Byzantyne holds up his palm and stops Emil in midair with the gesture. “CEASE!” he orders. Emil slinks back, but his eyes betray his venom.
Byzantyne returns his attention to me. “You don’t enjoy meeting your inescapable in every lifetime? You could surrender—accept no other missions.”
“I cannot ask another soul to endure his cruelty in my stead.”
“Always the little fixer, aren’t you? You would deny him a chance at redemption?” Byzantyne’s lips twist into a wicked grin at the very thought of Emil attempting to gain redemption.
“If it means saving future souls who would fall because of his influence, then yes, I would.”
“Isn’t that heresy, Simone? Aren’t you all worthy of redemption?”
“Are we?” I ask, knowing he doesn’t think so. I am giving him something he wants. I hope he doesn’t see through it.
“There is one small problem in your plan. You’re challenging me. I cannot kill a human. If I did, I would find myself in the same situation as that Power over there. How would I fight against you?”
“That Power over there has a name. It’s Reed.”
“I don’t care what his name is. How do we solve our conundrum?”
“What if I’m not human when I return?”
Byzantyne laughs with derision. “What else could you be? You’re a soul!”
“If I had a different body—not human? Would that work for you?” I’d be holding my breath if I had a body.
“In theory, yes, but what other body could a soul inhabit—”
“Angel.”
Byzantyne appears to have stopped breathing. “What you suggest is…”
“…Is what you’ve always wanted—to be an angel with a soul. To prove to everyone that angels are worthy of redemption—more so than humans.”
He can hardly contain his glee. He attempts to hide it though. “Still, even with an angelic body, your soul would not die, it would fall to me.”
“If I lose and you kill my body, then my soul is Sheol’s, but I won’t lose.”
“I want your soul mate as well”
“No!” I nearly shout it. “You never get him! He goes free!”
“But you’re together. He’s part of you.”
I can’t let Nicolas suffer for eternity. If I lose my soul to Sheol, I want him to be free. “I will see that our soul mate connection is severed.”
“You would give up your soul mate? For a Power?” This makes no sense to him. I have to keep him unbalanced.
“I’ll do it to see you cease to be—to banish Emil to Sheol for eternity. It will give my soul mate peace like he has never known in any lifetime.”
“You think your soul mate is too good for all of this?”
I want to wipe the smirk off his face. “My soul mate is the best part of us. I’ll pay the cost of this, not Nicolas.”
“Does he know that you’ve fallen in love with your guardian angel? It’s why you force him into mission after mission—so you can be near Xavier,” Byzantyne taunts.
I cringe at how well he knows me. “I accept mission after mission to fight my inescapable. You play Emil whenever you can because you know I’ll agree to face him. It’s you who is obsessed with me.”
“Oh, I am obsessed, Simone. I would love to have you all to myself and violate you in every possible way.”
He means every word. “You know nothing of love, Byzantyne, and that’s how I’ll beat you.”
“You’ll beat me with love? That sounds salacious. I’m so looking forward to it. Now let me tell you what I demand in exchange. I cannot have you return as a more powerful being and have you unmatched by us. That hardly seems fair to have the strength of an angel with the latitude given to a soul. It’s gluttonous of you, Simone. Unless…” his scheming gaze falls on Emil, “I’m allowed a champion of my own.”
I close my eyes briefly. “You need a champion? That’s a little cowardly of you. Are you afraid of me?”
“Afraid? No. I merely seek to maintain a balance, and because I don’t have a soul, I will require a soul to act in my stead. I choose your inescapable, Emil. He will return here as a half-angel. He’ll dance circles around the pieces of your broken heart.”
Emil, who kills for fun, can’t believe his good fortune. He knows what this could mean. He’ll be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. He’ll believe himself God-like, even though he cannot even imagine how miniscule he really is.
Emil sizes me up once more, his depraved soul growing darker. “I accept,” he says without hesitation.
“Does Heaven agree?” Byzantyne lifts his eyebrow to Atwater and waits for him to respond.
Atwater pauses for a moment. His eyes become white, losing any indication that he has irises as they disappear. His body trembles as if enduring a shock from some outside force. It only takes a moment for his eyes to become normal once more. He stops shaking. “Heaven accepts.”
“I still feel as if Simone is getting the better part of this bargain.”
“What is it that you want?”
“I want you blind. You have something planned. I don’t know what it is, but you came into this lifetime hoping for this outcome. Didn’t you?”
“You know I can hardly predict what will happen when I enter a new life. There are too many variables to ever know the outcome of a life.”
“It’s not so hard when you know the players.”
“But I never know the setup, do I?”
“Don’t you? Still. I want you to go into this next lifetime with no prior knowledge of these negotiations. You don’t get to know who you are or why you’re here. And whoever is sent to protect you from us will be blind to the goal of the mission as well.” Byzantyne looks down at Xavier on the ground. My guardian angel is unconscious, having succumbed to the pain of having his wings readjusted. “He doesn’t get to know your mission either.”
“We don’t have to know the goal of the mission or that it involves you and Emil when I return here. It’ll be the only logical choice though, given Emil is my inescapable and you’re his handler. What other reason would I have to come back here?”
“As you say,” Byzantyne accepts my logic. “You will be born into this next life as a human, so you will know nothing of Heaven or your inescapable. You’ll follow the biological progression of an angel with an angelic body. You won’t have angelic strength until you begin to evolve. When that time comes, if you make it that far and begin your evolution into angel, you will lose Xavier and whoever else is protecting you. They must ascend. You’ll be left on your own. No one else is to be told of your arrival on earth or your purpose here.”
“Someone has to know.”
“Atwater can know—Heaven can know, but they can’t tell you or the players in our game.”
“Xavier will never agree to leave me.”
“Then Heaven will have to force him back. He doesn’t get to stay with you.”
It’s as if he has punched me in the stomach. I want to curl into a ball and hide. What he is proposing is sure disaster for me. I try to imagine it. I’ll be a new being alone in the world, weak and transitioning into angel with no protection. I scrutinize the warrior angels surrounding us. They’re not what one would term as open-minded. I glance at Reed. His clever eyes see the torment of my decision. Restrained from me, his face is a mask of agony, watching me struggle through this. “What would you do if you met an angel with a soul, Reed?” I ask as if we’re the only two beings in the room.
He doesn’t smile, but there’s a tender quality in the look that passes from him to me. “If it were anyone else, Simone, I don’t know. But, because it will be you, I’d have a better chance at harming starlight. I would protect you. You can trust me.”
Byzantyne barks with laughter. “A Power with the eloquence of a poet! Do you believe him, Simone? He’s programmed to murder anything that could be seen as unnatural. It’s innate in him. He’d be made blind as well. He wouldn’t remember any of this the
moment he leaves here.” Smug humor resonates from the Seraph.
Reed strains against the Cherubim holding him. Their blue feathers rustle and thrust, trying to maintain control and subdue him. It takes four of them to hold him back from Byzantyne. His voice hardens, “You believe you know me? You think I’d slaughter innocence—that I am a mindless drone? Give her to me to guard when you drive away her guardians. If you’re right, I’ll shatter her heart for you, and then you’ll win before it even starts,” Reed challenges. “But if you’re wrong, you’ll only have an infinitesimal Power with which to contend.
Byzantyne’s eyebrows twist like threads above his brown eyes, arching as Reed uses the Seraph’s boastful words against him. “Oh, this is interesting! Should I give you to the Power, Simone? He has been stalking me for months now. It was fortunate for me that you’ve been a dazzling distraction for him. I may not have known he was near if it were not for his penchant to watch you. He hovered around you as if he’d never seen a female before in his miserable life. Will love triumph, Simone, as you so desperately want to believe? Will you stake your eternity on his love for you?”
Reed’s green eyes pierce me. “I will not fail you, Simone.”
The deep, mesmerizing quality of his voice slices through my fear and I reply, “I will stake my eternity on it.”
Byzantyne, looks from me to Reed in disbelief. I hardly spare the Seraph a glance because I’m entangled in the radiant smile on my knight angel’s lips. The dark-haired demon hums with superiority.” You’ll blow into this Power’s life, a dead leaf on and autumn breeze. He’ll tear you down and bathe in your blood within the first hour of your meeting.”
“Why are you afraid then, Byzantyne?” I ask.
“I fear nothing.” He wants me to believe he’s already won.
“You should fear us,” Reed mocks him. “We’ll slay the demon you keep on a leash.” The divine Power turns a menacing grin on Emil. Emil flinches, more smoky essence curling off of him. Reed looks back at Byzantyne once more, “And then we’ll come for you, wherever you are. You can hide in fire and we’ll find you.”
“You will lose,” Byzantyne replies, the muscles in his face tightening as he attempts to be unemotional.
“Then you won’t mind if I add one more thing if I win?” I interrupt.
“Name it,” Byzantyne croons condescendingly.
I turn to address Atwater instead of Byzantyne, because this has to be granted by Heaven. “I want a love of my own choosing.” I force myself not to look in Xavier’s direction.
Byzantyne laughs with derision, as if I’ve asked for the most inane thing imaginable. “So this is truly all about Xavier after all. You would sever the ties to your soul mate and challenge me just to be with him? Such fealty and loyalty to an angel who watches you get butchered in every lifetime you live—and for him no less. He orchestrates your demise. You do know this, don’t you? If it’s to his advantage for you to die in order for him to defeat me, he does not hesitate to use it. No matter what price you have to endure. You are his pawn. And, yet, you love him still. Love is blind.”
“We both know the risks going into every life.”
“Yes, but do you know how easy it would be to get you out of some of the torture he allows you to suffer? He’s ruthless when it comes to you. He absolutely does not care what happens to you.”
“He’s doing his job.”
“Always at your expense,” Byzantyne gives me a fake look of pity. “I only tell you this because I would not do that to you. If you were mine, I would cherish you.” There is some truth to what he says. It’s in the yearning in his eyes as he looks at me. He does want me, maybe even more than I ever imagined. But he wouldn’t cherish me. He wouldn’t even know how.
Atwater replies to me, “It will be done. You will have a love of your own choosing.”
Emil careens forward suddenly. “I want something as well,” Emil growls like a petulant child.
“Ah, it always wants something,” Byzantyne shoots Emil a look of censure.
“As your champion, when I win, I want Simone to cease to be. She doesn’t get to survive in Sheol as your favored pet. I want the ability to erase her soul from existence.”
Byzantyne scowls at him. “You cannot annihilate a soul. It is imposs—”
Atwater’s eyes become milky white once more. When his fit of shaking ends, he faces Emil and says, “Heaven accepts your terms with one stipulation.”
“Which is?’ Emil asks.
“There must be a balance. If you are given the ability to destroy her soul, than she will have the ability to end yours as well.”
Before Byzantyne has a chance to interfere, Emil replies, “As champion, I accept all the terms.” And just like that, the game is on.
“You set this up!” Byzantyne turns on me accusingly, narrowing his eyes at me. “This is what you wanted all along. What did you ask Heaven for in exchange for agreeing to attempt to erase Emil from existence?”
“Love.”
“For Xavier?” Byzantyne asks in rage. I’m being snatched out of his grasp. Either way, if I lose or if I win, he doesn’t get me. That fact isn’t sitting well with him. He looks as if he’s ready to drag me off to Sheol himself.
“What other reason could there be?” I ask.
Atwater gets between Byzantyne and me once more. “It is done. The terms are set. We will each return to our sides and negotiate the finer points of the agreement—time and place, arsenals, abilities—”
“I know the rules.” Byzantyne fumes, trying to rein in his emotions. “Alfred.”
Alfred jumps, startled at being addressed. His iridescent dragonfly wings buzz loudly. “Reap this traitor! Get him out of my sight!”
Alfred turns a wicked grin on Emil. With his golden scythe, he whirls it through the air, cutting a slash in the very fabric of this world. A small hole rends and gapes. Using his booted foot, Alfred kicks Emil, knocking him through the hole where Emil disappears from sight. He seals the gap back up using the same scythe.
Byzantyne notices the look of pleasure in Alfred’s shiny eyes. “Reapers are such worthless maggots. Soon, when every last soul falls to us, there will be no use for them.” he says with a look of disdain. “You will wait for me outside, Alfred.”
Alfred ducks his head. His shoulders round as he slinks off to the door amid growls from the other angels in the room. He slips out into the darkness and downpour. I almost feel sorry for him for having to deal with such a maniacal leader…almost.
“I want all of theses angels’ memories erased, Atwater,” Byzantyne orders. “They will not remember what occurred here.”
“So let it be,” Atwater says. He raises his arms. An invisible force begins to retract the Thrones and Cherubim upward, through the holes in the ceiling out and into the night sky. It only takes moments for Xavier to disappear into the air. When Atwater lowers his arms, the only angels still with Atwater, Byzantyne, and me are the ones holding Reed.
Byzantyne’s eyes fall on Reed. He wants to tear the Power angel apart. The feeling is definitely mutual because Reed studies Byzantyne as if he’s finding out all of his weaknesses. Reed said he was hunting Byzantyne for a while. Once a Power has selected a target, he almost never wavers from it. If he were to let Byzantyne go, it would be a failed mission. By the looks of Reed, I’d say he’s never failed in his entire life.
Byzantyne’s expression grows more and more intolerant the longer Reed stares at him. “Why is this Power still here?” he asks Atwater. “Blind his memory and return him to the hole from which he crawled.”
“You aren’t in charge here, Byzantyne,” I reply. His eyes narrow at me. He’s not used to waiting for vengeance. He exacts pain from whomever he wants whenever he wants. I look past Byzantyne to the angels holding Reed. “It’s done. You have to let him go.” Atwater nods in agreement to what I’ve just said. The angels turn Reed loose. As they do, Heaven draws the Cherubim soldiers from the carriage house, ascending them into the
sky.
Freed, Reed flies between the scary monster and me. “You can go now,” Reed orders, dismissing Byzantyne. “You will have your chance at her in her next lifetime…except there, I won’t be restrained.”
“I will bury you in blood,” Byzantyne replies. He growls at Atwater, “You are the only divine one here who will remember these events! You may never speak of them. Am I clear?”
“It will be done,” Atwater agrees, “…unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless one of you speaks of it first.”
“Be clear, Atwater! Byzantyne’s eyes are so narrow he’s squinting.
Atwater shrugs. “We can’t be held to the agreement if someone from your side were to say something that would jog a memory in Simone. If no one speaks of this night from your side, then Simone won’t know, but the moment any of you say anything about what has occurred here...” He shrugs again.
“So a boast from Emil should be sufficient enough to allow you out of the stipulation in his contract with you.”
“It is rather unfortunate for you, given his arrogant nature,” Atwater replies.
Byzantyne turns his anger on me, pointing his finger. “You will beg me in your next life to save you from Emil.”
“I always beg…in every life. I’ll pray this time will be different.”
“Still so naïve.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Until we meet again, Simone.” Byzantyne folds in his crimson wings. He falls to the stone floor below, landing on his feet as if it were nothing at all. Without a backward glance, he strides toward the door. His booted feet make almost no sound as he slips outside and vanishes into the night.
Atwater’s gaze travels from Reed to me. “I will give you a moment to say goodbye, after which I have to send Reed out into the night without any memory of this.” Atwater retracts his wings and falls to the floor below. He leaves the carriage house.
I shift my eyes to Reed, knowing that we don’t have much time left together. I’ll be called home to Heaven soon. Strategy and the details of my mission will be undertaken and debated by high-ranking Seraphim. They’ll work out angles of pursuit and arsenals in which to endow me for survival. Upon my return here, my memory of this event will be erased. I need to discover a way to survive him when we meet again.
Iniquity (The Premonition Series Book 5) Page 22