by Elicia Hyder
I got in the back and sat on the black leather bench opposite the Morning Star. The sword pressed uncomfortably against my back, but there was no way in Nulterra I would take if off.
Neither of us spoke for what felt like an eternity. I watched as the rest of my group was herded toward the convoy. Iliana was escorted by Orin and two guards, one on each side. They put her and Fury into the van directly behind me.
“This has gone better than expected,” Michael said, breaking the silence.
“How did you expect it to go?”
“Oh, you know.” He held up his hands and mimicked the way we could blast our power from them. “Pew pew pew.”
“You can thank my daughter for that.”
“I plan to.” His words made everything inside me tense. “How’s your mom?”
I wanted to dive across the car and pound his face in. Before he’d been reborn, he’d possessed my mother’s body, holding her for ransom to ensure my father’s compliance. She’d died because of him. I grasped the door handle and forced myself to look outside.
“Did I hit a nerve?” he asked.
My face whipped toward him. “Cut the shit, Michael. What do you want?”
“I want you, of course.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“Eden is gone, Warren. The sooner you accept that fact, the happier and more peaceful your existence will be.”
“No existence with you in charge will mean happiness and peace for anyone.”
“You judge me so harshly. You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
“At one time, I was the shining light of Eden. The crystal water that flows through Zion was created from that light. It breathes life into everything it touches. With that being true, how could I be all bad?”
“That’s a good question. How could something created so pure become so poisoned?” I couldn’t even look at him. “I’m not interested. So if that’s the only reason I’m here, perhaps you should send me back with the others.”
“Hear me out.” He turned toward me on the bench. “Together we can build a new Eden. An Eden here that’s accessible to everyone, not just those whom some relic deity deems worthy.”
“No. Just the ones you deem worthy. Just the ones who survive whatever destruction you throw at them. Tell me, how many humans died in the virus?”
He frowned. “I let nature take its course. That’s all.”
The soldier who’d escorted me and Fury to our villa got in the driver’s seat. Another man got in the passenger’s seat. The driver looked over his shoulder at Michael. “That’s everyone. We’re ready to roll if you are, sir.”
“Let’s go.”
The convoy started rolling.
With a wave of his hand, the space between us and the front seats rippled. He’d put up a wall between us and them. “Warren, think about it. I can give you safety, power, rank. You and your family will never want for anything.”
“And what would you have me do?”
“I have been with the angels since the beginning of time. They are my brothers, my sisters. The Angels of Death could be a great asset in this new world we’re building. You are the Archangel. They will follow your lead. If you join me, so will they.”
“And if I don’t join you?”
His brow tightened. “Then I will destroy you all.”
Well.
“Soon will come a time when all those who do not follow me will be put to death. I wish to shed no angel blood. Please assist me in saving your choir.”
“Aren’t you the benevolent leader,” I said with a smirk.
His face darkened. “You can either accept my generosity, or you can perish with your angels.”
I leaned toward him. “I’ll fall on my own sword.”
He stared straight ahead for a moment. At least I knew I could frustrate him. I sat back in my seat and reclined against the headrest.
“If this is how it is to be, then there’s something you should know.”
I didn’t bother to look at him.
“As you’ve probably deduced by now, your father is being kept alive at my pleasure. So is Adrianne. So are your younger brother and sister. If anything were to happen to me, should you or your daughter try to kill me…if I die, so will they.”
My stomach flip-flopped.
“And if somehow you succeed in turning your father against me, I will kill every member of the Claymore organization.”
I thought of the sickness I sensed inside the soldier who’d cuffed me. My fists tightened as our car rolled down the bumpy road.
“I want your father’s blood stone, Warren.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Lies,” he hissed.
His hand stretched toward me, and the chain rattled under my shirt. The vibrations heated the metal until it singed my skin. My shirt started to smoke. “All right! All right!” I reached beneath my collar and pulled it out and over my head. I threw it at him. “Happy now?”
“You can’t even imagine.”
The Morning Star held the stone in front of my face and closed his fingers around it. Light beamed from between his fingers until, finally, there was a loud crack!
He opened his palm and the blood stone was broken. It withered and cracked until nothing remained but dust.
Laughing, he rolled down his window and let the island breeze carry it away.
I sat back hard in my seat, glaring at the road ahead. We were nearing the harbor. A military transport ship was docked in the marina.
“Where are you taking us?” I finally asked as we parked near it.
He looked across the car and smiled. “To the prison your father once built for me. Where else?”
Chapter Nine
It was two more days before we landed in New Hope, if that was what you could still call the military city that had replaced the old Claymore headquarters.
We’d been held overnight in the brig on Palawan, then flown in on a Claymore jet that was twice the size of the old one. We hadn’t been allowed to speak to each other, but from what I could tell, everyone looked whole.
Once, as we were being led to the brig in Palawan, Iliana had caught my eye and smiled. I wondered what she was up to.
“Trust me,” she’d said.
I did, but being locked in a four-by-five cell, completely cut off from humans and angels alike, made it hard.
I didn’t speak to the Morning Star or my father again, but I saw them plenty between the tiny military base and the sixteen-hour nonstop plane ride. Azrael’s expression was pained every time our eyes met, but he did nothing to help me or any of the rest of us.
They’d taken our bags when we boarded the plane, but even as we were led across the grounds at Claymore, I had my sword on my back and the duplicate of Azrael’s blood stone in my pocket. Somehow, I’d find a way to get it back to him. And somehow, I’d get him to see the truth inside it.
My hands were shackled behind my back, still cuffed in high-Z, as I was led across the Claymore tarmac. Where it had once been a tiny airstrip with an aluminum hangar, it was now a full-blown aviation center with a small airport and business center.
A Claymore bus waited across the tarmac. The Morning Star and my father were waiting for us, as they’d been driven in a HOK, a high-occupancy ATV.
Michael crossed his arms as we approached. “Have you had a change of heart, Warren?”
“You know, I believe I have.” I watched Michael straighten with surprise. “I’ve decided I prefer the old plane to the new one. You weren’t on that one.”
His surprise melted to anger.
I laughed. “For supposedly being so smart, you really are a dumbass.” The guard shoved me up the steps of the bus.
A sheet of aluminum blocked the view of the driver and the windshield, and the windows were blacked out all the way down the bus. It was obvious we weren’t the first prisoners to be carted around base in this thing.
&nb
sp; My hands were reshackled to a chain around my waist before I was pushed down into the first barely padded seat.
“Don’t take your eyes off her,” I heard Michael say outside as Orin followed Iliana onto the bus. “And keep her away from Warren!”
Iliana smiled again—and winked—as they passed me.
Jett was loaded after Iliana, and he was placed midway between us on the bus.
Somewhere outside, a car door slammed. “Azrael, what’s going on?” a woman shouted.
Adrianne.
I’d know her angry bark anywhere.
“Sloan?” she asked, her voice horrified. “Michael, seriously, what the hell? In chains was not what I had in mind when I asked you to bring them back!”
“It’s just a precaution, my love.” Azrael’s voice was soothing and unnatural. “Some of them are dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Some of them are family,” she argued.
At least Adrianne hadn’t been completely brainwashed.
“Mom, please stay out of it.”
It made my blood boil to hear the Morning Star call Adrianne “Mom.”
“Stay out of it?” she shrieked.
There was commotion. A scuffle of shoes against concrete and gravel. Adrianne was fighting someone.
“Adrianne!” Sloan cried out.
“Calm down!” Michael snapped. “Get her in there.”
Sloan was fighting and craning her neck to see what was happening. She stumbled up the bus steps as a guard shoved her. “Adrianne!” she screamed again, tears streaking her cheeks.
“Sloan, look at me,” I said calmly.
Her face whipped around. “Warren, I can’t do this.”
I tried to reach for her, but the shackles jerked my arms to a painful stop. “You can, and you will. We’ll get through this, I promise—”
“Shut up!” The Claymore guard elbowed me in the side of the head as they passed.
I jerked on the chains again with all my strength and with all my power, but nothing happened.
“Appa!” Iliana shouted from the back of the bus.
Seething and murderous, I settled back in my seat as the guard moved Sloan somewhere behind me.
Nathan came next. His face was worried and afraid. “Where are they taking us?” he asked quietly as they passed.
I lifted my shoulders because I had no idea. I’d only heard speculation that Azrael might be building a prison for the Morning Star. He had never volunteered the information, and I had failed to ask. I’d mistakenly thought I had all the time in the world to get the details when Fury and I got back.
Damn me for being so naïve.
Reuel was behind Nathan, and for the first time in all the years I’d known him, he looked helpless…in addition to looking hungry.
Cassiel didn’t look at me as she was escorted past. Perhaps she was still sore from our conversation the other morning.
Everyone else was loaded onto the bus. The last was Sandalphon, who shuffled slower than the rest of us.
He was seated across the aisle from me with Samael, and I wanted to talk to them, but the guard stood between us with a rifle ready to fire.
The bus ride was short, less than five minutes. I closed my eyes and tried to envision the base. The nose of the bus had been pointing east when we boarded, and I hadn’t felt any hard U-turns. We’d turned left, sped up for a while, then turned left again.
Unless I’d grossly miscalculated, we were being taken to the armory.
The bus’s brakes squealed to a stop.
I half expected them to put hoods over our heads before leading us off the bus. They didn’t. Again, I was taken first, and when I stepped outside, Azrael and the Morning Star were nowhere to be seen.
It was the armory.
Or, at least, it used to be the armory. The building had received a facelift in the time I’d been gone. When we walked inside, the interior had been completely redone as well. The room had been divided, split by a wall with windows and a metal door. And where there once had been cages, weapons, and ammo, there were now waiting-room chairs and a welcome desk.
The only guns around were the ones strapped to the guards.
We were corralled into the lobby, and Nathan shuffled toward me. “I know this routine.” He looked around at the guards. “This is a jail.”
“I know. And beneath this room is a vault. Seventeen years ago it was one of the most sophisticated ones I’d ever seen. I can’t imagine what they’ve done with it since. I guarantee you that’s where we’re being taken.”
He swore.
The door behind us opened, and Azrael propped it open with his boot. Two more guards walked in. “These two,” he ordered, pointing at Sloan and Nathan.
One of the men grabbed Sloan.
“Mom!” Iliana cried.
I started toward them, but Nathan stepped in front of me, shaking his head. Starting a fight would get us nowhere.
“Warren, keep her safe!” Sloan screamed as she was dragged out the door.
“I promise,” I said to Nathan as two heavy hands closed around my arms. I was pulled backward with so much force I stumbled. Impressive strength, as I was six two and over two hundred pounds. The guard jerked me around to face forward as he hauled me toward the metal door.
His eyes were mismatched, brown and green. He could see angels. On the shoulder of his Claymore uniform was a rectangular patch of a skull with wings.
This was the Morning Star’s new version of SF-12.
There was a loud buzz, and the door slowly opened on its own. When we were inside, he shoved me against the wall and held my face against the cool cinderblock.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted as he began to pat me down.
“Keep your mouth shut.” He grabbed the strap of the sword’s scabbard and jerked it over my head. I twisted to the side, out of his grasp, then charged him like a bull and slammed him into the desk behind him. The scabbard was caught under my armpit.
I headbutted the man as hard as I could.
Two more guards jabbed me in the ribs with electric prods. My knees collapsed under the volts of blinding electricity. I slumped forward onto the tiles.
Someone jerked the scabbard off my arm with a violent yank. Probably the guy I’d attacked. The steel toe of a boot connected with my ribs.
“Take him down!” a deep voice ordered as lights twinkled around the corners of my eyes.
I was heaving on the floor when I was grabbed under both arms and jerked upright. Two guards dragged me to an oversized elevator, a definite addition since the last time I’d been underground.
There were three levels. There had only been two before. Or, at least, I’d only seen two before. The armory and the vault below. We rode all the way to the bottom, of course.
I was on my feet by the time the elevator stopped, and I walked out with both guards holding my arms. There were six cell doors down a single hallway. Cameras, each with a bright green light, pointed in every direction.
“We don’t have space for all of them,” one guard said to the other. He was young, probably fresh out of the military with his GI Bill for college—if that was still a thing.
“We’ll double them up for now,” the other guard said, who was obviously in charge. He was older, sturdier, probably former Special Forces, knowing the types of guys Azrael usually gave authority.
He touched his ear. “Open sub cell six.”
I noticed the patch on his shoulder. A skull with wings. Same as the guy upstairs.
The first door on our right opened. They threw me into it. “Unshackle him, but leave the wide silver cuffs in place. He’s one of those.”
The younger guard’s eyes widened. “He’s a fairy?”
“Yes. Let’s make sure not to put more than one of them in a cell together.”
I brushed my black hair out of my eyes as I waited to be released. “A fairy? That’s what you’re calling us now?”
The young guy didn’t answer, but he crept forw
ard with a key. His hands were shaking as he released my shackles.
I growled, and he jumped backward.
I laughed.
He scurried out of the cell and slammed the door. The older guard touched his ear again. “Sub cell six, secure.”
The heavy lock tumbled closed.
Interesting. With all their advanced technology, they still relied on an operator to open and close the cells.
One by one, everyone was led downstairs. Reuel had also been relieved of his sword. Kane, Cruz, and Nash were missing their weapons.
Fury was bleeding.
“Are you OK?” I asked as a different guard dragged her past my cell.
She didn’t answer. She glared. It was a look I hadn’t seen in a while. Blood drizzled over her lip and dripped off her swollen chin.
“Open sub cell two,” the guard said to whoever was listening in his ear. His voice sounded familiar.
With my face pressed against the small bar-covered window, I watched as he threw Fury into the cell diagonal from me. With an angry scream, I pounded the silver cuffs against the bars.
They didn’t budge, but the guard charged toward me. That was when I saw his bloody face and his mismatched eyes. It was the same guard I’d fought upstairs. Blood was now smeared around his nose.
He struck the metal door with his baton. “Keep that up, and I’ll chain all four limbs to the wall!”
I was seething through clenched teeth.
“Are we going to have another problem?” he asked, visually daring me to lose my temper again.
Despite taking my sword and nearly splintering my ribs, he’d been an afterthought upstairs. A detail. Part of the process. But now, I memorized every inch of his square face. Severe underbite. Freshly broken nose. Mismatched set beneath unruly brown eyebrows.
Bruising and swelling crept across his forehead, and his knuckles were red, likely from where they’d punched my girlfriend in the mouth.
A name patch sewn on his uniform said Thacker.
“They won’t keep me here for long,” I said, resting my cheek against the cold door. “And when I get out, I’ll find you.”
Fear flashed in his eyes, but he blinked it away. “I can’t wait.” Then he turned and walked back to the elevator, out of view.