The Armies of Heaven Read Online Free Page B

time; she’d thought it an ordinary criminal underworld. But if the Malakim had somehow turned the Fallen themselves away from their own loyalties… Love couldn’t even imagine.
    Lively was struggling to get up. “Could you give me a hand?”
    With reluctance, Love offered her arm for leverage. Watching the steam curl into the air like smoke from a cauldron as she helped Lively climb from the deep bath, Love remembered something Anazakia had said when they’d returned from the citadel. “Are you really teaching Anazakia witchcraft?”
    “In a manner of speaking.” Lively pulled on a robe from the folded pile and tied the sash around her wide middle. “Why?”
    “Do you do fortune telling?”
    Lively looked suspicious. “You want your fortune read?”
    “Not mine. Someone else’s. That is, I want to contact someone on another plane. Do you do that?”
    “Someone dead or someone alive?”
    “Alive. Can that be done?”
    Lively shrugged. “Messages are messages. I sent them for Auntie Helga all the time.”
    With a frown, Love realized some of those messages must have gotten her and Ola kidnapped.
    Lively’s olive skin colored, the same evidently occurring to her. “If you want to try it now, I have a deck of Chora in my room.”
    “Chora?”
    “After the Heavenly Choirs. Auntie says they’re like what you call ‘tarot.’”
    Love nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

    In Lively’s room, they sat cross-legged on the bed with a cloth laid out between them, candles burning in each corner of the room. The suits of the Chora were familiar. What Love knew as spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts, Lively identified as knives, spindles, facets, and tricks.
    The demoness shuffled the deck. “They’re mostly used in gaming, but some of us remember their original purpose.” She set the deck on the cloth. “Think about the person you want to contact while you cut the cards twice, widdershins.” When Love wrinkled her brow, Lively demonstrated. “With your left hand, moving them to the left. It opens the channels by occupying your conscious mind when you use your weak hand.”
    “I’m left-handed.”
    “Are you really?” Lively studied her with interest. “That means you’ve got demon blood in you somewhere, you know. Go ahead and cut with your right, then.”
    Love wasn’t sure she cared for that notion, but she cut the deck as directed. Lively took the cards and laid them face up on the cloth. The first was the Virtue of tricks. The names of the celestial orders were written below each image in the angelic tongue, but in Cyrillic script, as if to mask the meaning from the Host. Love had taken pains to teach herself the language, but she would have known the image anyway; the flowing silver hair and shining eyes of the Virtue were unmistakable.
    “This represents you, the querent,” said Lively. “Now think about what you want to ask as I lay out the next cards.” While Love kept the thought in her head, Lively set the Cherub of knives on top of the first. “A matter of utmost secrecy.” She laid another above it, and one below. “Virtue of facets— trust is needed . Principality of tricks— are you still with us? ”
    “How are you doing that?” It was as if Lively were creating a telegram out of the thoughts in Love’s own head.
    “I’m not doing it. You are. I’m just facilitating. I take it the message is what you want so far?”
    Love nodded.
    “Because if it’s not at any point, just stop me and we’ll start again. Some people take a while to get into the rhythm of communication, but you seem to be projecting pretty clearly.” Lively set another card to the left of the first and one to the right: Principality of knives and Splendor of facets. “Family in danger,” said Lively. “All is not what it seems.” She glanced up, and Love nodded again, unnerved by the accuracy of the reading. It was beyond coincidence that the cards appeared in the perfect order, with the perfect