by R. K. Ryals
“Dayton!” I called in my head.
“Get him inside!” Luther shouted.
My head hung, hands grasping my body to transport me from the entrance to the manor’s living room. It was a large wine-colored space with recessed lighting, the main feature a floor-to-ceiling picture window with a magnificent, devastating view of the storm outside.
“There was nothing I could do,” Maria’s voice sobbed. She was sitting on the sofa, Alessandro kneeling on the floor beside her. Emma perched next to her, her sad gaze finding Conor’s.
Something was eating my skin, sending, pain, fear, and terror surging through my system.
“She’s gone,” Conor said.
“He’s bleeding,” Monroe repeated.
I’d landed on the floor, my knees resting against brick, my fists driving into the hard surface, my muscles straining.
“Dayton,” I managed through gritted teeth. “What happened?” My head lifted. “Where is she?”
Maria’s sobs had slowed, immense fear turning her wrinkled face pale, her knuckles white around the rosary she clutched. “They came for her,” she said. “An angel and a demon. Sophia,” Maria’s voice cracked. “The angel was Sophia.”
“Does anyone care,” Monroe broke in, “that Marcas is bleeding? If he’s bleeding then so is Dayton!” She tried reaching for me, but I glanced up, my darkening eyes chasing her away. There were small wounds appearing all over my body, knicks marked by dripping blood.
“Touch me, and I lose it,” I warned. It was taking every bit of control I had to remain upright and alert. Kind offer or no, I couldn’t afford to be weak. “Someone get Lucas now!”
Emma’s eyes dropped to the blood dripping to the floor beneath me. “We may need to—”
“Get the goddamned Fallen angel here now!” I roared, my fist pounding the brick to fight the next wave of pain that hit me. The scary part wasn’t the pain. I’d dealt with a lot of that in my lifetime, some of the most horrific pain a person could go through. The scary part was that this was Dayton’s pain, and without a lifetime of suffering to cushion the blow, she was going to lose her mind.
“Quit bellowing at everyone,” a voice called. “I’m here.”
My jaw tensed against the feelings swamping me, I forced my head up, my blurred gaze finding the fallen Angel who’d appeared before me. Lucas knelt, oblivious to the blood, his blue gaze flashing from mine to Luther’s.
“The Demon of Envy is responsible for this?” Lucas asked.
“Every last bit,” Luther answered, his eyes crimson, his anger a palpable entity.
Lucas’ gaze fell back to mine. “Then what I’ve heard is true.” His eyes swept the room, landing on Alessandro. “We’re going to need that prophet. We’re going to need everyone. As many people as you can find.”
Swallowing past the pain in my throat and chest, I pounded the brick again. Pain to dull the pain. “What has she done, Lucas?” I asked. “What has Sophia done?”
The angel looked at me. “She fell to temptation, to the growing jealousy she felt for Dayton. It put darkness in her heart.” He glanced around the room. “Angels fall, and when the truly great ones do, you get chaos. Sophia was as highly ranked as Lucifer at his fall.”
Sophia was a Seraphim, the same type of angel Lucas had been. He’d shared her rank once, his own fall a tragic one, and I fought to keep my head up, my gaze on his. “What do the great ones want when they fall?”
Lucas glanced at Luther. “What all great ones want. Power. Only Sophia went one step further than any of the Fallen before her.” His gaze went to the sky beyond the living room window, to the lightning, the rolling clouds, and the eerie red haze that was beginning to spread across the land. “She allied herself with a demon, allowing him into her heart and her body, both physically and mentally. She wants to be God.”
“And Beez wants to be Satan,” Luther added.
“What does that mean for everyone else?” Monroe asked. She’d leaned down next to Luther, her gaze sweeping my frame, eyeing the gashes in my skin. As a witch and a daughter of Hecate, she was sensitive to the rifts between the realms, her desire to call souls home and give them peace odd paired with Luther’s greed.
“The Heavens will fall to the earth, and Hell will rise to join it,” Maria said, her voice flat and drained of emotion, as if the horror of it had driven her into shock.
“What does that mean?” Emma asked.
Conor, who’d been watching me as closely as Monroe, glanced at Emma, his eyes cold. “The prophecy,” he muttered. “In the name of retribution, a relationship will arise between an angel and a demon. And, in the end, this relationship will destroy the world.” His hands landed on the back of the sofa where Emma sat, his fingers digging into the fabric. “Sophia wants to overthrow God. Beez wants to overthrow Satan. They’ve allied themselves. Heaven and Hell were never meant to be joined. That divide has to exist. Heaven protects what is good while Hell accepts what is evil. The grey area is earth, that great in between where mortals have free will, have the right to choose what kind of person they’ll end up being.”
Monroe gasped. “So when you take away the divide …”
“You’re destroying earth,” Conor finished.
“The Heavens will fall to earth,” Maria repeated, “and Hell will rise to join it.”
“Earth dies,” Emma breathed.
“A very slow, very painful death,” Lucas interjected.
Nothing they said mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was the pain, the utter agony that ripped through my system. I could feel Dayton’s mind slipping, could feel everything I’d fought to keep, to protect, begin to slide through my fingers.
“We need to find Dayton,” Monroe said, fear coloring her voice.
Conor released the couch. “Where is she?” he asked, his eyes on Lucas.
The Fallen angel shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“She’s dying,” I said suddenly, my eyes falling closed. The pain to my body was nothing compared to the pain in my heart.
“What do you mean?” Monroe demanded. She’d leaned close to me, her voice trembling.
Someone joined her, and I knew without looking that it was Conor. I didn’t have to see their faces to know the maelstrom of emotions crossing their features. Conor and Monroe were the closest thing Dayton had to family. True family, blood or no.
“Talk to us, demon,” Conor growled.
Lifting my fist, I began pounding the brick, the force cracking the mortar, blood welling up on my knuckles. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. They were breaking her. Sophia and Beez were breaking her, and it was my fault.
A wave of agony, greater than any before it, broke over me, Dayton’s screams in my head suddenly so loud, even my pounding fist couldn’t drown it out. A roar followed. It was a mighty roar full of grief and despair, so devastating the manor walls trembled.
It was a tragic roar.
It was heartbreaking.
It was mine.
Chapter 9
Love is a funny thing. So is the divide between Heaven and Hell. There are many rules governing gods and monsters. It’s harder being a god. Where demons are encouraged to wallow in bad vices, angels are expected to be flawless, moral, and emotionless. Serene and impartial. There’s no such thing as a fallen demon. Demons are too low to fall. But you can’t get any higher than an angel. Demons may not fall, but angels often do. Because when you’re as high as an angel, the only way to go is down. Once they fall, there’s a thin line between the Fallen and Hell. The Fallen often become demons. After all, even Lucifer started off as an angel. The Fallen are stronger than they appear. They have to be to balance that divide, to remain devoted to Heaven while tempted by sin. Take Lucas, for example. I may not always like him, but I deeply respect his control.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Dayton
Pain …
Insects consumed me, crawling on and under my skin, entering my nose an
d mouth, choking me. I was drowning in the pain, the fear, and my tears. I kept pulling at my light, yelling frantically for Marcas, for anything and anyone. There was nothing except agony. So much pain.
“It only gets worse,” Beez’s voice said, the dark sound breaking through the fog of delirium.
“So much worse,” Sophia’s voice joined his.
I wanted to die. Living was harder now than the idea of existing for an eternity in a pit of fire. There was only pain, and the constant wish for death.
“Marcas!” I screamed, and when he didn’t answer, I sunk to a dark place, to a numb place where only anguish lived.
I’d grown weak, nausea rolling through me, the need to vomit colliding with dizziness and cold extremities when the insects suddenly rose up from my flesh, rising in a cloud of horrific, black, angry buzzing. They hovered, a constant threat, mocking me.
“Have we hurt him enough, you think?” Sophia asked through the haze of suffering, her voice switching from cold to giddy. It was strange, her fluctuating emotions.
Beez leaned over me, over my ravaged body covered now in welts, blisters, and gashes from the insects, and he laughed. My skin burned, the thought of moving too painful to consider.
My lips parted, but no words came out, my face so swollen I could barely exhale.
“That’s right,” the demon above me sneered, “he’s the reason for all of this. Remember that, naphil. Remember that this is happening to you because of Marcas Craig. You’re being punished for his sins. It’s a bitch isn’t it?”
“No,” I thought. “This isn’t his fault. It’s not Marcas’ fault.”
I kept repeating the words over and over in my head. “This isn’t his fault. It’s not Marcas’ fault.” And yet, despite the resounding chant, my mind was having a hard time separating the pain in my body from Beez’s words.
“Remember that this is happening to you because of Marcas,” Beez repeated.
With the words came more agony. His hand rose, and I screamed. I screamed and I screamed. I screamed because he was boiling me alive, my skin turning pink and burning, pounded relentlessly by hot steam. He started with my feet, the pain so intense that I screamed despite my swelling throat. There was no way to describe the pain. It was simply waves and waves of agony.
In the end, it was too much, my mind slipping, my body welcoming the oblivion that passing out would give me. My eyes rolled back into my head, but when the void finally beckoned … he wouldn’t even give me that much.
“No, no, naphil,” the demon called. “You will stay awake, you understand. You’re going to remain alert, and you’re going to fall apart. Remember this is happening because of Marcas Craig.”
“No, this isn’t his fault … it’s not …”
My body bucked, arching, my boiling sticky, burning flesh fusing to the shackles binding me, ripping at the weak skin.
“On a good note,” the demon laughed, “if you were human, you’d have long since been dead.”
I’d never hated my heritage as much as I did now just when I’d learned to accept it, when I’d come to appreciate that being what I was meant being able to love Marcas.
“Please.”
It was the last thought I had before even thinking was too much, when the waves of crashing pain became so unbearable that the only thing I could do was lay there, unmoving, my body riding the anguish. There was no screaming, no thrashing, and no hidden pleas.
I simply lay there, staring blankly, no longer able to separate my body from the pain. I was pain, and the pain was me.
There was only terror and hatred.
I wasn’t Dayton anymore.
I was pain.
In the long run, if I’d had the ability to think, I would have laughed at the irony of it all. How the journey I’d traveled with Marcas when I was seventeen had transformed me, how I’d not only learned to love but to share myself. Now, years later, that same journey was being destroyed by love. Darkness had descended, coloring me with sorrow and confusion, with fear and shame.
There was a war, and my body was the battlefield, ravaged and pillaged, crushing what had once been full of life and leaving behind death.
I was pain.
Chapter 10
It doesn’t matter what you are—mortal, god, monster—terrible, atrocious things are often done in the name of power and retribution. It’s worse when the need for power collides with the need for vengeance, when jealousy, envy, and greed become one sentient being rather than separate emotions. This hyped up cocktail of feelings turns ordinary beings into super villains.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Marcas
My roaring pain had turned into anger, a sweeping rage so fierce I saw only red, the need to draw blood an overwhelming one. It was so overpowering that I pulled away from the group in the living room, withdrawing into the corner, my hand dragging up the wall, using the support to push myself up.
My head hung, my muscles a tensed, corded mess.
“I’m going to kill them,” I breathed.
Lucas approached me. I knew it was him because Dayton’s blood sang when he was near, the angel in her calling out to what was left of the angel in him.
“Good,” Lucas said, “Because right now killing them may be the only way to stop this.”
Luther’s voice rose to join Lucas’ “They’re not going to kill her, Marcas.”
My gaze went over my shoulder, my fangs out, my lips curled back in a snarl. “They already have.”
A sudden sob shook Monroe’s shoulder, and Luther’s hand slid onto it, squeezing. “Beez needs Dayton to overthrow Satan. He needs the angel in her. He’s a strong demon, but he was born in the fire pits of Hell. Lucifer was born in Heaven. To defeat him, Beez will use both Sophia and Dayton. He’ll use Dayton because of you.”
The agony from before gripped me. Because of you.
“Don’t,” Conor said suddenly, his voice startling all of us. He stepped toward me. “You can’t blame yourself right now. Because if you do, we’ll lose Dayton for sure.”
“How do we find her?” Emma asked from her place near the sofa.
“I’ve seen her,” a voice broke in suddenly. “In a waking dream.”
My head shot up to find the prophet, Abner, standing in the doorway of the living room, Alessandro behind him.
The S.O.S leader glanced at me. “I figured he could only help.”
Pushing away from the wall, I stared at the prophet, my head throbbing with fury. “Where is she?”
The man winced. “She’s in the third level of Heaven. They’ve—
“Done what they intended to her,” I finished. It wasn’t a question. It was certainty.
No one asked how I knew. No one had to, the bond between us a curse and a blessing. I’d learned to control parts of it over the years, blocking some of the pain she’d receive or vice versa, so that the fact that we shared wounds didn’t always weaken us. I’d felt what they’d done to her, but I’d also healed what I could to my own body as it happened. She’d need everything I had in me to heal her.
The prophet’s eyes were sad. “I am sorry. My dreams are terrible now, full of angry monsters. I did not see this coming. An angel of God turning on Heaven.”
“It happens, prophet,” Lucas murmured, his gaze swinging to mine. “Third Heaven is a terrible place, the level between the corrupt and the incorrupt. I can take you.”
Abner’s head fell. “They’ve left her there for you to find.”
“Take me,” I told Lucas, my heart sinking.
The stormy world beyond beckoned, and I’d begun following Lucas when Luther’s voice stopped me.
“Brother, they’re counting on what they’ve done to her being a weakness for you.” Luther nodded at the reddening skies. “Demons count on weaknesses to rise in power. You can bring her back, you can love her, and you can protect her, but there may not be time to heal her. You may have to make a choice. Save the world or save her.”
�
��Luther!” Monroe cried.
“He’s right,” Lucas said. “It’s the quandary of gods, rulers, and power. Do you choose yourself or the greater good?”
I stared at Lucas, my face hard. “Take me to her.”
Chapter 11
If given the choice, which would you choose? Power or love? It’s something I don’t consider. When my time comes, I plan to have both.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Dayton
I heard nothing, my body a living, breathing entity of misery, my eyes on the sky above me. It was such a beautiful sky, so blue and calming. As if, should it fall, it would soothe my raw flesh. I was a parched woman staring at the water that could save my life, and there was no way to reach it.
I stared, my vision blurring but never going black. At first, I’d wished for oblivion. Now I was afraid of it, afraid the demon and angel who’d tortured me would return. My light ran over me, the power slowly healing my wounds, weakened by the torture. Even if I could move, I wouldn’t have wanted to. I wouldn’t have wanted to see the parts of me that were missing, the parts swollen beyond recognition.
I simply wanted that beautiful blue expanse above me, to drown in it.
“Dayton,” a voice called.
I screamed, terror gripping me, the voice a trigger, my eyes rolling.
“Shit!” another voice breathed. “The sadistic son of a bitch.”
This voice was familiar, as lyrical and beautiful as Sophia’s, but with an edge hers had always lacked until recently. The voice of the Fallen.
“Help me,” the first voice, the one who’d known my name, demanded.
Cringing, I fought to control my shrieks, but they wouldn’t stop. My throat could bleed, and they’d still keep coming, pouring out of me quick and brutal, ripping my esophagus to shreds.
A face appeared above me, a handsome face framed by black hair and navy eyes. It stunned me into fearful silence, my breath coming ragged and heavy. I knew this person, and I didn’t.