by C. L. Coffey
“Michael’s not in Hell,” I told him truthfully.
He laughed. “You live in your denial a little longer. You’ll be joining him soon enough.”
“The only one going to Hell is you,” I informed him.
“And why’s that?” Luke asked. “Because he killed me once and you can do it again?” When I nodded, Luke laughed. “Only he didn’t kill me, did he? Besides, if you were to try, you’d only kill this human boy I’m wearing.” He held his hands out in front of him and examined them smugly. “Oh, stop looking at me like possessing him is a tragedy. Without me, this kid was likely to get himself shot within the next three years. Looks-wise, I went designer. Stick a record label on him, and over 158 million Followers on Twitter alone means I have one-hundred-fifty-eight million people who will miss me and 158 million people who will do anything I ask.”
“What?” I asked. The idea of angels using social media was no longer such an alien concept to me, but one-hundred-fifty-eight million Followers was positively terrifying. I doubted that many would follow him blindly, but, all it took was a small percentage. Even five percent was a terrifying figure.
“Genius… isn’t it?” he asked me. “See, I bet if you would have asked Michael what I’d come back as, you know, ignoring the fact the ass-hat thought I was dead, I bet he’d have said a politician. Hell, the guy would probably have been expecting me to possess someone like Bin Laden.” Luke grinned, sticking his hands in the waistband of the designer underwear which was still on show. “But that’s because Michael was a one-dimensional idiot who couldn’t see the humanity for the humans. Am I right?” he looked behind me to Veronica and Garret, but didn’t wait for a response. “People don’t trust politicians. Here’s a fact for you: more people follow me on Twitter than voted in the last elections. Yet, if I tweet that I want people to go out and buy a pin with my human onesie’s ridiculously good looking face on it, not only will they buy three, they’ll pay the exorbitant postage fees for them too. So imagine what happens when I subtly hint that the pop princess who beat me to the top of the charts with her perky song about a breakup is a hater, and all her little fans are evil?” At my lack of response, he grinned. “You get some deliciously evil cyber bullies who will do anything to make me happy. Fans equal worship, and worship equals power.”
“And then what?” I asked, rubbing at my temples. “You’re going to get them all to kill themselves and join you in hell?”
Lucifer tilted his head, an amused smile appearing on his face. “I’ve been gone so long and nothing has changed. Everyone always seems to think that all I want is for people to join me in hell. Hell sucks. The food sucks, and there’s no Netflix. Why would I want to go back there?” He put one hand on his hip and used the other to wave in the air around him. “This world and all the people on it are my father’s perfect little creations. I’m just going to sit back and wait for all the humans to turn on each other, and watch as it tears my father apart. The last time my father got involved was when he was pissed off with his angels and he decided to flood the world. He won’t do that anymore. He gave us Free Will as much as he gave it the humans. Now if they mess up, they have to fix it. Don’t you ever wonder why he didn’t step in and fix up that situation at the Port of New Orleans?” He frowned. “Thanks for destroying my merchandise, by the way.”
“You don’t honestly think He’s not going to step in and stop you from destroying humanity?” Veronica demanded, her fists curling into balls.
Lucifer laughed: deep and loud. It sent chills running down my spine. “But I’m not destroying humanity. Humanity is destroying itself. Look at the crap that has happened on this planet in the last hundred years alone. Do you know how many genocides there have been?” He laughed again. “No, our father is decidedly absent these days, but we all know He’s watching. He’s not going to stop the humans and He’s not going to stop me.”
“I’m going to stop you,” I snarled.
Before I could blink, Lucifer was in front of me, wrapping his hands around my throat and lifting me from the ground. “Oh, babes, I almost want to see you try,” he mocked me while I clawed at his arm. Veronica and Garret both leapt at us, but Lucifer was quicker, sidestepping out of Veronica’s way so the chain caught, yanking her back. Garret wasn’t so lucky. Somehow, without even loosening his grip on me, Lucifer kicked Garret back. It was only his own chain jerking which stopped him from going further.
Garret let out a bellow of pain, but I couldn’t see why. There were dark spots dancing in my eyes. Then, just as suddenly as he had grabbed me, he released me, throwing me backwards, letting out a hiss. The room was spinning as I caught Lucifer cradling his hand. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle me?” I asked, though my voice was that raspy, I was surprised anyone could understand what I was saying.
“No, babes: I am bored of you.” He nodded at Beelzebub, and then stormed out of the room.
The Prince of Darkness followed after him, but his son remained. “Enjoy the show?” I asked. Ty opened his mouth, then closed it. Wordlessly, he trailed after his father. I collapsed back onto the ground, coughing, my throat now feeling like it was on fire too. Now I knew how Joshua had felt.
“I think it’s dislocated.”
I rolled over onto my side, trying to stop myself from coughing. Through steaming eyes, I could see Veronica hovering over Garret, whose arm was hanging at an odd angle beside him. I scrambled over, still coughing. “Do you know how to fix it?”
Veronica nodded. “Yes, but with how we feel right now, it’s going to hurt. A lot.”
“Just do it,” Garret hissed, as he lowered himself onto his back.
“Hold him down,” Veronica instructed me. As I did as she requested, she moved to his side, taking his arm. I looked away, already feeling queasy. With no warning, I could feel her move his arm, pull, and the bone clunk back into place. I would have heard it too, if it wasn’t for Garret’s scream.
When I looked back at Garret, he had passed out. “What now?” I asked Veronica, grimacing at how sore my throat sounded and felt, right before the next coughing fit set in. My throat was as raw and inflamed as my wrists: I was desperate for fresh water.
“Sleep,” Veronica said. “You lie down and get some sleep. Find Joshua. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
I was exhausted, I was hungry, I was thirsty, and I don’t think there was a square inch of me that didn’t hurt. Yet, as I lay there, sleep was hard to come by. My body shook with tremors that I couldn’t differentiate between being so cold that my skin was taking on a grayish-blue hue, or the panic which had my breath coming in shallow pants. I resorted to staring at one of the dimming lightbulbs and counting the number of flickers.
It felt like an age had passed before the cave morphed into serene blue skies. The lake. I was at the jetty on Lake Pontchartrain that I would visit with Joshua. I set off at a run down one of the grooves of the well-worn dirt track to the lake, taking care not to trip on the loose stone. The long grass beside me opened up into the lake, and I was relieved to find Joshua waiting at the end.
I sped up, flinging myself at him. Somehow, we didn’t go flying into the water below. “I am so glad to see you,” I said, showering him in kisses which he greedily returned, his fingers running all over my body.
His hands finally settled around my waist as he pulled me into a tight embrace. “I have been so worried about you. Cupid can’t get a reading on you.”
I pulled back, but only slightly, enjoying the feeling of being in Joshua’s arms. It might only be a dream, but I was warm and safe, and I needed that. “I can’t communicate with Cupid. It’s either wherever we’re being held, or the shackles they’re keeping us chained up with. Eugene is alive, barely, and I think we’re being kept wherever he was.”
“Shackles?” Joshua asked, his body tensing around mine. “Tell me everything.” He stepped back, releasing me, and shook his head. “Darlin’, do your thing and show me.”
The last place I wanted to go
back to was that cave, but it made sense. It would help more to show than to tell. I sucked in a deep breath, puffing out my cheeks and then exhaled in one long breath. Slowly, our surroundings changed. The long grasses and reeds shrank back into the ground, the dirt becoming darker and wetter. Above us, the sky changed. Like drops of black ink were being dropped into the blue and slowly taking over, the sky went black, then muddy, closing in around us.
In front of me, Joshua shivered, cursing under his breath as the sky became lower and lower, stopping less than a meter from his head. At our sides, the ground began to rise up, caging us into an area a fraction of the size it had been. A feeling of claustrophobia started to seep into me, but I didn’t stop. Lightbulbs began to appear around the room, illuminating the conditions I had grown accustomed to. A cave-in appeared on the far side as water began to rise up from the ground, not stopping until it was up to Joshua’s knees where he was standing. One by one, the others started to appear. Garret, lying on his back, bruised and battered, his feet almost in the water. Veronica was next, sitting next to him, the kohl which had been applied with care to her eyelids mostly streaked down her face, her hair wet, stringy and plastered to the sides of her head.
Eugene was next, his image bringing tears to my eyes. He looked almost dead. His black skin was taking on a strange yellowish hue, and the cuts that covered him were still seeping that gloopy blood. He looked frail – nothing like the vibrant young male he had been. Even now, his breathing was labored.
I couldn’t bring myself to conjure up Afriel’s lifeless body. Instead I focused on myself. My boots and jacket disappeared, to be replaced with my own injuries. When the thick metal cuffs appeared around my wrists, surrounded by angry, swollen skin – some parts black, some blistered – Joshua swore again, stepping forward to gingerly take my hands and examine the damage. His nostrils flared before he pulled me back to him, squeezing his arms around me like he was trying to create a barrier. “It doesn’t hurt right now,” I told him, making every effort to ensure he didn’t realize I had been choked.
“Right now?” he repeated. “How much does it hurt normally?”
“Not that much,” I lied. “It looks worse than it is.” Joshua pulled his head back to stare into my eyes. The blues were stormy and turbulent and I could tell instantly that he knew I was lying. “It’s steel,” I said, diverting the topic elsewhere. “Steel coated with the blood of the innocent,” I added, unable to suppress the shudder. “Whatever that means; it’s tainted – unholy – that’s why it affects us. It’s slowly poisoning the water too. I got the… Oh, the casket!” I exclaimed.
To the pile of dirt, I added in the casket. “You’re under a cemetery?” Joshua asked, blanching at the sight of the wooden coffin.
“I’m not sure that narrows it down that much, considering how many cemeteries there are in the city,” I sighed, attempting to pry my fingers free from Joshua so I could push my hair from my face.
The sound of the chain clinking had him looking down. “Can you remove them?”
I did, wishing that it was that easy when I was awake. “When they got me at the scene of the accident, I blacked out. I woke up in this room, and honestly, I don’t know how long I had been in there, much less how long the drive was.”
“I think it’s safe to say you’re still in the city,” Joshua said, looking around, his eyes taking everything in. “This room wasn’t designed to be in place for long. There’s absolutely no effort gone into reinforcing it. That, added with the amount of water – did you know there’s a storm over New Orleans, and only New Orleans. The rest of the state, although cold, has no raincloud in sight.”
“That would be Beelzebub,” I shrugged. “We’re either going to drown or be buried alive.”
The grip around my hands tightened. “I’m not going to allow either of them to happen. Leon is organizing a city-wide raid on all of Beelzebub’s establishments.”
“He had a lot.” My eyes went wide.
Joshua looked away, sighing. “They killed all the cherubim.”
“I know,” I told him. “Beelzebub took great pleasure in telling Veronica and Garret that they were the last ones in the city.”
“I’m guessing he failed to point out that their deaths destroyed half the Plaza Tower, and killed several innocent people from the debris?”
My mouth fell open and I could feel the blood rushing from my face. “No, he never mentioned that.” I’d seen what happened to the vessels of the Fallen and the angels when they died: explosive destruction. I hadn’t even considered that with this.
“Needless to say, the commissioner was happy to organize a couple dozen orchestrated raids when we told him Terrance Hamilton was responsible for it,” Joshua continued. He gave me a reassuring smile. “They’re happening now. Hopefully, Leon will come back with something. Meanwhile, I’m on the lookout for Ty – we know he was involved.”
“What about the convent?” I asked. If Beelzebub found out the raids were… “What about Maggie? And Leon’s family? If Beelzebub works out that Leon organized the raids, they might be in trouble.”
Joshua nodded, releasing my hands so he could place his on my shoulders. “We got them out of the city before we started with anything yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I repeated, my relief evaporating at that development. “How long have we been gone?”
Joshua tilted his head. “We’re on day four. I thought you had that whole time-telling thing down?”
I shook my head. “Whatever this unholy metal thing is, it also seems to block all of the gifts we have. We’re not healing, we have no strength, no ability to communicate with the other angels – and I have no idea what time it is.”
I realized I had given away too much information when I could see the alarm across Joshua’s face. “You’re essentially human, trapped by the King and Prince of Darkness in a room that’s trying to kill you…” he whispered, his face ashen.
“I’m not alone, and I’ve still got the ability to do this,” I pointed out. “We can wait a while longer.”
“I’m going to come for you,” Joshua promised me.
I nodded. “I know you are.”
He pulled me close and kissed me. A promise he would see me soon. He was trying to pass on his strength; showing me just how much he loved me… I embraced it all, but in the back of my mind, a little voice was telling me this might be our last kiss.
* * *
More hours passed. Hell, it could have been days. We had no way of knowing the time. The water had risen, so to keep ourselves occupied, Veronica and I had moved some of the dirt closer to the door, piling it up to keep us out of the water. Eugene was hanging on, but only just. Garret was doing better, though we’d had to fashion a sling from his t-shirt to try to keep his arm steady, seeing as it wasn’t healing.
In addition to all the varying types of pain from my injuries, I also felt like I had the flu. I was cold, wet, shivering, and everything was an effort. I was taking frequent naps, hoping that the rest would help, and that I could also find Joshua again. It didn’t happen – I could only take the solace that he was busy looking and that, perhaps it had only been hours and not days.
I was daydreaming about a shrimp po’boy with a side of lasagna, a Caniac, and rather randomly, a serving of homemade Yorkshire pudding when the door opened. Beelzebub was back, along with Ty. My limbs felt heavy and my brain fuzzy, but I made myself get up and stand side by side with Veronica in front of Garret and Eugene. She wasn’t in a much better state than I was, so I wasn’t sure what protection we could offer, short of a buffer.
“Huh,” Beelzebub snorted, arching an eyebrow. “Color me impressed: you’re all still alive.”
“Why are you here?” I rasped. I didn’t have the energy for small talk.
Beelzebub looked to Ty. “Why don’t you tell them, son?” he said, indicating he had the floor.
I fixed my attention on the nephilim. Once again, Ty’s face was impassive, but his eyes were train
ed on mine, wary. “I’m here to show where my true loyalties lie,” he said, quietly.
“What does that mean…?” I trailed off when he stepped forward, a dagger, the blade slick with blood, visible. My eyes widened as I realized exactly what he meant.
We had no time to react. Beelzebub leaped forward, grabbing at the chains holding Veronica in place. He stamped down on them, stopping her from getting close to me. Before Garret could get to his feet, Ty was in front of me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
A sharp burning sensation ripped through my side and I looked down, my hands covered in blood – my own mixed with that which had been on the blade pooling around the dagger protruding from my gut. I slumped forward onto Ty, feeling myself getting dizzier. Everything was becoming darker and I thought I heard him whisper, “Act dead.”
I didn’t have to act hard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Fallen Warriors
It wasn’t the first time that I had opened my eyes and regretted it. I can count the amount of nights out followed by the hangover from hell the morning after where I wished I could roll back over and go to sleep, but instead had to get up and drag myself to class. (Don’t tell Sarah that, though!) This was no exception. I forced them open, if only because I was surprised I could: I was sure Ty had killed me.
“Oh, thank you!” I heard Veronica mutter. “Here.”
A bottle of water was pushed to my lips and I hesitantly took a sip. When it didn’t burn, but had the complete opposite effect, I drank the little there was greedily, until Veronica took the empty bottle away from me. It was cool, but also soothing on my throat. Surprisingly, the rest of me also seemed to feel better. “We think that it’s holy water,” Eugene announced.
I struggled upright, trying to take stock of everything. Eugene was awake and sitting. He still looked like he needed a doctor, but there was a bit more color in him. Garret still had his arm in a sling, but he too looked perkier.