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  She looked just like the Father. Like his twin.

  Raziel’s voice continued in pained whispers. “It was no mere coincidence that I chose you to be the Archon. Now, Angela, you have returned to where you belong. The Grail was always yours. The Eye was always your Eye. Now, you are becoming whole again. The blue blood in your veins is your true blood, returned to you. This is the TRUTH.”

  Now the mirror of her soul reflected other things as well. They were memories, erupting like forgotten nightmares. Where had they hidden within her for so long? Yet without a doubt, they’d always been there, buried, submerged. There was the glory of space and the sensation of warmth and protection. Then, Angela was being ripped away from some sheltering womb, crushed and mangled and torn to pieces. Every part of her screamed with agony as bones crunched and muscles shredded, and her eye—oh, the horrific pain in her eye—

  She clasped it, moaning.

  The memories continued, and in them her blood spattered. Her veins gaped open. Worst of all, her soul dropped into some deep and bottomless darkness. First there was the noise of rushing water, then nothing. Such horrible, horrible nothingness.

  She was dead and still dying, and she continued dying in every cycle of time as if the tragedy could never end or change. But the Eye torn from her could still see. Finally, it watched the creation of Lucifel, Raziel, and Israfel from the mangled remains of her old body. It observed the deaths of countless angels as it swung on its chain from Lucifel’s neck. It bled and the precious blood within it became the Glaive, slicing and destroying all that was lesser, which was everything. Then Raziel stole it. He brought the Eye down into an Underworld of gloom and misery, giving it to the Jinn as a promise for hope. There, Angela’s former Eye saw nothing but pain and starvation. There, it absorbed more darkness, until all it seemed to ever know was darkness.

  Meanwhile her soul waited, and waited, and waited, and waited in the measureless Abyss.

  Until another cycle of tragedy was almost over—and it was time to put an end to it once and for all.

  “Eons, millennia, centuries of this cycle of time had passed,” Raziel’s voice echoed faintly. “Human beings existed and continued to evolve as well. They were different than angels, however. Their spirits were more resilient, more apt to adapt and survive the cruelest changes. I knew that. So I chose one, to hold your ancient soul, and I—who died so miserably for that truth—rested beside you in the same body and protected you from harm until the end came at last. And you were born again into the world, with a new name, and the blood-red hair that sadly marked you as cursed and wicked. You had to exist again, because you were the only creature with the powerful soul that could overturn a well-established cycle of pain.”

  Sophia’s face appeared before Angela now. But it was less doll-like, and dazzlingly beautiful, and so unearthly that no human word could describe it.

  Angela couldn’t bear much more.

  But she had to open her real eyes. She had to continue on. Angela’s past was a horror to her—and a pain worse than any before or since; but even though she no longer knew herself, she did know her new family and friends. That was enough to awaken her for the end that was now to come.

  They’re ready to fight for you, Raziel said in her mind. They’ve always been a part of you . . . and so will I.

  And with that thought, and the weapon that was her memory, more scintillating and sharp than the Glaive could ever be, Angela opened her eyes to the end.

  PART FOUR

  Ruin

  One Hour until the Great Silence

  Every possible life to be lived ends here,

  in the place where silence was born.

  Thirty-one

  HEAVEN IALDABOTH IN THE NEXUS, THE NEST OF GOD

  Israfel clutched at his head, trying to wish away the throbbing agony as Lucifel’s shadow relentlessly worked and worked to destroy his body one cell at a time.

  This was the end, and he would either survive it with the precious child within him intact, or he wouldn’t. The syringes he’d used for so many centuries to help inject the Father’s healing blue blood into his veins were no longer available. He now had to survive in a more animalistic and humiliating way.

  How long had he been lying nearly broken to death in the middle of a bone-cold floor, drinking blood from a corpse, all to keep his dream of redemption for the universe alive?

  This was all just one long nightmare, he had to tell himself. Soon it will be over forever. But he’d thought that way for millennia and it had gotten him nowhere. Ultimately, in the saddest irony, it had merely led him back to the painful past where he’d begun. Even so, Israfel had no strength to move and no more will to fight. There was only one throbbing thought in his soul: he had to stay alive for everyone else’s sake.

  He clutched his stomach, feeling the chick inside moving again.

  The Nexus was darker than he remembered, even though Israfel had freed himself from both it and Ialdaboth’s empty horrors only a year ago. There were no more stars to gaze upon. Those had probably faded and died by now in the approaching apocalypse. But a dull, reddish light threw itself from the crystal walls that made up the Nest of God. This place had familiar things, though perhaps only by an angel’s or a demon’s standards: a floor, darkness, walls, stone and crystal, and the faint, faint light of billions of souls floating out in dark nothingness, beyond the endless honeycomb of the matrix that now imprisoned him again. They could be seen as if through octagonal portholes, bobbing and dancing ceaselessly. But they were now home. There was nowhere better or worse to go than here, even though Israfel had tried finding a place and had, at the very least, been determined on making one.

  Israfel’s eyes bled again.

  Warmth and redness blurred his vision. He reached up to wipe away the mess with trembling hands.

  If only he could see or know what Angela was doing right now. If only he could know whether Angela was one step closer to opening the Book of Raziel at all.

  A large and strong hand stroked Israfel’s feathery hair. He froze, shaking violently, and his thoughts screeched to a halt. His wings stiffened and he gasped for breath. All he could hear was the Father’s slow, echoing breath close by. He knew it was all an illusion brought on by his dying mind. Scenes from the past were replaying themselves, and Israfel could do nothing to stop them.

  A great shadow loomed over him. Fabric rustled as someone sat down beside Israfel and a great robe slid across the floor.

  “You thought that you’d killed me,” the voice next to him said chidingly.

  I did. I did kill you. You’re nothing but a ghost now, Israfel’s brain screamed. Stop touching me. If you don’t stop, I’ll go mad again.

  But he said nothing, quietly listening to the phantom words in his terror.

  Now it struck him—where was the Angelus song that had always echoed so faintly in the background of Ialdaboth and creation? Why couldn’t Israfel hear it anymore?

  In the world of the living, only the winged ears of the Supernals could hear it at all. That was why the wings existed there in the first place. On and on, that song had always continued like a gentle humming in the back of Israfel’s brain. He’d always sensed that he was supposed to continue the song, to help spread its notes in his own special way. Instead, he’d nearly forgotten the true meaning of most of the lyrics.

  Who had sung it first, though? Even he didn’t have the answers.

  All he knew was that the Father had nothing do with it. The Father had hated that song, and every time Israfel had dared part his lips to join in the refrain, he’d been punished for it cruelly. He shuddered, remembering his pain.

  Now mad laughter thundered out of the Father who in reality lay dead beside Israfel.

  It rang in all its darkness, as if it could spread more waves of disease farther out into the universe with every second that passed.

  “Israfel,” the Father said in his peerlessly perfect voice, plucked straight from Israfel’s worst memories
, “what will I do with you? How many cages does it take to tame a bird? How many times did I tell you that you’re mine, and mine alone? You do understand you’ve left me so . . . so disappointed. I have so many wounds from the many times you stabbed me, Israfel. It seemed to take forever to drag myself to this spot while I bled so profusely and so much. That was your thanks for how I kept you alive for so long, even after Lucifel poisoned you, and the treasure inside of you . . .”

  Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me, Israfel’s mind screamed again. He breathed harder.

  The unreal caress through his hair grew rougher.

  “And my blood,” the Father continued ominously, “was the only thing to keep you alive. You always used to try to spit it back at me, until I forced your mouth open. After that you knew what was good for you.” There was a meaningful pause. “So much so, that you murdered me for it to keep yourself and our child alive.”

  Israfel clenched his fingers. A terrible insanity began to well up within him.

  His fingers shook. His heart quivered, and he repeated Raziel’s name in his mind, trying to picture the Supernal’s gentle face and deep blue eyes.

  You are beautiful, Israfel, Raziel’s voice said in his soul. The words echoed back from the past. Remember . . . you know what must be done to redeem yourself . . .

  “Don’t listen to him,” the Father said. “You know that someone like yourself can’t find salvation.”

  Now the hand that had been caressing Israfel switched tactics, turning him so that he had no choice but to gaze back into his false Creator’s terrible green eyes, and perfect androgynous face, lined by all its flawlessly symmetrical stripes.

  Israfel closed his eyes, but when he opened them, the hallucination continued.

  What insects did humans hate? Hornets? Wasps?

  Israfel’s Creator was like a wasp fading with autumn’s approach, and the universe had been his hive. The Father’s immense, seemingly innumerable wings fanned above Israfel like death in shades of bronze, crimson, and black. His wounded body was slender but immense, strong but delicate, and he was perfect but also so terrible to behold now that all his beauty was marred and disfigured by Israfel’s frantic violence. His robe could have been made of night and ink, and he wore no adornments and didn’t need any. His curtain of long, pin-straight dark hair was enough, and his face matched Angela’s except for the all-consuming fire burning behind his eyes.

  A twin . . . a twin . . . the Father had a twin?

  Israfel’s soul shuddered. Pain lanced through all his dying veins, and then his angelic mind grasped everything once again with a full and clear light. That was why Angela looked like the Father. That was why her soul had always been a mystery. That was what Raziel had known that led to his death . . . that led to . . .

  It all crashed upon Israfel at once as if for the first time. Anger iced into a lump of hatred in his heart, he grew numb inside, and his life, and his choices, and all his sins blew back in his face like a burning wind that, even so, failed to melt that ice.

  God was not God. The Father was just playing God, pretending to be God, acting as God. Whoever and wherever God happened to be, this rotting monstrosity wasn’t Him. He was an imposter.

  “You murdered Raziel,” Israfel said with a slow coldness that surprised even him. He knew he was talking only to himself, to a dream, yet he dared to sit up a little and think of even more to say. His dirty coat hung dejectedly on his body, exposing one of his shoulders. His wings stiffened.

  “I murdered who?” the Father whispered, stroking Israfel’s death-white hair.

  “Raziel . . .” Israfel said blankly, relishing the name and how it rekindled the spot of light left in his soul.

  The Father’s eyes narrowed. He drew his hand away. “No one needed his arrogance and meddling anymore,” he said softly. “You least of all. I didn’t need your eyes turning to Raziel instead of me, my Israfel. I didn’t need you to know the truth. Even if Lucifel knew. Yes, yes, eventually she knew. But I grew to detest her long before that. I always enjoyed how you both grew to hate each other. I enjoyed the pain in Lucifel’s eyes when I denied her love from the start. I always had wondered what would happen—you see, I had so much time to wonder—if a creature grew up without love. I found out with her horrid little Revolution, and when she took the Grail from me. You, Israfel, were all I had left after that . . .”

  He turned back around and grabbed Israfel by the chin, gently but oh so menacingly at the same time.

  “You never needed a family. You only needed me. I was your home. I was the source of everything. Why do you think you’re back here with me after so long?”

  Israfel couldn’t even think. He could only adopt the cold, cold mask of so many eons. The one that hid pain and fear and held promises of justice.

  Justice, justice, justice, his mind said over and over. Beyond those words, he could see Raziel’s mangled wings and broken body as he plummeted to his death.

  “And look what we’ve created together, you and I,” the Father said silkenly. He brushed a finger across Israfel’s stomach. “You thought you had no purpose in life, beautiful Israfel. So I gave it to you. You’re not male or female. You’re like me. You are the last piece of the twin I murdered, and the one that resembled him most. It’s hardly fair you have your own soul. But such things are dealt with gently, one step at a time.

  “I dare say, from the look on your face, you’ve almost lost the little bit of your spirit left to you. That was always the point. I promise that once every last shred is gone, you’ll know what happiness is. The death of any dream is never easy. But you and so many other creatures are moths that I pinched between my fingers, holding you to the flame. You twisted and writhed, but eventually, always, you succumbed.”

  Footsteps broke the silence that rang after those final words.

  Israfel paused. His heart hardly dared to beat.

  The Father paused, his own winged ears stiff with what could only be disbelief as he turned to regard their unexpected visitor. From out of the dismal shadows of what had once been their Eden, Lucifel emerged into view like bleakness forming itself into a person. She looked ravaged. Her wings bled, and she breathed hard, clutching a gaping wound in her arm.

  She’d clenched her teeth, baring them as she sucked back what must have been great pain.

  She shared one quick pitiless glance with Israfel and then regarded her God—who was not really anyone’s God at all—with a face reflecting his death. Her crimson eyes flashed in the darkness.

  “YOU,” the Father growled at her with all the wickedness of a billion Jinn. Or was it Israfel who spoke? He no longer knew. His own anger was like a storm cloud seething on the horizon for far too long and as he drew closer to death, reality escaped. “I knew you would try to come back. Did you think I wouldn’t foresee that?”

  But Lucifel paid no attention because of course she wasn’t sharing in Israfel’s hallucination at all. She never moved, but continued staring at the Father’s broken and bloodstained corpse like a lost lover or a bewildered child.

  Israfel couldn’t bear looking at her beseeching face.

  It was the same face he remembered from his days as a chick, when the Father had shunned her so mercilessly. But just as quickly, Lucifel lost the fleeting innocent expression of her past. Her bloodless features hardened again and her jaw set. “You’re still alive,” she whispered to Israfel, though he heard her voice all too loudly. “Even after all your time by this corpse, Israfel, you still refuse to become one yourself. Why must you make me do this? Why must I put an end to that miserable child within you by myself?”

  Israfel shifted his gaze to a spot in the darkness where a deeper blackness had appeared on top of it, like a hole overlaying reality. Someone else had crossed the Realm of Malakhim to enter Ialdaboth, even though no one should have been able to do so anymore.

  His eyes widened. Israfel’s breath caught.

  Angela’s face was unreadable as she stepped into the lig
ht, as she looked at what had become of Lucifel, and then Israfel, and last of all, the Father.

  Her gaze met with Israfel’s and he shuddered in spite of himself. She no longer looked like the Angela he’d known. Her hair was now as white as Israfel’s and both her eyes had achieved the brilliant green of the Grail. Or at least it had seemed that way, because Israfel’s vision warped again, and she quickly returned to the red-haired woman he’d always encountered. Angela already had the Glaive in her hands, fully formed. Her left shoulder bled. Her teeth chattered, perhaps from pain. Her expression spoke of nightmares and she barely seemed able to stand.

  She held out the Glaive slowly and majestically anyway so that its deadly point aimed right at Lucifel.

  “I’m here,” Angela said resoundingly. Her body heaved for breath. “And now I’m going to reclaim what’s mine.”

  Thirty-two

  The words had barely escaped Angela’s mouth when everything went wrong.

  Every brave and noble scenario that went through her head devolved in one instant as an insane blackness that Angela knew to be Lucifel slammed her in agony to the ground.

  She could no longer see Israfel or the terrible corpse of the creature that had once been her twin. She couldn’t even rely on the feathered serpent for help anymore. It had left her and Lucifel shortly after they’d arrived and the force of entering this Realm drove them temporarily apart. The last Angela saw of it, the serpent had been weaving through the stars that remained hanging like dim lamps in the ether of space.

  Help was impossible now anyway.

  Angela knew she was about to die and everything was falling apart. Already, strange holes were appearing in the space where she and Lucifel and Israfel stood. Without a doubt, the Realms had started to disintegrate.

  “This was all your fault!” Lucifel’s voice thundered like murder in Angela’s ears. “All of it! Everything!”