Page 90 of The Death Wish

‘One last chance. That is what this is. What you have given me.’ Seraphiel did not sound as ethereal as he recalled; there was a plaintive note where none had existed before. The angel finally shifted his gaze, watching as the purebred grasped the prophet beneath the arms, seeking to drag the unconscious man away. The tiny miscreant levelled Seraphiel with a most impressive look of defiance, as though daring the angel to make any attempt to stop him. Impressive, considering how diminutive the puny creature was.

‘Charlie, careful now.’ The ankou of course; ever careful with his purebreds. But more so with his daemon. Silas did not leave Vassago’s side, shielding the Dominion prince with his great bulk. The ankou’s devotion to the daemon was as mysterious as the presence of a living, breathing angel in the bed.

‘I will not leave him just lying on the floor.’ Charlie hefted the prophet’s arm about his shoulders, using his curious strength to lift the man, as though he were only an empty hessian sack. ‘He needs help, Silas.’

Seraphiel watched, his spine stiff, his hands slack in his lap. He’d only moved to turn his head so far, like a beautiful automaton.

‘Take him, Jacquetta,’ Seraphiel said, and the Child fairly flew to her feet. ‘The prophet has served me well. Perhaps use the east wing, there’s a decent view of the loch there. And that hearth doesn’t smoke so badly as the rest.’

Lucifer frowned, trying still to make sense of all that was happening.

‘Yes, your grace. At once.’

‘Food, if you have some. The purebreds require much of it. Some quail perhaps? With roasted potatoes? Do we still have that Rhenish wine in the cellar? Decent drop, that one.’

‘Yes, your grace.’ Jacquetta bobbed. ‘I’ll see to it.’

But Lucifer noted the subtle consternation on her face. As builder of the Sanctuary, Jacquetta knew the instability of the Seraph. She likely knew her master, as well as Lucifer himself.

‘Right then, off you go.’ Now Seraphiel lifted his hand. But the wave he gave was limp, his fingers hanging, the shift of his wrist floppy. ‘I have things to do.’

Lucifer frowned, a lick of alarm finding him. In this ill-placed conversation he recognised something of the angel he’d known at the end, the creature whose mind had been slipping towards madness. Seraphiel would go from godly and fearsome, to speaking of the fineness of the weather, and his yearning for a plate of decent oysters, in the tick of a clock. As though he believed himself truly human, forgetting his divinity.

Lucifer acknowledged the glance the Child sent his way, as she shepherded Charlie and the prophet from the room.

‘Do you need the chair?’ The boy with cornflower blue eyes asked of his companion.

‘No, not now. I can walk. But Christ, I’m hungry,’ the one named Edward moaned. Which seemed to please the other one no end. He laughed and grasped him in one of the infernal hugs the purebreds favoured.

‘Then you shall eat till you burst, sweetheart.’

‘Where are they being taken?’ Silas was not so keen about their exit, of course he was not. His propensity for trepidation must have been what killed him in the first place, Lucifer decided.

‘It’s alright, Silas. I don’t think we are important enough to concern them anymore.’ The small purebred was vastly intelligent. ‘Keep each other safe, boys. And if you call, I’ll come running.’ An odd look crossed his face, as though struck by sudden revelation. ‘We always do, don’t we? The loch binds us…my family…to you. I was always meant to help you.’

‘You never let me down. You shall always hear my call.’ The big man had a way of softening that turned him from formidable to marshmallow in a heartbeat. He was all mush now. ‘Scarlet, go with them, will you? It would ease our worries.’

The damned fellow couldn’t even find it in himself to order about a paltry wisp. Silas was insipid, considerate and moderate, a blunderer who had managed to turn a wretched daemon blithe. Vassago was no longer mindless with violence. The Cultivation was not his master, and he was not its jailer. There would be no repeat of that day upon the cliff, over the Lethe River. Not while the ankou survived.

For the first time since the Dominion Prince’s creation, Lucifer considered him worthy of the throne of Daemonkind.

The wisp nearly startled the wits out of Lucifer. It hovered in front of him, those ghastly stationery eyes even more disconcerting than the Seraph’s. It bobbed in a curious curtsy, blew him an unwelcome kiss, and darted away.

He would not watch the blasted thing leave. It mattered not a jot if he saw it again.

Not a jot.

‘Seraphiel.’ Lucifer returned to the angel, who studied his own hands, eyes still shining like full moons. The Seraph had barely even glanced at Vassago.

At the prince who held the simurgh. The entire reason for all of this.

‘Will you explain what I am seeing here? You are dead. I watched you die. I held your corpse.’ The reflection scalded his tongue; the pain of that day had never subsided. Lucifer swallowed hard. Gods, he needed to sit down before he fell down, but he’d be damned if he’d show signs of weakness here. ‘But I know this to be you. How has the prophet’s kiss brought you back?’

‘It merely released what had not yet gone.’ Seraphiel peered at him, the same drilling way he’d always done. ‘Are you well, Lucifer?’

‘Answer my question reasonably.’ He’d never feared the Seraph the way many in White Mountain had, and he’d be damned if he’d fear this spectre. ‘What was in that pendant watch I delivered?’

‘You are not well,’ Seraphiel said, not quite a question, but not a statement either. And his staring was infernally annoying.