Dark Angel

by Kim Richardson

  My stomach was in knots, but the fury was gone. “She’s not a monster. She’s just a woman. A young woman who needs our help. Your help.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” said Jenna. “But I can’t promise that—”

  A knock came from my front door.

  I spun, heart pounding. Lance leapt to his feet just as Jenna moved her hand to her waist.

  Tyrius jumped off the counter and landed next to me. “You expecting anyone?” he asked, alarm shining in his eyes.

  Before I could answer, my front door swung open, and Gareth strode into my apartment, his long black coat billowing behind him as he paced quickly across the room, tracking in mud from the priest’s garden.

  “Rowyn,” he breathed in relief, his eyes wide with worry. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.” His voice was loud with apprehension. “Why haven’t you answered your phone?”

  Damn. “I turned it off so I could sleep for a bit,” I said tightly, not liking the underlying anger in his tone. “The bit turned out to be a little longer than I thought. Don’t look at me like that. You did the exact same thing to me. Remember?”

  The elf barely glanced at the two angels in my apartment. His face was tight with concern, and I could see multicolored dust spilling from the insides of his coat.

  “What’s going on?” Tension pulled me tightly again.

  The elf’s hat cast dark shadows over his eyes, adding another layer of mystery to his entrance. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it, like he couldn’t bring himself to say whatever had made him come all this way to tell me in person.

  “What?” I demanded. The fact that he was silent made me angrier.

  This time, the elf glanced briefly at the angels, and I realized he was contemplating whether to tell me in front of them.

  “Just say it.” I was losing my patience.

  Gareth glanced at the two angels and then back to me. “Did you ever hear of the Divine Overseers?”

  I shook my head. “Sounds like a lame rock band name. Why? Should I have?” Again he looked at the two angels, and this time I saw a reaction from Jenna. She looked frightened. What the hell?

  “I’ve heard of them,” said Tyrius, raising his voice. “They’re a group of angels here on Earth. If my memory serves me well, I believe they are guarding something.”

  I looked at my kitty. “You never cease to amaze me, my friend.”

  The cat grinned. “Babe, I live to amaze you.”

  I lost my smile at the dark gleam and intensity in Gareth’s eyes. “So, what about these Divine Overseers.”

  Gareth’s eyes flicked to the angels and he said, “They’re dead.”

  Oh. Crap.

  A small growl emitted from Lance’s throat, and Jenna frowned, her expression dark with emotion.

  I felt cold and hot all at once, the tension in the room pulling me rigid. I knew what he was going to say. I could see it, feel it, read it in his eyes and on his face.

  My throat tightened and I managed to utter, “Layla.”

  With the gift, all she had to do was touch them and their souls died… which left them vulnerable and crazy. Easy to kill.

  Layla had killed the angels.

  Lucian’s plan had already begun.

  “She killed all the angels,” said Gareth. “I counted twenty angel bodies.”

  And their souls , I thought.

  There was dead silence.

  “Where are the angel bodies?” asked Jenna. The anger in her voice seemed to strangle her for a moment.

  Gareth took off his hat and rubbed the top of his head. “In the back of my truck. I haven’t had time to dispose of them yet.” His eyes met mine. “I needed to make sure Rowyn was all right.”

  I exhaled, my fingers shaking from fear and anger. “You sure it’s her?”

  “I saw the security footage from a building across the street.” His jaw tightened. “You see her entering the building where the Divine Overseers were.” He exhaled. “Father Thomas called me when he couldn’t reach you. He was already in the city when it happened. He asked me to assist him.”

  I was shaking. “These angels… these Divine Overseers. What were they protecting?” Nauseated, my heart pounded as I stood where I was and searched Gareth’s face, fearing what he was about to tell me.

  Jaw clenched, Gareth shook his head. “I don’t know. Father Thomas doesn’t know either,” he answered. The lines in his face deepened, and the trepidation in his eyes made me feel worse.

  What the hell did you take, Layla? What were these angels protecting?

  “I know what they were protecting,” said Jenna, making me start, and my eyes darted to her. Worry flashed in her hazel eyes.

  She looked at me and said, “They were protecting the Holy Grail.”

  17

  I stood there with my mouth hanging open, probably with a stupid look on my face, as I wrapped my mind around what Jenna had just said.

  The Holy Grail.

  There was a short silence, and then—

  “The Holy freaking Grail?” shrilled Tyrius, ripping the words right out of my mouth. “Are you shitting me? It’s real?”

  “Very.” Jenna was staring at Gareth, questions burning in the backs of her eyes. But I got there first.

  “The Holy Grail?” I asked, looking from Lance to Jenna. “I thought it was just a myth the humans invented. Like the Easter Bunny.”

  “Hey, man, the Easter Bunny is real,” said Tyrius. “The dude owes me money.”

  Jenna looked at me, her features tight. “The Holy Grail exists. It’s a holy instrument.”

  “Can it play Ave Maria?” laughed Tyrius, and I shot him a look to shut up. The cat shrugged but the smile on his face never ceased.

  The two angels were looking at each other again, sharing important information through their expressions. I wanted a piece of that. I wanted to know why Lucian had my sister steal it. If the Holy Grail did exist, I wanted to know exactly what it was.

  My gaze fell on the elf, and I could tell he was thinking the exact same thing.

  “Why were the Divine Overseers protecting it?” I asked no angel in particular. I wasn’t sure either of them were going to tell me. This kind of thing was way above my pay grade, and if I had to guess by the increasing tension coming from the two angels—a level one priority. Still, if they did, I knew it was going to be detrimental.

  “What does it do, exactly?” I tried again.

  It took a while before I got an answer, and for a moment, I thought I was going to have to pound Jenna in the head to force some information out of her. Her body was technically just a meat suit, so what did it matter if I poked a few holes in it? Okay, so she might leak. So what? But then she looked at Lance and gave him a small nod.

  “It’s said to hold great power,” articulated the dog, the cadence of his voice making him sound like a professor. “But no one outside God himself knows exactly all of its power… or the secrets to the Holy Grail’s power. It can heal, just as it can easily destroy.”

  “God?” sneered Tyrius as he padded forward and got right up into Lance’s face. “The big almighty? The creator of all things? As is, God , God?”

  “Yes,” huffed the dog, clearly annoyed.

  “I hate to break it to you, mongrel,” sneered Tyrius, true to form, as he picked a nail and spat out a piece. “He’s not real. God’s a myth.”

  “Of course God’s not a myth. He’s real,” countered Lance, anger making his voice rise. “What do you know of it? You’re a demon. A bottom feeder.” Oh. No. He. Didn’t.

  I tensed, but Tyrius merely smiled at the dog, his teeth gleaming in my kitchen light like he was trying to show which toothpaste brand he was using. “Have you met him?” asked the cat.

  Lance narrowed his eyes. “No, but that doesn’t change—”

  “A-ha!” exclaimed Tyrius, pointing a clawed finger at the dog. “If you’ve never met him, how do you know he’s real?”

  A flash of anger pu
lled the dog’s lips back, revealing his much larger teeth. “Because he’s real .”

  “That’s all you got? Because he’s real ,” Tyrius mimicked. “How stupid is that? All this living up there in that penthouse you call Horizon, all that lack of gravity has clearly affected your brain. Made you stupid.”

  Lance’s snarl was pulled all the way back. “Your existence is merely stench and filth, and it merits nothing but wrath and damnation.”

  This was getting ugly. I knew Tyrius well enough to know that he was thoroughly enjoying getting a rise out of Lance. If I didn’t stop him, he’d push the angel’s buttons until, well, he did something stupid, like hit him first. Then Tyrius would use that opportunity to start the fight he’d been dying to start since he met the dog and call it self-defense. God that cat was irritating sometimes.

  “Tyrius,” I growled as I moved to stand next to the cat, angling my body as to protect him in case the dog decided to have a baal for dinner. “Let the angel speak. We don’t have time for this. I don’t want to be here all day. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” answered the cat, looking pleased with himself. He looked at Lance and gave him a wink.

  Souls help us.

  I turned my attention back to the angels. “Eternal life, right,” I said, trying to ease the tension and get the information rolling so I could find Layla and prove to the angels she was worth saving. “You drink from the cup and it heals you,” I added, remembering something I’d read online years ago. Or was that from a movie? Damn. I was mixing fiction with real life again.

  Lance turned his eyes on me. “Healing is one of its powers. But it goes beyond that.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay. Spill it. What else?”

  Again the angels exchanged looks, and that just sent my anger meter through the roof.

  “Look,” I said, not caring how loud my voice was. “You said you’re here to investigate my claim. Well, I need to know what the hell the Holy Grail is so that I can find Layla and figure out what Lucian is up to. I know he’s up to something, and now we know it has something to do with this Holy Grail.” My breath was fast. “It’s obviously not eternal life… so what else? Why was it kept here and not in Horizon?”

  Jenna looked at me, her face rigid with frustration. “Because it would be far too easy for an angel or an archangel to have access to it.”

  I shrugged. “And that would be bad?”

  Jenna’s expression became sour. “Like all creatures, not all are created equal.”

  “Amen,” mewed Tyrius and curled his tail around his feet.

  “Some desire power,” continued the angel. “The Holy Grail would give them that. If it fell into the wrong hands, the Holy Grail would become an instrument of destruction and devastation.”

  “Nice,” I muttered. I shared an anxious look with Gareth, the fear on his face striking me cold.

  “So the Legion thought it best to hide it in the mortal world,” said Jenna, her voice harder. “Away from the angels and other celestial beings who would want to use it. It was placed in the care of the Divine Overseers, a select group of angels created by God and the archangels. These angels are the very elite of Horizon’s forces, angelic warriors. They are our most skilled and the strongest of all the angels.”

  “Like super angels,” I said.

  “That’s right. Their only job was to protect it, day and night. It’s all they did.” Jenna pressed her lips tightly. “Well, not anymore. The Holy Grail was placed in a metal box forged by the oracles themselves as an added protection.”

  “Demons can’t touch the box,” said Lance, glancing at Tyrius as though in challenge. “If they do, they’ll suffer a true death. Only angels can touch it… or those with angel essence.”

  “Like Layla.” It was all starting to make a lot of sense. “Lucian had Layla kill your super angels and then steal the box with the Holy Grail in it.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  Cold fingers of dread crawled up my spine and grasped my throat. This was it. This was the reason why the Unmarked existed, why I existed with both archdemon and angel essence—

  To steal the Holy Grail.

  Lucian’s gift of power had always been about the Holy Grail. He needed someone like me or Layla with angel essence to steal the box, but they also had to be infused with enough of his power to kill the super angels.

  And now he’d succeeded.

  Worry clenched my chest and I licked my lips. “What happens when the archdemon gets the Holy Grail? What will he do with it?” I had a few ideas, but I wanted to hear from the angels.

  Jenna looked around my apartment, a nervous energy making her eyes flick back and forth rapidly. “It can be used in a ritual,” she said softly, “to release a captive angel,”

  I started to sweat. “You mean in an angel prison?”

  Jenna looked at me like I was a dimwitted kid. “Not exactly. It can raise and heal a fallen angel.”

  Oh. Crap. “He wants his wings back,” I said, and Jenna nodded her head.

  My breath caught. “Holy shit.”

  “ Holy Grail ,” retorted Tyrius, his face scrunched into a frown.

  My heart throbbed against my chest. “What happens if he gets his wings back?’

  Jenna’s expression grew dark. “If he gets his wings back… He will be fully restored as an archangel. It would be as though he was never stripped of his title, as though he was never cast out. He’ll be able to return to Horizon.”

  “And I take it that would be bad?” I asked.

  Jenna clenched her jaw. “That can never happen.” Her face twisted into something ugly, her eyes wide with fear. “If Lucian returns to Horizon, he will destroy it.”

  I was struck by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face more than the words themselves.

  Tyrius cleared his throat. “You do realize if the Legion had sent angels to protect Layla and Rowyn from Lucian earlier,” he said, “none of this would have happened.”

  Jenna and Lance said nothing, both avoiding our eyes. I could see the hint of unease in them. Tyrius was right, of course, but it would do no good now to throw around blame. I was mad as hell at the Legion. Furious. But Jenna and Lance were just obeying orders.

  Still, even if the Legion had sent a cavalry to protect us, I had a feeling the archdemon would have found a way around them.

  “What’s done is done,” I said, though my own feeling of unease tightened in me. “We can’t go back. We can only go forward. We need to fix this.” My eyes fell on Gareth, my pulse racing. “Was Lucian with her? Maybe disguised as someone else?” I knew the archdemon couldn’t walk around our world in daytime without possessing a human body to protect himself from the effects of the sun and the Veil.

  “No,” answered the elf. “It was just her.”

  I let out a sigh. “Okay. Then Layla still has it.” My eyes moved from Gareth to the angels. “Lucian can’t show up until sundown, which leaves us less than two hours to find Layla and the Holy Grail before he gets his hands on it.”

  “And grows a pair of wings,” said Tyrius.

  Jenna shifted her posture, a hint of relief and hope at the possibly of fixing this mess in her eyes. “The Legion needs to know.”

  “Finally.” Tyrius rolled his eyes.

  “How soon can we expect their help?” asked Gareth, pulling the question right out of my mouth.

  Jenna’s face creased. “Not fast enough,” she said, her disappointment matching my own. “I’ll stay with you. You’re going to need my help. Lance,” she said, as she turned towards the white German Shepherd. “You need to get word to the Legion.”

  “Consider it done,” said the dog as he bounced to his feet, looking like a bigger version of Tyrius. His eyes moved to me. “You have good water pressure in this joint? I need a bath.”

  If I didn’t know that angels required a large amount of water to transition their bodies back to Horizon, I would have thought him mad to want to tak
e a bath right now.

  “The water pressure sucks,” answered Tyrius. “It’ll take you half an hour to fill it high enough.”

  I shook my head. “Forget the bath. There’s a large pond behind the priest’s house. It’ll be a lot faster.”

  Without waiting for a response, Jenna crossed my apartment and held the door open for Lance. With a blur of white fur, the dog disappeared through the doorway. The sound of nails ripping up the stairs echoed loudly, and then I heard the bottom door burst open followed by a loud bang of it hitting the wall.

  I caught a glimpse of Tyrius, and I swear I saw disappointment on his face. I think he was starting to like that dog.

  “You know where she is. Don’t you?” asked Jenna, as she stood next to the door. I wasn’t sure what I saw flicker on her face. Nerves? Excitement? Was it a willingness to find the Holy Grail or was she anxious to put a soul blade through my sister? Either way, I wasn’t letting Jenna out of my sight.

  “Yeah. Yeah I do.” Gareth was watching me, a whisper of pain reflected in his dark eyes. He knew what I might face, at the choice I might have to make.

  I didn’t want to hurt Layla. But I might not have a choice.

  Adrenaline spiked as I crossed my apartment and made for my weapons belt. It was going to be a hell of a night. I needed to prepare myself both mentally and physically. The physical part was easy, but the mental part had me uneasy.

  One thing was for sure.

  I was going get the Holy Grail back before Lucian had the chance to sprout wings.

  18

  As my luck would have it, Layla wasn’t at Danto’s place, just a freaked-out vampire.

  Danto, still on the mend, had nearly collapsed at the sight of us barging into his place, especially at the sight of Jenna. And it all went to hell at the mention of Layla.