The Angel's Fall (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 6) (9 page)

Merlin took my hand and led me toward a room within this space, walled off with bookshelves. A round table sat at the center of it, with chairs and a flickering oil lantern at its center. No, not a round table,
the
Round Table. I ran a finger over the ancient rowan and ash wood.

I sat down and Merlin sat close beside me. Our knees touched.

“Lila is well.” I spoke quickly. “She’s herself and not overcome by her transformation. The Spaniard, I’m not so sure. I sowed some seeds of dissent, we’ll see if—”

I started as someone appeared out of the gloom and sat down on the other side of Merlin.

It was Lucifer, so aged and shriveled, shrunken and ancient, that it took me a long moment to realize it was him.

“Lady Death, I thought we would meet today. Hello,” he said and nodded at me.

“I’m not—”

“This is Morgan, Father, remember?”

“Sorry, sorry. You do sort of look like her though.” His voice sounded weak and he mumbled.

“You brought Lucifer here?” I asked Merlin.

My wizard shook his head. “He appeared half an hour ago. Said we had to talk.”

“How? That shouldn’t be possible.”

“I needed to have a chat with my boy,” he said and put a hand on Merlin’s shoulders.

Merlin nodded. “After I jumped into my bag to escape dismemberment by some kind of Queens-guard shadow-thing with too many arms, he showed up. As you know, we made dozens of protection spells against any coming into this bag besides us, and yet he tripped none of them.”

The old man waved a dismissive hand. “Bypassed them. Easiest way through, though it still cost me. Every breath, it costs. Your bag is quite the find, by the way. A wonder of the world. Of the world I never got to be in. Except for one time. With your mother. She was a glory, Merlin. Have I told you about her?”

Merlin nodded and put a hand on his father's forearm.

The old man beamed and slowly got up. He ambled toward the nearest bookshelf.

“He's having more trouble focusing. So Lila is Lila, and you have examined the bond between her and the Queen. How do we break it?” Merlin asked.

“Break it? I don’t know if we can. The bond between them grows stronger with physical proximity and also when the Queen commands her. Lila cannot break it. I do know that. It sets her into a panic just thinking about it,” I said. “I am relatively sure the Queen is the only one who might sever it.”

“Then we will hit her with a spell to get her to say the wrong thing,” Merlin said and reached into his vest’s pocket. He showed me three granite marbles that lay heavy in his hand. Each was dead weighted with different compulsion spells. He only had to hit the Queen with one of them and he could make her renounce her hold on Lila.

“I suppose this will work, since you are so adept with a Frisbee.”

“I was rather good with that throw, wasn’t I?”

“Indeed, son, indeed,” Lucifer chimed in behind us.

“Use those,” I said, nodding toward the marbles, “and I’ll activate my five hundred fizzing light spells. It may keep Lila busy for a moment or two, and distract the Queen from ordering her to hurt us. Lila will be compelled to defend the Queen against an attack, of course. But if there is too much going on, we might get lucky. And you,” I said, leaning toward Merlin. “Tell me quickly, what useful things have you learned, from—” I gestured at Lucifer's back. He held a cursed toad stone in his hand and was throwing it up and catching it.

Merlin hurried to him and took the stone from his thin hands. “Not to be trifled with, Father.”

Lucifer smiled and blinked his cloudy eyes. “It's an old thing. Like calling to like. Old,” he said. “I enjoy the ache running through my bones. I like the feel of each breath, drawing to a close.” He made a humming sound and closed his eyes.

“He really is dying?” I asked Merlin. “Can an angel trapped in Hell truly die? What happens to his soul?”

“Do you expect me to hold those answers, love?”

“And why now?” I asked. “So many whys. Why does Lucifer wither away on the day his son visits? Why was it so hard for us to find Hell’s door? And why is Hell in such shambles?”

Merlin let out a long sigh.

I sat up straighter. “Oh. You know why. Tell me.”

“Oh my Morgan, there are things, new and strange, that we must speak of, that I am not quite ready to tell you about. My fate, for one.”

“Fate?” I shook my head. “I do not believe in fate. I believe in choice. And don't we have enough of a job getting Lila out of here without throwing your fate into it? Cast it aside, Merlin.”

“I’ve always loved your indomitable will,” he said. Something deep and wounded peeked out within him as he spoke.

I took both of his hands in mine. “Tell me and quickly.”

“The King is dead. Long live the King,” Lucifer said and turned and gave us both a bright and empty smile.

“Indeed,” Merlin said. “You see—”

I saw nothing.

For the world went suddenly black and something yanked on my body. My essence. My soul. It pulled me upward. I heard cursing in the darkness. I heard a zipper opening.

11

Daring

Just as suddenly as the light had died, it flared back on. Merlin and I stood in a different room, side by side, surrounded by the royalty of Hell and their guards. Drawn swords of a dozen kinds of spelled steel circled us. Each of the blades whispered at generations of murder. Diego and Maria stood before us, with Lila standing beside the Queen.

The Marid Goddess gave us a sad little wave.

I immediately threw a handful of tiny seed pods into the air and said, “
yn dioddef
.”

Merlin threw his marbles at the queen.

My five hundred distracting lights did not fizz nor pop.

The pods arced up into the air and fell back to the ground. They scattered, as did Merlin’s marbles. Dull and magic-less. I reached into my pocket for my next spell and pulled magic into me.

I tried to.

Nothing happened.

“Sorry,” Lila mouthed at me.

I looked down and saw that around Merlin and me lay a thin sheen of blue magic. I sensed neither of us would be able to touch magic so long as that spell surrounded us. And it would be there until the Queen commanded Lila otherwise.

“Did you dare to think you could hide inside of a bag? That such a spell, that any spell could keep you safe in Hell?” Maria asked with a tight smile. “Fools.”

“Did she dare?” Merlin asked. He turned toward me and gave me a long glance. He seemed oddly
…
invigorated. A bit shiny, and not only because of Lila’s spell. “You ask if Morgan le Fay dare do something? From the moment I laid eyes on this witch she has always dared, Hell Queen. She has always fought, tooth and nail and blood, for whatever misguided or righteous cause she believes in. Does Morgan dare? Always and ever more, and for that reason among many, she will ever have my heart.”

He locked eyes with me. His words were merry, but those eyes held tragedy.

And I loved him back. Gods, I'd tried not to, so many times in so many ways, but this mad wizard spouting a heartfelt soliloquy at the moment of our likely demise? It was pure Merlin, using our last moments to tell me his truth.

“I
…
I love you too, of course,” I said. “Ever and always.”

He brightened further at my words. “To say nothing of the loveliness of her smile,” he added. “The vastness of her heart. The rage of her justice.” We stood surrounded by demons who had every intention of cutting us to pieces. Merlin kissed me.

“How earnest and quixotic,” Maria said flatly.

Merlin pulled away from me and continued. “In all my days, Morgan has ever had my best intentions at heart. Not that she's chosen well. This one won't get any medals for her choices, but her heart, her heart!”

“Will be ripped from her chest, put on a silver platter, and served for dinner,” Diego said.

Merlin nodded and shrugged, as though that didn't sound good to him, but to each their own. “I've been wondering, Diego old friend, if you can say the same for your love’s heart?” Merlin's face went suddenly sharp as he watched the Spaniard, who stood a step behind Maria. “When you first came to Hell, you were understandably enthralled by all that she offered, by all that she tried to burn away in your soul. Your goodness, I believe she said she had taken.”

Maria stood tall, and the bond between her and Lila strengthened and burned with the blue fire of the Marid. She was readying to order Lila to do something.

Merlin glanced toward the magical link and then away. “But Diego, a soul cannot be so easily tampered with. It may be darkened for a time, but the light shines through. I am giving you one chance to leave this realm behind. To live a life on Earth, unshackled by curses or the haunting of a lost love.”

Diego looked
…
so many emotions rolled across his face in quick succession that I did not know how to name them, or what it meant.

“He is mine,” Maria said. “Still your fool words, wizard. No one is leaving Hell, least of all him. How dare you—”

“Again with the daring,” Merlin said mildly. “A fact you may not know, bitter Maria, is I too have had a long and storied history with daring to do things that a cautious man would flee from. I
—
”

“Enough of this,” Maria snapped. “Marid, make Morgan and Merlin well and truly dead.”

12

A Good Day

I sucked in breath and stared at Lila. “It's okay, child. I have lived a long life. Do this and do not regret it. This death of ours is not your fault.”

Lila raised her hands. They bristled with a condensed blue magic, and she wiggled her fingers. Her magic flew off her hands and hit Merlin and me at the same moment.

In all my days, there was a part of me that had always been waiting for this. Knowing it would come.

My breath stopped. The steady metronome of my heart stilled. My blood, though I never knew I had any sense of it, grew turgid and stopped within my veins and arteries. Death was here, invading my body. Killing me.

And yet, we didn’t fall. The ravenous darkness did not swallow me whole. I stood upright and wondered when I would truly die.

“Kill them,” Maria thundered again.

“Oh, I killed them all right,” Lila said.

“Tell me,” Maria said.

“Uh, yeah. So, they are totally litches. Undead magicians. Completely dead. As you commanded.” Lila kept her face impassive and meek under the Queen’s murderous glare.

“Really, my dear Queen,” the Spaniard interrupted. “Let’s think this through. We could use them in all kinds of interesting ways. I don't think—”

“Kill them, Marid. For real this time,” Maria said and turned to stare at Diego. “And you. Do not question me.”

He grew smaller under her gaze, and I saw in that moment that he would never turn against her will. My hope that we might regain our friend and ally would not come to pass. He was gone, in every way that mattered.

On the other side of the Queen, Lila wiggled her fingers at us as she cast nervous glances toward her master.

“Marid, what are you doing?” Maria snapped. “Murder them,” Maria said. “Obliterate their existence. Destroy their bodies.”

Lila took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was high and breathy. “Okay. Wow. There's no getting out of that one, is there?” Tears began streaming down her blue cheeks. “I love you guys. I'm really sorry, but I have to
…
.” Magic built in the palms of her hands.

I stared at her and nodded. “I love you, Lila. My only regret is that I won’t be here to help you.”

“Or perhaps you will,” Merlin murmured.

As magic built in Lila’s hands, an ancient man appeared beside Maria, older still than when I had last seen him moments ago. Lucifer stood so stooped that he looked almost gnomish. His head was completely bald and covered with age spots. His hands were curled inward and so arthritic they resembled claws. Even so, all the light in the room bent toward him and surrounded his ancient form. He gave his son a withered smile and then put a hand on top of the Queen’s.

He leaned close to her. He held his other hand up with his fingers dangling down, as though he held the strings of a puppet. When he spoke, his fingers moved about. “Stop, Marid,” he said with a rasping voice.

“Stop, Marid,” Maria said a moment later, and her face constricted into a horrified scowl.

Lila dropped the growing blue magic in her hand and let out a long breath.

Lucifer laughed and sagged forward. His breath rattled in his chest.

The guards that encircled us watched but did nothing. They looked oddly stilled.

The Queen paled and shook her head. “No one commands me. I’m the Queen. I—”

Lucifer said, “I free you, Marid, of your bond.” The wrinkled topography of his face sagged and deepened and Merlin’s dad leaned against Maria.