Wicked And Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 4 (21 page)

“Miss Wilde.”

I glanced up, startled. Armaeus stood in front of me, looking so impossibly handsome I almost cried out. As it was, I stood back sharply, my barriers up in a second to block my mind from him. His brows lifted, but his manner didn’t change. If anything, it grew more curious, more intrigued.

“You’ve grown stronger,” he murmured, and he held out his hand to me. He watched as I dropped the Tarot chips into my neck pouch, his smile deepening. “Jewelry. I hadn’t thought of that. A brilliant device.”

“Thanks, it was Kreios’s idea,” I said gruffly. I took his hand because I was too weak not to, but the agony of the electric connection between us took real strength to endure. Armaeus felt the push-pull of my reaction, and his expression sharpened further.

“There is so much I want to share with you,” he murmured. “And much you should share with Michael.”

“It’s really him? Michael? As in seriously an archangel—like an archangel of God.” As I babbled on to cover my emotions, I schooled myself not to look at Armaeus with my shattered gaze, and instead focused on the man standing at the top of the hill, watching us as we wound our way toward him. We were on a path bordered by river stones and flanked with trees, their blossoms falling gently in the breeze. “Michael the Archangel,” I said again, to ensure there was no question.

“It is.” The Magician’s voice was rich with satisfaction, and something more too. Contentment, I realized. He truly did enjoy it here in Hell, and of course I knew why. Jealousy knifed through my gut.

That said, I could play it cool. I was all about cool, in fact, totally frosty. “What have you been doing down here, anyway, these past few days?” I asked with an impressive chill factor. “You know they’re waiting for you up top. The longer you stay in Hell, the more worried Kreios gets.”

“He said that?” the Magician laughed. “The immortal Kreios worried about anything is difficult to imagine. But me?”

“And interesting, this idea of up and down, don’t you think?”

This new question came not from Armaeus but from the man at the tip of the promontory. I tried to look directly at him, but I couldn’t, my gaze shearing off until I stared over the far horizon, where the hills fell gracefully, tumbling over into dappled meadows to the far-off glorious Caribbean-blue sea.

The sea. Yeah, no.

I squinted toward the Hierophant.

Michael the Archangel was not, for the record, sprouting wings. But he pretty much didn’t need to. He was one of the most singularly beautiful men I’d ever met, and he had a long line of Arcana Council members before him who’d cornered the market on “hot.”

But Michael’s beauty wasn’t carnal, truly. There was nothing remotely earthy or sexual about the man’s face, his body, his expression. I couldn’t truly get a fix on his face, though. My gaze kept sliding away, and I was unable to tell if he was black or white, Asian or Hispanic, blonde or dark haired or ginger or…

His expression shifted, and I stiffened. The angel’s face had settled into a skin tone so achingly fair that it almost hurt to look at him. His hair was straight white, his eyes eerily light. “You’re albino,” I blurted, too shocked to worry about the possibility of being rude. “How is that possible?”

“Am I?” Michael shifted again, and his skin became the deep, rich color of chocolate, and then he shifted to the olive-toned skin of Kreios, gleaming with a Mediterranean tan. Then back once again to purely fair. “It is unsettling to you.”

His voice made my knees wobble, and Armaeus firmed his hold on my arm. When Michael spoke, it was closest to the vocal projection the Magician had used on occasion with me and others, to compel us to an action we weren’t entirely sure we wanted to make. But there was no compulsion in Michael’s words; he’d merely issued a simple statement. Yet I felt compelled to reply.

“Are you like this all the time?”

His gentle smile was meant to reassure me, but merely made me sad. Not your garden-variety level of sadness either, but a deep wellspring of pain that opened up within me, whispering of incredible isolation, loneliness, and resignation.

“You’re tired, Sara Wilde,” the Hierophant said, and his voice drifted through me like the petals from the trees above us, seeking out the broken places and holding them gently in a whisper-soft embrace. “You’ve suffered much.”

I shot a startled glance to Armaeus, who stood there observing me like I was some sort of bug. Good to know that some things never changed, I supposed. Before I could return my glance to the Hierophant, Michael turned away from me, and the relief I felt at his attention moving from my face was palpable. It wasn’t that the Hierophant’s regard bothered me, exactly. It wasn’t painful or judgmental or harsh. It was…the exact opposite of that, in fact. It was unconditional acceptance, that no matter what I said, what I did, I would be blanketed with care and understanding and…

“Do you know why I’ve remained so long in this place that humans fear most?” Michael had started walking down the winding path, and I realized that the landscape had changed while I’d stood there gaping at him. Instead of a hill filled with trees rolling down to a far ocean, we were descending into a grotto hung with lush vegetation. There was no far distant shore to contemplate, no ocean of memories. I blinked and refocused on Michael’s back, grateful that he could not see my face. Had he known? Had he done that on purpose? Had he…

Armaeus squeezed my hand, and my brain bumped back online. The Hierophant had asked me a question.

“Um, no,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re here, in Hell. I mean, I don’t buy that this is where all human souls go in the aftermath of their lives, if they’ve been bad or whatever, but that does seem to be the prevailing theory. Which makes you being here somewhat strange, you gotta admit.”

“Souls come here because they feel they must.” Michael led us into a beautiful Japanese-styled courtyard. A series of linked koi ponds curved through the space in gradually larger pools, and a low bridge rose up and down among them, like the back of a dragon. He stepped onto the bridge, and the first koi pond shifted below us. I froze.

“I’ve sort of had enough of windows in this place.”

But Michael didn’t budge, and his voice was mournful. “They come because they must,” he murmured again.

The scene in the koi pond rose up around us all, plunging us into its center. Instinctively, I clutched Armaeus’s hand, but I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear anything but the cries of the damned all around me. This was the Hell of Dante’s imagining, I knew in a flash. This was the image that had so horrified thousands of years of true believers, regardless of what god they followed.

All around me was misery and pain. Naked, screaming bodies writhed in agony, some covered in blood, some with their skin flayed off. Demons that bore absolutely no resemblance to the Syx scrabbled between and among the fallen, thrusting one set into pools of fire, and another into pits of burning tar, still more into muddy bogs already littered with bodies.

“My God,” I breathed, aware of the irony but unable to stop myself. “That can’t be true.”

“It is a domain of the most powerful illusions that can alter the mortal mind,” the Hierophant said. “It delivers what is demanded of it, without fail.”

The scene cleared, and I sagged forward, dropping Armaeus’s hand to steady myself on the bridge. “No one would demand that.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong,” Michael said. “That place you saw is what most souls crave more than life itself. More than death. More than peace or solace. They crave to be punished for the wrongs they
perceive
they have done, above and beyond the wrongs they actually have committed. They crave the assurance of knowing that such a place of eternal torment exists, that
something
exists to judge them, because they have not given themselves over to the idea that on the other side of life…” He spread his hands. “There is yet more life.”

I looked at Michael too quickly, before realizing he’d turned to me. His regard was nowhere near Armaeus’s, though. I didn’t feel like a bug but a treasured…friend. A friend, not a child, not a pet, not a bauble to be put on a pedestal. The weight of Michael’s eerie, white-blue regard was that it was simply filled with joy that I was here, sharing this space with him, this time. It was overwhelming and awful and impossible and healing all at once, and I couldn’t stop the tears from spilling from my eyes.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry.” I reached up to dash my hands against my face, but Michael did not retreat, and when I glanced at him again, there was neither amusement nor pity in his gaze. There was simply understanding, and it was all I could do to beat down another wave of tears.

“We are joined, you and I,” he said softly. “As I am joined with every created thing, be they psychically gifted as you are, or the most mundane of mortals, the weakest of animals, the tallest of trees and meanest of stones. I am the rock upon which all stands, the air that all might take would they simply allow themselves to breathe. The touch that all crave in the loneliest corners of their extraordinary hearts. Do you see the truth of this?”

I struggled to comprehend the Hierophant’s words, but they flowed over me like water over rocks, and I couldn’t break free from his eyes, from the power of his presence. I nodded, though, at last realizing he’d asked me a question, and blinked back my tears. “I do,” I managed in a broken voice.

He smiled and nodded toward me, a shared confidence once again between friends. “And this is why I’ve come here, Sara Wilde. For the grace of allowing that friendship you have bestowed upon me, which is what I’ve craved with my own heart and soul from the moment I entered this place.” His expression was beyond beatific. It was the light of a thousand sunrises and the hope that chased behind them, and I found myself smiling back, the enormity of what he was saying completely lost on me other than that it was there. That there was something happening here I could not understand.

He broke eye contact with me, and I gasped, sagging to the side, then realized that Armaeus had been standing next to me this whole time. I looked up at him, and for the moment almost didn’t mind the whole mad-scientist-studying-his-butterfly vibe he was sending. “Is he always like that?”

Armaeus snorted, and Michael laughed, the beauty of it almost making me pass out. “He is. You are the first mortal to withstand him, though you’re obviously a rarity among mortals. Nevertheless,” he said to Michael, his voice holding an odd note of melancholy, “she did better than I expected she would. I believe it is time.”

“Yes,” Michael nodded. “It’s time.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Time?” I perked up at this. “Time for what? Time-for-leaving time? Because if that’s what you mean, sign me up.”

Michael and Armaeus regarded each other for a long moment, then Michael nodded.

“Leaving.” He sighed. “It’s been so long since I have existed anywhere but here. The earth will be a different place. Mortals, however, do not seem to have changed.”

“Yeah, don’t get your hopes up too much about our evolution.” Something about this seemed strange to me, however. The Hierophant was coming out of Hell for what appeared to be the first time ever. But it was the Magician who seemed uneasy, out of sorts. I eyed him curiously, but Michael cut across my thoughts.

“Armaeus has told me many things about the Council and the challenges we face. But I need to know from you, how are the people faring?”

I shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by people,” I said as Michael lifted a hand and the scenes in the pools evaporated, leaving nothing but the brightly colored, happily cavorting fish. “SANCTUS is down but not out. They’ll keep believing all magic is bad magic for a long time, I suspect. The straight-up Connecteds are holding their own, staying on the fringes, though that’s changing every day. The dark practitioners are another story.” I scowled, thinking of the Vegas sect, who’d clearly thrown in with Gamon.

“But the dark practitioners are Connecteds as well.”

“Sure, but only in the same way that serial killers seem like the boy next door. They’re vying for power and strength through whatever means possible, in the end. Regular Connecteds want to get stronger, sure, but they have limits to what they’ll do for that power. Not so much the dark practitioners.”

Michael considered this. “And then we have the Council.” He nodded to Armaeus. “A force that seeks balance in the main, but that also desires the increase overall of magic in the world. And there is Llyr, the ancient dragon, who also seeks magic in the world, but who wishes to rule it, not to balance it. The lines are not evenly drawn.”

Armaeus remained impassive, but a muscle worked in his jaw, and he said nothing.

“Ah, well, yes.” I said into the heavy silence. “There’s a bit of a gray area there.” “This is what I do not understand, this gray.” Michael folded his arms over his chest, the gesture so autocratic I had to smile. The Hierophant would not exactly blend well in Vegas, I suspected. Not for a while anyway. “You believe there is a space where someone can be both wrong and right at once?” he asked.

“Not at once, no.” I shook my head. “But sometimes people do the right things for the wrong reasons, and sometimes they do the wrong things for the right reasons. And it’s hard to hold someone up as a criminal or a despot or a killer when you can understand how they got to that place.”

“I disagree. There is either right or wrong.” Michael gestured to the trees. “Surrounding us is an entire dimension created solely because mortals have lost their sense between the two. Your gray reality is ultimately unsustainable. Eventually, payment must be made. Would it not make greater sense to render that payment in the world of the living, versus the dead?”

“Well, that’s a great idea, sure.” I began to see why he’d spent so much time in Hell. “But it’s not that easy.”

“It is that easy. Who is your enemy?”

“Right now, it’s getting close to being you,” I snapped. “But in general, nobody’s my enemy.”

“No.” He rejected that out of hand. “You are engaged in a war. Wars have sides. You are against this organization SANCTUS because they are against psychics, and you are psychic. They are your enemy.”