The truth, of course, was that Uram would never be a child. Would never grow. There wasn’t enough of him left. Even now, his few memories were less sharp than they’d been before, as if having degraded once brought out into the light. If he went into that lump of flesh, however, then Michaela would fight for him to be allowed to exist. And, given Michaela’s love for Uram and for the meat host in the crib, sooner, or later . . . Oh, that wasn’t it at all.
The knowledge was a faint whisper at the back of her mind, but it came from the echo that was part of her. And it told her the echo would try to take over Michaela the instant it had bathed in enough of her blood.
Would it succeed?
Holly didn’t think so, but the risk was too horrific to chance. For if the echo did succeed in maddening Michaela, Uram’s blood reign would begin all over again.
Take this body, she whispered. At least until you are strong enough to create a full adult body in which to transfer yourself.
This time, the answer was internal . . . and thoughtful. I will have to leave a splinter of energy in the other to make sure it grows.
You know you need all of you to return to greatness.
A long pause before Holly’s hand reached into the crib and spread over the lump of flesh below. A single touch and she knew it was wrong. There was no warmth to that flesh. It was cold. Dead. Animated only because Uram’s energy, fed by Michaela’s blood, ran in its veins.
• • •
Venom watched Holly’s hand spread on the lump that was the unbeing, acid green wings continuing to glow behind her. He wanted to tear that acid green from her, set her free. But to do that would be to kill her.
He refused to believe she was already gone, that this was now a matter between archangels. When the Holly/Uram hybrid looked up without warning and said, “I will keep this body,” Venom knew he was right. Holly had done something, changed the script.
Sire. Venom didn’t look at Raphael as he spoke. I think we should let this, too, run its course.
There’s little choice. Raphael’s voice was a storm of power in Venom’s head, so much of it that Venom sometimes wondered how the sire could bear it. If there is even the slightest chance that Uram can come back, I cannot strike without it being an act of war. To attack an archangel rising from a long Sleep is to breach all the rules that keep the Cadre from destroying one another and the world. We have already had one such incident; I will not be responsible for a second.
Venom stared directly at Holly, willing her to look at him. Just one second, that was all he needed. A heartbeat.
• • •
Holly’s eyes scanned the room. “Do not interfere,” her mouth said before she frowned and shook her head. “I do not remember how I came to this place, but this is my resurrection.”
• • •
Even as Holly’s mouth moved, her eyes were processing what she’d seen in the echo’s scan. Venom’s hand had moved so quickly that most people wouldn’t have caught it. She did, because she was a little like him. And— Why am I like Venom? she asked the echo inside her. Did you have an affinity for snakes? Except . . . I’m not all like him.
A buildup of pressure. Quiet, mortal!
Holly forced herself to sound subservient. Please. I’ll be gone once you come to power. Answer this one question before you take my flesh for your own. Did you have an affinity to snakes? Like Neha.
Holly’s head fell back, laughter pouring out of her mouth. When the echo stopped laughing, it said, I am not Neha with her poisons. I am Uram.
And she realized the echo didn’t know. The echo didn’t remember what powers it’d had that had fed into Holly. It couldn’t tell her the “why” of her, couldn’t explain if she was the way she was because the toxin that had fueled his madness, had twisted the abilities he’d had as an archangel. She’d have to do her own research . . . if she survived this. Yes, you are an archangel, she said, setting her endgame in motion. Because she’d recognized that move of Venom’s hand.
It was part of a silent language he’d taught her during their sessions while he’d been away from New York. He’d made her practice the rapid hand movements until she could use them without thought. Similar to sign language, but much faster, it could, Holly had originally thought, be utilized only by people who had their reflexes. Which would’ve made it pretty useless.
But it had turned out it could also be used in combat situations with other angels and vampires in the Tower. She just had to slow things down so they could see the movements. The speed he’d taught her was so, should the two of them be in a hostile situation, they could talk without anyone being the wiser.
The move he’d just made, it meant: Ball’s in your court.
Holly shuddered deep within. He was telling her that Raphael and Michaela wouldn’t interfere. If the horror was to end here, she had to be the one to end it. Only she knew what was at stake. Only she understood that this echo of energy was created of the most horrific part of Uram, the part that had existed right before his death. When the archangel had been a being driven by madness and blood- hungry for the pain of others.
Shelley. Maxie. Cara. Rania. Ping. Kimiya. Nataja. Daisy.
Her friends’ names, and those of three other women who’d never stood a chance, they were a silent mantra in a hidden part of her consciousness as she spoke again to the echo. Thank you, she said, as if he’d answered her question when he’d done no such thing. I hope my body serves you well.
A pause. You have served me well. Swirled in the madness was a regal graciousness. Now it is time for you to cease to exist.
He pulled energy from the lump of flesh in the crib. It ran up Holly’s arm in an acid-green electrical storm that threatened to melt her brain and explode her heart. She gritted her teeth . . . or tried to. The echo had control of her body and it wouldn’t let her take that instinctive action. When the energy threatened to erase her brain, her memories, she hunkered down and fought back using the very power he’d given her.
Because she still had access to part of that power. It had become fused into her cells and this body was yet hers, each and every part of it imprinted with the force of her life. If he truly had been an archangel, she couldn’t have regained any access to the strength forged of his energy and her determination. But he was only a faded echo. Powerful, but not a power. Not like Raphael or Michaela or the Uram he’d once been.
Steeling her mind, Holly refused to be crushed, but she made no move to betray herself . . . not until the echo ripped her hand off the now-lifeless lump in the crib. As she watched, the fleshy host quickly turned a putrid green at the edges, the rot snaking so swiftly through the rest of it that it was clear it had been rotting for a long time, the putrefaction held back only by Michaela’s blood. A foul smell began to emanate from it.