Forsaken Angel

by J F Cain

  “That would mean an automatic end to your alliance with the Cursed,” he remarked expressionlessly.

  Lyla moved back and forth like a caged beast.

  “It’s the only thing holding me back. I want to avoid a confrontation.”

  “Then your hands are tied. You’ll have to tolerate the idiot’s actions.”

  “Do you think I haven’t thought of that? she asked, irritated. “But if she dies, his head will roll the very next instant. She’s no use to me dead.”

  “In that case, you don’t need to worry,” Abriel said with his usual calm. “From what I can see, everyone else wants her alive. You’ll get your chance.”

  “I hope you’re right, or they will face my rage.” Lyla stopped pacing and looked at him suspiciously. “You’ve taken this news very well. Don’t you care that the Cursed are trying to off your beloved Superior?”

  The angel-like fallen shrugged indifferently.

  “This must mean that she isn’t beloved to me.” He tilted his head to the side with a questioning yet also mocking expression. “Truly, I have no idea how you came up with such a stupid idea.” He had to get that thought out of her head. His touchy lover wasn’t a model of trust and discretion. Even worse, when she lost her temper, she found it hard to keep her mouth shut, and it was clear she hadn’t taken his warning seriously that she not jump to conclusions that would put him at risk. Her inability to grasp the seriousness of the situation could blow his plan to smithereens.

  “It might be because you’re always supporting her,” Lyla returned with equal mockery.

  “Or it could be your tendency to distort everything that has to do with her,” Abriel retorted. “When I mention a truth, for example that she’s more powerful than you, it doesn’t mean that I support her. It means that I’m reminding you of an incontrovertible fact that you choose to overlook.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “It looks like you’ve totally misconstrued my intention to protect you. Maybe I should just stop trying.”

  Upon hearing the indirect threat, Lyla got even more worked up. Even so, she couldn’t afford to show it.

  You foul mongrel, she cursed inwardly. You’re taking advantage of my need. But the time will come when I’ll make you regret it. “I don’t think now’s the time to discuss how I view things,” she said as calmly as she could. “We’ve got more pressing matters.”

  “I disagree. You see, I think this is your biggest problem,” Abriel retorted sternly. “If you could overcome your limited perception, which is part of the problem, you would be able to see much more than the obvious goings on.”

  Although his criticism displeased Lyla, she set it aside. She realized that he had seen what lay behind the attack on Aranes—something that had obviously escaped her.

  “Such as?” she asked, arching her shapely eyebrows.

  Abriel had no intention to make it easy for her.

  “It would help you if you tried to see what lay behind the events,” he replied vaguely.

  Lyla remembered what he had told her about who was behind Vincent’s actions.

  “You think that he’s responsible for the attack?” she asked dubiously, avoiding mentioning Lucifer’s name.

  “I have no doubt,” Abriel answered.

  This certainty made Lyla think. It looked like she might have to seriously consider the likelihood that he was right.

  “Even if it’s true, nothing changes,” she said, insisting on her plan.

  Abriel came to a stop in front of her and looked into her eyes.

  “I’ll tell you one more time and you need to get it through your head. Even if you manage to get around your enemies or fight them, you won’t be able to fight Lucifer. He’s the most powerful entity and none of you can match him in intelligence,” he said, hoping that the Dark Lord was listening in since he had every reason to monitor the reactions of Aranes’ persecutors.

  Lyla thought it strange that the commander of the fallen Powers would support Eregkal’s leader. As far as she was aware, their relationship was based on tolerance and the mutual protection of interests. Had she got it wrong, or had their relationship changed? And if so, for what reason?

  She looked at her so-called ally with a neutral expression on her face which didn’t reveal any of her thoughts.

  “Alright, I’ll think about it,” she lied. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s something I need to do.” She glanced at the urn, which was now showing the nurses pushing the stretcher with Aranes into a critical care unit, and then vanished, leaving Abriel alone inside her chamber.

  Yeah, right, Abriel thought and turned his gaze on the urn. The unconscious Superior, connected to life support machines, looked completely helpless. And standing next to her, Abaddon, whose unknown powers the entire ethereal world feared, was as helpless as her. “There’s always someone mightier, even than the most powerful of all,” he said and left the depressing chamber with the gaudy throne.

  Abriel stood in front of the wall at the back of the empty chamber, without activating the concealment symbols that shielded his private space from indiscreet eyes. He did this so that Lucifer, who he was sure was monitoring his every move, could see him.

  The joints between the square boulders faded and the rocks morphed into a big screen. The Cursed had yet to learn about the attack, but the Archdemons who always had eyes on the celestial couple knew about it, and he wanted to see their reactions. The blank gray screen pulsed and three-dimensional images began to appear one after the other, showing Eregkal’s high-ranking entities. Beleth was reclining on her chaise longue, her pensive gaze on her garden. Gaap was in his own space, busy with his usual activities, as was Purson. Zagan was attending a black magic ritual on Earth, Asmodeus and Paymon were watching Abaddon, and Adras’s screen was filled with Aranes’ motionless face.

  Abriel didn’t think the indifference the Archdemons of the alliance were showing odd. Once the dust had settled, they would meet to discuss this development. But the other pair of conspirators, Gremory and Sytry, were more impatient and would undoubtedly arrange a meeting as soon as possible to plot their course from there onward.

  He looked for the two Archdemons in a place in the ethereal world that was close to the boundaries of Elether. It was a common secret between the higher Demons that in this region, which they referred to as neutral, their energy—especially that of the fallen—blended with the light dimension’s energy and was difficult to trace. This rumor had been believed, given that it was dangerous to approach the celestial realm’s borders, which were guarded by Abaddon’s forces. The Defenders could sense the presence of Demons from afar and, because they never forgot who was responsible for their transformation into Dark Angels, they were ready and willing to send any infernal entities back where they belonged. For obvious reasons, no Demon had ever informed those bold visitors to the neutral region that they were mistaken, so everyone got to enjoy the benefits of supernatural espionage.

  Although the two Archdemons weren’t in the neutral region, Abaddon waited, and it wasn’t long before his patience was rewarded. There was an energy disturbance in the region’s hazy light void and the two conspirators appeared one after the other.

  Hidden beneath her dark green hooded cloak, Gremory looked like exactly what she was: a dark entity. It was the same with Sytry, whose black skin looked like an extension of his long robe.

  Gremory’s beautiful face was pale with fury, blending into her yellow irisless eyes.

  “You see what your cowardice led to?” she attacked her ally as soon as he appeared in front of her.

  “Prudence isn’t cowardice.” The bald Demon’s yellow eyes glinted in his pitch-black face. “As you can see, it’s saved us a great deal of trouble,” he reminded her with a pointed look.

  Gremory had suggested they attack Abaddon immediately after the Celestials’ invasion of Eregkal. The small number of Angels the Source had sent to the dark dimension had made her believe that the Superior’s fall was a closely guarded
secret and that It wouldn’t send more forces in another attack against her. Gremory’s legions combined with Sytry’s were enough to go against the most powerful of the Celestials. She hadn’t taken Lucifer into account. She had taken it for granted that after his resounding defeat at Michael’s hands it would be a while before he was back in action. By then, she planned to have gained Aranes’ powers and Eregkal’s throne. It would then be easy to destroy the dimension’s former leader.

  “We had more than enough time to do it,” she insisted harshly. But we lost our advantage because of you, idiot.

  Sytry had no intention of wasting time on futile arguments. The neutral zone was a dangerous place to be. The Defenders could appear any moment now and he wanted to take advantage of the time they had to solve the problem that had arisen. He’d take care of his irritating ally when he didn’t need her anymore.

  “Someone else is behind him,” he said with forced calm.

  With no other choice, Gremory controlled her irritation.

  “For sure,” she agreed reluctantly. Neither of them had been able to discover who the instigator of Vincent’s actions was and what he was trying to achieve. Even so, they both knew they would have to get rid of their rival’s agent and do it without anyone knowing who was responsible. “Someone has to take this matter into their hands,” she hinted.

  “No one is going to be pleased with his initiative,” said Sytry with a sly smile. “Quite a few will be willing to remind him how wonderful the sunrise is on Earth. We don’t have to do a thing.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Gremory disagreed. “His master is exceptionally resourceful. He may protect him and find a way to take advantage of the situation.”

  Sytry’s expression showed he seriously doubted it.

  “He’ll have to risk his position. I don’t think he’ll find a way to appease everyone.”

  “If you consider who we’re talking about, you might not have so many doubts,” Gremory retorted somewhat aggressively, alluding to Lucard, who after defecting from Eregkal, had managed to give Lucifer—who had searched for him in all the dimensions where he had access—the slip for a long time.

  The pitch-dark Archdemon pondered his ally’s words. There was no room for egotisms in their dangerous scheme.

  “He might be able to do it,” he admitted with a grimace. “If that happens, we’ll make our move.”

  Still irritated, Gremory tightened her grip on the gold-inlaid bow that she kept under her cloak whenever she met one of her kind.

  “We mustn’t let the idiot out of our sight,” she said, her voice betraying her disquiet. This way they would find out who Vincent’s protector was, and also who his enemies were. One of the latter would become their agent who would take out the vampire.

  Sytry nodded and, since they had settled on how they would deal with the situation, he moved on to a matter that was troubling him.

  “The greedy one hasn’t made an appearance yet,” he said, referring to Lucifer. To be on the safe side, they had agreed to call him by that name.

  The Dark Lord’s absence throughout the latest developments was very suspicious, and even more so his blatant indifference to the fate of the fallen Superior. When it came to her pursuit, everyone was making their own plans. But what were Lucifer’s? Was he maybe waiting for others to do the dirty work and then planning to snatch her from them so as not to risk being defeated by the Celestials again? Or did he have something else up his sleeve and was waiting for the right time to make his move? Sytry would have feared his master’s cunning if he hadn’t made mistake after mistake when it came to Aranes. The emotions of the most powerful of her pursuers were his biggest disadvantage, and that was what his rivals were relying on.

  Gremory was thinking along the same lines.

  “The pressure is mounting. Soon he’ll be forced to reveal his intentions,” she noted in her cold expressionless voice.

  Sytry didn’t voice his reservations. His accomplice thought he was a coward and beneath her, and up to a point that served him well.

  “When we see what his intentions are, we’ll act accordingly,” he said decisively, putting an end to the discussion.

  Without saying another word, Gremory left the neutral zone, followed by her accomplice.

  They’re smarter than the others think, Abriel thought, his gaze on the hazy light void that filled the screen in front of him. The two accomplices obviously didn’t completely believe the rumor about the neutral zone and had spoken in code. A precaution that Lyla rarely remembered to take, believing that he was concealing their meetings. The two Archdemons hadn’t mentioned any names and their discussion could have been about another situation with a vampire that they had created as a decoy so that, if summoned to explain themselves to Lucifer, they would have an excuse at the ready. They likely wouldn’t be able to convince him, but be that as it may they were in no danger as long as the master of the dimension needed them.

  They are all idiots. The Cursed didn’t know about the Source’s reaction to Aranes’ abduction by Lucifer and, just like her ethereal persecutors, they thought that the Angel had truly fallen. No one believed that the Source would tolerate, never mind be the one behind, the Superior’s actions. As for what Its reaction would be when the Angel was abducted, some Demons and Cursed supposed that in order to keep the second fall—which would cause great upheaval in Elether—under wraps, It would have abandoned the Superior to her fate. Others supposed that, in the worst case scenario, It might have stripped her of her body’s supernatural properties or her soul’s powerful energy, which were the elements that would make the winner of this contest all-powerful. The last scenario didn’t really hold water, since the Source had never stripped any Ethereal of their powers. Even so, after the recent unbelievable events, no one would be surprised if It had acted differently this time.

  Blinded by the unhoped-for opportunity to capture the sought-after Superior, practically no one had paid much attention to Abaddon’s incarnation. Those who did, after much thought, had concluded that the Dark Angel was the root of the trouble and that the Superior fell because of her feelings for him, which everyone was stunned to discover. No one had considered the likelihood that the commander of the Defenders was acting on the Source’s orders or had taken on an unusual mission. In the multifactor potential becoming of interconnected worlds, where everything existed in an ongoing interplay and a single entity’s unconscious move could alter the outcome of a situation it had no direct connection to, no one paid any heed to the prophecy made by a mere human.

  The Source had hidden Its intentions well and, most likely, everything is progressing according to Its plan, Abriel concluded and gave the command for the screen to turn off.

  At that moment, in Elether, the Archivist was leaning back in his chair and watching Michael approach as quickly as his respect for the place he was in permitted.

  The general of the celestial forces reached the Source’s representative and gave an equally hurried bow.

  “Is she going to die?” he asked uneasily, getting straight to the point.

  “I don’t think so,” the Archivist replied vaguely.

  “So why aren’t we helping her then? She’s suffering.”

  A shadow of sorrow flitted across the high-ranking Prince’s eyes, then vanished.

  “She is strong; she will make it.”

  “I don’t think Abaddon is seeing it that way,” the Archangel disagreed in a restrained manner. “He is desperate, which means that it is the perfect time for Lucifer to approach him again.”

  “He is free to make his own decisions,” the Source’s representative replied serenely.

  Michael was unpleasantly surprised.

  “Sir, do you forget that their souls are united?” he asked with a frown on his face.

  The Archivist leaned forward and crossed his arms on the desk.

  “Abaddon knows that. He loves Aranes too much to surrender their souls. He knows that if he does it, Lucifer will become t
he greatest power, and she would never want that.”

  Michael was looking at the Source’s representative as if he didn’t quite know what to make of him.

  “How can you trust him? He is half human!”

  “And half Angel,” the Archivist reminded him.

  “Without any memory,” the Archangel pointed out. “The only angelic thing about him are his powers, and we don’t even know exactly those are.”

  “There is nothing we can do, Michael,” the Archivist said bluntly, his tone making it clear they wouldn’t be discussing this any further.

  The Archangel was forced to give in.

  “So our fate depends on Abaddon’s decisions,” the celestial general concluded, accepting the Guiding Mind’s decision. Essentially, It was giving the Dark Angel the highest position in Elether and the right to decide the Celestials’ fate. The Superior’s authority was being undermined by the commander of the Defenders—yet another of Its incomprehensible moves. Did It know what decisions Abaddon would make in the future? That might explain the Archivist’s equanimity. The Archangel pinned his searching gaze on Its representative’s eyes. No, he isn’t calm, but I was too shaken to notice. Even if It knows what will happen in the future, It is keeping the knowledge to Itself. Prince Radueriel is as worried as I am.

  Michael bowed and, without another word, left the hall. The Archivist was left alone to ponder the discussion he had had with the Source shortly before, during which he had expressed his objections to this unprecedented transfer of power to the Dark Angel.

  “Whatever he does will be the right thing,” was Its enigmatic response.

  CHAPTER 14

  Inside the intensive care unit, Aranes was lying unconscious on the bed, with different tubes running through her body. She was hooked up to IV drips, monitoring equipment, and a machine that was bypassing her inert lungs and oxygenating her blood so that her heart wouldn’t stop beating. The pump and her and the baby’s heartbeats, which were recorded on monitors together with her other vital signs, were the only sounds in the room.