Whiskey and Water (38 page)

Lucifer paused, his wings fanning out to
each side, the draft bending his feathers. You look the very devil,: he said,
to be heard, and then lowered his voice a little. :If you wanted wings, I would
have seen to it.:

"Only if I asked."

:Well, yes.: That was the dance. The Devil
smiled, and came up another step, side-slipping, encircling them both in the
bower of his wings—white living things that made Kit's black feathers a sad
mockery. : Repent of thy sins and be free of me, thou-who-wert Christofer
Marley.:

Kit didn't uncross his arms. He leaned
back a little, looking up at Lucifer. "Of my sins, I repent freely. It is
where God and I differ on the meaning of the word, alas, that cannot be mended.
Have you come to wish me luck, on Sunday?"

:Wilt use my magic, warlock?: He smiled
through the locks of hair that slid forward under his hat.

Kit reached out, brushed the inside of a
wing with the back of his fingers, felt the living shiver of skin under
feathers. "How many times must I refuse thee, Morningstar?"

:We are alike.: Feather-tips caressed his
face, and Kit shivered in turn.

"We have our differences." Kit
stepped back. "I thank you the farewell, Morningstar."

Lucifer folded his wings with a clap. :Joy
you in it,: he said, and made a bow that swept him away. Kit watched him go,
and finally unfolded his arms, breathing shallowly. "All stories are true,"
he murmured to himself, about to turn and find a servitor angel of his own.

A voice at his shoulder startled him.
"That's the bitch of it, wouldn't you say?"

Matthew. Kit exhaled in relief. He'd
jumped, and almost tripped himself on the overbalancing shoulder frames. And
then there
wad
a glass in his hand, and the Mage was grinning at him.
Kit saluted him with liquor. "Unfortunately, I think we're all but crushed
under the weight of them."

"You love him." Matthew jerked
his chin after Lucifer. He swallowed and covered his mouth with the back of his
hand, as if in disbelief of what he'd said. The ladderwork of healed piercings
that climbed his ear was sharply revealed when he turned in profile.

Kit pinched the bridge of his nose as if
his eyes stung, but didn't drop his gaze. "Of course I love him. I made
him. And
he
came back through history to remake me. You don't get to
fall out of love with the Devil."

"But Lucifer? Not
Mephistopheles?"

"Goethe."

"Ah." Matthew fell silent,
contemplating the vagaries of metatextual polycreationism. There might be a paper
in it. He cleared his throat. "He's dressed the fallen as angels. Unholy
Barbie dolls."

"I beg your pardon?" Kit sipped
his wine.

Matthew echoed the gesture and looked back
at him, directly into his eyes. "Never mind, Kit. You're going to tell me
this is a prelude to Armageddon, aren't you?"

"Armageddon? "

"You know. The end of days, the
seventh seal, the Revelation to John — "

"Oh, that old thing. Different John,
did you know?"

"Really?"

Marlowe shrugged. "Bit of a break in
style, for one thing. And were they written under Domitian; although it is but
a slight century after the death of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that
John
would have been a patriarch worthy of the Hebrews at the time. Of course, I
wrote the plays of William Shakespeare, according to some, and he was so much a
kinder soul than I—well, it profits us not. Anyway. Fall of Rome. Over and done
with, and on to the next apocalypse."

Matthew rubbed his left thumb against the
fingers of his left hand, as if checking for the rings he no longer wore. It
still startled him, every time, to find his fingers naked. "What if a lot
of people believe it's true?"

"Then it's true." Kit's eyes
seemed unaccountably drawn to the motion of Matthew's fingers. He dropped his
gaze and restrained himself from touching the scars on his own hands, the ring
Jane had returned to him. "The Prometheus Club has been trying to remake
God for some four hundred years now. With greater success, or lesser. 'The Lord
thy God is a jealous God.' You just get one started, and He tends to get
consumed in another. The Pagan stories are easier to work with, these
days."

So it
could
be an apocalypse. In
the modern sense."

We'll know when the Rapture happens,"
Kit answered. He stretched his arms out, fingers interlaced, and cracked his
knuckles. "Until then, I wouldn't trouble myself with it. We have more immediate
worries."

"The duel?"

"The duel."

The grand ballroom in Hell's palace was no
simple, airy space, but rather an arched cavern flanked by tapestries and arras
and secret tunnels, side chambers with fainting couches and retiring rooms,
all the better for intrigue and assignations. Few guests stared into the vault
of the ceiling for long; the black stone, sculpted in buttresses and arches and
all the soaring shapes of a cathedral, nevertheless presented a tremendous
sense of weight as if it were all balanced like a boulder on a knife-tip and
could tumble at a careless glance.

In one arras-draped alcove stood Keith
MacNeill, dressed in an Elf-knight's green silks and velvet, with Morgan le Fey
at his left hand. When she leaned forward, a trickle of gaslight from the
ballroom traced the silver at her temples, limned her hawklike profile and
caught on softness under her chin. "Go to her," Morgan said against
Keith's ear, her hand on his shoulder as she rose on tiptoe. Her voice would not
have carried farther.

Keith shifted. "Is it fair to
approach her publicly?"

"Is there anything fair in what we
do, Dragon Prince?"

He turned, and looked at her. "Better
might you ask if it is all so foul, he said, and pushed the arras aside before
she could return fire.

All the room was silent when he entered.
Alone, for Morgan stayed behind.

Nuala could joke, but the fact of the
matter was he
did
let the Devil pick his clothes—and was more or less
grateful to him, because the crimson silk lining of the green velvet cloak
rippled heavily "when he moved, swirling around the heavy blade slung
between his shoulders, and he knew he cut a figure he never would have managed
on his own.

The sword wasn't Caledfwlch; Caledfwlch
was lost in the Dragon's lair. But it was a comfort all the same.

All around him heads turned, attention
focused by the sketch played out between Kit and Lucifer transferred. Morgan's
craft, borrowed for the occasion like Lucifer's wardrobe. If Keith practiced a thousand
years, he would never match either of them for gamesmanship. But a prince uses
the talents of those at hand as if they were his own, and so seems more
accomplished than a man has any right.

If he's wise.

Keith was at least trying to prove he
could learn. And so every face swung with him, in unison, sunflowers coursing
the sun. Every face but one: the Queen of the Daoine Sidhe, stiff-necked, did
not turn.

Ian was crossing toward the Queen and
Cairbre — Jewels following very quietly alongside, her eyes wide behind a
feathered mask—when Keith's gaze caught Ian's across the room, a wolf's
awareness passing between. Ian's mask hung around his neck, his shoulders
bright with jester's motley, each stride swinging with bells.
Yes,
Ian
said, an answer to the question Keith had sent with Fionnghuala, the words as
plain as if he'd pricked his ears up and waved the banner of his tail, laughing
like a wolf invited to run.

Keith nodded.
Make it so.

Ian picked up his pace as Keith slacked a
little, wolf and his get, the perfect instinctual coordination that served the
hunt. Ian's hand rested on Cairbre's elbow. Jewels breathed deep, once, and
folded her arms, forcing herself to watch Ian. Waiting her cue, if he had one
for her.

She didn't return the smile Geoff sent her
across the room. He wasn't, frankly, certain she'd seen it, and he told himself
sternly that she didn't want him, didn't need him, and wouldn't thank him for
the help if he went to her.

He managed to keep his boots nailed to the
floor.

The Queen also did not move, did not turn.
She did not acknowledge her son with a nod or a word, even when he cut her bard
away and left her standing alone by the dais upon which no musicians played. Keith
paused three steps behind her and one to the left.

"My lady," he said. Sword
cleared sheath in the same gesture that left him on one knee, head bowed, the
blade laid flat on the stones beside her feet. Rose petals swirled away in the
draft and fluttered down once more. "Will you look upon your servant
now?"

She was silent for a long while. He
thought, any moment, that he would hear the scuff of her shoes as she stepped
away. And then, without turning, she sighed and dropped her chin and said,
"A servant who can't obey? What good is that to me?"

"Try me and find out. Or step on the
blade and break it, and I'll answer you as a husband to his wife."

No chill in his voice. He kept it level
and fluid, and every word was like a quill under her skin. She clenched her
hands on the tails of her red silk coat, crumpling the white and yellow flowers
embroidered along the hem and up the placket. Turning, she placed each booted
foot like a horse afraid of snakes. She laid one atop his sword, heel on the
flat, but did not press down.

"You look well," she said.

He could have let the sword hilt fall to
the flags, reached out, caught her foot in both hands. Drawn it up, and kissed
her ankle just below the bone. He answered without lifting his head. "The
Prince of Darkness is a clotheshorse."

She snorted. Her hair fell over her
shoulders when she dropped her head, releasing the aroma of the lilies braided
into it as their petals bruised against her coat. "I mean it. You look . .
. quite beautiful."

He sucked air between his teeth. She stank
of musk, a stallion's rut. "Must it always be briars between us?"

"Always," she said. She lifted
her boot from the blade, and set it back on stone. "Beginnings have ends,
and knives cut."

She traced an infinity symbol with her toe
on the stones, lifting her foot before the sign was complete. The scattered
roses crushed and slid, moist patterns left behind. Keith sheathed his sword
without looking and stood. He held out his hand; she extended hers in turn,
upturned. Open, expectant.

The antithesis of her expression.

He uncurled his fingers, and let the
bruised petals of some shredded white roses shower her palm. "Not just
knives," he said. And he stepped forward, and kissed her on the mouth.

She didn't fight him. No, but she was
stiff at first, resistant, all the flowers garlanded around her mangled by his
touch. He didn't care; it didn't matter. He turned, and leaned her back, and
kissed her until her hands came up and clutched his velvet-clad shoulder and
his hair, and she kissed him in return. Her lips were chapped. His beard
pricked her cheek. He stepped back, finally, still holding her by the shoulders,
and the applause almost drowned out her voice. Every pair of eyes in the room,
still upon them.

And Keith had finally learned how to play
a scene.

"As you defended Faerie, so will you
Hell," she said.

He let the frustration twist his mouth.
"And die of it," he said. "As you've reminded me-" "It's
what Dragon Princes do. I understand better now. I am more ruthless
myself—"

"Yes," he said, and slid his
hands down her arms before pulling away entirely. "And will Faerie go to war
for Hell? When the time comes?"

"Did Hell go to war for Faerie?"
She let her breath hiss from her nostrils, cold again. He almost saw the frost
dew her lip. "I think not." She lowered her voice and stepped closer.
Heads bent together, speaking softly, without histrionics, they made a far less
interesting center of attention. She turned, and paced away. He followed.
"He really thinks
this
is the time to reopen that argument?"

"He has," Keith said, with a
self-dismissing wave of his hand, "secured the services of a Dragon Prince.
Hopeless causes a
speciality."

She sighed, and looked at him, and he
looked right back. "Infuriating man."

Somewhere, he found a smile that was positively
sunny, and gave it to her. "Hey. There's hope for your heart yet."

Her frowning regard, arms crossed, was
punctuated by drifting heat and the unexpected stink of brimstone. She turned
to investigate, but Keith had already located the source. He'd been smelling it
for almost a minute. It was only the hot iron miasma that accompanied a
slightly younger devil than Lucifer Morningstar, the bright air groaning under
the shadow of his wings as he descended, flames licking around his flesh.

His was a fumarole air, the devil of
Milton. He settled amidst the crowd, unattended by familiar demons, and cast
around himself. "And where
is
my brother?" he asked, quite
pleasantly. An invitation fluttered in manicured claws.