“Perfect timing, priest.” She put a fingerblade to her lips. “I was worried you’d be late.”
Thirty-seven
In the Netherworld all are equal, for the color of death is one alone.
—UNKNOWN AUTHOR, A Collection of Angelic Lore
Angela had thought she was falling.
But she was actually flying, her arms outstretched in front of her, wrists gripped tightly by an angel who seemed no older than a teenager, her platinum hair whipping around them both like a blustering curtain. The darkness was absolute, yet Angela could still see her arms and the rest of her body, including most of the angel who guided their descent. She was an albino, her skin so white and transparent each network of veins resembled blue lace. Her wings matched the color of her hair, a silvery white that was duller than Israfel’s but somehow more healthy. And her eyes were red, like blood.
Red—like Lucifel’s.
They landed together as if in slow motion, feet brushing the invisible ground. A moment later, the angel turned away, staring out into the darkness. Her wings drooped slightly, their tips brushing across Angela’s boots.
“Mikel . . .” Angela ventured.
“Yes,” the angel said, putting a finger to her lips. They waited in silence a moment longer, and then Mikel regarded her again, her face young and delicate. “I hope,” she smiled gently, “that you’re not ready to faint.”
Angela shook her head. Her fear had simply been replaced by astonishment. Lucifel’s dreaded offspring looked to be no older than thirteen and just as harmless.
But when it came to angels, she’d already learned the hard way that appearances could be deceptive. Mikel seemed no stronger than a hospitalized child, yet it was all too telling that Kim had been frightened of her, and Naamah wanted to kill her. For all Angela knew, this frail girl could make Troy look like a toothless dog.
She couldn’t afford to let her guard down for a second.
Is this what she actually looks like? But her voice is the same . . .
“How do I know it’s really you?”
“You don’t,” Mikel creased her wings tightly against her back, “but you’ll have to trust me anyway. What you’re seeing of me now is an illusion, a spirit-projection of Nina’s mind.” There was a hollow, banging sound out in the distance, and she paused. Angela shivered under the torment of her eyes. They were too much like Lucifel’s, and even brighter now that they contrasted with so much whiteness. Kim was right—Mikel could have been on her mother’s side from the beginning. There was no way to tell, and now it was too late for Angela to get out of the Netherworld on her own. “The laws of the material world are slightly different in the world of the dead. Since I’m a spirit, I can navigate through this place much easier than you. I’ve been here many times.”
“Why?”
Why would anyone come here of their own free will?
There was no answer.
Angela shut her eyes, and then opened them again, finding such little difference between both states. Or between the physical darkness and her appalling ignorance. “This must be the body they stuffed you into,” she whispered, gesturing at Mikel’s frail form.
The angel sighed, her robe slipping slightly from a shoulder. “Follow me.”
“I don’t see how I’m going to release these souls like you want me to. Why are you helping me instead of your mother?”
Mikel continued walking, like a beacon of platinum in the crushing blackness. “I don’t know my mother—and no matter how much I might want to know her—she’d like nothing more than to see me gone.” Her voice hardened. “The day we meet face-to-face is the day I die. Since I was born a spirit, it takes a special kind of power to end my life. Only Lucifel has that power.”
The mention of Lucifel’s name elicited an instant chorus of moans and screams, some far, some frighteningly near. Tendrils, maybe more roots or cobwebs, brushed against Angela’s hair, face, and arms. She hugged herself, wishing she could shrink to stay away from whatever seemed to grasp for her. If this was the least dimension of Hell, even nothing more than neutral territory, she couldn’t begin to imagine Lucifel’s home. “Nina told me that I have to meet Azrael. She said he’s an angel like you, but wouldn’t give me any more details.”
Mikel stopped, turning back around. Her face was grim. “He will try to stop you from leaving here alive. It’s against the rules, you see, and Azrael is a creature who abides by rules.”
Rules. So it’s coming down to that again.
Angela glanced around at the shadows, envisioning millions of eyes staring back at her. Whenever she took a step, the earth quaked gently under her feet, groans and sighs erupting nearby. It was obvious—her presence was a disturbance to whomever—whatever—existed in this place. She induced change—at least she sensed that much—and the more she thought about the rules, the more she felt it possible to twist and bend them however she pleased. Like Mikel said, some people, perhaps people like Azrael, wouldn’t be too happy with that.