“We covered them with ponchos. No one saw them,” said Dustin. “Colt’s idea.”
“Well done,” said Imorean, smiling.
“Where have you been staying?” asked Roxy, her eyebrows drawing together.
“I stayed in a church. I’ve been sleeping on and off in the backs of trucks since then,” replied Imorean with a shrug.
“Imorean,” said Roxy.
Imorean could hear the sympathy in her voice.
“Come on,” he said, changing the subject. “I’d be glad to see a bed.”
“We’ll show you the way back,” said Toddy. “Do you have a poncho?”
“I’ve got more than a poncho,” said Imorean, smiling. “Before he sent me off, Gabriel showed me how to conceal my wings. I think I might be able to do yours as well.”
“Really?” asked Roxy, her eyes growing wide.
Imorean smiled, took a deep breath and closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts and trying hard to imagine himself and his friends without their wings.
When he opened his eyes again, he was glad to see that their wings were, for the most part, invisible.
“There we go,” said Imorean, tottering slightly. “I think I got it.”
“Are you all right?” asked Colton. “You look really tired all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” replied Imorean. “I understand why Gabriel always seemed so tired after a long trip, though. Concealing wings takes up a lot of energy.”
“Come on,” said Roxy, turning away. “Let’s get you back to the hotel before you fall flat on your face.”
After what seemed like a lifetime later, Imorean collapsed down onto a clean mattress. Only then did he allow the cover of his friends’ wings to drop. Imorean had lost track of time as they traveled back down the open country, crossing over uneven terrain. It had gone dark a little over an hour ago. He had wanted to fly, but for the sake of Colton and the high winds, he hadn’t pushed the others into the air.
Colton. The others. While Imorean was glad to see them, he knew it wasn’t safe for them to stay here with him. He needed to separate from them again. Soon. Finding Michael’s rift was safe enough work, but he didn’t know what he would do if Vortigern found them. Five lives. Five lives he couldn’t bear to lose.
“How are you feeling?” asked Roxy.
Imorean cracked one eye open and looked at her. It was quiet in the room.
“Tired,” he replied. A moment later, he groaned and sat up. He still needed to take off his AL Pack and he desperately needed to have a shower.
“Imorean,” said Colton in a small voice.
“Yes?” asked Imorean, looking up at his friend.
“What do you think happened to Michael’s sword? Uriel said he thinks it was taken in an attack by Vortigern, but it couldn’t have been, could it?”
Imorean lowered his eyes and smirked. Then he gave a small laugh.
“No, no, it couldn’t have been Vortigern. Actually…” he said, kneeling down on the ground and pulling the small, velvet lined bag from his AL Pack. He dumped the contents onto the ground. “I have it.”
He sat back as the shards assembled themselves into the shape of Michael’s sword.
“You?” asked Dustin. “You’re the one who took it?”
“I had to,” replied Imorean. “It was part of my assignment. You remember how I said I had been given a special heading?”
“Yes,” nodded Roxy.
“Well, this was it. I think this sword has been leading me either to where Vortigern is or to where Michael went down,” said Imorean, watching as the sword fragments began to lift off the ground. They seemed to be bound together by a green light. Imorean gave the fragments his full attention when they started spinning around madly, as though they weren’t sure where to point.
“This hasn’t happened before,” said Imorean, tilting his head. He raised his brows as the sword spun faster and faster. A low hum filled the air and a green light surrounded the metal. Then it suddenly stopped and clattered back to the floor, the fragments falling back away from each other.
“What does it mean?” asked Roxy, widening her eyes.
Imorean looked up at her. He could see the concern in her gaze and gave her a sympathetic glance.
“I have three objectives. One of them is like a quest within a quest. I have to restore balance to the angel world and in the process, find Michael. To do that I need to find something Michael left behind. Raphael called it a rift in time and space. Basically, I have no idea what I’m looking for, but it’s supposed to be near the volcano where Michael went down. My other assignment is to take down Vortigern. It was one of the last things Michael said to me.”
“What do you think this means?” asked Dustin, looking at the sword.
“I have a horrible feeling that it’s Vortigern. I—Earlier the sword was swinging between two points. Like it was reading me and what I wanted. More than anything I want a chance at Vortigern. I think this means he’s close. Very close. I… I think he’s waiting for me. Tomorrow I’m going to find him. Tomorrow I’m going to end all of this.”
“Imorean,” said Roxy, frowning.
“Before you ask,” said Imorean. “None of you are coming with me. If I die, it’s just one angel. Just one. It wouldn’t be six of us dying. I just can’t let myself lead you to your deaths. It isn’t fair. I’ve already been the cause of death for my family. Don’t, don’t make me be the cause of death for my friends. And if I die, you can all keep looking for the rift.”
Imorean cringed inwardly. They had even less chance of finding it than he did, but maybe it was enough incentive for them to stay where they were.
Roxy opened her mouth to reply, but Toddy interrupted.
“Okay, Imorean,” nodded the boy. “We’ll do as you ask.”
“Thank you,” replied Imorean, smiling at them, glad that they understood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and get a shower.”
Imorean sunk down into bed that night, feeling anything but relaxed. Tomorrow he would go out and face the demon commander who had ruined his life. Imorean darted a glance out of the window, looking at the mountains outside. He had a horrible, foreboding feeling that Vortigern was waiting for him. It was a writhing feeling in his gut. Imorean closed his eyes. He had set an alarm for the small hours of the morning. He had to be up and ready before any of his friends stirred. It was time.
Chapter 53
“Are you sure this will work, Toddy?” asked Roxy, watching as her friend shoved the back of a chair under the doorknob of the room they had shared with Imorean. Dustin was holding the door tightly shut as Toddy jammed the top of the chair under the doorknob.
“I’ve seen it done in movies,” said Toddy, shrugging. “At the very least, it’ll buy us some time to try and find Vortigern before Imorean does.”
“Why is he so obsessed with following Michael’s last order?” asked Mandy.
“Yeah,” said Dustin, releasing the doorknob. “He seems really eager to run to his death.”
“Because Vortigern killed his family,” said Roxy. “I don’t blame Imorean for being eager to follow Michael’s orders, but I don’t agree with him being so willing to sacrifice himself. He’s my best friend. I won’t let it happen.”
“No, neither will I,” said Colton, pulling his AL Pack tighter around his waist.
Roxy could see how shaky his hands were as the small boy adjusted his grip on his sword.
“You remember the heading that Michael’s sword gave us?” asked Roxy, giving him something to focus on.
“Yeah,” nodded Colton. “We need to head straight east.”
“Let’s go,” said Toddy, quietly leading the way out of the hotel. The other members of the squad fell into step beside him.
Imorean’s brown eyes flashed open. His alarm hadn’t gone off. The first fringes of predawn light were glimmering outside. Imorean sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding. He looked over at the other beds in the small room. Empty
. All… empty. His friends were gone. No! No. No. How could he have been so foolish? Imorean leaped out of bed and dressed frantically. As he buckled his sword on, he darted a glance out of the window. The tops of the mountains were shrouded by mist. Imorean quickly buckled on his AL Pack and made for the door. He grabbed the handle and pushed. The door didn’t budge. Imorean pulled back and pushed again. Again, the door refused to move. Imorean slammed his shoulder against the door this time, but the door remained shut. Imorean’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t fit through the window. It would be too narrow for him to squeeze through. Imorean grabbed the handle, frantically slamming his shoulder against the door again and again.
Roxy shivered violently as she and her friends breached the top of the mountain, following Michael’s sword’s heading. It was freezing up here and the perishing wind didn’t help. The first flickers of dawn were breaching the dark sky.
The mountaintop itself was mostly barren, but disrupted here and there by exposed faces of black, sheer rock. Roxy looked around. The ground far, far below had been rendered invisible by the heavy cloud cover. It seemed as though she and her friends had stepped into another world.
“You okay, Roxy?” asked Toddy, panting hard.
“Yeah,” replied Roxy. The journey up the mountainside had been hard. They had alternated climbing and flying and all of them were exhausted.
Mandy was leaning over, hands on her knees, panting. Dustin was standing still, seeming as though he was trying to clear his head.
“What now?” asked Colton.
“I guess we just keep following the heading,” replied Toddy. “I wish we had thought to bring Imorean’s AL Pack.”
“Well, Tod,” said Dustin. “We can’t steal everything from him.”
“Yeah,” nodded Mandy, standing up straight. “He needs to retain something.”
“Well, well, well,” said a calm voice. “This is unexpected.”
All five figures turned, and Roxy gasped loudly. Standing nearby, but little more than shadow due to the mist, was Vortigern. A breath of wind cleared the fog and suddenly the squad members were able to see him properly. The demon commander was standing above them, tall and proud on one of the exposed faces of rock. He slowly began walking toward them.
Despite herself, Roxy took a few steps backward as Vortigern walked in their direction. She had never seen him up close before. She couldn’t help but notice that he was dressed sharply, in a black, three-piece suit. She narrowed her eyes slightly. An odd choice for battle gear.
“What is this?” asked the demon commander, a bright, yet mocking, smile appeared on his lips. “Is little Imorean getting his friends to do his dirty work now? That isn’t very leader-like behavior.”
“No,” said Roxy. Her voice carried more confidence than she felt.
“We’re here to kill you,” said Colton, taking one step toward Vortigern.
At that the commander chuckled and shook his head, grinning a bright smile.
“I’m sure,” said Vortigern. “And do you five little hybrid angels really think you can?”
“Yes,” said Colton, holding up his small sword.
“I admire your spirit, Colton, I really do, but put that butter knife back in the drawer where it belongs,” said Vortigern, continuing to waltz toward them slowly.
Roxy trembled as she took in his unhurried gait. The commander had all the time in the world and he knew it. Roxy swallowed hard. They had stepped onto his playing field.
“Let’s see,” mused Vortigern. “What am I up against? Five teenage hybrids, more human than angel, bearing the wings of two owls, a parrot, a seagull and a songbird. What a motley assortment. Could you have made this any easier? It’s a shame for you really that I adore games and I do so like to play with my food.”
Roxy took another step back, noticing that Toddy and Colton did so with her. She hadn’t thought that Vortigern would be this intimidating. Her heart dropped to her shoes when she felt cold stone behind her back.
“Well,” said Vortigern, turning his head and looking down the mountainside. “It seems that Imorean has not arrived to play with the big boys and girls. It also appears that you are out of room to run.”
There was a dreadful, low hum as Vortigern drew his sword. Red flame licked up the blade. That was the blade that had sent the Archangel Michael to death’s door. Roxy’s throat constricted. That very same sword had killed Imorean’s family. There was a massive explosion that drove the clouds away from the mountaintop. Three more demons had appeared. Roxy’s stomach twisted. A massive Hellhound padded forward first, its mastiff head down and butcher teeth bared. Even at the shoulder, it towered over Vortigern. Beyond the hound, came another pair of demons. They were twice Vortigern’s height and nowhere near human. Their heads were skeletal, the skin stretched far too thin over the bones. Their necks, arms and legs were far too long for their tiny bodies. They were armed only with long, talon-like claws and teeth as sharp as needles. They had only flat lines where their eyes should have been and Roxy realized that they had been sewn shut. Horrible wings, little more than thin strips of skin protruded from their backs and were left unfolded, to be dragged along the ground.
“Quonachs,” said Colton, the word leaving his mouth in a horrified whisper.
Roxy had only once heard the word ‘Quonach’ before. A lecture from a lifetime ago by Haroel. She remembered them. The makers of bloody kills. An angel’s worst nightmare. She looked back at them in horror and was certain that Vortigern could see her trembling as he turned his gray gaze back to them.
“Let’s play.”
Imorean shouted as he slammed his shoulder against the door once again. Finally, the wood splintered and broke under the force of his attack. Immediately, Imorean saw what had been keeping him prisoner inside the room. A chair. An old trick, but an effective one. Imorean reached through the hole he’d made in the door and maneuvered the chair out of the way. Finally, he was able to open the door.
The Archangel hybrid wasted no time in racing down to the end of the hallway. There was a large window at the end and Imorean didn’t have time to waste using conventional methods of leaving a building. As he ran, he swept one hand to the side as though shoving something out of the way. All the glass in the window shattered and fell from the frame, fractions of a second before he reached it. Imorean leaped through the empty hole and flared his wings, taking instantly to the skies. Though he remembered the heading from the day before, he didn’t need it. He had already spotted an unnatural, red flash behind the clouds that shrouded the top of one of the mountains. Vortigern. And there was only one reason that the demon commander would have for drawing his sword. If there were angels to kill.
Imorean wailed aloud as he pulled his wings closer and closer to his sides, taking faster and faster wingbeats. He had to reach them. They were the only family he had left.
Roxy ducked and fell to her knees, narrowly avoiding a lazy swing from Vortigern’s sword. She felt the razor-sharp edge of his sword skim over her hair. She spotted Toddy approaching from behind the demon commander, sword raised and poised to strike down. For a second, hope blossomed in her heart.
“No!” shouted Roxy, as Vortigern turned. The demon commander made a sweeping motion and Toddy’s wings snapped to his sides, throwing him sideways and crashing into an exposed boulder. Roxy watched as Toddy slid to the ground and lay still, stunned. Roxy turned. Mandy and Dustin were flitting around one of the Quonachs, trying to keep it occupied, while the other one attempted to flush out Colton. The screech of frustration it made chilled Roxy right down to her bones. It sounded like an animal caught in a trap. The Hellhound circled, baying and howling. It kept to the fringes, penning them in. Roxy looked around again for Vortigern, but he had vanished into the fog. Roxy launched to her feet, running to Dustin and Mandy. As she closed the distance between herself and her friends, Mandy slipped away from the Quonach and ran toward her too.
“We can’t keep this up!” she whimpered,
standing back to back with Roxy.
“We can’t,” whispered Roxy. “I thought it would just be him.”
There was a wild, terrified cry behind them and Roxy turned just in time to see Dustin lifted off his feet, clamped between a Quonach’s massive hands. The Hellhound rushed in. It yipped and snapped at his ankles. Dustin dropped his sword in transfixed horror as the Quonach reared its tiny head back, mouth agape, every single tooth revealed. And the Quonach’s head dropped, sinking its terrible teeth into Dustin’s shoulder and shaking its head back and forth, ripping and tearing. Dustin screamed wildly, hitting everything within reach and writhing like a snake. The Quonach released him, but struck a second time, biting down again and again. With each savage bite, drops of blood spattered down onto the grass.
A loud whistle split the air and the Quonach dropped Dustin onto the grass where he lay shaking, his face pale and his eyes staring without seeing. The Hound snuffled his body. As it did so, Dustin’s warm, brown eyes seemed to gray over, the color draining from them.
“No!” shrieked Mandy, launching away from Roxy and racing to her friend. She swung at the demon dog, desperate to keep it away. The Hound raised its black eyes in glee. Roxy’s mouth was open in a silent wail of horror. She couldn’t move. She swayed, her legs feeling weak. Toddy was still in the air, distracting the second Quonach and keeping it from discovering Colton. Neither one seemed to have realized what had happened. Roxy crumpled to the ground, her hands in her hair. This couldn’t have happened. It just wasn’t possible!
Roxy cried out as a knife was driven down through her wing, pinning her to the ground. Vortigern stood above her, smiling. His smile was wiped from his face a moment later when another sword clashed with his. Colton had swept down from above and was engaging Vortigern. The demon commander immediately took to the skies and attacked Colton head on.
Roxy’s heart constricted painfully. Vortigern slipped one of his black, raven wings under Colton’s and twisted sharply, sending Colton spinning and plummeting back toward the ground. Colton landed hard and bounced once, his sword coming out of his hand. He lay still on the ground and didn’t move. The second Quonach had turned and was now closing in.
Angels Defying (Angels Rising Book 3) Page 36