Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “It may have been better if he had. Now they’ll be no denying what’s coming,” Eli said, then hissed in pain when he put weight on his leg. He lifted it almost instantly. It couldn’t hold him, the broken limb dangled uselessly from his thigh. “My sword. I need my sword.”

  Liam stretched away to reach for the sword, forcing Eli to lean more heavily on me. I gritted my teeth, refusing to let the strain of the angel’s weight show on my face. An instant later Liam was under Eli’s arm again, slipping the sword into his hand. The moment the handle met his palm, Eli’s sword vanished, reuniting the separated molecules with his body.

  “How could it possibly be better to have that gibborim out there free to kill more illorum and their magisters?” I said, carefully pivoting in unison with Eli and Liam to head out from under the bridge.

  “It’s not. I missspoke, mourning the bliss of ignorance. If the gibborim are working under the direction of a Fallen, as it would seem from their knowledge of weaponry they are, then their attacks on magisters have broken the truce. Now there’ll be no ignoring the events that have come to pass. The ensuing destruction will only be a matter of degrees,” Eli said. We walked slowly and Eli hopped to keep up.

  “So that’s it?” I said. “The war in heaven has started again?”

  Eli glanced at me, pain etching deep creases across his face as we slowly made our way along the lower path to where it merged with the one over the bridge. “Not yet. There’s still hope. If we can prove the gibborim are working on their own or perhaps working for a rogue demon rather than a Fallen, then we will be free to act without igniting an all-out war.”

  “What difference does it make? Illorum and their magisters are being killed,” I said. “Forget about the stupid politics. Something needs to be done regardless.”

  “It makes a difference,” Eli said. “The war was fought to see that the Fallen were punished for their sin of copulating with human women. My brothers warred for eons. A truce was only accepted when our Father permitted the illorum to atone for the sin of their birth by banishing their angelic fathers themselves. The battle is between father and offspring now. We cannot interfere without it being perceived as the seraphim moving to punish their fallen brothers once again. Such an act would restart the war.”

  I knew this better than anyone. I was friggin’ living it. Killing my angelic father was the only way I’d be free of all this angel-and-demon crap. But this was different. “This has nothing to do with Fallen fighting illorum to avoid their punishment. This is just a bunch of misguided, half-human idiots trying to make a power grab. This is exactly the kind of thing seraphim should be stopping.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” he said. “The difference is between simply putting down an uprising or igniting a war,” he said. “Do not wish heaven’s warriors to come to arms, Emma Jane. Few nephilim, marked or not, will likely survive it.”

  We made it as far as the old-fashioned streetlamp I’d seen through the trees when Amon appeared on the path before us. We’d seen him approaching faster than any normal human could track.

  “I found a car,” he said. “It’s just ahead alongside the road.”

  “Found?” I asked. Stole, he meant.

  The tall, athletic blond rolled a shoulder. “First place I looked.”

  “Good on ya, Amon, but we’ll be a bit longer. Hop-along’s moving slower than a mortal in lead boots,” Liam said.

  “I can help with that.” Amon dashed forward and before anyone could stop him, he’d scooped Eli into his arms.

  Cradled in against the other man’s chest like a child, Eli gave a loud yelp of pain before quickly swallowing the momentary weakness. He gritted his teeth. “Put me down, demon, before I pull your spirit from that body with my bare hands.”

  “The assailants could return at any moment. Let me help you, brother,” Amon said. “We have to move swiftly.”

  “Just until we get to the car, Eli,” I said. His dangerously slow pace wasn’t my only concern. With every step pain carved a new crease across Eli’s forehead and squeezed small sounds from his tightly clenched mouth. He needed to be still. He needed time to heal.

  Liam and I were stronger than normal humans, but Eli was heavier than a man three times his size and his height made carrying him virtually impossible for us. Amon was the most capable of getting Eli to a safe, comfortable place and fast. In my book, that was all that mattered.

  “What more does the sorry gob have to do to earn a little forgiveness from you?” Liam asked Eli.

  “Receive it from our Father first.” Eli turned his gaze on Amon. “But that would require that he ask. That he repent.”

  Amon’s jaw tightened and he looked straight ahead, nodding. “Understood. But for now, I’m the only way you’re getting out of here before sun up.”

  We were in the car three seconds later, pulling into my driveway seven and a half hours after that. Eli had passed out against my shoulder an hour into the trip. I’d spent the time loving the simple nearness of him and watching as the raw stump of his arm healed, then began to lengthen and shape into a wrist. Little by little the nubs of fingers grew, but it still had a ways to go. I’d only checked once, but I was pretty sure his leg had healed, though the effort had clearly cost him.

  “Where do you want him?” Amon asked, hefting the sleeping angel into his arms.

  “The spare room,” I said, leading the way to the front door, grabbing the fake hide-a-key rock next to the front steps as I passed. “Top of the stairs first door on the left.”

  I stepped through first and held the door for Amon. He didn’t move.

  The tall, fair-skinned demon blushed. “I’m not human, Emma. I can’t enter unless I’ve been invited.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said, but every instinct inside me warned against it. Liam’s lover or not, he was a demon. Tommy, my friend and Eli’s illorum before me, had trusted a demon once, even allowed her into his bed, and she’d nearly killed him for his carelessness. He’d told me that she’d slit an artery in his groin and intended to bleed him dry. Tommy had taken her head as she kneeled between his legs, a moment of intimacy turned into a brutal betrayal. The memory of that day never left him.

  “Are ya bloody serious?” Liam said beside him. “The man saved yer magister’s life. Carried him to safety and drove across the bloomin’ state to heal in your home and you’ll not invite him in?”

  I looked from Liam to Amon and then to Eli, his face so pale against the inky blackness of his hair. He needed more time to heal and I couldn’t get him to the spare bedroom myself. “Come in, Amon.”

  The demon took a single step over my threshold and stopped, his lavender gaze falling on me. He hesitated a half beat, then forced a smile that was all about polite manners and nothing to do with actual emotion. “Thank you.”

  I nodded, regret making my return smile a struggle.

  He and Liam took Eli to the bedroom at the top of the stairs on the left while I went to apologize to Dan. I’d told him I’d be right back, but that was more than seven hours ago and it was already past eight in the morning. I hadn’t planned to be gone so long and I’d left my phone on the charger.

  I could’ve transported home to fill him in and gotten back before Eli even realized I was gone. But seeing Eli so hurt had knocked every other thought from my head. I’d never really prepared for the possibility. He was weak, vulnerable like I’d never seen him before.

  I knew before I walked into my bedroom that Dan was gone. I couldn’t hear his soft snores and when I turned the corner I saw that my bed was made and a note was folded on my pillow.

  Em,

  Hope you took care of what you needed to. I had to go. Call me when you’re ready.

  Waiting,

  Dan

  I read the note three times, my gut sinking with each reading. Not because of what he’d written but because of what he’d meant.

  I’d left his bed to go to the side of another man. No matter my reasons, my excuses—go
od intentions, divine calling, world salvation… In the end it always boiled down to one undeniable truth—I’d left Dan’s bed to go to another man. It was simple and yet infinitely complicated at once. Regret made it hard to swallow, a heavy weight pressing against my chest. I couldn’t keep thinking about it.

  I slipped the note into the back pocket of my jeans and went across the hall to the spare room. Eli was awake, grumbling at Liam as he fought against his attempts to remove his damp suit jacket.

  “Ya can’t crawl into bed wearing all these sodden clothes, ya git. You’ll ruin the lassie’s sheets and mattress.”

  Eli shrugged him off, giving himself a hard shake. “Problem solved,” he said—his suit magically dry, the tear in his slacks repaired.

  Liam stepped back. “Well, don’t that be a nifty trick. Could’a spared a wee Irishman the effort and dried yerself from the start.”

  Eli’s shoulders drooped, his head down, his hands bracing against the bed on either side of him. He took a shaky breath, the small flash of strength expended. “It’s not as easy as it looks at the moment.”

  I strode the rest of the way into the room. “Okay, that’s enough. Thanks guys, I’ve got it from here.”

  “Aye. Good. We’ll see if we can track the bastards who did this,” Liam said slipping his hand into Amon’s.

  “He’ll be safe here,” Amon said. “Just keep him inside until he’s fully healed.”

  I nodded, reaching out to touch his free hand. “Thank you, Amon.”

  A smile flickered across his young, roguish face and then both he and Liam were gone. I turned to Eli, barely able to hold himself upright on the edge of the bed.

  “You need to rest,” I said, pushing him back against the pillows. I lifted his feet to the bed just as his shoes vanished.

  “I’m nearly healed,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  He looked so…human lying there—his skin ghostly white, his body limp. My chest ached for him, emotion thickening at the back of my throat. I cared about Dan. He was my tie to reality. But I’d nearly lost Eli today and the realization turned my blood to ice.

  It didn’t make sense, but I had to stay near him—make sure he was alive, safe. Even as guilt turned my stomach, I couldn’t stop myself from lying down next to him, my head resting on his chest, the steady beat of his heart echoing against my ear. I breathed him in, taking comfort in the sweet, summery scent of him—fresh-cut grass and sunshine.

  In his sleep, Eli curved an arm around me, tucking me in closer. The tension that had the muscles down my back in knots eased and I closed my eyes. Eli was an angel—constant, invulnerable, or so I’d thought. Now I knew I could lose him and that…that changed everything.

  Chapter Nine

  It must have been a thunder strike that woke me. The sound still rumbled through the sky, like the long grumble of a lion. Lying on my belly, I pushed up to my elbows, squinting at the clock on the bedside table in the gloomy light. I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth. It was 12:32 p.m. and Eli was gone.

  I rolled over, my gaze gliding to the window, catching a glimpse of glowing white eyes. I swallowed back a scream. “What the hell?”

  Fred stood outside my window—his weird white eyes staring at me, hands clasped in front of him, long, bloodred hair curtaining down his back. Problem was, the bedroom window was on the second floor.

  Your presence is commanded in the backyard. Come at once. His smooth, melodic voice echoed through my mind and then the next instant he was gone. Crap, I hated that.

  I scooted out of bed just as another clap of thunder shook the house. Rain beat against the window where Fred had been, the wind whipping through the trees. I hurried out into the hall to the window that overlooked the backyard.

  Wind rocked the trees that ringed my gram’s backyard. I’d inherited the house when she died a few years back, but it would always be her home. The big oaks had been saplings when she and my granddad bought the place. Those trees were more than fifty years old now and I worried that for some of them, this storm might be their last.

  “I’m not going out in that.” Gram’s old metal lawn set was holding up against the wind and pounding sheets of rain, but puddles were forming in the lower spots of the yard and an impromptu stream had formed around back. The quick current rushed between the trees into my neighbor’s yard.

  I stepped away from the window, determined to ignore Fred’s request when something in the shadows behind Gram’s glider caught my eye. I lunged forward, hands on the windowsill, narrowing my eyes to see through the gloom and rain. “Eli?”

  He was on his knees, his back to the house, his chin up as if in prayer to the heavens. His short, black curls were plastered to his head, the jacket of his suit waving to the side like a flag. His white dress shirt was nearly transparent. Whatever the reason Fred wanted me in the backyard, I didn’t need any more convincing.

  I called on my power, seeing where I wanted to go, and took a step. The world narrowed, blurred, and the rules governing time and space gave way for me. With my next step my bare foot sloshed in the cold, wet grass behind Eli.

  The icy rain stabbed at my cheeks and bare arms, the wind snapping my hair over my eyes, plastering it to my face. I shoved at my hair and stepped up next to Eli. “What’s wrong?”

  “You will leave it,” a voice said from the trees in front of us and I turned to see seven angels, including Fred, perched in separate trees. Their weight had no more effect on the limbs than a feather or a drop of rain would. The thickly leafed branches around them all seemed to bend away, framing each angel in a curtain of green.

  Aside from Fred, I recognized only three of the other seraphim. I’d seen them after Tommy was killed. They were part of the Council of Seven’s envoy and had stalked Eli and me last year, making sure we didn’t give in to our grief over Tommy’s death and cross a line there was no going back from. We hadn’t, and I hadn’t seen the three again until now.

  All seven angels were unnaturally tall and lean, with long hands and fingers and oval faces. Their hair, thin and silky, reached the smalls of their backs, and their skin had a soft, newborn glow. Like the cluster of angels in the hospital, the seven were dressed in matching tailored suits in varying shades of black and white with overcoats that reached their calves. And they were all dry. The storm didn’t touch them.

  Goose bumps tingled over my skin from head to toe and a bone-deep shiver had my body vibrating like a cheap motel bed. My teeth chattered even as I pushed my hair from my eyes again, squinting up at the angels through the beating rain.

  “Who are you telling him to leave? Me?” I yelled, ignoring the jolt of adrenaline and fear squeezing my chest. I’d almost lost him last night. I couldn’t go through that again.

  “I will not,” Eli said as though I hadn’t said a word. “This is ill timed, brothers. The situation has grown too dangerous to abandon her now. Magisters and illorum alike are at risk.”

  “It is because of the situation that we command you to part from it,” the angel on the far left said. His voice was soft and deep like a late-night radio DJ. He was one of the angels from last year, his long hair so white it was nearly translucent. The pale hair made his seraphim-white eyes even more creepy.

  “This is not a request, Elizal,” Fred, in the center tree, said. “The Council commands it.”

  The wind howled and I had to yell just to hear my own voice. “Then let us talk to the Council. I need Eli to help figure out who’s behind the attacks.”

  The angel on the far right spoke up. “Tell it that another magister has been assigned. He will aid it as you would. It will discover who is behind the attacks and end them.”

  He was another of the angels I’d seen last year. Hair the color of butterscotch curtained the back of his pinstriped suit. Those stripes made his suit the most…different.

  “What do you think we’ve been trying to do? You take Eli away and I’ll have to start from square one,” I said, but I knew they
weren’t listening to me—at least they were pretending not to. I was there to listen, not speak.

  “I am the only one to have seen the demon who accompanies the gibborim attacks,” Eli said. “I am essential to this endeavor.”

  “Right,” I said, following Eli’s lead. “You see? I don’t know who we’re looking for. I need Eli.”

  “You will share this information with its new magister,” the third angel who’d stalked me last year said. He stood on the right in the tree next to the white-haired angel. This angel’s hair was darker than Eli’s—so dark it was nearly blue—and his plain, snug suit was a deep black that matched his hair almost perfectly.

  “No. It’s too great a risk. There’s more.” Eli’s body stiffened as if he were about to stand to make his point but didn’t. “I’ve already been attacked. I’m the only one to have survived. I’ve seen them. They’ll want to finish what they started. They’ll want to silence me, keep me from warning others.”

  “Warning others about what?” the butterscotch angel asked.

  “The swords,” Eli said. “The angelic swords they’re taking from the magisters. They shield the gibborim from seraphim powers—we are defenseless against them. Removing me from this engagement just because…” He glanced at me then back to the seven. “We need to focus on what’s important here. I chose to be a magister. I knew the risks. I have faced them before and triumphed. I will again.”

  The white-haired angel on the end glanced at Fred, just a quick flick of his creepy eyes, then back to Eli. None of the other angels allowed his somber mask to crack. After several seconds, Fred gave a single nod, closing his eyes as though in answer to some unspoken question.

  He raised his chin and looked at Eli. “Is this why they are taking the magisters’ swords? To use them in battle against seraphim?”

  Eli exhaled a frustrated breath—jaw tight, blue eyes blinking against the driving rain. “I can find no other explanation. Please, brothers, let me stay and fight.”