Dark Angel

by Kim Richardson

  I shrugged. “I’ll wear gloves.” Jenna shook her head so I added, “I saw Layla hold the Grail.”

  “So did I.” Jenna folded her hands before her. “Which mean she’s not your sister anymore. It means she’s changed. To be honest… I don’t know what she is, but she’s not a full-fledged demon. She’s something else. Something we’ve never seen before.”

  “That’s just great.” I took a deep breath. “And you swear the Holy Grail can still save her? Even now if she’s turned into something you don’t know?”

  “Yes. The Legion confirmed it. The Holy Grail can remove the dark curse from her.”

  I shrugged. “I’m still not following why you need me. I’m mortal.”

  The angel was nodding her head. “The Holy Grail is a powerful object, and it was fairly easy to trace its source energies to an abandoned cemetery. But it’s heavily protected by demonic magic and wards,” she said, speaking quickly. “The wards are impregnable barriers. Only beings with demonic essence can get through.”

  My gaze flicked between the two angels. “Which means you can’t.”

  “We can’t.” Jenna shook her head. “Not without dying a true death.”

  That was just too weird. “I’m confused,” I said. “If neither of us can retrieve the Holy Grail… I still don’t get why you’re here.”

  Jenna was staring at me, her hazel eyes wide.

  My heart pounded and then settled. “What?”

  The angel’s posture shifted, her gaze darting from me to Gareth and her hands at her sides twitching with tense energy. “If there was a way to save your sister,” she said finally, “but there was a chance you might die, would you do it?”

  A faint feeling of trepidation slid under my skin at how she’d said it. “I would have to try.”

  “Even if it means you might die?”

  I took a breath. “Yes, yes, yes. What? What is it?”

  “Rowyn.” Tyrius moved closer to me and put a paw on my boot. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  I looked down at the cat and then back at Jenna. “If there’s something I can do to save her, I’m all in. I’ll do it.”

  Jenna pressed her lips together. “If you’re absolutely sure…”

  “I am,” I said, my voice rising. “Tell me what I have to do, damn it.”

  Jenna took a step closer to me, the scent of citrus filling my nose. “To save your sister,” she said, “first… you must die.”

  Then she stabbed me in the heart.

  22

  When Jenna had said I might die, I didn’t realize she meant it literally as in right now.

  As it was, the angel stabbed me in the heart with her soul blade. I was dying and I hadn’t even gotten the Holy Grail yet.

  The strange thing, though, was I didn’t even feel any pain. Of all the countless times when I thought I was actually dying, there had been real pain, buckets of excruciating pain. This time, I was numb.

  My lips parted as I stared at the gleaming silver hilt of a soul blade perforating my heart. A dark, red stain blossomed on my shirt above my navel and spread through the fabric. Damn. That was a lot of blood.

  That traitorous bitch had stabbed me.

  I hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t even seen this coming. I was losing my touch.

  And now I was dying.

  Of all the places I thought I’d die, in my gran’s kitchen was not one of them. I couldn’t well save Layla or stop Lucian if I was on my way to the Netherworld.

  On my way to the Netherworld . Oh, hell.

  Shouts rang in my ears, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The words were faint like thin whispers, as though they came from far away in the distance until I couldn’t hear anything at all.

  The hilt of the soul blade shimmered and shifted until it was see-through like a hologram and then disappeared entirely, as though it was never there. So did the blood. So did everything around me.

  My lungs were starving for air. I couldn’t breathe. They were on fire. My ears stopped working. At least that’s what it felt like, or someone had jammed them with cotton balls.

  The kitchen shifted, like layers of it peeled away leaving only air, nothing. I realized my feet weren’t touching the floor anymore. I was weightless, floating.

  Stuck halfway between memory or reality, I hung, able to think, as though my brain was on standby, waiting for instructions, though muddled.

  Silence. I was alone. But where? Where was I going?

  After a long time, or perhaps no time at all, I realized I wasn’t afraid. I was most certainly dead and on my way to the Netherworld. Still, I wasn’t afraid. I was overcome with the sudden feeling of peace. Curious . I should be scared shitless, but I was calm and content.

  I felt my body detach like the shedding of old skin. I couldn’t feel it anymore, as if it no longer existed. Blind and deaf, I remained in the middle of nothing, swaying, while above me the undead brought the ceiling down.

  Very weird. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or if I even still had eyes, but there was a light. A white light welcomed me. Secure and warm, I soared towards the overwhelming light, as though I was being drawn up into a beam of sunlight like a speck of dust.

  I saw a pinpoint of dark shadow in the distance. As I drifted towards it, the shadow expanded into a structure with white walls.

  This wasn’t the Netherworld. This was something else.

  I felt a hard surface under my boots. Bright mist surrounded me, like I’d stepped into a cloud. The mist lifted, like a vapor. If I could see, I must have eyes. For a moment I was surprised that I still had my clothes on and my boots. I existed. I had a sense of touch. I looked down at my chest. There was no blood or any evidence that Jenna had stabbed me. I touched my face. I had a face. I was solid, though I didn’t feel warm or cold, but simply just there.

  Blinking, I looked around. I stood in a room with white walls and a white floor. Books and filing cabinets were stacked precariously all the way to the ceiling, and what looked like a five-foot round pool was mounted in the back corner. An office. An office with a pool. What the hell was I doing in an office with a pool?

  If you had told me that when I died I’d end up in Horizon, I would have told you to stop drinking.

  It didn’t matter what you called it; Horizon, heaven or Shangri-La, it was the same thing. The afterlife. The world where the angels and all other celestial creatures resided. I’d always thought I had a first-class ticket to Netherworld, especially after everything I’d done and everyone I’d killed. I just never expected the afterlife to be an office.

  A noise reached me through the formed nothingness that surrounded me, the sound of a throat clearing.

  The smallest man I’d ever seen sat on a large crystal ball behind a semi-circular wooden desk. He wore a silver gown, and his long white beard and hair flowed down past his chest. He reminded me of a miniature sized Merlin the wizard.

  “There you are, Rowyn. Right on time,” he said in a strange, high-pitched voice that sounded like he had inhaled helium from a balloon.

  I stared at the little man. He knew my name? That was creepy. Still, my apprehension faded at the sight of this man’s cheerful face.

  I took a careful step forward, glad to find that my body seemed to maneuver the same way here, wherever here was, just as it did back in the mortal world.

  “Where am I?” I asked, finding myself relieved that my voice was the same as well. “Uh, is this Horizon?” The man’s skin radiated in a soft silver light, much like the angels, though I’d never seen one so small.

  Piercing blue eyes met mine, his face wrinkled with age and wisdom. “Yes. This is Horizon,” he answered, and then he slammed his rubber stamp on a piece of paper with a thunderous thud. He tossed the sheet and slipped another before him from a teeming pile on his desk.

  “I’m dead. And someone made a clerical error sending me here.” Obviously, but somehow I had the need to say it, and by saying it, I solidified the truth and made i
t more real somehow.

  I was dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

  The corners of the man’s eyes wrinkled. “Indeed you are. Don’t fret. A mortal death is never the end…just the beginning of something new and exciting. Think of it like an adventure.”

  An adventure? This guy was smoking crack. Subconsciously, I reached up and touched my chest. The rhythmic beating that was so familiar was silent. I had no heart.

  Damn. This was weird.

  Keep calm. Don’t panic. I looked down at the man. “You’re not an angel. What are you?”

  The tiny man beamed up at me. “I’m oracle.”

  So, that was an oracle. They were the wisest of all the celestial beings in Horizon, or so I was told. They were Seers, clairvoyants, prophetic creatures whose visions were inspired by mystical forces. They delivered predictions and advice and were responsible for giving angels their assignments. I just never thought they’d be so… small.

  Tyrius would have had a field day with this.

  The thought of my friend sent a fluttering hollow feeling through my being, an ache through my soul. My shoulders slumped. A tremor went through my body at the question I was burning to ask but was too afraid to say it.

  “My mortal life is over. This is the end.” I should have been happy to know that I when I died there was a place for me in Horizon and not the fires and endless torment of the Netherworld. Instead, I was angry. I thought I’d have more time. More time with my mortal life. More time with Gareth, with Tyrius and Kora and my gran. And especially more time kicking demon ass.

  “The end?” said the oracle, his eyes filling with sadness. “No. No. No. This is not your end, Rowyn. Not yet. You still have a very important role to play in the scheme of things.”

  “But if I’m standing here, in Horizon, my life is over,” I began, thinking the oracle was off his rocker.

  What role could I play? I was dead. I’d reached the end of the line. My life was over. My mortal life was over. I would no longer need to breathe, eat, or sleep—all things that separated the mortals from the dead. It was all gone.

  Jenna had truly killed me. I stood there in denial, not wanting to believe what was right in front of me. I wanted to cry. Hell, I even tried to force myself to cry just to prove that I still could. But no tears would come.

  “She stabbed me,” I added suddenly, remembering how fast it had been and how I hadn’t felt anything. “One of your angels killed me. Did you know that? Right in my grandmother’s kitchen.”

  “Indeed she did.”

  “Why would she do that? I thought we were onto something. She was about to tell me how to save Layla… and then she stabbed me.”

  “In the heart.”

  “Why?”

  “It was necessary,” answered the oracle, calmly.

  “It was necessary that I die?” I asked incredulously.

  “Indeed it was.”

  “I don’t think so. I still had lots to do with my life. I had plans, you know. Plans to save my sister.” Plans with Gareth. Now I would never know just how far our relationship could have gone.

  “She was under orders.”

  I frowned. “Really? She was under orders to kill me?”

  “Exactly,” grinned the oracle, like I’d just complimented the white paint on his office walls, and I resisted the urge to punch him.

  “What about Lucian and your precious Holy Grail?” I grimaced, feeling more ticked by the second as I stood facing the tiny oracle. “He has it, you know. He’s about to fly up here and kick everyone’s asses. And from what Jenna told me before the backstabbing bitch killed me, the angels couldn’t retrieve it. Or something like that. She told me that she’d needed my help. That the Legion needed my help.”

  “We do.”

  “So why the hell did she kill me? And if you say it was necessary again, I swear I’m going to toss you into that pool.” I didn’t know if oracles could swim. I guess I was about to find out.

  The oracle exhaled and folded his hands on his desk. “You needed to complete the process. You needed to die in order to begin your new life as an angel.”

  My lips parted and worry pulled me tightly. “Life as an angel?” Oh, hell no . I don’t want to be an angel. I hated angels. This was the worst thing that could happen to me. It was worse than death.

  The oracle nodded, sending wisps of his hair floating about his head. “Exactly. You’re catching on.”

  I swallowed, which was really weird when you didn’t have any saliva. “No. This is a mistake.”

  “No mistake. You’re to start your new life as an angel. Right now as a matter of fact.”

  “But I had a life,” I said, trying to control my temper but failing miserably by the dangerous tone in my voice. “I don’t want a new life as an angel. I liked my life. I loved my life. I want it back.”

  “Life as a Hunter,” said the oracle. His blue eyes gleamed and reminded me of Tyrius’s eyes.

  I cocked my hip, not liking his tone. “Yeah. So?”

  “You became a Hunter for hire,” said the oracle, his voice carrying on ably, “without a real purpose or cause. For money.”

  “Not just for money.” Yeah money was a big part of it. “I saved lives. I helped people. Mortals. Half-breeds. Even the angel-born. I was damn good at my job. I liked it.” When I got paid.

  “But you were born for something greater. It’s why you’re here now, standing before me.”

  “I had a purpose,” I grumbled, trying to spout out something wittier but coming up short.

  The oracle fell silent for a moment, thoughtful. “Have you ever wondered why you were different from all the other angel-borns? Why you were Unmarked?”

  “All my life.” Is he serious? “I’ve heard the archdemon Lucian had a part in it.” A colossal part.

  The oracle smiled, his teeth brilliant and gleaming like stars. “Yes and no. And no and yes. You were created different and unique for this very moment.”

  I stared at the oracle, uneasy with where this conversation was going. I had nothing to say to that or to add. Besides, I had a feeling he was going to tell me anyway.

  The oracle leaned forward on his desk. “You have the chance now to fight for all life. Life on Earth and life in Horizon. It’s what you were meant to be. What you were born for—of shadow and light. An equal balance of angel and archdemon essence. All your life experiences have led you to this very moment. To who and where you’re supposed to be. Your true purpose.”

  I choked down a surge of panic. “Which is?”

  “A dark angel.”

  Demon balls. “Excuse you?”

  The oracle clapped his hands excitedly and laughed hard. Yeah, the dude was definitely smoking crack.

  “A dark angel,” repeated the oracle. Delight flashed in his eyes, making him look like one of Santa’s elves that just delivered a gift to the poorest kid in the entire world. “The first ever dark angel. You, Rowyn Sinclair, are it!”

  “No shit.”

  A dark angel? Holy crap. Being dead was traumatic enough in its own right, but the notion of becoming an angel—well, that was just completely bonkers.

  “No one in their right mind would want me to become an angel,” I told the oracle as I tried to wrap my head around this new information. It was less scary that way.

  The oracle smiled pleasantly. “Yes, yes we would.”

  I eyed him. “This is crazy.”

  “This is Horizon.”

  “I’m not angel material.”

  “You most certainly are.” He tilted his head to one side and smiled at me. “You are standing before me as an angel at this very moment.”

  I looked down at my feet. Don’t ask me why, but it was my first reaction. Feeling stupid, I looked back at the oracle, finding him still smiling.

  I was an angel. And I hadn’t felt a thing.

  “And all this, this new me is because of Lucian. Isn’t it?” I started to put the pieces together. As an angel I could retrieve the Holy Grail. A
nd as dark angel with archdemon essence I could pass through the wards.

  “Right again,” confirmed the oracle, seemingly pleased that I was finally catching on. What could I say? I was a slow learner. “With your unique essence, as a dark angel you will be gifted with strength and skilled with enough power to match what Lucian infused into Layla.”

  Now I really wished Tyrius was here. “So Jenna killed me so that I might go through this transformation to become an angel,” I said, in more of a statement than a question.

  “A dark angel,” corrected the oracle. “That is exactly right.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then,” said the oracle, “you complete your mission. You must retrieve the Holy Grail. You’re now part of Horizon’s angelic warriors. It’s your duty to see it through.”

  “My duty.” I was already seeing a problem here. I curled my fingers into fists. “In other words,” I said, my voice trembling, “you killed me so that I might do your bidding? So that I might become another tool for your angel Legion?”

  The oracle looked at me with wide eyes, and I looked away from him. My anger soared, and I focused my hate and my denial and my pain. Again the Legion of angels were playing God. They’d never asked if I wanted this. Never asked if I wanted to die, to become one of their angels, their pawns. They just took my life. My entire life. And that really pissed me off.

  My anger replaced the wave of denial and the slowly dawning sense of horror. I turned, slowly, to look at the oracle.

  I thought about it. “What if I refuse?”

  The oracle looked taken aback for the first time. “You cannot refuse.” It was his turn to look at me as though I was the one smoking crack. “It’s your destiny. You were meant to become a dark angel, just as you were meant to retrieve the Holy Grail.”

  Fantastic. I made a face. “I don’t believe in destiny,” I said, though I didn’t sound convinced. “From what I understand, I’m basically a slave. A grunt. To do as you command. I have no free will.”

  I’d always done what I wanted, made my own choices since I was a teenager. I didn’t take well to following orders. I was undisciplined and I had a huge problem with authority. If they didn’t foresee this as a problem, they were idiots.