The Tower of the Forgotten Page 11

  But when she heard Hester shout, Portia wheeled on him.

  "Treacherous bastard!" She was beside him in a twinkling, faster than he could have imagined. And without forethought, she slashed at him, tearing through his arm with the axe blade. He might have let go of Hester, then, but his face was bent into a grimace and fixated on their former governess.

  "I will not allow you to sell me." He growled and shifted before Portia’s eyes, drawing on whatever reserves had been left to him from his days of life. His body morphed into a too-familiar shape with bulging muscles and thick gill-like slits along his abdomen. She knew what he could do with those and struck down each ropy tentacle as it emerged.

  "Nigel, don’t make me do this."

  "And what? I should bow to your will, Portia, and let myself be docilely eaten by a demon?"

  "Why stop now?"

  He lunged toward her, forgetting Hester for a moment in his rage. There was little of Nigel left. She could see the sliver of him in the remnants of his grey eyes, but it was weak and losing ground to the last of the elements he had called forth upon his soul.

  "You have eagerly bartered away your soul time and time again, Nigel. And for what? At least this time there is a clear purpose, and a good one, too."

  The only reply was garbled and furious. He wrapped his appendages around her, dragging her close to his mouth, lined with teeth like broken glass. She waited, letting him reel her in tighter. And when she was near enough to strike, she did so while looking directly into his eyes.

  Her wings made short work of the slithering arms, stretching them beyond even these otherworldly limits; the axe blade cut him deep. No blood spilled. His legs simply ceased to be.

  He clung to her shoulders, hanging off of her body and wings, mouth still reaching for her as if he could just take off one piece and be satisfied. She knocked him away easily, and he writhed, crawling back toward Hester as if maybe he could make a second attempt on her.

  Portia brought her foot down into the center of his back. He turned his head far too easily, twisting it to look back up at her. The jagged slash of his mouth looked more human now.

  "I am not alone," he rasped. "To defeat me means nothing. The Aldias have made a blood pact to see this done." He laughed, or at least tried to, but Portia brought the axe through his skull, splitting it from crown to chin.

  She leapt back as Samael rushed toward her.

  "That is enough!" The demon cried. "You will leave none for me, and where would be our barter?"

  "Take him, then, and be gone."

  There came an otherworldly howl and a frigid gust of air. And they were both gone.

  Portia stood in the ruined heart of the engine, looking at the only mother she had ever known.

  "How did you know?" Hester asked. "About my name?"

  "Alaric talks a lot."

  The erstwhile headmistress of Penemue smiled. "I cannot stay with you, you know. I have no ties to the world of the living any longer. What I had were severed and replaced with one single tether."

  "The hairpin."

  She nodded. "And it’s destroyed."

  "It was the claim Samael had on you." Portia wiped at an escaped tear that trickled down her cheek. "But you can go on, right? Away from here? Imogen said there were other places, nice places even, beyond Salus and beyond the Shadowside."

  "I’ll have to see, I suppose." Hester shivered and looked at her hands. They began to fade rapidly. "It looks like I’ll be exploring that soon, then. Take care, Portia. You always meant so much to me, and I have always been so very proud of you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more often how much I loved you."

  Portia hiccupped and took a step forward. "I love you, too." She opened her arms in an embrace, but Hester slipped right through them.

  Hester’s gaze grew unfocused, and she smiled. "I wonder if I’ll see Marius and Charlotte…"

  "I pray that you do."

  "Goodbye, then, Portia."

  "Goodbye, Lady Hester."

  And without any sort of fanfare or dramatics, she was just gone. A sob escaped Portia’s clenched jaw, and she turned away. Beneath her feet, the engine still hummed, very softly, as if it still drew on some power source.

  In the chamber around her, the dark water had finally breeched and had risen to several inches in depth. It was still coming.

  Salus, at long last, was sinking.

  The base of the engine crackled and sparked as water made contact with the wires. But yet it hummed.

  Portia slammed the axe into the floor, toppling the pedestal that had held the four demons’ anchors. The blade bit through and did not dull, so she hit it again, tearing a gash deep into the bowels of the machine. Beneath her feet, the glass reserve chamber glowed, churning with the light of souls harvested for the engine.

  The water lapped over her feet and trickled into the gash. Portia widened it, tearing it open into an ugly hole, exposing as much of the workings and wiring that she could. The water poured in relentlessly.

  Bringing the axe down one final time, she shattered the reserve tank. The engine shuddered somewhat innocuously, and the very last of the humming ceased. She let out a breath and took to the air, heading for the dangling catwalk that would take her back to the room where the others waited. Hopefully, they had defeated—or at least subdued—Adramelech.

  She had just gained the edge of the hanging walkway when the last remaining chamber beams gave way and the endless black sea rushed in from all sides. The room split from end to end, revealing that the tower had indeed collapsed and that the familiar moon hung in the sky overhead, fading toward dawn. She did not like that she could see her world; that did not bode well.

  The water rose around her rapidly, faster than she could get her wings about her to fly.

  "Imogen!"

  From above, she realized, came the ocean she knew, tasting of salt and seaweed and colored like tears. It mingled with the black waters of the underworld, creating a vortex that dragged her into its heart.

  From below, something touched her foot, tentatively at first, then with great strength, wrapping itself around her legs and pulling her down.

  We are not finished with you.

  She looked into the face of the leviathan, of Nicor, the old one of the deep, as he fancied himself. She slashed at his encircling arms, each studded with great suckers like an octopod’s.

  I brought you back from the deepest abyss of death, Portia-Fereshte, and I demand tribute.

  "Does that mean you have left Radinka in peace, finally?"

  The witchling and I are no longer bound.

  "Does she still live?"

  When I left, she did, but she is no more of my concern. Now, I want tribute.

  "Here." She held out the axe. "This is the greatest treasure I have, a fitting prize for one such as yourself. Take it and keep it as the pride of your hoard with your trinkets from sunken ships."

  The demon stopped, surprised, it seemed, by her offer.

  It never used to be so lovely…

  Portia turned it this way and that, catching the gleaming gold in the gathering dawn. "I’m sorry, Zepar," she whispered to it. "Despite it all, you have turned out to be an excellent father to me. I’m going to miss you."

  The axe vibrated a moment, caressing the palm of her hand. She had almost gotten used to the sensation of the Nephilim leather against her flesh.

  "Goodbye." She uncurled her fingers from the axe, watching it sink immediately into the inky water below.

  With surprising force, Nicor let go of her, sending her into a tumble that disoriented her completely.

  Then all went still and silent.

  —12—

  BLACK WATERS SWIRLED BY as Portia tumbled through the great sea beneath the island, beneath all of the otherworld. Great hunks of rock and sparkling pieces of masonry plummeted past; even an occasional copper chunk of the engine spiraled down into the unending darkness below. The water soon filled with detritus from the final and total dest
ruction of Salus. Still smoldering, even under the dark waves, the items broke apart, dismantling themselves into nothing but steam and a burst of small bubbles. These rose to the surface and became, like the mermaids of legend, the foam of the sea.

  Scattered voices and half-glimpsed faces haunted Portia as they passed, some sinking, some rising, but always surrounding her as the island shook itself apart. Halford and Quentin, the lusty roustabouts, the widow and her child, the doomed patrons of Circus Avernus whose faces she had but glimpsed and whose names she never knew, all dying again here in the water. Even the stones from the ruins of Salus, Belial’s favorite prisoners, cast forever—or so they thought—into stone and used in the construction of the courtyard and palace. Nephilim, as most of them were, and Aldias. Once they had power over the living and the dead, then they became immortal, and now, they died.

  Portia had no idea what might be waiting beyond this watery realm. When Hester had dissolved into nothing, had her soul been committed elsewhere to some nether-realm of the underworld? Or perhaps heaven and hell lay on the far side of Salus, where the souls of her kindred might finally be treated to their due as dictated by the merciful but just God she had been taught to fear and to serve.

  Whatever their fate, she did not share it. And she did not find Imogen among them, nor Kitty, nor Radinka, nor Kendrick, nor even Lord Alaric. She wished with all her heart and soul that they had been able to reach the safety of Alaric’s estate, whatever safety that might offer, considering he had been the catalyst of the entire affair. She hoped she would see him sinking to the depths of this bottomless sea, his face ashen with terror, his flesh a mass of blood, but she did not. The currents toyed with the detritus around her, melting it into foam and releasing the withered souls trapped within. Away they floated, away, away, leaving her completely alone. Nicor did not return to torment her.

  How long she floated there, heaved and dropped by the ever-present current, she could not even begin to reckon. After a long while, nothing more fell from above. She imagined the desolate morning sky somewhere overhead, streaming with clouds the color of blood.

  * * * *

  Every sea has a shore, and this one was no different.

  Portia rolled onto a beach of gritty, grey sand. A tall grey cliff cupped the narrow strand, shielding it from wind and weather and blocking most of the light. She crawled a few feet out of the surf, thankful to feel air on her puckered, waterlogged skin. Mouthful after mouthful of water came up from her lungs and her stomach. She coughed and gagged for hours, it seemed, before her body was well rid of it.

  And then she lay still. For a while, she still felt as if the surging sea cradled her and rocked her and bobbed her about, but that eventually passed, as well.

  The light never shifted.

  When she felt sufficiently strong again, Portia stripped off the tatters of her fine silk ensemble and laid them out on a nearby rock to dry. She stretched out, naked, spreading her wings wide and relaxing her arms, legs, fingers, and toes into the warm sand.

  Still, the light never shifted.

  When the clothes were dry, she shook them out and put them back on. She combed her fingers through her hair, working out the worst of the knots before braiding it back up again.

  She realized only then that her wrist was bare; there was no sign of the stained ribbon and the precious little charm anywhere amid the grains of sand or caught up in her clothing. Wherever the golden axe had gone, her favorite possession had gone with it, lost to the sea, lost to Nicor’s treasure heap.

  She walked from one side of the beach to the other, finding no exit from it. She flew up the face of the grey cliff only to find that the higher she went, the taller it was, extending right into the clouds far above. There was no escape from this place unless she braved the water again. And she decided she would, but not now. At the moment, it pleased her far too much just to be dry.

  So Portia sat and gazed out across the softly lapping waves, each tipped with the foam of souls. She avoided touching them.

  At some point, she realized that someone had come onto her beach. A tall individual sat on the wide rock upon which she had dried her clothing. Although rather androgynous in appearance and wearing a simple tunic, Portia decided that she felt confident in thinking of the person as a he, and stood to greet the stranger.

  "Good day to you, sir," she said with a voice surprisingly strong, and even pleasant.

  He inclined his head. "Good day to you, sister."

  She grew wary at that. "How did you come to find your way here?"

  "Certainly not the way you did." He had an utterly disarming smile, and Portia relaxed, just a little, despite herself.

  She looked back toward the water. "No, I suppose not."

  He rose and took a few graceful steps toward her. "Do you know me, Portia?"

  "Should I?"

  "Probably."

  "I’m sorry, but I don’t."

  "It’s because you don’t remember when last we met." He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder. "You were very young."

  Had she ever met a handsome male stranger as a child? She had rarely taken notice of men, even from her earliest days.

  "I suppose I would’ve had to be."

  He leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes, instinctually, and saw him.

  In her little garret room above her father’s pottery shop—the one that overlooked the alley and not the front of the store—this man stood there, eyes and hair and skin aglow. His tunic had been embroidered in gold with great acanthus leaves and arabesque flourishes that accented the impossible blue of his eyes and the gleaming color of his hair.

  She had bowed; that, she recalled immediately. He had taken a seat on the old trunk on the corner and told her not to be afraid of the woman who was already on her way there. The woman with golden hair would take her far away from this musty little bedroom and into a bright, new life.

  "You mustn’t be afraid," he whispered. "The things you once knew as the whole and entire of your life are soon to be a thing of the past. You must open your soul to the newness of God’s plan for you."

  Portia opened her eyes. "You said that to me that night. Verbatim."

  "I have a good memory."

  "Gabriel."

  The archangel nodded.

  "So, the Almighty has made more plans, then?"

  "Always." He tilted his head and frowned slightly at her. "Do you doubt?"

  "Always." She turned away from him. "The thing is, I liked the life I had. You were right about that when I was a child, there’s no argument there. But things are different now. I have a life full of wonderful people who I love and who love me in return."

  "Yes," he agreed. "Hester loved you a great deal. And Imogen, too. And many, many others."

  "And I am not done with that."

  "That is not up to you to decide."

  "No?"

  He spread his hands and half-shrugged.

  She faced him, striding up to him to look right into his perfect eyes. "What happens to me now? Where am I? Where is Imogen?"

  Gabriel sighed. "You are here." Portia protested, but he silenced her. "You will never understand so long as there is doubt in your heart. Have faith."

  "There are precious few things in which I have absolute faith." She glanced at her naked wrist and felt the pain at the loss of her lover’s token redoubled.

  "And I am not one of them. I understand. I can hear the voice of your soul, Portia. I know what it is you most want."

  "Listen, Messenger of Angels, I am not in the mood for riddles. Say what you came to say and be done with it."

  "Have you someplace to be?"

  She had no answer for him.

  "You understand that you are dead, yes?"

  "So I’ve been told. Although it is awfully hard to believe it." She flexed her fingers and flapped her wings.

  "And the order of the Grigori is at war with itself."

  The wave of panic and guilt
surprised her. "War?"

  He nodded, and Portia understood the inevitable consequences of the sequence of events set in motion so many years ago. She and Nigel were only tiny pieces in the great mosaic of this conflict: to serve, or to rule. The divide had always run deep between the houses, and Alaric had exploited that to the last.

  "And that’s why you’re here. That’s why I’m here." She indicated the beach around them.

  Gabriel nodded. "I come to offer you a choice."

  "If one of those choices is to go back and fight alongside my fellow Gyony, to set the world to rights again, then don’t even tell me what the other option is. I don’t care. I will finish this."

  He watched the waves for a long moment, as if reading something in their undulations. Finally, he smiled. "I should have known you would say that. Very well." He bent down and reached straight into the sand in front of his bare toes.

  Up came the axe. It shone as if it had been newly polished.

  Portia gasped as she took it from him and held it in front of her.

  "But Nicor…"

  Gabriel shushed her. "He will never realize it is missing. This is destined to be yours and yours alone. For always."

  She reveled in the feeling of the battleaxe’s familiarity in her hands, the now-tempered presence of Zepar within the weapon, but she also felt its weight, the burden she had so eagerly asked to carry once more.

  The sun, she realized, was beginning to set. It stood only a few finger widths above the horizon.

  "Gabriel, I want to ask one thing."

  But the beach was empty, save for a few long, dark shadows cast by the rocks along the strand.

  "Did Imogen survive?" she asked anyway, knowing he would not answer. And she wondered if it mattered. They had both already been through life and through death, and it was not as if Portia did not know a way to get back to the world of the dead, whether through Alaric Regalii’s basement portal, or through Soloman Aldias’ passage through the Penemue chapter house, or by walking straight through the portal torn into the world where the tower had once stood.