The two angels were gone.
12
“Then they survived,” Pierce said, nibbling on the back of his thumb. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Did you see how that Baradiel guy just plucked my dagger out of his body? Like a splinter.”
I shook my head, pacing up and down my bedroom. It was where I came to unwind, where I felt most at ease, next to the Repository. But creature comforts and Pierce’s anxiety were not a great match.
“Just a splinter,” I said. “Like it was nothing. I’ve seen you throw blades before. That should have brought him to his knees.”
“Cool. Cool, cool.” Pierce was gnawing his nails ragged. He was always so cool-headed and confident, except when he wasn’t, and those were the times when I knew I had real reason to worry. “The dagger should have done a number on him. But you skewered him with a whole shaft of wood. By accident, sure, but that should have killed him.”
“Appreciate the backhanded compliment, but what the hell else were we supposed to do? I could have melted the wall, but going with the nuclear option felt like the right choice at the time.”
Pierce blinked at me, too busy chewing at his nails to say anything, but his eyes were expressive enough. Had it been the right thing to do, though? I wondered if I could have killed the angels at all.
My door swung open to a flurry of parchments and paper, Dantaleon noisily announcing his arrival as he burst in. I glowered at him. “Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?”
He flew across the entryway, through the living area, then into the bedroom proper, taking his sweet time. “This isn’t a time for etiquette. At least not from me, Master Quilliam. I’m afraid that this does not bode well for you.”
“Sure doesn’t,” I grumbled. “I didn’t know angels were going to be involved. I don’t fancy the idea of having them breathing down my neck everywhere I go, now.”
“Mine, neither,” Pierce said, glancing uncertainly at Dantaleon. “Did you manage to look up the names, Big D?”
The book shuddered, like he was bristling with offense. “I’ve told you not to call me that. And I didn’t have to look for long. Baradiel and Nuriel are angels of hailstorms.”
“Angels?” Pierce folded his arms. “As in plural. How many angels does it take to make a hailstorm?”
“Very funny,” Dantaleon murmured. “It’s how things work for those celestials. Multiple angels working under the same portfolio, some handling different facets, others working on the same aspects of the things they are meant to herald and represent. The way, for example, that this Adriel is, or rather was, an angel of death.”
“Not ‘the’ angel of death,” I added. “That much I know. I already dislike the idea of us fighting angels, but to be up against an archangel, someone like Azrael? Pass.”
“Correct. Then you have been paying attention to your lessons. Color me surprised. Though again, it is most unfortunate that you let all three of them survive.”
“Again,” I said evenly, staring Dantaleon down, as best as I could stare down a book with no eyes or other discernible features. “I repeat. We didn’t know angels were going to be involved.”
“And how does that matter in the least?”
My blood froze. That voice had come from my mirror. I turned towards it slowly, already knowing that Asmodeus would have a few choice things to say to me about my failures. She glared at me from out of the polished silver, wearing the same skin as before, the rubies dripping down her chest somehow more menacing this time, redder than blood.
“Leave us,” she commanded, her voice a chilling rasp as it echoed around my bedchambers. Pierce sprang to his feet and went for the door wordlessly, his head lowered. Dantaleon followed, fluttering in his wake.
“Mother,” I said, my voice hoarse, the sweat already cold on my palms. “I can explain.”
“Very well. Explain why you allowed not one, not two, but three angels to survive. Did I not tell you to eliminate the Thirteenth Choir?”
“You did, yes, but Pierce and I didn’t realize that – ”
“No. Do not get Pierce involved. This was your responsibility, your mission. When I told you to wipe out the cult, I meant for you to exterminate them. How was that not made clear?”
I burned to scream at her, to smash the mirror with a spell, but instead I fell back on old behaviors. I could be a total bastard in any other area of my life, come out smelling of roses, entire orchards of them. But with Asmodeus, I knew I wouldn’t ever win.
“They outnumbered us,” I muttered.
“The humans didn’t count,” she said. “Mere fodder, kindling for your fire. So that leaves three angels against two demons. And one of those angels was crippled, wingless, and you still couldn’t finish the job.”
I still didn’t know how that hung together – two ice angels not merely working with, but seemingly ordering around an earthbound angel of death.
“Then we underestimated them. Mother, you must understand. You didn’t even tell us that angels were going to be involved. I could have been prepared.”
“How was I to know, Quilliam? Am I an oracle, am I all-knowing? No. Anticipation and preparation were meant to be part of your education. When will you ever learn to adapt? Have Dantaleon’s years of lessons been for nothing? Do you think that we will have foreknowledge when the day comes for you to mount an assault on everyone who opposes us?”
“I didn’t think – ”
“No,” she said coldly. “Of course you didn’t. You never do, Quilliam.” She lifted her nose, looking at me down the bridge of it. “You have disappointed me for the last time.”
“Please, Mother. Don’t.”
The tips of her hair rose, as if the
