by Hanna Peach
“Alyx,” Jordan began to speak.
But Alyx cut him off. “Here he is with his pretty speech and his fancy bug thing and you’re ready to hand over the location of Aradale. He said that he’s on our side but how do we know we can trust him?”
Jordan took a deep breath, then dropped his hand. “Sorry, Balthazar. Perhaps instead we can leave a message with Loki if we have something and want to meet.”
“Not the most efficient method of communication, but we understand,” Balthazar said.
“Why the hell do you keep saying ‘we’ all the time,” Alyx said, “as if you’re more than one person?”
Balthazar tilted his head and smiled at her out of the corner of one side of his mouth. “I am an Ajna.”
Alyx threw her arms up in frustration. “Like I know what that means.”
“I am bonded to Lucifer. He can see what I see and communicate with me, like his third eye. We have been bonded so long I sometimes forget we are two separate beings; hence, it is truer for me to say ‘we’. It’s similar to the bond that you and the mortal have, being his Guardian.”
“Nothing you have is similar to what Israel and I have.” Alyx snapped and stormed towards the door. “This conversation is over.”
Downstairs, Alyx pushed her way through the Purgatory Bar, garnering growls of annoyance from the demons and Seraphim that she shoved out of her way. It had gotten more crowded since they had first walked in. Demons and Seraphim here together? There was even a mixed couple in one corner, kissing. Jesus, she had seen everything now.
“Alyx, wait. Wait!” She could hear Jordan’s voice calling after her through the density of the chatter around her.
Part of her knew that she was being childish by ignoring his calls for her to stop. But a larger part of her didn’t care. Her whole life she had been taught: Seraphim, good; demons, bad. This had made things simple. And it had made sense. It had given her life purpose. Fight the demons, kill the demons. But even this turned out to be wrong. What the hell was she supposed to believe in now? What in heaven was she supposed to trust?
Alyx reached the glassy black door to Earth, which disintegrated into dark light as her hand pushed through the mirage. She walked through. Jordan’s voice echoed behind her as she sped through the dark tunnel and back to Earth.
Alyx stepped onto the pavement in this industrial area of Buda-pesth, her boots clomping hard as she vented her frustration into the ground. The noise was a comfort to her. The ground under her feet here was solid, real, something she could count on.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, swinging her around. Alyx began to grab at her sword but stopped when she realized it was only Jordan.
“What the hell, Alyx?” he said, running his hand through his hair.
“I should be the one asking you that question. Associating with creatures like−”
Jordan pushed her hard, and Alyx slammed into the ground, too stunned to react. “What the−?”
“Look out!” Jordan yelled as he leapt out of the way of a falling sword that clinked to the ground.
There was a whistle behind her, a movement of air. Alyx reacted instinctively and rolled away from the falling sword. The Darkened slashed for her again. She couldn’t roll out of the way fast enough this time. Alyx snatched at her sword and held it across her, halting the Darkened’s sword before it gave her a new haircut…across her throat.
The Darkened-woman above Alyx growled and bared her teeth, if those rotting brown stumps could be called teeth. She lifted her sword and hacked at Alyx’s side. Alyx blocked the sword again and kicked out at the Darkened’s stomach just as a second and third Darkened appeared in her view. Dammit. Alyx pulled at her dagger and tried to fend off the other Darkened. But from her position on the ground it was only a matter of time before one of their blades slashed past her defenses.
“Jordan!” Alyx called, desperation hitching up her voice. But she could see that Jordan was dealing with his own problems. One of the Darkened had him gripped, arms pinned from behind in a way that he couldn’t hit the Darkened with his DreamWalker magic. A second and third Darkened were trying to get their daggers past Jordan’s wild kicking.
Desperate times, desperate measures. Alyx dropped the dagger from her left hand as she pulled at the Fire bloodink at her side and pulsed it towards the closest Darkened. He cried out in pain and stumbled back as his clothes caught on fire.
The sword in her right hand was still busy resisting the blade that was moving towards her sweating brow. Alyx saw a second sword cutting towards her left arm. There wasn’t enough time to pick up her dagger or move out of the way. Alyx braced for the inevitable pain.
She heard a guttural cry from above and the blade that should have carved into her left arm fell to the ground. A large red stain was growing around a hole in the offending Darkened’s stomach. He followed his sword to the ground.
“You,” one of the other Darkened cried at this new unseen player. Alyx could swear that she heard the distinct shudder of fear in his voice. The pressure of the blade against her weapon ceased as the two remaining Darkened lunged for this newcomer.
Alyx leapt to her feet as the sound of clanging swords began behind her.
First, she glanced over at Jordan. Jordan had been released from the arms that had held him. He was now armed again and fighting his attackers back to back with…another Darkened? Was she seeing this properly?
Alyx spun around. Her eyes widened. “You!” she cried but her voice, unlike the Darkened’s earlier, was full of shock.
“A little help?” Balthazar said as he faced off against the two Darkened who previously had Alyx pinned to the ground. This time he had no glamour and his blue skin shimmered with a fury like an angry storm. As Alyx lunged forward, one of the Darkened began to split until there were two identical Darkened side by side.
“What the hell?” Alyx yelled.
“It’s a trickery demon. Only one of them is real,” Balthazar said as he thrust his blade into the stomach of one of the Darkened. It went straight through him.
Alyx sent the tip of her blade into the back of the other Darkened, who was beginning to split again. He cried out, the second image disappearing as he collapsed to the ground.
The last Darkened’s eyes skittered from Balthazar to Alyx, then he turned and ran.
Alyx glanced at Jordan and the other Darkened that he had been fighting with. They were clasping hands and talking quietly. The ground around them had earned three more bodies.
Balthazar grunted and shoved his sword into the sheath at his hip, staring off to where the Darkened had run. “If he were working for me, he wouldn’t have run like that. Coward. Samyara obviously has a lot to learn about commanding soldiers.”
He brushed off his jacket with his hands and his skin shimmered and melted to green. He stood before her now dressed again as a lesser demon. Alyx made up her mind never again to underestimate what appeared to be a lesser demon.
“I guess thanks are in order. You came at the right time,” Alyx said.
Balthazar raised an arm out towards the other Darkened. “You have Javar to thank for that. Upon my orders he remained inconspicuous downstairs in the Purgatory Bar. He noticed a group of Darkened looking suspicious and saw them follow the two of you out. Javar alerted me and we followed them. And here we are.” Balthazar ended his sentence by flourishing his hands over the bodies strewn across the ground.
The Darkened named Javar was dipping himself into a low curtsey. Alyx got the chance to look closely at Javar for the first time. He had copper skin under a deep purple suit with a yellow silk shirt unbuttoned enough so that Alyx could see the beginnings of a firm chest underneath and a smattering of dark hair. His shoes were purple snakeskin.
“Javar, at your service,” he said, stepping forward with his hand out.
“Alyx,” she replied and cautiously took his hand. Javar pulled her hand up to kiss the back of it.
“That’s a lot of purple,” Alyx said as she reclaimed her hand f
rom Javar’s lips.
“My dear, there’s no such thing as too much purple.”
“Looks like you’ve already met Jordan,” Alyx said.
Javar glanced over at Jordan, not bothering to hide his appreciative gaze, and made a languid once-over of Jordan’s entire physique. “Indeed I have.” Turning back to Alyx, Javar leaned in. In a voice that was too loud to be called a whisper he said, “I don’t know how you get any work done with him around.” Then he purred like a cat. The demon actually purred.
Alyx stifled a giggle. Jordan looked unperturbed, as if male Darkened purring over him was an everyday occurrence. Perhaps this was an everyday occurrence. Alyx caught Jordan winking at Javar. Winking.
Balthazar spoke, “They were Samyara’s Darkened. We shouldn’t hang around too long, as the one that ran off may be back with reinforcements. I shall push a mirage around us so that we can’t be seen while you destroy the evidence.”
Alyx moved to the first body. She picked up the Black Stone blade, secured it to her hip, then pulsed the Darkened with Fire. She saw Jordan bending down at the body next to her. It caught on fire as he put his hand to it. Alyx frowned. Jordan didn’t have a Fire bloodink tattoo, did he? Jordan caught her questioning look and held up his hand. There was a small device like a glass tube. “Another one of Tobias’s inventions. It allows you to create small amounts of Fire when you activate it.”
Alyx nodded and they moved from body to body, each body erupting into white and blue flames.
When the last body was set alight, Balthazar said, “You go. I’ll hold this mirage in place until the last body has disintegrated, which shouldn’t be long.”
“Wait,” Alyx said, coming to a decision. “Where’s that Communicator?”
Balthazar slipped his hand in his pocket and brought out the two demon-butterflies in their cages.
“To activate the Communicator say Quaero Quero. We shall come at once.”
“That means to seek in our original language,” said Alyx, a little surprised. “You use the original language as well?”
“Perhaps,” Balthazar said, a strange look in his eyes, “our origins are not so dissimilar.”
Balthazar spoke these words again into one of the cages, at which the butterfly became very still. It seemed to glow with a red light from within. The other demon-butterfly glowed with the same light, but it went into a complete flutter.
Balthazar lifted up the cage with the panicked-looking demon-butterfly. “If it is we who call you, your Communicator will look like this. Let the creature out of its cage and it will point you in the direction of its partner until deactivated. It is tied to the cage so it will not fly away.” He turned back to the first demon-butterfly. “To deactivate say, Silentium.” At which the demon-butterflies returned to their previous state and their glow disappeared. Silentium, Alyx remembered, was also of the original language, meaning stillness.
Balthazar held out one of the cages for Alyx. She clasped it in her hand. The butterfly’s wings fluttered between the bars against her skin, tickling her palm. She paused, soaking in the gravity of this moment, the moment she chose to work alongside a demon, and prayed she wasn’t making a mistake in trusting him. Then she placed the chain around her neck, securing her decision.
After saying their goodbyes to Balthazar and Javar, Alyx and Jordan flew off into the night.
“Hey,” Alyx yelled at Jordan over the rush of wind as they skimmed across clouds back to Aradale. “We need to talk.”
* * *
Alyx and Jordan touched down in the forest at the back of the Aradale grounds. Jordan faced Alyx and leaned against a tree trunk. “So?” he said, crossing his arms.
“Balthazar. Spill it.”
“I met him at Purgatory a few months ago. He approached me. At first I didn’t trust him either. He said that he witnessed a seraph making some sort of deal with a demon, betraying us. A deal about some sort of weapon that would take down our healing defenses. I said that it was impossible. He said that when I saw a wound that would not heal it would be his proof that we were on the same side. Balthazar recited to me lines from the Blood Prophecies and asked me to bring back the Guardian to meet him. He wanted to create an alliance with you. Lo and behold, Mayrekk told me about you. After I saved you in Michael’s DreamScape and I saw your leg that wasn’t healing, I knew that Balthazar was speaking the truth. I went back to Purgatory and tried to find Balthazar again, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t see him again until tonight.”
Alyx’s mouth was hanging open by the time he had finished speaking. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought if I told you before, you wouldn’t believe me. That you might not come. I thought that it would be better for you to meet with Balthazar and hear his side of things before you made your judgments based on what he was.”
“My judgments?” Alyx was incredulous.
Jordan shrugged. “Come on, Alyx. Are you telling me that if I told you to come meet a demon friend of mine, you would have come willingly?”
“No, but...but I would have still come...” she finished lamely, knowing in her heart that it was a lie.
Jordan rolled his eyes. “No, you wouldn’t have, and you know it.”
Alyx didn’t know whether to be angry at Jordan or not. Judgments? Did she make judgments?
“So,” Alyx started, “not all demons are bad?”
“Bad. Good. I suppose it depends which side you’re standing on, doesn’t it? All I know is, you can’t tell just by looking at a creature what it is. Not even the Elders.”
Alyx frowned as she watched Jordan’s face grow dark again. Alyx had seen this shadow fall across Jordan’s face before.
“I know that look,” she said softly. “What are you thinking about?”
A few moments passed before Jordan began to speak. “When I was still a part of the Michaelea Castus, I saw Michael...taking advantage of a young seraphelle lightwarrior.”
Alyx’s blood ran cold. She remembered her dreams that Michael had invaded. She shivered, remembering his cold stony arms scratching against her skin, creating a prison around her.
“I reported it but...the Elders, they protect their own. I was instructed – instructed – to forget what I saw. Forbidden to speak to anyone about it. But I just couldn’t forget. I couldn’t forget her − her crying, her screams...her face. It haunted me. I didn’t say anything but I couldn’t forget. From that day I started to see the cracks in the society that the Elders had built around us. And once you see them you can’t un-see them. I found out afterwards that the seraphelle’s name was Lylianne, and she was also told to pretend that nothing had happened.”
Jordan’s face grew hard. “Then she disappeared. They said that she killed herself or ran off, but...I knew it was a lie. I just snapped. I couldn’t be a part of it anymore. I just couldn’t. So I left.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I could have spoken up, given a voice to someone who wasn’t allowed one.”
“Jordan, it’s not your fault.”
“‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’,” Jordan said. Alyx recognized the quote by a mortal called Edmund Burke from a mortal book that she had smuggled illegally into Michaelea once. “I told myself I would never ‘do nothing’ again. I told myself I’d find a way to bring Michael to justice for what he did.”
“So this whole Rogue hero thing − you’re not just in it for the chicks,” Alyx said, trying to lighten the mood.
Jordan laughed a little, which pleased Alyx. When he looked at her again, he had a little twinkle in his eye. “Well, maybe just one chick.” Jordan stepped forward and he placed a hand against her face. His thumb began to trace along her cheek.
He isn’t Israel.
Alyx stepped away, trying to cover up her awkwardness with a short laugh. “I don’t want to step on Javar’s toes.”
Jordan frowned. “Javar? You think I’m interested in Javar?”
Alyx shrugged. “He’s obviously interested in you and you didn’t seem to mind his attentions. I saw you wink at him.”
His frown broke and he laughed. “Oh, little seraphelle. I forget how sheltered your short life has been.”
Alyx sniffed and crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m not sheltered.”
“I was just flirting back. I’m not interested in Javar. I mean, he picked a good-looking mortal to occupy, but I’m not interested in him like that.”
Alyx frowned. “So are you or are you not gay?”
“There you go with labels and judgments again. When I’m interested in someone, I’m interested in them as a person. I don’t really care about the package it comes in.”
Alyx’s head spun. “So you date women and men?”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“What? No. No.”
“Besides,” all the humor dropped from Jordan’s face as he stepped closer, “I’m interested in someone else.”
“Oh, really?” Alyx laughed nervously. Jordan took another step towards her, his gaze deepening in intensity. Alyx shuffled back. Oh God.
“Yes. But I don’t think she’s ready.”
“Oh.” But she couldn’t go back any further. She had backed up into the trunk of a tree. She was trapped between this trunk and the body of the seraph in front of her.
“I’m not going to play any games with you. You intrigue me.”
Alyx swallowed. “What?”
“I could be good for you. I could show you things, teach you about the world, about your limits, about pleasure, pain and everything in between... You have so much potential, Alyx, you just need a good teacher. I think that somewhere under this hesitation,” he waved one hand around her, “you feel something for me, too.”
Alyx gaped. “You’re so sure of yourself.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.” He shrugged. “I think it is pointless running around pretending that I’m not interested in you. Playing games is for children.”
Jordan closed the gap between them and moved his face down to hers. Alyx didn’t move, struggling to feel her way through this apprehension and uncertainty and the strange but distinct pull of curiosity underneath it all.
