The Lily Harper 8 Book Boxed Set

by HP Mallory

  “Good day. Welcome to the Trials of Damnation,” she said politely. “Weapons are allowed, but all communication devices are prohibited.”

  “Umm... okay,” I started.

  “Wonderful!” The receptionist grabbed four clipboards and passed them out to each of us. “You must sign a few documents before you may continue. Turn them in at the red basket and have a seat. You will be called when it’s your turn. Good luck!”

  The four of us sat down awkwardly. The chipper receptionist was a drastic change from the danger we’d just escaped and I wasn’t sure what to make of her or my surroundings. I felt like I was back in the Afterlife Enterprises office when I’d first met Jason Streethorn and learned I was about to become a Soul Retriever.

  “Yo, I think Susan over there with the freaky eyes is a few Valium short of a cocktail, if you know what I mean,” Bill said as he eyed the woman suspiciously.

  “Susan? No. She’s totally a Karen. Piss her off and she’s calling security,” Asterion answered with a chuckle.

  Tallis and I both whirled around, staring at Asterion in surprise.

  “Ah didnae think ye could speak the stookie angel’s language,” Tallis teased.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Asterion shrugged. “I guess you could say I’ve picked up a thing or two along the way.”

  I found it sweet that Bill and Asterion had become what appeared to be friends. It was nice to see.

  We worked through the ridiculous amount of paperwork required to begin the Trials and I noticed with a frown that Metra had failed to mention this part.

  Bill was the last to complete his paperwork, but we submitted the forms together. Beside the red basket were three others that were labelled: Quit, Forfeit, Deceased. The Deceased pile was much bigger than the others. Quit and Forfeit were nearly as large. This didn’t bode well.

  “Has no one ever completed the Trials?” I asked the spider woman, my mouth dropping open as foreboding filled me.

  “I don’t believe so,” Asterion handed over his paperwork and leaned against the wall.

  “No one has ever completed the Trials,” the receptionist affirmed.

  EIGHTEEN

  BILL

  “Where the hell do they get ‘Bill’ outta ‘William’, anyhow?” I snorted.

  Must have been a human thing. Ain’t like people walk around saying their name is Billiam. Robert and Bob sorta made sense in my mind, but then again Bobert just sounded dumb.

  The others ignored me while my Sentinel got cozy on my shoulder. “Hey, you know what?”

  “What?” Kemosabe asked.

  “I never got to name this little guy,” I started as I pointed to my Sentinel where he started buzzing around my head, “Before everything went to shit.”

  “You should name him,” Lils said.

  “Yeah, I should name him... how about Ham Sammich? Nah.” I shook my head. “Bromeo? Nah. Pickles? Too cute. Could ya imagine me on the battlefield asking people if they’ve seen my pickles?!” Then I started laughin’ real hard ‘cause that was some funny shit.

  “I think someone else should give you some suggestions.” Nips smirked from beneath a shit ton of curls that fell over her face as she leaned against Tido’s shoulder. “How about Norbert?”

  “Norbert? He ain’t no nerd, Lils.”

  “Nigel?” Kemosabe offered.

  “You just hear a word I said?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “Mantis?” Conan offered.

  “Mantis,” I repeated and I had to admit I kinda liked the sound on my tongue. “Finally one point for you, Tido.” I squirmed around in my seat for a few more minutes before Susan or Karen or whatever the fuck her name was, called me up. I got up and turned to face her real serious like. “Hey, don’t be giving out my government info while I’m gone. I don’t want spam emails about surveys from Afterlife Enterprises, got it?”

  Nips elbowed me in the side, and we strolled to the door. “Don’t we get visitor passes or something?” she chuckled. No one else laughed ‘cause the thing about Nips is that she ain’t very funny, only she don’t know it.

  A door began to glow, and someone on the other side knocked. Lils turned the handle, and we walked through the opening together….

  I felt warmth on my face and balked. There was something about the Underground City that was deceptively cold, so I knew we weren’t there no more. Most people expected the Underground to be the blazing inferno that all them religions said it was. On the contrary, it was the Kingdom that radiated a god-awful warmth—pun intended.

  I cracked open my eyes and stared up at a water-stained ceiling that was too familiar. My body ached as I crawled out of a bed that was way too small for my voluptufluff figure. The smell of rancid decay seeped out a broken refrigerator, and the floor creaked as I walked over to the window. My arms jiggled as I wrestled open the window to let some fresh air in. Instead, I got hit in the face with a smell worse than my apartment.

  The sound of a toilet flushing caught my attention.

  Lils came out of the bathroom, stomping her feet with a grimace. “You really need to keep this place clean!” she squealed. “Roaches, Bill! Roaches.”

  “Hey, it ain’t my fault, Nips. This is how the big boys in charge treat us peons when we screw up our angel duties.” I pointed out the window, and she walked up beside me.

  “Seriously?” Her nose scrunched as she looked out at the junkyard that surrounded the building. Angels of all shapes, sizes, and colors moped about on their way to work. “They kept you here because of me?”

  “Nope. They kept me here because I was more loyal to Uriel than Matteo or Gathindu. Gathindu ain’t so bad when you get used to her, but Matteo’s a real pain in the ass.” I grabbed my wallet from a pair of jeans on the floor, and Mantis curled himself into a watch around my wrist. Carrying weapons in the city was illegal, so it was good to be careful. “Come on. We got a train to catch if we’re gonna get this over with.”

  “Wait, are we in the Kingdom?” Nips asked, her eyes going wide ‘cause this shit-hole weren’t exactly what anyone imagined when they thought of the Kingdom.

  “Yep, we’re in the slums of the Kingdom.”

  “I have to admit, I didn’t think it would look like this.”

  “No one does.”

  “Isn’t this supposed to be heaven?”

  “Not really. I guess it depends on who you ask?” I said with a shrug. “Just wait, we’re headed to the nice part now—where they hold them Trials.”

  “You know where you’re supposed to go?”

  “The Departments of Gluttony and Sloth, right?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Well, there’s only one place I frequent where those two go hand in hand.”

  Nips and I locked up the apartment, not like we needed to, and headed down in the rickety elevator. The platform wasn’t too far from the junkyard, so we hitched a ride on a bullet train to get outta the slums. I watched the rust-covered buildings and decrepit projects transition into a Utopian city. Glass buildings reached toward a blinding light that hovered above everything. Cars raced through the sky like something out of the Jetsons, but they looked more like chrome and gold Bugatti Chirons. Souls cluttered the streets below like it was Time Square.

  “If we are headed to the Departments of Gluttony and Sloth, why aren’t we headed to the Underground City?” Nips asked.

  “Gluttony and Sloth is the level where souls go who are found guilty of both,” I answered. “That be in the Underground City. We’re just going to the place where they try to sort them souls out. And that be at the headquarters.”

  Everywhere I looked there were happy faces.

  It seemed obvious why I hadn’t fit in here.

  The bullet train slowed to a smooth stop with a quiet hum. We exited onto the platform and walked to the largest building in the city. “Aight, Lils, we’re in the Eden District, so we gotta look a lil more fly.” I snapped my fingers, and the yoga pants and sweatsh
irt she was wearing turned into a slim-fitted, gray skirt suit and nice black heels.

  My own clothing transformed into an Armani suit I’d had my eye on for a long time. They didn’t often come in size Sexy, but I made it work. “Nice gams, Nips.”

  She rolled her eyes and followed me into Elysian HQ.

  The building was exactly how I remembered it with the sickeningly pretentious decor.

  ###

  LILY

  “Wow…” I muttered under my breath.

  The reception area of Elysian HQ was breathtaking. Radiant colors filtered in through a stained-glass skylight that had been crafted to depict a mural of the War in the Kingdom. Glistening white floors expanded the length of the area, and paintings hung in gilded frames that revealed more scenes of battle. A pair of enormous ornate doors sat at the far end of the entrance hall. I tried not to bump into those who passed by, but the beauty of the Kingdom was awe inspiring. Well, that is, except for the area that Bill lived in—that was a dump in all meanings of the word.

  Bill pulled me over to an elevator. The operator stood next to the controls with his nose in the air and a very hoity attitude. This was the sort of place I never would have dared to enter back when I was alive. I never understood that unspoken rule that only people of a certain level on the social pyramid were allowed into fancy places like this.

  The elevator doors opened on the correct floor, and Bill led me down a corridor until we came on a group of cubicles. “This is the Guardian Angel department. I used to be upstairs with the other warriors before Uriel left,” he explained. “And this was my desk.”

  “Umm... alright. I still don’t see what this has to do with Gluttony and Sloth.”

  Bill’s ears turned bright red, and he sat down at his cubicle. “The day I got demoted, my assignment was to go into the database and register my newest client.”

  “Client?”

  He looked up at me. “Person I was supposed to guardian angel for.”

  “Oh.”

  He opened a cabinet beside his desk and handed me a dusty file that had seen way better days. I flipped it open and saw the name Sarah Barrow in the upper right corner.

  And that was when I got pretty confused. “Sarah Barrow?” I repeated. Then I faced him. “Wait a second. You weren’t supposed to be my guardian angel?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t even want to read Sarah’s file after the first two lines,” he admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Boring with a capital B.”

  “What?”

  “Dude, her case was gonna be wayyy too difficult.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause she was bedridden with some sickness but it weren’t like the sickness was gonna kill her or nothin’. That meant I’d be stuck inside all day long with nowhere to go and nothin’ to do, you know?”

  “I guess.”

  He nodded. “I blamed Renu for sticking me with a chick who could barely get outta bed. I was so worried about being bored all day long that I traded with Joe, my old roommate, and he gave me your file. We finished the swap in the system, and then I just did whatever I wanted because you pretty much already had your life together…”

  I stepped away from Bill to reign in my temper. “I hardly had my life together,” I argued, more to myself as something else occurred to me. “Could you have saved me the day I died if you’d been paying attention?”

  Bill shook his head. “Now that I know who did it, there’s no way I could have stopped the Forbidden Council. They’re made up of the angels who fell with The Forsaken, Lils. They were stronger than me. If they sent someone after you, there was nothing I could do. I’m kinda wonderin’ if Jeff was in on it the whole time too ‘cause there weren’t no reason he shoulda wanted to trade you for Sarah.”

  “Did you even try to stop them?”

  “Yeah, I tried,” he said softly. “I mean it. The moment I felt you die, I tried to bring you back, but it was too late. And I’ve been trying to make it up to you ever since.”

  I looked down at my heels, unable to meet his gaze. “You might be making it up to me now, but in the beginning, you only wanted to help yourself.”

  “That might have been true in the beginning, Nips, but it ain’t true now. I’m helping you now because you’re my friend.” He took a breath. “Besides, you saw my apartment, you think I want to come back to that?”

  “No.”

  “Right. I’d rather stay with you, especially ‘cause you’re my only friend in this whole damn world.” He paused for a minute. “Well, Kemosabe might also be my friend but that still waits to be seen.”

  “Tallis is your friend too.”

  “Maybe like ten percent my friend.”

  “He’s more than that.”

  “Whatever. Anyways, you gotta believe me an’ trust me ‘cause I’m tellin’ you the truth. Besides, I can’t lie in the Kingdom. Fibbin’ ain’t welcome here. Matteo banned lying a long time ago.”

  “Hmm.”

  “We need to stick together if we’re going to get through the Trials.”

  I figured after all the time we’d spent together, I owed Bill the benefit of the doubt. He offered his hand and I took it in my own. “I believe you.”

  “I’m real sorry for everything in the past, Lils, but it’s changed me. You’ve changed me. I’m not the same man I was back then.”

  “I know,” I replied with a smile.

  Before Bill could respond, a bell chimed, and then a deep voice streamed through an intercom. “William Angel, please report to the Conclave of Archangels.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I frowned at him.

  He shrugged as his sad eyes glistened slightly. “I made a confession. Now I gotta face the music, Nips.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I grew more nervous as the sound of footsteps sounded and seconds later, men in white suits appeared. They took Bill and handcuffed him. Then they dragged him down the hall even though he didn’t fight them. I went after him, but they blocked me from following them into the elevator. “Where are they taking you?! Bill?!”

  “The room with the golden doors!” The elevator shut, and I stood there in the Guardian Angel department, questions swarming my mind. Heads popped up from behind the cubicle barriers to stare at me. I smacked the call button for the elevator and waited for it to return. The same smug operator greeted me, and we began our descent. When we arrived in the entrance hall, it was empty.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “No one is allowed in this area when the Celestial Conclave meets,” the operator informed me. I exited the lift and walked towards the gilded doors. They opened before I touched them, but the man on the other side made me wish they hadn’t. Glowing red eyes glared at me with a hatred I didn’t understand.

  “Leave her alone, Sendais,” a woman snapped.

  I didn’t dare look away from the man before me. Sendais’s teeth were like a shark. Long, black hair was slicked back from a face that was far too beautiful to match the monstrous energy that surrounded him.

  He was a traitor.

  I didn’t know how or why I knew this, but I knew it all the same. The woman that had addressed him pulled Sendais away from the door and allowed me entrance.

  “You must be Lily Harper,” she said with a hurried smile.

  “I am.”

  She nodded. “I am Gathindu. Welcome.”

  ###

  BILL

  I was forced to my knees before the seven thrones.

  Gathindu guided Lils over to a chair in the corner of the room so she could bear witness to my trial... wait… TRIAL?!

  Literally, in this case.

  Holy mother of chocolate.

  This was the first of our Trials.

  That realization hit me like a fucking wrecking ball. Or maybe it was the pain I felt against my jaw—pain owing to the blow I’d suffered from Sendais’s fist. The little weasel schemed his way up the ladder and now sat in Uriel’s old seat. Bastard.<
br />
  “Who’d you blow for the promotion, Sammy?”

  “Keep it up, smartass, and I’ll crush your tinkertoy beneath my boot.”

  Mantis twitched against my wrist, and I clenched my bruised jaw. If Uriel was here, this shit never would have flown…

  But he wasn’t.

  And now it was time for me to face the consequences of my mistakes. I had to get through this so Nips and the others could do their Trials. The urge to poof myself out of that fucking room was strong. I’d made a mistake, one that changed the course of my life, but that didn’t mean I deserved to be treated like a criminal.

  Gathindu sat with a pensive expression.

  Sendais, Renu, Azrael, Raguel, Sandalphon, and Matteo filled the other seats. “Will Megatron be present for my trial to?” I spat, even as the joke was pretty flippin’ funny. “Looks like the gang’s back together, yo! Too bad a few members were replaced. I wonder how things are going up here now. The celestial Wu-Tang Clan ain’t the same as it used to be.”

  Sendais stood from his seat as if to hit me again, but Matteo lifted his hand. Damn that pretty boy had too much power over the conclave. When Matteo stood up, the energy in the room changed.

  “William, you are our brother,” he started as he looked down at my chart. “Your lack of loyalty to this city —no, to this realm—has embarrassed us for the last time. Falsifying official records,” he continued, flipping through the pages. “Abandoning your duties, choosing to imbibe, and fornicating…” he paused. “Fornicating not only with humans but also with demons,” he continued as I smiled, remembering the warm welcome I’d received by Jenny and her girls the first time I’d visited the Toy Store.

  “Rather than tending to your charge is unforgiveable,” Matteo kept on keeping on. “Angels are to be without sin, William.” He finally closed the chart and looked at me.

  I threw myself onto the ground and laughed so hard, my side ached.