low now, rough. He tilts his head, the icy shadows pulling his nose and chin into darkness. “Tell me, Damien. Regale me with a tale that will change my mind.”
Pearla considers Damien. His straightened gait, his squared shoulders. He has the look of a gambler throwing his final card to the table. The one he’s hidden up his sleeve.
“She saw me,” he says. “The girl.”
The Prince stands. His face, once passive, is now rigid as stone, a sense of urgency pulling his wings tight.
“Saw. You.”
“Yes, my celestial form. This girl, this Brielle, saw through the terrestrial veil with understanding. It was like, like . . .”
“Like Elisha’s servant. In Dothan. The site of your last great failure.”
“Yes, Lord Prince.” Damien averts his eyes, but only briefly. Then he steps forward, toward the Prince, his face set. “She knew where I stood and what I did. She knew what the greatest expression of love looked like in the Celestial. Somehow, some way, Lord Prince, mankind is breaking into our realm.”
Even Pearla gasps at this revelation.
Yapping phrases like “the beginning of the end” begin to permeate the great hall. “Cataclysmic.” “Armageddon.”
The Prince stands silent for what seems like years, while the raging of the assembly builds. And then with measured, soundless footsteps, the Prince of Darkness crosses the floor. He lifts his hand toward Damien’s face—an offer of healing, it seems—and Damien steadies himself visibly for the honor. It’s not like the Prince to offer healing—even to one of his own—and Pearla is perplexed by the gesture.
But before the Prince can make contact, a noisy clatter echoes through the hall.
From the shadows, a small, blackened creature scurries—all four of its limbs moving one after the other. It’s an impish spy, the fallen counterpart to Pearla’s cherubic order, and she recoils at the sight of her traitorous kinsmen. His small, bat-like wings lift him here and there on his chaotic trot across the stone floor. When he reaches the river of fear running in a sticky trail from the Prince’s arm, the creature groans in delight and swims through it toward his master.
The Prince’s hand, so close to Damien’s face, drops away, reaching down and allowing the imp to latch on to his fingers. It scurries up the Prince’s arm and shoulder, leaning past the lush black curls and into his ear.
The Prince’s face hardens at whatever he hears, and with pale fingers he pinches the imp like a naughty cat and drops him to the floor. The imp chirps and gurgles, sliding in the train of soupy fear, finally springing from the hall.
The Prince waits until the hall is free of the imp’s clamor, his face a carved stone. When at last silence returns, he reaches out a near-perfect hand, placing it on Damien’s eyes. Fear drips from the Prince’s arm and onto Damien’s chest, mingling with the thin coat of terror the Fallen always wear. With the lightest touch, the accuser of the brethren restores the demon’s celestial vision.
A swift movement, and his hand is gone.
Damien’s eyes snap open and the Prince watches him, awaits his response. Damien flinches, his large hands grip the sides of his head, and he wails in agony.
“Yes, Damien?” the Prince asks.
“You are . . .” His mind sputters. “You are beautiful.”
The Prince’s lips part in a specious smile. “But I will not forgive again.”
A flick of his wrist brings a scimitar to the Prince’s hand, its frostiness smoking. He slides it into the sheath at Damien’s waist. “Bring them to me at Danakil, Damien. The girl who saw through the veil and the boy with hands like mine.”
This order surprises Damien. “To Danakil?”
“You question me?”
Damien cowers now, his hands raised in surrender. “No, Lord Prince.”
“If these two are as special as you say—if they bear angelic gifts—I should very much like to meet them myself. Give their . . . abilities . . . a little test.”
The Prince’s wings flutter softly and then snap open. Grace and force.
“If you fail, brother,” he says, stepping into Damien’s face, “the cavernous pit will be nothing compared to my rage.”
Damien nods—a soldier ready for battle.
The Prince turns toward Maka. “Maka, are you ready to redeem yourself?”
There is something very, very wrong with the Prince of Darkness using the word redeem, but Maka stands tall, rising to the opportunity.
“I am. You know I am.”
“Good, then.”
The Prince’s wings take him back to his throne, where he hovers high above. Damien and Maka look on, the assembly growing restless.