BloodAngel Read online

  "Oh," Salik said, "it's enough. But I think this time I'll take you too."

  Before Poppy could react Salik swung the cane and struck him in the face. Poppy's nose disintegrated in a spray of blood and cartilage and then Salik was swinging the cane again, the silver tip connecting with Poppy's temple. The boy crumpled.

  Salik looked at Ramsey.

  "You," he said softly, and then someone was right behind Ramsey, hooking a beefy arm around his throat.

  Ramsey didn't struggle, his gaze still locked with Salik's.

  "What are you?" he whispered.

  "I could ask you the same thing," the man replied. "But I suspect I already know." Salik peeled off a leather glove. His good hand was coated with the blue, glinting powder. Ramsey instinctively jerked back from it, his back pressed against the unseen man who held him, but there was no way he could avoid it: the caress that trailed silken fire along the side of his face, as he felt the crushed, crumbled skin of something from another world slide across his skin, and then go into him.

  His vision dimmed. A hot liquid feeling rose through him, robbed all strength from his body so that he sagged against the hold on his throat. Salik watched him, black eyes shining. He took the photograph from his pocket, made a show of studying it, then grinned at Ramsey. "Pretty…"

  The net they made to catch a bird like you.

  The ground opened up and swallowed him whole; he was free-falling, white light blazing behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Kai waited, glancing idly around the room: the vaulted ceiling, hushed atmosphere, and plush green furniture. The bank clerk returned to the counter with a tall man who looked to be in his mid-forties; his eyes had a bright, penetrating gleam.

  "You have to understand," the man said, "that this is an extremely special account. Access is, shall we say, restricted."

  Kai took a coin from his pocket and flipped it onto the counter: the hammered-silver coin with the bird-and-serpent crest he'd given to Jess for that night at the Masquerade.

  "Ah," the man said. He picked up the coin, ran it lightly across his knuckles, glancing up at Kai with a smile of appreciation. "An honor to finally meet you," he said. "Follow me."

  * * * *

  Alone in the small, bare room, the safety-deposit box on the table in front of him, Kai could feel the energy rising through the steel lid even as he passed a hand across it, the lid unlocking and lifting into the air. At once he felt the keen drop in temperature, then a cold that slipped into his bones. A wind shaped itself into being and moved across his face, his hair.

  Kai. Kai. Welcome back, Kai.

  It's been so long, Kai.

  They were phantom-voices, illusions, echoes of echoes of stray bits of magic cast up from the hide-bound books. He ignored them. It was part of the cost of reading. These were the books, the records of knowledge and spellcastings, taken from Bakal Ashika and her followers. Many members of his Pact had wanted them destroyed. Kai had fought for their preservation; his insistence, he knew now, had begun his alienation from the same band of spellcasters he had once helped to lead.

  No one trusts you.

  She is your flesh and blood.

  The books were repulsive to touch. They contained pages made from human skin, bearing inks and dyes mixed with both human and animal fluids: saliva, semen, blood. They warmed beneath his touch with a half-life of their own; and the shadow-life thickened in his ears.

  It is all so useless, Kai.

  In the end, she is all we have left.

  Submit to her. Surrender the world to her. It so richly deserves her.

  She wants you. She waits for you.

  Go to her. Atone for your sins against her.

  Atone, atone, atone…

  He ignored them. He read through each book, the parchment sighing and squirming beneath his touch, as stray phantom-bits crawled off the pages and rose like smoke into the air around him: dark distorted shadow-faces, hollow eyes and gaping mouths, retreating to the corners and watching from the dark. They were nothing, he reminded himself, they were smoke, and in a little while they would dissipate. But the images that crawled into his brain and burrowed and nested there were harder to ignore. Scenes of violence, torture, death, decay. He shut his mind to them, but, released from the pages, they were eager for an audience, a witness: they battered at his defenses.

  They began to hurt.

  The pain began as a dull throb in his temples and deepened through his body. He detached himself from it and continued reading, but as he moved through the books the images and the pain only grew in intensity, his gaze touching off the text itself so that everything hiding and living inside it lifted up into his eyes, passed through his skin, became a part of him.

  The hunger.

  The last book held such hunger.

  The appetite stirred inside him, like a beast waking up jaws unhinged and ready to howl. It would not be ignored. It pulsed inside him and more of it rose up from the pages and he tried to block it, to fight it off, but it leeched onto him, passed through his skin with a hot scrabbling sensation. He craved mouthfuls of flesh, warm salty blood, the fat and the muscle, so nice to chew—he longed for the flush of devoured life inside him—life after life after life until it filled him up and filled him up until he was just… almost… there, sated and content, he had finally consumed enough, he could rest. He could rest. Except he was never quite there, and it was never enough, and he could not stop. But if he had to live and hunt and feed this way, then he would move through the world with others of his kind, and they would follow and worship him, live alongside him, easing the vast, echoing loneliness that went nearly as deep as the hunger itself—

  Kai pushed his chair away from the table, chair legs screeching across tile. He braced himself against the table, dropping his head and gasping for air but still the hunger roared and churned inside him. This is not me, he reminded himself, this hunger is not mine, it belongs to Ashika, and if I just wait it out it will pass—But the images persisted: flesh tearing and yielding between his teeth, the hot coppery salt-spill of blood, how soon it was gone, all gone, nothing left but a staleness in the mouth, need more need more need more—

  Kai looked to the final book, the last few pages remaining. The dark shadow-things moved in the corners, and on impulse he opened his mind to them:

  The world needs to burn, Kai.

  It needs to be cleansed, purified. Atone atone atone. Needs to hurt. Needs to twist and writhe. Pain will open up like a great dark maw, it will take everything, and then there will be—

  There will be silence.

  There will be peace.

  There will be a new beginning. New masters. New slaves.

  They weren't telling him anything helpful. And yet there was something between the voices, behind the hunger, some bit of knowledge raveling itself together and turning itself toward him.

  Kai closed the book, gathered breath, gathered strength, cleared his mind. He opened the book again, to the blank sheets at the back. He slid his fingers across their smooth surface. One page was slightly different from the others. It had a warmth to it, an oddly porous surface. This would have been Ashika's final entry, all those centuries ago: her final vision of darkmagic, blood-magic, the spell shattering loose inside her.

  Kai summoned energy, commanded, "Show me."

  The blank surface of the page seemed to ripple, then deepen: a crude sketch appeared where before there had been nothing. A young man stood with his arms outstretched, his face twisted. There were deep gashes along his arms and his body. Blood gushed from his wounds into the open mouths of the creatures who crouched to either side of him; who knelt, as if worshipfully, by his feet. Kai stared at the drawing, until it seemed he could taste the boy's blood.

  He knew what this image depicted: something so arcane and exotic that Kai had dismissed it long ago as a kind of myth. But he saw, now, how it was possible. Ashika sought Innat for a purpose that went beyond revenge. Ashika would create
a new race on this earth.

  * * * *

  Del was sleeping, his body curled in a ball inside the prison-sphere. Kai slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat, eyeing him carefully as he walked the length of the curving stone wall.

  "Hello, demon," he said.

  Del stirred. Slipped his long fingers across his face, opened one flame-red eye. "No pretty trinkets this time?"

  Kai said, simply: "Bloodangel."

  Del stared at him. Clucked and sighed and stretched his long, pale body. Switched his tail. Rolled his shoulders.

  "No pretty bits of glass," he moaned, "no new, pretty humans?"

  "Bakal Ashika never intended to release you." Kai heard his voice echo through the cave. "You, or the others. You knew that from the beginning."

  Del pressed himself against the sphere. "The bloodangel rites," he agreed. "I bet you never thought you'd see anything like that, hey hey? Such a slippage only happens once or twice a cosmos."

  Slippage. When the Dreamlines ruptured, and two or more realities crossed through each other. When many things, dark and light both, became possible. It was like the universe slapping down the ultimate wild card.

  The demon blinked his large, bright eyes. "Bakal has no need of us. She kept no loyalty to us. And I, for one, feel no loyalty to her."

  "So she will leave you here to rot."

  Del unfurled a yawn. "Probably." He switched his tail again, tapped his fingers against his bony chest. "Would you ever consider releasing me, my precious princeling prince? I helped with the sweet thing Jessamy. I could help again." He grinned, his teeth jagged. "Oh, I could be loyal to you. I could be devoted."

  "Del."

  "Do you really think you can protect the little Jessamy? Being what and who you are?"

  "Del," he chided. "You can't ask me anything I haven't asked myself."

  "And how is that pretty one? Is she proving a most gifted pupil?"

  Kai didn't answer. Although Jess had no ability to gauge her own progress and was often frustrated—which could make her sarcastic, impatient, and annoying to deal with—she progressed with a speed that startled even him, who expected so much of her.

  Del said, "She is just as much my accomplishment, Prince, as she is yours. Perhaps even more. Perhaps, when all is said and done and bled and died, you will find yourself in debt to me." Del shifted in the cage, rippling his tail. "Has she found her little gift yet? I would so like to be there when she does."

  "What is it you think you have given her?"

  "What I think?" Del pressed his face against the side of the sphere. "What I think is that you have a pretty young necromancer on your hands. So I hope you know what to do with her."

  "You expect me to be surprised? Her ancestor summoned and bloodbound a war-angel. She's from the most powerful bloodline in the Labyrinth."

  Del seemed to consider. "I say I gave it to her…" He unfurled one hand, as if weighing the possibility. "You say she possessed it within her all along…" He unfurled his other hand. "Well. I guess we'll never know for sure. Or maybe she can shed a little light on the subject. One day. If she survives."

  He paused, then asked, "How are your dreams, Kai?"

  Kai only looked at him. He should leave now—he knew he should—but the demon fascinated him. Pent up inside the sphere, radiating his energy outward, picking up stray notes of the modern world outside, its speech and mannerisms, from visitors who brought that world down into his chamber like a blast of fresh air. And Jess—what she must have been to him—a shell cracked open to get at the sweet meat inside, enough material to entertain himself with for another decade or so.

  The demon sidled up against the sphere, hissed, "Is there a bird-creature in your dreams, Kai?"

  Kai felt his expression slip a little. A cold wind stirred inside him.

  "A wondrous bird with a hooked and shining beak? Bakal brought him down for you long ago. Long ago. It's been waiting for you all this time."

  "I know," Kai said.

  "Are you scared?" Del clucked his tongue twice, then said, "But I forgot. Everyone dies. It's just a matter of time, place and pain. Don't quote me on that or anything—"

  "Good-bye, Del."

  "She is your blood, Kai"—Del's voice lifted—"and blood calls to blood. It's all about the blood, isn't it? So warm and thick and rich. Blood is life and heat. Blood connects us. Blood is our insides turned outside. Ashika will find you. And through you, she will find Shemayan's heir, his blood, the blood of old Shemayan."

  Kai said, "I'll see you in another hundred years."

  Del grinned at him.

  "Babe," he called, and even though Kai was familiar with the demon's ways he was startled, the modern world echoing all the way through Del, through the memories he had stolen: "keep in touch. We don't do this often enough."

  * * * *

  Mina was curled in the chair by the fireplace, a red fringed shawl wrapped around her shoulders. As he spoke, he could feel the cold winds inside him, blowing harder now, turning his bones to ice. "There's a new, strange rift in the Dreamlines," he said.

  Mina only nodded. "You mean—"

  "A slippage. It's how Innat fell back into this realm in the first place. And it's how Bakal will call forth her demons. She doesn't need to summon them. They will come pouring through the rift, as many of them who want to. She only has to call them. Point the way. She only needs—"

  "Vessels," Mina breathed, "to hold them."

  "—Human volunteers. She will use the blood of Innat to feed and bind them, bind demon soul to human body. And they will move out of the borderlands and into the world."

  The wood popped and sizzled in the fireplace, releasing a sweet, smoky fragrance.

  "Then it is the end of things," Mina said, "and it is her world now."

  His voice turned sharp. "You used to be a warrior. All of you. Warriors."

  "We were young," Mina snapped. "We had power. We believed."

  "And if I could get that power back?"

  Her gaze moved slowly across his face.

  "I could go to her," he said.

  She realized what was in his mind and said, "No. No."

  "I could offer myself. The way she wants. I could atone. That kind of bloodprice would take me as far into the Dreamlines as I need to go."

  "You would go insane. You would—"

  "—Send out a summons on the Dreamlines," Kai said. "A call for the others to bond with me. The way they did before."

  "They won't come."

  "You sound so certain."

  "Not enough of them," Mina said. "Not enough."

  Her voice caught in her throat.

  "What about you, Mina?" Kai said quietly. "Will you come?"

  Her lips were moving; she was whispering, to herself or to him, he couldn't tell. "Everything has its own ending," she said. "Everything moves towards—"

  "Mina—"

  "I'm tired," she said simply. "We all are. Aren't you?"

  "Oh, Mina."

  "I have something for you." She slipped a hand inside her shawl, then held out a small polished stone, a tiger's eye. He saw its aura immediately—a rustling of warm, orange energy—and recognized it for what it was. A chakura, a guardian-spell, made by some forgotten Summoner a long time ago.

  "I thought those were all gone," Kai said.

  "I found it in the Libraries. I thought maybe you could make use of it. You," Mina said slowly, "or your girl." Her eyes were dark and grave.

  He nodded a thank you. He took it from her and slipped it in his pocket.

  * * * *

  As he approached her door he sensed her presence behind it: she was like sun-warmed water, ocean breezes, a touch of siren's song. Kai opened the door with a glance, calling out, "Jess."

  He heard her before he saw her: she was whispering to herself. She was hunkered on the floor in the corner of the room, rocking like a child, her hands twisting together. She was in some kind of trance. She was sleepwalking.

  She had
painted and written all over the bedroom walls, the sharp smell of paint hanging thickly in the room. On one wall, the boy from her Heir of Nothing paintings was bound and gagged, his eyes staring sightlessly; his blood will bind them was written over and over all around the image. On another wall, men on motorcycles were caught, screaming, in some kind of dust storm, as they were torn to shreds by the things inside it; through the haze of storm were glimpses of faces, twisted into something crazed and snarling that went beyond human. Another wall was nothing but text:

  He went to see the King and follow his Way where Poppy was waiting for him they went to the party by the railroad tracks the password was hellrider poppy offered him jacks poppy offered him jax poppy sells himself and others and everything else you must listen to the music because I have a gift for you if you want it or not but Coyote doesn't think so Coyote knows you must ride like hell you must be a hellrider to guard your own soul to keep your own ghost he fell off the balcony Coyote with his dog I left my heart in san Francisco if she didn't eat it first.

  The hunger never stops never stops NEVER STOPS

  —People crucified on telephone poles up and down the highways—People bleeding from every orifice and eating the brains of their children—people melting and twisting in the flames—he said. Don't you know what you are? She's going to use you, Ramsey she will she will she will—they will eat what they can and burn it all down and make slaves of those who survive

  Her face was white, her eyes wide and staring beyond him and into a dream. "Jess," he said. "Jess."

  Her hands were twitching, etching at the air. She was in the grip of a thing she could not yet control when she was awake. She turned to him, and he was reminded of that morning many years ago when a much smaller, younger girl had also drifted towards him, trusting he was what she had dreamed he was.

  But when she lifted her head and looked at him, with a sleepwalker's enigmatic gaze, there was nothing child-like about her or the knowledge she held. "The bird has your flesh in its beak," she said. "I can see it."

  "Jess."