Chapter 39
“THIS WAY, MS. RAE,” Dr. Ezekiel says, holding open the door to the director’s office on a still February night.
Dez shakes her head. “I’m looking for my roommate. He said to meet him here.” She casts her gaze around the darkened Vault and at the painting of Samael, where Simon suggested they meet. At the sliver of light stretching out from Moriah’s office door.
“You’ve come to the right place,” Dr. Ezekiel says.
She swallows as he beckons her inside. What’s Simon gotten her into now?
She peers inside the small office with its built-in bookshelves, large desk made of glass and chrome, and two green tufted guest chairs.
Neither the director nor her white python are anywhere in sight.
Dr. Ezekiel gestures to the other side of the room, where a large mirror hangs on the far wall.
Warped and tarnished, cracked around the edges, it reminds Dez of the mirror behind the bar in Villains.
Standing before the mirror, next to Dr. Ezekiel, Dez can see outlines of both their reflections.
She’s wearing the black slip dress she wore to the gala, dressed down with her Docs and an oversized dark green cardigan.
But the mirror is too dark to see the details of their faces.
So she can’t see Dr. Ezekiel’s expression when the glass begins to morph, to fade, to disappear like smoke into nothing.
“Where did it go?” Dez demands as the smoke clears.
And in its place is a staircase chipped into the stone. Leading steeply, starkly down.
“The mirror will be back when it’s needed again,” Dr. Ezekiel says, handing her a torch.
“What’s down there?”
“Your friend. He’s waiting for you.”
“I’ll just see him back at the suite,” Dez says, and turns to leave.
Dr. Ezekiel shakes his head. “If he asked you to be here, it’s because he wants your support tonight.” He points down the staircase. “Please.”
A chill envelopes Dez as she starts down the stairs alone. The glow of the torch Dr. Ezekiel gave her lights her way just enough to take each next step. The staircase seems to grow increasingly dank, increasingly steep.
“Simon?” she calls.
The passage is silent but for the soft sound of Dez’s breath. She travels slowly, carefully. She loses track of how far down she’s gone.
And then, like someone’s turned on a Bluetooth speaker, Dez hears laughter down below. She pauses on the stairs to listen.
Rafe’s laughter.
She quickens her pace until a dim light pools in the distance. Finally, she reaches the bottom of the stairs and peers around a corner into a crowded room.
It looks like an ancient bunker, stone walls, low ceilings.
All the angels are there, but Dez doesn’t see Simon, nor anyone else from her class.
As she steps cautiously into the room, she notices most of the activity centers around Jet.
People surround him, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back.
But for all the smiles, there’s an edge of darkness in the eyes of the other angels. And Dez wants to know what it’s about.
Rafe stands by Jet’s side, but when he looks toward the stairs and notices Dez, he separates himself from the group. He comes to her, smiling, like she’s just showed up to a party.
“What is this?” she asks.
“You don’t know? It’s Simon’s ascension. He’s ready.”
“Simon’s ascending?” Dez is shocked. “Tonight?”
“Any minute now. You must be his plus-one.”
“Me? Why not Esther?”
Rafe tosses his head. “Probably better that way.”
“Why?” Dez asks, following him farther into the room. “Rafe?”
She breaks off as something cold and smooth wraps around her ankle. She freezes and looks down, gasping at the sight of the white cobra curling up her leg.
The director appears at Dez’s side, looking down at Dez’s leg. “Do you like snakes, Ms. Rae?”
“My brother had a pet corn snake,” Dez says stiffly. The pressure around her calf constricts as the reptile travels up her bare leg. “He never fed it. So I did.”
The director studies Dez, then slowly smiles. “Hannah’s been in my family a long time. The things this girl has seen.” She snaps her fingers. On command the snake uncoils, releasing itself from Dez’s thigh. In a second, it’s back in place around Moriah’s shoulders.
“She’s seen it, too,” the cobra hisses at Dez.
Dez gapes at the snake who’s suddenly entered into language as if there’s nothing strange about it.
“Seen what, darling?” Moriah coos.
“My garden,” the snake speaks again. “In the kinetoscope.”
“The snake—the snake can talk?” Dez swallows, taking a step back.
“Of course,” Moriah says. “It was Hanachesh who gave humanity the gift of speech.”
“I taught elocution to your mother Eve,” the cobra hisses. “How to speak with words, how to speak with her body.”
“You’re … the serpent from the Garden of Eden?” Dez asks.
The cobra flicks her tongue.
“They’re ready,” Rafe calls to the director from across the room.
“He’s here,” Moriah announces with a smile. Dez turns and rises on her toes to see Simon walking toward them, wearing a white robe. His hair is damp, as though just out of the shower. He’s being led by Dr. Zarlengo.
They stop in front of Jet, who places his hands on Simon’s shoulders, leans in, and whispers something. Simon nods.
Now Moriah glides toward Simon, parting the crowd of angels. The cobra, Hanachesh, keeps its eyes on Dez as Moriah places herself between Simon and Jet, the way a priest might at a wedding.
“Welcome to your ascension, Simon.”
The angels say in unison: “Tibi gratulor in ascensionem tuam, Simeone.”
The room whistles and applauds. Tentatively, Dez joins in, though she wishes she could catch Simon’s eye. She can’t tell how he’s feeling. He’s smiling, but his face is ghastly white.
“You are about to partake in an ancient ceremony,” Moriah announces, “made famous by my ancestor, Enoch, the first person to ascend from the mortal to the angelic plane. Genesis 5:21 notes the event when Enoch was plucked by the divine and transmuted—of course it leaves out the relevant details, as was the habit of the men who compiled the Bible. But through secret texts passed down across the millennia, we have refined the ascension experience into something infallible”—she pauses—“and unforgettable.”
Simon’s eyes find Dez. They widen briefly, his WTF expression. Dez shakes her head. No idea.
“Simon,” Moriah says, “you are the first in your class to ascend. You have fulfilled your initial White Light scriptwriting. Your mentor Jet attests to your achievement. Do you wish to ascend?”
Simon smiles. “I do.”
“Angels?” Moriah says, as across the room, the crowd parts, revealing a large, rectangular iron structure about the size of a dumpster. As the angels wheel the contraption forward, there’s a sudden increase in temperature in the room.
“What is that?” she asks Rafe.
“A crematorium, once upon a time.”
“Rafe,” Dez says, voice trembling. “What are they doing with it?”
“Inside,” the director says, patting the side of the metal structure, “are the ashes of a former angel’s wings.
When you’re ready, Simon, we will open the doors.
You will enter. The ash will find you and fuse with your soul.
Throughout the process, Jet will see to it you’re comfortable.
When complete, you’ll come out the other side. ”
“He’ll be incinerated,” Dez whispers.
“He’ll be an angel,” Rafe corrects.
Dez’s heart pounds with the wrongness of everything she’s just seen and heard, but Simon looks peaceful, even dreamy. Did they drug him? Why isn’t he worried?
“Rafe, I’m scared. What if—”
“It will hurt him for an instant,” Rafe explains, “but the pain is purifying. It will vanish just as Simon’s brain registers it. And then, before you know it, he’ll be on the other side.”
Dez’s heart races out of control. Simon’s about to enter into immortality. He’s about to become an angel. He’s doing what they’re all here to do, but Dez can’t fathom it.
It’s too big.
Too impossible.
The doors of the crematorium swing open with a mighty metal clank. A blast of blazing wind slaps Dez’s face as she beholds the fire inside. It’s white and blistering, terrifying. The sound it makes is a piercing and bottomless roar.
Simon stumbles backward.
“This is a mental game, Simon,” Jet shouts over the sound of the fire. Then he marches into the crematorium and disappears in the white-hot blaze.
Simon takes a halting step forward, blocking his face with his hands.
Tears stream down Dez’s cheeks. She shields her face with one arm, takes hold of Rafe with the other. Her fingers feel like they’re about to melt. The heat engulfs her, engulfs the whole room, growing more intense.
Simon approaches the chamber of fire, the one designed to incinerate human bones. He stops. Inhales. Then takes a running start.
The door slams closed behind him.
Dez screams. It must be over a thousand degrees in there. The fire will roast his bones, and they’ve just closed the doors on him. What’s wrong with this place? What’s wrong with Dez for standing here and letting this happen?
A deep moan sounds from inside. Not a scream, exactly, but a disquieting, rhythmic noise of someone struggling. It sounds like Simon’s being beaten.
Dez turns urgently to Rafe. “Something’s wrong.”
“Give it time,” Rafe says, but his cheeks are so flushed, Dez can see something’s worrying him, too.
Dez panics. What’s happening is cruel and wrong.
And she’s about to lose her closest friend.
She shoves past the others, sickened to see that some of them are kissing, groping each other with a strange abandon that makes it seem like they’re under a spell.
She pushes between two angels who struggle to separate because one has his hand down the other’s pants.
Are they getting off on Simon’s incineration?
Everyone around her seems aroused beyond all reason. When she looks at Rafe, she realizes the flush in his cheeks isn’t fear.
Ascension turns the angels on.