2. Azrael
It’s time, boy.
I open my eyes. Sweat drenches me. My heart is racing as if I’ve been running a marathon. But I know I’m in my bed, and from the cast of moonlight in the room, I can see it’s not quite morning yet.
Benedict whines, nudging me with his cold, wet nose. I glance at the huge German Shepherd sitting beside my bed, his wide, anxious eyes on me. I wonder if he’d been trying to wake me.
“It’s okay, boy,” I say, petting him. “It’s fine.”
I rub my face and instantly draw my hand away. Because there, just like in the fucking dream, is the ring. I sit up, tug it off, and hurl it across the room. I should fucking bury it.
I take a deep breath in. It’s not the first time this dream has come, this fucking nightmare. That’s what this is, what all of this is. It’s not the first time I’ve woken up with that thing on my finger.
Scrubbing at my face, I look at the ring in the corner and shake my head at my own idiotic panic. There’s nothing uncanny about it, I tell myself. Nothing supernatural. I must slip it on in my sleep. That’s all.
I get up, pick up the ring, and drop it into the nightstand drawer. Exhausted, I lay back down to stare up at the ceiling, the wood carving there a larger-than-life copy of the one on the ring face. It is the Delacroix insignia, the triangle containing Shemhazai’s sword with wings of fire breaking the crescent moon in two.
That moon was added a few hundred years ago. It wasn’t always part of our insignia. Originally it symbolized the witch’s mark, or, as it was known back in that time, the devil’s seal upon his initiate pledging her into service. Elizabeth Wildblood was born with the crescent moon upon her breast and with every generation, a Wildblood girl is born bearing that same mark. Since the fate of the Delacroixes and the Wildbloods is inexorably linked, I suppose it seemed right to Isaiah to incorporate the mark into our insignia.
There’s a deep crack in the carving. If only it would crash down on me and kill me in my sleep.
But then what?
The curse would pass to Emmanuel. We’ve lost one man this generation. We’ll lose another in time. It’s how this goes, how it’s always been. I won’t let my brother pay that price. That would be cowardice.
The instant I think the words, I regret them.
Fuck.
I sit up and push the damp sheet off, my head pounding already with the fucking migraine that hasn’t abated in three weeks. I glance at my watch, an antique that belonged to my father. It’s barely five o’clock. I take in the light coming from the arched windows. The fading night will give way to day soon.
It’s going to be a long one.
I get up, pull on my running clothes and shoes, and slip out of the bedroom. Benedict follows, tail wagging, excited for this unexpected outing. The house is quiet as I walk down the hall, passing my brother’s and sister’s rooms. I glance at the double doors at the far end of the corridor, the room that mirrors my own. It’s my grandmother, Salomé’s. There’s a line of light beneath it. I sometimes wonder if she sleeps at all.
I walk as quietly as I can to the staircase, although I’m sure she knows I’m up. But she won’t bother me. Not yet.
As anxious as she is about what is to come, she knows to give me space. She knows my temper as well as I know hers. Hell, I inherited it from her.
Benedict”s nails click along the ancient hardwood floors as we make our way down the stairs. The house is dark, only the dim light of the outdoor lamps that always remain lit to guide me. It shines through the iron clad window above the double front doors, casting its shadow onto the floor. It is the original Delacroix insignia, minus the crescent moon.
I pass through the hall toward the living room, which is the center of the house. Two wings extend from it like arms, one in use by my family, the other locked up. Using one of the French doors at the back, I exit into the cool morning and set off on a run—no warm up, no stretch. My pace is fast and, tall as I am, my stride is long.
My brother, Emmanuel, is almost as tall as me. I’ve got an inch on him. Most of the men of my family are tall and strongly built. According to Grandmother, it’s our inheritance, and, with pride upon her face, she reminds us as often as she can of it.
Weaving around the manicured garden with Benedict at my side, I glance at the pool house with its glass walls. Water shimmers in the lamplight. I move quickly out of sight of the house and into the woods, trees growing denser as I run deeper under their cover.
The Delacroix mansion is surrounded by more than fifteen acres of land, most of it unused and untouched by man. There is a cleared path to my destination, but I bypass it, choosing to run through the trees. I’d prefer to have gone into the dark wing of the house to my piano than run, but I need to burn off this energy.
The dark wing is technically the east wing, but Mom started calling it the dark wing back when it was just Abacus, Emmanuel, and me to scare us from going into the maze of rooms that had yet to be renovated. It was too dangerous. She was right. It still is because we never did get around to renovating, even after Abacus and I came of age. By then it was too late. Grandmother had the wing sealed off.
I wonder if she knows I have been visiting it again since Abacus’s death. If I had to guess, I’d say yes. Her hearing is almost inhuman, even at her age. She can hear a mouse in the cellar. She claims it’s her gift from above, just as ours is our height and strength.
My teeth clench together at the thought of it all.
Just one week after our parents disappeared—yacht and all—on what was meant to be a relaxing week in a calm sea, Grandmother had arrived at our house. We were only children then, Rébecca, my sister, barely a year old, my brother, Emmanuel a year younger than my twin, Abacus and I who had been eleven at the time. She was a formidable woman. My brothers and I made fun of her strange ways at first. It was one of the few things that made us laugh, even if there wasn’t anything funny about it. We missed our parents, and Grandmother has always been a cold substitute. She heard our mocking laughter, but she was patient.
Over time, over years and years of hearing something, you almost start to believe it, no matter how preposterous, how unbelievable. You start to believe the texts she carried with her from her home in the suburbs of Paris telling the history of our family.
Rébecca has no memory of our parents. In their place, she had Grandmother and her strange stories. I’d worried about Rébecca then and I still do now, but it turned out Abacus had been the one to watch.
At the memory of him, my chest tightens. We were as tight as twins could be. But during the last year of his life, everything had changed. Every single thing.
Fuck.
Now I wish I’d brought my phone. At least I could blare music to drown out my thoughts—not that I could bear it with this fucking migraine.
This is why I prefer going into the dark wing on nights like this. The piano is there. There, I can hammer at the keys and drown out every other sound. Grandmother had it put away when she moved in, calling it an unnecessary distraction. When I play there, no one hears it; it’s too far from the west wing of the house.
Well, no one but my grandmother, but I’m too old to be chastised by her. Besides, as the rules go within The Society we are a part of, I am the head of this household, not her. No matter how much she’d like it to be otherwise.
As if taking pity on me, birds begin waking as the sky ahead glows a deep crimson with the first light of day. I stop, barely out of breath, to take in the beauty of it, but it triggers a memory of the dream I am running from: the sun breaking the horizon as Elizabeth Wildblood is carted out to Proctor’s Ledge. To the hanging tree.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
I charge on faster than ever, twenty more minutes of single-minded focus as I run the length of the property and circle back, only hearing the chirping of birds and the crunching of branches underfoot. Twenty more minutes pass before I just make out the red glow of the Tabernacle lamp in the distance. It burns in the small chapel on the property and is visible through one of the narrow windows.
It’s only then that I slow my pace, as the forest grows thinner and I get my first glimpse of the angel Shemhazai standing tall and proud.
Benedict stops altogether, whining at the border of hallowed ground. As if there’s a barrier only he sees, he never enters this place. He just whimpers until I or my siblings are safely out of it.
“It’s all right,” I tell him as I walk onto the burial grounds and meet the eyes of Shemhazai, who is ever-angry, as if he was frozen in a moment of utter fury. Maybe he was. What do I know? The statue stands ten feet tall in the very center of the cemetery, with the chapel itself set to the side. His wings are spread wide; one knee is bent, the other leg straight as if he was frozen in time the moment he landed upon this earth. His powerful chest, shoulders, and forearms are armored ornately as if ready for war. A hood over his head sets his face in shadow for most of the day. I wish it would cast it into obscurity, but it does not. He’s missing part of one arm—sadly not his sword arm. No, that is intact, with his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword that has pierced the crescent moon through.
I know every detail of this statue too well. Shemhazai is inked into my skin as if my arm and hand were an extension of his. I wear tattoos of his armor on my forearm, a part of my chest, and my back in brilliant colors.
I meet the statue’s eyes now. I do not bow my head. Grandmother was quick with a smack to the backs of our heads when we were younger and refused to acknowledge the angel. I have no doubt it was she who laid the fresh lilies upon his altar. I hate the smell of them.
Well, it was either her or Rébecca. She has twisted my sister’s mind, terrorized her into near paralysis.
No, I don’t bow. Instead, I walk straight to the altar.
Shemhazai supposedly led the angels sent by God to watch over the humans. They became known as the Watchers, but their story turned into an ugly one—a story where those chosen by God defied him and fell from grace.
With one sweep of my arm, I wipe away every single one of those fucking flowers. Offerings to a demon-angel, a hateful one who has become a god in his own right, at least to Grandmother.
But once the altar is cleared, I spot the dark stain on Shemhazai’s feet. I know what that stain is, and my mind conjures up the image of Elizabeth Wildblood again.
Hanging.
Dying.
Dead.
Then I see the other face, the one that has me out here running from the hell that awaits me.
The face of The Sacrifice to come.
A breaking branch alerts me to the fact that I am not alone. I don’t move. Whoever it is isn’t close yet. Grandmother would say it’s my preternatural hearing, similar to her own, another gift and a sign of our greatness. She believes we are descended from Shemhazai himself.
“Az?” comes the sweet voice that has me smiling even as my heart twists. “What are you doing out here?”
I turn to find Rébecca emerging from the woods, and that smile fades fast. “Bec? What are you… Why are you soaking wet?”
“I’m not,” she says with a shudder, long hair slick down her back and sticking to her face. She hugs the terrycloth robe tighter. Benedict wags his tail, and she bends to pet him.
I rush to her, wrap my arms around her to warm her. “Christ. It’s freezing out here.” I lift her off her feet and carry her toward the chapel door. There are always a few blankets in the pews. There’s no modern heating system in place, so unless someone starts a fire in the grate, it’s usually cold.
“I’m fine. Put me down, Az.” She twists, and a flip flop drops to the floor. At least she’s not barefoot, although with flip flops, she may as well be.
I set her down once we’re inside, and then only so I can wrap one of the wool throws around her shoulders. I get a proper look at her. Her nearly waist-length white-blond hair seems to grow finer and finer by the day. Both skin and hair have lost more of their luster in the last months. Her face is more gaunt than ever, and the shadows beneath her pale green eyes look like bruises.
“What were you doing, Bec?” I ask, trying not to show how worried I am about her.
She looks guiltily away, biting her lip. My sister, who is almost sixteen, looks more like she’s twelve. She is barely five feet tall and so thin, I can see the outline of her bones across her chest. She seems to have less and less of an appetite these days, and no matter what, the doctors can’t figure out what the hell is going on. Why she isn’t growing, developing. Why she seems to be doing the opposite.
“Rébecca?” I tilt her chin up.
“Swimming.”
“You were swimming?” I drop my arms to my sides. “This time of the morning? Hell, it’s barely morning.”
“Grandmother says my muscles are wasting away. I need exercise.”
I grit my jaw, my hands balling into fists. “If you want to swim, I’ll swim with you. You can’t be alone in the pool.”
She snorts, turns stubbornly away, and folds her arms across her chest. Well, she does act like a teenager even if she doesn’t look like one. I’m glad for it.
“I’m almost sixteen years old, Azrael. I think I can be alone in a pool.”
“It’s not that. You know that. If something happened?—”
Rébecca shrugs, jaw setting even as her eyes grow shiny with tears she won’t allow to fall. “Grandmother would be happy then.”
“No, she wouldn’t. And don’t ever say that again,” I tell her, pulling her in hard to hug her. “You have your appointments with the therapist. You’re getting the exercise your body can handle. She’s not a fucking doctor.”
She pulls back, looks up at me. She studies me with eyes much keener than anyone gives her credit for. Although I’ve been shielding her from what is coming for so many reasons, I know she knows at least a part of it.
“Are you going to do it?”
It’s me who looks away this time.
“Az. Tell me. Are you going to do it?”
“Let’s go back. I’ll make you French toast.” I take a step toward the door.
She tugs my sleeve. “I’ll eat it if you answer me first.”
I sigh.
Rébecca remains silent, watching me with an intensity in her gaze similar to that of the marble statue of Shemhazai.
“I don’t have a choice.” I open the door.
“Maybe it’ll be different than you think. Maybe she’ll?—”
“Let’s go. I answered your question. Let’s go in and eat.”
“It’s tonight.”
I don’t quite look at her. I can’t. Instead, I nod once.
“Maybe that’s why your head hurts,” she says, reaching up with both hands to brush the hair at my temples back, her fingers coming to rest on exactly the spots where my head is going to fucking explode.
I close my hands over her tiny ones and draw them away. “Maybe.”
Rébecca is gentle and kind. She is innocent. All things opposite of me. She should hate me for what I will do, but when she wraps her arms around my waist and presses her cheek to me, I find myself taken aback. I rub her back, feeling again how small she is.
“You’re good, Az. You can’t do anything bad. It’s not in you.”
I stiffen at her words as the memory of the dream replays, visions of Elizabeth Wildblood. Of what the sight of her at the very end did to me, that her fear and her terror didn’t sicken me. That’s not exactly a sign of someone who is good.
Ashamed, I push the thoughts aside, afraid she’ll see even those.
“I know you won’t hurt her.” She hugs me again. “Think I can have bacon too?” she asks, drawing back.
I smile down at her, grateful for this change in subject. “You can have all the bacon in the world if that’s what you want. Let’s go, little sis. And no more swimming on your own at the ass crack of dawn, okay?”
“Fine.” She chuckles and takes my hand as we walk out of the chapel.