Maker's Song - In the Blood Part 17

Von pulled off his leather jacket and tossed it onto the chair. Unbuckling his double-shoulder holsters, he shrugged them off and placed them, along with his guns, on top of his jacket. He touched fingers to one bare, muscle-corded wrist. "I expect you to take enough to get you through the show. Think you can do that?"

Dante trailed a hand through his hair, then nodded. "Yeah," he said, voice husky.

"Okay, then." Von sat down on the floor in front of the ratty-looking easy chair, resting his back against it and stretching his legs out in front of him. He slid his shades to the top of his head, glanced at Dante, and patted his thigh.

Dante straddled him and sat. Leather and latex creaked as Dante leaned in and kissed him, his mouth opening as Von's lips parted. His tongue flicked against Von's, tasting of licorice and alcohol. Von breathed in Dante's heady scent, pulse racing.

"Merci beaucoup, mon ami," Dante murmured, when the kiss ended. He held Von's gaze, gold flames flickering in the depths of his dark, unshielded eyes.

"My honor," Von whispered. He lifted a hand and stroked Dante's hair. Slid a silky black tendril between his fingers. Dante wrapped his fingers around Von's wrist and raised it to his lips. He closed his eyes. Von felt the warmth of Dante's lips, then a quick sting as his fangs pierced the skin. In restrained sips, Dante drank him in.

A sigh escaped Von's lips. His fingers tightened in Dante's hair, looped, and pulled. Dante shivered and moaned softly.

Pleasure flowed between them like warm honey, pulsing from lips to flesh, from mind to mind, heartbeat to heartbeat. But Dante ended it just a few minutes later by lifting his head and pushing Von's arm away. As Dante rose to his knees, Von released his hair.

"That wasn't enough, little brother. Sit back down."

Bending, Dante kissed him deeply, sharing the grape-sweet taste of his blood, sharing fevered heat. "It's gonna hafta be enough," he whispered against Von's lips. "I can't stay. Something's...waking up...inside."

"Dante..."

Slipping free of Von's hands, Dante jumped to his feet, turned, and walked away. Energy crackled along his fingers. Blue fire haloed his hands. He clenched his glowing hands into fists.

Maker. And uncontrolled.

Sweat beaded Von's forehead, but inside he was cold. The question Dante had asked him at Louis Armstrong International while waiting for their flight to Seattle reverberated through his mind: If I'm the only Maker in existence like Lucien says, then who can teach me what I need to know?

Lucien held the answer to that question.

And Lucien had gone silent a week ago, a silence that left Von uneasy. A silence that left Von watching the skies at night, listening for the sound of wings.

Guard him from the Fallen, llygad. They will use him without mercy.

Lucien wouldn't have cut off communication, not willingly, not when he was counting on Von to keep him posted on Dante's well-being.

Watching Dante walk away, blue flames licking around his knotted fists, desperation on his pale face, Von realized he needed to find an answer for Dante's question.

Before it was too late.

17 GEHENNA.

The pit of Sheol March 22

CLAWS RAKED ACROSS LUCIEN'S torso, scoring his flesh open from collarbone to hip. Pain seared his consciousness like a red-hot branding iron as he swung suspended in the air, the movement twisting the hooks barbed into his shoulders even deeper into his muscles. The rapid flutter of multiple pairs of wings fanned hot, sulfurous, stinking air across his face, and the nameless chalkydri's chittering filled his ears.

Lucien refused to open his eyes as the chalkydri demanded. He'd looked long enough upon his tormentor. He knew it hovered beside him in the dark pit, held aloft by its twelve pairs of hummingbird-quick wings, its long, serpentine body coiling in the air, black scales glittering with tiny decorative sapphires.

Gold wings, the chalkydri was always quick to point out, its lizardlike head lifted with pride, the feathered crescent atop its skull bristling, taloned paws patting its jeweled hide. High-blood gold, it insisted.

"Yahweh always regretted making chalkydri," Lucien lied, voice hoa.r.s.e. "Your creation was proof of his madness, and he-"

"Murderer!" the chalkydri hissed. "Creawdwr-slayer!"

Claws slashed across Lucien's chest again. Another searing brand upon his consciousness. Every time his wounds healed the chalkydri inflicted fresh ones. As it had been doing ever since he and Lilith had been captured.

"He always intended to unmake you," Lucien finished, through gritted teeth.

Angry chittering filled the air. Furious chittering. The rush of wings intensified. So, he mused, more chalkydri have arrived to defend their honor.

And, in so doing, provide amus.e.m.e.nt for Gabriel and his court.

Three Elohim guards drag Lucien through the air by his chains, sweeping past the gold-flecked, black marble columns guarding the palace-aerie's wide mouth, flying into the ma.s.sive cave. Pain bites at the edges of his banded wings, chafes his chain-wrapped ankles and wrists, but his mind is calm and his shields tight. He wonders if Lilith is chained and clipped as well, and hopes she isn't.

She tried to warn me.

Lucien's escorts release him in midair and he plummets to the gleaming marble floor, his banded wings futilely trying to lift him up. He hits hard, landing on his side, chains ringing against the stone. Black specks whirl across his graying vision.

Wybrcathl-fluting, trilling, warbling-from hundreds of throats echoes throughout the palace's throne room as Elohim high-bloods voice their songs and dissenting opinions, a beautifully orchestrated choir. Lucien suppresses the instinctive urge to warble a response to the kilted and gowned aingeals ringing the sky-blue floor.

Blinking his vision clear, he pushes himself to his knees before the golden-winged Uriel or black-winged Yng can descend and kick him to his feet. Straightening with as much dignity as his chains and wing bands allow, Lucien stands and faces the throne from which he once ruled. The smells of home-jasmine and smoky myrrh and deep, dark earth-fill his nostrils, and he breathes deep.

But what he sees closes a cold fist around his yearning heart, turns it to ice. Gabriel, golden wings folded at his back, stands before the ancient black-starred throne, its carved-marble wing blades surrounding it like the petals of a flower. And sprawled on a smaller, less ornate version of the throne, his long legs stretched out before him, is the Morningstar, his star-white hair cut short and framing his handsome, bored face.

And beside him, in a twilight blue gown, stands Lilith. She meets Lucien's gaze, chin lifted, sudden color touching her cheeks.

Always the chess player, his Lilith. Holding her gaze, Lucien bends forward at the waist, chains clanging; a half- bow. The color in her cheeks deepens and her chin lifts higher.

Gabriel waves a hand and the wybrcathl choir stops. "So, at long last, the murderer of Yahweh faces justice," he says, his melodic voice carrying through the aerie. He walks down the dais's steps with slow deliberation, his face thoughtful, his caramel-colored hair curling in thick waves against his purple-kilted hips. Lamplight glints from the silver bracers on each wrist. "I've often wondered if we'd been denied another creawdwr because this aingeal-this creawdwr- slayer-still drew breath."

Gabriel stops in front of Lucien. Scorn sculpts his golden gaze, chisels a smile on his lips. "What say you, Samael?

Any excuses? Please, amuse us."

"I thought you were amus.e.m.e.nt enough," Lucien says, his voice clear and deep, his words resonating against the palace's polished marble walls. "Still trying to siphon power and respectability from others because you lack any of your own?"

Gabriel's smile becomes strained. His wings flutter. "Perhaps you don't understand, Samael. I rule Gehenna."

Lucien touches a hand to his chin thoughtfully, chains clinking. "Rule? As in keeping the throne warm until someone worthy arrives to occupy it?" His gaze skims the watchful faces, marking those he knows, and those he doesn't; then he nods. "Wise, my brothers and sisters. Gabriel should soon have it warm enough for even the coldest a.s.s."

Someone in the semicircled flock gasps, but several others barely stifle laughter. Behind Gabriel, a smile flickers across the Morningstar's lips.

All amus.e.m.e.nt vanishes from Gabriel's face and he stiffens, the muscles in his shoulders suddenly taut. "I think time in Sheol is in order," he says, voice as tight as his muscles. "Some quiet time to reflect."

"Quiet time to reflect is always good," Lucien murmurs. "But perhaps you could stand in a corner? No need to drop yourself into the pit."

Open laughter resounds through the aerie, and is just as quickly cut off.

Brows knitted in a furious scowl, Gabriel lifts his hand, palm up, and then curls his fingers closed, his simmering gaze holding Lucien's. His amber talons pierce the skin, and blood, dark and fragrant, wells up.

"You're going to need more than blood and spells to hold me, seat-warmer," Lucien says.

"Yes," Gabriel agrees. He dips a talon in his own blood and touches it to Lucien's forehead. "I need your true name." A dark smile twists across his lips.

Cold dread p.r.i.c.kles in Lucien's belly. He looks at Lilith. She drops her gaze to her pretty sandaled feet.

"I bind you, Sar ha-Olam of the Elohim," Gabriel intones, "to the soil of Gehenna and bind your power within you, unused and unvoiced, until I set you free again." As Gabriel paints a blood-glyph on Lucien's forehead, translucent light streams from his palms and coils around Lucien, binding him with an ethereal rope. "As Gehenna fades, so shall you.

Upon my name it is done."

Lucien holds Gabriel's gaze as the aingeal's spell spirals around him, into him, cold and tingling, encasing his energy, his fire, within gossamer ice and traps his wybrcathl beneath the glacial flow, silencing his song.

"One day I will free myself of your spell," Lucien whispers. "And on that day, for you, the dawn will end forevermore. Keep this in mind, Gabriel Seat-Warmer; I know your name, as well. Think on that. Think long." Sudden doubt shadows Gabriel's fair face. He steps back several paces at whatever he sees in Lucien's eyes. "Take him to the pit!" he cries.

How much time had pa.s.sed since that day? Suspended by chains and caught in a never-ending wheel of pain, exhaustion, and shielding his knowledge of Dante from probing minds, Lucien had lost all track of time. He'd known what he risked in irking Gabriel, but he'd been unable to resist p.r.i.c.king the preening aingeal's pride full of holes.

If his capture and punishment as Yahweh's murderer, and as the soon-to-be murderer of Gehenna itself, kept Gabriel from listening for a creawdwr's song, for Dante's song, then every second of pain was worth it.

I guard our son, Genevieve, with all that I have.

But for how much longer? Sooner or later, Dante would use his gifts again. How could he protect his son while hanging above the pit's red-embered floor?

The alliance between Gabriel and the Morningstar seemed fragile and certain to shatter in time. Was there a way to manipulate that and earn his freedom? Otherwise he might still be dangling here like a jeweled pendant when that schism occurred.

Lucien yearned for the pale sky.

Pale, when once the skies had been cobalt blue, rich and deep.

Claws sc.r.a.ped furrows across his chest, while others tore at his bound wings. Pain flashed white-hot behind Lucien's closed eyes, and he cried out, the sound echoing within the cavern, raw and full of rage.

Wybrcathl trilled into the air, and the chittering chalkydri fell silent, the high-pitched burr of their whirring wings an agitated sound. One of the Elohim was descending, then, Lucien thought. A hot wind blew through his hair and across his face as the demons winged away into the pit's ever-night.

Ah, perhaps a moment's rest. A moment's sleep.

Fingers touched his face, gentle fingers, a familiar touch. "I never meant this for you," Lilith whispered. Her warm, amber scent cleansed away the chalkydri's dry, musky odor. "You could've ended this torture by telling Gabriel about the creawdwr. He still doesn't know one walks in the mortal world."

Lucien opened his eyes. Lilith hovered in front of him, her black wings sweeping through the heated air; a red skirt draped her legs, a silver torc graced her slender throat, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bare, her nipples rouged. Behind her, light shafted into the pit from above, illuminating dust motes and sparking bursts of orange flame from the smoldering rocks.

"You haven't told him?" he asked, voice hoa.r.s.e.

Lilith shook her head. Long tendrils of glossy black hair drifted across her face. "Of course not. If Gabriel found out..."

Her words trailed away. She looked down into the darkness beneath her feet, her expression troubled.

Lucien suspected he knew what she was thinking. "If Gabriel knew, he would chain the Maker to his will. Make him dance like a bear in a circus."

Lilith lifted her gaze. "Yes." Regret shadowed her face. "Gabriel yearns for the days when he was Yahweh's voice in the mortal world and humankind trembled at his approach. Yearns for the days of mortal worship."

"He dreams of power, as always," Lucien said. "So it wouldn't be enough if the creawdwr healed Gehenna and the rift between worlds was closed."

"No," Lilith agreed, her low voice sorrowful. "Not as long as Gabriel rules."

"Why tell me this? What do you want from me?"

"The creawdwr."

Lucien laughed. Laughed until tears filled his eyes. Indignation flashed across Lilith's lovely face. "Do you think so little of me?" he asked, once the dark and bitter amus.e.m.e.nt had drained from him. "A week of torture at the claws of chalkydri and I'd just give you the creawdwr?"

"Do you think so little of me? I wish to keep this Maker from Gabriel."

"And keep him for yourself."

"And if I do? I suppose you think you're protecting him, but what happens if you never return to the mortal world?" Lilith's keen eyes watched him closely. "He's unbound. Untrained. Destined for madness, and he'll take the mortal world with him. And Gehenna. Eventually Gabriel will hear his anhrefncathl and find him. What then, Samael...Lucien? What then?"

Good question. And it galled him that everything Lilith had said was true. He'd hoped to keep Dante hidden, but had failed.

In keeping the truth from his child, he'd not only earned Dante's fury and contempt, but had lost his trust. He refused to accept anything from Lucien, including knowledge.

Unbound. Untrained. Destined for madness.

Could he trust Lilith? An even darker thought circled endlessly through his mind: Do I have a choice? If it came down to Gabriel or Lilith, he'd choose Lilith. Gabriel had done everything in his power to encourage Yahweh's delusions. Had twisted Yahweh's words into something ugly among mortals.

He couldn't protect Dante hanging in the pit of Sheol, his wings banded. And, as if to underscore that thought, sudden song whispered into Lucien's heart, wild and clear and soaring, and iced him to the core. Dante's chaos song. The song just as quickly faded, and pain brushed briefly against Lucien's shields.

Lilith tilted her head, her expression questioning. "Is something wrong?"

Relief flooded Lucien. "You mean aside from me hanging in s.p.a.ce, bound?" She hadn't heard the song. Maybe only he had because of his bond with Dante.

A small smile touched Lilith's lips. "Aside from that, yes." She held his gaze. "I understood why you fought so hard for Yahweh; you were his calon-cyfaill. But why do you fight so hard for this Maker?"

"What did it take for you to reveal my name to Gabriel?"

Lilith's wings fluttered. "I offered it to gain his trust. I wanted him to believe that the only reason I fought at your side was to betray you. Like you once betrayed me."

"That I did," Lucien agreed softly.

Blinking, she glanced away. "Did you ever regret it?"

"At times, yes."

Lilith looked at him. Emotions danced across her face-resentment, sorrow, bruised pride-but her gold-flecked, violet gaze was steady. "And now?"