CHAPTER 17: If Sinners Entice Thee

My son, if sinners entice thee,
consent thou not.
Proverbs 11:10

Grim silence followed the horn’s clarion as the two glanced at each other.

“The hunt be on,” Araciel murmured at last. Shadows whirled around them as he set the lamp on the floor.

Danti tightened his lips, raising his eyes to scan the halls.

“He’s overeager,” the sculptor said shortly. He slid the ceremonial sword out of its sheath and eyed it with disgust. “So, do we try to find the others, or stay here?”

“My place be by Caterina.”

“Mm.” Danti pulled Alrune’s whetstone from his coat pocket and braced the sword against the wall, running it over the steel with a grating rasp.

“Danti, should we not go?”

Somewhere glass shattered.

“Danti!” Araciel started forward, then stopped and looked back at him. “There be no time for that!”

“Relax.” The sculptor flipped the hilt in his hand and ran the stone over the other edge. “She’s probably in the kitchen with the others.”

“Not one of whom can wield a blade!”

Danti ran a calloused thumb over the sword’s edge and scowled.

“It’s probably Dietrich you should be more worried about, with nothing but Frau Bruhn and a few chalk marks between him and the Erl King.”

“Danti!”

“All right!” He shook his head and slipped the whetstone back into his pocket. “I suppose I can always bludgeon them to death,” he muttered. Araciel unsheathed his own saber, carrying it in his left hand. The sculptor noted that the fallen angel’s balance was off as he compensated for the tightly bound wound in his shoulder.

“I’ll lead.” Danti stepped past him and advanced to the stair-tower door. As he laid a hand on the bronze door handle, he saw something stir in the shadows beyond the south hall, where it turned east. He froze.

The shadow she cast behind her as she stepped forward stretched into the dark east hall, and figures moved within it. Danti’s lips opened in wonder as she turned a bone-white face toward them. Something pale slipped around her skirt and crouched at her feet, amber eyes watching them. She dropped one hand to the wolf’s head, fingers caressing its rough fur.

“You again?” the sculptor muttered, stepping back. She smiled. Cold air moved down the hall and made him shiver.

“You be one of the choosers of the slain,” Araciel stated. The fallen angel moved to stand protectively at Danti’s side.

“Beautiful creature,” she breathed, dark eyes turning to fix on him. “Come with me, and join us.”

“I told thy sire I repeat not my mistakes,” Araciel said, unmoved. “How entered you here?”

“Do I need permission to enter my own home?” She let her pale fingers slide from the wolf’s head. It looked up and whined.

Danti shook off his fascination and lifted the sword. Her dark skirts and hair moved in the chill breeze that moved down the hall. Behind them the lamp flame flickered and shadows danced.

When they stilled again, she seemed to be closer.

“Leave,” Araciel ordered. She smiled at him, extending a bare arm.

“Would you abandon me to share my father’s damnation?” she asked.

Araciel paused, considering the implications of her question.

“Forget it,” Danti growled, stepping forward. Four feet of space and three feet of steel separated the two, the dark spirit and the stocky sculptor. She turned her gaze on him, and he looked to one side to avoid the bottomless depths of her dizzying eyes. “You’re already damned,” he said. “It’s too late for you.”

“And you’re no gentleman,” she replied, expression darkening. The shapes in the darkness behind her pressed forward, wolf-eyes flashing as they turned towards the two who stood silhouetted by the lamp’s flame.

“My children,” she murmured, her voice just louder than a whisper, “teach this man manners.”

The wolves bounded forward as Danti whipped the point of the sword up, bracing himself.

“Danti!” Araciel stepped a half-pace in front of him, his left arm swinging up to knock the sculptor’s blade higher in a ringing clash of steel. Two wolves sank teeth into the sculptor’s ankles, and another two leaped for his arms, teeth catching in his sleeves. Danti dropped to his knees. The blade of his sword clattered on the stone floor, although he kept its hilt in a tight grip.

The edge of the fallen angel’s saber swung about sideways and hovered inches to the right of the woman’s bare throat.

“’Ware, lady, that he takes no injury,” Araciel said coldly.

“I’m all right,” Danti gasped, ignoring his pounding heart. The wolves had sunk to their bellies, their sharp teeth clamped on the sleeves of his coat and the leather of his boots, their unblinking amber eyes fixed on him. He was pinned to his knees, but unhurt.

“Threaten me, and your friend dies.”

More shapes moved around them, lurking behind the Erl King’s daughter and slinking in the shadows by the walls.

“Call them off,” Araciel ordered.

“I shall – if you accept my father’s invitation,” she replied, her lips curving up in a smile. “Or do you think your steel frightens me? We who are not quite alive, Saraquael, can not quite die. Did you know that?”

Araciel’s eyes narrowed. She laughed, her fingers rising to lightly caress the saber’s blade.

“After all,” she said, cocking her head to look fully into his eyes, “your friend is entirely correct. I am not mortal.”

“An’ you cannot be killed, you can yet be stopped,” Araciel said. Danti’s breath caught as he watched from the ground. He’d never heard the fallen angel’s voice so hard and cold. “I will pin you to the wall now with this blade, an’ you harm him.”

“Araciel!” The sculptor was shaken; in all the years he’d known the fallen angel, he’d never heard him threaten somebody. He looked into the spirit’s face, and drew in a startled breath as he realized what she was doing. Her eyes met his; and she saw that he knew.

“Still him,” she commanded. A wolf leaped from her shadow toward Danti.

“No!” Araciel stepped forward to draw the metal across her flesh.

“Wait! Don’t kill –”

The wolf closed its jaws on Danti’s throat.

The sculptor froze, his pulse pounding against the beast’s teeth. The wolf pressed against his chest, its rank breath stifling him as sharp ivory edges dented his skin. The rest of his warning strangled in his throat. The smell of wolf filled his nostrils, wild and not altogether unpleasant.

The edge of Araciel’s saber pressed against the woman’s jugular, preparatory to the crossways, sliding cut required by such close quarters.

The dark lady lifted her hands and placed them flat against his chest.

“Show me how you Fell,” she whispered, gazing up into his face.

Araciel groaned, wrenching himself away. He threw his sword down the hallway, past the door to Danti’s studio. Steel clattered and rang over the stone floor.

The wolves opened their jaws and sprang away. Danti shuddered with released tension, his hands dropping to the ground to support himself as he gasped for breath. A woman laughed, a wolf howled, and then Araciel knelt beside him.

“Be thee well?” the fallen angel asked.

“Araciel.” Danti looked up, pulse still racing. Araciel grabbed his upper arm with his left hand, pulling the sculptor to his feet. Danti clung to his arm for a moment, catching his breath. The woman and wolves had vanished. They stood alone in the cold, dark hall.

“Don’t let them do that to you,” he gasped at last, letting go. “They’d love to bait you into killing one of them.”

“She could have killed thee.”

“Don’t you see? They’re trying to make you forget yourself and do something terrible. They think you’ll join them if you don’t have anyplace else to go.”

“I would not see thee die. Thou did dismiss my words before, but it be true; my charge be thy lives.”

“I don’t think it’s our lives they’re after,” Danti said straightening. He fixed the apprentice with an appraising look. “She said the Erl King invited you to join them?”

“He did.” Araciel bit the words off.

“Why?”

“I know not.”

Danti sighed, reaching down and picking up his sword.

“Araciel….”

“What?”

The sculptor straightened and looked into Araciel’s eyes.

“How did you Fall?”

“Ah.” Araciel looked away, his eyes falling on the sword he’d thrown across the hall. He walked to it, wincing as he leaned over to pick it up. Danti’s eyes followed him.

“Caterina said it well, just yesterday. We’re in too much danger to be keeping secrets from each other. If your Fall is tied into this….”

“It be no issue here, save as a means to mock and taunt me,” Araciel said softly. “Nor be it any dire secret. The circumstances of my Fall be mentioned in Genesis, for many of us who dwelt close to the earth succumbed to the same failing.”

“What?”

“We did Fall in love with mortal men and women.”

Danti blinked, surprised.

“So?”

“It be a sin, Danti, to love the creation more than the Creator.” Araciel finally turned, seeming even farther away than he was, half-shadowed. “To intercede in our charges’ fates when we had been ordered to stand still, to reveal secrets to those we loved that had been forbidden to mortal kind, to take flesh upon ourselves and draw enjoyment from that flesh … all those and more be the ways we sinned.”

“But….” Danti frowned, trying to make sense of the devil’s words. “You’re trying to tell me that there are a whole host of fallen angels who are damned because they fell in love?”

“And forsook God for humanity, and revealed to the sons and daughters of man that which was forbidden them to know.”

“So you became a devil. Served Satan.”

“One Falls hardest who Falls from the greatest height.” Araciel slowly began to walk back, blue eyes shadowed and introspective. “Some of us did have children by the women and men we had Fallen for, in defiance of God’s law. Some of us did teach forbidden knowledge, of sorcery and science, magic and art, to our beloved. Others of us did ally ourselves with kings and queens in warfare, and caused blood to flow in battle, and were the source of much jealousy and strife. Our sons became warriors and bloodletters, and our daughters became wise women and witches, and many of us fell into Satan’s grasp through our own weakness. And finally God became angered….”

“The Flood,” Danti mused, remembering. Araciel nodded, withdrawn.

“Judgment was passed on us and our progeny, who were gods and giants on the earth. So harsh was our fate to be that the hearts of the archangels themselves were softened, and saintly men of thine own race did plead our cause. Thus, by the mercy of God and the entreaty of our friends, we were not damned for all eternity, but judged each according to our crime.”

Danti gazed at him a moment, then drew in a deep breath.

“Interesting, but we’ve got more important things to do right now, don’t we?”

Araciel looked up, startled.

“Caterina!”

“That’s right.” Danti caught Araciel’s sleeve as the devil began to stride past him. “Look … the Erl King probably thinks you’d make a hell of an ally. Don’t make the wrong decision again, all right?”

Araciel bowed his head.

“And thee,” he said. “I did not mean to consign thee to the wolves’ teeth, but they be only children. Thou must not kill them.”

“I’ll try, but not if they try pulling it again.” He looked around. “I don’t understand why she didn’t just kill me. That’s the second time my life’s been spared.”

“I be sure,” Araciel said grimly, “the chooser of the slain doth have her a good reason.”

Caterina and Basti stood motionless before the armoire in Basti’s room as the echoes of the horn’s call faded around them. As soon as it fell silent, Caterina pulled the gun from where she had tucked it between her belt and skirt, and carefully poured powder into its pan, snapping the lid back into place when she was done.

Wind whistled through the boards over Basti’s broken window. Caterina shivered, and Basti pulled off his coat, handing it to her.

“Here, wear this. It’s not going to get any warmer tonight.”

She started to reply, then nodded, pulling the man’s garment over her dress. Basti rested a hand on the hilt of his sword, wondering if he should draw the blade or not. He didn’t want Caterina to think he was showing off for her; especially since he didn’t really know how to use the weapon. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be surprised and have nothing to defend himself with. All of the sudden Donna Caterina’s life was in his hands.

It was far too large a responsibility for a simple sculptor’s apprentice.

“We should find the others,” she said, laying one hand on his arm. “Somebody might be in trouble.”

“They’ll probably be in the kitchen,” he agreed, shoving away his doubts and glancing at the door. “It’s about dinner time, isn’t it?”

Caterina nodded, eyes flickering to the clock on his side table and back again.

He took a deep breath.

“Okay.” He walked to the door and stuck his head into the hallway, looking both ways and steadying his trembling hands on the door frame. He was glad he didn’t need to impress Caterina. Bravado and flair was for Araciel; he was younger than Caterina, and scared stiff, and he didn’t care if she noticed.

The halls were dark, of course. Not even the unshuttered gryphon window let in any light; it was evening, and the clouds had obscured the sun all day.

Nothing waited in the semi-circle of light that spilled from the doorway. The keep seemed silent, for the moment.

“It looks clear,” he reported.

“You know,” she said, “he’ll be after Araciel.”

“Do you think so?” Basti looked over his shoulder at her. It made sense. He didn’t know what the Erl King’s wanted, but one thing was for sure. Araciel was part of it. “Wasn’t he with Danti?”

“I think so.” Caterina ran a thumb over the smooth stock of the pistol. “Should we try to find him?”

“All right.” He picked up the lamp from the side table by the bed and looked back into the hall, holding it aloft. Shadows fled, revealing the dull wooden floor and bright tapestries, and nothing else. “Well, I guess we’d better go.”

Caterina followed him, one hand on his shoulder and the other holding the wheel lock pistol. Shadows spun around them as the lamp in Basti’s hand trembled. He tried to ignore them, placing his trust in the noble’s daughter behind him to give warning should anything appear. He placed a hand on the stair tower door and opened it.

The black-clad man stood there, eyes blazing in the lamplight.

“Guten abend, Sebastiano.”

Basti jerked back, into Caterina. She staggered, releasing his shoulder as he knocked her against the wall.

“Come.” The Erl King reached out one black-gloved hand and grabbed Basti’s giaquetta. Basti gasped as he was jerked forward, lifted to his toes and suspended inches before the Hunter’s face. He smelled leather and wolf.

Caterina turned. The Erl King glanced over Basti’s shoulder at her, then looked back into the young Neapolitan’s face.

With effort, Basti shook off his momentary paralysis, swinging his arm up. The lamp smashed into the Erl King’s shoulder, glass shattering and oil spilling. Flame burst up, coloring the walls around them fiery orange.

The Erl King threw him into the wall, gloved hand rising to beat at the flames that ran in rivulets across his cloak. Fire clung to his fingers, licked over the leather and reached for his cuffs.

Caterina glanced from Basti, who clutched his bleeding head as he tried to pull himself up from the wall, to the Erl King, who was yanking off his smouldering hunting cloak. Her eyes narrowed as she lifted the pistol with both hands. It clicked as she cocked it.

“Caterina, run!” Basti yelled, dragging himself up to his knees. “Find Araciel!”

The Erl King tore off the cloak as her finger tightened on the trigger. Flaming cloth whirled toward her face, forcing her to duck out of its way.

The shot thundered through the halls.

Chips of paneling flew from the wall far to the Erl King’s left.

“Run!” Basti leaned against the wall, trying to stay up. Blood trickled down the right side of his face from the scrape where his head had hit the wall.

Caterina ran, past the Erl King toward the stairs. The Hunter reached for her as she passed, his fingers still half-alight from the burning oil. She jerked away and vanished down the stairs.

The Erl King whipped around to bare his teeth at Basti. In the fading light of the smoldering cloak, he looked more feral than ever, radiating the wild fury of the storm itself.

“No matter,” he growled, walking into the hall as he pulled off the burning glove and slapped it out against his legs. “You’ll do.”

“What do you want?” Basti asked, voice shaking. The Erl King advanced until he stood just inches away. A small nick welled with blood on the Hunter’s cheekbone, where glass had struck him. The Erl King wiped it off with his gloved hand.

“A lure.” The Hunter took the youth’s chin in his bare hand, twisting his face until their eyes met and locked. “I would have preferred the girl,” he mused, “but you will do.”

Basti shuddered as amber eyes bored into his, filling his vision and glowing with a light of their own. Fingers bruised his jaw as he tried to jerk his head aside, frightened. When he closed his eyes, he still saw the Hunter staring at him. Leather touched his lips and he tried to flinch away, eyes opening again. The Erl King’s hand forced his jaw open. He tasted leather and the saline copper of blood.

“You are mine,” the Erl King whispered. Basti stared up at him with wide, horrified eyes. The Erl King’s gloved hand locked his jaws open, forcing him to taste the Hunter’s blood. Dark pleasure flickered in the Erl King’s amber eyes as the boy gagged and struggled. “And you will fetch him for me.”

Basti twisted. For a moment he was fighting the wolf that had attacked him on the way to Gestern Keep; the wolf that had attacked him on the way from Gestern Keep; and then he was simply fighting the wolf that attacked him within Gestern Keep. Anger burned its way through him, anger that once again he was helpless against his enemy. The hair along the back of his neck rose as he struggled, his fingers digging into the Hunter’s coat. The Erl King leaned closer, knee rising to pin Basti’s thigh against the keep wall. Basti tried to shout, but his voice was strangled by the bare hand at his throat, the leather glove against his face.

“Helpless child,” the Erl King murmured, his amber eyes intense. “The Fraülein Caterina was wise to run. She’ll be safer with Araciel. Perhaps.”

Basti tried to fight, his shoulders straining as he attempted to push the Erl King away. The spirit seemed unaffected.

“After all,” he continued conversationally in his archaic German, “Araciel behaved himself quite well for years, but now that Caterina is mature, and unbetrothed … well, you’ve seen his temptation, haven’t you?”

Basti grit his teeth, refusing to meet the Erl King’s hypnotic eyes, refusing to acknowledge his words.

“I wonder if he’ll be able to control himself? There’s nobody left to stop him. No parents, no older brothers, and the fraülein herself might not be willing to cry a halt, taken as she is with him.”

Basti snapped up his knee, but the Erl King shifted, avoiding him. One leather-gloved thumb ran over his lips, and Basti tried to turn his head away, to curse his enemy. He was held fast, and silent.

“Did Araciel tell you how he Fell? He became infatuated by a woman in a very ancient city, and took flesh so he could sit by her, talk to her, touch her. She fell in love with him, of course; who can resist such a pretty young angel? And what innocent, ignorant angel can resist a beautiful woman’s wiles? He succumbed, and they taught each other things your desert God had forbidden….”

Basti closed his eyes, trying to deafen himself with his own pounding heartbeat. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to know his best friend’s faults.

“And here he is again, teaching and falling in love again. After all those years in Hell, I wonder what would happen if he lost that iron control he keeps over himself? Did you ever ask what he did in Hell, Sebastiano? No? You should have. You might have found it educational. I wonder if he’ll be able to prevent himself from injuring her, after he has her at his mercy.”

Basti opened his eyes, hot tears coursing down his cheeks. He jerked his head from the Erl King’s grasp, trying to reach up, to break the spirit’s steely grasp.

“He’s very strong. All the angels were strong. He could take her anywhere he wanted. She might not even fight, at first, in her surprise. I expect she’ll finally start to struggle when he rips her bodice open –”

Basti threw his head back and howled with raw, helpless rage. The Erl King was remorseless, his words piercing through Basti’s rage, painting pictures that made him shudder and weep with anger. A hundred old fears returned as he remembered his old suspicions, felt again the tremor of apprehension that had filled him when Araciel had grasped his wrist and left bruises.

No — he would not believe his friend could do evil.

He could not deny that fact that his friend had done evil in the past.

“Do you want to protect her?” whispered the Erl King, leaning into him. His broad chest pressed against Basti’s giaquetta and his lips brushed Basti’s ears. Basti sobbed, unable to do anything but nod.

“Then you need to fight for her.” The Erl King grabbed his chin again, twisted his face around. Basti suddenly realized what he was being offered. He shuddered.

The Erl King’s amber eyes transfixed him and reached deep into his soul to show him what was there. Yearning for the snow and cold wind, wanderlust, wildness. A lust for simple pleasures: for food, for warmth, and the pretty girls he’d always been too shy to approach. And under that, a hatred for those who had abused him all his life; his brothers, Papa Giulio, even razor-tongued Alrune. A desire to kill.

Basti groaned, his breath catching from anger and grief. Sharp teeth, night eyes, pointed ears, warm fur, four legs. That was the offer. He could run in the night, forget all his cares, fight back when threatened, and defend those he loved.

The Erl King released him as he screamed. The change shook his whole body, shattering his bones and reassembling them along fiercer, deadlier lines.

“What in the world is going on here?” a woman’s voice demanded, as Caterina’s door flew open and Fraü Bruhn stepped out. The Erl King turned and regarded her as Basti writhed at his feet.

“Erlkönig,” she breathed, suddenly going white and crossing herself.

“Fraü,” he greeted her, stepping over the small, dark-furred wolf that shivered and panted on the hall floor. She took a step backward, into the room, and the door slammed. The Erl King laughed.

Basti tried to get to his feet, stumbled, tried again. Ice gripped him as he heard the Hunter’s laughter, and his ears flattened against his skull. The Erl King turned at his low whine.

“Kommt,” the Hunter said, slapping a hand against his thigh. Basti felt a chain around his soul that dragged him forward against his will. Step by step he reluctantly drew close, hackles up and tail between his legs. “I have business, mein Freund, with Herr Dietrich. Circles of chalk and cant will hardly prevent civilized conversation, and I believe our dying young acquaintance will find my offer intriguing. But you, you had better go out and find our little fraülein … to protect her.” The Erl King’s dark eyes glittered. “She shall undoubtedly need it.”

He flinched. The Erl King chuckled.

“Let me speed you on your way, little wolf. I was not responsible for attacking you on the trail when you first drew near Gestern. That was someone else entirely. Can you guess who it might have been, of everyone in this Keep?”

Basti loped away, terrified, as the Erl King laughed and threw open Dietrich’s door.