Chapter Nine
LILITH LED CANDRA THROUGH corridor after corridor, leaving her with plenty of time to ponder her next move and the questions she might ask. They moved deeper into the bowels of the old building, eventually stopping outside a heavy carved door in a hallway where Candra had never been before. Lilith removed a key from the pocket of her skirt and glanced over her shoulder.
“It seems I find myself in the depths yet again.”
“I’m sure,” Candra muttered, earning an amused chuckle from her guide. There was a notable lack of students in the vicinity and no sign of any other faculty. What were the chances someone would hear her scream? She decided not to think about the question too deeply; it seemed a little futile to consider running away at this point.
Candra winced when the key turned in the lock. The screeching metal was loud in the silent corridor…a creepy portent of doom. She scowled and quickly admonished herself for being too dramatic. I am a weapon, for heaven’s sake. Of course, then she had to bite back a nervous giggle at her very appropriate internal monologue. Lilith held the door and allowed Candra to enter first. She jumped and swallowed thickly when it closed behind them with a hefty thud.
The room wasn’t what Candra expected at all; it looked the same as the other lecturers’ offices. A single window afforded the only daylight; a long, rectangular sheet of glass protected by metal bars high on the wall stretched the width of the room. At least she could see people moving on the outside, and the muffled sound of traffic seeped in, breaking the absolute silence. The window provided more than sufficient lighting now, but come mid-winter, the thick flakes of snow that always fell on Acheron and settled around the buildings and monuments of the city would completely block the view. Candra imagined it would compare to being buried alive, and the thought made her shiver.
Lilith was right; Father Patrick had consigned her to the depths. Arguably, she could have influenced him, or whoever handled office assignments, and bagged herself the best office available, maybe even Father Patrick’s own plush rooms. The fact that she remained here indicated Lilith enjoyed the darker recesses.
The rest of the office was generic. The room centered around a large desk with curling, carved legs and a leather writing pad, and the surface around it had darkened from many generations of educators working there. The walls had a fresh coating of pale cream paint, and the chemical scent still lingered in the air. A tall file cabinet matched the desk. Candra presumed it would be empty since Lilith was an interloper rather than a genuine counselor. Several smallish packing boxes also sat haphazardly along the top of a bookcase stocked with old leather bound reference volumes and nothing else. Why all the pretense?
“Coffee, tea?” Lilith suggested, absently waving to a makeshift refreshment area set up on top of the cabinet.
“Oh, yes, please,” Candra replied brightly, “if we’re planning to sit here and profess to be what we appear to be.”
Lilith smiled and tittered softly. “I feel almost human in this body.”
“Steal that too, did you?” Candra quipped dryly, reminding Lilith she hadn’t forgotten what else she had stolen.
Lilith shrugged and proceeded to tap the switch on the kettle, which fizzed to life straight away.
The sound irritated Candra beyond reason. “Let’s cut the bull, shall we? You tell me what you want, I tell you that you can’t have it, and then we will all know where we stand.”
Lilith’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Something about the action made Candra see Ivy, and she couldn’t help wondering how far deep inside she was trapped. Could she feel? Was she fighting? Did she have any awareness of what Lilith was doing at all? Did it hurt?
“Yes,” Lilith said dispassionately. She had turned away to drop a tea bag into a cup before adding water.
Candra stayed silent, waiting for the rest. Lilith took her cup to the desk and put it down with the string from the tea bag still hanging over the side. She raised her eyes, peering at Candra through her thick back eyelashes. “Yes is the answer to your question.”
Candra’s breath caught in her lungs and burned. Lilith gracefully took her seat. There was no short standoff as there had been with Draven, no battle of wits, preamble, or maneuvers to gain the tactical advantage of standing over an opponent. Lilith gave the appearance of being utterly unperturbed, perhaps convinced of her indestructibility. An angel had tried to destroy Lilith once. All they needed was one weakness, one chink in her armor and Candra intended to annihilate her.
“I have a proposition for you. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to talk to you alone.” Lilith reclined a bit in the seat, steepling her fingers below her chin. She scrutinized Candra thoughtfully. “Today isn’t about what I want. It’s about what I can offer you.”
“You already had your chance to speak to me alone.” Candra crossed her legs but rested her hands informally on the smooth armrests, consciously trying to not give off a defensive air. “Why does everyone think they can proposition me?”
Lilith had made her first mistake. If she truly held the power to take whatever she wanted, there would be no negotiations.
“I’m waiting,” Candra prompted when she still hadn’t answered.
Lilith reached forward and caught the edge of the desk. Candra saw the wood dip under the pressure of the long fingers pressing into it, and a flutter of nerves erupted in her stomach.
“Don’t be petulant. Regardless of anything else, remember who you are.”
Candra’s fingers tightened in reflex to the reprimand. Who is she to speak of propriety? She was a demon, lower than the lowest pond scum that crawled from the sewers. Lilith fixed her almond eyes on Candra, still leaning forward to the desk between them. Caught unawares, Candra spluttered the first thing that came into her head.
“Can you read my mind?”
Lilith chuckled, releasing her death grip on the wood but leaving brand new grooves in the shape of her slender fingers. “Goodness, no, and I’m grateful. No offense, but given your relationship, the last place I would wish to be is inside your head.” She paused in pulling open a drawer and pursed her lips as if reconsidering. “Well, almost the last place.”
“Then how are you doing that?”
Lilith sighed. “Aside from being mildly transparent in your thoughts, your expressions give you away. You should work on that.”
“Then tell me,” Candra demanded and took extra caution to keep her expression guarded. “Who do you believe I am?”
The hinge in the drawer caught, making a clinking sound, and Lilith met Candra’s eyes again. The green twinkled like emeralds in the light. Candra hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed to have lost some of their luster. Although still arresting, they weren’t quite as dark anymore. The difference may not have been discernible to anyone else, but Candra knew those eyes as well as her own, and she was positive of it.
“You are like me,” Lilith told her, apparently perplexed, and her eyebrows drawing down to from a tiny vertical line over her nose. “At the same time, you are everything I’m not. What you are is the thing that makes me incomplete.”
Candra narrowed her eyes dubiously, virtually to slits, sure Lilith was reaching because she had nothing to hold over her. Her damp palms slid over the smooth wood beneath them. “Are you really giving me the ‘you complete me’ line?” When she was met with a blank expression, she wondered if any of them would ever get her pop culture references.
“I’m not sure I understand.” Lilith sat back without removing anything from the drawer and pushed a loose stand of hair behind her ear. She frowned, dismissing Candra’s words, and continued. “You are a reflection, an opposite of me. For darkness, there must be light. One does not exist without the other. It’s symbiotic, the most beautiful part of existence. You were created to balance me.”
“I was created to kill you,” Candra corrected her with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Sebastian warned me you would try to trick me.”
“No.” Lilith shook her head empathically. “You were born to cast me into darkness, not to destroy me. I cannot be destroyed…even Sebastian knows that. The Arch made you and molded you so the most powerful of his children would protect you just so he could keep me from what I deserve. Except…” She paused. “If you do manage to figure out how to trap me downstairs, I’ll be bringing some new guests.”
She was using Ivy as leverage. All of a sudden, an image of Ivy floating downward into murky water flashed through Candra’s mind. She desperately wanted to shake her head in disbelief. She wanted to swear, stamp her feet, and say it wasn’t so. Except for one tiny problem: it all sounded so damn reasonable. In a twisted way, it made perfect sense.
“You mentioned a proposition?”
“Yes.” Lilith smiled, appeased by the knowledge that Candra didn’t disbelieve her. She reached for the drawer once more.
Candra gulped when she pulled out a knife and carefully laid it on the table between them.
“Do you know what this is?”
Candra bent forward for a closer look and lifted her eyes, unsure. “A dagger?” The dubious quality of her voice surprised even her.
Lilith laughed gleefully. The sound reminded Candra of something she couldn’t quite place, but it wasn’t a pleasant memory. Then it came to her as a tidal wave of nausea rushed over her. It was the dream she had awakened from time and time again, the sound of the tinkling of glass hitting the ground all around her. She closed her eyes briefly and did her best to regain her equilibrium, but it felt as if the room had tipped sideways and the only thing holding her still was her grip on the armrests of her seat.
When she opened her eyes, Candra licked her lips. She wished she’d taken Lilith up the offer of tea. The cup of cooling liquid on the table in front of her taunted her queasy stomach. To distract herself, she took a keener look at the knife. The blade wasn’t a markedly impressive weapon—it was essentially a ragged-looking, old thing. The handle was a knotted piece of wood that appeared to have seen some wear. The pointed tip embedded into the handle couldn’t really be described as a blade at all. To the naked eye, it was glass or a crystal of some kind and polished to a high shine. Candra supposed the blade would shatter under any type of force.
“This,” Lilith said, skimming her fingertips almost lovingly over the length of the handle, “is the Creation Blade.” Her gaze flickered up to Candra, and seeing no recognition, she continued. “Ambriel should have been more thorough about your education.”
A spike of rage stabbed into Candra’s belly. She fought the emotion back down because, on consideration, she honestly believed the comment a mere observation rather than something meant to provoke her. “I think if we are going to get anywhere, we need to leave my family out of this.”
Lilith didn’t lift her head, although Candra saw the edges of her lips quirk up in a smile. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously as a warning, despite Lilith not being able to see.
“The blade is from a fulgurite formed when the first life was instilled on the Earth.”
“Fulgurite?” Candra raised her eyebrows in confusion.
Lilith’s laughter tinkled again. It wasn’t helping Candra with her tentative hold on her temper.
“It’s what’s created when sand or silica in soil fuse in the immense heat from a lightning strike.”
Candra nodded, satisfied. Honestly, why would she learn such an obscure piece of information?
“The handle is cut from the tree of knowledge,” Lilith went on almost reverently.
Candra leaned in for a closer look. Surely such a weapon would be visually impressive, if it existed at all. The dagger in front of her looked like it had been thrown together by a Boy Scout. “So you brought me here to show me your toys? I’m impressed. Can I leave now?”
“I’m not holding you here,” Lilith corrected her, pushing her seat back and away from the desk to cross her slender legs. “You are free to leave if you wish.”
Without a second thought, Candra went to stand.
“But,” Lilith said, cutting off Candra’s movements, “we haven’t discussed my proposition yet. Aren’t you the least bit curious why I have come here?”
Candra wished she could say no and leave anyway, but unfortunately, knowing what Lilith wanted was vital to working out how to get rid of her. She sat back down, recalling how the last proposition offered to her had played out. It had all been a lie…and that had come from someone who was on her side and an angel to boot.
“How can you believe that I would ever trust you enough to take anything you say seriously?”
Lilith ran a fingertip lightly across her bottom lip before answering. “I believe that you wish to avert what’s coming.”
Candra sighed, suddenly trapped by those words. Lilith was right, and she knew it. Candra despised giving in with every fiber of her being, but she couldn’t think of another option. Lilith knew her better than she wanted her to.
“Even if I hear you out, Draven and Sebastian will never agree to whatever you are after,” Candra warned, feeling the need to attempt to gain the upper hand.
Lilith’s shoulders lifted and lowered when she pulled in a deep breath. “Neither Draven nor Sebastian possess the ability to stop me. The only one who could is gone. I, on the other hand, can destroy them both.”
“Do you think you will endear yourself to me by threatening them?”
“I don’t care one way or the other if I’ve endeared you. I’ve already won, Candra. With the Arch gone, there simply is no way to defeat me. Your only consideration now is how badly you lose. Do you send your angels home, or do you send them to their death in a bloody war?”
Candra’s jaw locked, and her teeth pressed down so hard, she imagined them shattering. Her instinct was to fly across the desk at Lilith. Inside, her heart pounded, and her muscles tensed. There was too much at stake to lose control. She had to remain calm.
“It’s very straightforward. Ivy’s soul got me here, but it isn’t strong enough to sustain me.”
“What do you want?” Candra asked in a flat tone. Her patience with Lilith was wearing paper-thin.
“I want you.”
Candra barked a laugh and shook her head. “That’s your proposition? That’s the best you can come up with?”
Lilith went on unperturbed, her serene features giving away nothing to suggest her internal reaction to Candra’s outburst. “I am offering you a gift. Do not try my patience by flinging it back in my face.”
Candra cleared her own expression of incredulity. The whole situation seemed entirely too familiar. “What is it you would plan to do with me?”
“I plan to possess you.”
Candra narrowed her eyes. “One thing you and I should get straight is no one owns me. I am not property to possess.”
Lilith smiled condescendingly. “Oh, don’t be dull-witted. Haven’t you been paying attention? I need a vessel—a body to possess. I can’t die, but you don’t want to see the mess I become if I don’t feed. I would go through humans like tissue paper. Angels are not accessible to me.” She paused and tilted her head, likely taking in Candra’s startled wide eyes. “You are one of the Nephilim, stronger than any human. You will be my vessel.”
Candra’s mouth opened to respond, but she had no words, and her mind was utterly blank. She couldn’t think of a smart retort or any kind of comeback at all. The idea was incomprehensible. She swallowed thickly, and her stomach heaved to the extent that she darted her eyes around the room for somewhere to vomit.
“Think about it, Candra. Without me, you are only a half-breed—a mutt. You will never be equal to the Watchers you surround yourself with, and you will never be human. You will grow old and die. Even then, you know your torment will never be over. You will never know the true heaven. You will be without almost everyone you love for an eternity. You have an angelic body and a human soul, both of which I require to remain here…and I intend to remain here. Think of all those humans you could save.”
Candra’s stomach convulsed violently. She would have left immediately if she could stand. The problem was she knew it was at least possible that Ivy’s soul was trapped in there somewhere. She had seen with her own eyes; the body was already degenerating, although most wouldn’t notice yet.
“I could make you stronger. Together, we would be greater than you can imagine. With me, you would never have to die.”
“But I would be imprisoned forever, inside you.”
Lilith nodded once, conceding to Candra’s statement. “Well, there is that, but wouldn’t the tiny sacrifice be worth it? Your friends wouldn’t have to die. I can give them their heaven. I want this world. It’s what I was promised. It belongs to me. I wasn’t lying when I said you can send them back. Give yourself to me, and I will give you the key. No one else has to die.”
Candra shook her head, and each breath she took was splintered metal, tearing her apart. “No, it’s a lie. You’re lying.”
“No.”
“But you’re tied by free will. That’s the catch. You can’t take my body unless I agree to it.”
Lilith’s lips pressed together in a straight line, and her pupils dilated, confirming what Candra pointed out. Lilith couldn’t just take her.
“What if I don’t agree? I could just kill myself.”
“Oooh, spirited little solider, aren’t you? You could, but are you prepared to risk what I will do to your angels after you are gone? What about your friend Ivy? Eventually, she will become like the others inside.”
Lilith rocked the chair back twice and laced her fingers across her stomach. Candra forced herself to look away from her eyes when all she saw was Ivy. It hit her that this was part of the plan too. If she saw some part of Ivy in Lilith, it would make it harder for her to say no. Once again, the burden of being a catalyst to impending war weighed on her shoulders.
“Come, come now. Suffice it to say, I am not alone. Did you think I brought you here to reveal all my secrets? What kind of nemesis would that make me?”
“No.” Candra sucked in a shallow breath, not caring anymore that Lilith had the upper hand. There was no denying she was capable of more than Sebastian warned. Lilith threatened war against the Watchers; Candra had to take that threat seriously. Lilith was the danger approaching, the root of the darkness in the city, the thing she was created to stand against. “But I am grateful you reminded me that you aren’t holding me here.”
Candra stood to go with an overwhelming feeling the conversation was a waste of time as far as gaining an advantage went. Everyone would be angry with her, and she’d gained no information she could use to excuse her decision other than the existence of a crusty old knife.
“Thank you for your time.” Candra nodded curtly.
Lilith clucked her tongue and smiled, rocking back in the seat again. “Ah, yes, time. It’s something I have in abundance, and you don’t.”
Candra looked over her shoulder to see Lilith placing the knife back in the drawer. She didn’t have to be reminded of her mortality. She had been born; she aged…would continue to age and die. It was something she’d already thought about. As their situation stood, death would eventually separate her from Sebastian. Lilith offered a separation of another kind. Lilith knew exactly what she offered. Taking Lilith’s deal guaranteed a one-way ticket to heaven for Sebastian and anyone else who wanted it. Lilith had found her weakness.
Candra decided she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else study-related for the day, and it would be better to go home. She needed to digest what she’d learned from Lilith. She couldn’t share anything with the others, not yet. Lilith’s offer was too simple: send the Watchers home, save humanity from becoming dinner, and all for the price of her life. She had to figure out the catch. There had to be something else.
