Chapter Twenty-Seven
DRAVEN MADE HIS WAY to the back of the dimly lit bar to where Gabe had disappeared behind a beaded drape earlier. He stopped at the narrow entryway and stepped to the side to obscure himself from view.
“I can’t, Gabe. You don’t understand. This is the only way I can give you all a chance.”
Clearly drunk, Sebastian sat on a high stool behind a pool table. The felt had dulled with age, and the leaded glass shade above it was cracked in places. He appeared to be propping himself up with the narrow end of a cue.
“You don’t have a choice,” Gabe scolded him from somewhere nearby but out of view.
“No. I don’t.”
Draven got the impression that Sebastian’s answer wasn’t in agreement to the same thing.
“Sebastian—” Gabe started gravely.
“Gabe, I am ordering you to back the hell up and let me handle this.” Sebastian’s words were cutting. Draven was sure he meant to sound firmer than he was capable of in his inebriated state.
Gabe came into view and made to snatch the glass from Sebastian’s hand. Even drunk, he was faster and pulled the tumbler out of reach, sloshing liquid onto the floor in the process.
“Not this time, old friend.” Gabe groaned, clearly irate at Sebastian’s behavior. “You are in no condition to be ordering anybody to do anything right now. You’ll more likely get yourself killed than protect anyone.”
“Probably,” Sebastian muttered and swallowed the remnants from his glass.
Draven listened to every word, wanting desperately to toe his sneakers off. At the same time, he knew he could never get comfortable in this part of town if he were shoeless. He might step into anything. His distraction interfered with his focus and his ability to separate all the sensations colliding in his body. He would smell emotions and taste the vibrations of sound in the air soon enough. Already, the subtle movements of the bodies around him made the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise.
He internally cursed Sebastian and leaned down to remove his sneakers and socks. Draven stood and almost sighed aloud at the relief flooding his body once he was barefoot again. The wave of awareness swept back like an outgoing tide, dulling all his senses to the point that he almost felt normal once more. He leaned his head back against the wooden partition and gave his full attention to the conversation beyond the hanging beads.
“You’re not making sense.” Gabe grunted from sheer exasperation.
Draven heard a ball roll down the length of the pool table and bounce off the cushion. It stopped abruptly, as if snatched up. Music buzzed from the jukebox, and with his hearing back to almost human capability, he just about missed Sebastian’s strained whisper entirely.
“It’s my fault.”
“We’ve been through this,” Gabe reasoned with him.
“She said it was my fault…” Sebastian’s voice cracked with emotion.
What the…is he crying?
“She said I could have stopped it all, if only I had spoken up, if I had cared enough about them, or about anyone besides myself. What kind of angel allows a massacre?”
There was a pause before Sebastian continued. Draven wasn’t convinced his ramblings would be of any use in finding out what he’d been up to. His eyes flickered momentarily toward Sandal working the bar and pretending they weren’t there at all. If it hadn’t been for meeting her, he would have chalked the entire evening up to a waste of his precious time.
“So you see, I have to do whatever I can now. There will be a battle, and I need the blade to send her back to the hole where she belongs.”
Draven heard Gabe pacing back and forth. “We’ve been through this, Sebastian. You know you can’t trust one word Lilith says. She’s working her way inside your head. You must let us help you.”
“Not Lilith.” Sebastian’s words were punctuated by a shuffling, as if he’d climbed down off his perch and staggered. He didn’t fall, and Draven presumed Gabe caught him.
“Not Lilith.” Sebastian laughed. “Do you think I would allow that monster to twist me into the knots I’ve been trying to unravel?”
“It looks like you are already unraveling, brother,” Gabe observed, sounding agitated.
Silence. There was nothing but pronounced silence between Gabe and Sebastian, not even breathing. Draven’s stomach sank with foreboding, and he likened it to the pause before the narcissistic villain exposed his devious plan. He rooted himself to the spot…waiting.
“Ananchel. Ananchel is the reason Lilith is here.”
Draven stiffened. Liar. Somehow, when every physical and emotional instinct told him to confront Sebastian with his vicious accusations…he couldn’t. His heart pounded against his ribcage, and a cold shiver clawed its way up his throat. It was as if concrete engulfed his lower body and held him down to the place where he stood. Nothing could make him move until he heard what Sebastian had to say.
“After the war, she was so angry…at me, at the Arch…at the world, who knows. She released Lilith and told her how to claim the Creation Blade.”
“The Creation Blade,” Gabe echoed, and Draven mouthed silently, biting back the snarl burning in his lungs.
“Ananchel wanted to destroy everything.” Sebastian chuckled blackly. “She remembers, but not fragments or dreamlike memories. Ananchel remembers everything. Her plan was to let Lilith get rid of the Arch and to reclaim heaven for us. Only, her plans changed; they became even grander. Now, Ananchel wants everything, and she wants me to help her get it.”
“Sebastian,” Gabe breathed, a quiet pity lancing his tone, “why would you keep this to yourself? What can you possibly hope to achieve? Draven has to know—”
There was more shuffling, followed by glass shattering against the floor.
“No, you can’t. I have to get the Creation Blade first.”
The ache in Sebastian’s voice sliced through Draven. Agony seemed to reverberate inside him. His own pain was a smoldering fire in a room filling with gas and ready to erupt to something uncontrollable at any moment.
“I need Ananchel to get the blade, and she will only help me if I give Candra up. If I concede to Draven.”
“Damn it, Sebastian, is that the reason you ripped her heart out?” Gabe asked.
“Ananchel is Draven’s twin. Who do you think he’ll side with? If I don’t get the blade, Lilith will take Candra. She wants her as her vessel. If I get the blade and trap Lilith, Candra will be with Draven, but at least she will still be herself. She will have a chance. Everyone will have a chance.”
“Really, Sebastian, do you have so little faith in her? What makes you or Ananchel think she will fall into his arms so easily?”
“She already has.” Sebastian snorted viciously.
“Because you pushed her. Admit it, you got scared, and this gave you the perfect opportunity to run. You should have trusted us. You need to talk to Draven.”
Draven had heard enough. He threw his jacket to the ground, stepped through the doorway, and wasted no time unfurling his blue-black wings. It made the dingy place look darker, blocking off what little light filtered through from the bar area and leaving only the muted glow from the lamp hanging over the pool table. Sebastian’s chain smoking made the air thick as fog on a winter morning. The scent immediately irritated Draven further. The sight in the midst of the cloud appalled him. Sebastian looked like death warmed over.
For a fraction of a second, Draven pitied him for how he loved Candra. Such a terrible burden for him to be so close to his desires that he could practically reach his fingers across the void and feel a vibration of them stir. To taste the need, but never be sated. To be on the fringe of heaven and forever denied. It made Draven glad he remembered only shades of what it was like for them before. To carry that for all time would be enough to drive a person insane.
Sebastian stumbled backward and caught himself on one of the high stools scattered around the room, shocking Draven further with the wide-eyed expression of terror that morphed his features into someone unrecognizable. He didn’t release his wings as Gabe did; he should have. Even with the liquor in his system, protecting himself should have been instinctive. Draven couldn’t wrap his head around the change in the Watcher before him.
“No,” Sebastian raged, clutching at his hair. His eyes darted to Gabe, crazed and angry. “How could you do this to me?”
Gabe’s eyebrow drew down sharply. His hands lifted, palms forward, as though attempting to temper the over-reactions of a small child or approach a frightened animal. “Sebastian…”
“Enough,” Draven thundered. They didn’t have time to pussyfoot around Sebastian’s delicate sensibilities or to pander to his usual tormented bad boy antics. He hoped Sandal had the sense to keep any human customers from paying attention. However, even if they did hear anything, no doubt they would write it off as the demented ramblings of a lunatic.
“You are a damned idiot, Sebastian.”
As if a light switch flicked on, a visible shudder wracked Sebastian’s body before his wings burst forth. The radiant white and gold captured the meager light in the room, reflecting it back like glass. With the three of them exposing their true form, there was barely an inch of space to move without inadvertently brushing off another.
“I was damned long ago, Draven,” Sebastian said blackly. “Now you know why.” The slight quake of his fingertips betrayed that he hadn’t sobered completely.
Evidently, Sebastian managed to convince himself somewhere along the way that he was responsible for everything that had happened to them. Draven had always known Sebastian carried the weight of the war on his shoulders and dragged it behind him like iron chains, something that always kept him living in the past. This went one step further, as if he’d stepped off the edge, fallen into some form of deranged lunacy.
“I don’t know what I know,” Draven fired back.
How could Ananchel remember the way Sebastian accused? He would have known. Draven trusted her with his life. He had trusted her with Candra’s life. A spike of pain ripped through his gut. As much as he wanted to dismiss it, a niggling doubt bristled over his skin, and the hairs on his arms rose. Nathaniel’s warning about Ananchel slammed into him like a sledgehammer to his chest. Maybe a part of him had known and had tried to write it off.
His hate for Sebastian bubbled up, hissing in his muscles and craving to take over. Draven wanted nothing more in that instant than to tear Sebastian limb from limb but held tightly to the reins of his control. He wondered if it was because he knew it was possible Sebastian had stumbled across a verity that held the potential to decimate Draven’s closest relationship—his family.
“Are you saying you were oblivious to all of this?” Gabe asked, his massive warrior shoulders rolling back. His eyes tightened reproachfully, but he stayed well back. Draven suspected it was so he wouldn’t appear threatening or provide a spark to this already combustible situation. Gabe had come here as a mediator, not as an instigator to a fight between them.
Still, the question offended Draven, the insinuation he’d played a willing part in Ananchel’s scheming, if there was any at all. He wasn’t entirely convinced…yet.
“What? You actually believe this bullshit?” Draven waved his hand, making it clear he referred to Sebastian’s presumptions. “You believe Ananchel has devised some master plan to destroy the Arch and is in cahoots with Lilith against me?”
“Not against you,” Sebastian reminded him. “For you.” His lips twisted into a sneer. He raked his fingers through his hair roughly, clearly reaching the end of his rope and evidently still drunk, but sobering quickly. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes shadowed by purple smudges.
Acid filled Draven’s stomach, and his mind reeled, scrambling for some excuse, anything that would dismiss the charges levied against Ananchel. Pain drummed inside his skull, as if accusation was a battering ram repeatedly slamming against a door. His toes curled against the grubby wooden floor, allowing the stimuli flooding his body to escape. The sights, sounds, smells…it was all too much to assimilate on top of his raging emotions.
“It’s not possible,” he murmured. His wings pulled in to settle along his spine as his argument deflated. All these years, he’d kept Ananchel as his closest confidante. He, of all people, appreciated what she was capable of doing. “Tell me everything.”
Sebastian recounted his story, every single sordid detail of his encounter with Ananchel, how he had taken Candra to the lake and allowed her to read into his words. Sebastian glared at his rival while explaining how Ananchel had convinced him Draven couldn’t be trusted.
By the time Sebastian finished, Draven was convinced his slow placing back and forth should have worn a groove in the wooden floor. He watched Sebastian now and then from where he sat, head in hands on one of the low stool scattered around. Gabe remained by the side of the pool table. All three still displayed their wings but kept them folded in.
“How could you think I would betray Candra so badly…and the Arch?”
“How could I not?” Sebastian retorted coldly. “You turned your back on the Arch long ago, and you can’t deny your connection to Candra. How can I trust what you are capable of?”
Draven shook his head sadly. “You never understood, did you?” He looked up to see Sebastian’s jaw clench and wondered if they were wasting their time. He wasn’t sure Sebastian would listen to reason at this point. Perhaps this situation had already gone too far. His eyes stung from so long in the smoky atmosphere, and his body felt like he’d been dragged through a wringer, as though it had been an eternity since he’d rested.
“I never turned from the Arch. I don’t know of many who did. That was never what any of this was about. We fell in love with life. We wanted to live…It didn’t mean we forgot who we are or turned away from the Arch. You, of all people, should understand our capacity for love knows no bounds. Our decision wasn’t about choosing this life over the Arch. We weren’t created to understand that we couldn’t have both.”
“Are you blaming the Arch?”
Draven groaned and scratched the back of his neck roughly. “Why does anyone have to take the blame? Why can’t we just move on?”
“Because that’s the way everything works.”
“Just because it is, doesn’t mean it’s how it should be.”
Sebastian paused abruptly mid-step, as if stopped by something solid directly in his path. Draven went on, not waiting for an explanation.
“The cost, Sebastian. You say you appreciate that I care for Candra, so how could you imagine that I would trade her happiness and peace of mind for mine? Or that I would sacrifice so many for my own selfish desires?”
Sebastian took a long pull on the cigarette in his hand. The bright orange glow of the tip reflected in his glassy eyes, and ribbons of gray twirled around his head. He glanced briefly at Gabe but gave no clue about what was going on inside his head or if Draven’s words got through to him. Then he locked his gaze on Draven.
Draven suspected Sebastian’s opinion of him was already so low that it wasn’t a huge leap to believe him capable of such atrocities.
“No one is to blame, or we all are; what difference does it make any longer?” Gabe’s word verged on wistful, as if merely verbalizing a stream of consciousness. He picked up one of the striped balls in his hand, weighing it for a moment before rolling it the length of the table without much effort. The ball bounced off the cushion and came back toward him, eventually stopping somewhere midway.
They all watched it move over the green, as though waiting for the shining surface to reveal its secrets. What secrets they must be, Draven thought—all the deals, conversations and secrets that would have passed in this room before they could ever have imagined they would find themselves here.
“Can you swear this is the first time you’ve become aware of any of this?” Gabe asked Draven, looking him straight in the eye.
Draven suspected that if he lied, Gabe would be aware. Regardless, he didn’t intend to do so. He searched inside his mind for an honest response. Anything less, and any shards of trust that remained between the sides would be wiped out, with no going back. They wouldn’t need Lilith to destroy them; they would do it themselves.
How far did the deception go? Was it his fault he was so easily fooled by Ananchel? Anger and frustration preceded a sick, gut-wrenching physical pain and a hollowness so deep, it was as though someone had scooped out his insides—the physical acknowledgement of his heart breaking. He held on to the last shards of hope that they were wrong like a drowning man might hold rocks after falling from a cliff into a savage ocean. Maybe he’d suspected the truth all along and had simply refused to accept it. How could he know for sure?
“No,” he finally admitted. “I can’t swear it, but the question is: what do we do now?”
