by Emery Skye
An Angel Academy Novel
Devoted
Emery Skye
© Copyrighted 2014 by Skylar Colclazier
THIRD Edition
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Revised 10/2016
This book is a work of fiction. With the exception of recognized historical figures, the characters in this novel are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use this author’s material work other than for reviews, prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Dedication
For my sister.
No matter how far away, you’ll always be in my heart.
Table of Contents
An Angel Academy Novel
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
The End
More by Emery Skye
Torn
About the Author
Chapter 1
I was enveloped in darkness. I tried to run, but my limbs were frozen. I tried to scream, but couldn’t. Invisible icy fingers squeezed my throat shut.
It was happening again.
The darkness slowly lifted like the curtains on a stage. Only this was anything but. My surroundings materialized. Large mounds of black rock encircled me. There were three gloomy, sinister tunnels ahead of me. Orange light flickered from a few torches held in the mouths of metal brackets on the stone walls. The shadows they cast licked the sides of the room while air whistled around stone stalagmites protruding from the ground. I envied the wind. It was free to move, free to leave. I wasn’t.
The high back of a scarlet chair with eagle talons for feet faced me. I tried to shut my eyes. I didn’t want to see. Like any nightmare I was afraid of what I would see.
But a stronger force was making me watch. Too bad that force wouldn’t get a life.
A demon hurried around the corner. I studied him as best I could. He wore all black from his chin to the ground obscuring his feet. The skin on his bald head appeared pasty white, out of place in the darkness. His head was bowed. I couldn’t see his face. He was shaking. It made me think of somebody having a violent seizure. It made me pity him.
Unexpectedly, a cavernous voice came from the chair and filled the space giving it an oppressive quality that felt both hot and curiously thick. It made my skin crawl. I couldn’t see the man responsible for striking fear into the creature. He was faced away from me. The demon was trying hard to control his movements, I could tell by the jerking of his arms.
“Shamir, I was beginning to wonder if you would ever come,” I could practically hear his jaws grinding together.
The pale demon looked at the voice in the chair, and I was immediately drawn to his bottomless eyes. The sorrow I saw made me want to cry and run like a coward.
But I quickly realized I had no control in this room. Not of myself or the unfolding scene. I never did. If it were a normal stage, I’d have the ability to run onto it, but this wasn’t normal.
Shamir was gruesome. His face was concave: he had a prominent forehead, six fingers high, and eyebrows that dipped into his forehead. The nose was small and curved inward. His chin was also flat, but with an outward curve like a dirt bike ramp. Deep wrinkles and heavy lacerations marred his already awful features. His thin lips were tightly stretched into a grimace. Shadows slithered in his mouth. After an arduous moment, he spoke in a mournful voice.
“Sire, I came when I could. There is chaos in the Dark World, but,” his hands crossed in front of his stomach, he fiddled with his thumbs. His nervous energy was a buzz against my skin.
The suddenly irate voice from the chair interrupted him.
“Silence! Why do I give such a pitiful creature as you a place on my council? Can you answer me that, Shamir?”
“Because, Sire, I am your loyal servant,” he sounded both afflicted and distant. I saw a millennia of anguish in his eyes that had me shaking in my slippers.
“That, you are, Shamir... Do you know why I called you to me?” The voice paused momentarily and then began again. “It is time, Shamir. Do you know what time it is?” Every word dragged on.
“How can that be sire?” Shamir remained composed; distant, yet, his eyes took on a fiery glow like an inferno.
“You must find…”
A moment of ringing silence passed and my stomach knotted. I strained my ears and eyes to catch the words... images that blurred at the edges, but it was useless. My time was up.
Not yet! I thought furiously, Just a little longer! I need to hear more... just a little more!
Ring! Ring! Ring!
I swung my arm around and hit my alarm clock. Sweat beaded down my head and my clothes were practically drenched.
I peeled my down comforter off my sticky body. Night after night I dreamt about the voice in the chair. It made the hairs on my arms stand at attention and my toes curl. The person in the cave sometimes changes, but the voice from the red chair never does.
“We’re going to be late, Anna!” My sister shouted from the other side of my paper-thin door. Her voice warmed my skin like sunshine.
I shuffled into my bathroom. I glanced in the mirror and the thing was mocking me. My face was shiny—in the 'I just ate four cheeseburgers' way—and my hair was an absolute freaking rat’s nest. I jumped into the shower that desperately needed some bleach. Small mounds of black residue sat in the corners of the otherwise pristine shower.
I love steaming hot showers. My usual shower was about five minutes. Five minute showers were something that we, my sister and me, learned about by the time we were four. For me showers helped drum out the constant thought collisions in my mind. I hopped out of the shower.
I looked casually through my wardrobe that offered a slim selection of worn and practical clothing. I plucked a ball of lint from a violet shirt. I chose a black, long-sleeved, V-neck shirt and my favorite pair of loose, black, cargo pants. They were comfortable and practical.
“Anna, hurry up woman!” Of course, my sister, Amalie, would be up and chipper at this time in the morning. She was the spirited one. I envied and sometimes disliked her for that.
I grabbed my heavy, black coat. When I inhaled the little hairs from the synthetic fur hood tickled my nostrils and caused an unladylike sneeze to erupt from my body as I ran downstairs to the dorm lounge, the free area for noviates. The sound of cutlery clattering against a table and the murmur of conversation greeted me in the stairwell.
“Hey, Am.”
The dorm lounge was like everything at Hope Academy: white, immaculate, and dreadfully boring.
“What took you so long?” Amali
e griped.
I didn’t respond to Amalie. I was still consumed by the dream. The voice haunted me in my sleep, and started to haunt me when I was awake. After a moment she chucked a granola bar in my direction.
“Earth to Anna,” she barked.
“Sorry. My hair refused to cooperate.” Amalie, unlike me, had dark, thick hair. It wasn’t quite black, but it wasn’t just brown, sort of chestnut. She was sitting at the kitchen bar with a notebook open. Amalie was an avid artist. You’d never guess it, though, because she hid it so well.
“What’s the topic today?” I asked referring to the artwork of the day…or week.
She glanced down at the page that had various black lines running across it and shook her head.
“Nothing special,” she told me. I didn’t believe her. The depth of her eyes told a different story. Amalie could see the beauty in even all the fine, straight lines of the Academy.
“Okay, then,” I muttered.
She closed the book and stood up. She was a slender, short girl at just over five foot. I had almost six inches on her. Her eyes gleamed a sapphire blue.
She looked beautiful in a glistening white blouse. A poet in Chanel surrounded by robots in Gortex.
“What’s the occasion? Are you going to a modeling gig?” I asked, laughing.
“Well, actually, no. You forgot didn’t you?” She was disappointed, chin down.
“No... No... I didn’t forget.” I said awkwardly. With my birthday just under a month away, Amalie had been begging to take me to the new club—the Inferno—and her persistence finally beat me down. “I'm excited,” I said, trying for glee, but it came out strained, so I gave her a reassuring smile.
“You did too forget. Lucky for you, I worked way too hard on this outfit to let it go to waste.” She twirled a few times, watching me, hopeful.
I grabbed her arm, stopping her from twirling and gave her a big hug.
“We're going to have so much fun at the Inferno. I wish we were going this weekend! Everyone says it’s off-the-wall.” She continued to speak; in a language I didn’t fully understand.
“Eat much?” Taylor came around the corner and pulled up a stool on the other side of the island stroking the white counter with a finger capped by a perfectly manicured nail. Bleh. Taylor was a superficial beauty even though I hated to admit it. She had short, brunette, spiky hair, and foxy green eyes that held a spark my dull, green eyes lacked.
“Don’t be mad ‘cause I'm skinnier than you, Taylor,” Amalie said.
Taylor was slender, but a bit curvier than the rest of us, and had a darker complexion too. Everyone envied her for looking exotic in a place that made me, and the rest of us, feel so ordinary.
Amalie scanned Taylor with predatory eyes thinned to slits.
“Only twenty-five more days till I leave for Bethel.”
Taylor and I were in the same class at the Academy. Her birthday was before mine, by two days, and she never let me forget it. When a noviate turned seventeen, they were sent to Bethel, capital city of The Fourth Dimension, where The Powers resided for a pronouncement hearing.
When noviates returned, everyone else at the Academy looked at him or her in a new light. It was our first step toward success. It was our equivalent to a human getting their driver's license. Except if the noviate failed their “driver’s test” they could never show their face at the DMV again.
The Powers were the authority of the Archangels and lower angels. The Archangels, unlike other angels, protected mankind from evil spirits, also known as demons. There's more. I can explain it, but politics aren't my thing. Plus, we were taught to do our jobs not ask questions.
There are seven angel-training academies around the world, one for each of the seven Archangels that no one ever actually sees.
They are among the superiors in the Legion United, the elite fighting force made up of the best angels from the Nine Choirs.
The Nine Choirs were split between three spheres. The first sphere was the Counselors: Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. The second sphere was the Governors: Dominions, Virtues, and the Powers. The third sphere comprised the Harbingers or Warriors: Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.
Everyone was a part of the whole, and vital to keep the machine operating smoothly. The smallest wrench could cause disaster.
Taylor pursed her full lips with a deeper cupids bow than could possibly shoot an arrow.
“I’m more than ready. Are you?” Taylor baited.
When an Angel Noviate (angel in training) became a junior, he or she went to Bethel where The Powers would determine if the noviate would continue until graduation, or if they would have their wings clipped.
A thin-lipped smile was my answer. She was on my last nerve. Since we are all born into this life, it only made sense that we were closely monitored by the Powers, who supervised all the Lower Choir angels to ensure dedication and purity, meaning that no angel used their abilities against another angel, or any human. It was uncommon for a noviate to have their wings clipped. Every angel was needed in the war against demons. However, no one was immune to that outcome. If the noviate’s wings were cut, they would be forced to spend the rest of their days in the human world, living a mortal life. I cringed at the thought.
We were constantly at the mercy of The Powers.
“I hope you get what you deserve.” I thought she deserved to have her wings clipped and a kick to the mortal life.
Her brow shot up, practically reaching her hairline, then she reached over and grabbed for Amalie’s notebook that was still sitting on the counter. Amalie’s eyes widened to the size of small lakes when Taylor made contact with the book.
“What do we have here? A diary?” she said in a sing-song voice.
She may have been quick, but I was faster. I grabbed her in a wrist hold, she dropped the notebook and Amalie snatched it up with a sigh of relief clutching it to her chest like it was a newborn baby, and she was its mother. I flipped Taylor’s arm around. One move and I’d snap that pretty, little wrist of hers. She fell into the maneuver.
“Touch it again. I dare you,” I whispered into her ear. I felt myself snapping as I squeezed my fist. She deserved to have it broken. Another part of me was shouting it’s just a notebook with some artwork!
“Anna,” Amalie cooed. I was seeing red, but Amalie always broke through the stormy haze.
I released Taylor’s wrist.
“You’re insane,” she snapped.
“Get lost,” I growled low.
Taylor looked from Amalie to me with the spark in her eye fizzling out and then walked outside with her nose tipped high and an imaginary boot where the sun doesn’t shine. Amalie and I laughed.
The morning bell went off, and it jolted me to attention. Time to face the firing squad.
Chapter 2
We had to walk outside to get to our classes. It wasn’t a terribly long walk, but in Alaska—yeah, Alaska—it was almost long enough to freeze to death. However, the Council of the Academy managed to make the area on campus never drop below deadly temperatures. Still, the students all wore quality winter clothing. We’d figured out a way to make our clothes just as warm as military grade winter parkas without looking unfashionable. Putting angel voo-doo to good use.
A stupid game the younger noviates played was daring one another to go beyond the temperature controlled safety zone, take off their gloves in the minus forty-degree weather, and then touch metal. Don’t do that. Your hand will stick, but even noviates played a little truth or dare. Always testing the boundaries.
It was difficult having gone home for break and then coming back here. The weather here was a colossal difference from Colorado. Although the winters were tough, the sun shined almost every day. Here, the sky was always the same color as the snow; but dirtied so it was grey and bleak. When I took the first step into the blistering cold, my face felt shredded. I hated the cold.
When Amalie and I were younger she fell through ice, and no one was there to he
lp me save her. I jumped on the ice to break it. It was useless. If she died, then I wanted to die too.
My mother came, after what felt like a million years, and pulled Amalie out. She dragged us off the frozen wasteland and backhanded me leaving a large red welt the shape of her small hand and later an ugly bruise.
“Thanks,” Amalie said still holding the notebook like it was her lifeline.
“No problem.”
I wanted to tell her to get rid of it. Art wasn’t high on the ladder of importance here. Nothing frivolous was. That’s what we were taught. If it couldn’t help kill a demon, it was useless. That’s what they said. But, looking at her smiling face I didn’t have it in me to kill her love for the world. What harm could a few drawings do?
Pure white snow and evergreens stretched for miles in every direction.
Seclusion kept noviates focused. Focus was necessary for us to do our jobs.
I watched as a nearby tree tipped a little further left as if the last flake of snow was finally too much. The tree limbs sagged as the snow weighed them down.
“You smell like that offensive toilet water you douse yourself with,” I said as the chemicals assaulted my nose.
Amalie naturally smelt of lilies on a warm summer day, but she insisted on adding some chemical concoction that left my head spinning.
“It's not toilet water, Anna. When will you start acting more like a girl?” She brushed a hand through her thick mane and huffed. “You know you’re pretty. If you show off the figure you were blessed with, maybe you could get a boyfriend,” she wiggled her brow suggestively. My fifteen-year-old sister should not be thinking about boyfriends.
“The Academy was not created for us to date,” I paused. “It was designed to prepare us for a life of protecting humans from evil. When will you realize that? Dressing pretty, acting like a girl, and having a boyfriend won’t keep you alive! Only discipline, determination, and commitment can do that.”
A few noviates stopped to stare. I glared at them, and they moved on. I didn’t mean to be cold, but I didn’t know how to get through to her that she was training to be a full-fledged angel.