A Temptation of Angels (34 page)

“Keep him busy with the sickles and glaives,” Raum said under his breath. “It’s almost sunrise.”

The wings at Alastor’s back cracked like a whip as they spread. Helen couldn’t believe the wingspan. They could be easily swallowed in it if Alastor chose.

He didn’t get the chance. Griffin stepped forward in one quick motion, throwing the glaive at the monster. The chandeliers
in the ceiling rattled as the glaive buried itself in the demon’s muscled abdomen and he let out a great shriek. And then the men were on him, taking advantage of their greater number, despite Alastor’s greater strength. The beast swiped at them with hands that had become razor-sharp talons. He picked them up, tossing them against the walls. And always, Darius, Griffin, and Raum got back up, slashing him with their sickles, puncturing him with the glaives, trying to slow him down.

Helen watched for an opportunity to help, but there was no room for her in the fray. She kept her eyes on the curtained windows instead, watching for signs of the rising sun. A couple minutes later, the light around the frames grew brighter. Helen skirted to the window, throwing open the curtains and calling out.

“Raum! It’s time.”

Griffin was on the floor, unmoving and so pale that Helen’s heart nearly stopped beating. She was on her way to him when Alastor lifted Darius and Raum into the air, throwing them against a far wall before stomping his way toward her. She backed toward Griffin’s still form. If she was going to die, she would die with Griffin.

Her foot hit something, and she tripped, falling to the floor
as Alastor stomped toward her. She wondered if the house would come down around them before he could do whatever it was that he planned to do to her. It would be a better end than the one that awaited her at his hands. Scooting along the floor, she backed up until she hit one of the bookshelves and could go no farther. It was difficult to call the expression on Alastor’s face a smile, but that’s what it seemed to be as he approached her.

Looming over her, Helen could smell the stink of his breath. Feel the heat, so fiery she was surprised the house didn’t burst into flames around them, from his twisted body.

“You,” he roared. “You. Have. It.”

She shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Give it to me or you will die a painful death and I will take it by force,” he croaked, his voice twisted and guttural.

She swallowed, trying to think of a way to delay. Wondering if Raum or one of the brothers would regain consciousness. She kept still, allowing her eyes to dart around the room, looking for anything that might buy her time.

And that was when she saw it.

It glinted in the pink glow of the rising sun, now streaming through the opening in the velvet curtains.

The sword. That is what she had tripped on. It must have
fallen from Raum’s belt during the battle, and now it lay just a few feet from her position against the bookcases.

There was no maneuver, no clever strategy that would put the sword in her hands. She would have to lunge for it, counting on her smaller size and the element of surprise to give her the couple of extra seconds she would need to reach the sword before him.

It took only a few seconds to decide. There were no other options.

She lunged forward, crawling across the floor, reaching for the sword before she got to it. She was not worried about getting Alastor into the light of the rising sun. He wanted what she had—what he thought she had. She had seen the need in his eyes.

He would follow her.

Her fingers closed on the sword as Alastor’s claws came down on her skirt, pinning her to the floor. She slid the sword under the fabric of the garment, now spread across the ground as Alastor moved toward her with a strange, inhuman gait.

The sun was just two inches above her head. Just two inches.

The beast hovered over her. She saw the pleasure in his eyes. He had her and he knew it. He would eliminate every last Keeper. Rule the world with his power over time and the
legion of demons at his command. It was all the motivation she needed. She flipped onto her stomach, grabbing hold of the sword and crawling for the light.

It was then, in the frantic scuttle across the floor, that she saw it.

Time seemed to slow as the rising sun hit the pendant, no longer an abstract design swinging from her neck. No longer simple filigree, fine and lovely, but something more.

Looking down into the scrolling metal, she saw the same design twisting and turning on Galizur’s screen. On the ink etched onto Griffin’s back.

Alastor was right. She did have the key.

He stomped toward her, his fury rising in a brutal howl. The glass broke behind the curtains. Helen heard it rain onto the floor as Alastor flipped her onto her back, his talons reaching for the pendant at her neck. She let him get close. Let his eyes light with the nearness of it.

Then she plunged the sword into his heart, twisting it for good measure to make sure she didn’t miss. She watched him howl.

The veins covering his body seemed to withdraw under his skin, a look of surprise passing over his face as the wings shriveled at his back. His mouth opened, the blue light streaming
from it in an eerie shriek in the moment before his mortal body burst, not in a flurry of flesh and blood as she expected, but in a cloud of ash.

She crawled toward Griffin as it rained down on her, a torrent of black rain.

S
he was not surprised to find Anna waiting for her at the door.

“Come in,” the other girl said. “I saw you on the monitors.”

Helen stepped into the hallway, glad to see that Anna was closing and locking the doors again.

“How are you feeling?” Anna’s voice was muffled by their footsteps as they made their way through the halls, pausing at the many locked doors along the way.

“I’m fine,” Helen said. “A little sore, but not nearly as sore as Darius and Griffin.”

They had come to the last door. Anna closed and locked it behind them, turning her eyes on Helen. “And Raum?”

Helen looked down at her feet. “I haven’t seen him. Not since that night.”

She had sat in Alastor’s library with Griffin’s head in her
lap. At some point, she fell asleep, waking to the heat of the sun pressing against her eyelids. Darius and Griffin were still unconscious, but breathing.

Raum had disappeared.

No one came. No one inquired about the noise or the mess. It was as if all of Alastor’s staff had turned to ash right along with him.

Some time later, Griffin stirred. When she looked down, it was into his mysterious hazel eyes. Darius woke soon after and they made their way back to the Channing house where she nursed their wounds before collapsing onto her bed, still clothed, beside Griffin.

“So Raum will not face the Dictata’s judgment after all.” Anna’s voice was a murmur without accusation.

“I suppose not,” Helen said.

Anna nodded, moving farther into the room. “You’re not here to discuss Raum, are you?”

“No.”

“You’ve found it, then?” Anna asked.

Helen nodded. “How long have you known?”

“Almost since the beginning.” Anna gestured for her to sit. She poured water from a steaming pot into a delicate teacup, handing it to Helen. “Well, I suppose I should say that we were
fairly certain Darius and Griffin
didn’t
have it, which left you by process of elimination.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Helen whispered, staring into her cup as if the tea at the bottom held the answer.

Anna sighed. “It’s a burden, being the Keeper of the key. We thought it better—safer—that you should not know in case you were questioned. Those from the Legion have… methods for extracting information. None of them pleasant. We simply wished to protect you and the key until such a time as the executions could be put to a stop.”

Helen looked into her eyes. “Why me?”

Anna smiled, shrugging. “I suppose the Dictata knew you were the best person to have it. The most worthy.”

Helen’s laughter was bitter. She stood, pacing to the mantle. “I am far from worthy. I let my parents burn. Enlisted the help of the man who ordered them murdered. Came, even, to see him as a friend.”

“A friend?” Anna prodded.

Helen could not meet her eyes. Friend was hardly a strong enough word to describe her feelings for Raum.

Anna stood, crossing the room and touching Helen on the arm. “Come with me.”

Helen was puzzled, but Anna was already making her
way to the staircase, and Helen followed her into the now-familiar recesses of the cellar laboratory. They traversed the tunnel, immaculate in comparison to the sewer tunnels beneath London, in silence. When at last they reached the laboratory, Helen’s eyes were drawn to the Orb, the strange connection she’d felt to it still present. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but the Orb seemed to move slightly quicker than it had just last week. Gazing up at it, she thought it a beautiful world. That one and the one on which she stood as well.

“They have already begun appointing new Keepers,” Anna said with a smile. “The Orb will grow stronger, day by day, as will the world it represents. But that’s not what I want to show you.”

Helen followed her to the Orb, staring down into the tiny point of blue light that was the only access to the records.

“Try it.” Anna tipped her head at the lock.

“What? The key?”

Anna nodded.

“But… isn’t it against the rules or something? I thought I was simply supposed to keep it safe.”

“You are,” Anna said. “But I don’t think anyone will mind its Keeper having a quick look from the door. Besides,” she
added, “my father’s authority is bequeathed to me, and I’m quite sure he would do the very same thing.”

Helen removed the pendant from around her neck. She held it close to her face, looking again at the pointed, scrolled filigree at its end. It seemed impossible that it should open anything. That it should fit the pinprick of light at all.

She lifted her eyes to Anna’s. “What do I do?”

“Place the pointed end of the crown against the keyhole.”

“But it won’t… It won’t fit.”

“Trust me. Place the point at the end of the crown against the point of light on the floor,” Anna instructed.

Helen lowered herself to the floor, sitting back on her knees as she studied the light. Such an innocuous-looking light, and yet she could feel the energy, the power, flowing from it, reaching upward and enveloping the Orb that spun above her head.

Part of her didn’t want to confirm what she already knew. It was the last vestige of her denial. Once she placed the end of the pendant in the keyhole, her ability to unlock the records would be confirmed. There would be no turning away from her place in the Alliance.

And yet, she found that she didn’t want to turn away. The Alliance and her role in it had come to matter to her. It was
a legacy of her parents, a way in which she would be forever connected to them and to the people that they were.

And to Griffin, Anna, Galizur, and yes, even Darius.

She had barely settled the end of the crown against the point of light when it expanded, a mini-explosion rippling outward before collapsing in on itself. The other end of the pendant grew hot in her hand. Helen held tight to it, not wanting to lose it and not sure what would happen if she let go.

And then, the strangest thing happened.

The scrolled end of the pendant, once an elaborate, hollow crown, flattened itself against the light, the two merging as one, expanding into the floor in a familiar design of overlapping circles, tiny flowers forming in its geometric design, until both the pendant and the symbol it had invoked disappeared in a flash.

Helen was still staring, still trying to understand what had happened to her pendant, when a doorway of pure light opened in the floor before her.

“Don’t worry.” Anna’s voice was soft. “Your pendant will come back when the door is closed.”

The light that emanated from the door was pure and golden. It shone like the light of the sun. Not as on the hottest of days when Helen feared her skin would grow pink, but as on the
days when she would sit in the garden, her head tipped to the gentle warmth of it.

Through the door, Helen could see a staircase, descending far beyond into the light.

“The records are in there?” she finally asked.

“Yes.” Anna took a deep breath. “It’s an awesome responsibility, Helen, to be the Keeper of the key. To the past, present, and future.”

“That’s why I don’t understand. Why me?” Despite her awe at seeing the entrance to the records, that was still the question that burned in Helen’s mind.

Anna stuck a hand into the light. It disappeared in a flash, narrowing to a tiny pinpoint until it looked just as it had before. Helen’s pendant dropped into Anna’s open hand.

“Helen.” Anna tipped her head, a gentle smile playing at her lips. “Don’t you see? The Dictata has access to the records. They have looked into the past. Into the future. And they have chosen you.” She pressed Helen’s pendant—the key to everything—into Helen’s palm. “Perhaps it’s time to trust in their judgment.”

H
elen didn’t mean to end up at the burned remains of her home. It was daylight. She couldn’t jump back to the Channing house, which was just as well. She wanted to walk. To think upon everything Anna had told her and everything she had learned.

She aimlessly traveled the streets of the city. The brothers, it seemed, finally trusted her to take care of herself, though Griffin would still worry if she was gone too long. She waited for a carriage to pass before crossing a street, heading toward the scent of fresh bread. A moment later she looked up to see the ruined facade of the home she had shared with her mother and father.

She smiled at the creak of the iron gate. She would not hear it again. The next time she came to this place, it would be to give orders for new construction. She couldn’t live with
the Channings forever. Whatever happened between her and Griffin, she did not want to be beholden to anyone. Not even him. She wanted to stand on her own. To have a home that was hers. Most of all, she wanted to see it all again.