Archon(133)

Sophia looked past Angela, deep into an unfathomable nothingness that hovered far beyond Earth. Her eyes were more vacant than the sky, and the light from the stairway cast her features into fierce, powerful angles. Her hair whipped in a breeze that didn’t even exist. Never had she seemed so frightening, so bottled up—like an explosion waited to burst out of her, hungry to burn everything that existed to death. “This is your last chance at redemption, Stephanie,” she said softly. Too softly. “Turn aside and leave me alone. Even if it means killing yourself. We both know there are worse fates.”

Stephanie’s face blanched. “You know I can’t do that.”

“The weakness of your soul,” Sophia said, “is no one’s fault but yours. But I warned you once before—and I suppose that was enough.”

Sophia’s polite smile was chilling.

Stephanie blinked back at her, at Angela, at the mysterious snow and the utter stillness of the park, and for a second it looked like she would actually change her mind. But the moment streaked past like a dream, and then she was walking toward Sophia, her eyes watering with pain. Every step seemed forced on her, and she struggled helplessly against it.

Angela shifted away, unnerved and admittedly terrified. “Sophia—”

“No,” Sophia said with a mother’s crispness, “let her go.”

“But she’s not—”

“Let her go.”

Sophia held out her hands, materializing a familiar Book held safely by her delicate fingers. It was a large tome with a sapphire cover and a gray eye—exactly like her own eyes—staring intently at Stephanie. Stephanie grabbed it with violently shivering hands, her eyes wide and wild. Desperate with fear.

Angela could sense the bated breaths inside the Park. They weren’t alone.

“I can’t—” Stephanie slid a finger beneath the cover, ready to flip it open.

There should have been explosions. More lightning. A shudder through the universe.

Something.

Instead, Stephanie opened the Book like a normal manual from a library shelf, scattering pages with her fingers. But the more she perused, the more perplexed her expression became, and finally she dashed it into the snow, shrieking. “I can’t—it’s not there. The Key isn’t there,” she moaned, explaining herself to someone else. “I can’t. There’s nothing in there. Nothing.”

Sophia folded her hands calmly. “That’s because you didn’t open the Book.”

Stephanie stared at her, as if she sensed what was coming next and why.

“That was simply the illusion of trying. And you knew that from the very start. Before you used this girl to experiment—and to set your spirit free.”

There was a silence deeper than the blackness in the Netherworld.

At first, just as when Stephanie had tried to open the Book, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen. She and Sophia had locked gazes, and that was all. But gradually, as seconds turned into minutes, her face began to change. She was seeing something—maybe in Sophia’s eyes, maybe somewhere else—and her own eyes became even wider, and her mouth moved in soundless whispers. Then she began to shake. All over. Stephanie clutched her head, screaming at the top of her lungs, the noise reaching up into the sky and then back to stab through the heart. She was going insane, babbling almost incoherently.

Because she’s not Israfel, or Lucifel—or me.

“The eyes—so many eyes. What are—what is—GOD, NO. NO.”

And the denials continued, screeching and horrible.

Then, the world did seem to explode.

Stephanie collapsed into the black snow, a buzzing mass of flies erupting from her body as if they’d escaped through her pores. They gathered into a silhouette, a figure.

Angela thought she might die on the spot.

The Black Prince. The Destroyer Supernal.

The titles cycled inside of her head, screaming themselves into existence.

The Ruin.

Though . . . there can be two . . .

Lucifel—or more like her shadowy semblance—stood in front of Sophia, aloof and satisfied, her crimson eyes piercing. It was impossible to look at her as she truly was, and also even more impossible to look away. This was her mere shadow, but the shape, the color of her eyes, and the severe, beautiful contours of her face struck Angela dumb. She was Israfel’s antithesis in every way, sharp where he was curved, hard where he was sensual, her presence seducing you by force rather than choice. How tall she was. Slim like a man, and with a man’s casual stance. Faintly, Angela could distinguish her clothing, a tight black fabric stitched, and stitched again. With her pale skin and that sickly gleam to her eyes, she resembled a body sewn together and brought back to life.