Wings of the Wicked
Page 91

I knew her face. The coldness. The darkness. I knew her. The Demon Queen.
Lilith.
The phantom Lilith reached for me, gripping my chin. I jerked my face to the side, but I could only move so far from her reach. The binding pentagram around me seemed to have no effect on her. I barely even noticed that Emma had begun screaming beside me before Kelaeno struck her and silenced her in an instant.
Lilith studied my face with curious disgust. “You’re not so shiny in this form, Gabriel,” she said, her voice hollow and echoing. “I can look upon you without my eyes bleeding. I’d say it’s an improvement, but the human stink all over you makes me want to retch.”
Just like Michael’s, her touch felt prickly and charged, as if a low-level electric fence had brushed against my skin. Not enough to hurt, but certainly enough to get my attention.
She touched my hair, fingers running down the length of it, and to my shock, she picked up a lock with her ghostly hand. I stared at her fearfully, unable to understand how she could touch my body in this form. Was it because I was a relic, like Nathaniel had said? If she could touch me, that meant she could kill me and I couldn’t defend myself. I jerked away harder, pulling my hair from between her fingers.
“You’re grieving,” she noted, as simply as if she were naming the color of my eyes. “And you’re afraid. I can’t decide whether it’s beautiful or disgusting. Can you weep now, Gabriel, in this human body you’re wearing?”
I tried to wipe the emotion from my face, but it was useless. I couldn’t pull myself completely together. By denying my grief for Will and Nathaniel, I’d be denying them.
Lilith raised her hand, signaling to the demonic reapers in the room with us. “Leave us. Gabriel and I have much to discuss before we begin.”
As they ascended the staircase without protest, Lilith smiled at me, sticky and syrupy sweet.
I stared into her eyes. “Why am I here?”
She ignored my question. “How long has it been, Gabriel?” she asked pleasantly, as if I were an old friend. “Ten thousand years? Fifteen thousand? In Hell, time doesn’t exist. Nothing changes. It all just burns. Tell me, has time been kind to me? Did you miss me?”
“Not at all,” I snarled. Memories of Lilith destroying villages, blood and violence from long ago, flashed behind my eyes as if I’d seen the horror only yesterday.
She frowned. “I have to say that I’m a little pained. We’re practically sisters, you and I. Your Father created me just as He created you, though I didn’t last long in His favor. He made me to be a man’s property and punished me when I didn’t obey. The Morningstar gladly took me in and made me like the rest of your kind. In order to be free, I had to go to Hell. There is something very wrong about that.”
“Everything is wrong about you.”
One corner of her mouth pulled into a smile. “Without your wings and glory, you look like a child.” She licked her lips and bared her teeth. “I love children.”
Another memory struck me, one I was desperate to wall up in the darkest corners of my mind. The other me, the archangel I was in another life, protected children and couldn’t bear the idea of the monster before me devouring them, stretching her jaws implausibly wide, swallowing babies whole.
“What do you want with me?” I snarled, narrowing my eyes at her as my head hung low.
“You are the final relic needed to release us,” she said.
“Who is us?” I glanced quickly over at the ancient book. It was the grimoire. It had to be.
“The Lord of Souls and me,” she replied.
“Who—what—is the Enshi?” I demanded, bracing against my chains.
“The Lord of Souls is a Fallen angel of death, Death himself. He is the Morningstar’s second and my beloved: Sammael.”
Fear raked the inside of my throat. “It can’t be. That’s impossible.”
Lilith moved away from me. “Don’t you remember your brother, whom Azrael exiled?”
The memories clawed at my heart and mind, dragging themselves to the surface. Azrael, the archangel of death since the beginning of time, had indeed cast out Sammael, the lesser angel of death. Sammael and the Queen of Hell had become lovers, and Azrael took it upon himself to implement justice, despite my warnings to him. He and Sammael battled fiercely, but Sammael was no match for the archangel Azrael. When Sammael was defeated, he fell and joined Lilith at the Morningstar’s side, where he became as powerful as an archangel. We felt his loss greatly, but he turned his back on us for the dark power of Hell.
“Didn’t you know why Azrael was cast out from the inner circle?” Lilith crooned. “When my children, the ancestors of the modern demonic reapers, continued my legacy on Earth, Azrael took it personally. When he battled Sammael for the second time, they nearly caused the Apocalypse, but Azrael defeated Sammael once more and used ancient magic to imprison him. For punishing Sammael so greatly, God stripped Azrael of his archangel power. He became an outcast, weakened, but not quite fallen from grace. And I have waited a very, very long time to see my beloved again.”
“And when Sammael is released,” I began slowly, “you’re going to destroy everything, starting with me.”
Lilith made a quiet purring sound. “I am sorry, Gabriel, but you have murdered too many of my children. This cannot go unpunished.”
“What is it that you want?” I growled. “To destroy the world?”