Warring Angel

by Samantha L. Strong

“You can’t, though. Germany against the entire world? You’ll be crushed. And then what will happen to your people?”

  “I’ll rule all nations!” Spittle flew, and his hair bounced askew.

  I needed to calm him. “Think, Adolf. Think back. Think to who you truly are.”

  “I’m a Cornerstone! You said I’m a Cornerstone!” His face was turning red. “How can you say that to me and then tell me not do what I’ve planned?” His mood was blackening, worsening.

  Nothing about the setting had changed—I looked up into a clear, blue sky, the gentle wind waving across the grasses.

  “Remember your eternal soul, Adolf. You must remember. Peace, harmony, your desire to better your spiritual self.” I spoke in a soothing tone.

  “I must kill them all! It’s no less than what they want to do to us!” He was growing taller, his fury translating into the dream.

  I stayed steady, unmoving. “You mustn’t. They have Incarnation Plans. They have things to accomplish. You mustn’t disrupt these lives. You must unite Germany and bring your people hope. You’re bringing death to many. That’s not your purpose. Remember your purpose.”

  “No! No! Get out of my mind!”

  Before I could speak again, I was thrown violently from the dream. My hand flew his head, and I stumbled backward in his bedroom. A squad mate caught me and I leapt forward again, trying to plunge back into his mind.

  Adolf snatched my hand from the air.

  That’s not possible.

  But I’d been seeing a lot of impossible things lately.

  “You will not reclaim our Cornerstone.” Adolf’s lips moved, but the voice was low, gravelly, and full of malice. “He belongs to Asorat’s cause now, not Heaven’s.”

  I wrenched my arm away as Adolf’s eyes opened.

  Black and expressionless.

  My squad was still fending off demons, but the worst of the attacks seemed to be over. I could imagine Osubatz in the distance, watching and laughing. I caught the eye of Adolf’s Guardian, but she lifted her hands, palms up, shrugging. “I’ve never seen this before,” she whispered.

  Adolf slowly rose.

  When he was sitting on the edge of the mattress, he spoke again. “I’m sorry that I have to do this, Enael. But he’s ours, and you may not take him back.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest. The voice had lost its edge and was achingly familiar.

  Kaspen stepped out of Adolf’s body, and Adolf slumped back onto the bed.

  CHAPTER 22

  Kaspen’s dark hair was swept back from his face. His black wings flared behind him, and the gold threading through them glinted.

  “Enael,” he said.

  “Voctic,” I said. “I mean, Kaspen.”

  “Very funny.”

  It wasn’t but I laughed anyway. “Both my lovers ended up as demons, skulking around trying to overthrow Heaven. My taste is quite unfortunate.” And if becoming a demon is never what the Source intends, why have two of them been so important to me?

  “I didn’t think Voctic actually wanted to overthrow Heaven,” said Kaspen.

  “Even so.”

  “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

  This time, my laugh wasn’t forced. I looked around at the blue wings flapping, at Chana’s open-mouthed stare, at Adolf slumped over on his bed, at the Fearlings skittering along the streets below. “Oh, yes, let’s go to the Joy Ward and make up. I’ll grab us some angel water, and we can talk like old times. They won’t even miss me around here.”

  Kaspen took a step forward, and I lifted my trident to his neck. His emotions—determination, nervousness, jealousy—tumbled through our bond, a reminder of the past we shared. “Be reasonable,” he scoffed.

  “The only unreasonable thing I’m doing right now is not killing you.” I pressed my weapon into his neck, drawing a drop of black blood at the spot I used to kiss. I didn’t try to hide what I was feeling. He should see the conflict he’d created in my soul. I wasn’t ashamed.

  “You wouldn’t be able to kill me,” he said.

  I could kill him because I still loved him—would always love him. I could never forget the compassionate angel he had once been and what he had meant to me. However, he was right. I wouldn’t be able to kill him. The only reason I’d been able to slay Voctic was because he’d pushed me to it every step of the way.

  I pulled back my trident.

  “I’m not here to goad you,” he said. “I’m simply protecting our Cornerstone.”

  “Your Cornerstone?”

  “He is now.”

  That couldn’t be the only reason Kaspen was here. Asorat must have known of our attack and sent him with another purpose. “What are you doing, Kaspen? I mean, honestly. You really believe in Asorat’s goals?”

  When he nodded, my stomach dropped. Any hope of ever having him back vanished like a Fearling exploding in a puff of smoke. I hadn’t even realized I was clinging to any.

  “You’re not just saying that because he’s listening?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “I want to make you understand some things.”

  My squad leader was oddly silent. I would have expected her to insist we fall back when it became apparent that I was unable to influence Adolf into giving up his idea of the Third Reich. But the demons weren’t attacking in such numbers, and many of the squad had taken up watchful positions, hands nestled beneath their wings, eyes scanning the landscape.

  Heaven must want to know how this conversation ended. We were on display. And I would need to make it a good one.

  “Fine,” I said. “Make me understand some things. Explain to me why you’ve come to meet me here and not someone else. Speak loudly so the Seraphim can hear you.”

  Kaspen’s face twisted in disgust, but then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “There’s a threat within Heaven. An ancient being that started as an angel. It’s called—”

  “—the Aleph, I know.”

  He raised an eyebrow. It was such a familiar gesture on a face that once again held black eyes, that all the regrets inside me welled up in one moment of frustration and longing for what might have been. Before they could leak out in the form of tears, I swallowed them down.

  “Harbinger told me all about it,” I said. “The Aleph was making Voctic do those things to me. It wants to control me because I’m a Cornerstone.”

  “I knew the Aleph was involved with Voctic,” he muttered. “Well, no matter. Asorat knows who the Aleph is, though he’s been bound tightly by his true name not to reveal its identity.”

  “The Aleph knows Asorat’s true name?”

  “No, but it knows the true name of an angel who does. It’s all very complicated. He’s not as tightly bound as Voctic was, which is how he’s able to raise this army.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I told you there was something wrong with the Council of Seraphim. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “So it’s a Seraph?” They had to be listening. Maybe all of them were crowded around Adolf’s Book of Life watching this unfold, but I didn’t care. I had to know.

  “Probably. I don’t know. He can’t say. But who else would it be?”

  “Are you absolutely certain that Asorat said the Aleph exists?”

  He blinked at me. “Yes, of course. Or at least, I think. It’s known throughout the ranks. We’re invading Heaven to rid it of the Aleph.”

  “The Praetor says that Asorat is the Aleph.”

  This time, Kaspen laughed. “Of course she does. It probably has her wrapped around its finger, same as the multitudes of other beings.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, another human gesture I’d picked up along the way. “This is not the way to oppose the Aleph.”

  “Oh, Enael. You just don’t understand.”

  “Help me understand.”

  The demonic attacks had stopped. My squad members stood around us in repose. Kaspen and I were the only ones speaking, so everyone had to be listening. But when I scanned the faces of my fe
llow Nephilim, their eyes darted away, as if pretending not to pay attention.

  Kaspen stepped forward and kissed me. I hated the longing I felt, not for him, but for what we had been. While he was distracted, I somehow had the presence of mind to reach up and grab one of his shining, black feathers before pushing him away. I clenched it tightly in my hand and hid it behind my back.

  He whispered, “You’re the chosen one. The Cornerstone.”

  “What?”

  “You saved me from Yasva. Despite being bound, you gave me the strength to defeat her—you won the battle, not me. The Council manipulated my life in order to manipulate yours. You were favored in all the Reaper assignments.”

  “I was forced to follow a murderer around!”

  “And I wasn’t even considered. I faded into the working crew, given no special consideration. I was an afterthought, a pawn used to control you.” He was shaking. “You know we’re soul mates, made from the same part of the Source. If that’s the case, why aren’t we both Cornerstones?”

  My last, lingering shred of desire for him fell away. He was speaking like a jealous brother, one who’d renounce his wings to find his own way just to prove he was as good as the favorite child. Revulsion rose in my throat that I’d just shared a kiss with him, and I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.

  Kaspen’s lip curled in a sneer, a reaction, no doubt, to my emotion. “I am Asorat’s Vice Commander. He chose me. He picked from all his other Council members and made me his second-in-command. I am responsible for our Cornerstone, and I will ensure Adolf completes the mission Asorat has given him.”

  “Asorat had his pick of all three Fallen Seraphim, and he chose you as his second-in-command?”

  Anger surged through our bond. “Of course you’d say that. You don’t think I’m worthy, either. And you’re asking me why I’m siding with him? Why I left you behind? You’re smarter than that.”

  “He’s just using you.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? So did Yasva and so did the Council of Seraphim and so did you.”

  Fire rushed through me, an embarrassment that grew and radiated outward to burn my cheeks. I couldn’t even protest because his tone held no anger. It wasn’t a challenge. It was a statement of fact.

  He was right.

  “At least to him, I’m valuable,” he said. “Even if it’s all a ruse, I’m important. My opinions have weight. He listens to me.”

  “This isn’t the way to prove yourself.” I didn’t know why I was trying. I hadn’t convinced Adolf to change course, and I wasn’t going to convince Kaspen, either.

  “I’m doing this for the greater good.” He gazed off over my head, toward the dark cloud hanging over the city. “I never told you this, but I learned a great deal from Yasva.”

  I could have gone the rest of my eternal life without hearing her name again. But then, he knew that, didn’t he?

  “Another reason she was so angry at the Council was because of her previous assignments. When she first became a Muse, she was assigned to inspire the great admiral Sun Tzu. Centuries later, because of her expertise and lasting contributions to military literature, she was sent to inspire Niccolò Machiavelli. You know who they are?”

  “The end justifies the means,” I said. “It is better to be feared than loved.”

  “Everyone always remembers the worst of them. They were so much more than that.”

  “Is Asorat so much more than that? Is he attempting to subdue his enemies without going to war?”

  “He tried, yes.” Kaspen’s voice was quiet. “And he failed. You have to understand: the Aleph wants to claim the power of the entire Council for itself. It believes it’s better than every single other being ever created. It believes it must rule over them. And whoever, whatever, the Aleph is, it will not rest until that goal is accomplished.

  “Asorat has the same goal: to take the power of the Council away from the Seraphim; however, he won’t keep it. He’ll distribute it amongst his new Council, the rightful Council, equitably. He’ll establish logical, thoughtful leadership, fairly, among the nine of us. In one action, he’ll dispose of the inept group of Seraphim mismanaging their sacred duties and he’ll destroy the Aleph.”

  A stillness had descended over the room. All the Nephilim were listening, of that I was sure. Even Zaponsla’s head was tilted, Chana stood uncharacteristically still, and the Fearlings had run off elsewhere.

  “The Aleph could be anyone,” said Kaspen. “Right now, you could be doing its work, and you’d never know. That’s not what the Source wants for you, is it?”

  We both knew it wasn’t. I’d been created to oppose the Aleph. I was the Cornerstone who would bring about its downfall.

  “If you’re to oppose the Aleph, how can you win if you’re working for it?” asked Kaspen.

  “I’m not,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure. I’d gone to Vycanus to ask for help for Heaven at Serinh’s request. But what if she was the Aleph, hidden through the centuries and only now rising in visible power? I carried out missions Parsiel had strategized—and failed because of his oversight, too. What if he was the Aleph, disguising himself and barely covering his hatred of me? Maybe Heppeliam—or any of the others—under the influence of the Aleph, were carrying out its will this very moment.

  So long as I didn’t know the Aleph’s identity, I could never be sure that any choice aligning with the Council would get me closer to victory.

  “Look inside yourself,” said Kaspen. “Search for the answer. I know it’s in there. Come join us, Enael. Come join the fight against the Aleph.”

  This is why Asorat really sent him. He wants me to Fall.

  The choice hovered in front me, almost tangible in its clarity. I’d never thought Asorat was the Aleph. This I’d known deep in my soul. That meant only one thing—it was one of the Seraphim. Maybe I was supposed to join with Asorat and oppose its plans. Could that truly be what the Source wanted for me?

  Only one option remained.

  I closed my eyes and reached out to the Source, ignoring my former-lover-turned-demon and all the others waiting for my answer. I reached inside to ask one simple question.

  O Source, please tell me: am I supposed to join with Asorat?

  A vague answer wouldn’t be good enough. I needed direct guidance now, and I was terrified It wouldn’t give it to me.

  The answer was immediate and unmistakable: No.

  My eyes flew open and I stared at Kaspen square in his gaunt, demonic face. “Begone, foul creature,” I said. “You’re here to distract me from my purpose.”

  “Enael, I—”

  I lifted the trident to his throat.

  Tears glimmered in the corners of his eyes, a strange counterpoint to the black depths. He ran a hand through his hair and then dropped his arm to his side. “I love you.”

  “And I love you.” Despite all of the things Kaspen had put me through, despite all of his bad decisions and twisted logic, it was true—though no longer in the romantic way of our early decades together. Now, I felt the same brotherly bond as when we were embodied as siblings in Africa. “Go back to Asorat. Go back to Fanush. Go back and tell them you failed in your mission. You’ll have to find another way to invade Heaven because you won’t have me to help you out.”

  “I’m sorry about Fanush. Truly. I never intended to fall in love with her.”

  I held my trident steady.

  Kaspen took one step backward, then another, and then he fell toward the bed, toward Adolf. His voice faded as he disappeared inside his Cornerstone’s body, back to possessing the man as he had before. “He’s ours now. Go now and prepare, though it will be futile.”

  Adolf gasped and then lay still in sleep again.

  I strode forward and attempted to press a hand against his forehead. Before, my hand slipped easily to grasp the crackling fibers of his mind, but now his head was unyielding. Despite how I strained, I couldn’t push through the barrier.

  Frustrated, I banged
my trident on the ground.

  “Squad, fall back,” came my squad leader’s voice. “We’re retreating. Mission aborted. Rendezvous in the safe location before we fade to Heaven.”

  Wings beat, tridents flashed, and the angels around me lifted into the air.

  Adolf lay on the bed, the only motion the steady rise and fall of his chest.

  Something touched my arm. Zaponsla said, “Let’s go.” The Nephilim had taken off, the Tenders had swept up all the Dominions, including Chana, and the squad was already soaring over the building.

  We kicked into the air, and I couldn’t help but take one more backward glance. Adolf looked so small below as we lifted into the sky. Once again, I’d failed in my mission. Deep inside, I knew thousands would suffer because of it.

  “I never liked Kaspen anyway,” said Zaponsla.

  She smiled at me and I smiled back but no true mirth existed. My mind had spun off into memories of the happier times. Kaspen and I had once laughed and loved, and he’d taught me much.

  But our love was not meant to be. He was only in my life for a short time—to help me do what I needed to do and no more. This was a lesson my Wards had built into their own Incarnation Plans time and again, yet every time learning it hurt them just as badly as the last. I’d always wondered why—after all, they’d chosen it themselves—but now I understood.

  For this, my one life, Kaspen and I were over forever.

  I opened the hand clenching the feather I’d taken from his wing and found only dust.

  CHAPTER 23

  Umiet did not summon me to her office. Heppeliam did not inquire after what happened. Parsiel did not seek me out to berate me. Serinh did not come comfort me.

  Zaponsla and Chana did, however.

  Sitting in the Nexus, Chana cradled me in her arms while Zaponsla rubbed my back. I sobbed, releasing all the pent-up anger and sadness over losing Kaspen for good.

  “You’re so much better than him,” murmured Chana. “You deserve so much more. Cry as long as you want. I’m here. I’m here. It will get better. I promise.”

  Somehow, she knew all the right words to make me feel, for the first time, unconditionally loved.