The Tangled Tree Read online

  ‘They are the evil ones, dear girl, not you… and they are the ones that need to be stopped!’ a serene voice said then, and I reared up from the bed, horrified not only by the sound of Satan’s voice and the knowledge that she had been watching me again, but the sight of my pillow- which had soaked through with so much of my bloody tears that crimson pools had begun to form on its previously pristine surface. I whirled around to look into my mirror, horrified, and screamed when I saw my reflection superimposed over hers- for I looked like a living nightmare. A bride, wearing her own blood as a veil.

  Satan winced. ‘Must you? They won’t be able to hear you well due to the sound-proofing, but I can!’

  ‘Am I losing my mind?’ I choked out, wiping at my tears and only succeeding in smearing them more fully over my face. ‘Is it truly you, or am I hallucinating?’

  ‘Take my hands, and find out.’ Satan pressed her hands to the glass as she had the night before and when she did, my reflection vanished and hers grew opaque, like I was looking through a window, rather than into a looking glass. Behind her was a dark abyss.

  ‘I’m not touching you!’ I snapped, getting to my feet and looking wildly around the room for anything that I could use as a weapon. ‘I-’

  ‘Don’t bother. We are in different realms right now, so you cannot swing a lamp at me any more than I can swing one at you. And even if we were in the same realm, well…’ her lip curled. ‘I’d anticipate anything you’d attempt to do before you could even make up your mind to do it.’

  ‘Can you read my mind?’ I asked, horrified.

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In a way that I won’t be explaining to you- until your desire to kill me fades… and sadly, I can see that’s not going to be happening any time soon.’ Satan clucked her tongue. ‘You’re going to be harder to talk sense into than God was, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you know that for sure?’ I demanded, and she laughed, wagging her finger at me.

  ‘Nice try, but you have to get up pretty early in the morning- a couple of millennia ago, in fact- to trick me into admitting anything that I don’t want to reveal to you, so don’t offend me by attempting to manipulate me, please. I’d hate for us to get off on the wrong foot.’

  ‘I’m not intimidated by you!’ I cried, but my heart was pounding so hard against my ribs that I imagined it bruising like fruit until it became mush inside my chest. ‘You’ve already told me that you can’t hurt me, so what am I supposed to be afraid of? You leaving fingerprint marks on my mirror?’

  The lights flickered in my room then, the electricity flowing through the power lines buzzed and suddenly my light bulb exploded with a pop so that the room went dim, lit only by the thin strip of light shining through the edges of my boarded-up windows. I ducked and sucked in a breath as hot fragments of glass from the bulb and shattered light cover rained down on me, and felt my heartbeat accelerate from pounding, to racing.

  ‘I’m incorporeal- not impotent,’ Satan pointed out as I slowly began to stand on my shaking knees, and shake the glass out of my bloody, tangled hair.

  ‘You didn’t do anything just now that Kohén cannot,’ I muttered, even though my mind was begging me to stop provoking the wrathful demon. Stop mouthing off! This isn’t Karol you’re hurling insults at but Satan. SATAN!

  ‘Yes it is, and I much prefer you continue to refer to me as Satan, because I do not care for the pet name ‘wrathful demon’ at all,’ she interjected and I blinked at her as she continued: ‘I can do many things from where I stand right now Larkin, but helping you isn’t one of them, so if it’s divine intervention you want, then you’re going to have to get over yourself and let me in before Kohén comes back!’

  ‘Let you into this room, or this realm?’

  ‘Into you, little bird- into you.’

  My heart did a flip and landed with a slap. ‘I must be going fucking crazy, for you to think for even one second that I would agree to such a request!’

  ‘You’re crazy if you don’t. In fact…’ she shrugged. ‘You’re dead if you don’t.’

  My muscles seized up. Had that been an assumption she’d quoted, or a fact? Still… ‘I’d rather be dead than Satan’s vessel!’

  ‘I’d rather be a pastry chef than the devil- but we don’t all get what we want, sugar, and the only chance you have of getting anything that you’ve ever wanted is to become my vessel now, understood? I’ve seen the path that you are on in my dreams, and with every word you say and step you take, it is growing shorter!’

  ‘I-I don’t care,’ I stuttered, even though I did, kind of. ‘If my life is coming to an end, then I will spend the remainder of it making the most of what I have, not giving you the opportunity to raise Hell on earth with it!’

  ‘Interesting choice of words… and evidence that despite your high intellect, you understand nothing... least of all, Hell.’ She sighed when I shrugged. ‘I’m not here to rape and pillage your soul- Larkin. I am here because you have called to me. You’re the one that has summoned me here, time and time again with your pleas for help and your scarlet tears!’

  ‘I have no choice but to cry those tears!’ I protested. ‘My regular ones either! I know they are sinful but-’

  ‘And I have no choice but to respond to them!’ Satan argued. But she held up her hands and sighed once more. ‘I understand why the notion of sharing your body with me is a shocking and terrifying one, but if you let me in, I can convince you otherwise!’

  I snorted. ‘You’re not the first person to tell me that letting me into their body will win my heart, you know. Karol and Kohén have used the same argument before and as you can see-’ I gestured to my blood-streaked face, ‘I’m not convinced.’

  ‘And I don’t blame you. But I’m not asking for a permanent change here- only the opportunity to borrow your energy until I’ve generated enough power to give myself human form of my own. Once I have done that, we will work side by side!’

  ‘Why do you need me?’ I demanded, pointing to the face she was wearing. ‘I’ve seen you on the castle’s grounds wearing that face twice now, so I know you’re getting out of that realm and into this one of your own volition somehow!’

  ‘Usually I would ask Siria or Gabby or one of the many others who care for me to assist me, but if the crowned prince of Arcadia can’t get into that harem right now, then how can a Blue-Collared waitress and a Companion from another kingdom be expected to manage such a feat?’

  My knees and fists locked up into taut balls. ‘They’re real people? The twins, I mean?’

  ‘Dear friends of mine,’ Satan conceded, ‘and before you ask, yes they are dark Nephilim and no, that won’t help them get in. Kohén has a guard on that door that has a power that no other Nephilim in the world has- even me.’

  I frowned at her, perplexed but curious still. Every question she answered was rising a million more questions! ‘And what power is that?’

  ‘The ability to mute any other Nephilim’s powers.’

  I furrowed my brow. ‘I’ve never heard of that before.’

  ‘Well it’s kept quiet, of course. Usually he stays by Elijah’s side, guarding the kingdom’s greatest asset- the king- but Elijah has agreed to post him at the harem door this week, which tells me that he suspects as I do: that you are now the kingdom’s greatest asset, little bird, and so blood will run before that door is breeched- divine blood, and I will not risk my friends lives for someone who is to foolish to fight for her own. I’m sure I could get by the guard somehow, but that won’t help you anyway Larkin, because you don’t have what it takes to defend yourself, and you won’t until it’s too late… which is why you need to surrender control to me, and let me do what you cannot in order to extricate yourself from this situation!’

  I narrowed my eyes at her, refusing to fall for the old apple and the snake routine. She was pretending to have my best interests at heart, but I knew that she was just trying to scare me into doing something t
hat I would surely regret! After all, I’d read the bible- I knew what happened to those who gave into temptation, especially when that temptation was offered up by Satan!

  ‘You had to refer to the worst fictional book ever printed to affirm the notion that temptation leads to sin?’ Satan asked, looking incredulous. ‘What… waking up utterly fucked in a locked room this morning didn’t do that for you?’ She smiled cruelly. ‘Or did the pleasure you experienced in his arms take the edge off the betrayal and your intelligence?’

  I glowered at her, embarrassed to know that she’d witnessed such private goings-on. ‘I know that I’m an idiot for succumbing to what I believed was Kohl’s plan yesterday, but I’d have to be utterly brain-dead to believe that you’d steer me and my body along a more rational course if given the chance! I’ve read the six books of creation- I know how you work, and I know what happens to those that follow you!’

  Satan arched her borrowed eyebrow at me. ‘Do you now?’

  ‘Of course! The Bible may have been a work of fiction, but the six books of creation weren’t!’

  ‘I never said that they were,’ Satan conceded. ‘But there is only so much information that can be fit into six books, Larkin, so if you want the full story, then you’re going to have to let me into your world!’

  ‘So you can destroy it?’ I asked, tears flowing down my face again. ‘And take my soul along with you?’

  ‘So I can salvage what is left of your soul before it is too late!’ She threw up her hands. ‘Why is it that zealots can always quote what they regard to be scripture and yet miss the main points entirely? I didn’t destroy the world- God did! I saved it, remember?’

  ‘After you set off nuclear weapons!’

  She bubbled her lips and waved her hands. ‘I caused two cesspools to be obliterated at the prayers of others! And even if millions hadn’t wanted the same thing, I had my reasons for doing so, and the world would have already been a better place if God had left the remodelling to me!’

  ‘How?’ my voice cracked. ‘What’s in it for you, if you remodel the world? And why do you care enough about my measly little soul to concern yourself with salvaging it?’

  ‘Plenty, and I will explain it all-’

  ‘Because I’m a dark Nephilim too, and you want to be able to use my powers for your own purposes, the way you use Siria, and Gabby now?’ I asked, voice pitching as the hysteria began to return to me. ‘The way God feared that you wanted to use Miguel?’

  Satan’s eyes flashed. ‘You speak of things you do not understand, and though I long to set the story straight and wipe the bloody tears from your eyes, I cannot trust you enough to know my motives, my truths or even to see my true face until you trust me enough to let me inside you!’

  ‘I cannot trust the devil!’

  ‘Then I cannot help you!’

  ‘So leave!’ I pointed into the mirror and into the swirling, misty blackness behind her. ‘I committed a sin when I asked for your help, and I see how wrong that was now! I’m sorry that I’ve wasted your time but rest assured- it will not happen again!’

  Satan smirked. ‘You say that now-’

  ‘And I will say it forevermore!’ I stepped closer to her, reaching for the water jug on the shelf beside the mirror as I did. ‘You don’t have to believe me, but I swear on my soul that I will cut out my own tongue before I call for you again, and plunge a blade into my heart before I pledge it to you!’

  Satan did not flinch. ‘That’s precisely what I’m afraid of, Larkin, and exactly what I’ve come here to prevent. You think that ending your life will end everyone’s suffering with it, but it will be the beginning of the end for everyone that you still care for- and no-one more than Kohl. In fact, there is very little that you can do from hereon out that will keep Kohl-’

  ‘Kohén really will kill his brother if I take my own life?’ My palm was sweaty around the water jug’s handle, my heart palpitating in my throat. ‘You’ve seen that?’

  ‘Haven’t you? If you want to know your fate as it currently stands in its entirety then you have to-’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said coldly, and that was the truth because I’d felt manacles closing in around my wrists and ankles since Satan had spoken sweet Kohl’s name. ‘You’ve told me all I have to know, so-’

  ‘I haven’t even begun to tell you all you need to know!’ Satan raged, and I went stumbling back from the mirror as heatless flames sprung into vibrant life behind her, casting flickering shadows on my walls that were incandescent despite their darkness. ‘And I won’t stop trying to tell you how important your life is-’

  ‘Help!’ I screamed, turning and smashing on the harem’s door. ‘Kohén! Kohl! Anybody? Satan is-’ and just like that, the words were cut off, as a cold, hard fist clenched my larynx and squeezed tightly. Gasping and choking as though she physically had me against the door and was strangling the breath out of me, I whirled around to face Satan and understood that I wasn’t going crazy, not at all. I was going to Hell!

  ‘It is a sin to discuss me with others- both in their rule book and my own!’ Satan exclaimed, and just as suddenly as the pressure had come upon my throat it vanished, and I fell to the floor in a heap, gasping and gaping at her with wide eyes, stunned by how quickly she’d transformed my pristine bedroom into a nightmarish place of fire, smoke, shadows and fear.

  ‘You took my voice?’ I tried to ask but of course, I failed. Still, she read the words in my mind and responded to them with a cruel sneer.

  ‘And I will hold it as captive as Kohén is holding you, until the compulsion to mention seeing me- ever- has gone!’ Satan confirmed, and then snarled at me again. ‘That goes for writing it down too- not a course of action I’d recommend you undertake if you value your fingertips, eyesight, or functioning brain cells at all!’

  Now I was scared. Could she do that? Crush my fingers with her incorporeal hands? Crush my mind with her balled fist? Suddenly I remembered the first time I’d met Siria- how I’d screamed for Satan’s help inside my head at that ball, only to have the chandelier come crashing to the floor, practically on top of everyone that I’d been angry with at the time- and it was like someone had hit me in the stomach.

  ‘Yes, that was me,’ Satan said smugly, as I turned and began to kick the door, rattling it in its snug frame. ‘My power is limited until I can walk the earth once more, but it never vanishes completely. So long as you call for me, I will hear you, and so long as there is a looking glass, I will be able to-’

  I pelted the crystal jug at the mirror, and it shattered into several massive shards, extinguishing the flames and her face, but leaving the room dim and filled with dread still. Weeping brokenly, I dropped the glass to the floor, picked up the largest part of the heavy water jug that was still intact- the solid handle- and then crawled into the bathroom, staying low and out of sight of the mirror above the counter- feeling my heart lodge itself in my throat when I heard Satan sigh above me and whisper:

  ‘You’ve made your bed here as his whore with your actions, and I cannot stop you from lying in it, if that is what you have made up your mind to do in order to work off your guilty conscience.’ Satan said sadly. ‘But if I cannot appeal to your conscience, then I will appeal to your delightful curiosity.’ Something big and thick smacked to the tiled-floor in front of my eyes, causing me to startle. ‘You’re not the first girl to fall victim to the Barachiel’s legacy, and unless you help me- you won’t be the last. Read between the lines of that, then we’ll see if you have the capacity to understand as much as your preliminary test suggested that you do.’

  I saw instantly that it was a book that she had dumped at my feet, but only as I rose and flung the thick glass projectile into the mirror. I couldn’t see much in there, but there was a satisfying crack followed by a rain of glass hitting the marble countertop and as soon as the glass stopped falling, I realised that I could breathe and see again. The light remained muted, but the blood had cleared from my eyes and I knew without looking th
at my tears had begun to run clear again. The scent of blood had gone, along with the pungent aroma of smoke, and the general sensation of being watched.

  Satan was gone, but when I opened my mouth and tried to pray to God out loud, I was dismayed to realise that she’d cut me off from contact with everybody else as effectively as I’d just broken communications between us, and her disappearance hadn’t altered the fact that I was mute now.

  Now what? I thought, sniffling as I sat up again, realising that blood was trickling out of my knees and palms from where Satan’s surge of electricity had blown out the light bulb above and the glass globe that had encased it. There was a sudden pounding on the door then, and I flinched- what if Kohén saw all of this mess and assumed that I’d staged a personal rebellion against him, and took it out on Kohl?

  ‘Larkin?’ the voice was only just audible through the thick door, but because it was a voice that was on the other side of that door still, I knew that it had to be Kohl because Kohén would have let himself in. ‘Larkin, what’s going on in there? Are you hurt?’

  I got to my feet and shoved the book into my bathroom cabinet and then I got up, wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand, checked it to make sure that the moisture was clear, not clotted, and sighed in relief when I saw that it was. There was nothing that I could do about the glass or my wounds, so I limped out into my chamber again just as the door burst open then and Kohén barraged through, looking wild-eyed and frantic. He stumbled to a halt when he saw me, and Kohl smacked into him hard from behind as he attempted to follow.

  ‘Larkin? What’s the meaning of this?’ Kohén demanded, but when I opened my mouth to answer, only a sob came out. He turned to push Kohl off him, then indicated into the hallway. ‘Go finish arranging things, and I’ll join you in a moment!’

  ‘But Lark-’

  ‘Isn’t your concern anymore, remember?’ Kohén demanded, and Kohl’s expression tightened. He looked to me, seeking support that I could not grant him, but before I could demonstrate that I had no voice to speak with, glass snapped beneath Kohén’s bare foot and he looked down at it and hissed as blood trickled from the sole of his foot and towards my white carpet. ‘Good grief! This place is…’ he shoved Kohl out. ‘Go on! I’ll handle this!’