by A. Catherine
He released his grip and stood.
“I yield,” Duma stated, ending the challenge, and saving Seere from the pain that she was meant to endure from the loss.
Seere growled, more like screeched as she got to her feet.
“Coward!” she spat, splattering blood on his face.
He didn’t flinch, he just stared back at her with calm indifference. After a second of staring at her bleeding fury, Duma turned away and walked towards the stairs.
“We’re done here.”
Iaoel glanced between all the demons in the room, and then they joined Duma up the staircase, through the archway.
Lillith clicked her nails and took a long audible sigh.
“It’s so much more entertaining when they actually claim their victory. Perhaps I should mention to Lucifer that you need another decade in the pit, Seere. You seem to need a reminder to keep up your training,” she prodded.
I lunged for Lillith, ready to melt the skin off her bones. But Daevas intercepted and wrapped his arm around my torso, halting my momentum. To keep from burning him, I reigned in the licks of flame and electricity that dared to escape the barriers that held them at bay.
But my eyes remained on the mother of demons—bloody, painful murder on my mind.
“She’s not worth it, Kale,” Daevas insisted, his voice low and soothing despite the heat that radiated from my body.
Lillith was smiling at me seductively and it took every ounce of my will not to shove Daevas aside and strike her with a bolt of lightning. Slowly, I slid my gaze to my friend, he was steady as a mountain in a storm.
He only lowered his gaze when mine calmed and a deep breath released from my chest.
“Lillith, make yourself useful and go read the materials brought in today,” Daevas instructed.
She winked at me but did as she was told. It wasn’t until she was already beyond the arch that Daevas backed away from me. Both of us turned to Seere. She was already loading her body weapons back into their hidden sheaths.
She grabbed a towel and wiped the blood from her face, the wounds slowly healing over.
“I’m fine,” she said aloud, reading my mind.
“I know you are,” I replied.
Daevas had started the process of cleaning the blood from the floor and sparring pads. I walked over to approach Seere.
“You threw that fight,” I demanded. Why? I emphasized down our connection.
Seere rolled her eyes. “I did no such thing.”
“I’ve seen you destroy a Fallen twice as equipped as Duma in the pit. I’ve seen you fight with a severed artery,” I pointed to the mat, “—that was child’s play. Did you want to yield?”
She sniffed, wiping the last of the blood from her nose.
“You think I would want all my scars to open again? You think I want to be writhing and bleeding for an entire day over some stupid, arrogant angel?”
“I can’t think of another reason why you let him win,” I settled.
Seere didn’t earn her name by losing so easily in a tussle. Hell, she had fought better while both her hands were bound by white hot chains. Maybe she wanted to feel pain, maybe she did need a reminder of who she was and of what she had endured.
Could she really be feeling so powerless among all of us that she was looking for the only vice she had to give herself?
“There was no chance that one of these self-righteous fuckers would’ve actually let me yield. Even they wouldn’t go so far to inflict pain on a demon like me. They’re merciful cowards. I knew what I was doing,” Seere explained simply.
She started to walk towards the stairs. I caught her hand, holding it tight as she turned and faced me.
“We don’t need to go back there, Seere.” Seere locked eyes with me, and we both felt the lingering ache there from our shared experiences during that dark part of our history. She knew what I meant.
I held her hand up to my chest with both of mine.
“Don’t ever throw a fight again.”
She rolled her eyes, but I tightened my grip for further emphasis, pulling her closer.
“Don’t choose that agony. Ever.”
Seere looked down, ashamed. “Kale—”
“Promise me,” I interrupted.
Our eyes met again, and she saw the need in my eyes. I needed her and she needed me. I would not watch her destroy herself, just as she would beat my ass whenever I let my own demons consume every piece of me.
She sighed. “Through hell,”
I nodded. “And everything in-between.”
I kissed her hand, and she squeezed mine.
“Together,” she finished.
TWENTY-SIX
Heather
HE WAS SWEET WITH SEERE. Tender.
Something you wouldn’t expect from a demon, or rather the devil’s son. It contradicted everything I had thought and even claimed before, everything that religion wrote, and even the way the angels treated all of them. Already, he was proving himself to be an anomaly—unlike anything I expected.
The others hadn’t noticed when I slipped onto the staircase during their conversation. At first all I heard was Duma telling Kale and Seere about the information he found. But then it progressed rather quickly into a sparring match. Or something.
I wasn’t entirely sure what had actually caused Duma and Seere to start their fight, but I was surprised by how violent it got.
When Seere and Iaoel sparred, it was light and more or less just a mild exercise. But this was combat. Some of it too fast for me to even track.
It wasn’t much of a surprise that the angel ultimately won, but then Kale said that Seere threw the fight. I heard him describe some of the states she had been in during previous fights, and her capability to win even under extreme physical duress. She must have truly been holding back if Duma was so easily able to take control.
But why did he yield? And why was she so mad about it?
When I heard the others coming up the stairs I slipped around the corner and pinned myself against the wall. Duma and Iaoel noticed me, but paid me no mind, going to their rooms without a word. Lillith didn’t notice me when she went to the opposite hallway, didn’t even turn her back.
From my position I could hear Daevas and Kale speak with Seere, hear the genuine concern in their voices. They cared about her deeply and were not happy to see her fail.
Whatever their history, my curiosity was peaked. But after what I had said to Kale at the diner, I didn’t think they’d be willing to share their life stories with me anytime soon.
I didn’t blame them one bit.
I stiffened when Kale came around the corner and stopped right in front of me. I hadn’t heard him come up the steps. He stared at me with so much indifference, it chilled my bones to the point of breaking.
Yeah, I deserved that.
“Enjoy the show?” he asked coldly.
I closed my eyes shamefully. “I—”
He didn’t give me a chance to continue before he turned and left down his hallway without a word. I let out a long breath and ran a hand through my hair.
I guess that was going to be our normal for a while. I would have to think of something to make it up to him, so he would be able to look at me without wishing I were dead.
“It won’t last forever,” I jumped when Seere spoke, she was next to me.
I put a hand on my chest, my heart pounding from the jump scare.
“I really wish you all would stop appearing out of nowhere.”
She chuckled and went to the fridge. She pulled out a beer and popped off the cap with the flick of her finger. Obviously, these beings didn’t need bottle openers. She dipped it back and chugged half of it in one long gulp.
“What won’t last forever?” I asked.
Seere hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter. She put down her beer and braced her hands around her nose and in two short cracks fixed the bones back into place without so much of a wince. I cringed.
“You cou
ld just apologize, you know? Kale’s not as hard-shelled as he comes off as,” Seere said before she took another shorter gulp of beer.
For second I flicked my gaze to the hallway he went before returning it to the small blonde in front of me. Her dark skin already bruising where she had originally been cut during the fight. She was healing, but slowly.
Seere noticed my stare and smiled. She pulled out another bottle of beer from the fridge and held it out for me.
“I like you,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow and took the beer from her hand. “You don’t know me.”
My stomach tightened when I recalled Kale saying the same thing when I said that I didn’t trust him.
Seere chuckled and flicked the lid off my beer. “I can tell a lot about a person without knowing them.”
“Even after what I said…?”
She waved me off. “You said something mean, were a little bit of a judgmental bitch, yes. But in all fairness, nobody likes us at first. It comes with the territory of being hellborn.”
She pointed in the direction Kale disappeared to. “He likes you too, otherwise what you said wouldn’t have bothered him one bit,” Seere explained. “Let’s just say it gets tiring being hated, we’re used to it, but I think Kale saw an ally in you—if not a friend.”
He wanted to be my friend…and I messed it all up.
“I don’t hate you,” I told her.
“You’re well on your way,” she countered.
I stared down at my beer and finally took a sip of the barley water. I sat in one of the stools, fidgeting with the bottle.
“Was he right?” I asked. She looked at me confused. “Did you throw that fight?”
She groaned. “I had chances, perfect opportunities to take him down without much effort that I chose not to take.”
“Why?”
Her eyes locked onto mine with the preciseness of a missile.
“I was bred to be a monster. With no choice but to kill or be killed. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I can choose to be something different. I can choose to inflict pain or endure it. I was prepared to endure it today.”
“Endure it how?”
She winked. “That’s a story you’ll have to earn. Did you really mean what you said about only wanting angels on watch?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I was...upset. It was a petty request,” I admitted, tapping on the glass.
She nodded and jumped off the counter.
“Good. Because I’m volunteering for the morning shift, and you and I are going to work.”
“Work?”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the work she had in mind. Her widened smirk told me enough.
“Five a.m. I want you ready to go on a short run. After that we’ll spend time doing core exercises and weightlifting. Then we’ll get back to our self-defense lessons.”
My eyes bulged. “Oh great,” I moaned.
She giggled—dumping her empty beer bottle and trotted to the left hallway.
She waved as she ducked out. “See you bright and early, chickpea!”
After finishing my own beer, I took one look at the clock and winced, heading to my own room to try to get at least some sleep before five in the morning.
I thought about what she said. Would simply apologizing undo all the harsh things I had said to him earlier? Even if he did forgive me, I wasn’t sure I deserved to be forgiven just yet.
Maybe Kale needed to be angry at someone to let off stress, and I could be that for now.
Seere said that we could choose to inflict pain or endure it. As tough as the son of Lucifer may have been, it didn’t erase the fact that at the diner I chose to inflict pain on someone who hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
Really, when I considered the fact that I’d seen the demons more often than the angels, and that they had been pretty helpful in this whole ordeal, I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge them.
Yup. In no way did I deserve to be forgiven just yet. Kale could be mad at me for a while, I could endure it. And maybe I would learn something from it along the way.
Maybe…just maybe, in time we could be friends—it wouldn’t hurt to try.
If I no longer fit in the normal, mortal world, I would have to find some way to live in the dichotomy of my existence. I could start here, alongside these immortal beings.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Gabriel
THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE LIKE CHAMUEL.
His personality contradicted all the other archangels in so many ways, it was difficult to see him as one. He was the gentlest of us all and didn’t have a harsh word to say about anyone. In addition, Chamuel had the least amount of power. As the second youngest, it would make sense for the diluted power to leave him with barely anything. But I proved that to be wrong.
So maybe it had something to do with the fact that Chamuel was so kind and passive. That maybe a key component of the archangel might was in their assertiveness. Or maybe it was conviction. The three eldest by far had some of the surest conviction in their actions. Michael with his loyalty, Lucifer with his volition, and Azrael with order.
All nine of us held a specific value above all else. All nine values working together to support a just system. Chamuel fulfilled the compassion element. Jophiel encompassed the value of honesty—and she wore it well. She was never afraid of saying exactly what was on her mind. But she was fair, and unless her opinion was needed, she would usually restrain herself.
Chamuel was a free spirit. He didn’t have an official office or location. He spent most of his time in the field alongside his Amors and Cherubims. It made finding him a little more difficult. Jophiel had managed to get a hold of him through the supernatural web, he was in Paris.
Jophiel and I winnowed instead of flying, landing in the Champs de Mars garden just outside the Eiffel Tower. There is where we found Chamuel—in front of a canvas, paintbrush in hand, painting a portrait of a young couple in front of the Tower.
He wore a pale blue dress shirt tucked into jeans with the bottoms rolled up to reveal blue checkered socks against brown dress shoes. Brown suspenders and a pink bowtie finished off his ensemble. His tight-curly brown hair styled neatly.
His back was to us, but he heard us approach. “It’s important that even while chaos threatens to overcome all that is good, we remember to take a moment and appreciate the beauty that is always enduring. Don’t you agree, Gabriel?” he asked.
I observed the portrait. A marriage proposal in the city of love.
“I agree. We should always make time to remind ourselves of what it is we fight for,” I replied.
“This couple—they haven’t met yet. But two years from today they are destined for this exact moment. They each individually have to overcome an obstacle that will ready them for the life they deserve. That’s what I love most about my job. Not the matching, or when one’s destiny is fulfilled, no. The things they endure to get there. Humans are so adaptable and unyielding. Even when they can’t see their ending, they pursue without hesitation. They love without reason and they dream without limit. I envy them at great lengths sometimes,” Chamuel admitted.
Jophiel cleared her throat. “Chamuel, we have serious business to discuss with you.”
Chamuel half-turned to us. “Jophiel, a moment is all I ask. Take one small moment to breathe and clear your mind before plunging into the doom and gloom of this unfortunate situation,” he begged.
Jophiel frowned. “Not all of us have the luxury of time.”
“Then make time.”
She looked at me then, a silent request to stop this nonsense. But Chamuel wasn’t lazy or inconsiderate, in-fact he was very thoughtful and sympathetic.
I gave her a nod and sent a message internally. Just bear with him for a little bit.
Jophiel rolled her eyes but agreed. Chamuel didn’t specify what we were to do, instead he only finished the last of his painting and then began slowly putting away the supplies—by hand.
> While we waited for him to complete his task at an excruciatingly human speed—causing Jophiel to look like she was in agony, I took a moment to observe our surroundings.
Paris was a beautiful city, but not nearly as it was long ago. There was a long list of places in the world that I would rank above it in elegance and majesty. The sun was beginning to set on this side of the world, causing the sky to turn to a blend of purples, pinks, and oranges.