Page 55 of The Simurgh

Pretend he was not terrified the ankou would come thundering in, seeking to rescue him, and get himself, finally, killed.

Gabriel dug deeper.

Pitch didn’t make a sound, playing his part to perfection. His fingers cramped within their glove prison. Sweat was stinging his eyes, blood bitter against his tongue where he clamped down with his teeth.

He was outgunned here. But he still had what they wanted.

The thought was a bolt out of the blue.

He still had what they wanted.

It washis.

Fucking gods, he wasn’t entirely alone. Had not been from the day Seraphiel Cultivated the wildness inside him.

Pitch looked Gabriel straight in the eye, but his thoughts were focused on his own body.

He reached out, sought to find what he’d always tried to bury down deep.

Stay where you are.

How the blazes did he communicate with it? This power inside him. He’d been so busy shutting the beast away, he’d never stopped to acknowledge it.

Stay where you are. He is not your master. Do not listen to them.

Gabriel, and his pissy magicians with their melodic chants, were snake charmers, and the wildness their mesmerised cobra.

Stay with me. Our purpose is not yet fulfilled.

There was a pause, a quiet in the blazing chaos within. Pitch licked his bruised lips. He had the beast’s attention. A strange sensation after so long denying it a part of him at all. Pitch felt the indecision, the confusion of the creature. After so much silence between them, this connection was loud and boisterous. The wildness wove and shimmied, dipping down into the abyss where it hid itself.

Gabriel’s mouth set into a cold, hard line. His flaming eyes darted to Pitch.

‘Whatever you are doing is not enough.’ His breath was winter frost. ‘Let go, little prince. Ease your suffering. Do not waste your time resisting.’

But Pitch knew well how to suffer. He was not afraid of the pain.

He held thought of Scarlet, Hastings, and Ronin in his mind, as he met Gabriel’s gaze, unflinching.

‘This magick is mine. You cannot have it.’

Iblis was at Nemain’s side, but he stepped away. The sorceress swayed with the removal of the Exarch’s touch, leaning towards the angel as he left her, like a flower drawn to the sun. The Watcher angel stopped behind Gabriel. The quite unremarkable looks of Dr Severs were even more so now, alongside the flamboyance of Gabriel.

‘Your permission has never been sought, Dominion.’ Iblis channelled Azazel, the Exarch shining bright in his eyes. ‘I will take what you have. I will take it all.’

Iblis placed his hand, Azazel’s hand, upon Gabriel’s shoulder.

Igniting a blaze.

A firestorm tore through Pitch’s body. The sorcerers’ chant fanned the flames, filling his ears, hammering his skull. Shaking the very foundations of the cage Seraphiel had built inside him.

Gabriel’s hands pressed in. Tighter, tighter until Pitch was gagging.

The angel pushed his scream from him, one that ripped up his throat, and sucked his lungs dry.

The cage creaked and groaned. All Seraphiel’s bolts so carefully fixed, now loosening.

Don’t go. This is your place. With me. And we are not yet done.