by C. S. Wilde
Let us take you away, they whispered.
Sounds dimmed, and Liam’s vision funneled until there was only darkness around him.
Coward. Liam’s voice echoed in the void. I’m a fucking coward.
So many sacrifices, the words came from the right. He couldn’t tell which voice was light and which was darkness.
Wars were never won with mercy, the same voice—his—replied from the left.
“I-I kill the monsters,” he muttered.
We are the monsters, he countered.
Liam was blind, trapped in complete darkness, but he kept the teenager’s face carved in his memory. She joined Firma and the call girl. He collected the innocents he’d failed, keeping them for the day he would settle the score with Hauk.
As for the rest of the pub … there were too many for him to remember.
“Stay here!” Hauk growled in the distance and Liam blinked, returning to the Hells ahead. “I see your dark, Liam, and it’s glorious! Stay and the rewards will be endless.”
“This better make me a stronger demon, you asshole,” he managed, every word a bitter taste in his tongue.
“It will.” Hauk dropped to his knees and grabbed the crawling girl’s hips. He dragged her closer to his crotch.
No, no, no!
“You promised you wouldn’t!” Bile surged up Liam’s throat as he realized how futile the argument was.
“As I’ve said.” Hauk lowered her skirt and panties, then unbuckled his belt, lowering his black jeans to his knees. “I’m not a man of my word.”
He spread her legs apart and shoved himself inside the girl.
“You did well today. Better than your partner.” Hauk gritted his teeth as he thrust violently. “I won’t forget that.”
Maybe Liam was going crazy, but he could hear the girl’s tears streaming down her cheeks, a soft sound similar to a thin river.
She didn’t utter a word; she didn’t breathe. She didn’t fight or scream.
It was as if the girl was already dead.
This, he figured. This would be his doom.
21
Liam
Liam didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, crouched on the sidewalk under a bridge. Holes filled with rainwater peppered the cement on the street—he didn’t know why he noticed that. “Fuck the police” was spray-painted on the underside of the concrete above.
Funny. He’d been part of the supernatural police once.
His breathing rushed, and his head spun.
Damning himself was the only way to gain Hauk’s trust, and he’d done it. A victory that tasted like defeat. Liam already felt the Selfless inside him disappearing into oblivion.
He remembered the young girl’s face, her unblinking eyes staring at the ceiling, her back on the bloodied floor as she waited for the Possessor to arrive.
Once Hauk was done with her, he gave her a choice: eternal life or the uncertainty of a normal death. The girl wrinkled her forehead. She didn’t understand what he meant, but eternal life had its appeal, especially to a human who had been through the Hells.
She made the obvious choice.
Liam had to leave the pub before the Possessor arrived. He couldn’t keep a contained façade anymore. That thing would see right through him the moment it stepped into the place.
Archie didn’t move to follow, even though he was back from his mental shell—or whatever the Hells he called it.
If Liam knew the old man well, he was beating himself up for bringing him to the Gorge.
Well, he shouldn’t. Liam was Archie’s son, yes, but he was also his partner. This had been his choice, even if he regretted it.
He’d hurried to the exit but slipped on the slimy floor, painting himself red. When he tried to get up, he slipped again before gaining some footing—thanks to Archie, who rushed to help him.
Liam left the Gorge behind as fast as he could, but he still heard Archie calling his name and demons laughing their asses off.
“You’ve been baptized by blood, brother!” Hauk shouted.
Delusional prick!
Now Liam watched his red and shaking palms. Blood was sticky on his clothes, on his hair, on his cheeks, in his damn soul. The teenage girl, the hooker, Firma, their faces flashed in his mind nonstop, bathed by red, always red, red everywhere.
A scream broke from his lips. He rocked back and forward as soul-purging bellows cut through his throat.
He failed them. He failed everyone he wanted to protect.
At some point, Liam wondered if the walls of his throat had turned into raw flesh. It didn’t matter. If he kept screaming, maybe all the pain and guilt would leave with his voice.
Michael, the Archangel Liam used to be, had killed humans once. His darkness had taken the best of him and it took the best of Liam too, except for tonight.
Tonight, it urged him out of that pub.
He bent over and threw up, bile burning his already grazed throat. His head thumped and his chest hurt.
Liam’s darkness was the same that had consumed Michael once, and yet it hadn’t encouraged him to join the carnage back at the pub.
It’d wanted to take him away.
Liam’s voice, Michael’s voice, echoed in his ears. We chose to become a demon for a reason.
“Why?” he cried, his voice echoing around him.
No reply.
He slammed both hands on his temples and sobbed.
A swoosh of wings, a brush of wind, and then came her voice, etched with worry. “Liam?”
He kept his eyes shut because Ava couldn’t be here. She wasn’t real. Hells, he’d lost himself and now he’d lost his mind, too.
He felt her kneeling before him. “You’re covered in blood!”
No shit, princess.
He opened his eyes. His Guardian watched him with a mix of joy and sorrow—well, she was a Dominion now. Ava wore the same white bodysuit, but the white Guardian’s kilt had been replaced by a light-gray one. Her snowy wings were coiled behind her.
Gods, it was painful to see her this way, an ascended angel when Liam was nothing but a monster. It hurt knowing she was so close and so far from him.
He must be a sight for sore eyes, all clad in blood. He tried to speak, but he shivered so hard that forming words or even coherent thoughts was too much.
“What happened?” Ava asked, a strain in her tone.
He forced the words out, but they got stuck on his tongue.
“Liam …” She sniffed back tears as she assessed him from top to bottom. “I should’ve stayed, I should have—” her voice cracked.
“I killed,” he managed, his jaw hurting as he tried to speak. “I was supposed to protect them. Instead I just watched.”
“Who?”
He couldn’t tell her. What would Ava think of him if she knew?
“How did you find me?” he asked, his head feeling awfully light.
Fuck, he was about to pass out.
“I felt your distress.” She frowned, almost as if she didn’t believe it either. “Lilith said we have a connection and that if I focused on you … I don’t know how to explain it. All I know is I’m here.” She leaned closer to touch his face, but he jerked away.
“You’ll get blood on you,” he muttered, focusing on the cracked sidewalk.
“I don’t care.” She gently pressed her palm to his cheek. “How are you feeling?”
Jophiel said Liam’s darkness and light reacted strangely to Ava’s. Right now, however, he felt fine. If anything, his light shone shyly underneath the swarm of hurt and regret thundering inside him. It brushed with Ava’s own. His darkness, too.
The forces inside him had once clashed with hers, snarling at each other the way only mad beasts do. Now they tried to connect with Ava’s, but for some reason, they couldn’t. A pang of frustration swam across him.
Odd.
So Ava was really here; she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. She had come for him.
Liam would thank her if hi
s ability to speak hadn’t abandoned him again. He glared at his bloodied hands and let out a pitiful sob, the indignity of it not going amiss.
Their faces. Their faces were everywhere.
Air stopped midway in his lungs. Liam wheezed, grasping for oxygen, but he was drowning in his own torment.
Ava jumped to her feet. “Hold on!”
Blissful oblivion swallowed his consciousness from the edges. He’d black out any minute now. And still, their faces would be there, always with him.
Gentle arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, and then the ground disappeared from underneath him. His feet dangled in the air as the city grew smaller below.
Liam watched the tops of buildings and the streets that had become thin lines. Looking down didn’t ease the drop in his stomach, so he turned to Ava. Her fiercely blue irises searched for something.
Only now did he realize how different she looked. Her face seemed harsher, thinner. She resembled more a warrior than the meek Guardian he had met the day Archie died.
Back then, princess had insisted on ignoring this wild, untamed side of her, even though it had always been there, quiet and asleep. But Liam had seen the Valkyrie; he’d found her before Ava did. And it was that Valkyrie who now carried him through the sky.
A sting of longing and sadness pierced his chest.
Was his Guardian gone?
Ava smiled down at him, a hint of the kind angel still there. “Curl into a ball.”
The sadness in his chest faded and he smiled back at her. “What?”
She let go of him.
Before he had time to scream, Liam cannonballed into a pool on a building’s roof.
He opened his eyes underwater, watching puffy clouds of blood expand around him.
Blood. Surrounded in blood. Forever covered in blood.
When he emerged, most of it had cleared from his skin. He watched faint red rivulets trickle down his palms until there was no red anymore.
“I watched,” he muttered to himself, shivers taking hold of his body. Maybe it was the cold water, maybe it was shock; he couldn’t tell which.
A body plunged into the pool and when the splash subdued, Ava stood before him.
Her wings made a cocoon around them as she approached. The water reflected on her white feathers, wrapping them both in a shelter walled by dancing blue and white lights.
Only now did he notice Ava’s strawberry-blond hair was tied in a braid that cascaded down the right side of her chest. Her wide grin breathed life back into him, her blue eyes nearly matching the color of the pool.
Gods, she was a vision.
“Better?” she asked.
He glared at his shaking hands, then showed them to her. “They’re filled with blood.”
“Look again.” Ava gently grabbed them and presented Liam his clean palms. “Something is eating you from inside, but you must remember you did the best you could. You always do.”
How could she say that? Ava never would’ve watched that girl suffer. She wouldn’t have killed Firma, either. His Guardian … she would die for those weaker than her.
Ava was so much better than Liam that his chest hurt.
“I know you’re doing undercover work,” she continued, “but maybe you should take a step back. We could go somewhere.” Her voice failed, and her eyes glistened. “Gods, I’m so sorry for leaving you.”
He registered her words slowly, his brain whirring with the effort, trying to overcome shock and despair.
“We both chose duty over our feelings for each other,” he finally said. “We can’t run away now.”
“Liam, please—”
“No. I’m …” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “I can do this. I have to do this. I’ve given up too much already. So many people …” His focus lingered on her blonde hair, then her rosy lips. He’d lost everything for the greater good, including her. “I have to see this through, Ava.”
If he didn’t take care of Master, the entire Order would eventually fall and with it the woman he loved.
The Hells he would add Ava’s name to the list of people he failed to save.
For her, everything.
“An Archangel named Sithrael tried to put a bounty on another angel,” he said quietly. “He asked the demons I’m working with to help, but they refused.”
“He’s after Vera.” Ava gritted her teeth, the Valkyrie taking over. “That coward!”
Liam exhaled a relieved breath. Ava wasn’t the one in danger. “You need to be careful, princess.”
She stepped closer and cupped his cheeks, tears in her eyes. “I will. You were a great teacher.”
Screw it.
Liam leaned forward and kissed her. He probably shouldn’t have; they both had work to do, and she was mated to the Messenger. But he didn’t care. The storm of guilt and sorrow inside him ceased as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.
Ava kissed him back, her mouth opening to him and her fingers digging onto the back of his neck, tangling with his hair. She still tasted like strawberries and honey; she still smelled like lavender.
With her, he forgot all the Hells he’d gone through.
An eternity passed between them, and it still wasn’t enough. Their tongues wrapped in a dance that made Liam forget everything outside their cocoon of feathers. But when he remembered Ava was the best angel he knew and that he had watched, he broke their embrace and stepped away.
She belonged with the Messenger, not with a murderous coward. Besides, he had to see this mission through. The people he had carved in his mind didn’t need his happiness.
They needed his wrath.
“I have to go,” he muttered.
Ava’s wings disappeared in a flash of light. “Please don’t.”
He climbed out of the swimming pool. He had to leave. It was the best for her. For them both.
Ahead was a glass wall that surrounded a fancy loft. He punched the glass, and it cracked into a million pieces—thanks to his supernatural strength. His knuckles bled, but Archie could fix them.
At least this time, it was his own blood on his hands.
Liam crossed the white carpeted living room, leaving a trace of water and red droplets behind. Thank the Gods the place was empty.
He stopped before the wooden door and shot his flames. Demonic heat worked fast, and it charred the door in the blink of an eye. When he kicked the surface, it snapped in half like a twig, raising a small cloud of ashes in the air.
An alarm began to wail, and he cursed under his breath. Liam would have to use the stairs. Emergency exits were usually poorly surveilled, and he had no time for human police bullshit if they caught him breaking in—well, out.
He could’ve asked Ava to fly him out of here, but his pride was greater than his common sense.
Liam cast one last glance behind to see her standing in the living room. His Guardian was soaking wet. Tears mingled with the water that dripped from her chin.
Peeling his eyes off her was impossible. Her body trembled, and all he wanted to do was hug her and never let go.
“I love you,” she muttered.
It knocked all the air out of him.
Ava needed to get away from this mess, to find happiness. And he could never give it to her; he wasn’t worthy enough.
This was it. Their last call.
“You love him, too,” he said without an inch of bitterness.
Just a simple truth.
Her perfect features crumpled in a silent sob.
Liam forced himself to turn away. He had to be strong now. He didn’t look back, even if it ripped him apart.
As he stepped out of the loft, he knew he’d lost his princess.
This time for good.
22
Liam
He, Archie, and Pedro spent their evenings making deals with humans. Liam had closed so many that he quickly became an expert, even if he was still a lower demon.
His performance pleased Hauk, as he
hoped it would. Ever since the pub’s carnage, the demon had taken him under his wing. The fact that Liam had the highest number of deals in the Gorge helped. A lot.
Once he had access to Master, he would kill him and Hauk or die trying. It was the least he could do after losing his soul and his heart for this mission.
Every day he fell deeper; every minute he went darker. This was his burden, and his burden alone.
Yesterday, Hauk followed them to one of their assignments because he “wanted to see Liam in action.” So off they went, Liam spearheading five of the ten deals he, Archie, and Pedro closed that night.
He’d paid a high price to be here, so close to the end game, and there was no turning back. No redemption for him, either.
Once they were done, they’d gathered the humans in a group and called the Possessor. Everything was going well until one guy regretted his decision and screamed.
Archie quickly punched him senseless, but a night guard had heard him.
“Halt!” the chubby man ordered, pointing his gun at them.
Powdery sugar peppered the sides of his black mustache. He’d probably eaten a doughnut not long ago—the guy was a walking cliché. Liam recognized the type: retired cop who needed to make ends meet.
Hauk snickered and stepped forward.
“I’ll shoot!” the guard warned, but the demon didn’t stop.
He fired into the ceiling. Hauk kept stomping toward him.
The first blast hit the demon in the chest. Two others hit his forehead, and the last, his thigh. The crumpled bullets dropped to the ground, losing their battle with Hauk’s thick skin.
Befuddled, the guard glared at his Glock.
“It’s not broken,” Hauk explained. “You can’t kill me, human.” He craned his neck left and eyed the guard up and down. “I wonder what games we could play … How about hanging you with your entrails? That sounds like fun!”
Hauk enjoyed torturing people before damning their souls—it added taste to the process, he’d once said.
Liam nodded to the night guard, who still glared at Hauk’s unscathed body. “He’s too flabby and weak. Master’s soldiers need to be stronger.”