There But For The Grace (10 page)

I swallowed hard. “Good to know. Remind me, in that case, to never get on your bad side.”

Azrael smiled, and it held the ghost of humor and sadness in equal measures. I rolled my lips together, smoothing them in contemplation.

“How will I know him when I see him?”

“You won’t, but
she
likely will.”

“Great,” I muttered and sighed out. “How’s about it? Going to help me out?” I wasn’t talking to Azrael, but he knew that. Instead, I was flooded with images of a beautiful young man with a trim chest. White-blond hair flowing around his shoulders.

“Thanks.”

I took a step towards the tenement and Death walked with me. I looked up at Azrael questioningly.

“I have business inside, different floor.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that. Azrael saved me the deliberation over it by simply saying, “I would have had business here regardless of if you were with me Adelaide.”

“Thanks,” I uttered again, and we went in together, though just past the front door, Azrael disappeared into a thin wisp of black smoke. I looked off to my right and the stairwell winding up and around the building. It drew my gaze up and through the center to the dirty skylight at the top. Nine floors. Ironic, huh? I swallowed and figured if I were starting at one, I might as well climb and see where I ended up.

I wrapped my fingers around the knife hilt strapped to my thigh and tried not to breathe through my nose. It reeked of bodily fluids and garbage in here. The stairwells hung with dirty plastic over the railings and insulation dribbled from the ceiling, catching in corners like drifts of dirty snow. I swallowed hard, and forged on. This place was
no bueno
and nowhere that I would be caught dead if it weren’t for Tab.

I closed my eyes as my pulse hammered in my head, swaying on my feet as Iaoel forced a vision of a very specific hallway off a landing with a broken tricycle on it. I shook my head to clear it and gritted my teeth. That was rough, but I’d held her off for the most part. I counted the floors and was grateful for all of the cardio that’d been in our training repertoire when Tab had been with me.

On the fifth floor, I paused. There was a broken tricycle on the landing, and beyond it, the same hallway with the plastic hanging from the ceiling. I had a sense of urgency, and I fought it down.

“Why you being so helpful all of a sudden?” I asked, and the vision of Gabriel rose unbidden in my mind. I saw but couldn’t hear, but I didn’t need to hear because I’d been there too and I knew exactly what he’d said.

“You trying to say that he was talking to
you
not me, when he said to be nicer? You know the routine, once for yes, twice for no.”

I closed my eyes and let the vision through. This time she chose to express her answer with one drop of water landing in a pool, the images unfolding in slow motion, the drop hitting the water recoiling, and bouncing up, so pristine and pure and I had to hand it to her: when she wanted to be nice about it, she showed me some really beautiful things.

“Okay, I’m guessing that you’re hoping that I get to Famine and that the fifty-fifty odds of him telling me to fuck off will land in your favor. By that, I mean that there won’t be a trip to Hell because I won’t have a way of getting down there.”

A single firework exploding across the sky.

“Good to know, home girl, but even if he says no, I’m going to find a way. So you might as well get on board now. The only way this ends is with me getting what I want, and I want Tab, back
here
and out of
there
.”

She tried showing me images of some of the many splendored things that could, and probably would, happen to me in Hell. Not a lot of them involved dying, but they damn sure involved a whole lot of blood, screaming, and pain. Problem was, she’d worn the trope of showing me awful shit out a good while ago. Now I just shut her the fuck down. I tried not to worry about how much extra effort that cost me as I moved down the hallway she’d indicated.

The doors to the different rooms or apartments were off the hinges up here. Some had make-shift doors of tacked-or-nailed-up blankets or towels. One was even a shower curtain complete with obnoxious flamingos on it. I got past around the third or fourth door when the faint sound of thunder reached my ears. I frowned; it had been a perfectly clear night outside, not a cloud in the star-shot sky. How could it now be…?

A flicker of light about chest height answered my question. I reached down and picked up the pretty drop necklace an equally pretty, if fucking scary, badass god-like creature had given me that I now couldn’t take off. It flickered as if it held a candle flame in its amber depths, and I breathed out slowly. It was almost an infernal recognition device; warning me that a Fallen or Demon was near.

Azrael had mentioned that Famine—er—Cahethel, was Fallen, so I guess this meant I was on the right track. I moved quietly up the hallway and bit down on my ‘ah ha’ of triumph when the glow from the amulet grew brighter.

It was like a high-stakes game of hot versus cold for a minute, but I finally reached a door midway down the hall that, when I took a step towards it, the glow suffused bright enough to let me know I’d hit pay dirt. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and gripped my knife along my arm the way Tab had taught me. It was more in line for slash fighting than for being stabby, but being stabby was a good way to lose your weapon, and being weaponless against anything that might lay in wait for me, seemed like a really fucking bad idea.

I slipped into the dark and empty one-room studio apartment and let the mounting light of the amulet guide me. A pile of rags moved to my right, beneath the dirty, broken-out window, and I startled. I dropped into a fighter’s stance and quickly assessed, training taking over with action before my mind fully caught up to what had moved or how. A thin, long-fingered hand rose to block the light coming from my chest. Cahethel sat up off the dirty floor, and I swallowed hard. He was nothing but skin and bones, the way a lot of heroin addicts end up after prolonged use, but I didn’t think he was addicted to anything.

Iaoel overlaid my sight with visions of sorrow. Of eyes shedding tears, of anguished expressions, of stone Angels on grave tops, and finally when the visions cleared, leaving just my own sight behind, I realized that Famine
was
apparently addicted, at least according to Iaoel.

Cahethel is addicted to his own misery.

Colorless eyes, so clear and pale they were shades lighter than the dirty window glass, looked up at me from beneath the stringy long white-blond hair, which was yellower with dirt and oily from too long going unwashed. I crouched down, a healthy enough distance away from Cahethel, and let him get a look at me.

“Go away,” he said, voice anguished.

“I will in a moment, but I need something from you…” Pity stirred inside my breast for the poor soul in front of me. He laughed, and I swear, the sound was like his ribs rattled together to make it. Hollow and reminiscent of wooden wind chimes.

“What could you possibly want from me?”

“Your blessing, for me to go into Hell and stop the apocalypse from happening sooner rather than later.”

That awful laugh emanated from him again, “What do you need to go into Hell for? You have a pretty piece of it already, there, around your neck.”

My heart broke a little as he looked at me, pointing a shaking finger at the lighted amulet. I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry and popped the top off of God’s canteen, taking a swig. I pulled the canteen off from around my neck and held it out to Cahethel, I’m not sure why. He looked starved, but what else do you expect from Famine? Maybe I was just hoping that by slaking any thirst he had, I might help in some way. I don’t know. He reached for the canteen and drank, greedily, before staring down at it for a long moment, tears springing to his eyes.

“I didn’t think I would ever feel that again… thank you,” he said, handing it back.

“You’re welcome.” I screwed the lid back on and returned the strap of it around my neck and shoulder, settling the oblong metal canister against my hip. I sat down cross-legged and put away my knife, sliding it home in the sheath along my thigh.

“I didn’t know that,” I said when the silence stretched too long. Even as completely wrecked as he was, Cahethel was lovely to look at. A sort of gothic, sorrowful beauty, in line with the movie
The Crow
, or Edgar Allen Poe’s
The Raven
.

“About the necklace?” he asked.

I nodded. “Hadad.” Cahethel flinched at the name, and I grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t like him either. He scared the shit out of me. Anyways, he put it on me, and sent us on our way. I’ve been kind of left to figure it out as I’ve gone along. So far all I know is it lights up and makes a sound like thunder anytime I get near anything Fallen or Demonic. The closer I get the brighter it gets, and I think, the more powerful the presence, the louder the thunder.”

He nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a bobblehead doll on his stick-thin shoulders. “It recognizes things from home, and your observations about how it identifies them are correct. The glow denotes how close or far, the sound denotes the power of what comes… Still, you have not told me the reason you yourself, a living being wish to go into the pit.”

“I told you: to stop the apocalypse from happening sooner rather than later.”

“Explain.”

So I did, about the keys, about Tab and how I needed to get him out, and about Death and the deal: that I needed to get the permission from all of the horsemen. That it had to be unanimous that the time was not nigh, that humans still had more time left.

Cahethel looked thoughtful and finally nodded slowly. “I agree with Azrael,” he said finally and I was forced to squeeze my eyes shut against the brilliant crimson flash of pain that dazzled my sight and left me struggling to keep my dinner down. I mentally did my level best to slap the shit out of Iaoel and shove her back into the corner of my mind where I kept her contained. I reached up and wiped a bit of blood off my upper lip as my sight swam in streamers and color bursts. I guess this is what they meant by ‘seeing stars’; lovely.

“She’s right to be afraid, you know… Why do you want so badly to help the fate of mankind? What has mankind done for you lately?” he asked.

“They aren’t all bad, and I guess I agree with Tab; everyone has the right to choose their own destiny and to forge their own path. I guess this one is as good as any when it comes to me.” I huffed a small derisive laugh.

“What was that for?”

“Oh, naw, I was just thinking… My mother pretty much said I was her biggest disappointment and that I would never amount to anything.” I laughed again, and it was pretty sad and bitter, “If she could only see me now.”

“Indeed,” he said. “You know that this will likely kill you, don’t you? That failure is the likely outcome, and that we will most likely ride…” He leaned back and closed his eyes as if pained.

“Maybe, maybe not. Best I can do is try, and if Tab’s taught me one thing, I can pretty much do just about anything I put my mind to. Failure isn’t an option, but more than that, giving up is really not an option. I mean, I’m going to die anyways. It’s part of being human.”
It’s part of having a psychotic, jealous, and self-centered Angel bitch living inside a head meant for one. Fuck Gabriel and being nice after that shit you just pulled.
I didn’t say that part out loud, but I had the distinct vision of a dog or wolf snarling at me from inside its den. Didn’t need to do much extrapolating to figure that one out.

“Yeah, fuck you too, sugar,” I muttered, and Cahethel raised an almost invisible eyebrow, so close in color were his hair and pale skin.

“Not you,” I clarified.

“I didn’t think so. You know, you and she are a lot alike. Iaoel thought she could conquer anything blocking her path as well.”

“I don’t think I can. I just hope I can.”

“Ah, there is a difference?”

“To my mind there is.”

Cahethel smirked and sighed. “You have my blessing. What more do you want?”

“Nothing, but I do have one last question, if you don’t mind.”

“Will you leave after it’s asked?”

“Promise.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

“Ask, although I doubt I could stop you anyways,”

Probably not, but I wanted an answer, so I didn’t say that out loud either, “If the necklace reacts like you say it does, and I can’t take the damn thing off, how am I supposed to get through Hell pretty much blind and deaf from all the bright lights and crashing?”

Cahethel chuckled, “It reacts that way
up here
, down there, it provides a different sort of worth, that is why it is so very dangerous to certain parties who,” and he looked at me pointedly, “Shall remain nameless.”

“What, we have an Angelic or infernal Voldemort now?”

Cahethel scrubbed his face with his hand and sprawled on his back, “Only one, the Prince of Lies, the Lord of Hell himself. Invoke any of his names, and it makes you that much easier to track.”

“Good point. Thanks for the pro-tip. So what will this thing do for me down there?”

“It will help you blend, make you appear as one of them. Provide you…camouflage, after a fashion.”

“That
is
useful. I guess I just need to get through War and Pestilence to get there.”

“Azrael brought you to me before his dearest War? Interesting. Have fun with
that.
”

“Thanks, I think.” I rose to my feet and stretched.

“One last thing,” he called as I turned to go.

“Yes?”

“For the drink, wear these, if you get down there, they’ll protect your hands. You’re going to need that.” Cahethel tossed a pair of thin, black leather gloves at my feet. Fingerless driving gloves by all appearances. I bent and picked them up.