Chapter 27 - Malachi
Malachi
It’s the morning rush in the Ninth.
Miserable face after miserable face passes by—the walking dead of the Division, their skin the color of damp ash, eyes glazed with the kind of soul-crushing apathy that only centuries of filing paperwork can produce.
They shuffle along the iron-grated walkways in a rhythmic, soul-dead march, heading to their dread-inducing nine-to-fives.
I feel a flicker of phantom, paperwork-induced nausea just looking at them.
He’s got to be somewhere in this sea of grey suits and weeping shadows.
Where are you, you feathery idiot…
There. Near the fountain in the center of the Trader’s Square, where the water runs the color of bile. I reach back and snag Eden’s wrist, tugging her through the press of bodies like a plow through wet dirt. I make a beeline for a familiar, tattered pair of wings standing near a news kiosk.
I snatch him by a wing, spinning him around until we’re nose-to-nose. For a heartbeat, the creature’s predatory instincts flare—his hand twitches toward a concealed blade—but then his face breaks into a wide, shit-eating grin that reveals far too many teeth.
“Mal! What the shit, man!” Rhaziel barks.
His wings kick out in a dusty, reflexive flutter, sending a cloud of grey soot over a passing commuter.
“Where the fuck have you been? Rumor was you’d finally annoyed Veraxia enough to get yourself liquidated.
I had a bet going that they’d turned you into a decorative coat rack. ”
A muscle in my jaw jumps. So, Veraxia hasn't talked. She’s kept it all tight lipped. Good.
“Rhaziel,” I say, my voice cutting through his exuberance like a razor through silk. “You have to come with me. Now.”
His grin falters, eyes darting between my expression and the churning crowd before he checks a battered watch strapped to his wrist. “I can’t, Mal. I’ve got to punch the clock in… twenty minutes. If I’m late again, they’ll put me on soul-sorting in the furnace rooms.”
“Take the day off sick,” I snap. “Tell them you’ve contracted a case of soul-rot or spontaneous combustion. This is urgent.”
He groans, running a hand through his long, black hair. “You know I have to file three sets of paperwork in triplicate for that shit, Mal. Veraxia will have my head on a pike.”
“Say it was unavoidable,” I rumble, jerking my chin toward Eden, who’s currently staring at the floor. “This is urgent. Life-and-death urgent.”
He finally looks at her, and blinks, his head tilting at an inquisitive, bird-like angle. Then he leans in, his nostrils flared, taking a long, deep draw of the air around her.
“Is that a…?”
“Privacy. NOW.”
I snag him by the collar and Eden by the elbow, dragging them both into a narrow alcove between two leaning, salt-stained structures, where the roar of the commute muffles into a dull thrum.
“Speak,” he says, tucking his wings tight against his spine in a desperate attempt to avoid making contact with the filth-crusted walls of the alley.
I take a breath, the smog stinging my lungs like swallowed needles. If there is one creature in this sprawl who won't sell me out for a promotion or a slightly better parking spot in the pits, it's him. Probably.
“We’re blood-bound, Rhaz,” I say quietly. “The real deal. Blood, parchment, and a spectacular amount of mortal incompetence.”
“Satan's teeth,” he mutters, a low whistle escaping his teeth. “You? Tethered to a... Mal, she looks like she’d break if you sneezed on her.”
“I need your sister, Rhaz. I need Serena.”
The alarm that crosses his face is instantaneous. “Serena? Why in the name of the Veil do you need Serena of all people?”
“Because she knows the architecture of a bind better than anyone who isn't a pile of sentient ash,” I snap, reaching out, my fingers tightening on his arm until the bone creaks beneath the fabric of his suit. “This isn't a request, Rhaziel. It’s a requirement. We need her. Now.”
He hesitates, chewing the inside of his cheek, eyes darting toward the mouth of the alley as if expecting a group of Wardens to materialize out of the humid rot. His wings give a nervous shudder, shedding a cloud of grey dander.
“Fine,” he groans with the weight of a dozen future regrets. “But she isn’t in her offices anymore. She managed a promotion a while ago. She’s working as a consultant in the Silken District now.”
My stomach drops, a cold stone falling into a well of bile. “The Silken District? That’s halfway across the Ninth. We’ll never make it through the checkpoints on foot. Not like this.”
He nods, his expression turning grim, his eyes reflecting the sickly neon glow of the city above. “We aren't going over. We’re going under. We’ll have to take the Vein.”
The iron carriage arrives in the Vein with a shriek of metal on metal, and as the doors hiss open, a wave of humid heat and the pungent stench of sweat pours out, making Eden gag into the lace.
“Inside. Now,” I command, ushering her into the sweltering car with a hand to her lower back.
It’s packed. A tin of sardines, if the sardines were lower-level laborers and imps with yellowed, cataract-filmed eyes and skin the texture of boiled leather.
They press in from all sides in a sea of grey and mottled brown.
Their gazes skitter over straight to the woman beside me.
To these bottom-feeders, she doesn't just look out of place; she smells like a bakery in the middle of a famine.
Eden is vibrating, her breath coming in those short, pathetic hitches that usually precede a total biological meltdown. Her wide eyes are fixed on a particularly disheveled scavenger in the corner who’s sharpening a yellowed fang with a rusted metal file.
“Rhaziel,” I hiss, white-knuckling the iron pole for support as the carriage lurches forward. “Shield her. Their nostrils are twitching.”
He makes a face like he’s about to swallow a cup of bile but steps in nonetheless, his height creating a barrier between Eden and the rest of the scum.
He unfurls his wings, arching them until they press against the walls, sealing us into a claustrophobic little sanctuary of old feathers and Eden’s sweet terror.
The tips of his tattered feathers brush her sleeve, and a low, involuntary growl catches in my throat. I tell myself it's logistics—guarding the mortal—but my fingers itch to pluck him bald every time the carriage jolts her against his chest.
“Don’t look at them, Eden,” I murmur, grabbing her by the chin and turning her face into my chest. “Breathe through your mouth. And for the love of all things sinful, stop smelling so fucking delicious.”
“I can't help it!” She whispers, though she quickly obeys, fingers catching the fabric of my shirt near my waist. They stay there for the entire ride, and I find myself adjusting my stance, bracing my legs against the lurching car to ensure she isn't crushed by the sweating, grey mass of shadows.
The tram screams as it banks hard into the Silken District, and the atmosphere shifts instantly, the heavy smog of the Hub thins, replaced by a scent of expensive ozone and something cloyingly sweet—the olfactory equivalent of rotting lilies dipped in saccharine.
Here, the architecture stops being utilitarian and starts being arrogant. The buildings are bone-white structures draped in shimmering, iridescent webs that pulse with a faint, nauseating pink light. It’s still crowded, still inherently vile, but it’s a more refined, expensive brand of depravity.
Torture with a hint of decorum—the kind of place where you’ll get your soul flayed, but they offer you a sparkling water first.
Rhaziel guides us toward a towering office block that looks like a stack of bleached vertebrae.
We bypass the lift and the biometric scanners that would have turned Eden into a pile of ash—and take the stairs.
Eight flights that smell of lemon oil and ancient, binding contracts.
By the time we reach the top, Eden’s wheezing, sweat dripping down the side of her temple, tracking a clean line through the soot.
Serena’s office is a monument to a nervous breakdown.
Filing cabinets have vomited open, their contents spilling out in a fat tide of parchment that carpets the floor.
Serena herself is a frazzled silhouette amidst the mess—a high-strung, multi-tasking disaster who’s once-sleek hair is now a wild knotted nest. And there’s a bundle in her arms—a small, squirming thing with parchment-thin skin and predatory pink eyes.
Saints below. Did she… breed?
Who in the various levels of Hell would be suicidal enough to willingly procreate with Serena?
“Rhaziel,” I mutter under my breath, eyes fixed on the writhing, pink-eyed parasite. “Tell me that is a very small, very ugly security demon.”
“Watch your mouth, or I’ll bind your tongue to your soft palate for a decade.” Serena growls, and before I can offer a greeting—or a well-deserved insult—she’s across the room in a blur, shoving the squirming, grotesque bundle into my arms.
“For that comment, you can hold him,” she snaps, her bloodshot eyes darting toward a stack of ledgers.
“He’s teething and he just bit the head off his rattle.
If he starts crying again, I’m going to throw myself into the Abyss.
I mean it. I’ve already scouted a particularly deep crevice. Now what the fuck do you want?”
I stand there, frozen, holding the lukewarm bag of jelly with teeth, then I look at Serena’s manic expression, then to Rhaziel—who’s standing in the doorway with the practiced, awkward distance of a man who’s witnessed many such breakdowns.
Finally, I look down to where my little summoner’s still clutching my waist, staring at the infant like it might blow up at any moment.
“Well, I didn't come here to be a nanny, Serena,” I drawl, trying to maintain some semblance of decorum while the small creature begins to gnaw experimentally on my thumb. “We have a problem. A soul-tethered, blood-bound, 'I-was-summoned-by-a-discount-kit' kind of problem.”