The Angel's Fall (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 6) (4 page)

The man brightened. “Thank you. Few have ever offered me that much grace. Though time and this place have warped me, I thank you for seeing any light left within me. I am here because this is a realm that must be guarded. And when this place was formed, it was made with the idea that one good soul must watch over it.”

Merlin frowned. “I don’t understand a god that would abandon you here.” Anger threaded his voice. “I don’t understand how you could give up everything to live here.”

“You will, though,” Lucifer said so quietly it was barely audible. “I would like to show you some of the darker corners of these lands, son. But time is one of our many enemies today.”

Merlin pushed his plate away. “Indeed. Thank you for lunch. We must be off now. We did not intend to tarry.”

“Intentions,” Lucifer said, and confusion fell across his face. “The road to Hell, and the door. Sometimes I think I should have given up in the very beginning. Insisted Hell shouldn’t exist. But now,” he said, shaking his head. “Too much has grown crooked. A man must watch the border, along with his good dog, of course.” He reached under the table and fed Cerberus a piece of fish.

“But the border is not so shut as all that,” I said. “Lila's father. The Marid. He escaped.” As I spoke, I had the bright hope that Lucifer could do something about him. Send the Knights of Hell to capture the Marid, perhaps. I hoped there might be one less impossible thing we had to accomplish today.

Lucifer nodded slowly and one of his eyes ticked shut. “The truth of it is, I didn't know he was gone until Lila came here. He is too strong on Earth for me to touch now. I should have known he was gone long ago.”

“We all make mistakes,” Merlin said. “Gods know I’ve—”

“No,” Lucifer said. “How many has the Marid murdered? Those deaths are mine. And are there others who’ve escaped? I think not, but who can say? That’s why I stay. To keep them from leaving.”

“That’s too much for any one man or… angel,” Merlin said.

“Yet here it sits, the weight of Hell.” Lucifer patted his shoulder. “Now son, do you see why I have had to stay away from you?”

Merlin nodded slowly. “Aye, Father. I do.” I saw forgiveness along with a rough tenderness on my wizard’s face.

It had not been easy for him, being this man’s son. An old memory came to me.

“The bastard wizard sits beside Arthur, why can’t we?” My brother, Pith, whined. We were outside and walking through the gardens of Camelot. My long black dress was wet at the hem, gathering morning dew as we walked. A pair of red kite hawks flew overhead, circling around on updrafts and scanning the ground for lesser creatures.

“Are you really asking why you don’t get to sit next to Arthur for porridge and eggs, and in the same breath calling the wizard a bastard?” I asked. “Think, brother, think about the meaning of your words before you speak them out loud.”

Pith scowled. We reached the far edge of the gardens and turned back around. “I am asking, Morgan dear, if anyone knows if this Merlin can even do real magic? Is there proof of it beyond the exciting stories this wizard tells about himself? He looks like a wizard, wearing his dusty robes and always carrying a book, but perhaps he’s a fraud. Do you really think he bested two dragons?”

“He can do magic,” I said.

Pith gave me a sharp look.

I sighed. “Brother, must I hide my abilities from you as well all the small-minded people of the court? Merlin can do magic, I know that, but not whether his stories are true. Or whether he’s worthy to be so trusted by the King.” It burned through me how much Arthur liked his new wizard, and how it had never occurred to him that I might be of magical aid instead. I shared none of those thoughts with Pith. “I’ve heard Merlin’s magic is ill-gotten. His father was a demon and his mother, you know what they say about her?”

Pith shook his head.

“That Merlin killed her in childbirth, to get in his father’s good graces, but even so, his father abandoned him. Didn’t even show up to bury the mother.” The words, sharp and bitter, felt good on my tongue. Then I saw Merlin, tall and thin, all of seventeen years old, striding out from between the nearest hedges.

Had he heard my words?

The wizard’s face burned red. His hands clenched at his sides. “Do you imagine you two are any different than the children I grew up with?” His voice was conversational. Polite. “It is a small-minded thing, to have fun at the expense of an orphan, yet everywhere I go, I attract small-minded people.”

“Who was your father?” Pith taunted, stepping too close to him.

Merlin looked up at the taller boy. “A better man than yours.”

In truth, anyone was better than Uther Pendragon, but Pith reddened and, if I knew my brother, he would punch someone and soon.

I linked elbows with Pith and drew him back from the wizard. “Our Father was human,” I said. “He stuck around, rather than fleeing at the very thought of us.”

Merlin’s jaw tightened. He held my gaze for a brief second, and I saw pain, bright and bleeding.

A part of me liked that I had hurt him. And a part of me hated myself for liking it.

I slipped my compass out of my pocket and glanced at it underneath the table. The needle still swung in circles, but moved slower now. I tucked it back into my pocket, not sure if it would settle. Which meant we might have to find Lila the old-fashioned way.

“A question,” I said. “How far away is Lila and what is the quickest way there?”

“The palace is far and near.” Lucifer shrugged. “These days, space has been less reliable in Hell, I think. As has time. We are almost out of time. Tell me, Merlin, for it is not quite time for you to leave yet. Tell me of your home. Of the places you've lived on Earth and what has been a wonder to you.”

Merlin rested his hand on top of his father's for a moment, and then pulled it away. “Seattle, of late. Living out of a ridiculous penthouse. Breathing the air of this one,” he said and nodded toward me. “For as long as she’ll let me.”

Lucifer’s watery gaze studied me. “You have not been an easy one for my son, Morgan.”

“I have not,” I said carefully, well aware that whatever good-will this legendary demon might lend us could easily be revoked.

“As it should be. I expect my Merlin would have bored quickly with any who were easy for him,” he added. “Easy is not our way. Not ever, I think.” He wiped his face with his napkin, and then absentmindedly let it drop to the ground.

“Morgan has never been boring, I'll give her that,” Merlin said.

“The good ones never are. Your mother, she was a bright light in the night sky.”

“Was she?” Merlin asked. “I’ve always wondered about her. About both of you.”

“All your best traits are inherited from Sigrid,” he said.

Some sort of beast growled outside. Cerberus raised his three snouts and answered. Lucifer stroked the dog’s middle head.

I stood and looked out the small window. The low fence we had crossed over was closer than it had been. I listened to the low notes of Azurez battling the monsters. “Your domain seems to be shrinking.”

“Aye. Effort and energy grows short. Everything costs, and one grows tired. One grows old.” He smiled, put the last bite of his cod in his mouth, and stood. “Son, know that if the fates were otherwise, I would have loved to have talked to you more. I would have loved for this day to last many magnitudes longer than it will. But here we are, and the Queen has sent more minions to fetch you. Soon they will demolish the rest of my domain. And—” He cocked his head and listened. “And Azurez will soon be finished, too. It all ends but one way. Still, we play our parts. It would be a great pleasure to help you two evade the Queen’s beasts.”

We stood, and Merlin and I followed his father through his small house and out through the door we’d first entered.

Beyond the fence and up the hill, Azurez had fallen to his knees. His hand was bitten clear off and black blood pumped into the green grass of the meadow.

Above him stood a huge creature, part wolf and part bear, though thrice the size of either. It bore a wide mouth, lined with rows of jagged teeth.

“I’ll give you indigestion for decades,” Azurez yelled at the beast. “I’ll carve my way out of you, slowly and painfully. I’ll—”

The beast bent forward and ate him whole.

“Is he—” Merlin asked.

Lucifer frowned. “Azurez may yet triumph. Uncertain days and outcomes. It does not seem good, not good at all though, does it?” Lucifer asked. “In brighter days, I could have saved him, but today?” He sighed.

The massive creature reared upward and screamed, high and hideous. The sky, far above him, shuddered and streaked with a jagged and ashy darkness. The beast turned his yellow-eyed gaze toward us.

Lucifer sighed again. “Let us not be swallowed as well.” He grabbed my hand and Merlin’s.

Everything flashed bright, and a second later, we stood somewhere else.

6

Kill Anything and Everything

We stood in a field of wheat that stretched from horizon to horizon. Some of it was cut and baled, but most of it grew high and healthy. Far across one field I saw a couple of red barns and a faded farm house.

Lucifer sagged forward between Merlin and me. He dropped down to his knees. His hand quivered in mine.

Merlin and I quickly knelt beside him.

“Are you okay, Father?” Merlin asked.

“Father, say it again,” Lucifer whispered and when he raised his head, he looked years older, with sunken-in cheeks and deeper wrinkles.

“Father, what happened?”

“The inevitable, I suppose. The trick of the day, is for me to last long enough. Will I? Can I? It is not known, by me or any other,” the old man said as we helped him up to standing. His legs seemed scarcely strong enough to keep him upright. He squinted and looked around him. “Alas, my efforts are all for naught. This Queen is very intent on seeking your company, it seems.”

We looked where he looked, and saw the seven creatures that ran toward us from all directions.

The first were two basilisks: massive snake creatures with fangs that dripped corrosive venom. Tricky creatures, basilisks. You could look at them, but not into their eyes, else they would kill you. One hissed at us and flicked its forked tongue into the air.

The next three were squid-like and tentacled things that flew just above the wheat. Orbs of bright and flickering magic pulsed within their bulbous bodies.

And last? Two twin human women. Witches, I guessed, by the strong magic that gathered in their arms in the short moment I had to examine everyone.

“This should be easy enough, sister,” one of the women called out.

“Hardly worth our time,” the other replied, and lobbed a shiny red apple into the air.

Lucifer, Merlin, and I instantly put our backs together. I faced the squid-like beasts.

I threw a pigeon’s feather in the air, and uttered “
Amddiffyn.”
The spell made a translucent dome shield that shivered all around us just as the apple came close.

The fruit bounced off my shield and rocketed up into the air, landing somewhere far off in the wheat.

The squid creatures before me burned brighter, gathering magic into them. I did not know what they were, nor what their weaknesses might be. My mind searched for what spells I could use to quell them.

One of the witches laughed and cried out, “Basilisks. Venom.”

I glanced back to see one of the great snakes rise up and spit a sleek glob of poison toward us.

Merlin faced them and dug into one of his many pockets. He pulled up a handful of orange dust.

“Fly,” he cried, and his dust became airborne. It hit my shield and made shiny and bright spots dance across its surface as the venom splatted above us.

The basilisk’s poison hissed and started eating into my shield.

Merlin’s dust circled around it and ate it back.

I flicked my attention to the squid creatures before me and threw a handful of ball bearings their way. They would explode on impact. They might, with luck, kill the beasts. “
Ffyniant
,” I growled.

They undulated their long tentacled arms toward the balls and when my spells flew within reach, the creatures grabbed them out of the air and stuck them into their bulbous middles. The bearings exploded. It did nothing but make the magic within the monster’s gelatinous bodies pulse brighter.

I threw stone runes spiked with poison and marbles coated with transmogrification spells at the beasts.

The squid creatures ate them all and appeared to grow stronger with each spell.

One of the witches laughed again.

“Any ideas about what can hurt these ones?” I asked, continuing to lob spells at the squids, lest they have a moment’s time to throw spells my way.

“Oh, I’ve never liked those monsters,” Lucifer said. “Things of nightmares, in my opinion.” His voice cracked with age. He held no objects and uttered no words, but merely raised his hand in their direction and pointed. Lightning bolts of shadowy magic burst from his finger.