my own. And when Lysippe became a warrior in her own right, she asked for the gift her mother had refused.”

  “Your daughter,” she said softly. “She gave you her soul—to protect.”

  “And she has fought at my side,” he said, pausing. “Except for one rebellious period around the turn of the century. She worked as a stunt rider for a traveling Wild West show in America. She’s magnificent with horses.”

  “Do all necromancers have an Aegis like yours?” Isela stared at him and felt the first stirrings of sensation return to her own body.

  It began in her chest, behind her ribcage and slightly to the left—a dull ache that grew with each breath, beginning to throb in rhythm. She balled up her hand, pounding the spot through her coat as though she could soothe the pain.

  “Three or six, perhaps.” Azrael captured her fist, forced her fingers apart, and slid his between. “It takes time before one is powerful enough to afford to give such a gift.”

  “How many are in your guard?”

  “Nine,” he said, again in that same emotionless tone.

  The heat of his palm radiated into her arms and her chest. He let go only to get out of the car. As she climbed out, he waved a hand, and a curling emerald glow flared from his fingertips. She recognized it from the night in Zeman’s little room. He’d formed weapons made of light fighting the demons. It had been in his palm when he pointed at her with the command to run. This was his power being used.

  “Floor three, room one hundred and six,” he murmured.

  Isela stared at him, closing the door. “Did you read someone’s mind?”

  He paused, troubled. “Am I supposed to ask everyone now?”

  They left the car at the curb. Walking into the hospital, they were greeted with such overwhelming silence that Isela drew up short. Everywhere people were asleep—sitting or standing. She looked back at Azrael, who lifted his shoulders innocently.

  “I am a lord of death,” he said. “What is sleep, if not a preview?”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Humans find my presence disturbing in places like this.”

  “No kidding,” she said. “Are they. . .”

  “Fine. As soon as I lift the geas, they will go on exactly as they were.”

  They took the shoebox elevator to the third floor, and Isela tried to get her mind around how, with one wave of his hand, he’d sedated a few hundred people. It was the first time she had ever heard him refer to himself by the title “lord of death.” It was no boast, and it wasn’t spoken with any particular pride. Like admitting the size of his guard.

  “Death and sleep,” she mused softly.

  His eyes met hers, and she saw a languorous flare of heat curl within. “Did you know that the French idiom for orgasm is la petite morte?”

  In spite of everything, she felt a smile creep to her mouth. “The little death? Is that why you’re so good in bed?”

  Azrael spread hi
s palms in a gesture of humble confession.

  The elevator doors opened, and three snarling men barreled down the hall, midway through their transition to becoming full-blown wolves. Hair had begun to sprout densely from their arms and legs. Marcus’s face was all snout and ears. Christof had teeth in a muzzle no human should possess.

  Before Isela could cry out to stop them, Azrael stepped in front of her, lifting a hand. She heard the grunt of air leaving lungs as their bodies were flung sideways and thumped into the wall. She grabbed for Azrael’s arm, trying to see around him, a plea for mercy on her lips.

  “They are unharmed,” Azrael said, holding her back as he addressed the three weres. “We are in a place of sanctuary. I call on the code of Raziel for a truce on neutral ground.”

  There was something about his voice, as though he were invoking something older and more powerful than he was. The snarling stopped. At the other end of the hallway, her mother and her sisters emerged from the room.

  “Mom!” Isela started forward, but Azrael’s hand was like iron.

  She tugged at him, but he held firm. Silver eyes flicked to her face. “You must wait until permission is granted.”

  “I don’t need permission from you,” she snarled.

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “Not from me, from her.”

  Isela looked down the hall at her mother. There was no mistaking it; their postures were protective ones. They were guarding the door, she realized.

  “Mom?”

  “You’ve cast your lot with death’s hand, Little Bird,” Beryl Vogel said, words of power. Finality.

  “I vow no harm to you or your kin,” Azrael said, none of the ancient import in it but with such dreadful formality. “I’ve brought your daughter here in peace, witch, to pay the proper respect to her sire.”

  Azrael made the word witch sound like an elegant title of respect.

  “She can come, but you stay,” Markus snarled, thrashing against the wall.

  “I apologize for the behavior of my man at your last meeting, and I will make amends,” he said, speaking only to Beryl. “But she is under my protection.”

  “No deal,” Markus barked. “He doesn’t get anywhere near Dad.”

  “Quiet.” Beryl waved a hand, and Isela jumped as her brother’s jaws snapped shut.

  They were slowly turning human again: the fur receding, the faces becoming familiar.

  “You will do no work in this room,” Beryl said. “You will come, and depart, in peace.”

  Azrael nodded. Isela knew the bargain had been made when the three men slid down the wall to their feet, and Azrael released her arm. She ran to Chris first, who enfolded her. Mark kept his distance, and when she reached out to him, he jerked his arm away and would not meet her eyes. She heard the warning snarl in his chest.

  Toby steered her toward the room. The Sisters broke from Beryl’s side to hug and greet her. Bebe was sobbing openly, dragging Isela forward.

  Only one person remained as she stood. Beryl Gilman-Vogel blocked the doorway, and this close, Isela could see the grief etched into her face. At last she opened her arms, and Isela went into them. Her mother felt thin, and the tang of sorrow eroded her usual vibrant smell of lilac and honey.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Isela asked.

  “He made us promise not to tell you,” Beryl said. “He didn’t want you to worry. Go.”

  Her father’s withered body barely interrupted the blankets of the hospital bed. The sickness was visible in his face. He seemed to be sinking into himself: his skin stretched sallow and thin over his skull. His eyelashes fluttered against the purple circles beneath his eyes as he slept. Parched lips twitched faintly, but no sound emerged.

  Tubes and monitors seemed to be the only thing keeping him attached to life. She noticed the monitors were off. His narrow chest rose and fell, rattling softly. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

  “What happened?”

  “A tumor.” Evie spoke. “He finally went to the doctor six months ago when his eyesight was affected, but they think it’s been growing for years. He tried to keep it from us, but the boys smelled something was off and told Mom. We begged him to tell you, Issy.”

  Isela could see her family had occupied this room together for days, the imprints of bodies on the spare beds, the tossed blankets and old cups of coffee. She ached knowing they had been here, as a family without her. The pain under her ribs came back with new force.

  “Can’t you do anything?” she asked, looking at the four women.

  “We’ve made him comfortable, Issy,” Bebe said. “But death must take its due when the time comes. He refused life support yesterday. We were going to take him home but. . .he’s ready—he’s just been waiting.”

  Isela shook her head, her eyes returning to her mother. “You stopped Gregor. You have the book—the grimoire—isn’t there something in there you can use?”

  Beryl looked over her shoulder at Azrael before she returned her focus to Isela. “We can create, but not alter, the course of life toward its end. To interfere with death would disrupt the balance. Create chaos.”

  Chaos, the word kept rearing up. But she also heard another word that had come to mean more to her in the last few days than in her entire life: death. She spun on Azrael. “You can stop this.”

  Azrael felt the weight of all eyes turning to him, but his attention was on Isela. The pale, tormented face, eyes wide and stark with the kind of panic that only came when the realization of death was certain. He wanted to enfold her in his arms and cradle her. To assure her, in this case, the witches were right. Death could also be mercy—he knew that better than most. But he knew she would not accept it. Gray eyes swam in unshed tears as they bored into him.

  He used their mental connection. Not this. Don’t ask it of me.

  “Azrael, please,” she whispered.

  “You don’t want what you’re asking for,” he said.

  “You can stop this. Change him. Make him one of your undead.”

  He heard the cries of protest, but he held his gaze steady. “He will not be the same.”

  A sob escaped her, stifled by the fist she pressed against her mouth. Spots of high color rose in her cheeks, and her eyes were feverish, desperate. The first tears began to streak down her face. “I’ll do whatever you ask. I’ll be your consort. I’ll dance for you—whenever. You can use the power to boost yourself whenever you need it. I’ll do it. I swear. Just don’t. . .let him. . .go.”

  Azrael saw the horror on her mother’s face. He didn’t know whether it was watching her daughter beg or the mention of the word “consort” that did it. He crossed the distance between them before Isela could jerk away and caught her fists in his hands. She was trembling, and her strength had turned brittle.

  Something cracked deep inside of him facing the knowledge that his power was useless here. Azrael struggled to draw his next breath.

  His lungs filled with a desert heat as he remembered stepping onto a barren plain that had once teemed with life: grazing animals, tents and herds and families. His home. It had been a thousand years since he had seen it. He’d gone to his knees, digging his hands in the soil and feeling the bones of hundreds of thousands dissolved into earth. Nothing remained, and the loss had almost spent him.

  Standing in the cramped hospital room, sterile and thick with the proximity of death, he realized it was not protection she needed. Nothing could protect her from the pain of this loss. She needed to know that she could survive it.

  “Look at me,” he said as her eyes grew unfocused with grief. “Your father has chosen release. If you love him, you will respect his wishes as your own. He is waiting for you. Sometimes the only thing to do is to let go.”

  He could feel the sobs in her, beginning to overtake the scraps of her control. He locked his arms around her and spoke for her ear alone.

  “When you come to me, as my consort, you will do it from your own desire,” he murmured. “Not as payment for a deb
t. You have the heart of a she-wolf, Isela Vogel. I will not take you sniffling and begging on your knees like a common cur.”

  His words found the prick against her pride he had counted on. He felt the breath she took, gathering every ounce of strength she had left, and let his arms fall.

  Now send your father on his way, with the love and devotion of an heir, as is his due. Tonight I will hold you, and you can tear my skin and hair every night until your grief is spent. Azrael kept a hand at the base of her neck, sending heat into her skin to remind her of his presence and keep the tremors at bay.

  When she met his eyes, the earthy gray was ringed with red, her cheeks puffy and mouth swollen. He wanted to kiss her until nothing remained but the mindless, senseless release that overtook her in his arms. But he could not take this pain from her now.

  Only when the hot flow of tears ceased did he lift the veil of sleep from the man on the bed so subtly that only Beryl, had she not been dulled with grief, would have sensed it.

  “Little Bird?” Lukas Vogel blinked his way back to consciousness. “Isela?”

  Azrael let her go and watched with increasing pride as she crossed the room, a smile blooming on her face.

  “Caught you nappin’,” she said lightly, through a throat raw with banked emotion.

  The bony face broke into a smile that spoke of the quiet handsomeness the man had once possessed. Isela took his hand in her own. Beryl rose, leaving the room. As she passed, she laid a hand on Azrael’s arm in gratitude. The touch left him shaken.

  Witches were mortal; they honored life and bowed gracefully to death. He thought them weak for clinging to each other. Their families and their covens made them vulnerable. Now he understood the strength it took to make those bonds, knowing they could not last. They loved, in spite of the inevitability of loss. This was their strength: courage in the face of change.

  You will have my fidelity, Isela Vogel, for as long as you live. At last he, too, turned, leaving Isela alone to say good-bye.

  Isela heard the click of the door shutting behind them, but her gaze was focused on her father’s distant gray eyes. When he gestured, she slipped onto the bed and curled up beside him. She rested her head gingerly on his chest, and his free hand settled on her cheek.