Archon(131)

“So—I’m not Raziel,” Angela whispered, hating him for a second.

“That would be an insult to his memory.” Stephanie stopped right in front of her, her closeness somehow making every thought and sensation more painful. “Now give me the Grail, and be done with all of this. If you back down, I’ll let you live. You’re lucky. It’s one of my better compromises.”

Angela rubbed the surface of the stone, aware of its gentle pulse.

The buzz was growing louder, the black dots cloying, her strength fading the more they swarmed. “Why do you need it?” she murmured. “Lucifel gave it to your father. Maybe he should keep the Grail.”

Stephanie’s, or Mikel’s, smile was brief. “Wrong again. He stole it from her.”

Then—it hadn’t been a lover’s gift. Angela narrowed her eyes, illogically angry again. “Whose was it? Who did she take it from originally?”

Stephanie’s hand waved slightly.

Angela’s mouth sealed shut, just like Kim’s when Israfel had worked his magic. It was one of the worst feelings she’d ever experienced—trying to open her mouth, finding it clamped tight beyond all of her strength. And Mikel loomed over her, gazing down at her through Stephanie’s dead eyes. Angela could run away, but what good would that do now? Mikel could snap her neck with a twist of her fingers. She was keeping her alive for a reason.

Just like before.

“Now,” Stephanie said without emotion, “how do I open the Book? You never told me before you died.”

She’s talking to Raziel. Little does she know he never feels like responding.

Angela shook her head.

Mikel struck her violently across the face. “He can answer without you.”

Angela collapsed, blood oozing from the space between her lips and filming the inside of her mouth. Indignant anger was swelling inside of her. The Netherworld began to quiver, both below and above, responding to her feelings with a miniature earthquake that somehow gathered the void above them into an invisible swirl of vengeful darkness. Her strength, though, continued to leech away as if all her energy were being sucked out through a straw.

“Not in a talkative mood? What a difference from that last night we were together. Then you had enough words for us both.”

Angela’s mouth opened, her new masculine voice sounding so sad, so soft, so painfully tired. You know that the Key is inconsequential to you. She touched her lips in fascination, unable to stop them from moving more. Because what good is a Key when you can’t find the Lock?

This was the voice that had spoken within her for the past few days, questioning as much as it had answered. Raziel’s voice. Its pitch and tone was now different from hers, but only, she sensed, because it needed to be.

He’d been with her all along. She’d simply misunderstood how.

“Then just tell me where it is,” Mikel said calmly, narrowing her eyes for the first time.

She sounded just as tired.

Even if I did, you wouldn’t understand how to open her. There is more to Sophia than physical locks and keys. The Book is not a jewelry box or a treasure chest.

The glow behind Mikel’s eyes faded slightly. “Tell me where it is.”

How I pity you . . .

His departure brought Angela’s own voice back, and it left her with a tremor. “There. Happy now? But I suppose you didn’t have time to tell your father you loved him. Ever talk about that before he died?”

Mikel stared at her, her face a blank, impassive canvas.

Then she stooped down, cradling Angela’s face in her hands. Angela groaned for air, barely seeing Stephanie’s features through the black cloud vibrating around them. Her limbs felt weaker than string, and her heartbeat slowed, rumbling with the insistent pulse of the earthquake beneath them. The ground split somewhere off to their right, and screams filled the Netherworld, signifying the descent of so many souls to a deeper and more permanent hell. “You look just like him,” Mikel whispered, almost tenderly. “Your hair, your eyes, your features.” She rubbed Angela’s lips with her thumb. “When I took his Eye—he banished me for all eternity. But for all his genius, Raziel was a sentimental fool. An imitation like you isn’t enough to erase that kind of pain.”

She leaned in close, her mouth pure with nothingness.

“So sorry. But there is only one way to do that.”

The kiss seemed to split Angela’s head apart. The pain was excruciating, resembling fingers pressing into every part of her skull. She sank to her knees, crumpling in an agony that pierced through to her soul, and though the anger inside her exploded—possessive, outraged—she couldn’t express it even if she tried. Mikel was draining her energy away, drinking it like water. There was a strange kind of pleasure to the sensation, a weak and familiar kind of bliss. But that was death’s way, wasn’t it? To lure you into darkness gently.