Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 4 of 30

The horse carried them down the far slope until the trail flattened at a stone chapel. Its bell hung silent over a hollow door. Avi Marie reined in. Fresh claw marks scored the steps. Then Azrael dropped from the rocks above, landing light. He had beaten them here. His eyes went straight to her flowers, too eager, like a man counting coins. "Inside," he said. "The beast keeps its prize below. I'll show you the way down." Avi Marie did not move. His warning had brought her this far. But his hunger felt wrong. She could not tell if he meant to guide her or feed her to the thing they hunted. "You go first," she said. "There's no time to bargain." Azrael stepped toward the hollow door. "Follow me now, or lose it." A voice cut from the trees. "He lies." A goat in a dark hood limped from the shadows, red eyes steady. Small, hunched, one horn chipped. He climbed the steps between Avi Marie and the angel without fear. "Malphas Blackhorn," he said. "I hunt a thief too." He looked at Azrael. "This one waits at hollows. He drives people down the stairs. They don't come up." Azrael's face went smooth. "A goat. You'd trust cattle over an angel?" "He watched you land," Malphas said to Avi Marie. Flat, no waste. "He came ahead to set the door. The beast doesn't need a guide. It needs a herder." Avi Marie's chest went cold. She remembered how Azrael had cut himself off before, how he watched the trail like it was already his. She raised her flowers toward the hollow door and pushed light into it. The glow spilled down the stairs. Empty. No beast. A pit of old bones, angel feathers among them, white and burned at the tips. "You send them down," Avi Marie said. "The beast waits at the bottom." Azrael did not deny it. He smiled, and the menace she had felt on the peak came clear. "You'd have walked in on your own," he said. "They always do." He spread white wings and lunged for her. Malphas hooked his chipped horn under Azrael's knee and dropped him hard on the steps. Garrett was already off the horse. He drove his shoulder into the angel's back and pinned a wing. Avi Marie pressed her blooming light to Azrael's throat until he stopped fighting. "Who sent you to herd for the beast?" she said. Azrael laughed through his teeth. "You still think it acts alone." That single line changed everything. The beast had a keeper. Avi Marie bound Azrael's wings with the horse's rein. She had wanted the beast. Now she had its trapper, and a bigger question behind him. She looked at the goat who had saved her. "You said you hunt a thief. Tell me on the way." She would not go down the stairs. She would take Azrael up, and make him name the one who fed him souls.