Page 7 of The Malevolent Eight
I glanced back at Alice and Aradeus to make sure they were ready for a fight. Corrigan and Shame had already expended a great deal of their magic against the Infernals, and Galass could barely stand. As for Temper, well, you know: bloodthirsty kangaroo. I reached into the pocket of my azure coat and fished out the smallest silver coin I had– it also made a decent conduit for spells– and tossed it at the feet of the possessed angelic. ‘Okay, lady. Tell me my future.’
Her initial silence made me wonder if the Lord Celestine with the burning fingers was trying to reestablish control over his minion– until the hand withered to wisps of grey and crimson smoke, leaving behind only a small pile of ashes on the angelic’s shoulder, which she promptly brushed away. ‘That’s better. Those Lords Celestine really need to get a sense of humour. Now, as for you, Cade– you and your. . . what are you called again?’
‘The Malevolent Seven,’ Aradeus said– and yes, of course he bowed.
‘The MalevolentfuckingSeven,’ Corrigan corrected.
The angelic chuckled. It was a pleasant laugh, although for some reason it felt to me kind of like church bells tolling my imminent demise. ‘Well, my magnificent new friends, my prediction is that you’ll all live long, happy lives. . . so long as you learn to mind your own fucking business.’ Absently, she gestured to the other three Valiants. ‘Leave these numbskulls to their war. Trust me, it’ll be better for all of us in the long run.’
‘Sure. No problem.’ I raised my right hand. ‘On behalf of the Malevolent Seven, we hereby swear and avow to cease any and all interference in the war between the Aurorals and Infernals.’ I made a show of looking around the gallows. ‘If anyone’s got a pen, I’m happy to put it in writing.’
The possessed angelic laughed again. ‘You know, you’re funnier than you were back then.’
‘Back when?’
Golden curls danced across perfect rose-tinted cheekbones as she shook her head. ‘Ah, ah, ah. It’s ungentlemanly to expect a girl to reveal all her secrets on the first date, Cade. You’ll have to guess.’
‘How about a hint?’
She favoured me with a smile which was not at all angelic. ‘Fine, one hint. If you want to know when we first met, go and ask your old—’
The leader of the Valiants was clearly getting bored. ‘Enough!’ he bellowed, drawing a glowing sword from a scabbard that hadn’t been at his waist until that very moment. ‘Whatever ruse the two of you are attempting, this blasphemy endsnow!’
Fucking moron, I swore silently.Just like a valiant to completely botch an interrogation.
‘A ruse?’ the possessed angelic asked. ‘Destiny isn’t trickery, you silly boy. It’s inevitability. It’s preordained.’ To me she asked, ‘Did you know that another word for destiny is doom? Here’s an interesting fact that all those theologians somehow failed to include in their religious texts that claim to reveal the natural order of the universe: every sentient being creates three dooms for themselves. With each decision we make, we bring ourselves closer to one of those three endings.’ She tapped her chest. ‘This pretty little angelic here? Even without a proper soul she’s still got three different destinies awaiting her. Poetic, don’t you think?’
‘I prefer erotic poetry,’ Corrigan put in.
The possessed angelic shot him a saucy grin and cocked her hip suggestively. ‘Too bad death by excessive orgasm is only one of your three dooms then, handsome. The other two. . . well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Maybe if you’re especially nice to me I’ll let you pick which of them comes true.’
That was either an entirely inappropriate proposition to make in the middle of a stand-off, or a claim to a kind of power unheard of in any esoteric realm I’d ever encountered. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not how destiny works,’ I broke in, in an attempt to goad whoever was possessing the angelic.
‘Oh? Shall we test that theory?’ Her hand dropped to her side, fingers weaving idly as if she were recalling an old song. ‘How about, instead of waiting to discover which doom awaits this particular angelic, we simply choose one and bring it to the here and now?’
A shadow began to form on the wooden planks beneath her feet. I glanced eastwards, confirming that the angle of the sun was entirely wrong for casting shadows upon the gallows.
Another of the Valiants pointed. ‘Why. . . why is the shape contorted like that?’
‘Haven’t you been listening?’ the possessed angelic asked. ‘That’s one of her three dooms. Six hundred years from now, she goes mad with grief and attacks a fellow Valiant, only to be slain by a sword through her stomach. Angelics being such useless creatures, my question is, why wait?’
Without warning, she’d spun on her heel and was extending both palms to the sky. Golden talons long as curved daggers burst from her fingertips as she drove them into the other Valiant’s eyes. He screamed in agony, limbs twitching until they lost all strength. She held him upright, the fingers of one hand still embedded into his eye sockets.
‘Now, you. . .’ She gestured with her free hand to the leader of the Valiants. ‘Well, not you specifically, since you were never going to live another six hundred years. No, you’ll be dead in about two minutes. But for now, go ahead and take the place of the Glorian Justiciar who executes her. He draws a blade just like the one you’re holding. Now listen– this part’s important– as he stabs her in the belly, he shouts in righteous fury—’
‘May the Void take you, traitor!’ the leader of the Valiants bellowed as he impaled the angelic he’d called ‘sister’ only moments before.
Back when I rode with the Glorian Justiciars, I’d witnessed the damage Celestine-blessed blades inflicted on everyday, run-of-the-mill psychopathic wonderists on a rampage. The weapons burn with fiery golden curses meant to purge the opponent of their sins– which is bad enough. In practice, it’s rather more gruesome: the sinliterallyburns through the unfortunate victim, melting their flesh like candle wax until it drips from their bones.
What I’d never seen was the result when one angelic Valiant stabs another with a ‘blessed’ sword.
‘What. . . what is happening to her?’ asked Galass, looking nauseous. ‘It’s as if her skin is—’
When a blood mage is too horrified to finish a sentence, you know it’s got to be pretty bad.
Angelics are forged from raw ecclesiasm, the stuff of consciousness which, according to Corrigan, screwed up what would’ve been a perfectly peaceful universe by bringing sentience into being. In the case of angelics, that ecclesiasm was purified by the Lords Celestine, making these beings incapable of sinful acts in body and mind, since their every thought is bounded by the twelve Celestine Virtues of humility, justice, abnegation, rationality and so on.
The angelic being without sin, the golden bladeshouldhave passed cleanly through without leaving so much as an unsightly scab– except, thisparticularangelic had been possessed. We’ll have to ignore the fact that possession should have been impossible, since Valiants are perpetually attuned to the Auroral Song. Anyway, whichever power had enabled the wonderist possessing her to burn away the guiding hand of a Lord Celestine was now waging spiritual war against the angelic’s own nature.
