Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Gabriel’s smile becomes strained. His wings flutter. “Perhaps you don’t understand, Samael. I rule Gehenna.”

Lucien touches a hand to his chin thoughtfully, chains clinking. “Rule? As in keeping the throne warm until someone worthy arrives to occupy it?” His gaze skims the watchful faces, marking those he knows, and those he doesn’t; then he nods. “Wise, my brothers and sisters. Gabriel should soon have it warm enough for even the coldest ass.”

Someone in the semicircled flock gasps, but several others barely stifle laughter. Behind Gabriel, a smile flickers across the Morningstar’s lips .

All amusement vanishes from Gabriel’s face and he stiffens, the muscles in his shoulders suddenly taut. “I think time in Sheol is in order,” he says, voice as tight as his muscles. “Some quiet time to reflect.”

“Quiet time to reflect is always good,” Lucien murmurs. “But perhaps you could stand in a corner? No need to drop yourself into the pit.”

Open laughter resounds through the aerie, and is just as quickly cut off.

Brows knitted in a furious scowl, Gabriel lifts his hand, palm up, and then curls his fingers closed, his simmering gaze holding Lucien’s. His amber talons pierce the skin, and blood, dark and fragrant, wells up .

“You’re going to need more than blood and spells to hold me, seat-warmer,” Lucien says .

“Yes,” Gabriel agrees. He dips a talon in his own blood and touches it to Lucien’s forehead. “I need your true name.” A dark smile twists across his lips .

Cold dread prickles in Lucien’s belly. He looks at Lilith. She drops her gaze to her pretty sandaled feet .

“I bind you, Sar ha-Olam of the Elohim,” Gabriel intones, “to the soil of Gehenna and bind your power within you, unused and unvoiced, until I set you free again.” As Gabriel paints a blood-glyph on Lucien’s forehead, translucent light streams from his palms and coils around Lucien, binding him with an ethereal rope. “As Gehenna fades, so shall you. Upon my name it is done.”

Lucien holds Gabriel’s gaze as the aingeal ’s spell spirals around him, into him, cold and tingling, encasing his energy, his fire, within gossamer ice and traps his wybrcathl beneath the glacial flow, silencing his song .

“One day I will free myself of your spell,” Lucien whispers. “And on that day, for you, the dawn will end forevermore. Keep this in mind, Gabriel Seat-Warmer; I know your name, as well. Think on that. Think long.”

Sudden doubt shadows Gabriel’s fair face. He steps back several paces at whatever he sees in Lucien’s eyes. “Take him to the pit!” he cries .

How much time had passed since that day? Suspended by chains and caught in a never-ending wheel of pain, exhaustion, and shielding his knowledge of Dante from probing minds, Lucien had lost all track of time. He’d known what he risked in irking Gabriel, but he’d been unable to resist pricking the preening aingeal ’s pride full of holes.

If his capture and punishment as Yahweh’s murderer, and as the soon-to-be murderer of Gehenna itself, kept Gabriel from listening for a creawdwr ’s song, for Dante’s song, then every second of pain was worth it.

I guard our son, Genevieve, with all that I have .

But for how much longer? Sooner or later, Dante would use his gifts again. How could he protect his son while hanging above the pit’s red-embered floor?

The alliance between Gabriel and the Morningstar seemed fragile and certain to shatter in time. Was there a way to manipulate that and earn his freedom? Otherwise he might still be dangling here like a jeweled pendant when that schism occurred.

Lucien yearned for the pale sky.

Pale, when once the skies had been cobalt blue, rich and deep.

Claws scraped furrows across his chest, while others tore at his bound wings. Pain flashed white-hot behind Lucien’s closed eyes, and he cried out, the sound echoing within the cavern, raw and full of rage.

Wybrcathl trilled into the air, and the chittering chalkydri fell silent, the high-pitched burr of their whirring wings an agitated sound. One of the Elohim was descending, then, Lucien thought. A hot wind blew through his hair and across his face as the demons winged away into the pit’s ever-night.

Ah, perhaps a moment’s rest. A moment’s sleep .

Fingers touched his face, gentle fingers, a familiar touch. “I never meant this for you,” Lilith whispered. Her warm, amber scent cleansed away the chalkydri ’s dry, musky odor. “You could’ve ended this torture by telling Gabriel about the creawdwr . He still doesn’t know one walks in the mortal world.”

Lucien opened his eyes. Lilith hovered in front of him, her black wings sweeping through the heated air; a red skirt draped her legs, a silver torc graced her slender throat, and her breasts were bare, her nipples rouged. Behind her, light shafted into the pit from above, illuminating dust motes and sparking bursts of orange flame from the smoldering rocks.

“You haven’t told him?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Lilith shook her head. Long tendrils of glossy black hair drifted across her face. “Of course not. If Gabriel found out…” Her words trailed away. She looked down into the darkness beneath her feet, her expression troubled.

Lucien suspected he knew what she was thinking. “If Gabriel knew, he would chain the Maker to his will. Make him dance like a bear in a circus.”

Lilith lifted her gaze. “Yes.” Regret shadowed her face. “Gabriel yearns for the days when he was Yahweh’s voice in the mortal world and humankind trembled at his approach. Yearns for the days of mortal worship.”

“He dreams of power, as always,” Lucien said. “So it wouldn’t be enough if the creawdwr healed Gehenna and the rift between worlds was closed.”

“No,” Lilith agreed, her low voice sorrowful. “Not as long as Gabriel rules.”

“Why tell me this? What do you want from me?”

“The creawdwr .”

Lucien laughed. Laughed until tears filled his eyes. Indignation flashed across Lilith’s lovely face. “Do you think so little of me?” he asked, once the dark and bitter amusement had drained from him. “A week of torture at the claws of chalkydri and I’d just give you the creawdwr ?”

“Do you think so little of me ? I wish to keep this Maker from Gabriel.”

“And keep him for yourself.”

“And if I do? I suppose you think you’re protecting him, but what happens if you never return to the mortal world?” Lilith’s keen eyes watched him closely. “He’s unbound. Untrained. Destined for madness, and he’ll take the mortal world with him. And Gehenna. Eventually Gabriel will hear his anhrefncathl and find him. What then, Samael… Lucien ? What then?”

Good question. And it galled him that everything Lilith had said was true. He’d hoped to keep Dante hidden, but had failed. In keeping the truth from his child, he’d not only earned Dante’s fury and contempt, but had lost his trust. He refused to accept anything from Lucien, including knowledge.

Unbound. Untrained. Destined for madness .

Could he trust Lilith? An even darker thought circled endlessly through his mind: Do I have a choice? If it came down to Gabriel or Lilith, he’d choose Lilith. Gabriel had done everything in his power to encourage Yahweh’s delusions. Had twisted Yahweh’s words into something ugly among mortals.