Page 91 of The Death Wish
Of course Lucifer was not well. He’d sustained deep wounds from a Seraphim, among other injuries, but what importance did that hold now? Lucifer had Seraphiel’s eyes upon him, but he knew the ankou watched carefully, too. He only hoped Death’s Messenger would keep his damned bearded mouth shut about what he likely knew of a king’s condition.
‘Seraphiel!’ Lucifer lost his thin patience. ‘Answer me. How are you here?’
The angel’s stare returned to him, this time with a familiar twitch of impatience at his jaw.
‘Because of you. You delivered the watch and preserved the vessel that held my Cultivation.’
‘Mind what you say, angel.’ Silas’s admonishment would have seen him imprisoned in Arcadia. ‘Address the prince by his name. He is far more than your vessel.’
‘Silas, it’s all right. Leave it be.’ Vassago played peacekeeper. A role he’d not worn once in four hundred years.
‘I’ll not have them speak of you in such a way.’
But Lucifer did not have time for their pitiful defence of one another. He was interested in the angel alone. ‘You are explaining nothing, Seraphiel. If I did not hold your corpse in my arms that day, then what the bloody hell was it?’
‘Our Lord Enoch did what had to be done, but I had foreseen such a day arriving.’
‘A day you would die?’
‘Yes. The Seraph are not immortal, you know that.’ The angel’s gaze finally found the prince, but there seemed no great recognition, no acknowledgement of all he had worked for, standing before him. ‘I knew myself tainted. Samyaza’s curse upon the waters of Blood Lake makes it deadly for any of the Seraph. But I had worked so long on my Cultivations and knew none of them strong enough to withstand the lake. I needed something extraordinary to fortify my work. I needed a drop…just a drop of those waters, Luci, that was all.’ He spoke to Lucifer, but he looked only to Vassago. Silas glared, one arm thrown to shield the prince’s body. ‘And then I would finally have what I needed to bring that traitor down.’
Lucifer dared to stand, tested his trembling legs, and found them wanting. ‘But that was not all you needed, was it, Raph? You stole the Primordial Flame, you great fool, and Michael knows of it. He searches for this place. Why would you do such a thing? Little wonder, you are…’ he hesitated. ‘You are not what you once were.’
Lucifer looked away, determined none would see any hint of his pain. He felt the flame’s poison eating at him. He felt every one of his wounds, even down to the infinitesimal bruise on the tip of his nose from the wisp. He felt bloody awful. Lucifer was no god; Michael was right in that. But he was no lesser daemon either. His fight would be to the last.
He lifted his head to find himself once again scrutinised by the angel. Seraphiel had not moved, nor made an attempt to do so, sitting like a bed-bound invalid, but he could pin a man down, nonetheless.
‘You know of the Primordial Flame?’
Lucifer cursed himself for the furtive glance he directed at Silas, but Vassago mistook the look as meant for him.
‘I am aware the simurgh holds the flame.’ He was sharp, vigilant. ‘Now I am to believe the water of Blood Lake in me also?’
‘Not believe, but know.’ Seraphiel addressed the prince for the first time. ‘For it is so. The adversaries of water and flame, forced into allegiance.’
‘And it killed you.’ Lucifer gave in to the need to brace himself against the chair. He’d thought to move to the bed, but just the notion of lifting his violated leg up to the platform had him sickened.
Seraphiel bunched the linen in his hand, frowning down at it. As though he could not recall the next step necessary to get out of bed. ‘Much of me, yes. That which was rotted, and wasted away. But I had thought myself clever. I thought this piece I saved, to be pure. But now…I fear you and I are as broken as each other, Luci.’ He lifted the covers, pushing them clear. Seraphiel moved with wooden slowness, making his way slowly to where he could slip his legs over the edge of the bed, and touch his feet to the floor. The angel sat there, back straight as though a corset lay below his simple linen nightgown, but still clutched at the hanging, as though he might deflate at any moment. Lucifer desired to go to him, to aid him, but to let go of the armchair was to fall flat on his face.
What a miserable pair they were. Antinous and Hadrian would be appalled to know their names adopted by such dismal creatures.
‘What do you mean, piece?’ Vassago, in contrast, was robust. Demanding. ‘What did you do to Edward, you bastard?’
Seraphiel concentrated on his feet, as though trying to understand what next to do with them. It made Lucifer’s chest ache all the more. ‘The prophet received a blessing from me, Prince of Arcadia. One spark of my Creation Flame existing and thriving inside him, should all else start to wither and die. As itdid. The watch held the spellwork I would use to set the wheels in motion, should there come a time when all that remained of my presence lay in that purebred man.’
‘You placed Angelic creation fire in Edward?’ Vassago fumed. ‘You thought a simple man, a purebred, could withstand the likes of you?’
Seraphiel turned his head. His scrutiny was intense, the vibrancy of his eyes intensifying. ‘He’d weathered my possession often enough. I knew him strong, and capable of surviving. In the short term at least, albeit the end would be grisly –’
‘You drove him fucking mad.’ Vassago pushed free of Silas’s wary protection. ‘But you let me believe it was my doing. I cannot count the number of ways I despise you.’
Seraphiel found his feet. He stood and the wood cracked beneath him. The room shook. Lucifer dug his nails into the leather, the ghost-feel of his lost finger there to taunt him.
‘I do not need, nor desire, your devotion, Dominion.’ The angel stepped down onto the tiles, and a long, winding crack ran across the room, stopping where Vassago stood with fists clenched and his revulsion unconcealed. ‘Your hatred is even less of a concern to me. What I have done here is far greater than you, or your purebred, or this cretinous ankou.’ His gaze shifted to Silas. ‘There is something peculiar in you. Go. There is no need of you, anymore.’
Lucifer winced. And not solely from the pain. If he’d needed any convincing this was truly Seraphiel, it was gone now. The Seraph were blunt, arrogant creatures. Focused servants of the Lord who stood just one step below the Celestials. Seraphiel would truly believe he could dismiss Silas Mercer with a simple word.
‘He will not leave me,’ Vassago said, cool with certainty. No hint of his flame. ‘And you are not his master.’