58. WEN

Once Lorcan disappears within the congealed crowd, I brace against the sensory barrage emanating from the Celestial nightclub, and follow him inside.

Like everything else in this region, Noctis is out of this world. Probably literally. I’m not sure how many levels there are up to that multi-domed ceiling. Even as I look at it, I can’t figure out how high it is.

It’s another place constructed to mess with mortal minds, and with winged beings in mind. There seems to be thousands around, mostly nephilim, when only Godric’s Guard are allowed to display their wings on Campus.

The main floor is centered by a gigantic, bronze angel looking and reaching upwards, with his wings spread. A shiver runs down my spine at its size and pose. Very reminiscent of Lucifer’s statue. While it doesn’t have a pedestal of eternally burning bones, what surrounds it is just a tad less disturbing; smaller but still massive angels in a circle, prostrated, as if praying to him.

Tearing my eyes away from the eerie ensemble, I focus on the bar surrounding them. It’s shaped like a snake of metal and quartz coiling upward, with bartenders on every spiral. A DJ is at the top one, pink and purple wings glittering, and ripping existence apart with her music—if that marrow-liquefying cacophony can be called that.

Hovering above them all, literally, is a gargantuan chandelier that looks like some Celestial manifestation. It pulses with a kaleidoscope of lights, ascends, descends, and morphs into endless configurations in tandem with the relentless beat.

The whole tableau is easily one of the most amazing, and disturbing, things I’ve seen around here.

Even from my elevated position at the entrance, I can’t see the end of the expansive dance floor crammed with writhing bodies. It’s surrounded by mirrors with intricate gilded frames up to the soaring mezzanine, massive booths with amber leather seating and faceted crystalline tables. On every side, what looks like endless semicircular balconies soar, filled with more undulating figures, who seem to be engaged in much dirtier dancing.

The most jaw-dropping of all are the nephilim, both male and female, who’re performing miraculous aerialist routines above the crowd. Their barely-there costumes are basically made of gems that compliment the colors of their wings, and held together by a tapestry of silver, gold and diamond chains. The ones tending bar are also putting on mind-boggling juggling shows as they mix drinks, while servers fly around delivering orders and bussing tables with the same stunning skill and showmanship.

This place really is an oasis of hedonism within the Academy’s desert of repression.

It’s also clearly the Nephilim’s domain. When they’re not under the archangels’ thumb, they are what I thought them to be. Hybrids who combine their parent races’ virtues and vices, capable of extremes of discipline and abandon.

Not that I’ve seen evidence of the latter in their supreme member …

Mentally smacking myself, I refocus on this wonderland of fleshly gratification. It’s no wonder this place rivals Heaven as a destination. And after the constant austerity and jeopardy of Academy life, everyone seems starving for the reprieve of this place’s freedoms and pleasures.

Everyone in the Academy does seem to be here, not only the cadets. I keep recognizing faculty and execs, when they never interact with cadets outside classes or Academy business. Most are in booths, keeping their distance, but some are on the dance floor, shedding their daytime reserve.

Problem is, how will I find my group in this sea of bodies and wings?

“Wen!”

The shrill shout cuts through the thundering beat, and I swing around to find Sarah pushing her way through the throngs.

“You made it!” she yells as she shoves at the last bodies between us. “How did you make it here so quickly? Did the nodes work again on their own, or did you manage to reel back whatever was deactivating them?”

I blink down at her rapid-fire words and the delirious excitement setting her face alight. I’ve never seen her looking like this. It looks so good on her, and it’s infectious.

Grinning as widely, I shout back, “I rode the Lorcan Express!”

She bursts out laughing. “If you rode him this fast, he must be the Lorcan Premature Express!”

My eyebrows shoot up. A sexual innuendo from Sarah is as unlikely as a tender expression from Jinny. This must be the demon’s doing. She has mellowed under Sarah’s influence, but I haven’t accounted for the opposite effect Jinny would have on her.

Seems I’ve been missing a lot being wrapped up in my turmoil with and over Godric.

I have to make one thing clear though. “Lorcan and I are never going on that kind of ride, Sar.”

She cackles—cackles. “At least that hunk of muscle and feathers has other uses.”

This time my eyebrows hit the otherworldly roof.

Jinny’s influence or not, this was totally uncharacteristic. Especially when I thought Sarah liked Lorcan. And I mean, really liked him.

Before I can say anything, she squeezes me tight enough to cut off my breathing. “I’m just glad he got you here fast enough so you didn’t miss much. We haven’t even hit the dance-floor yet!”

My eyes almost water from the alcohol vapors that hit me on her breath.

Okay, now I get it. Sarah is well on her way to getting drunk for the first time in her life. Though it doesn’t exactly explain it, I’m all for getting plastered. It’s what I’m here for.

Hugging her back, I lift her off the floor. “I’m glad too, since I see you started drinking without me.”

She squirms out of my hold and drags me behind her through the turbulent waves of ravers, yelling over her shoulder. “Jinny scored us a booth. She zapped its occupants away, and terrorized them into leaving their drinks behind.”

“I have to hand it to our resident demon, she’s effective. I hope you saved me a drink!”

“Oh, I didn’t need to. Jinny went to the bar and now the drinks keep coming. We’re on our third round—or is it fourth? According to Jinny ‘Enjoying the fucking Hell out of a nightclub experience, is directly proportional to the level of alcohol in our blood!’”

“I bet she’s an authority on nightclubbing best practices.” The booth in question comes into view—a semi-circular one large enough to accommodate our party, and as many others. As it is, there are eight more, two females and six males, none that I recognize. “So who’s buying?” I haven’t thought of financial logistics, since we’re not getting paid, not even in Academy Monopoly money. “Or is it all paid for in demonic coercion?”

“The coercion is for getting prompt and preferential service.” She jumps and pirouettes, throwing her arms out, as if to encompass the whole place. “The rest is all free!”

Not knowing how to handle a drunk Sarah, especially when I’m still stone-cold sober myself, I shrug. “One thing I know, Sar; in this Afterworld, nothing’s free.”

She grabs me by her shawl, bringing me down to shove her grin closer into my face. “Well, it is here. All food and drinks are on the house—when they’re serving thousands-of-dollars-a-bottle brands, and that’s just the human liquor. The Nephilim’s is far more expensive and exclusive!”

Okay, that’s even more reason for cadets to prefer this place to Heaven. Noctis is sure giving it a serious run for its money, so to speak. The rewards here are far more exciting, with zero judgment attached.

So what’s the catch?

Oh, shut up already, Wen. Just enjoy something without overthinking it for once.

Listening to my inner exasperated voice, I decide not to look an angelspawn in the wings. Whatever their motives for making Noctis a free-for-all haven for endangered cadets, I’m here for it.

As we approach the booth, I see Niala straddling a guy, and from their ferocious tongue action, they’re in the process of sanding each other’s tonsils, or even devouring them. Kylee, the blonde bombshell from Matt’s Unitas, is the voluptuous filling of a sandwich of French kissing and groping, between three guys and a girl. Most of the others are watching them, looking like they want to join in, or do the same, but not drunk enough to dare it yet. Sexual repression is probably a rampant ailment around here.

But I doubt anyone in this Academy, in this existence, can experience anything like the hunger Godric is inflicting on me. Or can suffer it as deeply. I have a bottomless void inside me, after all.

Not everyone is taking advantage of their night of freedom to indulge their sexual needs or fantasies, though. Matt and Cara seem to find out-of-tune screeching their outlet of choice. They have their arms around each other’s shoulders, swaying side to side as they massacre the current song at the top of their lungs. They’re scrunching up their faces and throwing their arms around emoting to the lyrics like a couple of drunken sailors.

Aela seems to be in a heated discussion with one of the guys, and they seem about to come to blows. But it’s Jinny that my gaze rests on. Contrary to her intention to seek out Angelblood ass, she’s slumped over the table, cheek plastered to its crystalline surface, bottle in hand. And she looks—forlorn. Which is as unlikely a sight as a callous Sarah.

This is going to be a very interesting night.

Sarah drags me into the booth, over the writhing bodies, to reach Jinny’s side. The good news is, everyone is too involved in whatever they’re doing, no one cringes away from me. Seems I’m getting the night off from being the Academy Pariah.

Jinny turns her fiery head, resting it on the other cheek as she gazes at me sullenly. “You made it.”

“Yeah, I missed you too.” I point to the half-empty bottle she’s clutching. “You gonna finish that, or can I have a swig?”

She almost hurls the bottle at me.

As I barely stop it from hitting me in the chest, she lets out a harmonizing hiss that sends hairline fissures radiating through the table. “You can have this shit. It’s doing nothing for me.”

Sarah giggles, grabbing the bottle and downing a large mouthful before passing it back to me—then climbing up on the table to perform some weird chicken dance.

And I come to two realizations: Jinny is a mean and melancholy drunk, while Sarah is a zero-inhibitions one.

Unable to wait to find out what kind I’ll be, I upend the foul-tasting liquid down my throat.

Just as I’m gulping down the last of it, I almost ram the bottle neck down my throat.

Sarah has fallen on top of me, hiccuping and laughing. She turns over me, as if I’m the couch, and yells, “You know what would make tonight perfect? Angelescence!”

My eyes bug out. “Damn it Sarah, lower your voice!”

Sarah only grabs my face, squeezing my mouth into fish lips. “C’mon Wen, make us some!”

I goggle down at this unknown version of Sarah. “Who are you, and what have you done with Sarah?”

Her face falls and she drops her head on my shoulder with a dejected sigh. “I never told you, but I never stopped thinking about it, never stopped wanting to feel that way again.”

My heart lurches in my chest. This is something I never even considered. “Oh, Sar, I didn’t know it affected you this deeply.”

Shaking her head, she rolls it over my shoulder joint hard enough to hurt. “I could never describe it to you, since it had no effect on you. But you know from your clients how incredible it feels.”

Dismay rises in my throat like bile. “How addictive you mean.”

She catapults up with an outraged glare. “It’s not! There was no withdrawal. I just couldn’t eat for a couple of days, and everything smelled disgusting for a while.”

“You never told me that, Sar! What you’re describing is withdrawal. When you had the least of anyone, barely the trace left on the knife. Others who take more—you know what happens to them. But now I realize how little it takes for it to be addictive. It’s been almost two years and you’re still in withdrawal!”

She smacks me on the arm, making me wince. “Oh, pfft. I’m just buzzed and it reminded me of how it felt when I had Angelescence. Even if it’s like comparing a fly to a—a dragon. I bet the others will go crazy for it. It might even get Jinny out of her dumps.”

I stare at her, my guts twisting into painful knots as I realize what I’ve done.

I’ve made my best friend an addict.