by Ivy Sinclair
Riley had done so much for me. I was the reason that he was able to keep the darkness from taking over his soul. Without me, he would be rudderless. I thought I had given in to Eva to protect him, but it was also to avoid having to deal with all of the hurt and pain of our shared pasts. I knew now that I had also damned him as well. If Riley went dark, there wasn’t a single thing in the world that would be able to pull him back. He had the potential to be far worse than Eva if the archangels were to be believed.
I was the only one who could save him from himself. .
With that thought, I felt my mind begin to stretch. But all too soon, it was as if I hit a brick wall. My consciousness beat against it. I knew what it was. Eva was blocking me from getting out.
That was when I heard the whisper of familiar words.
Hear me, the one whose essence and soul I seek. Obey my command, and come to me. Do not hold back for I will find you. Do not shy away because you are the one I seek. Come to me now.
Those were the words that Riley used to summon spirits from the dead. I felt myself grow excited. Even though I had forcibly removed him from my life, he still hadn’t given up on me.
I tried to call out to him. “I’m here! I’m here!”
There was nothing. Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure if the same rules applied for pulling someone out of a living body as when you pulled their essences back from heaven or hell. I beat harder against my prison walls.
I heard Riley’s chant once again.
This time, I felt my consciousness swirl, and it was as if I were sucked through a doorway by a tornado. When I came to, I found myself staring at a ceiling that I definitely did not expect to see. It had stars on it. It was also painted bright orange. This was because once upon a time, I had convinced myself that if I woke up staring at such a bright, cheerful color to start my day, nothing bad that could happen to me.
There was a lot of psychobabble I used to tell myself while I lived under the fog of amnesia. Where I found myself now was in the room that I had just seen in my memory. I sat up. The room itself was dim. I expected to see Riley sitting across the room from me. I wasn’t alone, but the man waiting for me wasn’t Riley.
I skittered across the bed and ran for the door. My mind bent in on itself when I swiped at the doorknob, and my hand went right through it.
“You can’t leave this room until I permit it.” Benjamin’s chilly voice caused me to spin around.
“So you’re kidnapping me now too? Another wonderful addition to the long line of crap you’ve done to me over the years.” I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I brought my hand up to my face. It was gauzy, and I could see through it to the other side. I looked backward at the bed.
“Your essence was floating above it. I’m not surprised you didn’t realize it. Your mind will try to make sense of your current form, and so will put you in familiar positions to when you had a corporeal form.”
“So I’m a freaking ghost?” My voice sounded slightly muffled. It took more effort than I expected to talk.
“You are alive,” Benjamin said. “And for the moment out from under the thumb of Eva.”
“She’s in my body,” I said. I was stunned. “I heard Riley’s summoning spell. Is that how I’m here?”
“Yes,” Benjamin said. He frowned. “I wasn’t sure the necromancer could pull off this kind of feat, but the man constantly surprises me. I intercepted the exit of your soul from your body and brought you here. He might think souls are his domain, but they belong to the angels first.”
“That necromancer is also a dark angel,” I said. “He’s going to kick your ass the next time he sees you. I’d kick your ass right now if I were corporeal. You tried to kill me! You did kill him.”
“A necessary evil,” Benjamin said. He sighed. “I am a soldier of God first in all things. If there is one thing that my brothers have done a fantastic job of recently, it’s reminding me that I have a duty to attend to. Giving myself over to human emotions and desires has done nothing but distract me from my true work.”
That emotion he claimed to be such a distraction was falling in love with me. “I can’t believe after all we’d been through you would do that to me,” I said. I hated that I even wanted an explanation. “I stuck up for you every time Riley said anything negative about you. We were friends, best friends. I know it hurt you when I didn’t share the same feelings, but that didn’t change the way that I felt about you. I trusted you, and, in return, you tried to stick a knife in my gut.” It was a bitter pill to swallow.
“It was a rash decision on my part, I’ll admit. Fortunately for both of us, that action didn’t result in what I attempted to do,” Benjamin said. “Unfortunately for the world, by putting himself between us, Riley Stone was given the genetic key to unlock his transformation into an abomination.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” I said. I wasn’t sure on Riley’s status with the world, but I knew that it could be bad. Really bad. I had seen a side of him when he dealt the death blow to Bruno Proctor’s vessel that had been truly terrifying. That had been one demon official in a specific encounter where the situation was easily contained. If it was possible for Riley to do such a thing on a grander scale, it was a sobering thought.
“No, it’s not. What is reality is that we now have an original brother and sister on our hands as well as a dark angel to contend with.”
“What’s an original brother and sister?” I asked.
“Your lover’s new friend,” Benjamin said. “Do you think he managed to get inside of your head on his own? Oh no. He had help from the one who has been stalking the vessel of Eva for a thousand years.”
I felt a shot of fear through my non-corporeal bones. “You mean the one who killed the Protector.”
“Adam,” Benjamin said. “His name is Adam.”
“Adam and Eva. For Pete’s sake, is that who I think it is?”
“The biblical stories of Adam and Eve are based on the first two humans ever created. Those origin stories are true. This goes back further than that. I’m talking about the origins of the angels and our beginning in God’s plan. Adam and Eva are the only two remaining angels of the first generation of angels that God created. He learned from his mistakes when he created the rest of us.”
“What kind of mistakes? He’s God,” I asked, aware that I was trying to sound like I was an expert in God’s rationale and decision-making process.
“God is not infallible to mistakes,” Benjamin said. “There was something different about Adam. He didn’t want to share God’s love and attention with his brethren. So one day he decided to take care of that problem.”
Well, that didn’t sound good at all. It seemed the more I learned about angel lore, the more I wanted to forget angels existed at all.
CHAPTER NINE – RILEY
Eva’s laughter rattled the walls of the bar. I winced at the shrillness of it, and I heard Viho and Klein’s hisses of pain. I withstood it with only mild discomfort, likely because I wasn’t human anymore. I sent a wave of energy in their direction to deflect the majority of the maniacal noise. I needed to stay focused, but I wasn’t going to let them fall into the path of whatever was about to happen either.
Finally, the laughter reached a level where it was nothing more than a low chortle. Eva seemed to be laughed out. “A gift? You gave me a gift? Forgive me, brother, but I believe you have been gone from the world so long that you misunderstand the meaning of the word.”
I watched her as she began a slow sidestep in a wide semi-circle facing Adam. He moved to match her pace in a counterclockwise fashion. As they arrived in a position where they directly faced each other without anything between them, it was if they anchored their feet to the floor.
From where I stood, I was the six o’clock to their nine and three positions on a clock face. I tried to wave behind my back to Viho and Klein for them to leave the bar. We were on the other side of the veil, but I figured between the two of them they had enough knowle
dge to fill a library about the parallel worlds where we existed. They could find a way back to the other side on their own. So I was surprised when I felt each of them step to either side of my shoulder.
“I think all hell’s about to break loose. Get out now,” I said under my breath hoping they could hear me. It was eerie the way that Adam and Eva stood there studying each other across the room. It was as if they had forgotten the rest of us were even there.
“This is something I never expected to see in my lifetime, or anyone’s lifetime for that matter,” Viho said. “Original angels together once again.”
I cursed myself again for not paying attention during Alice’s history lessons on the angels. This wasn’t the time to ask questions either.
“I want to help Paige too,” Klein said softly. “Besides, every time you hire me back after firing me, you give me a fat raise. I’m expecting that to be the case this time too by the way.”
I would have laughed if the situation were even remotely humorous, but it wasn’t. Paige was trapped inside her body by an awakened goddess. If my necromancy couldn’t extract her, I wasn’t sure what could, and that idea scared the hell out of me. In the meantime, I couldn’t let Adam kill Eva or else she’d take Paige down with her.
But after everything I’d heard so far, I wasn’t sure if Adam planned on killing Eva or recruiting her. I wondered if they were talking to each other psychically and that’s why they were just standing there looking at each other.
“I thought of all our siblings, you were the one who could understand me,” Adam said. “You didn’t quake in fear when I came for you. You didn’t weep and beg me for mercy. In fact, I wasn’t even certain you feared me at all despite knowing what I had already done to our siblings. That was disconcerting. It gave me pause in raising my hand to eliminate you. You carried something inside of you the others did not, and it intrigued me.”
“I saw someone who had been given everything, but found no joy in it. You were always searching for something else to complete you. You never turned that obsession inward to see what was missing inside yourself. No, Adam. I never feared you. I pitied you,” Eva said.
Adam’s hand shot into the air, and Eva grabbed at her neck as if she was trying to pull something away. Her body contorted as she fought the forward momentum that began to drag her across the floor toward Adam’s outstretched fingers.
“Wish me luck. I’m going in,” I said grimly. I launched myself at Eva even as I let loose a bolt of energy in Adam’s direction. It didn’t matter to me if it hit him or not; as long as he was distracted, I figured his magical hold on Eva would loosen.
Instead, I hit a space a few inches from Eva full force and seemed to bounce off an invisible shield. Flung backward up into the air, I landed hard enough on my back that my body went through the floorboards denting the floor.
“That stung a little bit,” I said as I moved to get up. Eva was already halfway across the room now. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t able to break free. She and Adam should have been fairly matched when it came to magic.
Then it hit me. Eva was at a disadvantage because she didn’t have her full life force intact. I looked up just as I saw a glimmer in the palm of Viho’s hand. I knew the level of anxiety the old man must have been experiencing just holding the relic. It had caused others to go stark raving mad almost immediately after contact.
I held up my hand. Viho pitched the relic in my direction. I caught it effortlessly. I couldn’t say how or why, but my defenses were down. The moment I felt the relic hit my skin, I experienced a bout of pure rage.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the cause was of this anger, other than it emanated with my feelings about the angels who were about to duke it out in front of me. It seemed as if the cause for all of the things that Paige and I had experienced had been because of some elaborate game being played by these two deities. I was sick and tired of being used as a pawn on someone else’s chessboard.
It was time to take back the world from the kind of garbage that simply wanted to ruin it. If I wouldn’t step in, then who would? The archangels were too busy with their political inner circle squabbles to pay attention to what was happening in the world. They’d probably sit back and let Adam and Eva do their worst. Then, because they were cowards, they’d probably join them.
All of these thoughts spun through my mind. It was all so unfair. Everything in my life was unfair. I tried to fight against it, but it always came back to this. It was sick and twisted. I was sick and twisted. Even as I thought these things, I watched in an amazed sort of fascination as black tendrils sprouted from the relic and began to twirl down my forearm.
“Riley! Give it to Eva!” Viho called out, but I was barely listening.
“I don’t think so, Pops,” I said faintly. I caught the smell of her hair tickling my nostrils before her arms curled around my neck.
“Give it to me,” Eva hissed in my ear. I wasn’t sure how she had broken free from Adam’s grasp, but it didn’t matter.
“Finders keepers,” I said. Then I crushed the relic into dust. Eva screamed, but it was too late. Everything that had been trapped in the gemstone nestled inside the relic was free, and it had found a new home.
I smiled as I watched the ripple of new tattoos begin to take shape over my skin. My wings expanded behind me as I stood and let my arms reach up to the sky. I felt the flood of power coursing through me. Finally, I was complete. I was who I was always meant to be. This kind of power could only mean one thing.
I was meant to rule everyone. Not God. Where was God in all of this chaos anyway? If he dared to show his face, I’d deal with him. In the meantime, I had others who required my attention.
As my face turned toward Adam and Eva, I found they stood together. Their expressions were priceless. Shock. Perhaps even a little awe. That was good.
“I require that you give me back something of mine,” I said, pointing at Eva.
Adam wrapped his arm around Eva’s waist. “You’ve interfered in my plans one too many times. You just did something very stupid. Very well. This is how it works. You take from me, and I’ll take from you. Seems fair enough to me.” Then Adam slid a knife across Eva’s throat. As her body slid to the ground, Adam disappeared.
A cry escaped my lips. I caught her body just before she hit the floor. Dull, sightless eyes stared back at me. Eva was gone.
“Riley!” I whipped my head in Viho’s direction. He took several steps backward. I wasn’t sure exactly what he saw in me now, but it was obvious it scared him shitless.
“He killed her,” I whispered. It couldn’t be possible. The words felt as if they were ripped out of my chest. I hadn’t been able to save her. I failed her. “She’s gone.”
“You have to cleanse yourself of the curse,” Viho said.
“No, I’m going to kill that sack of shit,” I growled. “I have to go now.” I closed my eyes casting my energy outward looking for any clue as to where he had gone. Adam was going to pay for what he had done.
“If you leave before cleansing yourself, there is a good chance you will forget everything all together. You’ll forget about Paige too. The song of that dark power will seduce you. You won’t be able to see what is right and what is wrong anymore.”
“I am in complete control,” I said. “I will have my revenge.” With that, I opened a door to the other side of the veil. I had an original angel on the loose, and I was going to find him. That’s what I did after all. Find things that tried to hide in the shadows.
There was a bounce in my step as I eased through the portal. I had purpose again. It felt good to be back on the job.
CHAPTER TEN – PAIGE
“He killed them all,” Benjamin said, continuing his tale of doom and gloom. “All of them except Eva. It is said he couldn’t kill her because she was his favorite sibling. Personally, I think it was because in his haste to level the playing field for God’s affections, he discovered what all of us eventually come to understand.
”
“What’s that?” I couldn’t help but continue to question how this had become my life. It was like one perpetual nightmare.
“God is a finicky master. He always yearns for the next best thing to lavish his love on. He was already thinking of creating humans even back then. By the time he discovered Adam’s treachery, it was too late. God took drastic measures. Adam was obliterated, or so we thought. Eva remained as the final remnant of the first generation. Ironically then, she achieved what Adam had always wanted. She was the one favored by God among us. She was given latitude where we were not. It was as if she could do no wrong.”
“That explains so much,” I said. “The jealousy of the angels and then the ultimate betrayal when you all came together and turned on her.”
“By that time, she had done horrible misdeeds,” Benjamin said. “Don’t doubt for a second that Eva didn’t deserve her punishment. Adam’s curse on her life force twisted her goodness into pure evil; now, she’s free. She will come for me and my brothers. Then she will go after the humans because her mind has been tainted to hate them and everything they represent. That is what the curse does to the one it infects.”
“And this was a curse put on her by her supposedly dead brother,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know how you guys keep all this crap straight,” I said. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I need to find Riley and tell him that I’m alive. He is my priority. If I don’t go to him, he will think his spell didn’t work.”
“That’s not going to be possible,” Benjamin said. “I brought you here to keep you out of harm’s way from whatever will happen between Adam and Eva now that she is back. I imagine their family reunion will keep them busy for some time.”