Keeper of Crows (The Keeper of Crows Duology Book 1)

by Casey L. Bond

  I trusted her.

  When I fell into Earth and slammed onto the ground in the middle of a lush, green park, no one paid attention. No one offered me a hand. Their eyes were glued to their phones, and even if they weren’t, it was obvious that people didn’t get involved with the affairs of others. Humans hadn’t changed much at all in the last thousand years, despite their advances in technology. Over the years, Gabriel brought magazines and newspapers so I could keep up to date with the times, but seeing it with my own eyes was different. Purgatory’s reflection had changed over the span of many years, the buildings growing so tall they nearly brushed the sky, but seeing this skyline in the distance was overwhelming.

  I called the crows by instinct, but none had fallen through with me. I hoped Gabriel would hear my cry and come find me. It was the only way to right this. Until he arrived, I would walk, searching for a fissure to descend. Except…the world was calm. It was steady. There was no buzzing current looming overhead. And it was bright; the sun blindingly so. Trees were green, their leaves swaying happily. The sky was a heartbreaking color of blue.

  The sword of Lucifer.

  Not only was Carmen in danger, every angel in existence was. We had to stop Malchazze from using it on her and against us.

  Gabriel suddenly appeared, walking through the park wearing jeans and a button-down, holding a newspaper and walking a five-pound poodle. “You rang?” he deadpanned.

  “Why aren’t you surprised?” I said, grabbing his striped shirt by the collar.

  “Carmen might have mentioned closing the veil for good, and I may have told her she had to make sure her father was inside Purgatory...”

  “And that I was out?”

  “She figured that part out on her own.”

  I let him go, sorry that I’d frightened the dog. Its tail was tucked beneath him as he cowered at Gabriel’s feet. Crouching down, I held my hand out for him to sniff. “Sorry, fella.”

  His small nose flared rapidly as he took in my scent, which probably matched Gabriel’s with the addition of cigarette. Speaking of...

  He pulled a pack out of the pocket of his shirt. “They might be smashed now,” he smarted. I watched as a girl jogged by, her ponytail swishing from side to side. A man was yelling into his cell phone from a nearby bench. An old woman sat across from him on the other side of the path, spreading birdseed at her feet.

  “Why didn’t the crows come with me?” I thought aloud.

  Gabriel shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I’m worried about Carmen. She’s still there with her father.”

  “He has the sword of Lucifer,” I said quietly.

  Gabriel’s fists clenched around the leash. “How?”

  “Malchazze promised him her soul.”

  “We have to get back in there. We have to help her.”

  “How?” I asked. How in the hell would we get through the stone barrier she’d erected between us?

  “We have to make a plea. Just...let me get rid of the dog.” He walked to the elderly bird lover and asked her to hold his leash for a moment, muttering in angel that she loves the dog and should take him home.

  “That was uncalled for. She’s too old to care for him.”

  Gabriel laughed. “The dog is old as well. They’ll make great companions. You worry too much about small things when we have much greater things to worry about.”

  “When did we ever care this much about one soul?” I asked.

  “She’s a good person. Beneath her harsh words, she is good. Carmen didn’t ask for any of this. She is an innocent.”

  Was she? “She shoved me out a fissure.”

  Gabriel threw his head back, laughing as he walked toward a thicket. “I bet she did. She certainly is a feisty one.”

  A growl erupted low in my chest. Not for the first time, I wondered if perhaps Gabriel cared for her in the same way I did.

  “I don’t. Our relationship is friendly, whereas yours is... passionate. Though, I worry that when we make our plea, that may be a determining factor and a negative one for Carmen.”

  “I won’t lie about it, Gabriel.”

  “I should hope not. The truth will be known.”

  Away from human eyes, Gabriel took my hand. If I had wings, the contact wouldn’t be necessary, but my wings were stuck in Purgatory with Carmen. I just hoped I could get them all out of there.

  It had been far too long since I walked the streets of Heaven, golden and soft beneath the skin of my bare feet. The eyes of many angels caught on my form until they saw my face. They initially assumed I was among the fallen, that my wings had torn away when I fell from grace. In a way, I was. I fell, just not from Heaven. Many eons ago I was charged with protecting someone, and I failed because I was distracted; a distraction that I’ve paid for in spades.

  I may not have fallen from Heaven into Hell, but being thrown into Purgatory was a hell in its own right. My wings were torn away when I entered that place, and the crows became my only companions.

  Heaven knew I loved Carmen, and Heaven knew we’d physically sealed our union by making love. I knew the rules and that relations with humans were forbidden, so it was only a matter of time before punishment was meted out. This time, I hoped it earned me a one-way ticket back to Purgatory, back to her. Realistically, I knew it wouldn’t be allowed, but someone had to get her out of there.

  A light breeze stirred. I heard the moment my oldest friend sniffed the air. Gabriel’s feet stilled and the smile he wore slowly slid from his lips. His countenance darkened as his wings violently shredded his shirt. Like a bull seeing the color red, his nostrils flared. “What did you do? I smell her on you.”

  “From your reaction, I’m assuming you already know.”

  His lips thinned. “I want to hear it from your lips. Tell me how you took advantage of her.”

  My shoulders, forgetting they bore no wings, flexed, tearing the scars open again. Red hot pain seared my flesh, two ribbons that would never heal. Two twin paths of warm blood trailed from the wounds. “I did not take advantage of her.”

  “Oh, because, let me guess,” Gabriel mocked. “You love her. You’ve only known her for minutes, Michael. She’s so young. She was raised by Malchazze. She’s never had love or affection. You weren’t the first she used to cool the ache in her heart, and you won’t be the last. Carmen is a spoiled child trapped in the body of a woman. She wields it well, but you should have known better.”

  “She deserves better than me, I know, but I was tired of pushing her away when I wanted nothing but her. Judge me if you must, but I won’t yield. I love her.” It was the only truth I did know.

  Gabriel spat at my feet. “You know nothing of love. Love is putting someone else’s needs above your own. You have only ever considered yourself since…”

  “Say her name!” I roared.

  “No.”

  “Say it. You want me to grovel? I will. I am sorry. Eulalia… My failure to protect her? That was an accident. I’ve paid years of penance for trying to help her mother when I should have been watching over her. You didn’t know that, though, did you? You assumed I loved the woman, but I didn’t. However, in trying to help Eulalia, I knew that her mother had to be helped first. She was possessed by a powerful demon, so I took her to a priest and held her down as he exorcised her. The act took two days; time enough for me to lose focus on my charge, and for the bastards to torture her thirteen-year-old body to death.”

  Gabriel’s jaw ticked.

  “I wonder why in Heaven they omitted that part of the story, Gabriel?”

  He shook his head and then lunged, catching my throat in his hand. Within a second, he lowered me and wrapped Elysian cord around my wrists. “This time is different, Michael. This time you broke the rules knowing the consequence. This time, you chose to fall.”

  Shoving me forward, I glanced behind me at the beautiful gates, solid and made entirely of pearl, shining and welcoming. I’d almost made it inside them. But in that moment, I knew I’d never se
e them again.

  Gabriel stretched his wings wide and lifted me off the ground. “There will be a tribunal. Tonight. And you will pay for hurting her.”

  I didn’t hurt her; I loved her, but I’d pay all the same. Gabriel would never understand. He would never concede an inch of his position that he was right and I was wrong. His eyes only saw in black and white. Shades of gray were lost on him, worthless hues that clouded the eyes of the weak.

  He was taking me to Marum, a secret, bottom-level domain of Heaven itself, where punishment would be decided and meted out by one of the seven angels charged with the task. It was why the fallen chose to leap to their possible deaths, onto the earthen plane. Marum was a place of nightmares for our kind, and mine was just beginning.

  “You have to go to her, Gabriel.”

  I could hear his teeth grind together.

  “She’s still weak. Malchazze will kill her.”

  Gabriel smiled from above me. “But she isn’t weak. I strengthened her. I gave her an Angel stone, as well.”

  That was why her mind had been so quiet. The stone cloaked her thoughts. “Why would you do that?” I roared, rage pulsing through my veins. I wanted to tear him apart, piece by piece, peeling away an inch of his flesh at a time.

  “I did it to protect her from you, and to make her strong enough to physically fight for herself. It was the only way she could survive him.”

  “I can’t feel her, Gabriel.”

  He shook his head as if cobwebs had formed within it. “Neither can I, but she sealed the veil. She did what she knew she was capable of doing. Carmen only needed someone to believe in her.”

  “And I suppose you were the one who bolstered her confidence?” I growled.

  “Of course I did,” he spat, lowering us through layers of clouds, each darker than the last. He let go of me and I fell to the ground, to the top of a snow-capped peak. Dark clouds swirled around menacingly.

  “Kushiel!” Gabriel called out.

  The clouds swirled faster until Kushiel’s white wings appeared from the center of the storm. “You called?”

  Gabriel smiled. “Michael has fornicated with a human. More specifically, with the daughter of Malchazze.”

  Kushiel’s gaze was feline, predatory as he reached to his side, sliding his palm over the burning leather of his whip. It was made of hellfire, and only he could wield it and contain its power. He used it to break angels. I was next. “After the tribunal, you’re mine,” he promised.

  I looked at Gabriel, whose prim look of satisfaction made me want to tear him apart, limb from limb. “Find a way to get to her.”

  “She controls the way in and out now,” he said. “She has to open a doorway.”

  I shook my head, staring at the blood seeping red through the pure snow beneath my knees. “She’s in danger. If you really care about her at all, as an innocent, please help her. Someone can help her or give you the power to do it.”

  He turned his back, flapping his wings once, twice. His feet lifted from the ground and I stood on my knees. “Help her!” I pleaded.

  Gabriel wouldn’t look at me. “Help. Her. Gabriel!”

  Kushiel grinned at me before winking. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

  I wouldn’t. I was getting the hell out of Marum, one way or another. Conjuring flame, I willed it to burn the Elysian cord. The bitter wind, filled with bits of snow and frost swirled, extinguishing the flame every time I lit it. Rising to my feet, I started down the mountain. I had to get into the trees below, where the fire might stand a chance. It would take days to get there. Fear fueled my feet. Fear and love. I had to get to her before Malchazze could hurt her again.

  CARMEN

  Slowly, Malchazze’s body turned to ash, a flaking husk of a soul. I cupped my hands like I’d seen Michael do and blew a long breath at the corpse. It flecked away slowly, and then all the pieces of him took flight, disintegrating in the air before reaching the ground. A wave of nausea threatened to take me under. What would happen to the earthen body of the man Malchazze used to occupy? What do I do now?

  Screaming and wailing from below the castle answered the thought. First, I would kick the Lessons out of the city, but not before allowing them to clean it up. I wish I had something more comfortable to wear. As I walked from the balcony, the sound of swishing and sighing fabric as it caressed the stone floor stopped. The corset was gone, as were the skirts. In its wake was a flexible, black, metallic second skin. Chain mail, but so fine it wasn’t something a human could create. I jogged and it didn’t hold me back. I swung my arms up and down, side to side. It hugged me, but allowed the movement. The fine hair along the back of my neck danced in delight. I reached up to find a high collar…of crow feathers.

  I was the Keeper of Crows now.

  Jogging down the stairs, I ran for the exit, for room to breathe. The castle was stifling in a way I didn’t understand. Maybe it was Malchazze’s lingering presence. I called to the sky for a single crow. When one looked down, I held a finger out, silently ordering it to land. When the bird’s feet wrapped around my skin, it was a gentle hold.

  I stroked its feathers, walking toward the breach in the wall where the Lessons were. I called them to stop and they obeyed. They were out of sight, but the commotion came to an abrupt halt. The screaming ended. The sounds of terror, already a memory.

  “What is your name?” I asked the fowl.

  One hundred eleven, it answered in my mind. They were numbered.

  “How many of you exist?”

  It stepped farther down my finger, perching near the second knuckle. Seven thousand, seven hundred, seventy-seven.

  “Am I your Keeper?”

  The bird cawed loudly once. All other swirling birds echoed above us.

  My boots clacked loudly across the cobbled streets as I wound through the labyrinth. I was the Keeper of Crows. I was… the Keeper of Purgatory.

  Souls peeked from windows in the buildings that rose into the sky. I heard every hushed whisper. They wondered who I was, how I’d killed Malchazze, why the crows answered to me, what had happened to the Keeper. The answer was simple. I happened. And it was time they knew who held the power.

  I stood on the balcony and looked below. With my mind, I called the Lessons to the Meat district and told them to wait for me there. The streets were desolate, wrinkled gray paper tumbling down the streets. Foul-smelling liquid trickled along the sides into sewers. Waste. This part of the city was a wasteland. It was time to clean it up.

  There was a square of concrete, cracked and bleeding weeds, each as gray as the pavement. The sky roiled along with my heart. This was where they hurt my mother. This was where they would pay for it.

  Tar-filled eyes and ears, mouths covered with flesh, the Lessons waited as I climbed onto a fire escape to speak with them, to give them their orders.

  “You are to hurt no ordinary soul. If you harm a single, innocent soul, I will end all of you. You are to take out the trash. And by ‘trash’, I mean anyone who owns, trafficks, or tries to sell one of these souls as slaves, for sex or otherwise. You are to end the merchants. Send them all to Hell.”

  With that order, they went to work. Raiding the buildings, they dispatched the occupants according to my instructions. I felt the souls. They weren’t being harmed. I could feel them all, I realized. Every single soul in Purgatory had a distinct taste, and I felt them on my tongue. The most bitter were bursting on it; those who traded people for sex and goods, those who hurt my mother. More fireworks. Wisps of light flew into the air, bursting, my crows swallowing them whole and then carrying them through the veil only because I allowed it. The veil was strong, but I made it flexible again. I wanted the garbage out of this place.

  I didn’t realize I’d unsealed it enough for an archangel to enter, but Gabriel landed on the ground in front of me, his broadsword raised and ready to slice through any threat. When he found none, his eyes landed on me. “What are you doing?” His eyes were wide. “Where is Malchazze? Mi
chael said you were in danger.”

  “Michael was wrong.” I felt the sword of Lucifer warming the bones of my spine. It ached to split Gabriel in two. “I don’t need your help. Leave, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel’s long hair curled across his face in the wake of the feathers and wings above. “Where is Malchazze? Did you end him?”

  “We did—the birds killed him, actually.” I climbed down from the fire escape and walked to him. His tattoos swirled, more gray than black like Michael’s. They matched his wings, his eyes. A million questions rolled through his eyes, but I didn’t want to answer a single one of them.

  Gabriel looked to the castle above us, a sliver of dark stone peeking through the city streets. Muttering a curse, he listened to the buildings around us. “Why are the souls being dispatched so quickly?”

  “I’m doing what no one else had the balls to do. I’m cleaning up Purgatory, starting with the garbage.”

  He looked at the tagged brick around us, and then at the ground, littered with glass and dark feathers. “Carmen, there are risks—”

  From the street came a loud, echoing hiss. A snake, black and glittering as the veil itself slithered through the debris. Gabriel tensed, used his wings to propel him off the ground, and slashed at the serpent. The animal vanished in a haze of dark smoke, a sickening laugh filling the air.

  “Seal the veil again,” he commanded.

  “Where will the souls go? Don’t the crows have to carry them away?”

  “They’ll hold them until you unseal it, but please trust me when I say that was just a test. The next step is Lucifer showing up himself. That sword is bound to him, and him to it.”

  When his feet found the concrete, I finally relaxed enough to ask, “Is he okay?”

  “Who?” Gabriel asked.

  “Michael.”

  “He was okay when I left him.” I didn’t like the harshness of his voice.