Chapter Two #2
Kirby had a vacant look, as if everything we’d said had been the caw of seagulls and the relaxing crest and crash of ocean waves.
Our nonsense washed over them, barely more than a soothing burble as they remained in a blissful, distant state.
I touched Kirby lightly, drawing them back to the present.
“It’s only going to get weirder,” I said quietly.
Their shoulders slumped ever so slightly. They didn’t turn their head all the way as they looked at Silas, then back at me. “How much weirder?”
Regret was a physical pain as my face folded into an apology. “I’m so sorry.”
With unspoken coordination, we unlatched our handles and crunched onto the road.
Kirby landed on the grass strip between sidewalk and lawn.
My sneakers thudded dully on the fresh, black asphalt, still stinking of tar.
Kirby waited for me to join them before we mounted the three stairs on the gentle slope of Nia’s walkway and made it to her front door.
I lifted my fist to knock, but Nia was ready.
She threw open the door before my knuckles made contact.
She leaned out to look beyond us, glaring into the blue skies, the hot late-summer afternoon, and the utterly unimpressive suburban Monday before ushering us in.
She locked the door and cut me off before I could leave the mudroom for the living room. Nia slammed a hand against the wall and met me with dark, simmering eyes.
“What the fuck, Marlow.”
Kirby took a shaky breath before saying, “It’s real.”
Nia’s eyes flashed with violent intensity. “Demons?” she hissed.
Kirby’s face contorted as if sprayed with water.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes until I saw spots in the dark void that separated me from the horrible present.
“Hi,” I mumbled from behind the protective wall of my conciliatory hands.
I didn’t bother to drop them as I said, “There’s an angel in Kirby’s car.
Kirby: He’s a defector from Heaven. Nia: You’ve got two demons in your house, but they’re my allies, even if we aren’t on great terms. Heaven hates us, and it’s my fault.
And I can’t look at either of you right now, because I had enough trouble accepting it myself.
I can’t expect you to listen to me. I’ve put your lives at risk, and… ”
With an impressive ability to remain unfazed, Nia asked, “Kirby. How do you know this is real?”
I heard Kirby shuffle from beyond the darkness of my self-made cocoon as they said, “Marlow was raging like a madwoman, talking to herself, and then she asked someone called Silas—more like screamed at them—to reveal themself. I was driving her to Trinity’s inpatient program over this psychotic break.
Next thing I knew, a glittery man was in my back seat.
He speaks. He’s there. And suddenly, Marlow doesn’t seem so insane. ”
“Trinity’s a terrible hospital,” Nia replied.
The response was so out-of-pocket, it forced me to drop my hands as I laughed. It was true. It was the worst possible place Kirby could have taken me, though it was the closest.
Nia wrapped her fingers around my wrist, trapping it firmly as she asked, “You said there are two demons in my house?”
Kirby tensed. “Like, horror-movie stuff?”
I nodded. “I haven’t seen them yet, but I suspect they’re here.”
If I hadn’t known Nia better than anyone, I would have missed the ever-so-slight flex of her brows, the tension behind her eyes, the nearly imperceptible way her fingers pulsed. “And when you say demons…”
“Oh.” I pushed out a puff of air. I immediately understood the fear that she was doing a spectacular job of concealing.
“Whatever you’re picturing, those are parasites, not demons.
All of those Hollywood movies, every gross, horrible, evil entity we’ve seen in books or heard about from the pews, it turns out every pantheon has them.
When I say demons, I mean deities from Hell’s pantheon.
And they’re not scary. They’re actually…
” I looked over Nia’s shoulder to see who was listening.
I bit my lip, struggling to spit out what was left of my sentence.
“They’re devastatingly hot. Like, throw-you-against-the-wall, leave-your-husband, overthrow-kingdoms-level hot.
Maybe that’s a god thing, I don’t know. But… ”
A rush of smoke wrapped around me. I was dizzy from the smell of incense before I saw him.
“You rang?” came a smiling voice from just beyond the hall as Azrames slouched into the corner that connected the mudroom to the living room.
Black horns, tousled hair, and a crooked smile separated three mortals from the place we might watch TV, drink margaritas, or plot the downfall of the patriarchy.
He’d been in variations of the same tight white T-shirt since I’d met him—all clinging to the delineated lines of his chest and firm ripple of his muscles that made him just as capable of killing a goddess as carrying Fauna into a hellish bedroom—though this one still had a smattering of gold that contrasted with his otherwise monochromatic features.
I now knew the chains looping around his neck were not an oversized accessory but the glittering evidence of the meteor hammer that must have been hidden somewhere beneath his dark jacket.
He was beautiful, he was terrifying, and he was unmistakably sad.
“Az.” I choked out his name.
I pushed past Nia to fold myself into the demon who’d escorted us to the King of Hell, who’d willingly entered a god-catcher with me, who’d slaughtered angels for Betty, who’d been taken prisoner by the Phoenicians so I might escape.
“Is Caliban here?” I asked, hating the knife to my heart at the question. Loving him caused me more pain than I’d ever thought possible, yet I was completely and wholly desperate for him. I peeked over Azrames’s arm to scour the rest of the living room.
“He’s doing the hard work of securing the house. I’m sure he’ll be done any second.”
“And Betty’s safe?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
He nodded into my hair, neither of us releasing from the hug. “Fauna stayed with her until the ambulance arrived, then contacted her coven so they’d meet her in the hospital. She’s in the ICU, but she’s stable.”
Over my shoulder, Nia elbowed Kirby. “This is the ‘talking to herself’ crazy-person shit you were mentioning, I take it?”
I ignored them, my attention wholly on Azrames.
I was suddenly six years old again. Twenty-plus years of insecurity bled into my words as I allowed myself a single pitiful question into his chest. We had things to do.
People to save. Kingdoms to conquer. Angels to escape.
But at the core of it all, we were beings who loved each other, who cared about each other, and who’d faced painful betrayal at one another’s hands.
“Are you mad at me?”
His answering chuckle was low and edged with heartache as he touched my hair. “No, Marmar. No one worth their salt blames the victim caught in the crossfire.”
Tears stuck in my throat. I pulled away just enough to show him the water lining my eyes, and he relaxed his hold on me, reading what remained unspoken between us.
I was still heaving under the wound Fauna’s betrayal had left behind.
“I don’t expect you to forgive Fauna,” he said. “Human ideas of morality are rather rigid, and maybe demons are more comfortable with their flexibility than you are. But she’s more wild than the wind. It’s an admirable quality. Feral creatures can’t be bound by tame rules.”
Kirby cleared their throat. “Hey, Marlow?”
I knew they were trying to spare me from digging myself into a hole in front of Nia, but I needed a moment. This was more pressing.
“This isn’t—” I succeeded in pulling fully away from Azrames’s hug. My lip snagged mid-snarl as my rage reignited. I didn’t need a toxically positive soliloquy on how much he loved my new archnemesis. “She was using me to jumpstart the Apocalypse.”
“The Celts have Balor, the Shinto have Kagutsuchi, the Egyptians have Apep, the Hindus have Vishnu—”
“And Heaven and Hell have me,” I said.
“Yes, but that’s not my point. If you’d crossed paths with Cronos, I’d bet my hat he wouldn’t have facilitated you fulfilling your own prophecy. He would’ve moved forward with his own, overthrown the major deities, and brought about the end of times.”
I wasn’t amused. “You’re not wearing a hat.”
“What I’m saying is: The end is coming, no matter who does it. At least Fauna let you have your cake and eat it too. She worked with you, for your common goal. You don’t know how lucky you are that you were found by an apocalypse goddess who loved you.”
Fauna. Angrboda. Ragnarok. The Rapture. The End Times. I didn’t care. Betrayal was betrayal, no matter how you dressed it.
Azrames crossed his arms and resumed his relaxed pose against the wall, disengaging from the topic. Instead, he said, “The humans still can’t hear me. And you reek of angel. I can only assume your new best friend Silas is here?”
I looked over my shoulder to regard Nia and Kirby.
They’d taken a step closer to one another but had otherwise remained in silent, motionless horror.
I looked back at him. “Silas has nowhere to go. We have to let him in. He’s on our side.
” At the dark flash in Azrames’s eyes, I clarified, “He’s on my side. ”
“Mar—”
“He’s risked his life for me. And this is Nia’s house. If she invites him in, he can stay with us, wherever we go.”
Azrames exhaled and shoved off the wall. He wandered to the couch. “Do what you must. Welcome the angel. Let your friends adjust to a moderately attractive heavenly male before they’re ready to see a true god.”
I couldn’t help the chuckle at his smartass remark, and he grinned in response, sharpened canines glistening.
I turned back to Nia and Kirby, frowning in apology at how their very human mudroom, with its gray, textured walls, loose collection of shoes, and the pleasant scent of peppermint from whatever candle Nia had flickering in the home, was about to turn into ground zero for the supernatural.
“Okay.” I turned to Nia as I procured the tiny golden figurine from my pocket.
I looked at both of them as I said, “Azrames is on your couch. He’s great.
He might be…a lot…but if I tell you that he’s the vigilante hero, slitting the throats of anyone who commits violence against women, hopefully that gives you some peace.
In the car, on the other hand”—I unfolded my tightly clutched fingers and extended their contents toward Nia—“is the only ally we have who’s defected directly from Heaven.
The boys don’t particularly like one another, but we need all of them.
Nia, since you’ve specifically rebuked Heaven and angels, you’ll have to be the one to invite Silas in. ”
I waited until she took the golden poppet from my hand. She looked down at it for a long while. Her fingers closed around it. “Is there any chance you’re being possessed by one of these freaks and I’m just inviting danger in all directions?”
I made a contemplative face, lower lip puckering as I looked up, folding my arms. “I suppose it’s always possible.
Maybe this is some weird scheme to fuck with you and, I don’t know…
cause miscellaneous mayhem? But if I’m right, the alternative is that a lot of us are about to die.
I need us all to be on the same page and fast. Silas said that no matter how good the warding is, we’re sitting ducks if we wait around to see if it has a weakness they can exploit.
We have to get out of here, and it’s not going to happen until you know this is real. ”
“Great,” Nia said, opening the door. “So, let in more imaginary friends or perish.” She poked her head around the corner and waited.
I wanted to tell her she didn’t need to open the door, but to be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. From over her shoulder, I said, “I think you just need to verbally welcome Silas in, and he’ll take care of the rest.”
Nia sucked her teeth. To Kirby, she asked one more time, “You swear this is real? I’m not being punked?”
“I swear it,” they said.
Nia drummed her fingers on her doorframe a few times.
The gesture would have looked impatient if I hadn’t understood the underlying trepidation.
She exhaled loudly and slowly, gripping the golden poppet before saying, “If there’s a Silas in the area, I welcome him, and no other angel, into my home.
And, uh, I’d like for him to reveal himself… or whatever.”
Three things happened at once.
Silas, in his six-foot-four shimmering glory, appeared a step past the door’s threshold, precariously positioning him over Nia’s shoulder.
Nia and Kirby spun in startled fright to absorb the enormous warrior, glinting sword, golden eyes, imposing presence, and suffocating scent of myrrh and brightly spiced oils.
And Nia, in her state of shock, barely released a high, squeaking scream before she tumbled backward, head hitting the door as she slumped into concussed unconsciousness.