Chapter Twenty-Nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

SERAPHIEL DRAGGED Pitch's shirt high, exposing his belly. He pressed the palms of his cold metal covered hands to warm flesh, words of nefarious magick falling from his lips.

Pitch threw back his head, his hips bucking uncontrollably. His teeth dug into the wood, and his scream bulged in his throat. It was like being struck by the angel's gods-damned halo all over again; Iblis and Gabriel had been gentle compared to this maltreatment.

Pitch's hands sought purchase upon anything that might ground him in this cage of torment. He flailed, wondering if he shouldn't have just succumbed to being restrained, after all. His fingers touched at firmness, and he dug them in; into the roundness of a body, the hint of bone at his fingertips. He gripped a shoulder, the collarbone unyielding.

White specks marked Pitch's vision, and the roll of his head back and forth was barely under his control, but he glimpsed Lucifer. Sitting by the table; his head bowed so low his eyes were hidden. Pitch did not know if he'd intended to place himself within reach, but he did not shift away now; despite how cruel a grip Pitch had on him.

The world shrank down to a terrible, bone-deep ache; hot pain radiating through his hips and up his spine. All that kept him anchored was the king's silent, solid presence.

Seraphiel dragged the Cultivation from where it sought to barricade itself in Pitch's depths, brought it up through his skin, tugged it from his veins. The simurgh fought the fresh assault. Pitch spat the wood and cursed the angel to a thousand miserable ends. The simurgh's fight was vicious.

But futile, when it was its creator who summoned.

There was no holding back an anguished cry. Pitch's back bowed, his shoulders lifting, and the Cultivation was torn from him once more.

The simurgh appeared above Pitch's belly; big as a peacock, but all shades of sunrise and sunset and lavender fields. Delicately, and deceptively, beautiful; save for the blackened claw, and spots of ruin upon its neck and wing. Damage wrought by its perilous encounter with Azazel. Damage that made Pitch's sweat run, his eyes water with the pain.

Seraphiel kept on with his hymnal speech, the unknowable words of the Higher Angels, weaving their way around the simurgh. Pitch felt a subtle prodding at the wildness, like the brush of a moth's wings at his core, as the angel assessed the Cultivation.

The simurgh settled. Its talons landing upon Pitch's belly, resting on sensitive skin like cooling firebrands; the flap of its wings laboured.

Seraphiel's displeasure did ugly things to his features. ‘If those angels had not already paid for this, I would make them do so a thousand times over. How dare they lay filthy hands upon my work?' The simurgh's topaz eyes were riveted on the angel, their brightness pulsing like the beat of a heart. ‘If the Lord had given me what I wanted sooner, I could have rid us of Samyaza's legacy long ago.'

Pitch floated in the aftermath, his heartbeat loud in his ears, his breath heavy and reluctant to leave his lungs. He loosened his grip from the king's shoulder, let his hand fall to drape over the bench's edge. He had no strength to do anymore.

‘You mean if Lord Enoch had given you access to the Primordial Flame?' Lucifer raised his head, watching the simurgh that moved its wings like a drunkard, as knocked about by the experience as Pitch.

‘Yes, yes, of course. Without it, any Cultivation was doomed to fail. I had done so enough times to know there was only one path to take.'

‘And you were forbidden to take it.'

Seraphiel turned on the king, his temper like a weighty cloak. ‘The Lord would not listen to me. To me! His truest servant, the Celestials' greatest angel.'

‘Modest, too,' Pitch mumbled…or dribbled…or did not speak aloud at all. His head spun, delirious from the onslaught.

‘Without the Primordial Flame,' Seraphiel continued, ‘no Cultivation could be enough. I told him.'

He stripped off the chain-mail gloves, casting them aside.

‘And with that flame, any Cultivation you made was extraordinarily dangerous.' Lucifer was measured, far calmer than Pitch had known. ‘You are the Celestial's supreme angel, Seraphiel. None would deny that. Your Cultivations are mighty. But the Primordial Flame is an immense power, one fit only for the gods. Azazel almost got hold of it. The results…well, they don't bear thinking about.'

‘But the Exarch did not obtain it, did he? You were there.'

Pitch wondered, as the heat and sharp random pains quieted, if Seraphiel yet knew of Lucifer's summoning of Wrath; of the part his uncertainty had played in allowing the simurgh so close to Azazel to begin with.

If the king was smart, he'd say nothing at all to an angel already teetering.

‘But I will not be there in Blood Lake.' Lucifer was astute. ‘Nor you. And now the simurgh is damaged. Perhaps this is not –'

‘Don't say another word, Lucifer.' Seraphiel's command was the cracking of mountain ice. ‘Don't you dare. You have defied the Lord of Arcadia with all you've done, you've struck at the Seraph Michael, you are mortally wounded, and yet you stand here and tell me you have lost faith? Do you see what creature's form I had this Cultivation take? Do you see it?' His voice strayed back into those tight rises of hysteria. ‘The simurgh was a favourite of yours, is it not? From those purebred tales of which you are so enraptured? Do you see it, Lucifer?'

‘I do.' The fatigue in his voice was like stone. ‘I see it. And it is remarkable.'

The simurgh's cry moved up its long throat, a low cackle against the weighty atmosphere. Pitch blinked, trying to think clearly. Lucifer mortally wounded? A preposterous notion for a King of Daemonkind. Seraphiel's madness made him exaggerate, clearly.

‘I do not turn on you.' Lucifer took Seraphiel's hand, and it seemed the angel might snatch himself away, but the king had gumption yet. ‘Look at me, Raph. Never have I, or will I, lose faith. I am here with you, am I not? At the end. And I shall not move from your side until this is done. But you must be honest with me. Can the simurgh's damage be undone?'

Pitch watched them, the blood pounding in his ears, the room strangely distant, bathed in the charming hues of the simurgh.

Seraphiel pulled his hand free, rubbing at it as if the daemon's touch burned. ‘I can do a modicum amount, but complete repair would require drawing on the magick of the Sanctuary.'

‘Then why not do that?' Lucifer asked. ‘If it will see us through.'

The angel resumed his pacing, his red heels clacking whilst he pulled the lengths of his hair over his shoulder, fingering them restlessly.

‘Because if the Sanctuary weakens, Michael will see what lies at its heart.'

Pitch lay there, like a sole audience member to a play. His jaw hurt too much to add to the dialogue, but if able, he'd have shouted at the angel to get to the fucking point.

‘And what is that?' Lucifer showed none of the impatience he was renowned for.

‘My Seal upon Blood Lake,' Seraphiel sighed.

‘It is here?'

‘Did I not just say that?' the angel hissed. ‘Yes, yes, yes! I used my portion of Samyaza's bones to seal him away. Is it not sublime irony?'

Seraphiel paced faster. And Pitch counted his footsteps, trying to drag himself more forcefully into the world. He needed to clear his fuzzy mind.

All in Arcadia knew the lore.

The Watcher King's corpse: torn into three parts, given to each of the Seraphim who destroyed him, the angelic bones immeasurably powerful in Cultivation.

Many a drink had been raised to the awesome power of the Seraphim. Blood Lake itself was no secret: the burial ground created by the Flood on the Day of Ruination was a monument to the power of Arcadia. A rare few knew it far more than simply Lord Enoch's warning to all traitors to beware.

It was Pitch's own vile mouth that had told the wrong people of the lake's true purpose.

Pitch had not expected the desperation that gripped him. After all they had gone through there was to be no resolution? Silas would be left with this world in the stranglehold of the Blight. Pitch had bled, over and over, for absolutely fucking nothing?

‘Surely there is something else you can do?' he slurred. ‘You're a fucking Seraph.'

‘Vassago,' Lucifer's voice was low with warning.

‘What? Is he powerful enough to destroy the Devil's fucking halo, or not?'

‘If you'd been more careful, daemon,' Seraphiel glowered, ‘then your enemies would not have bested you, and the simurgh would not be compromised. I thought you were strong enough for this. Perhaps I was wrong.'

‘Prick.'

‘Enough. Both of you. We have no time for this.' How strange to have Lucifer the most reasonable in the room. ‘And if you wish to lay blame, Seraphiel, then look to me. I faltered in my resolve at a time most critical.' Not only reasonable, but self-deprecating. Strange times, indeed. ‘If you cannot draw on the Sanctuary's magick, is there anywhere else that might serve you? Fae magick from the Child, perhaps?'

Seraphiel's eyelids fluttered, as though he'd been miles away in thought. ‘No, no Jacquetta must spend all her magick upon the Sanctuary, and besides, it is divine magick I need.' Seraphiel turned sharply, still pacing, his hair like gossamer flares around him. ‘Gods, I should have kept part of my halo here. Fool, I am.'

‘Did Enoch truly cast it back into the Creation Flame?' Lucifer wheeled his chair out of Seraphiel's erratic path. ‘Or was that as half-true as your continued existence?'

The angel eyed him. ‘Don't be petulant, Luci. I left myself in your hands. Was that not enough to show your importance to me?'

‘You could have told me.'

Seraphiel stopped, freezing with his hands stretched before him, like he was about to start a piano recital. ‘A vestige…it is angel bone…will you give me a piece of your vestige, Luci?'

Lucifer's silence held the pressure of a storm cloud. He stared down at his hand where it lay in his lap. But still Seraphiel seemed to have utterly forgotten the king's grievous injury, and looked him with a frown.

‘What's come over you? Are you sleeping, Luci?'

‘Michael took his vestige, you rotten bastard,' Pitch snarled at the angel. ‘Are you blind as well as mad?'

He expected Seraphiel to swell with pomposity and indignation. Pitch did not expect the angel to fall to his knees beside Lucifer's chair.

‘Gods, forgive me. My mind…is…well, you understand. I told you I am not what I had hoped.' Seraphiel's sudden tameness vanished again, and his mood shifted. ‘You, Dominion. Your vestige? Where is it? I've used shavings from it for Cultivations in the past. It may be enough.' He rose, fussing at a mark on the white satin near his wrist. ‘Do you have it with you?'

Pitch's utter astonishment gave him the impetus to push to his elbows. The simurgh tucked in its wings, giving him room, its eyes heavy-lidded as it roosted upon his belly still.

‘No, Seraphiel. I do not have my vestige. It was taken from me when I was accused of murdering a Seraph, if you recall.' With each passing moment, Pitch grew less convinced of going a step further in this fool-hardly quest. Even if the repairs could be made, was the angel in any state to make them?

Lucifer rubbed at his fresh-shaven chin. ‘Enoch did not even deign to return the prince's vestige to the Flame. He destroyed it, so that it would not taint the fire.' He inhaled sharply. ‘The ankou. Perhaps he can –'

‘No.' Pitch and Seraphiel spoke in unison, though with very different motives.

The angel clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘Ankou have no divine magick, and he'd be dangerously susceptible to the Blight.'

‘He is no ordinary ankou,' Lucifer said. ‘He is the Pale Horseman.'

‘Lucifer, stop.' Pitch was sharp; his chest tight.

They paid him no heed.

‘He is still death,' Seraphiel replied.

‘He is Nephilim.'

‘Gods, shut your fucking mouth!' Pitch cried.

Seraphiel wheeled about, eyes ablaze. ‘He is what?'

‘Nothing,' Pitch shouted.

And was once again ignored.

‘Nephilim,' Lucifer said. ‘At least…he was, but has been in Izanami's employ a long while. Who is to say what he is now, but it was strong enough to bring down –'

‘A Nephilim dares step foot inside this Sanctuary?' The angel clacked his heels to where Lucifer sat and grabbed at his collar. ‘You brought a child of Samyaza here, to the very shore of Blood Lake, where their sire's halo holds the power?'

Lucifer glowered and pulled his collar free before he answered. ‘If not for him, then you would have no simurgh. Besides, I did not know of Silas's truth until he and Vassago were too infatuated to dare try to separate them.'

‘Dare to try? You are the King of Daemonkind,' Seraphiel shouted in disbelief. ‘Lucifer does not try. He does . You should have forced the separation.'

Pitch made the mistake of laughing. Every muscle protested, and the simurgh hissed a thin sliver of tongue from its golden beak.

‘That did not work out for me as I had intended. Luckily so,' Lucifer replied. ‘Silas found his way to Vassago regardless, and is all the stronger for it.'

‘All the more reason he must be removed from here.' The angel returned to his rough twisting of his hair. ‘If he were to fall under the influence of the Blight –'

Lucifer shook his head. ‘He has withstood it thus far –'

‘That foul creature has never been so close to the halo, that which belonged to his sire!' Seraphiel's shout had the simurgh flexing its talons. Pitch swore at the creature, trying to shift from beneath it. ‘Do you know what a danger he could become, if the halo rules him? He must go, Luci. He must be banished from here.'

Pitch stilled. Seraphiel was right. How had he been so fucking thoughtless? Blood Lake is a graveyard , Silas had once said, claiming that good enough reason he should join Pitch on the quest. But it was not just any graveyard; it was his sire's final resting place; where a remnant of the power of the Watcher King remained.

Silas was strong, Pitch knew that better than Lucifer. But strong was not invincible.

Pitch's doubts about ending the ankou's journey here, evaporated.

‘Alright,' Lucifer continued. ‘So, you would risk opening the entrance to the Sanctuary once more to banish him? What if Michael waits for just such a moment?'

Pitch felt his lips part, felt the knife-tips of the words in his throat. He heard himself speak as though watching from the lofty peaks of Arcadia.

‘You are right, Seraphiel,' he said. ‘Silas Mercer is a danger to us. We should never have brought him here.' He refused to look at Lucifer, in case it made him falter. ‘If you cannot banish him, then restrain him. But do what you have to, to keep him from the lake.'

The simurgh twisted its long neck to regard him, raising the crest atop its crown. A blink, a flash of topaz, feathers ruffling.

‘You wish the ankou gone?' Lucifer spoke.

‘Far away preferably, or at least very much hindered.'

‘Are you sure of this? Do you not need him?'

‘Yes. I fucking need him. Which is why I cannot be distracted by him in the lake.' Pitch dropped back onto the metal, eyes fixed on the swirls of the runes overhead. He lifted his arm to point; it was like moving through syrup. ‘Can you seal him into a room with some of those? Drug him with pixie dust? Perhaps the Child has fae magick for that, if she cannot aid you with the simurgh.'

He despised the sound of his own voice, the air he used to make his lungs work the words free, but Pitch had never been so clear-headed. Silas must stay.

What a horror it would be to see him taken over by Samyaza; a nightmare Pitch could never forgive himself for. And who better than Silas to be here and deal with the teratisms, when Pitch's attempts at destroying the halo likely failed?

‘Yes, yes.' Seraphiel moved up beside the table, and presented his arm to the simurgh. ‘Go, speak with Jacquetta. I am busy here.'

The simurgh moved its gem-shone gaze between Seraphiel and Pitch. It lowered its head, touching the tip of its beak to Pitch's chest.

‘I said, come to me. Now.' Seraphiel bristled with impatience.

Pitch tilted his hand, letting his fingers brush at the underside of a wing. ‘Go on then. Let him fix you the best he can, so we won't be the laughingstock of this blasted lake.'

The simurgh, the wildness, the beast who'd never listened to a damned command in all the time it had coveted his depths, now listened to Pitch well; stepping onto the angel's arm, like a hawk ready for the hunt. Its wings flared as Seraphiel turned abruptly and moved away.

Lucifer offered Pitch a hand as he struggled to rise. After a momentary pause, he accepted the aid of the king, and dragged himself off the bench. His feet pained with pins and needles.

‘You made a deal with the bluecaps queen, did you not?' Lucifer lowered his voice, leaning forward in his chair. ‘In the Forest of Dean? Satine told me she learned of it through the horses. You promised yourself to them, in exchange for allowing the ankou to go free.'

Pitch scowled, rubbing at the back of his neck, loathing talk of the horses. ‘So what if I did?'

‘Then you can renege.'

Pitch shook his head, regretting it for the rattling of his brain. ‘Speak your mind, Lucifer. I do not know what you are talking about.'

‘You should read more in that case as I do. I have some rather magnificent old tomes from the Seelie Court –'

‘I swear, Lucifer, I shall pluck out your eyes if you do not get to the point.'

‘You can renege on your deal with the Bluecap Queen. There is an ancient law of reversal that can be enacted, so long as there is still a boon to be had for the fae. Here, you would give them Silas.' He paused, perhaps letting the magnitude of what he suggested sink in. ‘The law results from a long-buried agreement between a king of humankind and a love-struck fae prince. Speak with Jacquetta. She will claim she doesn't know of it. The fae, half-blood or not, dislike reminders that they too can be tricked into deals they don't desire.'

Pitch stared up at the King of Daemonkind, pulses quickening. ‘Very well. I'll ask. You speak so generously to me. It is not like you. Is there something I should know of your injuries? I'd hate to suddenly become King of Daemonkind on top of all else.'

‘Who in their right mind would name you as my successor?' Lucifer turned his chair. ‘Get away, before Seraphiel peels you open for his remedy.'

‘What if there is not one? A remedy, I mean?'

‘I have an idea I shall share with him. A source of some magick. Perhaps it will work.'

Pitch nodded, resettling his shirt, tucking it into his trousers. ‘And what if I am not enough? You have wagered much on this, dear pappa.'

The expected growl did not come.

‘You are stronger now than you ever were upon the Hellfield. The angel was never mad in choosing you. Now go.'

Lucifer pushed at the thin metal wheels, straining in his effort to move himself to where Seraphiel muttered over the simurgh. Pitch stood there a long while, watching the king, before he moved away, leaving the angel and daemon to their urgent deliberations.