Rebecca Lim - Fury

Above me, Nuriel suddenly convulses. Light begins to stream out of her, off the surface of her skin, building around her in a dense cloud, and I almost rise, thinking in horror that it’s her death I’m witnessing, that the energy of which she’s made is dispersing, never to return. That I’m already too late.

But my inner voice, which is always one beat ahead of my waking self, whispers: Wait, watch. It is demonlight .

I freeze, waiting to see what form that light will take.

Nuriel’s head falls forward suddenly, her body slackening within its fiery bonds, her screams choked into a fearful silence. The light coalesces rapidly, taking the shape of a winged man of such pale and mesmerising beauty that I can see who and what he once was: Remiel, one of the elohim .

He had worshipped Luc, been part of that pack of beautiful creatures that had hung off Luc’s every word, lauding every crazy stunt he pulled. I know, because I was one of them myself, and I remember Remiel well; remember, too, his strange ability to sow discord wherever he went.

I see that Remiel worships Luc still, and that it has transformed him irrevocably. If anything, he’s more beautiful, more otherworldly, than I remember him, with his pale skin and silver eyes, his long pale hair, also like spun silver. His heavily sculpted torso is bare to the waist, and he rolls his powerful shoulders as if they ache, his gleaming wings trailing curls of tainted energy into the water. He turns and scans his surroundings as if he can sense something, and I see that he is … shaking . It’s faint, but noticeable, the tremor in his formidable hands, and I wonder at it, for the cold should not trouble him as it does not trouble me.

There’s a flaming mark at the base of his throat, like a scar. I realise what it is, because I carry something similar upon my left hand. It is the mark of the exile, the place where judgment was administered. Someone — perhaps even the Archangel Michael himself — once placed a hand at the base of Remiel’s throat, a long time ago, and cast him down. Down to earth to be a demon.

Seeing nothing but rocks and mud, weed and silt, for miles in every direction, Remiel encircles Nuriel, his voice taunting. ‘She’s not coming for you; no one is. It’s likely Luc already has her. Ananel returns now to finish you. And if you survive the punishments that await you at his hands, then I will return, and return, and return, until all that remains of you is a scream .’

He slurs the words, as if he’s drunk. Then he launches himself slowly away through the water, almost clumsily for someone so lethal and beautiful. Immediately, everything seems darker.

When Remiel is finally lost to sight, I surge out of the filth at Nuriel’s feet in my true form, mud cascading off my blazing figure, my blazing broadsword in my hand. And I cut her free, her bonds shrivelling, blackening and dissolving the instant my weapon meets them. She falls forward into my arms as my sword vanishes into the palm of my hand. Her wings, like mine, instantly shred into nothingness. She lacks even the energy to remain upright in the water. Her open wounds seep a constant light, like blood.

The instant I touch her, I know what has been done to her. Possession ; a sustained possession of the worst kind that has infiltrated every particle of her soul, assaulted even her consciousness. First Remiel, then Ananel, the cycle repeated over and over until all Nuriel craved was death, or the death of time itself.

It is the pattern that Luc himself must have set so long ago when he first came across this Eden; the pattern that repeats itself in the world he walks today: human and demon continually feeding each other’s worst impulses. When we elohim were created, there was no rape, no torture, no enslavement, no war. But Luc saw the thing in our design that was both gift and curse: that some of us were created male, some female — the pattern repeated in angel, in man, in beast. And he exploited that flaw for his gain, pitting man against woman, against beast, against world, from the very first.

Nuriel has been missing for days. Days in which Ananel and Remiel have tortured her to the point of death with every means at their disposal. For angels and demons do not abide by treaties of war; we follow no accords regarding the welfare of our hostages. We are black and white, all or nothing. And this is the result: broken angels, like broken people. In everything, a dark symmetry.

I gather her tenderly to me, preparing to bear her swiftly back towards the surface. But she’s like a wraith in my arms, impossible to keep hold of.

Mercy . I feel the ghostly whisper of her voice in my mind. They cannot abide the cold, having turned away from first light. Avenge me .

I tilt her face towards mine, but her eyes are closed and her outline is wavering. She seems like a creature of mist, more insubstantial than the water we’re suspended in. I know that she’s succumbing to her wounds, unravelling. It would have been kinder if her captors had killed her outright.

Desperation makes me roar, ‘Nuriel, if this is some kind of ploy to get me to do your dirty work, I’m done taking orders. Avenge yourself . You stood by and watched as Luc and Michael used me as some kind of live bargaining chip. You stood by and watched as Luc cast me out. You owe me . You want to take Remiel and Ananel down? You do it yourself .’

At my words, a small frown appears between her straight, dark brows. Her wide-set eyes flicker open, her outline solidifying in my arms. ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ she replies, struggling out of my grasp, focusing with difficulty on my face. ‘Not a damned thing!’

She drifts before me, skin palely gleaming, her long, wavy hair a dark cloud about her face, like a drowned girl. Her voice is very faint as she says accusingly, ‘I warned you about Luc. I warned you, and you ignored me.’

‘He was a shit,’ I agree mildly. ‘He’s an even greater shit now. I really should have listened.’

My words cause her to blaze suddenly incandescent with rage and pain, the way I mean her to.

‘ Should have listened? ’ she shrieks. ‘You’re responsible for what was done to me. You . All your doing. No degree of friendship is worth violation .’

I shrug. ‘It can’t have been worse than what I’ve had to endure over the past few centuries. You’re alive, aren’t you? It was nasty and brutish, but at least it was short .’

I hate hurting her like this, but the Archangel Michael himself taught me that anger can be channelled; it can be used when there’s nothing left in your soul to draw upon.

Nuriel launches herself at me through the water, screaming like a banshee of myth, her fingers curled into talons, blazing bright.

I catch her by her narrow wrists before she can take out my eyes, and murmur into her face, ‘Now that you’re feeling more like yourself again, what do you mean they cannot abide the cold, having turned away from first light?’

Nuriel seems to sag beneath my hands, and the light of her grows more tolerable to my eyes.

‘I meant what I said,’ I challenge softly. ‘I’m done with riddles, with being pushed around. You want vengeance? Then tell me what I need to know. The rules have changed since I’ve been gone. Give me something I can use against them.’

Nuriel hugs herself tightly, her eyes wide and unseeing. ‘I think it was the only thing that kept me alive,’ she says, her voice thready and strange. ‘Luc set two of them to watch over me, but it was always only one of them … at a time …’ Her fingers fly up to her face in horror and she whispers through them, ‘They cannot withstand the cold for long, not like we can, because they chose to turn away from first light …’