Page 146 of The Death Wish

‘You were searching for someone when we entered.’ The angel had always been difficult to hide from.

But Lucifer knew himself equally difficult to read when he set his mind to it. Such were the games they played with one another.

‘No, I was merely taken aback by the state of the dancers.’

‘Are we to end things on a lie, Luci?’

Lucifer sighed, mostly at himself for not knowing when games should come to a close. ‘No. We are not. The ankou has –’

‘Gone into the lake.’ Seraphiel bore hint of a sly smile.

‘You sod, you knew.’

‘Only when I entered the room.’ His smile slipped. ‘How weak I must be, if I did not realise sooner. The prophet? He unlocked the way?’

Lucifer nodded, bracing for the expected tirade; the feverish ramblings of retribution that seemed to overtake Seraphiel at random. The angel simply looped his arm through Lucifer’s, leading him towards the centre of the room. Picking a path through the dead.

‘He is not a man to be easily stopped.’ Lucifer spoke into the uncomfortable silence. He did not wish to end this on a lie, nor disagreement. ‘I overstepped, I know but –’

‘It is done now,’ Seraphiel sighed, which made Lucifer more unhappy than if he’d started raging. The angel was slipping from him. ‘And you told me often enough of their connection. I did not listen. I have never listened to you often enough, Luci.’

Lucifer’s reply was to do something he’d not done often enough. He pulled his arm from the casual hold and embraced the angel’s waist. A rarefied hold, one Seraphiel made nocomment on, but Lucifer had felt the way he tensed, heard the faint inhale of breath. The embrace, though barely intimate, took Lucifer far from where he remained comfortable. But he would push himself; before all things were lost and irretrievable.

‘I did not intend to deceive you…’ His thoughts drifted to the strange interaction with the wisp, of the certainty that had overcome him as their colours engulfed him. That he should allow Silas to go had not been in doubt. ‘But it felt to me he had proved himself capable of withstanding the most significant of challenges. And his blindness when it comes to Vassago cannot be equalled.’

‘I trust you, Luci.’ Seraphiel stepped over a man in a doublet and hose and dead eyes marbled with unpleasant black veins. ‘More so than I do myself.’

Thunder struck. The chandeliers shivered like trees in a storm. Lucifer glanced up. In time to see one tear from its base.

‘Move,’ he shouted, throwing away his cane to lift Seraphiel off his feet and pull him clear. Crystal prisms smashed against the floor, crushing the body of a young woman, and slipped like ice across the polished wood.

Without the cane, Lucifer doubted he’d stay on his feet long. Every inch of him pained, his chest heavy, and throat tight, as though he drowned, simply standing here.

‘Luci?’

‘Best get on with this.’

The faint trickle of water could be heard, its direction unclear. Seraphiel used the finest of Arcadia’s archaic curses.

‘Beneath the bones, quickly.’ Seraphiel was the one carrying Lucifer now, acting as the cane he’d lost, manoeuvring him the short distance to the room’s centre. A hint of his angelfire shone beneath his skin. ‘Play, now!’

The quartet struck up, the deep notes of the cello beginning the tune. Lucifer dragged in a breath, and the coppery hint of blood hit his nostrils.

‘Raph, do you –’

‘I smell it.’ Seraphiel was composed as he brought them face to face. He winced, lowering his head. A moment later, his wings bloomed, carvings of golden light as wide as Lucifer recalled, but lacking their usual brilliant lustre. Seraphiel tried to stifle it, but his soft moan pained Lucifer’s ears.

‘What does the blood mean?’

‘That we must hurry, but aside from that…I’m uncertain. I’ve never known the scent of blood to come from the lake before.’ He wrung his hands, light sparking. ‘What have I done? I was so certain of my path here. So sure I could undo what I had created.’

Lucifer took Seraphiel’s hands, the pulse of Angelic power rocking him on his feet. The angel was still strong. Now he must retrieve his own waning fortitude. ‘Do you have any word from the lady?’

He shook his head, in that wilder way of before, when he was set for another fit of madness. ‘Luci, why did you not stop me before now? Why did Enoch take so long to strike me down?’ His eyes glowed dangerously bright, and he tried to pull free of Lucifer’s hold.

‘Raph, calm down.’ Lucifer demanded, deciding careful handling would not help here. ‘Listen to me…look at me.’

But Seraphiel was sinking, mumbling words that slipped between recognisable and not. His wings swayed in haphazard motions, sweeping high and dipping low, cutting across the surrounding bodies, as surely as the ankou’s scythe. Slicing terrible wounds wide open, letting more blood flow.