Chapter 7
I slammed, palms first, onto the dusty floor of Exulted. I ripped the knife out of my liver and threw the flimsy steel across the room. I realised quickly that I had Laced directly to Uriah when I had felt threatened. I rubbed my bloody hands over my face and sunk onto my haunches to try and find an excuse for my reaction. Uriah and his large dog had been the only thing that had made me feel somewhat safe with all the tumult and change in my life.
I looked up and was greeted by the sight of Uriah’s sculpted body, wearing only a pair of black silk boxers. He was attaching wet clothing to a drying rack with care. He looked down to the bloody knife that had missed his foot by only an inch.
“Who did you piss off this time?” Uriah focused on his task as he spoke, but his lips hinted at a smile.
“I’m just glad I wore a backless dress.” I stood up and pulled off my heeled shoes. I walked to the threadbare soft and sunk into the dusty fabric. “That knife would have sliced clean through. This is Marc Jacobs.”
“You named your dress?”
I gave him a look that could curdle milk. “I did my good deed of the day. I am not sure why I was stabbed for it.”
“I can imagine why,” Uriah said in a dry tone. I focused on my hands so that he wouldn’t catch me checking out the rather fascinating lines of his human form. I ignored the uncomfortable tension that made the palms of my hand's itch. It lingered from our previous fight. I was not ready to address any of the statements, however false, that Uriah had made.
“I woke a woman from a coma,” I said defensively, crossing my arms over my chest. I felt the cleanly torn flesh begin to knit together.
Uriah crooked his brow and gave me a chastising look.
“I am also the one that put her in the coma.” I rolled my eyes and then prodded the clean and freshly heeled skin on my side.
“Why didn’t you go to your Hellhound?” He asked, sitting on the patchwork armchair in the corner.
“And risk scarring my daughter for life? No thank you.” I eyed him shrewdly once I realised what he was doing. Uriah knitted his fingers in front of him and leant forward. His body language spoke of openness and the willingness to listen.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said.
“And that is?”
“You’re a warrior. Not a therapist.” I waggled my finger.
Uriah shrugged and leant back. “We are your guardians now. Trusted by the Lord of the Summerland that you will not come to any harm.”
I waved my hand at my side. “And what does this count as?”
“You can heal yourself.” He said simply, as if I was an idiot.
I narrowed my eyes, unable to read him and what his end game was. “You've changed your tune from our conversation a few hours ago.”
“I spoke to the Lord and was reminded that my service is to her. I have no use for petty squabbles with dirty demons.” Uriah said the words without venom, but they still made me flinch.
“I’ve had enough of chasing my tail. I need your help to get into Hell.” I told him.
“Even I needed a Lydian coin to be able to venture into your world to retrieve my brother. What makes you think that I know how to help you?” Uriah’s smile was condescending.
“I will offer you one favour in exchange for your help.” I held up my finger. His eyes were drawn to it, and I had a sinking feeling that the Angel had already decided what he needed from me.
He nodded and walked over to his laundry basket. He took out a clean shirt and threw it at me. “Bathe. Change and then we leave.”
The British Museum was full of ‘meanderers.’
Meanderers were people that had no concept of others around them as they walked around with their head in a cloud. Crowds parted for them in the way that a pedestrian would jump out of the way of a moving vehicle. I had often wondered what Circle such blissful ignorance would slot into. Somewhere between Vanity and Sloth. Stupidity was not a sin, but merely a side effect of a variety of things. I hoped it was not vanity. If I ever saw a ‘meanderer’ in the First Circle, then I would reign down a league of pain.
Uriah snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You’re snarling.”
We stood in front of a glass case full of all manner of antiquities from the crusades and early Anglo-Saxon period. “The Asian floor has a rather nicely preserved set of Samurai armour,” I remarked casually.
Uriah pointed to a huge tome that was open, under a spotlight, in a box in the centre of the room.
“This is the Voynich Manuscript,” Uriah informed me as we walked towards the ancient book. “Named for Wilfrid Voynich, the polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912.”
I reached the glass and was jostled by an elderly woman as she reached inside of her tapestry handbag for a cheese sandwich. I exhaled deeply out of my nose to try and hold onto whatever calm I could.
“The text is infamous for being written in no known human language.” Uriah crossed his arms over his chest.
“That’s Cyclian,” I noted as I eyed the familiar scrawl of my native tongue.
Uriah nodded. “I thought so.”
“Two roses. One thorn.” My heart left to my throat, and I could not speak the rest.
“Your prophecy. Correct?”
I nodded.
“Would you like to hear mine?” He laughed, it was the first time that I had heard him release such a sound. I was in shock at the change in his arrogant and taut demeanour.
He pointed to the scrawl on the right-hand side of my own prophecy.
“Golden wings take flight. The Lord’s favourite: blighted and fallen. The Lord’s Purest: corrupted by Hell. Green is the Circle. Red is the World.”
“How do you know that’s about you?” I asked.
“I have been known as the Lord’s Purest.” Uriah placed his hand near the glass but did not touch it. When he spoke of the Lord of the Summerland, his eyes filled with a sense of pride and longing that I did not understand.
“Did you know what I have been called before?” I could not help the smile the spread over my face like butter. I turned back to the glass. “The Thorn.”
“I don’t doubt that you can corrupt the purest of us.” Uriah said without humour.
I nodded and turned away to look at the other exhibits. The curling script of Cyclian had added another layer of heartache to the homesickness that was spreading through my bones like a plague. In the case, next to the Yoynich Manuscript, sat a sceptre made entirely of tarnished Devil’s silver. I could feel the dusty air surrounding the regal object pulse with familiar power.
I read the card to the side of the exhibit. Artefact of Unknown Origin.
“I know this object,” I said, reverent of the Hell Magic that rolled from the silver in waves. I closed my eyes, drunk with the power.
“What is it called?” I did not hear Uriah approach behind me. The crowd around us had thinned enough and moved onto another floor, apart from a gaggle of Chinese tourists that were taking selfies with a suit of armour on the other side of the floor.
I shook my head. “Ba’el sceptre. I think. Pascal mentioned it once in one of his rants.” My heart swelled with excitement. I turned to the Angel but he had gone white.
“Ba’el Sceptre?” He croaked.
I held out my hand to the Angel. “Give me your shirt,” I demanded.
Uriah crooked a brow. “Why?”
“The fact that you did not deny my request outright is amusing, but please do not ask inane questions.” I looked over my shoulder for a guard. There was not enough space in the glass cabinet that I could have Laced inside comfortably.
Uriah crossed his arms over his chest and waved his hand, inviting me to answer his question.
I signed as I surveyed the pressure points and tiny red lights of the alarm system. Worst case scenario, I could control a guard and ask him to unlock the case.
But everyone knew that breaking the glass was more fun.
“Ba’el Sceptre is the only thing that is able to transverse Heaven and Hell.” I breathed. “I did not know that it actually existed. Lucifer told me that it had been destroyed.”
Uriah eyed the object as if it would lash out and kill us both. He shrugged off his shirt and handed it to me with a straight face.
“They call it Ba'el's sceptre because Ba’el stole it from the Lord. It was why he fell.” I explained.
Uriah rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
I was positively giddy. I wrapped the black material around my hand, and with a punch, I made a hole in the safety glass. The alarm was a shrill wail that made the Angel flinch. Excitement shook the Sinner inside of me as I stole the artefact. Drunk on my theft, I hung off the Angel as giggles shook my body.
We winked out of the gallery and into an alleyway, outside. Uriah shook the raindrops of broken glass from the material of his shirt as I hunched over and laughter took over my body.
“I’ve done it.” I breathed, facing the sky and closing my eyes in joy. “I found a way back.”
Uriah clasped my elbow as I threw my arms wide and basked in the beauty of the hissing rain. Euphoria was a bright bulb in my chest. He tugged my arm and I flew to his chest as his arms wrapped around me. I was frozen in confusion.
His lips were on mine without prompt. Without warning. My eyes remained open as electricity raced from where our skin touched.
Uriah wrenched himself back as if he had been burned. He rubbed his lips were the back of his hand. His face coloured with disgust. The egg-shaped ruby on the hilt of the sceptre glowed red.
The earth disappeared beneath my feet.
I was going home.
The sky above the City of Dis was the colour of a burnt log on a heath, black as the last sparkling embers flared out and died.
The tall craggy buildings looked like rib bones, curled over the walkways. Each of the paths was lined with fabric store fronts. The canvas rustled with a wind that did not exist. The ground was red dust, it clung to fabric and was stubborn to remove. The cobblestones had long since been buried under the sand. Slowly swallowed by encroaching desert.
Dis sat on the edge of the Fourth and Fifth circle, but belonged to neither. It was governed by trade and little else.
The force of my fall splintered my kneecaps but I forced my body upright, refusing to appear weak.
Somehow my wings had become dislodged from their hiding place and I felt them stretch like another limb and raise over my head.
I stood on top of a blackened husk of a building that overlooked the main market. From my position on the ledge, I was unsure if anyone could see me. I took a long second to soak in the familiar smells of the City. I would often run from roof to roof when I was a Youngling, lacing and escaping from my Demonic babysitter.
Speaking of which; Abaddon had arrived on the rooftop, behind me. I heard his hand on the hilt of his sword.
An Angelic presence in Hell obviously needed the Second in Command to the Devil as part of a welcoming committee.
“Hands up. On your knees.” Abe commanded. I heard the zing of metal against its scabbard as Abe drew his sword.
“Three seconds.” He warned.
I raised my hands as he suggested, as my wings flicked against the threat, beyond my control. I turned slowly, my leopard print heels were unsure against the gravel rooftop. I watched all manner of emotions run over Abaddon's face. Anger. Confusion. Fear.
“You think to come to Hell, wearing the face of our dead Queen, Angel Scum?” he stepped forward and placed his sword at the based on my collarbone.
I did not move, but forced my eyes to remain on his. I said nothing.
My Hell Magic wove through the air and wrapped around my oldest friends like a charmed snake escaping a basket. It wrapped around him and teased the edge of his skin.
His arm dropped and his sword hit the floor with a heavy thunk.
“Dahlia?” the hardened warrior whispered, his voice was weak. I had never seen the bulky and sure male ever hesitant about anything, ever since I had known him. He clasped the tops of my arms and stepped into my personal space. His red eyes met my silver ones.
“You’re not a trick? A spy?” he spoke to himself, not to me.
I simply nodded. “Take me to him.” I said.