PITCH RETURNEDGabriel’s glare with one of his own.
‘What a fine mess I’m in, you say? That is rather the pot calling the kettle black, Gabe. You imperious drop of basilisk spend.’
Archangel Gabriel was a traitor. Pitch could not decide if that surprised him or not. He’d paid such small amount of attention to all of those angelic pricks, save one. And if he was not goading them with snarky insults, he was avoiding them altogether.
The angel tilted his head, the move belying an elegance ill-suited to him. Gabriel was a brutal creature beneath those lovely layers of olive skin and dark features. He’d chosen an exotic appearance, of course, one that suggested Arabian ancestry, with ink-black hair and hazel eyes and a solid build that was uncomfortably reminiscent of Silas’s hefty form.
‘And to think, Vassago, I was told you were not quite yourself of late. It seems to me you are the same vile and graceless pile of daemonic excrement as always, despite everything.’ The Archangel touched a long nail to the glass and dragged it with cringe worthy slowness over the surface. His nails were not unlike the talons of the ravens that had framed him as he stood over Pitch and Sybilla, hidden behind his mask.
Pitch refused to flinch, but Scarlet in its tiny suit of armour shuddered unhappily where it nestled in the knots of his hair.
‘Do you know,’ he said loudly, ‘there are implements you can use, nail clippers, to tend to those claws of yours. It must be quite the task to pick your nose, or give yourself a frigging.’ Pitch exaggerated a shudder, though it hurt to do so. ‘Gracious, you must have sliced your dear tiny prick to pieces by now.’
His laughter was so misshapen that it was embarrassing. He was truly not at his facetious best. Even Scarlet knew it, giving him a godsforsaken pat from where it hid. But having the Archangel here brought back unsettling memories. It was Gabriel who had aided Lucifer in holding Pitch down, that day upon the cliff over the Lethe River, after he’d torn a Seraph from the sky.
‘I knew him to be losing his mind,’ Gabriel said. ‘But for Seraphiel to decide on you as the vessel for his lunatic endeavours must have finally convinced Enoch that the angel was beyond saving. A pity our dear lord did not have the resolve to putyoudown along with his beloved Seraph.’ He tsked. ‘Truly, our lord has softened too much.’
Pitch fought to keep his expression void of shock. What was this talk of Enoch’s hand in Seraphiel’s death? Lucifer had already suggested that Pitch’s blow did not destroy the angel at once, but he’d assumed that death had arrived, in time, due to his injuries.
‘Why the look, lovely one?’ Gabriel did a messy job of trying to look surprised. His fluttering eyelashes only made him appear deranged. ‘Did you not hear of it? I suppose you might not have, considering you were either in an abaddon or being secreted out of Arcadia altogether.’ He leaned in. ‘The whispers are that our lord finished what you started, Your Highness.’
Despite valiant attempts to appear utterly disinterested, and what was clearly a cautionary brush of Scarlet’s hand against the nape of his neck, Pitch rose to the bait.
‘What are you saying?’
‘You heard me. You know.’
Pitch’s mind raced, almost as fast as his pulse. ‘Seraphiel did not die…by my hand?’
Gabriel kept staring, with a hard and unreadable look. ‘Oh, you did quite the job upon him, make no mistake. I saw it with my own eyes, but he still breathed when Lucifer took him away. I could not follow of course, I had a deranged daemon to deal with.’ He rapped the tips of his nails against the glass. ‘But I’d long heard it said that our lord saw more of Samyaza in Seraphiel with each passing day. Our lord feared his favoured pet had lost his way, his faith, and was readying to overthrow him. That Seraphiel had lied when he said he sought to make the Dominion more powerful for Arcadia. Rather he was seeking to start his own personal army…with a prince whom no one could control.’ Gabriel might have thought he was blinking prettily. He was not. ‘You, if the stories are to be believed, were the very first step in his bid to rule. Which may account for the next wave of rumours that flowed from White Mountain, whispers that the Lord Enoch chosenotto save Seraphiel, chosenotto heal his wounds or mend his wings…when he very well could have. Dreadful, if it’s true, wouldn’t you say?’
That was a big if. One that made no fucking sense at all. Seraphiel had been devoted to Enoch and Arcadia to a nauseating degree, and all knew it. But then rumours did not need to make any sense to have power. In fact, usually the opposite was true.
‘How much longer shall your villainous tirade continue?’ Pitch wiggled his bare toes. He was fortunate they’d left him any clothing at all, he supposed. ‘Because I am quite busy I have to say. I’m not sure I can give you the attention you are craving.’
All the Higher Angels were vainglorious, but Gabriel held a special position amongst them. He was enamoured by his own appearance, shaping his aura into the most ostentatious forms imaginable, so that all in White Mountain would have no choice but to regard him as he went by. Whether they would snigger or fawn depended on the one doing the regarding.
But how much of that had all been for show? Distraction.
If Gabriel had nursed loyalty to the fallen Samyaza all this time, what better way to conceal it than with a shallow obsession with being Enoch’s most beautiful Archangel?
‘Oh, you’ll give me your attention, daemon. You’ll have no say in it, I’m afraid. I am here to deliver you your end. One way or another.’
Pitch feigned a shiver. ‘They will be lining up in Covent Garden every night to see you swirl your cape and swish about, all dastardly. You are truly ready for the pantomime, Narcissus.’
He enjoyed the tension that came to the angel’s shoulders. It was Pitch’s Arcadian valet, Forneus, who had first uttered the name, recounting the purebred tail of vanity, but he’d been speaking in confidence with other palace staff and nearly lost his three heads when he realised his master had overheard. Lucky for Forneus, Vassago had less reverence for Higher Angels than most. Instead, he’d insisted word of the name be spread far and wide across Arcadia. The hydra had been…well, like a daemon in a bakery full of strawberry tarts, bubbling with delight at the task.
Pitch’s mood soured. Thoughts of Forneus brought to mind the skriker of the same name…which then led to Silas. And there was only fresh pain waiting there. He squeezed his eyes closed. He needed his wits here, not the added ache that came with thinking of the ankou. Of where he might be. Ofhowhe might be.
‘Come now, wakey, wakey, pretty prince. Open those lovely eyes of yours. Let us see what we are working with.’
There was no way Pitch was about to do anything the angel wished. He listened to the Archangel, pacing around the glass prison like a tailor measuring up, or a butcher over a carcass.
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Pitch was very much a suckling pig. His flame was shy as a cock in a winter outhouse. No more than a hint of fire at a fingertip, a hint Pitch kept well stifled in Gabriel’s presence. The last thing he needed was for the angel to know just what a lamb-to-the-slaughter situation this was.
Pitch exhaled, and opened his eyes.
The Archangel’s slippery smile was waiting for him. ‘There we are. You did do well with the eyes on this body, I must say. I wonder how they shall look when they are deadened?’
