Authors: Adrian Phoenix
Programmed?
News to Gillespie. “That’s not all he is,” he said. “What do you know about his father?”
“Nothing. Prejean’s mother never said word one about who fathered her baby.”
“And you never wondered about that?”
“Didn’t seem important.”
“I’ve got something that’ll change your mind about that,” Gillespie said. “Something you need to see.”
“And that would be?” Rutgers asked.
Gillespie shook his head. “Later.”
“Fair enough. So—Prejean and Wallace—do you think they’re inside whatever or wherever the hell that is?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“Christ.” Face grim, dirt-smudged, Rutgers reached inside her trench and pulled out a gun. Looked like a standard issue Glock.
“If you’re thinking of going in, you’re going alone,” Gillespie said. His throat felt parched, prickling with a deep thirst for the flannel-blanket comfort floating inside a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “Me, I’m going for a drink.”
In the distance, sirens wailed, oracles of disaster.
“I just might join you,” Rutgers murmured as she eyed the ember-rimmed hole. She reholstered her Glock. “The first responders will be here soon. I don’t want to explain my presence.”
Gillespie nodded. “Same here. Plus, there’s a few things we need to discuss before we take any action.”
“
We,
is it?” Rutgers looked at Gillespie. “How bitter a pill was it when Underwood ordered you to let Prejean walk away after the debacle in Damascus?”
“Very.”
“I’ll bet.” Rutgers swiveled around, then hurried back the way they’d come, dodging piles of rubble with surprising grace for a desk jockey.
Gillespie followed her to the glass-glinting street, his fingers sweating against the rifle’s stock. A less thirsty part of him insisted that he remain in the cemetery, waiting out of sight for the monster to return—
Monster?
How about bloodsucking bastard
god?
—and put an end to Prejean the second he stepped out of the tomb and back into their world. Trouble was, Gillespie was no longer sure he knew how to do that.
Or if anyone could.
4
A DARK AND RESTLESS SEA
G
EHENNA
,
T
HE PIT OF
S
HEOL
Night of March 27–28
F
URY PULSED THROUGH
D
ANTE
like blood.
The Morningstar’s bone-white wings fanned through hot air thick with heat and smoke and the stench of rotten eggs as they descended into the stinking pit. Heat baked against Dante’s skin, sucked at his breath. His mesh-sleeved arm wound tighter around the Morningstar’s neck.
Lucien hung in the depths of the ember-shadowed pit, thick curves of barbed steel impaling both shoulders, blood smearing his skin. The orange light from the glowing coals glinted in the bands clipping Lucien’s smooth black wings together.
The Fallen pricks had tossed Lucien onto hooks like a side of beef. Had fucking
tortured
him as punishment for a crime thousands of years cold, according to the Morningstar.
Dante didn’t know if Lucien was guilty of the murder or not and, in truth, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. All he cared about was getting Lucien off those hooks and out of the pit.
“
Une main lave l’autre,
for true,” Dante said, picturing Gabriel hook-impaled, his swagger and smirk gone all to hell like fresh air in the pit.
“Is that French?” the Morningstar asked, tucking Dante even closer against his side. “Your accent is unusual.”
“Nope. Cajun.”
“Ah, ancient and corrupted French, then.”
“Oh, hey, an unwanted and incorrect opinion. You know where you can cram that opinion, yeah? Not to mention how far, how hard, and how often?”
“I suspect I do, yes. Think I’ll let the suggestion slide.”
“Too bad.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Dry amusement buoyed the fallen angel’s voice.
Dante snorted.
“Oui sûr.”
Dante wished he could’ve gone to Sheol on his own to fetch Lucien from its smoldering guts, but his own newborn wings, still wet with blood and untested, were useless until he learned how to use them.
If
he wanted to learn. So, no matter how much it had grated against his instincts, he’d accepted the Morning-star’s help.
Besides, the sooner he reached Lucien and got the three of them—Heather, Lucien, and himself—out of Gehenna, the better.
A tsunami of rapturous
wybrcathl
crashed into Dante’s mind, battering his shields and unraveling his thoughts as the Fallen resumed greeting him—en masse—a warbling choir composed of what sounded and felt like thousands of voices. White light flickered at the edges of his vision.
Welcome home, young Maker!
Holy, holy, holy!
Take your place upon the Chaos Seat. We shall love you. Instruct you. Guide you.
You shall breathe new life into Gehenna.
Dante tightened his shields, shored them up with fresh mental steel, but exhaustion sucked at his strength, his focus. He resisted the urge to unleash his song in a furious
back-the-fuck-off-and-let-me-breathe
response, worried that he’d lose control of his power and accidentally hurt Heather or even Lucien.
His muscles knotted and his wings fluttered in automatic response. Molten pain blazed along his back, twitching liquid fire from nerve to nerve. Sucking in a breath, he held himself still, jaw clenched, until the pain faded.
<
Baptiste? Everything okay?
>
Dante tilted his head and looked up. Heather knelt at the mouth of the pit above, her lovely, heart-shaped face illuminated by the pit’s fiery glow, her expression composed. But through their bond, he felt her concern, cool and coiled, nudging against his shields. She pushed her breeze-caught red hair out of her eyes with one hand, a big-ass Browning locked in the fingers of the other.
>
<
You too
.>
Dante hadn’t liked leaving her above and alone, not one fucking bit; no matter how capable Heather was, no matter how deadly an aim, she remained a vulnerable mortal in a world of winged and taloned Fallen. But the Morningstar had refused to bring her with them into the pit.
If your father should be too weak to fly, I can’t carry all three of you out.
“She’d better be safe up there,” Dante warned, voice low.
“She is,” the Morningstar replied. “As companion and bond-mate to the Maker, no one would dream of harming her.”
“That dick Gabriel would. He seems to have a major stick up his ass where mortals are concerned.”
The Morningstar laughed, genuine amusement deepening the musical timbre of his voice. “You’ve such an eloquent way with words.”
“Nice to be appreciated, and fuck you.”
“By the way, please be careful with your wings,” the Morningstar said. “The tips and edges are sharp as blades, and you just smacked me a moment ago. You could’ve drawn blood.”
“Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.” Dante lifted his hand, then extended his middle finger, displaying it with exaggerated care from all sides.
The Morningstar arched a pale eyebrow. “Obviously, you take instruction well.”
“
Tais toi,
you.”
Catching a flash of white from the corner of his eye, Dante twisted around for a better look. Shock iced his blood as he realized Lucien wasn’t the only one being punished.
Ghostly twists of smoke curled against the thin moonlight shafting into the pit, revealing another figure hanging across from Lucien. She dangled on her own pair of hooks, blood staining the front of her gold and black gown. Coils of winter-pale hair looped to her shoulders alongside her pain-etched face. Her creamy white wings had also been banded shut. Despite the pain etching her face, she watched their descent, her violet eyes bright with wonder.
“Creawdwr,”
she whispered, her gaze caressing Dante’s face.
“Who’s she?” Dante asked. “And why the hell is she on hooks too?”
“She is Hekate . . . my daughter,” the Morningstar replied, voice grim. “I didn’t know Gabriel had sentenced her to Sheol for trying to help your father escape until we stepped through your gate. Then I heard her.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Dante said. “You’re linked to her as her dad, yeah? You woulda heard her,
felt
her, anywhere.”
“She shielded her pain and refused to call to me. She knew I had more important concerns.” The Morningstar gave Dante a pointed look.
“Think again. I ain’t your concern. Never was. Never will be.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the Morningstar said. “As Maker, you’re everyone’s concern—whether you like it or not. All I want is to help you along whatever path you choose to walk.”
“
All you want
. Uh-huh. Yeah. Right.”
Lucien’s warning remained clear in Dante’s mind:
I hid you from others—powerful others who would use you without mercy.
Dante had a feeling the Morningstar, despite all his friendly help and so-called guidance, fell smack into the middle of the “
use you without mercy
” category.
“Stubborn
and
cynical,” the Morningstar muttered. “Truly, a winning combination.”
Before Dante could bite off a proper retort, a rapid burring sound caught his attention and drew his gaze to the dark tunnels stretching off in both directions from within the pit’s guts.
Several creatures with serpentine bodies—maybe three feet plus change in length—and feathered, lizardlike heads flew out from the mouths of the tunnels, carried on multiple, hummingbird-quick wings. They flitted around the pit in agitated circles, their burring wings stirring up the rotten-egg stench. Red and orange ember-light glinted from their scaled hides.
“And who are they?” Dante asked, eyeing the snake-lizard-hummingbird things.
“
Chalkydri,
” the Morningstar said dismissively. “Servants and jailors.”
“You really fucking think you’re superior to everyone, don’tcha?”
An amused smile quirked at the Morningstar’s lips. “Think? No. I
know
I am.”
Dante snorted. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
The
chalkydri
continued their anxious aerial darting, chittering and fluting, as the Morningstar slowed his descent, coming to a hovering position in front of Lucien’s unconscious body with strong, steady wing-beats.
Fear slipped a shiv between Dante’s ribs. With all the
wybrcathl
and noise bouncing around in his head, he couldn’t hear Lucien’s heart, couldn’t tell whether it still beat or not.
Before our bond was severed, I woulda known without hearing . . .
Dante shoved the thought away, not wanting to be drawn to the dark, empty spot in his mind where Lucien’s steadying presence had once dwelt.
Lucien’s waist-length black hair streamed past his bowed head and seemed to merge with the black kilt belted at his hips. Even though Gabriel had undone the spell that he’d laid upon Lucien—at Dante’s terse insistence—a spell that had bound Lucien’s fate to that of a dying land, his father’s strength and vitality hadn’t yet been restored. His skin was too pale, almost translucent.
A pang of guilt pierced Dante.
My fault. I shoved him away.
The Morningstar’s wings swooshed behind Dante in a steady, measured rhythm as he wrapped both arms around Dante’s waist and held him securely. Sliding his arm free of the fallen angel’s neck, Dante leaned forward and pressed a trembling hand against Lucien’s bare and blood-sticky chest above his heart.
The warmth radiating into Dante’s palm did little to reassure him, since he couldn’t be sure if it was Lucien’s own or heat soaked up from the coals below.
Dante arrowed a wished-hard thought out into the night, seeking the dead.
Keep him breathing,
ma mère, s’il te plaît.
Keep his heart beating.
A moment later, Dante felt a slow, hard beat thump beneath his palm. He closed his eyes, exhaling in relief.
“Merci beau-coup,”
he whispered.
Opening his eyes, Dante pushed Lucien’s hair back from his face, and another sharp pang pierced him. The skin beneath Lucien’s closed eyes looked bruised, the smudges of darkness stark against his pallor. And the hooks . . .
Dante-angel?
Chloe’s soft voice whispered up from the depths within, and the pit tilted abruptly. Dante felt his world shifting, sliding, fracturing. Panic trickled like ice water along his spine as he fought to remain in the present, but another world whirled into view—a world composed of a white padded room, a steel hook bolted into the ceiling.
Ready for business.
Dante shuddered, pain spasming in his back, spiking his temples. A hook-shaped uneasiness fueled his racing pulse.
Not fucking now. Keep your shit together.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he focused on the image of Lucien’s bowed head, his too-pale face, and shoved the white room with its steel hook down below. Reality steadied. The past receded, a dark and restless sea—a sea Dante wasn’t sure he could hold back a second time.
<
Baptiste?
>
<
Still here,
chérie.> He opened his eyes, and relief butter-flied through him when he saw only one image—Lucien’s face. <
Let’s get this done, yeah?
>
A chalkydri flitted near, its rows of delicate, gold-edged wings a blur. Dante reached out and nabbed its thick, twisting tail. It squawked in panic, its talons popping out from its paws like a startled cat’s, then it fell silent. It regarded Dante with large golden eyes.
Dante tugged it closer. Its black-scaled skin felt as smooth as velvet under his fingers. “I want you to release him.” He nodded at Lucien. “Get him off these fucking hooks and free his wings.” He then pointed in the violet-eyed chick’s—
Hekate’s
—direction. “Her too.
Tout de suite
. You can do all that, yeah?”