Chapter Seven
Reluctance had a strong pair of hands, holding me in the pew, unprepared to leave the sanctuary yet. If the men wereright, we wouldn’t be safe until we convinced Medusa to help us. I didn’t understand thewhyof it all, but I also didn’t understand the multiverse of realms, the motivations of gods, the chess game of humanity, or why I’d been chosen for the center of it all.
“You ready, Marmar?” Azrames asked.
I glanced at the bottle of wine in my hands. “Just a minute.”
I hated airports, and I dreaded leaving the safety of the crumbling chapel, even if it was for the greater good. I didn’t want to go out into the world with oxygen-snatching, eyeball-gouging, locust-sending losers fluttering around. We still had three days, and it felt like they were bending the rules.
Everyone checked their wallets to ensure they had their IDs. I had an Amex to supplement everything else.
With our chaperones at the ready, there was only one thing left to do.
To my surprise, it was Azrames who looked nervous.
“I’ve already spoken to her,” Priscilla said, voice reassuring. “We met in meditation at length before I left my house. She pushed me to be here for Marlow. Whatever this is, I’m meant to play a role. I’m little more than her boots on theground.”
“The Spider Queen?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “Meeting with the Spider Queen is like meeting with Yahweh. We don’t do it directly, not in this sense. People who worship Yahweh pray to his angels, his saints, his son. They don’t expect the high god himself to show up. When it comes to the Spider Queen, she has her agents of fate, but she is destiny embodied.
“One of the demons I work with is worthy of equal respect, but just like your friends here, she’s able to be more hands-on. Maybe you know her? She’s among the Infernal Divine.”
Azrames nodded uncertainly, and I recognized a face I’d seen only once before. He had been on similar, uncertain footing upon meeting Caliban in Bellfield.
I lifted a finger. “Who is this? And by how much do they outrank Azrames?”
Priscilla, Silas, and Az all flinched at my choice in words. I’d taken a stab at humor, but I clearly had no sense for the gravity of certain words.
“Everyone with a title outranks me,” Az said.
Attempting to spread balm on my mistake, I made a sympathetic face. “I guess that’s one thing you and Silas have in common?” I waited on bated breath to see if my attempt at even the smallest of repairs made purchase, and I exhaled my relief at the small smile Silas shot Azrames’s way. We were a bunch of title-free nobodies.
“Ihada title,” Silas said dryly.
“I’ve always wanted to meet Duchess Vapula,” Xuân said, redirecting the conversation. “She’s sometimes a he, right? Duke or Duchess?”
“I love them already,” Kirby said.
“You’ll love her” came Priscilla’s reassurance. To the rest of us, she explained, “She appears to me as a woman. She’s a ruling member of the Ars Goetia, with thirty-six legions beneath her.”
We shuffled together a few of the church’s half-melted candles and passed them off to Priscilla for her summoning space. The others busied themselves helping with the setup, which gave me a moment to talk to the other witch.
I angled for Xuân. “You don’t work with…” I tried to remember the language the two of them had used when referencing demons.
“Infernals,” Xuân provided. “No, but I’ve called in a member of the Infernal Divine a time or two for transactional encounters. I’m Hafu. Half Vietnamese, half Japanese. Vietnam gave me my name; Japan gave me my gods.”
I fidgeted, searching for the word. “Shinto?”
She nodded. “The Kami are the deities. Shinto is the name of the religion. Omoikane is the one I pray to for wisdom, but they’re in the major Kami, and if I had to guess, I’d preempt that they’d tell me positioning myself against the world’s biggest gods is unwise. Kagutsuchi is a minor goddess of fire. I’ve worked with them for a while, and I suspect they might be down to burn things to the ground. Kisshoten is who we’re really going to want on our side.”
“Kisshoten?” I repeated, embarrassed with my botched pronunciation. I’d spent years learning Spanish, but trying to impress Xuân by telling her I was irrelevantly bilingual was as ridiculous as showing up in Poland to inform them I could speak French. Ignorance was ignorance.
“The goddess of good fortune. If we want to win, we want luck and favorability on our side. Her fingers in the pot could be the difference between wins and losses.”
Priscilla looked over her shoulder. “Why don’t you give her a call? I think maybe I should talk to the Duchess alone at first.”
Xuân barely had time to agree before Nia and Kirby began to scavenge the church for more candles. One witch headed for the annex with her supplies, and the other disappeared through the hall, but the crumpled building didn’t offer the privacy one might desire.
