Outside the archway, an explosive went off, scattering dirt and sending smoke drifting into their hiding space. Lucie’s stomach turned over; Grace could hold off the Watchers for only so long.
“Jesse. The sign I kept seeing—it wasn’t that it was Belial’s symbol; the symbol was holding them back, keeping them imprisoned—”
“Lucie,” he said quietly. “I don’t understand.”
“I know, and there’s no time to explain.” She pushed herself up on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Trust me, Jesse. Hold me. Please.”
He pulled her close. She gasped in relief, pressing herself against him. “Well,” he whispered against her hair, “if we’re going to do this—”
And then he was kissing her. She hadn’t expected it consciously, but it seemed her body had: she pushed up harder on her toes, her hand stroking the back of his neck, tasting dust and salt on his lips, and something sweet and hot beneath that. Her skin prickled with yearning, and then the surge of longing became a buzzing in her head. She felt the narrowing of her perception, darkness encroaching, tunneling her vision.
She closed her eyes. She was in the great darkness, the shimmer of stars in the distance. She gritted her teeth, even though she could no longer feel them, as she reached out. Reached out to hear them, the voices, the awful cries that had become so familiar. They swelled somewhere beyond her imagining, the cries of the lost, desperate to be found. Of the unknown, desperate to be recognized.
And she recognized them now. She knew exactly who they were. And though her own body was beyond her awareness, she cried out to them with her mind. “Iron Sisters! Silent Brothers!” she called. “My name is Lucie—Lucie Herondale. I want to help you.”
The howling cries continued; Lucie had no way of knowing if she’d been heard or not. No way of knowing if she could reach them, but she had to try; she could only deliver her message and hope.
“I understand now what you’ve been trying to tell me,” she called out. “Your souls are voyaging, but still you remember your bodies, still you might return to them one day. And Belial came and violated them—he stole you from the Iron Tombs and put his demons in your bodies to use as he wishes. He can be stopped. I swear he can be stopped. But you need to help me. Help me, please.”
She paused. She could still hear the wailing in the distance. Had it grown louder? She could not tell.
“Fight back!” she cried. “Reclaim yourselves! If you thrust the demons from your bodies, I swear we know how to destroy them! You will be freed! But you must try!” The cries had died away; there was a great silence now. She floated in it, in the darkness and the silence, utterly untethered. She had gone further than she had ever gone before, reached further than she had ever reached. Whether she could return or not, Lucie did not know. She raised her face to the stars, that were not really stars, and said, “We need you. The Nephilim need you. We have fought so hard.”
Her vision had begun to dim, her consciousness slipping away. Lucie whispered, “Please come back to us, please,” and then her mind was swallowed up by darkness, and she could say no more.
35 WINGED WITH LIGHTNING
But see the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: The sulfurous hail
Shot after us in storm, overblown hath laid
The fiery Surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling, and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage.
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
Cordelia ran.
She ran from the north transept of the abbey, circling around the tomb of Edward the Confessor, and burst into the nave, where the choir turned into long rows of pews, all facing the High Altar.
Where Belial sat, sprawled in the Coronation Chair. He was still, one hand under his chin, his gaze fixed on her.
Holding Cortana crosswise, as if it were a golden shield, she began to walk toward the High Altar. She kept her back straight, her face expressionless. Let Belial watch her approach. Let him puzzle at her calm; let him wonder what she had planned.
Let him be afraid. She hoped he was afraid.
She was not afraid. Not now. She was breathless. Stunned. She had known it was true, since they had found Matthew in Edom, and he had told them what happened. But she had not been able to imagine it. Not until this moment, as she strode through the center of Westminster Abbey as if she were going to her own coronation. Not until this moment, when she looked at the High Altar, and saw James.
James. Even with everything she knew, part of her wanted to rush up the steps and throw her arms around him. He would feel like James; his heart would beat like James’s did. His body would feel like James’s body against hers, his hair like James’s if she knotted her fingers into it; he would sound like James if he spoke.
Or would he? She didn’t know. He had asked Matthew to be his voice; was James’s voice, even the sound of it, gone forever? Would she never hear him say Daisy, my Daisy, ever again?
He smiled.
And it felt as if he had slapped her.
James’s face—the one she could conjure up so easily with her eyes closed, the soft mouth and high cheekbones and lovely golden eyes—was set in a sneer, his expression a mixture of hatred and fear, contempt and—amusement. The sort of amusement that made her think of a schoolboy torturing an insect.
Nor were his eyes golden now. Belial’s eyes, in James’s face, were dark silver, the color of tarnished shillings.
He raised his hand. “Stop,” he said in a voice that was nothing like James’s voice, and Cordelia—stopped. She had not meant to do so, but it was as if she’d hit a wall of glass, an invisible magical barrier. She could not take one more step. “That’s close enough.”
Cordelia tightened her grip on Cortana. She could feel the sword tremble in her hand; it knew they had a purpose here.
“I want to talk to James,” Cordelia said.
Belial smiled, a twisted expression nothing like James’s smile. “Well,” he said. “Don’t we all want things.” He snapped his fingers, and out of the shadows at the side of the altar lurched a horrific figure—an animated corpse, a frame of yellowed bones topped with a grinning skull. It wore an archbishop’s miter and a tarnished chasuble that had once been richly embroidered with gold; the vestment was now mostly rotted through, and through the holes Cordelia could see the archbishop’s ribs, hung with stringy bits of leathery flesh. In its hands it held a purple-and-golden crown, studded with gems of all colors. She was reminded, horribly and strangely, of the play on the stage of the Hell Ruelle, the crowd applauding the peculiar coronation.…
“I, for instance,” said Belial, “wish to be crowned king of London by Simon de Langham here.”
The dead archbishop wobbled.
Belial sighed. “Poor Simon; we do keep getting interrupted by your idiot friends. And now, of course, by you.” His silver gaze slid over her like water. “I can’t say it’s been the coronation of my dreams.”
“I don’t see why you want a coronation, anyway,” said Cordelia. “I thought things like royalty, and kings and queens, only mattered to mundanes.”