by Sam Cheever
I exited the Viper when it settled into hover and strode toward Enoch. As I approached I took note of the slightly worried aspect to his dark eyes.
Despite how human literature had always portrayed angels, not all angels are light-skinned and golden-haired. Most are, I’ll admit but some, like Enoch, are olive-skinned and black-haired.
Such pretty black hair too. It shone every bit as much as my father’s did, with purple lights instead of golden ones and fell smoothly and softly to his shoulders, where it curled just the tiniest bit over his shoulders. It never moved. And unlike mine at that moment, it never looked like it had been flipped upside down and then jerked right side up again.
I reached up and self-consciously pushed a few strands that had been sticking up on my head like dork horns back into place.
Enoch was dressed in full Cherubim regalia and literally glowed with celestial power.
As had always been my right and inclination, I walked directly up to him and pecked him on a warm, olive-toned cheek.
“Blessings to you in His name, Astra.”
I smiled, happy to see an old friend, despite the less than peaceful way he’d called me to him. “Enoch, how they hangin’?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Your father would soil his gowns if he heard you speak to me this way.”
I laughed too. It had always been a private joke between us, my irreverence and his pretended shock. “But you won’t tell him will you, Enoch? Because I know your deepest, darkest secrets.”
This also had been a private joke between us. Cherubim are the holders of knowledge in the celestial hierarchy. They are rumored to know all of His secrets as well as the extent of the divine essence of the Big House.
Since I’d been a small child I had taunted Enoch with this statement, though I really knew nothing that would get him into serious trouble.
I’d caught him staring at Myra with something more than brotherly love once. But that wasn’t really enough to get him dumped from the order.
Though he had made it clear he’d rather I didn’t tell my father about it.
He’d always laughed and chucked me under the chin when I’d made my childhood threat, telling me that he’d remain silent if I would.
This time, however, his face moved into a frown before he could stop it and I saw the look of worry in his dark eyes before he again smoothed his features into an insincere smile. “Some secrets bring more pain and devastation than others, Astra. Take care with them.”
My grin faded from my face. “Okay, what’s up? I’ve never seen you looking so worried.”
He clasped his hands in front of his body as if in prayer, it was a common affectation among the angel elite and I suspected they used it as much to remind you of their status as anything.
I needed no reminder of Enoch’s status.
“It is with a heavy heart that I come to you, Astra. I fear I have bad news.” He stopped and peered at me through narrowed eyes as if to gage my reaction.
“Go on.” I wasn’t nearly as calm as I made myself appear. I thought I had a pretty good idea what was coming.
He sighed. “I have been tasked with monitoring your father’s activities. The council suspects that he is working at cross purposes to the divine goal.”
I forced my face to remain impassive and shrugged. “That’s ridiculous.”
He nodded. “I would agree with you, Astra,” long, significant pause, “if I didn’t know that he is working with your mother on something that he won’t share with me.”
I found I couldn’t keep my gaze on his angelic face any longer. I turned my face away and stared off into the tree line with a heavy heart. But I forced my posture to remain relaxed. “They can barely stand each other. You have gotten bad information from someone, Enoch.”
Silence was his only response. I could feel his assessing gaze and knew it had been a mistake to turn away but I just couldn’t meet his eyes with my own doubts so clearly outlined in mine.
Finally he said, “Astra, I know it is difficult to accept but it appears that your father has fallen beyond what is acceptable. Your mother has been known to stain his soul before, she is fully capable of continuing the practice.”
Anger like hot lead hit my stomach and I whipped around with fire in my eyes as well as my belly. “That’s just pure shit, Enoch! You of all creatures should understand how strong my father is! He’s not some empty-headed zombie to be used by my mother and thrown away. If he’s involved in one of her schemes he has a damned good reason for it.”
His eyes widened slightly with sudden understanding. “So you do know something?”
I frowned. “I don’t know anything except that my father would never go against the divine goal. He’s never done anything to hurt the celestial army and he wouldn’t do anything now. Where’s your faith in him, Enoch?”
He cocked his silky dark head and peered at me through angry chocolate eyes. His strong jaw clenched just the tiniest bit as if he were holding back a strong emotion of some kind. I figured he was torn between his duty and his friendship and the spark of anger in his beautiful eyes was probably the result of being put into a very frustrating spot. “I love your father, Astra but I cannot allow my love for him to blind me to his wrongdoing.” He stopped took a deep breath and continued as if it was paining him greatly to say what needed to be said next.
“Astra, we have been aware for a while now that someone is working from within to interfere with the divine goal. At first we thought it was one of the hopefuls…”
The hopefuls were those who waited between Heaven and Hell for their placement to be decided. Some humans’ lives are easily judged and they are either dropped unceremoniously into the fires of Hell or are ushered directly through the beautiful gates to the Big House. However, some, in fact most, require a period of evaluation before they can be judged. These often work for the celestial army, performing unimportant but necessary tasks to bide their time and prove their worthiness.
I knew that some of the hopefuls had been evil in their human lives but not evil enough to get thrown directly into Hell. These were sometimes allowed to work for many centuries as Hopefuls, in an effort to cleanse their souls enough to allow them entrance through the gates.
Unfortunately, however, the occasional Hopeful was actually a plant for the other side and they’d been known to create serious problems for the good guys before they were discovered and fast tracked into the fires of Hades.
What can I say, every system has its bugs.
“But we’ve recently discovered that it could only be one of the angels. In fact,” Enoch said, watching me closely, “we believe there are several dark angels at work here. Of which your father is believed to be the leader.”
My eyes widened at this but I was momentarily shocked into silence.
Enoch, unfortunately taking my silence for acceptance, continued, “I must stop him, Astra. And I need your help.”
My mouth opened in shock and I leaned toward him angrily. “You’ve already decided his guilt, without any evidence at all! What kind of friend are you?”
Enoch’s olive skin deepened in anger. “I’m the kind of friend who wants to stop him before he does something he can’t live with!”
“Bullshit!”
His wings flew out from behind his back and started whipping angrily, pulling dust and debris from the grass and flinging it in stinging gusts against my face. His aura deepened to purple and I could feel the heat of his anger throbbing around him in dense waves but I didn’t care. This creature had turned his back on my father at the slightest sign of impropriety without giving him the most basic trust that he knew what he was doing and would do what was right.
I turned away from him and stalked toward the Viper. The huge wings beat with more agitation and, though he stood several feet away from me, I felt his hot, angry breath on my back.
“Do not walk away from me!”
A chill, sharp and icy with dread, ran down my spine but
I didn’t stop. In fact I picked up my pace until I was almost running. Suddenly he was in front of me again, his face almost unrecognizable in its anger. He had grown in stature until he was about ten feet tall. With his wings fully expanded he was easily twenty feet across.
A very effective wall with which to stop my escape.
I briefly considered trying to shift again but decided my shifting skills weren’t fine-tuned enough to pinpoint my landing inside the Viper.
Hell, they weren’t good enough to land me in the wide open clearing with any guarantee that I wouldn’t land inside a tree or under the ground.
With my luck I’d end up as part of the Viper, blinking from the surface of the metal like an oversized bidjie bug.
So instead I crossed my arms and stood my ground, glaring at the very large, extremely angry angel who was exhibiting very un-angel-like behavior.
He took several steps forward and lowered his anger-darkened face to me. When he spoke his words came out with such force that they boomed across the clearing and I found myself blinking as each one hit me.
“Do. You. Know. Where. King. Dialle. The. First. Is?”
I worked very hard at keeping my face unreadable. Given the fact that I was scared out of my knickers and even the soles of my feet were sweaty, I wasn’t sure how well I succeeded. “That would be a negative.”
He threw back his dark head and roared in anger. I watched with a clinical detachment I was rather proud of. I’d never seen one of the celestial army come all unglued. It was fascinating to say the least.
But when those dark features pointed back toward me I had to fight an urge to step away. He hovered over me, obviously trying to intimidate me with his size and anger.
Then, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, he seemed to realize how far he’d fallen from accepted behavior and took a deep breath. Closing his eyes he stepped away from me and assumed prayer stance. I watched, fascinated as he shrank back to a normal, human-like size and refolded his wings behind his back.
When he spoke again his voice no longer boomed off the surrounding trees.
“I am called to enlist your help in monitoring your father. The order comes not from me but from Him.”
Now that was just too much. “You want me to spy on my father!” In my shock and disgust my voice had reached an unfortunate pitch that all too closely resembled screeching. I cleared my throat before continuing. “Go to Hell!”
“He’s one of the dark angels, Astra.”
“That’s a lie!”
I walked around him and headed for the Viper. This time he didn’t try to stop me.
His voice came to me in my head as I instructed the Viper to seal and climb.
Your mission has been proclaimed by Him, Astra. You cannot deny it.
My only thought at that moment was to get the Hades out of there. “Just watch me,” I murmured as the Viper cleared the treetops and shot away from the clearing at deadly speed.
I didn’t look back but out of the corner of my eye I saw the burst of light that told me Enoch had returned to the Big House. Most likely to report my lack of enthusiasm for my latest assignment.
Suddenly feeling like I wanted to find a dark corner and assume the fetal position, I decided it was getting much harder to tell the good guys from the bad ones. Some days they looked way too much alike.
I felt like everyone in the world was pissed off and looking for me and I wasn’t sure where to go. Home and the office were out for obvious reasons. I wasn’t ready to face my father yet and visiting my mother was proving to be extremely painful.
I thought about Raoul but it had just occurred to me that he had probably known about my mother all along and hadn’t bothered to tell me. We would need to have a discussion about that in the near future.
I considered calling Myra but I was reluctant to face her for the same reason I wanted to avoid my father.
Sighing resignedly, I realized my choice was already made for me.
* * * * *
Emo lived in an apartment building just up the street from the office. I had spent many hours in that apartment as a friend and even as a boss. But as I hit the button in the flash for Emo’s floor, I felt like I was entering the building for the first time and I wasn’t sure what my role was this time.
Boss? I thought he still worked for me.
Friend? Well yeah but somehow…more.
He opened the door before I could knock and stood looking at me, his face a study in mixed feelings.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, boss.”
We stood there for a few beats and then, in desperation I said, “Can I come in?”
He seemed reluctant to let me through the door but finally he stepped back and I pushed past him into the room.
The apartment was small, consisting of one large room that held both a food service and living area and a second room off to the side that I knew contained a bed and a place to store his clothes.
The personal hygiene room was off the tiny bedroom. I would have loved to go in and wash my face but I somehow couldn’t bring myself to walk past his bed.
He stood looking at me. Waiting for me to explain why I’d come. I felt his obvious reluctance to re-engage our friendship like a knife between the ribs. Under the current circumstances it was a devastating realization.
“Maybe I should just go,” I said, struggling to hold back tears. I turned away and he grabbed my arm.
Turning me to face him, he pulled me close. His arms wrapped me up in a tight, emotion-filled hug.
It was too much for me. I started to cry.
And then sob.
And then my emotional outburst degenerated into something that would have frightened small animals and children.
Emo held me until I stopped wailing and then walked me to the largest piece of furniture in the room and sat us both down with his arm still around my shoulders.
I took the drying nose spray he handed me and snorted up a couple of good shots of the stuff, wishing he had something to spray into my eyes to sop up the tide of salt water there and return them to their normal size and color.
Handing the spray back to him I tried a weak smile. “You’re all soggy.”
He looked down at his shirt and grinned. “The neighbors probably called the Death Detectives. I haven’t heard sounds that tortured since the last time you interrogated a target demon.”
I smacked him on the arm and grinned back at him. I felt our relationship regaining its sea legs. “It wasn’t as bad as the last time I whooped your ass in training. You wailed like a baby for hours afterward.”
“Yeah, right, Astra. In your dreams. You barely scratched me.”
We sat grinning at each other for a few beats and then he dropped his arm from my shoulder and squeezed my hand. “So tell me. What’s wrong?”
I told him everything, realizing as I told him about Danika Phelps that he’d already known about my mother’s career as Supreme High Witch. I tried not to let that make me mad and I almost succeeded.
When I finished I asked, “So how long have you known about my mother?”
He shrugged and sat back on the divan, dropping my hand. “I’ve always known. But your sister made me promise not to tell you.”
I frowned. “Darma knew?”
Emo nodded.
I stared at my hands and thought about this for a minute and then looked back up at him. “How long?”
“As long as I’ve known you. It was one of the reasons she was never around. Your father did everything he could to make up for her being gone. Darma too.”
“I know that, Emo. That’s what makes this so hard now. I just refuse to believe James Phelps is a dark angel. It’s not possible!” I stood up and started pacing, unable to sit there and calmly discuss the ridiculous accusations Enoch had made.
Emo watched me pace for a few minutes and then said. “There’s only one thing we can do.”
I stopped pacing and looked at him. “What?”
He gave me a long, slow smile and I felt my nose and other parts tingle in response. “We need to go stealth.”
I stared at him for a few beats and then my lips started to curl upward. “You in?”
“I’m in.”
I nodded once and sat down on the divan to start planning.
* * * * *
The quarter moon threw a stingy light into the night as the Viper glided in silence toward the hulking shadow of my father’s house. After much deliberation we’d decided to start there so we could rule it out as the place where the king was being held first.
The Viper dropped into silent hover in a wide, sandy beach at the bottom of the cliff under the Phelps fortress. Darma and I had climbed the rocks and played on that beach when we were kids. We’d reached it through a series of tunnels that ran from the lowest level of the fortress down to the river.
It was the perfect hiding spot for the Viper and the ideal way into the house.
I stepped out of the Viper and looked over it to Emo. Like me, he was dressed entirely in black and had black powder smeared on his face to help him blend into the night. The sliver of moon pulled a soft gleam off his silky black hair, which he’d pulled back into a tight ponytail at the back of his neck. A telltale spark in his eyes told me he was looking forward to the adventure.
I smiled at him and watched white teeth slide into view, Cheshire Cat-like. “Are you clear on the plan?”
He nodded. “We enter through the river tunnels and search the dungeon first.”
I nodded. I figured if my father was hiding anyone in the house it would be there. When the original house was copied, the dungeon had been recreated in all its glory. Complete with rings on the wall and chains bolted to the floor.
Much to Danika’s delight and James’ disgust.
Although this type of constraint would certainly not be enough to hold a royal devil king, I had to figure if he was going to be held that would be the place it would be done.
At least it was a good place to start.
The recipient of tributaries from at least three other rivers, the Angel City River was its usual frantic, angry self. Lined on both sides by tall jagged rocks, the river had always been a crashing, spraying entity that was soothing from high above but a bit nerve jangling in close proximity to its violence.