“I need to unlock the collar,” Kenan said, holding onto Tiras’s desk as he fought for breath.
Tiras looked up from his work. “Around the angel’s neck?”
“Yes.”
“It’s locked?”
“It has a seal set upon it,” he said. “A holy seal.”
“An angel can remove that easily,” Tiras said patiently.
“It’s been set with sticky sin.”
“That’s an odd combination.”
“And impossible to touch,” Kenan said. “Do you know a way to get it off?”
“I’ll try,” Tiras said. “I’m human, once angel, and now a denizen of Hellsgate. I can’t think of anyone better suited.”
“There’s no key?”
“Those two were not set together to be removed that simply, Kenan. But my locksmith’s intuition tells me this may work.”
Perhaps any mortal unaffiliated with Heaven or Hell would be able to manage this. But most humans in Hellsgate, even if they had the ability, wouldn’t do such a thing as free an angel. Tiras would, though. “All right. We have to hurry.” Kenan seized his wrist and hauled him to his feet, then set off.
“I thought she was wearing it by choice, pretending to be your slave,” Tiras said, panting as he tried to keep up with Kenan’s relentless pace. “Otherwise I would have offered earlier.” His step faltered. “Someone chained an angel?”
“Tiras,” Kenan said, “what’s more important now is that someone unchain her.”
In the distance he could hear wails, and a hot wind breathed upon him, carrying with it the smell of ash. The crowds he’d seen before seemed more purposeful now—they were spread in front of several homes, as though conducting a search.
Kenan almost careened into a succubus, who sniffed at the apology he yelled over his shoulder. Then suddenly she called out, “Isn’t that the one? The one with the angel?”
Kenan skidded around a corner to get out of sight, cursing. Why had he paraded around half the city with Jahel in tow?
“Are they hunting her?”
“Now they are,” Kenan said grimly. There were shouts rising behind them. Just before they rounded the next corner, Kenan looked back to see a mob following them.
Somehow Tiras found more speed, and they made it to the house having gained some distance from their pursuers. When Kenan fumbled with his key, Tiras shouldered him aside, shoved one of his own keys into the lock and turned it with a click.
Jahel was still slumbering. Her hair had fallen to one side, revealing the seal.
Tiras reached toward it. He jerked his hand back at the first touch, and Kenan saw the blister already rising on his skin.
“It’s no use,” Kenan said.
“But I touched it. That’s more than you can bear to do.” Tiras took a deep breath, then caught hold of the seal. He dug his nails under it and prised it off, then flung it away into a corner with a hiss. His hand was burnt from the contact with both the holy and infernal, the mark of the seal lay branded upon his palm and wisps of smoke still rose from his flesh. The skin was charred black with bone showing through, the fingers permanently curled. Blood trickled from his lip, where he’d bitten down on a scream.
Kenan wrapped a spare piece of cloth around Tiras’s hand as a bandage, wishing he could do more. “My deepest thanks. You should go. You won’t be safe here. If I ever can, I will repay you.”
The locksmith hesitated, then nodded. “Be safe,
angeliki
,” he said to Jahel, who was just stirring awake, then, “And you, my friend,” to Kenan. He darted out the door, slamming it behind him in his haste.
Kenan threw the bolts, then flung open the door to the back.
“Kenan? What’s happened?” Jahel asked, sitting up.
He spilled the contents of his pouch onto the table. Coins rolled everywhere, but he knew every one of them, had touched and won over each woman whose soul glinted there, save one. He picked it up and pressed it into her hand. “Hold on to this.” Then he seized the collar on either side of the seam where the seal had been set. At first he thought that he would do no more than leave his fingerprints imprinted on the metal. But the stark contrast of that black iron against the coolness of her skin made him strain even harder, and it gave way and he held the open band in his hands.
Her hand flew to her naked throat and she stood. With her other palm, though, she still held out the coin as though she expected him to take it back.
“Take it to the girl,” he said impatiently.
She looked utterly lost. “You’re giving me the soul? And my freedom?”
“Yes.” He flung the collar and chain away. They skittered across the floor. He picked up her dress and forced her arms through it, and made a desultory effort at closing some of the buttons. “You’re set now.”
“But I have nothing to give you—”
“Just go, damn you!” The thunder outside his door was growing. He pushed her out the back. “I don’t want you here!”
Her face was stricken, but she turned and leapt into the air with a beat of her wings. The wind caught her, and carried her away from him.
She was beautiful, flying. The sight of her, wings spread and embracing the wind, near-blinded him in its glory. It had been wrong to hold her in chains. Even…a sin.
The door exploded open.
“Bring us the angel!”
Kenan turned to face the horde that had gathered outside his home. There were demons of every stripe, but they blurred into a sameness of expression, a sort of insanity.
“She’s gone!” he shouted back at them, but his voice was swallowed by theirs. The tusked demon in front of him shoved a fist in his face and he reeled back. Around him, he heard the sound of feet and hooves tramping through his house, and glass breaking on the ground. Two demons caught hold of his arms. Someone butted him in the chest, and he was the next thing to fall to the floor. A kick to his stomach made him curl in agony.
A deep voice scythed through the uproar. “Quiet and begone!”
There was a sudden silence. One imp didn’t manage to finish his shout in time, and his words rose into a squeak.
A rock-demon dared to speak. “An angel—”
“Leave us,” a woman’s voice purred dangerously.
Kenan raised his head to watch the demons scurry away to either side like parted waters, and they kept going, out of his house and to whatever corners of the city they had come from, leaving only two still figures in the doorway where just moments ago there had been dozens screaming. He hauled himself to his feet to greet them properly.
From the demons’ obedience, he had expected one of the princes of Hell. Instead there stood an archangel. The sheer size of him was overwhelming enough, but he also thrummed with unmistakable power and he wore a thunderous frown.
More daunting, though, was the woman next to him—also tall, but not at all plain. Her hair was a long fall of sable, her eyes coal-black. Wings rose from her back, but no one would have mistaken her for an angel. They were bat’s wings, dark and leathery.
She was not beautiful. She was perfect.
“First,” Kenan said, and crouched on the floor. He knew the name she was called by, of course—it had been known since the first mortal—but he used her title out of respect and fear. She had been the first demon to tempt a man. Even the demon princes of Hell accorded her deference.
“You may stand,” Lilith said, so he rose, only to have his head snapped to one side by her slap. Four lines burned across his cheek where her nails had torn the skin.
He did not touch his face as he turned back to look at her. “I will do as you say, First,” he said. “You need not abase me in such a common manner.”
“Tell me, then, where you’ve hidden your angel.”
The archangel came closer. His wings spread in an obvious threat, opening to nearly twice the span of Jahel’s. “I was told she was caged and chained, like an animal,” he said.
“She was,” Kenan said. “I freed her. She’s likely on her way to Heaven.”
“Useless incubus,” the archangel said, advancing, but Lilith laid the same hand that had struck Kenan upon the angel’s arm to hold him back.
“He’s done well for himself, I hear,” she said. “Don’t judge him by his breed.” She turned back to Kenan. “And why did you free her?”
She was smiling slightly, encouragingly. But he knew she would not brook any feeble excuse, no more than the archangel who stood by her with his fists curled.
He thought of Jahel and said, “I’ve fallen in love with the angel.”
It sounded no more plausible out loud.
Lilith threw her head back and laughed. “You poor thing,” she crooned. “At the mercy of one of those creatures.”
The archangel glowered.
She twined her arms behind Kenan’s neck and leaned her forehead against his. “So an angel seduced you?” she asked, a mocking lilt to her voice. “You couldn’t resist the charms of one of the Heaven-born?”
“She didn’t seduce me,” Kenan said. “I tried to seduce her, and only ensnared myself.”
She drew back and searched his face. “Incubus, if you lie—”
“Truth, First,” he said.
“A demon and an angel?” the archangel broke in, incredulous.
It was Lilith who turned to him. “Yes, Baraqiel. A demon and an angel. It isn’t unheard of.”
He looked away. “But never condoned,” he said harshly.
“No,” she said. “But she’s gone now.”
“It concerns me more that she was ever here.”
“Indeed.” She eyed Kenan again. “Imagine angels storming Hellsgate, looking for one of their own who had been treated disgracefully. Imagine what would follow. If Baraqiel hadn’t come to me for help finding this lost angel, instead of simply calling together the other archangels to descend upon us, it would have meant war. What were you thinking, keeping an angel captive?” Lilith paused, and then her voice hardened. “What kind of love is that?”
It was Baraqiel who intervened this time. “Enough. She’s free now. Incubus, what color were her wings?”
He couldn’t help remembering the sight of them spread open as she rose above him. “White.”
The archangel released a long breath, an odd mixture of relief and disappointment. “She isn’t the one—she should have changed by now. But it still smells of someone rousing trouble between Heaven and Hell.”
“She’s not the one?” Kenan asked, bewildered.
Baraqiel glanced at him. “A scroll was disturbed in Heaven’s library.”
“I heard,” he said cautiously.
“It was the Scroll of Revelations.”
The attempted theft suddenly became a far more serious matter. That scroll not only revealed the details of the end of the world, but would cause it if fully opened. The only reason to take it would be to bring about Armageddon.
“Was it opened?” he asked. The scroll was said to be so potent that it took more than one person just to open it.
“One seal,” Baraqiel said grimly.
Still ill news, but at least it was but one of seven. Surely it took the opening of all the seals to completely devastate the world.
“When I heard of an angel who had come to Hellsgate,” Baraqiel went on, “I thought it might be the thief, fled to where other angels might hesitate to follow. But then it sounded as
though she had been enslaved by a demon. That almost roused me to raise the battle cry. If I had—even if we arrived to find her already freed, a war host isn’t so easily stopped.”
“There will be war, then?” Kenan asked.
“The princes of Hell are ever-ready for battle,” Lilith said.
Baraqiel said, “Some of the archangels, as well. We hope neither will hear of this. But there’s trouble being brewed between our realms. Someone bestirred that mob to come after the poor angel you’d been keeping here. If she had been killed…”
Kenan felt the vertigo of having ventured into waters deeper than he’d expected, with no ground to be found beneath his feet. “It may be too late,” he said. “I heard one of the demon-horse lords was bridled.”
Kenan had never thought to see dread on an archangel’s face, and never wanted to again.
“One of the Horsemen may ride, but there are still six seals left,” Lilith said. “We can still stop this from turning into outright war between Heaven and Hell.”
“We have to find the thief first,” Baraqiel reminded her. He spread his wings and took to the air.
Lilith stayed a moment longer. “Be wise, incubus. Meddle not with angels,” she said with a twist of her lips, and then she too flew away.
Kenan slumped back against the table, shaken by the encounter. He knew he should do something about the ruin of his house but couldn’t muster the energy. He let himself slide to the floor instead, brooding over the loss of Jahel, and slipped into dark dreams about meeting her from opposite sides of a battlefield.
* * *
“Kenan?”
He leapt to his feet and whipped around to see Jahel standing at the back door.
“You’re back!” He went to her and pressed her to him fiercely, ignoring his bruised body’s protests. When he drew back, he took in every detail of her face, wondering at how he could have already forgotten how lovely she was. No, he had remembered, but she was even more achingly beautiful actually standing before him.
She was looking about the wreckage of his home with horror. “Was this because of me?” She touched his face. “Are you hurt badly?”
He ignored her questions to ask his own. “Why are you here? You were supposed to give the soul back to the girl.”
“I did return it,” she said.
“And you didn’t stay to guard her?”
She looked away. “To what use? I failed before.”
He embraced her, as much to hold her as to comfort her. “You took a soul from a demon, and gave it back to the mortal it belonged to,” he said. “You’ve done more than any other angel.”
She smiled despite herself. “What do you know of angels’ feats?”
“I know that angels rarely venture even once into Hellsgate,” he said. “You’ve done it twice now.”
Her face grew grave again. “Kenan, I came back because I still need your help.”
He had been hoping for different words. He tried for lightness. “Not another soul?”
“No,” she said. “When I first came here, I didn’t come by myself. I didn’t know the way. I was searching for the path when I ran into Gidon, and he told me he could guide me to Hellsgate. And he brought me here. But I don’t know what happened to him, and I can’t leave without knowing he’s well.”
He wondered what mortal would have agreed to take an angel into Hellsgate. But he was hardly one to question. He, a demon, had gotten caught up in Jahel’s quest. “Gutter-wing, I don’t make a practice of rescuing people who can’t survive in this city.”
“You’ve already started,” she said. “You rescued me.”
What wouldn’t he do for her?
She must have seen his face change, for she kissed him. “Thank you, Kenan.”
He sighed and held her loosely against him. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”
“You hadn’t freed me, earlier.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “So how did you and Gidon get separated?”
“We came when it was dark. We entered a yard of some sort, behind a building. I heard a ringing from inside, and when I went toward it, a net fell over me. It burned, and I couldn’t get it off.” She shivered at the memory.
“Sticky sin,” he said grimly. Anathema to those of Heaven. “It’s like your holy water, but infernal in nature. Do you remember what the building looked like?”
“I barely got a glimpse of it,” she said. “I lost consciousness. When I woke, I was in the cage in the market.”
“I’ll have to find the merchant who sold you,” he said. “He’ll be able to tell me where he got you from, and that might lead me to your guide.”
“I want to come with you,” she said.
He hesitated, but she was the only one who would recognize her friend. “You’ll need to wear a cloak. If anyone realizes what you are, fly away as fast as you can.”
Her mouth tightened, but she nodded.
Even his longest cloak couldn’t cover her wings, so she ended up draping a sheet over herself and pinning it closed with a brooch. It would fool no one looking for an angel, but there were enough hunchbacked and winged demons to at least keep people from recognizing her at first sight. It seemed to work as they walked toward the market.
She moved stiffly as they wended their way between stalls and tents. There was a frenzy beyond even the norm. Ill tidings hadn’t dampened trade, only made demons and humans alike more frantic to buy what they needed in case the city closed. He tried to see the market through her eyes: demons of strange shapes, hooved and horned; the cacophony of voices that could never match an angel’s lilt; men and beasts chained. And here, too, an angel had been held captive. No wonder she didn’t care for this place.
They came to the spot where the merchant had been before, but a snake charmer sat there instead. The market vendors often shuffled about, fighting for the best positions from which to catch buyers’ interest.
“He might not even be here today,” Kenan said, but Jahel caught at his arm.
“Wait,” she said, and cocked her head.
Then he heard it too, the unmistakable crack of a whip. He exchanged a rueful glance with Jahel, both of them remembering the sting of that leather, then went to find the man who wielded it.
The cage held a gryphon this time, a proud, magnificent beast undiminished by the bars that held it. Both the lashing of its lion’s tail and the screech from its eagle’s beak spoke of its fury.
“How dare he?” Jahel clenched her hands.
“It’s your capture we’re concerned about,” Kenan reminded her, and drew her behind him. He approached the merchant before she could.
The merchant didn’t seem to recognize him. “A fine beast for you, sir? Gryphons are fierce fighters.”
“Actually, I bought an angel from you,” Kenan said. “I was wondering where you got her.”
“There aren’t any more to be found,” the merchant said. He turned away, dismissing him as a potential customer.
Jahel made a noise of protest, and the merchant’s eyes narrowed as he looked over Kenan’s shoulder. “You. And you’re not chained.”
“Yes, I’d like to know how that collar was put on her,” Kenan said, trying to salvage some shred of propriety.
“It was already on her,” the merchant said flatly. “I assume the smith who sold her to me did it. He built the cage, too.”
“That was the ringing sound I heard,” Jahel said, grabbing Kenan’s arm. “A hammer striking a forge.”
“Which smith?” Kenan asked the merchant, remembering their fruitless quest for the dressmaker’s shop.
“He’s a weaponsmith. Are you sure you want to bother him the way you’re nagging at me?” The merchant crossed his arms.
“Just tell us,” Jahel said.
The merchant smirked at her. “And what can an angel do to me?”
She took a step forward, then turned and yanked the cage door open.
The gryphon sprang out. It screamed and whirled on the merchant, but he lashed at it with his whip and it took to the air with a powerful leap. The beat of its wings threatened nearby tents while Kenan and Jahel covered their noses and mouths against the rising dust. With a last defiant cry, it flew off, the chain trailing behind it in the air.
“You bitch!” The merchant aimed his whip at Jahel, but Kenan lunged forward and it wrapped around his arm instead of hitting her. Kenan gritted his teeth against the pain and got a good grip on the whip, then jerked it out of the merchant’s hand.