On the other side of the door, Elena’s enraged shrieks cut off mid-venomous insult. He was sure she was still carrying on in there, like a child deprived of its favorite toy, but at least he would have to listen to it no longer.
Sammael leaned his throbbing head against the cool wood, shocked to feel the burn of tears behind his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried—well, yes, he could. It had been millennia ago, when Lilith had left him. He had cried, and he had pleaded with her, and in the end, it had been for nothing. He’d been left with a marble statue of the woman he loved, a son who despised him, and the knowledge that Lilith was so desperate to be free of him that she’d done the one thing she knew he could never, ever forgive: taken Gadreel to her bed.
Behind every terrible thing in his life—the loss of Lilith, the rise of the Darkness, the corruption of Elena—lurked the Dark Angel of War.
Well, no longer. With Elena imprisoned, Sammael could turn his attention to what mattered: defeating the Darkness and bringing Gadreel down.
He would call a meeting, he decided—one to which Gadreel would not be invited. It would require reassembling his scrying room and reinvigorating the water within, but those were just details, easily handled. He had minions for such things, and they had grown complacent, what with Sammael’s recent distraction. They were overdue for a task such as this.
Yes, he would assemble a meeting of all interested parties…and he believed they would be very interested indeed to discover how Gadreel had betrayed them all, how he had been the one to loose the Darkness. Sammael would make his case, and one by one, he would win them to his side. And then, with Gadreel’s legions at his command, he would ally with Dimi Ivanova to save her Shadow, drive the Darkness back, and cast the Dark Angel of War into the Void.
Victory would be sweet, indeed.
“Abahoth!” he called, and down the hall, his loyal steward’s head—well, heads, if you wanted to be literal about it—popped out of the cubbyhole he called an office.
“You have need of me, sir?”
Feeling more like himself than he had since this debacle began, Sammael squared his shoulders. “I do indeed. Fetch your quill and parchment, and make haste. I have an urgent task for you.”
The steward scurried away, the snakes atop each of his heads murmuring gleefully about lists, and Sammael repressed a smile. He would handle this. He would fix everything.
If Alekhin had an unfortunate accident in the process, well, such things happened. The Shadow would give his life in the name of a good cause, and be a hero among his kind. Songs would be written about him; perhaps Sammael would hire a bard in his honor. Either way, the black dog his Vila clung to so desperately would be no more.
And with the Shadow and the Darkness gone, Elena would be restored to her former self. She would be his, and his alone.
He would make sure of it.
Chapter Twelve
NIKO
They shoved him through the door of a cell, hard enough that, with his hands cuffed, he lost his balance and fell to his knees on the jagged stones. The door slammed shut behind him, and the key clicked in the lock. Footsteps retreated, and he clocked them as he’d been trained to do: Berezin’s, a slight hitch in his gait from an old wound, and Morozov’s, lighter, quicker. Their boots thudded on the stones, retreating into the distance until, at last, he was alone.
Niko remained on his knees in his damp clothes, his vision adjusting to the darkness. There wasn’t so much as a window in this cell, and the air was fetid and still. Was this what they had done to his Dimi, too—locked her away, deprived her of air and sunlight? Treated her like a criminal, rather than as the brave, beautiful warrior who’d braved the Underworld for him?
The thought filled him with fury, and with an effort, he fought it back. He didn’t know much about the shades that had streamed from his fingers four times now, but one thing he did know was that, every time, they’d been accompanied by a heightened emotion: protectiveness, anger, desire. If he could control his emotions, then maybe he could control them. Because every time he freed them, a little more of himself slipped away. Enough times, and there would be nothing left of him but the Dark.
And then you will be the perfect mate for me, Elena crooned inside his head. You were always meant for me. Never her?—
Gritting his teeth, he dug his nails into his palms until he drew blood. It hurt, as it was meant to, but it also silenced her. He’d bleed himself a little more every day if it would make her leave him alone. It could be a race to see what ran out first: his lifeblood, or his soul, devoured by the Darkness.
Truly, though, he felt…strange. Stranger than usual, that is, as if whatever was anchoring him aboveground was faltering, somehow. As if he were flickering in and out of existence.
He glanced down at his hands, still clenched into fists, then spread his fingers wide. As best as he could make out in the gloom, he was still very much here. The edges of the stones still dug into his knees, the cold of what must be Rivki’s dungeons still seeped through his sodden gear, the stench of the air still polluted his lungs. But then why did he feel so adrift?
He forced himself to his feet, turned, and staggered toward the front of the cell. The cuffs allowed him to spread his hands just enough to grip the adjoining bars, and he held tight, despite the burn of the onyx welded into the iron. There would be no Changing inside this cell, not that he would be able to escape even in the form of his black dog. He didn’t know why they’d bothered to chain him. But the burn anchored him, much as the pain had.
He would find a way to fight, somehow. He would loop his chains around the necks of the Shadows that had imprisoned and humiliated him, and he would choke the life from them, until they were the ones on their knees. A smile lifted his lips at the thought…and then died as quickly as it had come.
The Shadows of the Druzhina had disgraced and mistreated him, true. They had done Saints-knew-what to Katerina. But was he really thinking of killing them—his brothers in arms, who fought only in the name of the Light? Before Elena’s curse had claimed him, would he have considered such a thing, even in the face of such rough treatment?
With a low growl, he spun away from the bars and retreated to the back of the cell. Exhaustion pulled at him, and he lay down on the cold stone, closing his eyes. Maybe if he centered himself, if he thought hard enough, he could figure a way out of this somehow.
He reached for Katerina through their bond, hoping for reassurance that she lived. If these bastards had killed her, it would break him.
In the interrogation chamber, he’d felt little…just the barest sense that she still walked the earth, keeping him from losing his mind entirely. But now, he could swear he heard her calling to him, summoning him. He let himself drift, reaching for her as sleep swept over him with the force of a wave, pulling him under. If I dream, he thought, let me dream of her.
For a moment, there was nothing. Darkness, silence. And then, a rushing sensation, as if he were tipping over the edge of a waterfall, flying, falling, bodiless.
