Infinite Read online

  I push the instinctual fear as far away from me as I can. We’re here to fight him. If he’s hurt, he’s hurt; that’s not my concern anymore. Not after everything that’s happened.

  How many will die for you and Michael tonight?

  I spin around, surrounded by the battle. Azael’s soldiers stay on their feet, even Aym, who is locked in such a close battle with Eli that I’m sure one of them will die tonight. Maybe they’ll both kill each other and Azael and I will both lose someone.

  A demon is pinned by one of the bird-brothers on the strange sculpture, and I can’t look away from him fast enough to miss his head falling away from his body. He volunteered to help us, and he’s lost his life for it. I will not let him die in vain; I won’t let any life lost be forgotten. We will not walk away empty-handed.

  I promise myself that we won’t know absolute defeat tonight. I won’t allow it; we haven’t come this far to lose.

  Eli buries his axe in Aym’s stomach and she falls, her dark braid coming undone on the ice as the blackness of her blood seeps under her. The sound of the battle muffles her choking, but she’s spitting blood. Eli backs away.

  Come and fight me, Pen. If you think I have what you want, come and get me yourself.

  Kala fights against the other bird-brother next to me, and I lift my blade to help her.

  “Where’s Michael?” she asks.

  I search around and find his face just as he slides his blade into the demon that decapitated our solider. The demon alights in flames and lets out a piercing screech before he crumbles to ashes at Michael’s feet. The fighting pauses for a gust of wind, and the demon blows away with the snow. His brother breaks the stillness of the moment, redoubling his efforts in the fury of grief. The red-haired angel comes to stand next to Kala, giving her a moment to catch her breath.

  She quickly turns to me, blood across her face, splattering from her brown cheek to her arched eyebrow. Her bow is over her shoulders, and she’s holding a wavy blade she stole from Azael’s cache of weapons. Fatigue sits heavily on her forehead; there’s a sadness there I didn’t expect to see.

  “I have to get his soul,” I say to her, lifting to my toes. I scan across the courtyard and see Azael slip around the battle, staying well away from the ends of any swords or daggers or axes or whips. He ducks inside a low chapel on the grounds.

  “There’s no time! We have to go!” Kala says.

  The other angel giving her the reprieve from fighting the second bird-brother flicks her eyes to us, having overheard the new order. Kala’s waving her hands to the others, calling for a retreat.

  “Just give me a few minutes,” I say. “Hold them off a bit longer. We can’t leave without—”

  “Ana almost lost her life. Others have already lost theirs. This isn’t up for discussion.”

  “No,” I say, pulling back and making my way to the chapel, my blades held out toward the fighting. “It’s not.”

  We didn’t travel this far to leave without what we came for. We haven’t fought this hard to run away without even the smallest slice of success. Those who lost their lives will not have done so for nothing. I promised!

  Peeling away from the knot of battle, I enter the bubble of dull noise just outside the chapel. The fighting is far enough away that the sounds of combat and death are dim, and I can almost close my eyes and pretend that it’s all in my head. That none of this is real. But the snow melting on my cheek and the icy wind tearing through to my bones make the moment too real.

  With a glance over my shoulder, I take one last look at the fighting. The number of the New Genesis members who came over with us is smaller, but it’s still enough to hold back Azael’s soldiers. They only have to keep them at bay for a short while longer, and then we can go. Then we can be safe again, even for just a little bit. If they give me just a few minutes—

  I step inside the chapel and close the door, sealing myself inside with my brother.

  Azael is waiting for me, sitting in one of the pews so casually that it infuriates me. His feet are kicked up on the back of the seat in front of him, and he drops them when he hears me enter. The soles of his shoes slap loudly on the stone.

  I keep my daggers in front of me, and Azael eyes them, amused. His sword, I notice, is lying casually on the seat next to him.

  “It’s been too long, sister.”

  Goose bumps rise on my arms. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  “Not long enough,” I say, my voice cool and low.

  Azael stands, but he doesn’t make a move toward his sword. His face flickers with emotion before that easy, slimy grin of his reappears. I didn’t realize how horrible it was until I’d gone so long without seeing it. It’s like going years without a nightmare and then, one night, having the terror of a bad dream unexpectedly reappear and it’s even worse than you remembered.

  “It hurts to hear you say that.”

  “Does it?” I ask.

  “YES!” His yell echoes off the stones around us, reverberating through the space with his rage. He’s practically vibrating with his loathing—but I don’t think it’s all for me. A small part of it looks like it’s directed inward, at himself.

  It takes him a moment to stop the shaking of his hands, the pent-up temper he’s just barely holding at bay needing a way to expel itself from his body. He manages to slide back into stillness, but he can’t put back on his façade of calm. Azael is an open wound, and I’m the hot poker sticking into him, burning him from the inside out.

  “I hate you,” he whispers.

  “Hate is a strong word,” I say.

  “I know.” He tilts his face down, his eyes boring through me. “That’s why I used it.”

  I lower my arms a little, unsure what he’s going to do, say. He looks like he’s going to cry, but he could also kill me. He walks a fine line of insanity, and I realize I always prevented this unbalance. I was the reason he hadn’t gone this far before. I was what kept him on this side of madness. But now? No one’s stopping him.

  “Have you come for this?” From his pocket, he produces a thin, glass vial. It’s crimson, as dark as blood.

  I take a step toward him, but he matches me with a pace backward.

  “Uh-uh-uh.” He raises his finger, his eyes shining. The brilliant fever of insanity.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Azael.” Not tonight. Not tonight. The thought thrums through me, and the background of my thoughts is searching for a way out of this. A way we can both survive, at least for a little longer.

  “Oh, you don’t?” His head cocks to the side in mock confusion. “I’m surprised to hear that, seeing as you are now the leader of a rebellion.” His voice is a harsh whisper that breaks over the word rebellion. “Isn’t that the goal of your revolution? To put an end to me?”

  “To stop you,” I say, taking a small step closer. “To stop all of this.”

  He doesn’t move, but he presses his lips in a tight, white line.

  “You’ve put out an order for our deaths.”

  “Michael’s,” he corrects.

  “Okay, Michael’s death,” I say. “But that’s because you wanted to kill me yourself, isn’t it? Hell wants me dead.”

  Subtly, I eye the vial, confirming that it’s Michael’s soul Azael’s holding. It looks like it is—it’s the same temper of glass Azael always stored the souls he reaped in. I remember the dozens of vials that littered his nightstand back in Hell. That has to be his soul. I’m so close that it takes everything in me not to charge him right now and try to grab it out of his hand.

  “Lucifer won’t allow you to let me live,” I remind him.

  The vial disappears into his fist, and he’s shaking his head. Anger drags his features into ugliness. “You betrayed me!” He takes several steps to close the space between us, and now, I’m the one backing up. Then he shouts in my face. “You chose an angel over your own blood, over your allegiance to family, to Hell!”

  “Hell is not my family,” I say.


  “BUT I AM!” His eyes, once bright and dancing with amusement, are now dark and stormy.

  For a moment, he searches my face, but he doesn’t find whatever he’s looking for. Spitting out a curse and spinning away from me, he moves his arm in a way that makes me think for one terrifying moment that he’s going to throw Michael’s soul across the chapel—smash the dark, glass vial into a million pieces. But he holds on to it.

  He keeps his back to me when he says, “And you left me,” so quietly that I almost miss it.

  “I had to,” I say. “I had no choice—not if I wanted to survive. I sacrificed everything for you. Who I was, what I believed in—I gave that up.”

  He laughs.

  “I did,” I push forward. “Every morning, I woke up and obeyed Hell—listened to Lucifer—to save you.”

  Whatever grief had momentarily overtaken Azael disappears, his back straightening. He doesn’t face me. So I tell the secret truth I’ve kept hidden for millennia to his back. It makes it easier, in a way, not having to see his face the moment it breaks. The moment I lose him.

  Lilith

  THE STENCH OF DEATH IS pervasively thick in the air. At first, it was unsavory, but I’ve grown used to the perfume of decay. It’s the scent of my victory, the flavor of Lucifer’s defeat. It’s so strong that, sometimes, a deep breath lets me taste the blood, and in that moment, I relish the fury I finally released after millennia of keeping it pent up.

  Lilith will not hide anymore. It’s time the world sees who they’ve been dealing with this entire time. I’m sure my reception will be one of shocked, slack-jawed imbeciles of all of those I’ve fooled so thoroughly. If there are still doubts in their minds of who I am, what I’m capable of, I’ll silence them quickly. One way or another, all will kneel before me. I want to hear their kneecaps break as the fall at my feet in genuflection. They will beg for my forgiveness, which I will consider, and then they will pledge their allegiance to me. Renounce Satan, take in their new Dark Mother.

  I keep Gus next to me, and he’s taken to using a piece of ripped cloth to cover his mouth and nose while in the throne room, so close to the decomposing flesh of his former master. I make him take it off, suck in lungfuls of the smell.

  “I should dispose of his body,” he says, shuffling a little out of reach. His book clutched to his chest, he glances behind the throne like he has to make sure the body’s still there. Like he’s afraid it will reanimate suddenly and exact some sort of revenge.

  “No.” I clean my nails with the tip of a small throwing dagger.

  “The scent of it—I can’t get any work done.”

  Books are splayed across the room, open, pages filling or emptying of ink. There’s graphite everywhere, marking up the clean, white marble. I tell Gus to sit back down and return to his work.

  “You will learn to get used to it,” I say. “This will not be an uncommon work environment for you.”

  “So, you’ll continue to keep corpses behind whatever throne you sit in?” he says as he drops to the ground and returns to the fates. He sits right over a dried and flaking stain of blood.

  “Careful, Gus.” I lean back and consider him through hooded eyes. Spinning my knife between my fingers, I debate whether he’s as useful to me as I believe he could be—if he listens. “Talk back and I’ll cut your tongue out. Maybe even pull a few teeth for good measure. I could use a new pair of earrings, and I think your bicuspids would look divine.”

  He grimaces. “Then who will translate the fates for you?” he asks, turning his face up toward mine, his eyes hard but terrified. Tap tap taping on his leg, his fingers can’t stay still, and it betrays his doubt.

  “You are not the only diviner I can get my hands on.”

  There are others who would kill to fill Gus’s shoes—others who tried, back when Lucifer was alive. I could always summon one of them. I’m capable of twisting loyalty out of anyone, and demons are always so eager to prove themselves.

  “But I’m the best.”

  “The best know when to keep silent and do as they’re told,” I say slowly. “Or they are dealt with and replaced with someone who’s more aware of when they’re crossing a line. Get back to work. Don’t make me hate your more than I already do.”

  Gus presses his lips into a thin line of displeasure, but he’s smart enough not to open his mouth and challenge me again. He thinks better of asking twice if I will get rid of Lucifer’s body.

  What would he have me do? Burn him, give him the send-off of a soldier fallen in battle? He doesn’t deserve such an honor. Or does he prefer I bury him in the ground, like humans do? That would be quite ironic, and I am half tempted to give him such a funeral—Lucifer would hate to be degraded in such a manner. Treated in death just like man, like those he sought to destroy—the very reason he was cast out of Heaven and sent to Hell.

  But no. Again, not good enough. There’s still too much dignity there. Besides, I want to see him mummify behind me. I want to walk in here and look at how little he meant in the end. All the power he believed he accrued, gone in a flash. I want Gus to see it, too. It’s an important lesson: Be careful who you trust. Actually, I amended that quite some time ago: Trust no one but yourself.

  You get yourself to where you want to be. Do not rely on others for help, but count on them to try to hinder your progress. Cut them down. Stomp on their throats. Wear their blood like paint on your lips. Strip them of their weapons and add them to your own collection as trophies. Make a name for yourself as someone not to be touched or you’ll burn the world down.

  Every day when I come in here to listen to Gus reread the rewritten fates, I watch Lucifer disappear a little more. His body does strange things, left out as it is. Heaven’s air must not agree with him, because he doesn’t rot like a normal body would. And I’ve had my experience in watching bodies bloat, collapse, and liquefy from the inside out. But his doesn’t follow that order.

  Instead, he turns papery. Cell by cell, he begins to mummify. It starts with his lips. The skin around his mouth dries out, shriveling and pulling his features smaller and tighter. And then his skin loses its color, loses its opaqueness. It becomes translucent, the veins standing out in prominent, black lines I trace with my finger from his temple, down his neck, and to his fingertips. I don’t understand where the blood circulates through—as his heart was not only un-beating, but missing altogether. Did the angels take that as their trophy when they banished him and he fell? Did Michael pull it out of his chest, leaving not so much as a scar?

  My curiosity over his circulatory system grows so great that I often consider stripping his veins out. I could open the skin at his forearm, pluck a vein out, and pull it up, following its path through his body. Then I’d do it again and again, until I knew where each vein ran through, until I could count the channels that carried his poisonous blood. The only thing that has stopped me is my fascination in seeing the progress of his mummification. Surely, emptying him like that would change the way he petrified.

  So I sit back down, bored, and listen to the new things Gus tells me might—possibly could—happen. After the number Pen did on Michael and the fates began unwriting themselves, nothing’s as sure as it used to be. Not anymore. The apocalypse has a way of throwing futures into disarray.

  “They’ve tracked Azael,” he says.

  “As was his plan.” Which I helped lead him to. A game of cat and mouse is so much easier if the cat can lure the mouse into its territory.

  “The angel Azael tortured and killed was Zophiel.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “I thought it might interest you,” he says. “She was an angel who Heaven had assumed died in battle—a guardian who protected a man in China during one of the human wars. When she never returned, they assumed her dead. It was only a matter of time with how invested she got in her wards. But there was never a body.”

  “And they were foolish enough to write her off as dead.”

  This is exactly why
you keep a body. Why you don’t destroy or hide it. Everyone must believe you when you say that you’ve killed someone, especially if it is someone of such a high status as Lucifer.

  “She’s dead now,” Gus says with a shrug. “Azael left the body, and Pen’s group happened upon it. They gave her a funeral.”

  “You’re reading the past now,” I say, waving my head. “I have more interest in the present and future, so if you would get to those before I grow bored and kill you just for the fun of it, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  Gus flips through a dozen pages, whispering to himself. I don’t care enough to listen.

  “There will be a battle. It will happen in a day’s time, perhaps.”

  “And the outcome?” I ask. I have to decide if it’s still worth calling for Azael’s reinforcements. No point in sending a host of demons to help someone who’s already been killed by his sister. That would be an embarrassing waste of time and resources.

  He shakes his head. “Things are still…unfolding.”

  “Read the options, then,” I snap, my temper rising.

  A few pages later, he traces the branching scrawls of ink. It twists around the pages like the very complicated roots of a tree. I lean forward and try to read it, but nothing makes sense to me. The words don’t appear to be written in any language I understand, and that incenses me. It’s the reason I need Gus, why I can’t kill him yet. There is an assumption that another guardian could read it—there are rumors that the book of fates changes languages depending on who is destined to read it—but there are no guarantees I’d be able to find the next in line. Who would take up his role if Gus were to die? Who is his legacy?

  “Three paths stand as possibilities, for now. Azael’s and Pen’s fates are knotted together here,” Gus says, indicating a thick gnarl of ink. “This means they will encounter one another the night of the battle. Alone. What happens during that time is uncertain.”

  “Get on with it.” My hair curtains off my impatience, and Gus doesn’t seem in the mood to rush.

  “The first option,” he says infuriatingly slowly, “is that Pen kills him. He has something she wants—needs—and her determination to get it back may overcome her apprehension of destroying her brother.”