Chapter Twenty-Six
It took mere moments for Fauna to inform the King that no, I hadn’t had protective wards around my house until she’d arrived, and anyone could walk in or out. He had me describe everything about the angel down to the minutia, as well as the parasitic entity that I’d met on my second encounter with the heavenly host.
“I struggle to believe that the Prince would have left you vulnerable. I suspect Caliban removed your wards when he marked your attacker so that someone else could respond,” Fauna mused. “Then after you banished him, he couldn’t put them back up.”
The King was quick to action. The next moment, he had his back to us, looking out the window as he made a number of calls. I didn’t dare open my mouth while he spoke to person after person. When he returned, it was with a serious face.
“He’s not with Heaven.”
I looked between Fauna and the King. “That’s good, right?”
The King met my eyes. “Another pantheon is rumored to be involved.”
“But the Nordes—” Fauna began.
“It isn’t Nordic. Reports are unclear. But it isn’t Heaven.”
I felt ready to crawl out of my skin. Nothing made sense, and I said as much.
“A parasite like that should have been a tier-one favor,” he explained.
Fauna rose from where she’d been seated and slid into the space beside me.
“They’re easy to kill. They require almost no skill. Hell, even a nymph—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Fauna, I don’t mean to be diminutive. That word isn’t even of your realm.”
She offered a polite scoff, “I am many things, Your Majesty, but skilled in combat is not one of them. Nothing you could say regarding my inability to fight would insult me.”
I hadn’t even realized that I’d been bouncing my legs anxiously, twisting my fingers between my knees while they spoke. Fauna slipped her fingers into mine, resting her forearm on my knee to still my restlessness.
“A tier-one?” I asked her quietly, not wanting to interrupt the King. He was so lost in his distress that he appeared to have forgotten we were there all together.
Her face was not one of impatience but of concern.
“You know how Azrames works, right?”
I nodded.
“His work is in energy between man and fae, and he has a pretty sweet deal. He rarely works with other immortals. But for many of us… Well, many put out contracts that can be claimed across realms—contracts in favors. It’s risky to enter into deals, even small ones, with someone…even someone from your own realm. A first-tier favor could be something like trading jobs or doing remedial tasks. It’s busywork. A tier-one favor that’s sent out for any realm to grab could be more dangerous. If a mermaid calls in a level-one favor to a fire sprite and asks her to help her brush her hair…”
I didn’t want to touch the introduction of new fae with a ten-foot pole, so I just said, “Even though it’s a small task, the sprite would die.”
“Open-realm favors are unwise. They’re reserved for the rarest of circumstances.” Fauna looked from me to the King. “And from your tone, Your Majesty, I assume the bounty on this entity and its host was not marked as tier one.”
He sank into the leather chair and slipped his hands into his hair. His ageless face suddenly bore the weight of thousands of years as he said, “No. No it was not.”
“I don’t understand what happened in there,” I whispered, eyes panicked as Fauna dragged me from the building. Azrames hadn’t spoken since she yanked him from the waiting room. His face remained tight with concern as he got us to the car. “Fauna, what happened!”
“Az,” she said, ignoring me, “how fast can you get us back to your place?”
He bit down, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he began to drive like the proverbial bat out of hell.
“Fauna!” I gripped the shoulders of the two front seats and leaned forward.
She whipped around, true anger in her face as she said, “You would have been fine! If you had died in that apartment, you would have resumed your mortal loop. Twenty-six years from now you could have been a different idiot. But your precious Caliban couldn’t leave good enough alone. Apparently, whatever you were going through was too terrible for him to allow you to endure. Gods and goddesses, has he only ever let you die healthy and of old age? No wonder you’re caught in a mortal loop refusing to learn any lessons. Personally, I would have let you die.”
“You don’t mean that…” I struggled to breathe. Only an hour before, she’d held my hand in the palace and said she loved me. I’d begun to believe we were truly friends. I mouthed her name again, the question a wordless plea as tears threatened me. The gray streets blurred, both from the wall of emotion and the speed with which Azrames wove through traffic. Our twenty-minute drive would easily be finished in six.
“Five, Marlow! Tier five!”
Azrames reacted so suddenly that he almost jerked the vehicle into a horned demon on a motorcycle. His gray knuckles turned white with his grip, muscles tensing. My stomach lurched against the g-force as he pushed his foot on the gas pedal, cutting the six-minute drive into four.
I shook my head, eyes wide as I said, “I don’t understand…”
“Five means whoever you are, whatever you are, come right the fuck now and I’ll do whatever you want.”
I lurched with the car as Azrames took a hairpin corner. I gripped the seats in front of me as I let my eyes do the begging, pleading with her for answers.
“Anything!” she practically shrieked. “It means Silas can ask for anything! He wants Caliban to rip his soul out and serve it up on a platter? He wants unlimited access to come and go to Hell’s palace? He wants the King to choose between surrender or the death of his son? It is within Silas’s right to ask! And he got the favor from the fucking Prince of Hell! This isn’t just bad for him, Marlow. This is bad for all of the realms! Think of what it means for the Nordes! The Greeks! The Egyptians! The—” She gasped, balling her fingers in her hair. “Every kingdom will be thrust into chaos if Silas calls in this barter. Marlow, do you hear what I’m saying? This is really. Fucking. Bad.”
The tendons on Azrames’s neck flexed as he said, “That’s it. Heaven wins.” He swung into the parking spot, little more than a blur as he moved. He’d sprinted to open Fauna’s door before she could even leap from her seat.
“And?” I gasped, tumbling from the back. “What do we do? How do we help?”
She spun on me, jabbing a finger into my sternum as she burned. “Silas wants you. It’s the only thing he’s harped on since meeting you. It’s why he showed up at your apartment. It’s why he involved your mother,” she said. “As far as we know, he hasn’t called in the favor. In fact…” She calmed herself, forcing a long breath in, then pushing it out. She made her fists unclench as she relaxed her face from the uncharacteristic panic and fury that had burned through her. “As far as we know…he hasn’t told anyone what cards he holds.”
I looked between her and Az.
“And what about the other pantheon?” I asked.
Azrames stiffened. “What other pantheon? Heaven doesn’t have any allies.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Fauna. “The King’s intel could have been wrong. He seems to believe other gods are at play.”
“Then…” Azrames’s posture changed. “Whoever it is, they may have bought us some time.”
None of this made sense. “How?”
Azrames clarified with low intensity. “Silas can’t have told anyone in Heaven that he has the power to end the war, or it would have happened already. Hell would be swarming with angels. Clearly, their king knows you’re the Prince’s human, but that seems to be it. Silas must have reported his fight, explained who you were, and gotten his orders from there. If anyone knew about the deal…things would be very, very different.”
I swallowed. “Could he ask for me? As the favor?”
“Only if you had bonded yourself. He could have asked for Caliban to hand over your bond, and the Prince would have had to comply. Heaven would own you right now,” answered Fauna.
“And?” My eyebrows had climbed so high that I was positive they’d disappeared into my hairline. “What do I do? How do I fix this?”
She gripped my shoulders, looking between me and the s?lje still pinned to my chest. “You get to Silas first.”
We were in Azrames’s apartment within a moment, the luxury of his space feeling ominous as the backdrop of Fauna’s fervor. I’d never seen her move with such intensity. She zigzagged through the apartment like a deer bolting in the forest. I had to stop her from tearing the designer bodice from her chest, as it looked like she was seconds away from shredding thousands of dollars in fashion in her haste. She left her clothes in a rumpled pile at my feet as she stepped into the comfortable, harem-style pants she’d worn the first night we’d met. Her heather-gray shirt, cropped like the others, had a Nordic rune in the center, antlers intersecting it through the middle. Fauna yanked another shirt and pair of pants off hangers and chucked them at me.
“Wear these,” she commanded, then left me to my own devices as I shimmied out of my jumpsuit and unclipped the broach.
I stepped out in curious, skin-tight leggings that seemed to have been made from rust, forest, and gold. I’d never owned anything that could have been described as steampunk, but no other word came to mind as I blinked at the buttons that ran along the seams on the outside of the pants, contrasted against the indecently thin, white shirt she’d thrust on me. I understood a nymph’s incentive to champion the free the titties movement, but I wasn’t sure unbound D cups were the most suitable attire for seeking an audience with an angel. I looked down at the perfectly black tattoo, the only mark on my otherwise exposed flesh, and felt my chest tighten.
It was the sigil that had turned me into Alice as I free-fell into Wonderland.
Except with Alice, after she’d returned home, she’d been able to pretend it was all a dream. I was marked in more ways than one. There’d be no coming back from this. I shook the thoughts from my mind like eliminating cobwebs, ridding myself of old patterns of thought as I abandoned the bedroom.
“Is Az coming with us?” I asked, watching her tear things from his shelves as she appeared to chaotically search for something.
Her back remained to me, hands scouring his things as she said, “He can’t come.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Yeah” came Azrames’s voice as he joined us in the living room, tugging the shirt over his muscles and running his hand through his hair. “Why not?”
She growled as she spun on him. “Az, where is your—oh. Never mind.” Fauna ran to the glass container I’d marveled over only one day prior and placed a hand on either side.
“Don’t break the—” He stretched out a hand to stop her, but she’d already tossed the glass to the side. The tinkling shards of ten thousand diamonds filled the apartment as the case shattered to the floor.
“There was a latch, Fauna.”
“Whoops.” she said, ignoring him entirely. She shoved the Latin-inscribed dagger into its silver sheath and turned to him. “Find me a leather holster, Az. Make it cute.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking from the shattered evidence of her carelessness, then back to her. He disappeared, returning a moment later with two loose, leather belts. He fitted the first to her waist as he asked, “Now, why exactly can’t I come?”
“It’s too dangerous,” she said, still too distracted to truly look at any of us as she wreaked havoc on the apartment.
“What’s too dangerous?” I had a million questions and no one was giving me answers. “Are we killing Silas? What’s the plan here?”
“That depends entirely on what Silas has to say,” Fauna replied. “But with this favor hanging over the Prince’s head, the clock is ticking, and we have no idea what we’re really up against without understanding why he hasn’t let anyone know that he has the key to winning the war.”
“Maybe he has,” I said quietly. “Could he have told a different god?”
“Stand still,” he said, grabbing Fauna by the back of her shirt as she readied herself to dash into some other room and reeling her in. She danced in place with impatience. He cinched the belt with a final tug, bringing her up on her toes slightly. He hooked his finger between her hip and the strap, then spun her around. “You know Silas, Fauns. Could he be a defector?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I have no idea.”
“So, we don’t know his motives, and, just to be clear,” he said, voice dropping from its gentleness to a low growl. He bent his forefinger, tucking it beneath her chin and forcing her to calm down long enough to look into his eyes. “A sugar goblin and a human won’t let me, the centuries-old demon assassin, come on their fight because it’s too dangerous?”
“I…”
“You love me.” He grinned, releasing her. He began to fit himself with the other weapon, then opened a door in the hall that I was almost certain had never been there before. He procured a scimitar, a thin silver rope that he clipped to his waist, and a leather roll of god-knows-what clinking metals hid within. Much to my surprise, he procured a small, golden pistol.
“Really? Demons use guns now?” I gaped.
He shoved it into a holster at his hip and shrugged. “No use fighting the times.” He moved into the kitchen and began to scrawl a note, leaving it on the island.
“What are you writing?” Fauna asked.
“An apology note for the maid, since I’ll be busy battling it out in the mortal realm when she arrives.” He then looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. His lips tugged up in a smirk before he looked back at Fauna. “You’re really going for the angel’s balls with that one, huh?”
Fauna shrugged, saying, “He wants her. It’s probably just a war thing, but, just in case he’s thinking with his dick…”
My eyes widened in horror as my hands flew to my chest. “You picked this on purpose!”
“Relax.” She rolled her eyes. “You have very cute nips. He’ll love them.”
My skin was unbearably hot. I could feel my pulse in my very cheeks as if my blood were trying to escape through my face. I switched my position, folding my arms over my chest rather than cupping my breasts before saying, “Okay. We find the angel. How, exactly?”
“Well, he can’t come to Hell, and at the moment, Fauna’s the only one of us who can get into Heaven,” he said. “We’ll meet him in the mortal realm. He’ll come when you call, Marlow.” Azrames’s gaze darted to my chest, and my eyes widened in shock. To my relief, he merely asked, “Where’s the s?lje?”
I unfurled my hand to reveal it, lifting it to my shirt. He shook his head.
“No, leave it hidden. We don’t want it ripped from you. Those pants don’t leave much to the imagination, so we don’t get the luxury of pockets, but pin it on the inside of your waistline to ensure it doesn’t fall out. Plus, it’ll remain pressed to your skin that way.”
“Aw,” Fauna said, grabbing the cookies before she joined us, “look at you idiot-proofing Marlow’s hold on the broach. Come on. We have to get going.”
“Shouldn’t I get a weapon?” I asked, looking from Azrames’s battle-ready attire to the soft, looping leather that held Fauna’s ornate dagger.
“Sure! What have you trained in? Can you lasso things? Have you taken fencing classes? What are your archery skills like?” The look she gave me told me to grow up.
My frustration was so palpable it nearly had a flavor.
“You’d be a liability with a sword in those hands,” Azrames said apologetically. “Your mind, words, and influence are the best weapons you have.”
Then to me, she said, “See, I thought he understood you, but apparently he’s forgotten you don’t have two brain cells to rub together. Now, are we ready to get going, or are we going to let Mister No Other Gods Before Me begin to topple his dominos and ruin every realm from the Slavs to the Mongolians thanks to someone who was apparently too pretty and special to die in her apartment? I like my life with the Nordes, but if Hell falls and I don’t get to sleep on those sheets again…” She pouted, looking over her shoulder at the ultimate loss in the battle between Heaven and Hell: her sex life.
I was strangled between apologetic and frantic. My ignorant fuckup could destroy Caliban completely, and it was already too late. I’d destroyed him, the realms, the world as we knew it without even understanding the veil. He loved me; that love had been his biggest mistake. “I had no way of knowing—”
“You remember how I said Frigg liked you? You wanna keep it that way? Then make your people proud and fix this. Az, Mar’s apartment is invite-only.” She extended her hands toward both of us, one to me and the container of sweets toward Az.
“You can’t bring the cookies,” Azrames said, plucking the box from her hand and setting it on the counter. I slipped one hand over the callouses of his large, gray fingers and interlocked my other with Fauna’s soft hands to ensure they could both get past my warding. Before I could say another word, the world smeared into black, red, white, and gray, silver streaks blinding me as they seared into my vision. Then everything went dark.