Shadows in the Silence
Page 22

Once the body stepped toward me, chains of vines and branches binding its limbs, I could see that it was clearly a she. Her face rose to gaze upon Cadan, eyes blazing like a wildfire beneath heavy lids, lips a natural rose-red, skin golden and shimmering with light as if autumn leaves burned just beneath the surface. She appeared my age, perhaps a couple years older, and she was beautiful in an unnatural way, a frightening, fiery way. She was ancient, never-changing, and I was terrified of her.
When she spoke, her voice seemed to seep through my ears, eyes, and mouth like warm milk and honey, making my brain fuzzy, my limbs heavy and tired. “Audes provocare mei?”
“Antares—”
“Non loqueris nomen meum.” She cut him off sharply with a wave of her hand. “You swine, vermis, you insect of earth and rot.” Even when speaking English, her voice was edged with an accent, the crippled remnants of a language long since dead. Her bindings stretched and groaned, refusing to allow another inch of freedom. “I am the Grigori Lord of the West. You dishonor me by breathing in my forest. Be gone!”
Cadan flinched at her voice. “I have not come for myself. I beseech you on behalf of the archangel Gabriel.”
The ageless Grigori laughed, her voice making my spine shiver and heartbeat slow. I could taste sugar in my mouth with every one of her words. “Tu me delectas. I know who Gabriel is and she would have nothing to do with you, demonic spawn. Leave me in peace.”
“Gabriel is here now. With me. In human form.”
Antares’s head tilted to the side inquisitively. She looked past him and her fire eyes met mine. It felt like her gaze was digging straight into my soul. “And so she is. What a delicate thing you are now, Strength of God. Have you come to destroy your Fallen sister at long last?”
“No,” I said, swallowing my fear. “I need your help.”
Her lips curved slightly, barely a smile. “My help? How curious.”
“My Guardian is dying. He was poisoned by a demonic reaper’s venom.”
Antares looked at me without emotion. “Your Guardian is a reaper?” she asked, her voice lilting.
I nodded. “Of your bloodline. He’s angelic.”
She said nothing at first. Then she raised a hand and beckoned to me. “Come forth then, mortal archangel.”
I took a hesitant step forward with a glance at Cadan. His expression was gentle and comforting, and he gave me a small amount of courage. She grasped my wrist and yanked me forward. I cried out in surprise. Her fingers were hot and they moved up and down my arm as if she was trying to feel every vein and tendon beneath my skin. She touched my hand and opened my palm flat.
“Your Guardian,” she said musically. “Amas eum. You love him. This reaper. He protects you at the risk of his own life. How very noble of him—and how very unwise of you to come to me.”
The ice in her voice made tremors of fear stab through my inside. “Will you help me?”
“I know of demonic venom very well. Whoever poisoned your reaper Guardian wanted you both to suffer long. This is a cruel death.”
I brightened. “Then you can save him!”
“I can,” she said dismissively. She stepped back and her power pushed into my body, propelling me away from her. “But I will not. I do not see the benefit in it.”
My veins ran cold as fear settled once again on me. “But you can save him! Why won’t you help me? Just tell me how to cure him. You don’t have to do anything. Just tell me the antidote. Please!”
She watched me silently, her brow furrowing with curiosity. “Who are you, Gabriel? How far you have fallen, my sister, to feel so much? I barely recognize you. Your human soul has diseased you.”
“No!” I shouted back. “Don’t you see the difference in us? I was like you before I became human. Now I have a heart, a soul, and all I want to do is protect the ones I love. Your selfishness is your own disease, Antares!”
She laughed, her voice musical as it rustled the autumn leaves. “Go now, Gabriel,” Antares said tiredly. “Leave me in my purgatory.”
“You’re here to help the humans!” I cried. “You watch over them, guide—”
“Watch them, yes,” Antares hissed. “Do you know what I watch of them? Every moment, I watch a murder. With every word I speak, countless children around the world are defiled. A man beats his wife until her face is unrecognizable. War. Genocide. I see it all behind my eyes so that I can never close them and have reprieve from the suffering I am forced to witness as punishment for bearing my own thought and desire. For daring to have a mind of my own, it was taken from me and replaced with thousands and thousands of years of horror. Do you, Gabriel, truly believe I was sent here to aid humanity? Now do you see that I am chained to the Earth and forced to watch humanity destroy itself?”
“You aren’t supposed to be angry,” I said. “The angels are not meant to feel emotion.”
“But was it not inevitable? All I know now is hate and pain.”
“I’m human,” I told her. “It’s not so bad.”
“You are not human. You are the same as Raguel, the one who bound me here in the name of Justice. I owe you nothing.”
She turned her back to us and I couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath as I glimpsed the two burnt and bloody stumps protruding from her shoulder blades. The skin was blackened and grotesque, her robes torn and singed. I knew then that the stumps were what was left of her wings. The wings she had used to fly before she fell to Earth.