Pretty Dark Sacrifice (26 page)

“If you are going to meet the Queen of the Underworld, you will need to do the same. Keep your thoughts flowing, do not let her pinpoint any specifics.”

“I am not in the mood for lessons.” Quinn forced her will upon his essence, and his eyes widened. “You will keep your mind still and reveal what you’re hiding.” Seizing on a fleeting thought in Azrael’s mind, she flexed her fingers around the hilt of the sword and pressed the tip once again into the hollow of his throat.

“When did you take it?” Azrael shuddered as she ran the tip of the blade across his bare chest. “You will show me.” Quinn growled. Even though he didn’t resist, she tore through his mind anyway, without a care for his feelings. He didn’t care about hers. There. She seized the moment and replayed the image of Azrael reaching a hand through her car and into the bag while she and Marcus tried to convince Reese that demons were real. So that’s where he had disappeared to.

“Where is it now?”

“I gave it to one of her minions,” Azrael said with labored breath.

“The part in the prophecy about chaos and betrayal, it refers to you, doesn’t it, Azrael?” It took everything she had to keep from cutting his heart out with Kaemon’s blade. “Did you know about the box all along?”

“No, I believed the box of Agathe to be nothing more than a myth, until today. Even though the Dominions knew of the prophecy, they weren’t sure the rumors coming back from Eden were authentic. But all myths are grounded in truth, and I recognized it the moment I saw it in your hands.
It
found
you
. Don’t you understand? Destiny drew it to your essence, to Eve’s essence incarnate. Once the box revealed itself, I saw an opportunity.”

“An opportunity for what? Betrayal?”

“To keep you from going to the Underworld and killing us all.” Fear spilled from Azrael’s essence, not just for her, but of her. She could taste it, bitter and metallic on her tongue. Good. Let him understand how much he underestimated her. “And you thought you could give Lilith the box, and I would just run off to Arcadia and leave Aaron there to rot?”

“I didn’t think it would be easy, but I planned to drag you to Arcadia kicking and screaming if I had to, until the eclipse was over, ensuring the prophecy would not come to pass. That box means nothing without you; so as long as you stay away from it, Lilith’s plan will fail. Everything I did was for the greater good.” Azrael actually believed what he’d done was right. Quinn could sense his conviction “Everything I did was with The Light’s approval.”

“And did The Light tell you to kill an innocent boy?” Quinn asked, digging deep into his mind to root out the answer. “How did killing Aaron that night in the river serve the greater good? And Kaemon, my real Sentinel, what about him?”

He tried to hide the truth from her, but she was stronger now, her power surging. Azrael had interpreted his orders as he saw fit. As long as it got the job done, The Light turned a blind eye. After all, he was chosen because of his penchant for bending the rules.

“So you killed them both out of petty jealousy?” Tears streamed down Quinn’s cheek and she swiped them away with the back of her hand.

“It’s not like that,” Azrael begged. “The Dominions watched Kaemon’s bond to you grow. They feared he would be distracted, that his feelings for you would cloud his judgment. His unwavering love made him reckless, made him weak. I should have been your Sentinel to begin with, but the Dominions chose Kaemon because they thought he might lead them to the box. For me, they cast a darker, more sinister role.”

“You were playing both sides?”

“As I was commanded.” Azrael’s agitation showed in the ruffling of his feathers. “When the Dominions began to lose trust in Kaemon, they saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I would take care of their Kaemon problem in the guise of leaving you unprotected for Lilith’s attacks, and they would restore my rightful place as your Sentinel in exchange. But prophecy has a strange way of fulfilling itself. Aaron, Kaemon, they were factors unaccounted for. With Kaemon’s essence still in the human realm, our plans failed. A human can only have one Sentinel after all, and Kaemon was still bound to you, even in a mortal body. Nobody foresaw this outcome.”

“So, Aaron, Kaemon, they were collateral damage in all this? I’m so sick of lies, Azrael.” Quinn flourished the Qeres blade in his face, the tip just shy of cutting into his eye.

“Aaron would never have survived without Kaemon’s essence. Kaemon should have perished when I bound his soul to Aaron’s dying essence. But prophecy has a strange way of creating loopholes to ensure the balance. Believe what you will, but I am here to help you, to protect you.” Azrael didn’t plead, didn’t beg, his tone was matter-of-fact.

“I don’t need your protection anymore, can’t you feel it?” Energy crackled around her. “I can protect myself. I can rescue Aaron and kill Lilith in the same breath. I’ll take the fight to her instead of hiding in Arcadia, end it now. Then my life, all of our lives, can go back to normal. Don’t you understand? Aaron would never leave me in hell.”

“Your power may have grown, but you still lack control. Look at yourself, Quinn, so full of hate. This is what she wants, to divide us. Your rash decisions will be the death of you and of all humanity. Don’t
you
understand? That’s exactly what she wants, to use Aaron as bait to draw you to … what is it you humans say? Home field advantage?”

Quinn lowered the sword and loosed her grip on Azrael but commanded him to stay where she could see him. He slumped against the wall and rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe he was right about one thing. She was a fool to walk right into Lilith’s trap and risk everything for one person. Saving him would be selfish, but her heart wanted to do the selfish thing. Going to Arcadia made sense, let the eclipse pass, and then turn the fight back to the Underworld. That’s what Aaron wanted her to do. Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, her head and her heart were in direct conflict with one another, and she paced.

Through the front window, the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the fiery orange and red hues that painted the evening sky reminded her of the molten beauty of Aaron’s new wings. Every second away from him felt like eternity. No telling what Lilith would do to him. She couldn’t let Aaron sacrifice himself for her again. Sacrifice. She stopped mid-stride.

“The voice of the sacrifice will break the lock, restoring darkness unto the light … ” Quinn recited the last sentence of the prophecy, mulling over its meaning. “It never says who the sacrifice is. It never specifies. If Lilith kills Aaron, if he dies sacrificing his life so that I might live, wouldn’t that fulfill the prophecy?” she asked Azrael.

Azrael whirled around ruffling his feathers in agitation. He didn’t know how to answer. She could sense his confusion and shock as he ran the scenario through his thought process. When he didn’t try to reassure her she was wrong, Quinn’s heart slammed against her chest. Wide, burning amber eyes met her own, and his dread scraped across her barrier and intensified her own horror.

“No. That’s not possible.” Azrael shook his head. His pace quickened, wings thrown wide.

“But it isn’t specific, is it? By not rescuing Aaron, couldn’t he become the sacrifice? Are you willing to bet the human realm on it?”

Azrael rubbed his temples, his jaw tight. “If she kills him … ”

“She
will
kill him if I don’t show up. If I hide like a coward, he will die, and the box could be opened anyway.” Quinn gripped the handle of Kaemon’s sword, the star-blade suddenly heavy in her hand. “You said yourself that prophecy was the way the universe balanced Lilith’s defeat in Eden. It’s why Kaemon came back as Aaron, why we happened to be at the same school, why he ended up in the Underworld. Everything he’s done is to keep me safe. What if hiding in Arcadia is useless? What if she opens the box anyway, using Aaron? If I don’t come to her, she’ll be angry enough to do it.”

“Even with all your powers intact, even if you managed to open a door to the Underworld, you wouldn’t know where to start. Your bond to Aaron has been severed; you have no idea where Lilith is keeping him.” Azrael got down on one knee in front of her and bowed his head. His wings fell forward, cloaking him like an inky cape. “If you are so stubborn that you would undo a millennium of planning for love, then let me help you. You will need me. I will not leave your side. I have vowed to go where you go and protect you no matter how stupid you are. I swear it.”

“And how do you plan to do that, Azrael? Angels can’t enter the Underworld, it is forbidden, you said so yourself.”

“My essence is tainted enough to enter. In order to gain her trust, I had to prove myself to her … ” he cleared his throat “ … to do a few unsavory things over the years. I have been to her palace, and I know how she thinks; she believes I’ve betrayed The Light for my own benefit. We can use that against her.”

“Haven’t you?” Quinn shifted Kaemon’s Qeres blade to the side of Azrael’s neck and against his jugular. “Why should I trust you now?” She would make him beg, make him grovel.

Azrael beat his wings and threw his arms wide.

“Use your powers and read me. I will strip my barrier down to nothing. Dig as deep as you want, I will not resist. All I have done has been for you.”

“Then why the secrets?” Quinn asked. “Why not tell me everything from the beginning?”

“Understanding only comes through walking your own road, not by walking someone else’s. Wisdom and knowledge are two different things. Ask Eve what it was like to gain untold knowledge but not have the wisdom to comprehend what it meant. Would you seek her path? Banished, ashamed, forever changed? Would you let Lilith destroy everything Eve did to build a life for her children here?”

Quinn grabbed his chin with a hand and wrenched his eyes to hers. Azrael didn’t resist as she searched his memories, his thoughts, looking for any hint of a lie, of betrayal, but everything Azrael said was true. He was there to protect her, to protect humanity. He truly believed everything he’d done was for the greater good, every sacrifice, every decision.

“Are you really going to trust this guy after what he did to Aaron?” Marcus asked.

“He’s telling the truth.” Quinn released her hold on Azrael but kept the Qeres blade in her hand.

“How do you know that?” Reese asked.

“I read him. He can’t hide from me, not anymore.”

“You say walking my own path leads to wisdom. I can see it now; there is no way to avoid this prophecy. I choose to go to the Underworld, to face my fate.”

“And if you are wrong about Aaron being the sacrifice?” Free from her control, Azrael rose gracefully to his feet, squared his shoulders, and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Then we must make sure nobody dies by her hand.”

“The way is dangerous.”

“Just tell me.”

Azrael sighed. “Your blood is the key. It has the power to open doors to new realms.”

“So I bleed a little, and the door to the Underworld opens? Sounds simple.”

“Simple? No. Your blood is only part of it. You can’t just stand in your room and prick your finger. To get to the Underworld, you will need to find a place where the veil is thin, a place touched by darkness. And then there are binding runes to keep demons from coming through the open doorway. And if everything goes according to plan, then you will be able to travel to the Underworld.”

Quinn studied Azrael. “A place touched by darkness?”

“Yes, a place where tragedy happened, where the demons have already ripped a hole. There, the seam, the veil, doesn’t exist. The human realm and the Underworld will overlap with no resistance.”

Quinn chewed on a thumbnail. “Like Jeff’s house?”

“You can’t go there,” Reese said. “It’s a crime scene. There’s tape all over the house. Our friend died there, Quinn. It’s wrong, it’s creepy.”

Quinn held her hand up to silence her friend. “Is the veil thin enough there?”

Azrael nodded. “But we will need time to prepare, and we must act fast. The eclipse starts in a little more than forty-eight hours.”

“Then we better get started.” Quinn pulled out her phone and dialed Caleb’s number.

“Who are you calling?” Reese asked.

“Reinforcements. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Quinn paced in front of her bay window, hands behind her back, shoulders hunched. Her left eye twitched, and the edges of the world blurred in the exhaustion of two sleepless nights. Hours of planning, discussion, and heated disagreements ran through her head in a constant loop of worst-case scenarios. The dawn cast pale fingers of light across the wooden floor of her bedroom, and Quinn wanted to curl up in a ball and let the warmth chase away the constant chill in her bones.

Azrael paced with her, right hand worrying the handle of his golden sword, left hand hovering over the empty scabbard where the poison star-blade usually hung. The Qeres blade lay on the windowsill, its glowing blue runes sparkling like a million stars against the metal.

Caleb had gone downstairs for caffeine. He hadn’t slept one wink either, coming over as soon as his shift had finished yesterday morning. Azrael had been putting him through his paces, teaching him how to use Quinn’s Qeres dagger while she amplified his innate gift. Now he could see non-human essences as well as she could, which meant he could defend Reese and Marcus in this realm while she and Azrael descended into the Underworld.