A Death of Music Page 7

  Penelope tried a little bit of everything, even the wine. For the next few minutes, she felt a bit giddy as she explored the table with eager fingers. As laughter encircled her and the juice of what looked like a gold-dusted plum burst open in her mouth, she abruptly felt a stab of guilt. Atsa was trapped in Spider Woman’s realm. She shouldn’t be enjoying herself.

  “What’s the matter?” Dynah asked, resting a hand on hers under the table.

  Penelope jumped. She’d been so distracted by first Willow, and then the appearance of this magical food, that she’d entirely forgotten her sister was sitting next to her on the right. Felicity sat on the other side of Dynah.

  “Just worried about Atsa,” she murmured.

  “We’re going to get him back,” Dynah said with a smile and a nod of reassurance.

  “Yes, but when? How long will all of this take?”

  Dynah’s smile faded a bit, and she glanced over at Felicity. Through their shared connection, Penelope knew the others thought it, too. It hung between them for the first time: what did the future hold? What would happen after they found all the seals?

  Penelope thought back to the magic she’d tapped into in the goddess’s realm. She had proven it was possible to use their magic for something other than destruction. But creating a ball of light was not exactly something they could use to defend themselves against Heaven. They needed to be stronger. They had to figure out how to wield their power in different ways.

  Indigo interrupted her musing. From a few seats down, he raised his silver goblet into the air. “To the four horsewomen! Our honored guests.”

  Around the table, everyone lifted their goblets and took sips of their wine.

  “I must say, Heaven certainly is a persistent bunch,” he continued. “And they certainly surprised us with their choice this time.”

  “Yes,” said another demon, a woman across the table with brown skin and red hair. “Choosing humans to imbue with the powers of the Riders? I’m surprised it didn’t destroy you.” Her lips curled into a smile as if the thought amused her.

  “I’m honestly a bit surprised we received such a warm welcome from you all,” Willow said. “Us being created by Heaven and all.”

  Indigo laughed. “I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

  “Are you saying we’re the enemy?” Dynah asked, raising her brows.

  “I suppose that remains to be seen,” Indigo said.

  “I think you’ll find we are not like the Riders before us,” Willow said. Her voice was soft, but it carried across the table with an edge of lightning.

  “You might be right about that,” the demon said.

  The smile he threw her was hot enough to scorch. Penelope noticed Willow didn’t seem to mind at all.

  “Tell us about the Riders before,” Felicity asked. “What do you know of them? How many have there been?”

  “A dozen sets, perhaps?” answered a demon at the other end of the table.

  “A dozen!” Dynah’s blue eyes flew wide.

  “As I said, Heaven is persistent,” Indigo said. “They’ve tried to bring about the Apocalypse many times.”

  “Think back to all the major disasters,” said the red-haired woman. “Pompeii. The Black Plague. The Crusades.”

  Penelope remembered reading about those in school. She shook her head in disbelief. “Those were all caused by Heaven?”

  “The angels don’t seem to see the irony.” Indigo grinned. “Saving souls but taking lives. We like the souls just as they are: an abundant source, right here at our fingertips.”

  “Well, what happened to the other Riders?” Felicity pressed. “Where are they now?”

  A stillness fell over the table, which was unnerving amongst the jovial demons.

  “Well, when their respective Apocalypse attempts ceased to be, so did they,” one of the demons said slowly.

  “Heaven doesn’t take kindly to failure,” added another.

  Penelope looked down the table to Indigo. “Are you saying they’re all dead now?”

  Indigo met her eyes. “I’m saying that Heaven made them, and when they no longer proved useful, Heaven unmade them.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Felicity

  Felicity stiffened, and Dynah placed her hand on her thigh under the table. Those blue eyes flicked to hers, clouded by the same fear she knew Dynah could see in hers.

  Everything had been such a blur the last few days. The influx of power and knowledge, Beziel telling them how to save the world, the torture of their past memories in Spider Woman’s lair. And now they were having dinner with demons, and for the first time it really struck her: the chances of them making it out of the Apocalypse alive were slim to none.

  If not for the wild thrill of power that first day, Felicity didn’t think any of them would have agreed to be double agents to begin with. Not that they didn’t want to stop the Apocalypse, but going up against Heaven? Angels? As Riders, they were powerful, but there were only four of them. And now that they’d taken the reins of their consciousness once again, the power they did have was greatly diminished. If Heaven took the rest of that magic away, she doubted that they’d just go back to being ordinary humans. Unmade. That was the word Indigo had used.

  She shivered and Dynah squeezed her leg. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “We’ll… we’ll figure something out.”

  Felicity marveled at Dynah’s courage. Her first instinct was to comfort. How did she do it? Still the confident Rodeo Queen, after everything that had happened.

  She was very aware of the warmth of Dynah’s hand on her leg. It had been nice, those first couple of days. Her power overwhelming her feelings. Not acting like a lovestruck puppy. She’d felt, for the first time since she’d seen the flame-haired beauty years ago, standing on Main Street in Hawk’s Hollow, that they’d been on equal footing. But ever since she’d come to her senses down in Spider Woman’s lair, they’d bubbled back up again.

  “I like you four,” Indigo said, standing and pouring Willow more wine. “I hope Heaven doesn’t do something untoward. Though, as I mentioned before, demonkind is not so fond of the Apocalypse in general. At least the demons who live in this realm.”

  He continued around the table, refilling everyone’s goblets. His pitcher never ran empty. Magic, clearly, as was this whole dinner. Felicity could feel it thrumming across the platters of food, in the candles, in the stone table and the vines overhead. The whole thing was a glamour. Like the fortuneteller’s tent that she and Dynah had visited. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  “Earth is somewhat of a…playground for us. We need the souls. As does Heaven. But we need them in a very different way.”

  Indigo stopped behind Felicity and Dynah and poured them more wine. Felicity had barely touched her cup to begin with. She’d never had wine before, other than the tiny sips they gave you in church to represent the blood of Christ. That wine was bitter and unpleasant. This wine… this wine felt like velvet on her tongue, tasted of the earth and the night itself. She felt, tasting this wine, like she was tasting the shared experience of everyone who had ever tasted wine in all of time. She saw in her head people frolicking and dancing, laughing until their lungs hurt. She wanted that, too. She wanted to be uncaged.

  On the other side of Dynah, Penelope looked up at Indigo. “Why the feast, then? Why speak to us at all, if we’re working toward opposite goals?”

  Indigo did not pause as he kept filling glasses; he was on the opposite side of the table now, across from them. “Because Sassafras told us to. And because I think there’s something different about you four.” He shrugged. “It may just be that you were human before. But it could be something else.”

  He did stop now, and his eyes swept across each of them. “What I know for sure is that you are the first of your kind, this hybrid creation. You are unlike anything I have ever experienced. and that…” he closed his eyes, lips parted as if he were tasting the ai
r, savoring it. “That, Riders, is a rare and beautiful thing indeed.”

  Indigo opened his eyes again and finished filling cups, then reclaimed his seat at the head of the table. Felicity could see him engage Willow in conversation, just the two of them, and by the looks on their faces, the topic was far lighter than the one before. That cued the rest of the table, and small clusters of discussion began as everyone continued nibbling from the feast before them and sipping from their wine.

  Dynah didn’t seem to notice at all that several demons were eyeing her hungrily, as if she were the dessert course. This didn’t surprise Felicity in the least. She’d watched this kind of behavior for years. But what did surprise her was that it wasn’t just male suitors. Several female demons stared openly, cast her flirtatious smiles. As she gazed around the table, she realized that there were also two male demons who held hands, fed each other food, and kissed openly in front of everyone.

  Felicity realized that in this place, none of that mattered. Her insides fluttered. Her whole life she’d been told that only men and women could feel that way about each other. So, naturally, it had terrified her when she’d realized, in her early teen years, that she did not feel that way about boys. And then she’d seen Dynah. She’d convinced herself that it was the devil testing her, as her mother told her he did every day.

  Of course, these were demons after all… but the new part of her, the part that was magic and time and knowledge from some place she didn’t know, the Rider within her, realized that her mother had been wrong.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Dynah asked softly.

  Felicity jumped and looked over at Dynah, who smiled and raised her silver goblet to take a sip of wine. Felicity tried not to watch her lips.

  “Just…” She paused and took her own gulp of wine to stall for time. It felt warm in her throat, in her chest. “I never thought I’d be dining with demons. Or drinking wine. Or…” she waved a hand around the table. “Or any of this.”

  “I know what you mean.” Dynah frowned for a moment, and it made the skin between her eyes crease slightly. “I wish we could go back to the first couple of days after we got our power. Whatever Spider Woman did to us…” She shook her head. “Those first two days, I felt unstoppable. But now…”

  “I miss it, too. But at the same time, I wasn’t really me then, you know?” Felicity looked down at her fingers, splayed out around the base of her goblet. “There were so many things I didn’t like about myself, about my life, before this happened. But it was still my life. And there are things I miss.”

  Dynah’s frown deepened. “What didn’t you like about yourself?”

  Felicity looked up at her. “Well, for one, I was the only one like me in town. You know, with skin like mine. No one spoke to me. You and Penelope and Willow all knew each other before we were Riders. But I was always on the outside of everything. It was like everyone saw me and no one did, at the same time.”

  “I saw you,” Dynah said softly. “And not just because you were the only girl with dark skin. I always thought you seemed very nice. Your harp music at church was divine.”

  “You did?” Felicity sat up straighter, searching Dynah’s face. “But you never spoke to me.”

  Dynah’s cheeks flushed. “Well, I should have. I should have been a better sister to Penelope as well. You two have a lot in common. Being outsiders because of your blood. It wasn’t fair.”

  They fell silent for several long moments. The old Felicity wanted to comfort Dynah, to tell her she didn’t do anything wrong. But she wasn’t that Felicity anymore.

  “Look, though,” Dynah said, waving a hand around them. “The demons seem to have a much more diverse makeup than Hawk’s Hollow ever did.”

  Felicity followed her gaze and realized with a start that she was right. There were demons with pale skin, and cinnamon skin, like Indigo, and darker brown skin, like her own. Several, in fact. She hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t alone anymore.

  “What do you miss? About your old life?” Dynah asked.

  Felicity bit her lip. “I used to write. I had a little book. I’d write out in the barn.”

  “Out in the barn? Why?”

  “My mother would have never allowed it.”

  Dynah looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Why not?”

  Felicity felt her cheeks flush. “They were… it wasn’t just a journal. It was stories.”

  “Stories?”

  “Stories of a… somewhat scandalous nature, I suppose.”

  Dynah’s eyes widened and then she let out a bubble of laughter. “Oh, you mean stories about romance? I never would have thought. The most pious girl in church.”

  “I’ve never told another soul about that.” Felicity clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down.

  “Look at me,” Dynah said.

  Her tone was firm, commanding even. Felicity looked up at her, met those dazzling blue eyes with her own brown ones.

  “You are a Rider,” Dynah said. “You are magic. You are power. If you want to write stories, you can write stories. You are free now.”

  Felicity’s breath caught in her chest. Dynah had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment. A woman with no boundaries. The light of both the candles and the moon on her skin. Fire in her eyes. Fire in her soul.

  Felicity nodded. The past was another life. In this new life, they could be whatever they wanted. But Dynah was wrong about one thing. One vital, fatal flaw that Felicity didn’t have the heart to point out to her. Just thinking of it made her want to scream.

  Because Heaven had controlled her life before she was a Rider. And Heaven controlled it still.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dynah

  The feast lasted until the moon was high in the sky and the air had grown cold enough to bite. Dynah didn’t know how much wine they’d consumed. The demons certainly all seemed to be enjoying themselves. She herself felt the warm, slow spin of it in her veins, but not enough to dull her senses. Numbness wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to feel every moment of her new life, every bit of magic running through her.

  She’d spent the last hour conversing with two demons across the table from her and Felicity, a tall woman with red hair like her own, and a muscular man with ice-blonde hair and piercing gray eyes. Felicity had grown quiet after the first few minutes of conversation, and Dynah could sense that something was bothering her. At last, Indigo stood and waved his hand. Food and drink vanished from the table, and the candles went out, leaving wisps of smoke in the air like specters.

  “Let us adjourn to our tents for the evening. I have prepared special accommodations for our guests.”

  He made an expansive gesture with his arm, and there, amidst the pine trees, several white tents now stood in the darkness. They flickered from within as if lit by candles. Fireflies sparked in the night above them, and Dynah wondered if they were natural, or another touch of magic.

  Everyone stood and left the table. Some of the demons began to wander down the hill toward their own tents. The two that they’d been speaking with circled around to them, and the man reached out and took Dynah’s hand. Dynah noticed the woman reach out to brush a strand of Felicity’s hair away from her face, a bold smile on her lips.

  “Shall we continue the evening together?” the woman said, looking first at Felicity, and then to Dynah.

  The man stroked his thumb over Dynah’s wrist, and she felt a spike of heat and pleasure course through her body in an entirely different place. She turned panicked eyes to Felicity.

  “I, uh… we are together.” She pointed to Felicity and back to herself.

  The man smiled. “Yes. And we can all be together.”

  “You are used to four, after all?” the woman added.

  Dynah didn’t quite know what to say to that. She opened and closed her mouth and looked to Felicity again.

  “Your offer sounds lovely,” Felicity said, bowing her head slightly to them. “But it’s jus
t the two of us.”

  The woman shrugged, and the two demons walked off. Dynah thought she heard the word boring drift back to them. She looked at Felicity and giggled.

  “Well, I never…” Felicity said softly.

  Dynah laughed even louder. “Bet your scandalous stories would seem like nothing compared to whatever these demons like to get up to!”

  She saw her sister waiting for them at the edge of the woods. They hurried to join her.

  “What was that about?” Penelope asked with a raised brow.

  “You don’t want to know,” Dynah said.

  They walked into the trees. The first tent was ahead on the left, with the second just a few feet away from it on the opposite side. Deeper in the woods, they could see Willow walking with Indigo. She ducked into the furthest tent, which was a good ways off, and pulled him in with her.

  “Do you think she’ll be alright?” Dynah asked, looking to Penelope.

  Penelope hesitated only a moment before nodding. “Willow knows what she’s doing.”

  They stared into the darkness for another moment, then Penelope shrugged. “I’m actually exhausted. Goodnight.” She ducked into the first tent.

  “Do you want that one?” Felicity asked Dynah, pointing.

  Dynah turned and looked down the hill where the other demons had gone, then looked at the third tent, calculating its distance to the fourth one, where Willow and Indigo had just gone. “We should probably stay together, don’t you think?”

  What she didn’t add was that she was also afraid to be by herself. Afraid of the ghost of her dead father coming to pay another visit. She suppressed a shiver at the thought.

  Felicity seemed to have tracked her gaze and nodded in agreement. “You probably have a point.”

  They stepped toward the tent at the same moment, nearly colliding at the entrance.