by Skyler Andra
Frustrated and trapped, I looked away and began examining the rest of the room, searching for an exit and work up a plan for our escape. A row of window panels to my left exposed about twenty people in the adjacent room. Women slumped against the walls, wearing next to nothing, their hair messy and makeup smeared. Men flopped into chairs, twitching and scratching at the scabs on their arms, neck, and faces. Most of them were high as a kite, gazing blankly through hooded lids. It was a fucking drug house. Luc’s goddamn den of darkness. Did he feed off these lost souls?
To top it off, goons with guns were situated at every door. Possibly placed there to prevent anyone from escaping this hell.
Luc spared me no more time to observe the place, as he got up from his chair and grab me by my hair, yanking my head backward and exposing my throat. “I told you not to interfere, brother. But you didn’t listen. Now look what you’ve done.”
He turned to his goon and flicked his hand. The rat switched on the TV. Live news footage played—some sort of incident. Fire burned at the edges of a destroyed coffee cart. Water soaked the pavement beside a destroyed fountain. Blue sheets lay everywhere on the ground. Dead bodies.
He’d let off one of the bombs in the city square. Shock took the last of the air from my lungs. I gasped for more. Luc’s grip in my hair tightened as if he anticipated my reaction.
“Reports say the bomb exploded at 11AM,” announced the news reporter. I shut my eyes, refusing to look. “It is believed that fifty people were killed and another hundred were injured.”
“What the fuck did you do?” I snarled, digging my fingers into the edges of the chair, I resumed rocking back and forth, pressing on the rope to get free.
“What I promised,” Luc whispered in my ear. I opened my eyes. He shoved my face down as he moved away and began pacing the floor in front of me.
I wrestled against my restraints, tipping my chair over to my brother’s great amusement.
“Oh, brother.” He clapped and laughed. “Now, it is you who has fallen.”
“Fuck no,” I mumbled, my face squishing against the floor as drool slopped out of my open mouth.
Despite the drug giving me more clarity, I still couldn’t move or speak with complete sharpness.
He straightened to his full height and put his polished leather loafer on the leg of my chair, applying a little pressure to flip me upright again. I wobbled and groaned, the movement shook my whole body, seeming to get caught in my head.
“Why don’t you just kill us?” I snarled. “Be done with us.”
Luc waved a lone finger at me. “I’d love to, brother. Take your grace and fuel my powers.”
My gaze fixed on Jophiel, who was still sleeping, blissfully unaware of the horror and carnage Luc had caused in our name. How the hell were we going to get out of this when they had us both drugged up? We were weak as hell and probably unable to put one foot in front of the other.
Luc returned, seizing my face once again and squeezing it between his palms. “But that bitch of a sister over there.” His warped gaze landed on Jojo. “Left me too weak to assimilate your grace.”
His pathetic evil monologue made me smile. He punched me in the face because of it. Pain cracked in my skull and I groaned while rolling my head back.
Despite the discomfort and residual effects of the drugs, a realization hit. Jojo had seriously weakened Luc and he needed a quick fix. In this case, his fix was the concert, where he planned to infect enough humans with darkness, then absorb their energy to repair his strength. Just like one of his pathetic junkies, he needed to pump himself full of enough power to kill us for good. God, no. We couldn’t let that happen.
A dark mist sprang from Luc’s fingers, shaping into tentacles, seeking out something to grasp. Like all of Luc’s darkness its intent was solely focused on consuming the Earth. They crawled up his wrists, he twisted his hand, letting the filth roll over his knuckles. Pain seared my sternum when he placed his hand near my face. The tendrils reached out for me. I moved away but it was hopeless. If he wanted to infect me, he could. This was just a game to him. He wanted to watch me squirm. To strip me of my faith and erode my confidence.
Well fuck him!
But—instead of use the darkness against me, he turned away from me and advanced on Jojo.
I glanced at her. I hadn’t noticed the dullness in her skin or the purple circles formed under her eyes. She was not the almighty’s weapon in this state.
I wanted nothing more than to wipe that fucking smirk off his face and shove it up his ass.
He hooked a noose around her neck.
“No!” I shouted, trying to draw Luc’s attention back to me. “Kill me instead. It’s me you want to hurt. I cast you out. Left you here. Abandoned you.”
Luc snarled at the last sentence. He tightened his dark noose and began choking Jojo with it. Her eyes snapped open. She coughed and struggled.
“You changed me, bitch.” He sneered at her.
I squirmed in my seat, still trying to get free. Suck shit asshole. His words were proof that her power posed a serious threat to him. If only she were able to wield them again. Unlikely given our current predicament.
“Everywhere I go—I see beauty.” Luc’s voice bubbled with barely contained rage. “It makes me want to vomit. It’s an endless torture that I just want to stop.”
“Luc, no!” I shouted, my nails dug into the armrests, scratching the wood.
He turned his black eyes to me. His clawed hands grabbed Jojo’s hair and threw her head back, forcing her to look at him.
“You’re right, brother.” Luc said as he let her go. “I’ll let her live. Killing her is too easy and no fun, now. I’d much rather mess with your heads. Infect you and all of the remaining angels with darkness, then watch as every one of you suffers. I’ll particularly enjoy watching you suffer, Michael, for abandoning me.”
Fucking pussy bitch. Hadn’t he gotten over that—after all this time?
But he wasn’t the only fool. I’d let myself believe in our impending victory, with Jophiel on our team I got cocky. The assurance of us returning home as heroes, made me overly confident. Visions of my legacy as Heaven’s defender living on well after I retired, made me foolish. Delusions. When in reality my world, my life was balanced on a knife’s edge, and I was at the mercy of Luc.
“In the meantime,” he said, letting go of my hair. “You can watch as I ruin her purity and innocence.”
Sick bastard! My chest thundered with a murderous darkness. I couldn’t wait to stick my sword in his chest for the last time, finishing him as I watched the last of his plague, his light, bleed out.
“Touch her and you die,” I growled, rocking back in my chair, sending it staggering forward. The action earned a hard and unforgiving laugh from Luc.
26
Jophiel
Mike's murderous shouts accompanied me as the demon carried me into the adjacent room. In close proximity to such darkness, I wretched and gagged. The plague inside of my slashed at my insides; it wanted liberation.
“Let me go,” I tried to whisper but it came out thick and foreign, not sounding like me at all.
“Don’t worry, pretty angel,” the demon rasped, laying my sluggish body in the middle of the floor. “We’ll put you out of your misery soon.”
Terror clambered in my throat. I gasped for breath, while rolling onto my side. My fingers twitched, scratching at the floor, I tried to find some leverage to lift myself up.
Murk shrouded my vision. My nose filled with a sickly-sweet smell of smoke, sweat, and bodily waste. People coughed, mumbled, and shuffled. In the distance, horrid music blared. Scratchy guitars, out of tune pianos, and thumping drums rumbled in the background only adding to the thudding in my head.
Where was I? What was I doing here?
I remembered waking to Lucifer strangling me, Mike was beside me, arguing with our brother. Lucifer had tied Mike and I to chairs. We’d been unable to defend ourselves. At the time, I didn’t u
nderstand what was going on. Death visions had flashed before my eyes. Panic had stormed through my veins. I thought I was going to die.
Memories flooded back, images of the city square. The darts striking my neck. Liquid burning in my veins. Feeling dizzy, my vision blurring, and finally collapsing to the ground. Some sort of medicine—the same liquid that left us helpless, immobile, and incoherent.
Thankfully, it seemed to wear off now. Slowly my body awakened from its forced slumber. Numbness receded from my muscles. My throat felt dry. Desperate for water, I prodded my throat with my fingers.
I glanced around, my murky vision clearing. A room full of dazed men and women, all lying around. Many of them looked like they were sleeping. Some mumbled to themselves. One strummed an invisible guitar. Other scratched at bleeding sores on their arms.
Someone crouched beside me and stroked my hair. I cringed, recoiling, but I couldn’t move far. Lucifer. His pungent darkness burned my nose and chest. I gasped for fresh air, finding none in this stinking hellhole. I detected another smell on him. Faint beneath his stench was… fear. Dread. Doubt.
I recalled the words that he’d said to me. How I’d changed him and forced him to see beauty everywhere he went. My touch had transformed him in ways that disgusted him. Brilliant news. If only I got another chance to make him see the light.
“Jophiel,” Michael called for me.
“I’m here,” I gasped, my voice barely a whisper.
“Deal with him,” Lucifer barked at his demon from the adjacent room.
I heard a thump and a grunt.
“Michael?” I said.
But he didn’t reply.
Someone groaned and slumped against the wall next to me. I jumped, staring at their lifeless body as a sharp instrument protruded from their arms.
I shuddered at all the darkness crawling over this place.
“Why did you bring us here?” I asked, barely able to get my voice out.
Lucifer trailed a clawed finger down my cheek. I recoiled. “To keep you from meddling in my affairs.”
“What will you do with us?” I croaked, my throat burning.
“Kill you.” The coldness in his eyes sent a rush of dread through me.
My brain screamed at me to move but my legs wouldn’t budge. I closed my eyes tight and imagined him following through on his threat. No more Archangels. No more Heaven. No more existence. Ice clamped around my lungs.
“What do you think of my lair, sweet sister?” I opened my eyes to find Lucifer extending his arms wide. “The darkest of the dark all congregate here. They inject them with themselves drugs to be lost in another world, because they cannot handle their own.”
I glanced around the room, all their blank faces and unfocused eyes. In each of their faces, I saw him. Rejected, broken, and angry. My heart wept for each one. But I didn’t cry. The way he looked at me, with that triumphant amusement, it told me what he wanted. To break me. To crush my spirit. To make me like him. I felt him calling to my darkness, enticing it, willing it to overpower me. Well, I wasn’t letting him claim me like he had done to these poor lost souls.
“They’re like you,” I replied in earnest.
His gaze sharpened like a blade. “What do you presume to know about me, sister?”
I knew that deep inside he was just like these broken humans. Hurt, confused, trapped, and lashing out at those who he believed betrayed him. He was unable to see the beautiful lesson in the Most High's decision to cast him out. He was cast from the heavens in order to be taught about humility, respect, and appreciation for all of creation. Lucifer did not understand this.
“I know that you delight in the misery of others,” I said, pushing myself up to a sitting position. “To make yourself feel better.”
Lucifer's body tensed, like he was ready to strike. “Barbed words for someone inclined to view everything in this world as beautiful.” He smiled, all teeth, sharp and cunning. “Tell me, has Zak been rubbing off on you? I can smell his stench all over you.”
I didn't like his insinuation and pulled my jacket tighter across my shoulders.
“Let’s see how beautiful you think the world is after this.” A victorious smile claimed his face as he pulled at his sleeves.
I wanted to wipe the expression off his face with another blast of my grace. But that wasn’t going to happen with my being restrained.
He laughed as he and his demon left me with the lost souls in the room.
I lay back on the floor, breathing hard, trying to still my thoughts and figure out my next move. We had to help these people. Get them out of here. Most of all, we had to stop Lucifer’s concert.
“Michael,” I shouted. “Michael!”
No reply. They must have knocked him out again.
I glanced at the guard in the corner of the room. He smiled smugly as if he enjoyed my helplessness.
A coldness settled under my skin. I was alone and unable to use my grace or my body properly. The ache in head worsened from all the noise. I couldn’t breathe over the foul stench of darkness. My stomach turned and I felt like I would vomit.
Something scraped along the floor. A man was crawling over to me.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised him.
A slimy smile crept up on his face. “I don’t want out of here.” He grabbed my feet and dragged me closer.
“Let go of me.” I kicked at him and he laughed.
His grip on my ankles tightened. I cried out at the pain and thrashed as hard as I could, which wasn’t much given my lack of strength. His eyes were dark with lust and greed, he straddled my legs and pinned me down. His shaky fingers unbuttoned my pants. I slapped at his hands.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice came out sharper.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, giving me a boost in strength, but not enough to use my grace. I jerked my torso up and slapped him across the face. Startled, he reared back, clutching his face. I slid out from beneath him and scrambled back across the floor. I wasn’t fast enough; he caught up to me. His movement was fast, jerky, and filled with malice.
“Bitch!” He raised his hand and slapped me across the face with the back of his hand.
Vomit rose up my throat. The rattling of my heart escalated. I clambered away. He caught me by the ankle and yanked me backward. I clawed at the floor for grip. He grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head back, slamming me to the ground. Pain cracked in my skull. White hot light burned my vision. I called to my grace to take it away, but it was buried somewhere deep, beneath the medicine they’d injected me with.
The man tugged at my pants, pulling them down.
“No,” I mumbled, scrabbling for them.
“Shut the fuck up.” He smashed my head against the ground again.
An excruciating ache blinded me for a few moments. I gasped for air, groping for anything, anything to get him off me. Dark thoughts crashed in my brain. He was going to assault me.
“Help, please,” I begged the guard in the corner. But he didn’t come to my aid.
By now the man had ripped my pants and underwear off. His weight lifted off me. I kicked my legs. He thumped me on the thigh and more pain clawed through me. I couldn’t move from the impact.
He crawled over me.
“No!” I pushed at his face and he punched me in the jaw. More pain lanced through my head.
He forced himself upon me and I screamed as he rammed his fingers inside me. Jolts of pain shot inside of my body as he abused it. He panted above me, his face a disgusting mix of concentration and pleasure.
Then he laughed, a cruel noise. “Like it? How about a fist fuck?”
Whimpering, I groped on the floor, catching something small and cold. The item that people used to inject themselves with drugs. I stabbed it in the man’s neck. He howled and pushed off me with the weapon in his neck.
I crawled backward. My passage ached from the beating. I raised my knees and hugged them to my chest, sobbing, shaking.
“
You bitch.” He jerked it out and held it out. “I’ll fucking stab you in the eye with this.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage. I couldn’t breath. Couldn’t move.
Every part of me trembled. He’d violated my body, my most sacred site. He was not going to defile me again.
The man loomed over me with the needle. He grunted as he reared back. He swung his arm in an arc ready to stab me. I raised my hand to shield myself. The needle pierced my flesh in the same spot where the child had stabbed me. I screamed at the pain splitting my hand in two. Shivering, I held my hand to my chest with the object still inside it.
“Michael,” I sobbed, staring at my bleeding hand.
But he wasn’t coming. I yanked the weapon from my flesh. Blood seeped all over my skin.
This time when the man seized my hair, something inside me snapped. I reacted like an animal, snarling and scratching at him with one hand, while kicking out with my legs. His fists punched my head. I rocked backwards from the impact. He wrestled the needle from my hand.
“No.” Instinctively, I kicked again and flung him off me. He landed on his rear, bellowing. The weapon fell to the floor. I scrambled after it, fumbling to grab it and dropping it several times. Finally, I seized it and spun to face him.
His lips were peeled back in a vicious snarl. He was on his feet, stalking closer. His eyes darkened, narrowing with menace. When he grabbed my arm, I stabbed his. He let out a roar, it stirred several of the people on the floor. The veins in his neck and forehead bulged. Enraged like a bull, he spat with each breath.
He grabbed me by the throat, choking me. I gasped for air. My darkness screamed at me to end him. No! I couldn’t. But as his grip tightened, I weakened, my lungs burning for air.
Do it, my darkness urged. Kill him or die.
I slammed my hand into the man’s face. Wild and crazy, he bit my hand, drawing more blood. I screamed.
Hurry, my darkness commanded. You don’t have much time.
Straining for air, I scratched for freedom. He shook me. I almost lost my weapon.