Chapter 5
I had become adept at finding Hell artefacts without venturing into my home dimension during my original exile in London. It had been rare, as I had embraced the Human Realities during my stay, but occasionally I would need to contact a friend or foe. The only way that I knew how to do that, without slipping through one of the Folds, was to ‘summon’ them.
Camden Market had never been one of my favourite places. Cannabis lollipops, Chinese food being sold out of stalls and once a man offered me something called ‘brown’; which I had later learned was slang for heroin. I was thankful that I had declined his offer at the time.
The deep green paint flaked and the scrawling yellow letters of the infamous bridge greeted me from the other end of the long street. Every so often, I caught the sight of a random pair of shoes or a seven-foot-tall representation of a facial piercing as it protruded from the building. The stores were somewhat outlandish. The scent of PVC and an abundance of tartan was what set Camden apart from the rest of London. Although I preferred to frequent the corruption infested higher classes of the city, yet I couldn’t deny that it had charm. Even if I remained immune to it.
Uriah followed me, his angelic face creased into a frown when he caught the flash of skin on a woman’s midriff. The word ‘TRASH’ was scrawled over her belly button in a cursive tattoo. I briefly wondered if she had been abused in some way to warrant such a skewed self-image. Out of habit, I checked my pocket for a business card for Morgenstern and Clark, only to remember that I was clothed in a skimpy black dress.
It was a crisp November, with a low-lying winter sun peeking over the buildings, but I paid no mind to the looks that my outfit garnered. It was evident that I would have been cold if I was human. I no longer cared about the illusion. I had a task to complete.
The Guardian remained on my heels, a soothing presence in comparison to the itch that Uriah was in my soul. I ducked into the industrial brick building, past the bridge, and into the indoor market. The wares changed slightly from 50 shades inspired clothing, into a more Hemp/free range style, but I did not care about the human side of it. I wanted the demonic section.
Disguised as a new age, patchouli-scented bookstall, Miriam’s greeted me once I pushed aside the mandala blanket. Miriam was a Gemini. A demon that could be in two places at once. They had absolute command over space and location; it was rather impressive. I knew her other stall was in the City of Dis, nestled between the fourth and fifth circle, but I could not venture there.
“You require Angelic bones. Innocent blood and magnetic chalk.” Uriah informed me crisply as he trailed his hand across the spines of the self-help books.
I held back a snort and ignored his useful tit-bit. I wasn’t some human Witchling.
A bald head popped up from behind the counter. Her perfectly white teeth looked like they belonged on a billboard advertisement for a dental studio. The Gemini rearranged her woven shawl over her shoulders and walked around to the customer side of her shop. Her feet were bare against the dusty real-wood floors and she reached up and placed both of her hands on either side of Uriah’s face. She ignored me entirely. I was not bothered. I had known her for years and it wasn’t every day that an Angel allowed themselves to be seen by a Demon in London. I eyed the ‘Peruvian dream children’ display with critical eyes as I waited for Miriam to finish whatever she was doing.
“You’re wrong.” She informed him, with a tap on the end of his nose. The sight played into my appreciation for visual comedy. Miriam was five foot nothing, whereas Uriah was well over six foot five.
“Excuse me?” He asked, allowing her to manipulate his face with her thumbs. I could not see a reason for his submission, only that she had shocked it out of him with her confidence.
“Dahlia only needs a splash of her blood to summon Lucifer,” Miriam said.
Uriah looked over her shoulders. His eyes were wide and pleading as if to say ‘make her stop touching me, this is making me uncomfortable.’
I said nothing, and instead picked up one of the self-help guides and began leafing through it. “Miriam, I need to borrow your warehouse in the Docklands. I can’t do the ritual in my own home.”
“For summoning?” She did not look at me as she asked.
The Guardian yawned and spread out, sitting down at my feet. I absently reached out and petted his head. Miriam ignored him as she walked behind the counter and, gathering her keys from behind the till. She fiddled with the keyring as she tried to loosen the one that I wanted from the chain.
“I would offer to send a message to Luc for you, Dahlia.” Miriam’s eyes remained on her task. “But I have no desire to walk into the den of fuckery.”
I held my hand out for the key and before Uriah could ask any inane questions, I Laced away from them both and arrived at the abandoned warehouse in the rundown section of the Docklands, near the long-forgotten Truman’s Wharf. I brushed down the skin-tight black fabric and I fluffed my hair. I ignored the niggling feeling inside of my belly that told me that I did not know what I was walking into, but I had to see him. I had to tell Luc that I was okay. (Even if I had massive wings that did nothing but knock over things when I turned around.)
I bit into the heel of my palm until I felt the cold rush of blood hit the roof of my mouth. I savoured the sting and dipped my finger into the well of crimson liquid and reached behind my neck to smear my blood across the Devil’s Sigil that rested at the top of my spine.
I experienced the almost orgasmic rush immediately, like a hot vibrating needle against every nerve ending in my spinal column. I jerked and shivered, but managed to keep my eyes open as I chanted his Demonic name inside of my mind like a prayer. Lucifer the Morning Star. Al-Satan. Lord and Master of all of Hell. King and Ruler of the First Circle.
I expected the flurry of Hellfire. My fingers tingled with the promise of his touch. My heart fluttered with anticipation at hearing his voice again.
A summoning took only a few seconds, but minutes had passed in the dusty warehouse. Light filtered through the thick layer of grime on the single pane windows. The dust motes danced, highlighted by the sunlight, but still no one came.
I slunk down and rested on the floor, not caring about the level of dust that clung to my clothing. My legs sprawled in front of me, like a broken marionette. I found myself blinking; the motion exaggerated. My emotions went beyond disbelief and teetered on complete abandonment.
I had only felt that way once before, and that had been as I had been pushed onto the streets of London two centuries ago as the thick pellets of rain hit my skin like tiny bullets.
The draft from the windows drifted over my skin, and I stared at the spot in front of me where Lucifer would have appeared. Lucifer always came when he was summoned. It was one of the things that I loved about him. Knowing that even if I had been banished, if I was in trouble and I managed to swallow my pride and call for help, he would have come.
He would have mocked me and made a deal, but he would have come for me.
The dust on the floor began to move, pushed by some unknown force. I recognised Uriah’s energy immediately as he folded himself out of thin air. His wings unfurled behind him like a cape.
“He didn’t come,” I said. My voice was hollow.
Uriah’s nostrils flared; his eyes were golden flames. “Do not escape me again.” His words were delicate. “I have been sent to watch you. I cannot do my job if you run from me.” The Guardian gave a yip from the doorway, but I ignored them both and crossed my arms over my chest. I stared at the space where Lucifer should have appeared.
“Are you listening to me?” Uriah’s voice was low and dangerous.
I stood up without a word and brushed off my dress. I held my breath as I prepared to Lace. In the millisecond before I folded my existence into the space between worlds and pushed myself through, Uriah grasped my arm tightly. When he saw the skin on my arm turn white with his grip, he released me as if he had been burnt. His jaw was taut. Anger rolled off him in waves. I had nothing to say to the sanctimonious Angel. I needed to be alone. I needed to break something.
I needed someone to beat back the darkness that encroached on the edge my vision, as I began to lose myself in my fear, grief and anger.
“Do you still have the Lydian coin that I gave you?” I asked slowly, clenching my fists until the bite of my fingernails brought rationality back to the surface of my mind.
Uriah grasped both of my shoulders and turned me around until I was forced to face him. He looked at me like I was a puzzle that could not be solved. “Why?” He demanded.
I cocked my head to the side, confused. “Why, what?”
“Why Lucifer? Why the Devil? Why the most deplorable being to have ever been created?” His questions were fierce, and each one hit me in a place deep down in which I tried not to delve. I shook my head and did not answer him.
“You are smart. You are beautiful. Not the form that you wear like armour but the energy inside of you. Why do you cloister yourself into this role as a Pet?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You are the mother of his child, and yet he could not be bothered to answer your summons.”
I resisted the urge to put my hands over my ears and scream like a child. I held his golden gaze with a stare that would rival the chill of the Ice Prison.
“That’s none of your business,” I repeated.
“When has Lucifer ever made you the centre of his world? You deserve more than to beg for scraps of affection like a dog.” Uriah’s voice was harsh, but his eyes had softened as he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ears. I shrugged out of his grasp. The motion was too intimate and it made me feel uncomfortable. I could not look at the Angel. Instead, I focused on the dust blanket of the floor which had been disturbed by the force of his wings.
The darkness inside of me wanted to rip Uriah apart for his words. The independent woman that had lived in London for two centuries, without the Devil by her side, smarted at the honesty behind his words. The truth hurt worse than knives.
“Come on.” Uriah turned away from me and faced the sunlight of the window. Each of his feathers caught the light and he appeared to be glowing. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for me to take his hand. I did not ask where he was going. I followed the Angel into the ether.
Exulted was hidden behind a derelict pub in Hackney. The deadbolt had been broken when I had last visited, and it remained so. The door hung loosely in the doorframe like a drunk friend in need of support. It was the same as I had seen it years previously, with its forlorn mattress propped against the wall and the splatter of white paint.
I found myself blinking and rubbing my eyes when they began to itch under my eyelids. Something was different. The dingy appearance was an Angelic veneer. My foot tapped a small velveteen sack that was tucked under the threshold. I was willing to bet a Seraphim feather that the bag contained the ingredients of some sort of Angel cloaking magic.
It was hard to get used to the notion of ‘mixing’ a spell when my magic had come from tugging the blanket of power that ran through Hell. My body felt like it was full of thick liquid. Oil and water that could never mix. It rolled around like an ocean, unable to decide which deserved supremacy.
I eyed the bare floorboards with distaste. Luckily, the seemingly abandoned building did not smell of decay, just dust.
“Is this the Heavenly equivalent of a Crack den?” My nose wrinkled as I eyed the dubious stain on the centre of the mattress by the entrance.
Uriah put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, immediately the sound of bounding paws caused the walls to shudder as the Guardian slid down the stairs and rested at my feet with a cocked head and an expression that bordered on both expectant and peeved.
“You should name him.” I knelt to the canine’s level and began to stroke his head. The Guardian’s expression was aloof, as if he did not want to enjoy the petting. I started to wonder if Uriah and the dog took social clues from one another.
“He has a name.” Uriah hedged.
“It is…?”
Uriah strode into the living room and sat down on the threadbare sofa. His heavy frame caused a cloud of dust to rise into the air. I rested against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest.
“I should go back to Knightsbridge,” I said. “Do you have a phone so I can call my driver?”
“Can’t you Lace?”
“Yes.” I did not elaborate on why I preferred Simon to ferry me about. Sometimes the journey to a location was just as important. It helped to situate my thoughts before I walked into whatever situation could possibly greet me.
“I thought you needed some time to cool off.” Uriah slung himself back and lifted his booted feet onto the crate masquerading as a coffee table.
I surveyed my nails, which were in desperate need of a manicure, so that I did not have to look at him. I did not want him to know that he was right.
“The first name you were given was ‘Pet.’” Uriah put his arms behind his head and looked at the ceiling. If I hadn’t spent so much time around the Angel, then I wouldn’t have seen the tension that accompanied his typically stiff demeanour.
“I was known as Pet until around 1800 AD in the Human Realities. Your statement is correct.” I said.
Uriah’s eyes flared even to a more effervescent gold, which I hadn’t known was possible. “It’s curious how your voice becomes devoid of emotion when you speak of those days.”
“That’s because I don’t want to talk about them,” I admitted without emotion.
“But those years were the most that you spent with Lucifer.”
I nodded and looked to the side. It had become more difficult to hold onto my mask. The Guardian used his head to nudge my thigh as he encouraged me to sit in the patchwork armchair in the corner.
“I am going to make some statements and I want you to correct me if I am wrong.” Uriah leant forward and knitted his fingers in front of him. His gaze was intense enough that I held back the urge to squirm at his undivided attention.
I was a Queen, for Hell's sake. Somehow the newness, the illicit air that came with sitting across from one of my natural enemies had made me lose all decorum. Lucifer had been the only one capable of breaking my glacial façade, but somehow, the Angelic warrior had managed to needle me in a way that the Jester of Hell had never done before. Lucifer prided himself on working his way under the skin like a splinter. The devil made it an art form, perfected from centuries of knowing my darkest secrets. Uriah had somehow done it in a few hours. I shrunk under the Angel’s scrutiny.
I shook my head to clear it of thoughts.
“You hold onto memories of the man himself, but never of your time together. Your time together upsets you. Why?”
I narrowed my eyes and my lips pulled over my teeth in a snarl. I did not want to say anything to give his words weight, but my silence was an assertion in its own way.
“You were a Queen in name only, from what I heard.” Uriah’s lips twitched at the corner as if he wanted to smirk.
“Does my sordid history give you a sense of satisfaction with your choice to be a pet yourself?” I bit back viciously.
His smirk tightened but did not disappear.
“The Lord of the Summerland’s Pet,” I said in a low voice. “At least I got a crown. What did you get? Scars and a boss that talks like an eight-year-old child on helium.”
Uriah’s eyes blazed with anger. His knuckles were white. “The souls of Hell talk. The Lydian coin that you traded was enough to free one of my brothers from his cell in purgatory. He told me all about how you knelt by Lucifer’s throne like a dog.”
“I knelt before my King.”
“Some King. The talk of your punishments spread through the ears of the Hellions as a thing of nightmares. If the Devil could do those things to the one he loved the most, what would he do to his enemies?” Uriah laughed without humour.
“I don’t expect you to understand the politics of my dimension.” I retorted stiffly. I did not want to defend Lucifer’s actions, but he had punished me to protect me. He had made me stronger so that I could stand proudly against anyone that would dare to try to challenge me. I did not want to explain to Uriah. The Angel lived in a dimension made of rainbow clouds and pink cherry blossoms. He did not understand the toil and blood that came with being born of Sin.
“You know nothing of loyalty.” I hissed.
“I know that true loyalty does not come from whipping your Queen until the flesh cleaves from the bone.”
I raised my hand and saw the steam as my ice threatened to reach out and wrap itself around the angel until his skin peeled off with my magic. “I do not need to answer to those standards. Your judgements are unremarkably human.”
“You are not too deep into the darkness that you don’t see that your love was not love at all.” Uriah’s voice was light, a gentle probe designed to hurt. “It was an addiction. A cry for help. Some might call it ‘daddy issues.’” He scratched his chin and let out a bark of a laugh. “I believe that’s the term anyway.” Uriah shrugged.
The Guardian’s ears fell flat against his skull and I did not know if that was the Hound’s way of warning the Angel that he had gone too far, but it was an accurate assumption.
The blistering sub-zero temperatures of my Hellish magic, pulled deep from the foundations of Lucifer’s castle made of ice, lashed out with pin-sharp precision. I could not deny that Uriah was quick. There was a smouldering hole left in the threadbare fabric of the sofa, where his head had been half a second before.
Uriah unsheathed his dagger; the movement was so fast that I could not see where he had stashed the weapon. His eyes danced with the promise of a battle; his comfortable stance informed me that he was at ease in a fight.
I smirked at the notion of stretching my magical legs, as it were. The demon inside of me unfurled like a waking dragon and my vision turned to greyscale. I knew that my eyes flashed silver. My hair began to rise with static electricity as I pulled everything from the air that I could get my hands on. There was more sin in that tiny room than I had expected from a place known for harbouring Angels.
It took a long second as I felt myself give in to the demon and ready my magic for a fight. Uriah was smug as he watched my power manifest.
I had reacted in the way that the Angel had wanted me to. That did not sit well with me. I had been manoeuvred like a puppet. He had mined me for information and I was beyond furious.
The angrier I became, the more my magic receded back into the shell of my body. A golden feather dropped the ground and I hadn’t even realised that my wings had been pulled into the Human Realities. Uriah lost his smirk and something akin to concern flashed over his face, too quickly for me to savour.
“You disgust me.” I spat. The ice around my heart was thick and unyielding.
“I feel the same way.” He shouted at me as I stormed from the room and onto the street.