Chapter Forty-Two
“THE OTHER FOUNDERS LOST FAITH IN THE END, BUT I DID NOT. THEY TRIED TO MEASURE WHAT WE’D CREATED AGAINST THE ETHICS AND MORALS OF THE COMMON MAN, BUT THAT IS AS USELESS AS THE COMMON MAN MEASURING HIMSELF AGAINST AN INSECT.
I SAW THAT SO CLEARLY, AND WHEN THEIR COURAGE FAILED, I DID WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE AND MADE THEM INTO THE GODS THEY DESERVED TO BE. ”
—FROM THE PERSONAL RECORDS OF HORACE J. COOPER
I lunge toward Horace Cooper, but the closest Herald-angel snaps its big hand around my body, stopping me cold.
I wrench myself in its grip, scraping my arm against its rough metal edges, tearing rips in my suit, opening up new cuts and lacerations all over my body. But I can’t get it to budge. I can’t—
My eyes catch on the pool of light, glowing and rippling in the center of the floor, calling to me. I let it fill my vision until the song pounds underneath my skin and blue-white light haloes my eyes.
The pressure, the impossible weight of the Herald-angel’s grip falls away. Oxygen floods into my lungs. My breath and blood are alight.
I phase.
I want to launch myself at the Herald-angels and rip them apart, strip their wings, but they’re still so big and so impossible to fight. I only have time to make one smart move.
So I go for Horace Cooper instead.
Snapping back together right in front of him, I crush a fist into his nose, then two to his stomach.
He grunts and puts a hand to his face, the other reaching for me, but I phase away, molecules between his fingers, and reappear again behind him.
I strike him in the kidneys, slam my foot into the backs of his knees.
He’s tougher than I expect—it feels like hitting a wall—but he finally sinks to the floor.
Twisting Toothpick free, I dig my fingers into his hair, yanking back to expose his throat and press the viciously sharp blade tip to it.
“Let them all go,” I growl. “Call every single one of your angels home and let Halle and everyone else go right now or you and I get to discover the limits of your immortality.”
“There are no limits to my immortality.” Horace lets out a strange sort of sigh. “And you are too smart to believe that I would truly let any of you go. No petulant threat of yours will alter that, I’m afraid.”
“Are you sure about that?” I press a little harder to show I mean business, and the point digs into his golden skin.
But there’s no blood. Instead, an oily iridescent-blue substance oozes out of the cut.
Naphtha.
I stare down at it, then at Horace’s nose.
It ought to have been broken by that initial blow, but it isn’t.
There’s just a slight smear of that shimmering oil above his lip.
He doesn’t look at all pained or afraid; his expression is almost sympathetic.
I think about the hits I landed, how it felt like slamming my knuckles into solid metal, and my stomach drops sickeningly.
“What are you?”
He twists under my hands, and I try to clamp down, keep my grip on him, but he rises anyway. Tall, imposing. There is forgiveness in his eyes, but not in his grip as he wraps crushing fingers around my neck. It’s like when the Archangels grab me, a punishing squeeze to my bones.
“Mortal forms are fragile, fallible. They have a time limit. I am what I needed to become.”
He starts to squeeze, his grip like a vise around my throat, but I phase and come back together behind him again, slashing Toothpick across his shoulders.
He barely flinches. I keep moving, angling attacks at his knees, his stomach, his throat, but none of it seems to affect him at all.
He grabs me and shoves me backward, off the dais, and then I’m surrounded by Herald-angels, descending on me, burning with righteous light.
I phase and dodge and strike out at them, trying to keep out of their grasp, but my body is injured and wobbly and exhausted.
I can’t keep up, I can’t move fast enough, and all I can think about are the gray-eyed, ghostly faces inside those grotesque cages.
The humans—no longer alive, not entirely dead—trapped inside that torment for thousands of years.
It throws me off, a weird surge of sympathy that softens my attacks.
The Herald-angels drive me back and back, away from Horace Cooper and into the middle of the room, until I’m trapped between them and the pool of light.
One of them brings a sudden, heavy fist crashing onto my back, sending me sprawling onto the floor.
Pain sears along my spine and arms. More blows slam down on me, again and again, pounding me into the floor until I can feel darkness gathering at the corners of my brain.
I lie face down, the pain in my shoulders throbbing up my neck and into my skull.
I stare at the pool next to me, watching its soft-blue light ebb and flow. The color and rhythm wash over me, relaxing my muscles, slowing my heartbeat, and I let myself drift in it.
voices calling
a song
a story
I float on its current, out of this room, somewhere where there is no space or time. Just a riot of colors and myriad ellipses spinning around one another in constant motion.
old pain
transformation
unmaking
Distantly, I hear Horace shouting something. Telling his angels to grab me, to get me away from the light. He almost sounds panicked. Afraid.
Afraid of what, though? Of me? He’s already broken me.
Valene. Why can’t you fly?
The voice is in the song. The voice is beyond the song. I feel myself reaching for it, my fingertips touching the edge of the pool, and I suddenly know why Horace is afraid. I finally know how to answer the question that voice keeps asking me.
Because I need you to give me wings.
The light flickers in reply. I raise my head so I can see Horace, standing on his precious dais, watching me. I grin at him, blood on my teeth, and raise both my fists to him, middle fingers up.
And then I roll over the edge, into the pool. Horace shouts in alarm, but it’s too late. The light surges to life, blazing bright as a star, enveloping everything.