by T. Frohock
“They’re here,” Guillermo whispered, momentarily bringing Diago out of his trance.
He glanced up. Across the gorge, a soldier skulked around the bend at a crouch and wasted no time taking cover. They’d definitely heard the firefight.
Guillermo lifted his binoculars. “He’s checking this side of the pass. Shit. Recon by fire.” He hunched low behind the rock. “Keep your head down.”
A bullet lifted the dust before the sound of the shot drifted across the gorge. The objective wasn’t to hit a target but to instigate return fire so the Nationalist could clock their position. Four more shots followed. From the pattern, Diago guessed the sniper used the corpses’ positions to estimate where their killers might have roosted.
Another bullet struck the rock Diago had initially used for cover. He’s good, too.
Thirty seconds passed with no fire. Guillermo risked a look. He scowled through the glasses. “He is signaling his comrades . . . here they come.”
A drop of sweat slid down Diago’s brow. “How many?” He croaked the words, barely recognizing his own voice.
“There are only four left.” Guillermo lowered the binoculars. “It’s our friend Gunter Sitz.”
Diago remembered him: a wiry little German with a face like a hatchet and a large mole on his cheek.
Guillermo stowed his binoculars and lifted his Mauser.
Returning to the spell, Diago checked the lines of his ward and then began to work again, conjuring the grisly events and broken pieces of his early life. He passed his childhood and moved into adolescence, when he’d murdered his first daimon-born keeper at the age of fourteen. The same age as my son. He shut Rafael’s face from his mind. Like his husband, his son was a source of light and love. And here I must have darkness.
Guillermo whispered, “They’re here.”
Diago blinked and examined the sigils. Close, but close only counts with hand grenades, and this isn’t one. “I’m not ready. Draw them nearer and stall them.” He lifted himself on his elbows until he could peer over the edge.
When the squad was half a meter from the trail’s fissure, Diago nodded. Guillermo stood. He angled himself so the rope around his forearm remained out of sight. Raising his Mauser, he aimed it at their point man. “Halt.”
The soldier swung the barrel of his gun in Guillermo’s direction. Sitz put his hand on the man’s shoulder and motioned for him to lower the rifle. The soldier obeyed him.
The point at which they’d stopped was wide enough to allow Sitz to ease around his man. It was tight maneuvering, but the German managed to keep his heels on the ledge. “We just want to talk, Herr Ramírez. Please, join me.”
“I’m fine up here.”
Diago eased himself back to the ground and resumed his work, shaping triangles within the circles, panting through dry lips as he vomited more scorpions onto the ground. The sounds he made were so low, the howling winds covered the throaty growl of his song.
Gunter’s voice floated up to them. “Your brother needs you.”
Guillermo laughed.
The image of Jordi’s smug face filled Diago’s mind. He hacked a fresh round of rage into the spell. The ward’s lines shimmered to life, plunging deep into the earth. More silver threads from the angel’s tear snaked behind the scorpions.
The rock beneath his body answered with a growl. A few pebbles clattered beside him.
Sitz made no sign he heard or saw the minor disturbance. “I’ve offered to negotiate on Generalissimo Abelló’s behalf.”
Generalissimo Abelló, my ass. Enraged by Jordi’s pomposity, Diago coughed a fat scorpion into the crevice.
Guillermo mouthed, Now.
Diago shook his head. Not yet. The sigil needed time to reach its destination. He’d spent his fury on these stones, and between his hunger and exhaustion—and my sanity—he’d only be able to execute this spell once. He drew his knife and motioned for Guillermo to keep talking.
Guillermo’s lip curled, but he complied. Again, he moved from his cover and glared down at Sitz. “Give me my brother’s terms.”
Diago risked another look over the ledge.
The German licked his lips and sidled closer. With him came his men.
Sitz craned his neck to look up at Guillermo. “Come back with us and renounce forever your right to rule Los Nefilim. Pronounce your brother as the true king. Then he will call back his assassins. He swears never again to make another attempt on either your life or that of your daughter. Refuse, and you’ll condemn that child to the constant shadow of death.” Stepping forward again, Sitz led his men onto the ledge. “Your abdication for your daughter’s future, Herr Ramírez. Those are the terms.”
This is as good as it gets. Diago slashed his palm with his knife and allowed his blood to fall into the crack, doubling the sigil’s power. He sang the glyph to life with a furious shout.
Sitz turned toward Diago, and his mouth dropped open. Recovering quickly, he drew his pistol, but he was too late.
The ward flamed, striking the limestone’s fractures with short hard bursts. A cascading avalanche of ruptures spread through the sediment.
Diago’s chest vibrated with the earth’s groan. Beneath that noise, he heard another sound. Nefilim. It’s nefilim, and they’re singing, their voices bound together, rising in pitch . . .
A loud crack thundered beneath him. The edge of the ridge shook with the force of his spell. Too weak to rise, he pushed himself backward.
Too slow, I’m too slow.
I’m going down with them . . .
2
The ridge buckled and shuddered. Then the rope cinched tight and dug into Diago’s hips. His coat rode up and the cold ground ripped into his stomach as Guillermo hauled him backward to safety.
Gunshots echoed around them. Diago guessed the panicked soldiers were firing indiscriminately.
Well away from the crumbling edge, Guillermo dragged Diago to his knees. Diago waved his friend away as he loosened the knot with shaking fingers. The big nefil released him and took cover behind the boulder. Within seconds, Diago freed himself and joined Guillermo, maneuvering into position to attain a clear view of Gunter’s squad.
A tall nefil with a bullish face lifted his hand. With a flash of yellow light, he sang his spell to life. Veins of amber crisscrossed beneath the soldiers’ feet.
Diago sheathed his knife and reached for his Astra. The holster’s flap stymied his frozen fingers. Fumbling for the clasp, he watched in horror as the nefil’s angel-born magic solidified the ground beneath the Nationalists. Limestone crumbled to the left and right of the soldiers, but the ledge itself held.
Guillermo jerked his gloves from his hands and snatched a beam of the day’s last light. Twisting the pale gold shaft into a ball, he shouted his song. The air crackled with the electricity of his aura. A stream of orange fire blazed from the stone set within his signet and encircled the glyph. Sparks showered the air.
Guillermo lobbed the sigil down onto the soldiers.
The ward smashed the Nationalist’s glyph. Diago’s viridian flames shot up through the earth. The beams of light spread through the limestone until the rock disintegrated beneath the squad’s feet.
Sitz’s foot slid backward and found nothing but air. Throwing his torso forward, he grabbed for the sheer wall and missed. His screams followed him down into the valley.
The second nefil fired his pistol in Guillermo’s direction. Three wild shots punctured the air. Diago heard the snap of a bullet. Another tore a chunk off the boulder. The last shot disappeared into the ether with the shooter.
The third soldier made a wild leap. His fingertips caught a thin shelf of stone. Grimacing, he tried to hold on to the mountainside. Sweat coated his face. His lips trembled with his exertion. “Please.”
The wind caught his whisper and carried it upward.
Guillermo lifted his Mauser and fired once. Blood spurted from the top of the man’s head.
A fourth soldier threw himself back the
way they’d come. He landed on a solid shelf of limestone. Getting his feet under him, he started to run.
Guillermo chambered another round. He aimed and fired. The soldier lurched sideways, teetered on the edge, and then plunged down the side with his comrades.
Diago tried to rise, his gun half drawn. Darkness edged his vision. The strange song he’d heard when he cast his spell touched the back of his mind again. The chorus grew, their voices focused and deliberate, each note a study in precision—there and gone as quick as one of his husband’s stolen kisses.
What the hell . . . ?
The arrangement wasn’t his, nor did it originate with the spell he’d just performed. He tried to discern the cadence so he might learn the source, but the chords danced just beyond his grasp before disappearing altogether.
Did I imagine it? Blinking sweat from his eyes, Diago fought against the numbness flooding his limbs. Or did I finally poison myself to the point of no return?
Guillermo pushed Diago’s pistol back into the holster and secured the gun. Then he helped him stand. “Are you okay?”
Vaguely aware that his palm still bled, Diago withdrew a handkerchief with a shaking hand. He felt dirty, like he’d been swimming in a sewer, contaminating himself with foul deeds and thoughts until he’d never be clean again.
Avoiding Guillermo’s question, he said, “I sensed something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. When I sang, something touched my mind.”
“Daimon? Angel-born?”
“Yes . . . no. Maybe both.” He pressed the handkerchief against the gash on his palm and snapped, “I don’t know.”
Guillermo’s grip tightened. “Look at me.”
“I’m fine.” The words were out of his mouth before he could consider the ramifications of lying to Guillermo. I’m fine. I’ve got to be fine.
“Then look at me.”
Inhaling the cold air in short hard sips, Diago didn’t have the strength for a prolonged argument. He met his friend’s gaze. Flecks of gold blazed with angelic fire and swirled in Guillermo’s light brown irises.
Diago instinctively flinched from that conflagration of power. Guillermo brought his hands to both sides of Diago’s face, holding him still. Their auras converged.
The sudden influx of power erupted in a vision:
He floats in the heart of a nebula. Disembodied and weightless, he sees through eyes that are not eyes, not like those he wears in the mortal realm. Here in this vast void, his aura is the only manifestation of his being. He is a cloud of sound and light without a heart that beats or a brain that thinks.
The stars spread around him, infinite and terrifying. A river of white fire flows between the nebula’s heliotrope clouds. He cannot define the river’s source or its end.
Ophanim, the lords of fire, float just beyond the river’s shore. Shaped like blazing wheels, they revolve in place, and he perceives a thousand eyes behind the Ophanim’s flames.
Over their heads are mirrored shards that spin and flicker, black like ice shattered by midnight. Complex glyphs shimmer within the shards, held in place by the Ophanim’s song.
Not mirrors, but gateways, portals. As he watches with his eyes that are not eyes, angels flash through the portals and dive into the river’s flames. Messengers and Principalities, each group distinguishable by the number of wings and eyes intrinsic to their class. They are composed of colors the mortal eye cannot comprehend or even name.
They drink from the flames and emerge renewed. Rising once more, they return through the portals, back to whatever realms await them.
In his body that is not a body, Diago drifts close to the river. When an angel dives, a molten drop splashes his aura. The fire laces his song and burns . . . it burns with the fire of the sun . . . and as it touches him, he feels the weight of time bearing down on him, pushing him back to the flesh that anchors him like a chain to the mortal realm . . .
Diago broke free of Guillermo’s grip. Staggering to one side, he vomited. With so little in his stomach, nothing came up but bile and a single scorpion—small and misshapen, encircled by a thread of silver that seemed pale in comparison to the afterimage of angels fluttering against his mind. A golden ember dropped from the arachnid’s tail, then the scorpion withered and died.
Diago gasped. “What the hell did you just do?”
“Nothing to do with hell at all. I lent you some of my power. You gave me everything and you were so gray, I was afraid . . .” Guillermo let the sentence trail into silence as if he feared to even complete the thought. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Diago wiped his mouth. “I had a vision. Angels, feasting on a river of fire.”
“I’m sorry. I overwhelmed you. I didn’t mean to.” Guillermo’s misery was palpable.
Christ, he’s like a boy who doesn’t know his own strength. “It’s okay.” Diago sniffled and lifted his hand. A drop of blood fell to the ground and sizzled against the stone. Golden light surrounded the wound on Diago’s palm, pulling his flesh together until it was as if he’d never cut himself. He shifted his gaze to Guillermo. “What did I just witness?”
“The angels drink from the river of fire to heal themselves. You probably envisioned angelic forces, replenishing their power after a battle.”
“And Ophanim singing open the portals between realms.” He paused, unsure how to describe them, or why they’d terrified him so deeply.
“They do more than that. The Ophanim also guard the river and make sure the territory remains neutral so that any can drink. They realize the fleeting nature of the angelic conflicts. The river must never fall to one side or the other.”
“A drop . . . of that fire touched me. Healed me.” He held up his hand. “Is that why Jordi wants the signet so badly? So he can drink and replenish himself?”
“Yes. If he can win the Thrones’ trust, then they’ll assign him a consort, and he’ll be able to go to the river in his flesh, just as I have done.”
Diago tried to comprehend visiting that molten river in his mortal form, and for the first time in his life, his imagination failed him. “In your mortal body?”
Guillermo nodded. “But only by Juanita’s side. Without her protection, my flesh would be burnt to cinders. With her, I can drink and renew both my power and that of the Thrones’ tear in my signet. That is the Thrones’ true blessing.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus Christ,” Diago repeated. “Can you imagine someone as cruel as Jordi with that much power?”
“It’s why I haven’t given up the signet. Sitz claimed that giving Jordi the ring would remove the shadow of death from both Ysa and me. But that is a lie. Jordi intends to bring war over the entire mortal realm in order to subjugate the mortals to his will. And what is war but death?” Guillermo sighed and went to their packs. “Do you remember how, in our firstborn lives, our responsibilities were similar to those of the Ophanim, guarding these portals and the magic so that the mortal realm remained neutral for all creatures?”
Diago shouldered his Mauser. “Now we’re more like the angels . . . constantly fighting among ourselves.”
Guillermo tossed Diago his pack, and then he paused, looking back toward Spain. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing this wrong.”
“I don’t understand. What could you possibly do differently?”
“We need to find a way toward some kind of peace—for the sake of the mortals. Then we can go back to our original purpose as guardians, not soldiers.”
“That’s a fine ideal, but you can’t make peace with someone like Jordi.” When did our roles reverse? “Listen, I advocated for a truce early in this conflict, but you and your council overrode me. You were right. I was wrong. There is no accord with someone like him.”
Guillermo twisted the signet on his finger. “My brother and I have spent five incarnations fighting over this ring. What if I could convince Jordi that his way is wrong? What if I could change his way of
thinking? About the mortal world and the nefilim’s role in it?”
Diago gaped at him. “We’ve got to get you off this mountain. The high altitudes are depriving your brain of oxygen.”
Guillermo chuckled and grabbed his own pack. Walking toward the cave, he waited for Diago to join him before he spoke again. “You’re the one who always says our incarnations change us.”
“In Jordi’s case, that’s true. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to change for the better. You could never trust him.” Diago cut off Guillermo’s protest with a shake of his head. “He owned the signet in his last incarnation, and he abused the Thrones’ trust by forming a pact with a renegade angel. No matter how much Jordi possesses, he is never satisfied.”
“He’s my brother, Diago.”
“He’s your half-brother.”
“Still, there must be some good in him.”
“I lived with him in our last incarnation.” Diago moved in front of Guillermo and forced the other nefil to stop. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in front of Carme and Feran.
Guillermo lifted his finger. “You were working as a spy.”
“And I’m a damned good one. I saw him in . . . his most intimate moments. He thought I loved him, Guillermo, and he shared with me his aspirations. And his abuse.” He held Guillermo’s gaze with his own. How can I make him understand? “Your brother isn’t a good person. I don’t know if he can be.”
Guillermo inhaled deeply and looked away, as if working to bring his temper under control. “So you’ve already rendered judgment.”
“I’m giving you the benefit of my experience.”
“And you’re saying he can’t be saved.”
“I’m saying he won’t let himself be saved. He has no desire to become someone different, because he likes who he is. Worse, he’s winning this war. He has no impetus to change.”
Guillermo nodded. “I don’t disagree with you. I know that any proposal I give to him must come from a position of strength on my part.”
“I think you need to accept him for who and what he is—a sadist and a killer.”
