The Labyrinth of the Dead (17 page)

He balked. "Absolutely not!"

"Are we going to argue about this, or
are you going to let me kill her?"

"Why not use the axe?"

"Were you not there just a minute ago
when I slashed her with this thing and it
didn’t work
? Now give me the
dagger!"

"You are an idiot." He sheathed the
dagger and tried to wrench the axe forcefully from Portia’s hands.

She easily kept it from him.

"Lady Portia." He opened his hands.
"Let me see the axe. Trust me."

She snorted with laughter. "Fine. I can
still kill you without it."

"That won’t be necessary, I assure
you." He sliced the blade across her palms. "Take it, now."

The feel of her blood on the Nephilim
leather was chilling, nauseating.

 "Go on, quickly! Make it your slave. You know its
name."

"Excuse me?"

A reaper fell to the floor beside them
and Kanika clambered out of their clawed embraces. There were too few left to
keep her from advancing on them.

"She knows! Belial knows we’re breaking
her binding. Hurry, damn you! If you are as great as they say, you should be
able to do this."

Portia looked into the axe, at the
powers bound into the metal and wood and leather. With her new sight, she could
see what alchemy had created it, and she spoke to the spirit within.

Zepar
, I baptize you with Gyony blood, with the essence
of angels, in the name of Portia and in the name of Fereshte
and in the name of the Almighty that commands us all. Blood of my blood, soul
of my soul—both of which you share, my father. I bind you to me in body, in
soul, in this plane and the next. So by my will, forever, be commanded by my
flesh, my blood, my mind, and my soul.

The axe changed before her, lengthening
into a more graceful weapon with a slender, slightly twisted handle. The blade
elongated and thinned into an image of a crescent moon, silver and gleaming.
The point spiraled into a sharp-tipped unicorn’s horn and the hammer side
became fiercely gilded.

"No!" cried Kanika with the echo of
Belial in her words. She scrambled toward the glowing axe.

Portia sidestepped her, throwing her
off balance with a sweep of her wings and knocking the girl to the floor. She
brought the axe down and pierced the flesh at the hollow of Kanika’s
throat with the pointed tip. Blood welled up and pooled there; as another
tremor rattled them, it sent ripples across the puddle.

"This ends now."

"Would you kill me in such cold blood,
my sister?"

"Yes, I would."

"Would you kill us all?" The little
pearl that was Kanika was dangled before her vision, shimmering within a corona
of light, the girl’s last defense.

"If that is what I need to do, then
yes."

"Poor dear. No one has ever come
looking for her. She thought you might actually save her."

Portia reached out to snatch the gem
away, but it slid out of her grasp.

"I know your weaknesses, Portia,"
Kanika taunted, "you wear them on your sleeve for all to see and exploit."

"Only those craven enough to hide
behind threats of harm to children."

"I told you she was no innocent."

"We are all innocent when compared to
you." Portia raised the axe, but Imogen stayed her hand.

"Wait."

"Why?" Had it been anyone else, they
would have tasted her wrath, but for Imogen she checked her temper and stayed
her hand.

Imogen pointed up through the crystal
ceiling and Portia lowered the axe.

Above them the
swirling mists were gone and the eternally winter-blue sky looked as if it had
cracked in half. Beyond the torn dome of sky, Portia could see stars. The stars
were aligned into constellations she knew: the archer, the seven sisters, the
dragon, and the bear.

"Dear God, Nigel, what have you done?"

The floor quaked violently enough to
knock Portia off balance, and a nearly solid-looking stream of light burst up
through the ground around the tower, throwing clumps of stone and sod in its
wake. Another and then another flowed up past them and into the sky chasm. A
familiar
thrum
rumbled above them as a slow-moving dirigible patrol
passed over the gaping hole in the sky, its searchlight dissolving in the
stronger brilliance of the souls consumed to feed the subterranean engine. She
heard the crackling squawk of a voice through a loudspeaker, a human voice, but
could not make out the words. The sides of the airships were painted with the
insignia of the Royal Air Force. They belonged to her world, the land of the
living, and they were coming dangerously close to the weakening barrier.

"Put a stop to this, now!" Portia
lowered the axe, pressing the crescent blade to Kanika’s
neck. The engravings, she saw, had rearranged themselves into something new,
but she could not decipher them.

Kanika laughed and shook her head,
daring the blade to slice through her flesh. "Why would I? It’s what I have
always wanted, what all the Aldias have always wanted. And besides, even if I
had a fancy to end it now, it’s far, far too late."

The gash in the sky opened wider as the
soul-fueled light ate away at the barrier between the worlds and the engine
pumped more and more power up through the tower.

"Lahash, get
Celestine in here. She must have known her sanctuary was being groomed for this
role. She could not be so daft as to not have known what Belial had planned."

"But the ward. I have no appendage to
sense it, but even I can smell magic that strong."

"Use the dagger and cut through it if
you have to, just get her out here."

Kanika stretched out, folding her arms
behind her head and looking quite comfortable. And smug. The cut on her throat
had shrunk, but it still wept blood. The shining liquid trickled around the
swell of her breasts and down into her armpits, but she paid it no mind
whatsoever.

More airships flocked toward the hole
in the sky, circling it and shouting into their voice-amplifiers.

Imogen went out to the open balcony
that encircled the tower and gazed up.

"Imogen," Portia called, "don’t get too
close!"

Lahash sliced into the door with the small dagger,
looking like a man trying to open up a tin of beans with a toothpick. From
outside they heard the crumbling of the land and occasionally a scream or the
fright-filled bay of a dire-hound.

Kanika just stayed put, smiling broadly
at the chaos around her. She moved her leg to press it against Portia’s calf.
The injury to it had healed quickly, but the girl’s touch reminded Portia how
tender it still was.

"Belial wanted you, dear Portia. Wanted
the taste of you on her lips, and not in a daughterly fashion. She meant what
she said when she offered you to sit in sovereignty beside her. Well, in
honesty, she would be willing to call you anything you wished to be called so
long as she could straddle you with her sovereignty. You could still have
that." Kanika wormed closer and drew one finger down Portia’s thigh, the nail
still curved into a sharp golden talon. "You know how much I love you, how much
I desire you. You understand me, Portia, understand the impotence of such power
and strength trapped in a thankless duty, risking life and limb and love."
Kanika glanced out at Imogen. "And for what? Because somewhere someone wrote
down that we must? Have we been born just to die for someone else’s war? Who
says these worlds cannot live in harmony? Who decided that angels were sacred
and demons profane? We can change things, Portia. You and I, but only together.
I need you. Yes, I can admit what I have always denied to myself. I cannot do
this alone. I thought I could, but I see that it is impossible now."

"What else could you possibly need to
do?" Portia was incredulous. "Is this not enough? Look what you have wrought!"

Kanika laughed. "This is just the beginning."

—12—

CELESTINE HAD poured what remained of her essence
into protecting her charges and emerged from her hiding place looking wizened
and dimmed, barely clinging to life. Lahash held her by
the scruff of her neck, keeping her at arm’s reach as if he found her presence
distasteful. Portia could not fault him for that.

"My lady." Portia stood and bowed to
her, keeping one foot firmly planted on Kanika’s
belly.

Celestine spat. "Thrice-cursed bitch,
what more would you bleed from me? How many more of us have to die because of
you? You brought this upon us,
you
! You upset the order, you invited
evil into our hiding place, you began this chain of events and now you take me
away from my contemplation, my preparation to meet oblivion. And for what end?
To salve your conscience?" She slapped Portia with as much might as she could
muster. "I curse you and your beloved. I wish neither of you had ever been
gotten on your wanton mothers!"

"Listen to me, Lady Abbess." Portia
reined in her temper sharply, trembling with the effort of not slaughtering the
insolent women. "This fate has been long in coming and would have found you
regardless of my presence. I may have accelerated it, but in no way did I cause
it. Are you so blind not to see that you have been played the fool, madame? This plan was laid long ago by those who have
little thought but for their own gain." Portia glanced toward Imogen, who still
stood on the balcony, transfixed by the celestial drama playing out over their
heads.

Celestine shook her head. "No," she
cried.

Portia closed her
fist around the neckline of Celestine’s diaphanous gown. "Tell me the truth, did you not know what went on beneath
your own feet? What did Belial promise you that you allowed your haven, your
precious, blessed sanctuary to be turned into the focus-point for her blasted
contraption? You brought this upon yourself! You are the betrayer, not me. Do
not lay this at my feet to save what little is left of your soul. I will not
bear your guilt, Lady. I have quite enough of my own, thank you."

"I am no traitor!"

"Then you are a liar." Portia shook her
mercilessly, pulling her free of Lahash’s grasp.
"Look at my eyes—do you know what they are capable of seeing? Do you know that
I can see the condemnation written on your soul as if you had shown me the
receipt for thirty pieces of silver? How do we stop this? Tell me, woman! Tell
me, or so help me I will rip your tongue out of your head and squeeze the words
out of it with my bare hands!"

Celestine broke down. Her knees buckled
and she sank to the floor, sobbing. "There is no way. There is nothing you or
anyone can do to stop this now."

"I don’t believe you."

She pressed her fists to her temples
and tugged on the once fine braids, now disheveled. "It does not matter now. I
thought to control her with her own ambitious plans. I carried on like I did
not know what she was about. I sat by and waited, waited for the day she would
come to fulfill what schemes she had laid."

"And what would you have done, then?"

Celestine shrugged. "She was supposed
to come here, herself. It needed us both to work, or so she told me. I have one
of the blades, the black one. It has been hidden here for years. I sought to
plunge it through her lying black heart and stop all of this madness. The
hell-blades are the only things that can stop her. She did not know I had one."

Portia opened her mouth once, twice,
before the words would finally came to her. "That’s all?" she sputtered. "You
were just going to wait and stab her, just like that? Do you think she’d just
sit still and let you plunge a hell-forged blade into her?"

Celestine shied away from her, offering
something between a shrug and a shake of the head. "I don’t know. I had other
obligations, I had other souls to save. I trusted my own strength against hers.
I had more to fight for."

"Oh, I understand. You were busy. You
just didn’t get around to planning anything better."

 "I saved your Imogen!"

"Only after Belial had captured her,
questioned her, blinded her, and set her free as bait to lure me to this place
where she would serve as the linchpin to this ghastly plan! I’d hardly call
that ‘saving.’ In fact, it sounds pretty damned convenient, to me."

"No! No, it was not like that! Not at
all."

Kanika rolled onto her side, propping
her head up on her elbow. She laughed with dark glee, and when she spoke it was
with Belial’s voice. "Oh give off your sanctimonious posturing, Celestine. Our
allegiance was made in days of old and fortified when the opportunity to pursue
this plot presented itself. You took your share, a portion of the young and the
lovely, culling only the beautiful women from the herd of souls that found
themselves in our dark streets. You gave them Heaven here in this dark
in-between realm. You held them no less prisoner than I did with their
husbands, sons, and brothers, with their less comely sisters and daughters and
lovers. No, you were not as
crafty
as I was with them—" her eyes
flickered toward the pile of mangled reaper corpses. "—but instead, you kept
them like dolls in a glass case. Or in your case, an opal tower."

Celestine shuddered, her body bent
double with tears that spread across the floor like diamonds. Portia tasted one
and it rang out with power on her tongue. She glanced between the two women and
a terrifying idea was born in her mind.

"You can make this right, my lady."
Portia did not like what she was about to suggest, but she could think of few
other options. "You had no plan? No scheme to stop Belial should she get out of
control?"

"None."

"But you had the power to do so if you
had wanted."

"I did, once, but not any longer. I
spent it trying to preserve my darling girls from
you
."

"Enough of your venom, Celestine. I am
offering one chance to save them all. I have no idea if it will work, but it is
better than doing nothing, which almost guarantees that they will all perish.
And probably the rest of us with them."