at the waist and neck. Her arms were long, and her fingers nearly trailed in the swirling water.
“I’m Azazel’s son.” Jim had an irritated, wary look on his face. Adrian didn’t know if the expression was play-acting for the benefit of the Fallen, or if he was really provoking a reaction from the singer. For his part, he really was astonished. “You surprised?”
“You shouldn’t be able to read the Primals,” Adrian pressed, in a whisper. “No child conceived in a human womb has been able to for thousands of years, not since the Confusion of the Tongues at Babel.”
Semyaz ducked to enter the room. Ezeq’el drifted past Yamayol to make space for Azazel’s boar-headed rival. She grimaced in discomfort, picked up the ladder from the soupy mess of the floor and leaned on it like a crutch.
Jim shrugged.
“Who was your mother?” Adrian pushed.
“Start the spell,” Jim pushed back.
Adrian felt shaken. He had thought Jim was Azazel’s son, and had assumed that his mother was a human, that Azazel had repeated back in Cromwell’s day, or whenever it was, the naughtiness that had gotten him busted and demoted from the ranks of the angels in the first place. Had he been wrong to think that, being born of a human mother, Jim would be subject to the Confusion?
What other wrong ideas did he have about Jim?
Adrian started chanting. His ka, blessedly, was full and crackled with power, and he pushed the energy through his own body, through Jim’s, and into the ward, whispering words of power.
“You’ve taken my amulet,” Semyaz snarled. He stood smack in the center of the circle, and it took great effort not to look up at the chalk markings that comprised the ward. Adrian knew the circle was intact and functional without peeking, anyway; he could feel the ka-energy crackling back around to him, like the electricity in a closed circuit. The leader of the Fallen trio hunched low over the swirling waters, shoulders hunching massively above his own head, drool dripping from his tusks.
“You noticed.” Jim slouched, like he was leaning on Adrian for support. He didn’t break contact, and Adrian’s ka-power continued to flow. Good man, Adrian thought. Just don’t throw us under the truck, now.
“And what will you do with it?” Yamayol asked. “Whether you hold the bauble or Semyaz does, the bargain is still the same. The amulet only gives you a glimpse, just a taste of the joy that could be yours. You need our help to free your Elaine from Hell. We will give it to you.”
Adrian chanted. He was counting on Jim to step in and say the names of the three Fallen at the climactic moment, but he was only guessing that Jim could speak the Primals—or whichever Primal it was, Adrian couldn’t tell—as well as read them. He didn’t know that for a fact, and though the room was freezing cold and wet, Adrian felt hot drops of his own sweat trickle down his back and under his arms. For that matter, Jim had denied being a wizard. Was he smart enough to understand Adrian’s incantation and step in with the names at exactly the right point? Adrian shut out images of terror and defeat and kept mumbling.
Power. Everything came back to power.
“I don’t need anything from you,” Jim rasped back.
“Foolish!” Semyaz thundered, pounding both fists to the ground and sending up sprays of mud and soggy napkins.
The spell was nearly complete. Adrian didn’t look up, and he didn’t look into the Eye, though it weighed a ton in his hand. He chanted, wishing he’d been able to chalk a stronger ward.
“And if I did need your help,” Jim continued, raising his head defiantly, “I’d rather die than ask for it.”
“Per Yahweh Sabaoth ego vos jubeo—”
Semyaz roared in sudden realization of the deception. He lunged forward, hands open and grabbing—
Ezeq’el shouldered the boar-headed Fallen aside with her greater bulk and charged in, sweeping the ladder like a sword at Jim—
Jim shouted three words that Adrian could not clearly hear; they sounded like rushing water mixed with the sizzle of lighting—
ka-energy flared within and through Adrian, shooting into the ward at the moment that the Fallen rushed beyond its capture area—
wham! Ezeq’el’s ladder slammed into Jim’s chest, hurling him against the wall. The circuit was broken, Adrian staggered away and slipped.
He fell into the cold water.
He’d failed. Darkness swept over his head and veiled his eyes, his skin prickled like he was being hugged by a hundred hedgehogs, and