Touched by Hell

by Emma Shade

  He shook his head. “No, but I know a fallen when I see one.”

  I wouldn’t have been more stunned if lightning had struck my ass. Why hadn’t I felt this much power from him when I met him yesterday? With a sigh, I looked back at the fallen angel. “For killing the woman, I have no choice but to send you wherever you end up. And I’m angry enough to make it as painful as possible.”

  When he didn’t answer, I stalked forward, ready to slice him from limb to limb.

  “Don’t touch him,” Coren warned.

  I ignored Coren and kept my attention on the fallen angel in front of me.

  “I didn’t kill her, but do as you wish.” Aralim held his arms straight out on each side and his gaze held mine. “I’m ready and tired of this life. I thought I was bored in Heaven, but I was alone for centuries in Hell.”

  I disregarded his being alone comment, because who cared? He fell and went to Hell on his own. “Who killed her then?” I asked as I was within a few feet of him.

  “Mara, don’t. You can’t kill him,” Coren warned, but I disregarded him. I saw him move to be closer to me out of the corner of my eye.

  Wings unfolded from the Aralim’s back, seemingly from nowhere, and they caused me to pause as I took them in. Beautiful feathers the color of snow spread out behind him. Each feather was a different shade of white, and they practically glowed in the lamplight from a nearby post. Aralim was magnificent and enchanting. I bet he could have any woman he wanted on Earth. Maybe that was why he fell.

  His wings shifted a bit. “I didn’t kill her. That was the demon on the roof. He’s waiting for you.”

  Without looking up, I snorted. “Why should I believe you? You’re no better than a demon.”

  “True. I’ve done awful things, seen awful things. But that demon? He’s strong and he knows we’re here. It’s a trap.”

  “So you set up this trap?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. You did.”

  I frowned at his words. How could I set up my own trap? When Aralim chuckled, anger welled inside of me and overflowed like it had a life of its own. Fire burned through me, each breath a raging inferno.

  With a warrior scream, I ran forward and swung with all my might.

  “Mara! No!” Coren yelled and reached for me. It was too late.

  Aralim never moved. He stared at me with those pink eyes, his wings spread out behind him. He didn’t even flinch as I swung my blade. The only thing he said before my sword hit home was, “Broken wings can still fly.”

  As his body fell to the ground, gold blood splattered me in the face. I stared at his fallen form, his wings bent underneath him. His golden blood glistened in the low light and it was as beautiful as Aralim was. I let out an exhausted breath as reality hit. I had killed an angel. A fallen one, yes, but an angel nonetheless.

  I turned to Coren to ask him about repercussions, but a bright, blinding light blasted through the alley. I flew back against the brick as if a bomb had detonated. My head slammed into it with a whack and the rough exterior grated against my skin.

  Coren quickly covered my body with his. His arms tucked my head against his chest. I squeezed my eyes closed when my hair whipped against my face, and because of the stars in my vision from my skull-bashing against the wall.

  “Don’t move!” he shouted over the chaos.

  Hurricane-force winds had erupted in the small alley. Metal creaked and groaned. Something large fell to our right and debris slammed against the brick with a boom. Glass clanged as windows exploded. Coren grunted as something hard smacked into him, but he refused to let me go.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted, but he didn’t respond.

  The warmth of his embrace did little to calm my rapid thoughts. Was Coren hurt? How fast did demons heal? What were the repercussions of killing a fallen angel? Especially one that may be one of Lucifer’s soldiers.

  The wind around us went from a roar to whistling through the alley. Dust and rubble peppered my skin. Coren’s arms tightened and he used his hands to block as much dirt debris from hitting my face as he could.

  When it finally died down about two minutes later, Coren pulled away to inspect every inch of my body. “Are you okay?”

  Looking over myself as well, I nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Just a nasty headache.” I inspected his body, too. “Are you okay? There was a lot of debris flying—”

  Blood blossomed under his ribs and his ripped shirt exposed a deep gash on his right side. I stared at it in alarm and pressed my hand against the wound to staunch the blood flow. The blood still streamed down from his ribs to his jeans. How had he held me so calmly with the injury?

  “How are we going to explain the damage? The alley and street look like a twister blew through here,” Coren said, grimacing as I pressed my fingers harder into his side.

  “I guess we could simply take off. We can’t explain this without being admitted to a looney bin.” I grimaced. “God, Coren, you’re really bleeding. You may need stitches.”

  “I heal pretty quickly, but I may need to bandage the wound for a day or two.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “I wish I had that power.”

  “In my world, it’s a necessity, not a superpower.” He hissed as I pulled a piece of glass from his wound.

  “I guess when you have pissed-off souls, fast healing would be a good thing.”

  Coren opened his mouth to say something but grunted instead when I located a piece of metal near his open wound. His blood continued to flow and I applied more pressure. The warm fluid glistened as it ran down his jeaned leg. I was worried Coren might pass out from blood loss.

  I tilted my head in confusion as I stared at the liquid seeping through my fingers. The color wasn’t red like a human or any demon color I had seen before. I pulled my hand away from his wound to see the blood. I held it up my hand to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. The liquid on my fingers shimmered.

  He had golden blood.

  My gaze swung up to his, my mouth gaping in utter disbelief.

  He frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”

  His attention moved down to my hand. He went stock-still when he saw his shiny blood reflecting on my fingertips.

  “You’re a fallen angel,” I whispered.

  Still not wanting to believe it myself, I pulled my hand closer to my face for inspection. Yep, it was the same tint as pure twenty-four-karat gold. I blinked a few times and shook my head in disbelief.

  “Mara...”

  This couldn’t be happening. I had a hard time with him as a demon, but I had accepted it. This was so much worse. In many ways, a fallen angel who resided in the underworld was as evil as Satan. They chose to fall and join the ranks of Hell on their own accord. Demons often didn’t have a choice because of birth or whatever, but angels sure as fuck did.

  As the implications set in, I scrambled away from him.

  Coren reached for me but flinched when it pulled against the gash on his side. “I know what it looks like, but I promise it isn’t what you think.”

  “Tell me why you lied to me. Why you thought holding this information from all of us would work out. And why you fuckers explode when you’re killed.”

  “I’m here to protect you. That’s my mission. What I didn’t expect was to fall in love with you.”

  I scoffed. “I’m your mission? I knew you worked for Lucifer, but this is a low blow. How can you expect me to trust you now?”

  “I had to fall—”

  “No. Nobody forced you to choose. You did that all by yourself.” I held up a hand to keep him quiet. “Lor!” I called out, hoping he’d appear if I said his name.

  “Mara, I’m still the same. Nothing has changed.”

  “Fuck you.”

  As though he’d waited for my summons, Lor appeared next to me in the alley. He took in the extent of the damage from me killing a fallen angel, but I grabbed his hand and begged, “Take me anywhere but here.”

  “Please don’t do this,” Co
ren whispered. “Let me explain.”

  Without hesitation, Lor gripped my arm. My eyes never left Coren, and I held my breath to keep from screaming as my body splintered apart when he disappeared with me.

  CHAPTER 27

  There’s only one way to stop evil.

  You have to embrace yours.

  I stood on the edge of the Garden of Gods in Colorado again. The gorgeous morning sun filtering through the park wasn’t lifting my melancholy mood.

  My hand and forearm still had Coren’s golden dried blood. The color shimmered in the indigo hue of the sunrise. I stared at it. How can such a beautiful color be breathtaking and disturbing at the same time?

  “What do you mean he’s a fallen angel?” Raven asked, her face a mask of confusion.

  After Lor dropped me off in Colorado, he went to retrieve Raven and Death. Death was none too kind about it. His jaw flexed as he looked around, his arms folded across his chest.

  I wasn’t sure if he was upset at Lor for bringing him here, or if he was pissed at Coren. I was going with both. After I explained the situation with Coren and the fallen in the alley, they all gaped at me like I’d grown a penis out of my chin.

  “You sure his blood was gold?” Lor rubbed a hand over the stubble along his chin. “There was a lot of chaos after you killed the fallen.”

  I held up my stained hand and shook it at them. “The fallen angel had golden blood, I know because it splattered me in the face and puddled on the ground before shit went to hell in a handbasket. And, yes, Coren’s blood on my hand was the same as the fallen.”

  “Are you really that surprised?” Death responded. “He was too good to be a demon. Too kind. Too in love with Mara. Demons don’t have an ounce of love inside their evil bodies. We all failed to see his real identity, but I knew something was off. Something didn’t say demon to me, but I couldn’t figure him out. Guess we know now.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” I kicked the dirt at my feet. A reddish pebble skidded across the soil.

  “Nothing,” Lor said.

  “Why not? He lied to us. He was a fallen angel this whole time!” I was frustrated. While I didn’t want them to kill him, I wanted some sort of payback. Maybe I could give him a black eye.

  “The fallen you killed,” Death asked, “what color were his eyes?”

  “Pink. And not like pale, either. They were like bubble-gum pink.” I shrugged. “Weirdest colored eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Death nodded. “If Coren was a true fallen, his eyes would turn that color within a few years. Since his eyes don’t even have a hint of pink, he must be a recent one.”

  “Really?” Raven asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Don’t you find that odd?”

  “Regardless, he was in Hell with Lucifer.” Lor shrugged. “That isn’t a good sign.”

  Death nodded. “Hell is a far cry from Heaven. It wasn’t like he fell and landed in a church.”

  Raven’s narrowed eyes swung to me. “Speaking of churches. Mara, why did you go to the church that day?”

  All eyes turned to me in curiosity. I closed my eyes in frustration. Dammit. Raven and her big mouth.

  “You went to a church? Which one?” Death probed, his dark eyes watching me with such intensity the hair rose on the back of my neck.

  I itched my neck. “The one across from the donut shop on Main. Why?”

  “When I brought him a soul recently, Lucifer mentioned he couldn’t track you for a while. He wanted to know why. I brushed him off, but now it makes sense.”

  My lips parted. When the priest blessed me, Lucifer couldn’t find me. That explained why he searched me out and wanted to meet me at the coffee shop. And why he had sent the possessed woman. Was it the blessing, the holy water, entering a church, or all the above?

  I’d gone in search of angels when I’d entered the cathedral. I guess I had found two. Coren and Aralim.

  “Oh, my God.” I pulled my phone out and searched Our Lady of Angels. I scrolled through picture after picture until I found the one I wanted. I turned my phone around. “Does this angel look familiar to anyone?”

  “Holy shitballs,” Raven breathed. “You weren’t kidding when you suspected it was him in the stained glass.”

  Death took my phone from me and inspected the picture on the screen. “I thought this image was of an archangel, but Coren isn’t one. Of course, most humans don’t know what an archangel really looks like, so this could be an interpretation of what they saw when this was made.”

  Lor cleared his throat. “So Coren has been on Earth before. I have to wonder when and why.”

  “Does it say when the windows were made?” Raven questioned, taking the phone from her father. “No, it doesn’t. But I know how to find out.” She pressed a few buttons and lifted my phone to her ear. “Hello, my name is...Samantha. I’m a student and wanted to ask a few questions about your architecture.” Her voice was sugary sweet and as fake as the Louis Vuitton purse I’d bought from a man named “Peanut.”

  After she said a few uh-huhs and okays, she asked, “And the cause?” After a few more minutes, she thanked the person and hung up. She handed my phone back to me and smiled. Her black eyes twinkled.

  “Well?”

  “The building was built in the twenties.” She smirked. “However, after a fire, they had to completely overhaul the building, including the stained glass. Anyone want to guess when the newer stained glass was installed?”

  “I have a feeling I don’t want to know.” I sighed.

  “Wait, I want to try to guess,” Lor said.

  He scanned the landscape in front of him and tapped his chin with his finger. His eyes reflected the sun like fire. The different shades created a kaleidoscope of reds. There were times his eyes mesmerized me because they were so unique, and this was one of those times. Lor really was handsome, and if things were different, I might have hit on him if I hadn’t met Coren first.

  Lor’s attention turned to me. “I’m estimating about twenty-five or twenty-six years ago.”

  Raven nodded enthusiastically. “Yep. The building burned on January 13th twenty-six years ago and the remodel was finished exactly a year later.”

  I took a step back. “Why is everyone looking at me like that? What does my birthday have to do with anything?”

  “Mara,” Death said, “the church burnt on the day of your birth. Then it was refurbished one year after you were born.”

  Shaking my head, I eyed my friends. What did my birth have anything to do with a church burning? Then suspicion hit me like a speeding train. My skin prickled as memories flooded my mind. “What was the cause of the fire, Raven?”

  “Arson.”

  I closed my eyes in both understanding and anger.

  My mother had worked as a secretary for a Catholic church while she was pregnant with me. She had lost her job and benefits right after I was born, and her life evolved from a single mother with a job to a jobless single mother. She eventually became hooked on drugs sometime after that. She had blamed me for it all. In her sick mind, I had caused her unemployment and her addiction to drugs.

  I bet we were supposed to die in that fire. However, because she was delivering me instead of inside the church, everything from the moment of my birth was a setup. Everything. My addict mother, her abuse, her lust for a better life that wouldn’t include me. That she’d sign over my life to get her riches, and obviously, Lucifer getting my soul in the process.

  I knew with absolute certainty Coren hadn’t set the fire. Lucifer had.

  The biggest question was why. I spoke to shadows, yes, but he hadn’t known that until recently. Someone had hinted he wanted me as a concubine. That didn’t fit either. I was missing something. Something huge.

  Even more puzzling was how Coren ended up on a stained glass inside the same church my mother had worked at. Had he come to protect me as a baby? There were so many confusing details and mysteries surrounding my life. I wanted to start mapping them out on a ch
art, but it would probably take up every ounce of wall space in my apartment.

  “Earth to Mara,” Death said, tearing my attention away from my mental conflict. “Did you hear me?”

  I winced. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

  “We need to head back. Raven and I can’t be gone for long. You know death waits for no one.”

  Dread settled in my belly at the possibility of seeing Coren again. Anxiety was so thick it practically coated my skin, but I took a deep breath and fucking dealt with it. I had to. There was no choice when it came to him or my soul. I nodded in agreement.

  Lor came forward and wrapped me in a hug. He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “My darling girl, tattered wings can still fly.”

  When he pulled away, I stared at him. Hadn’t Aralim said the same thing? Death held my hand to fade me away from Colorado. I kept my eyes on Lor as the world disappeared.

  Lor smiled sadly and said, “He loves you, even with your darkness.”

  The last things I saw were those damn red eyes before I popped into my apartment and stumbled against the couch. My darkness? Sure, Lucifer had altered my life, but I wasn’t evil.

  “Are you okay?” Raven asked, her brows wrinkled as she watched me.

  “Am I a bad person?” I whispered.

  “No. You’re not perfect, but you’re not bad. Why?” Death put his hand on my back.

  I frowned and looked around my empty apartment. “Lor had mentioned Coren accepted my darkness.”

  Death smirked and patted my back gently. “We’ve all got darkness living in our hearts. We have the same amount of good in us, too. We merely have to choose whether to embrace both or let one consume us.”

  Raven crossed her arms. “Mara, that’s not all Lor said before we faded. I think you need to talk to Coren.”

  My eyes searched for anything Coren had owned when he stayed here. No leather jacket hung on the back of the couch, no boots by the front door. Only a hint of his cologne hung in the air.

  “We’ll help you tonight when it’s time to hunt.” Raven gave me a hug. “Get some rest. He’ll be back, I promise.”

  “What do I do when I finally see him?” I questioned because I had no idea how this worked. My lack of relationships and breakups only caused uncertainty.