Equinox (Augarten Book 1)

by Charlie Godwyne

  Florian gasped and tears filled his eyes. "Gabriel," he repeated over and over. "Darling, can you hear me? Come back. Imagine your body. You have to believe that you can get your body back."

  My body? What do you mean?

  "You are only ether right now, only spirit. But you're still here, you're still in the material plane with me. You have to take your physical body back. I know you can do it."

  Then how can you see me?

  Florian's lips trembled. "You're…you're covered in ashes right now, so I can see you. I don't know how you found them—"

  "I showed him where to find the urn you buried. I showed him it was a cauldron, filled with an inheritance that was his own birthright, filled with magic. Magic, Florian, that you gave to me," Augarten said, standing over us.

  "His birthright?" Florian looked down at me and then up at the nature spirit. "Please, Augarten. I know that somehow I have made a grave mistake, but I do not know where I went wrong."

  "Why did you give me the ashes?" she asked.

  Florian swallowed. "I couldn't bear to have them in the apartment with me anymore. It was too painful. That is why I buried them near the roots of your strongest tree, so both he and I could rest."

  She flicked her ears. "My tree did what trees do—it integrated the ashes into its roots and grew them for you. The result is what you see here."

  Florian looked back to me, horror in his eyes. His mouth fell open. "Gabriel…oh, Gabriel, I have wronged you. I didn't know—"

  "Florian!"

  Solomon and Ian ran into the garden. Solomon skidded to a stop in front of Florian and stared in shock. His voice came out strangled. "I'm too late. He's gone."

  "He is not gone," Ian said firmly. "And Augarten is here." Ian bowed to the nature spirit. Augarten flicked her ears at him but otherwise did not reply.

  Solomon turned in her general direction but clearly did not see her, yet tried to communicate anyhow. "Angel of Augarten, please help Gabriel to reform his human body."

  "Are you proposing my tree regrow him? The exorcists will not miss their chance to stop it. They've missed it twice now, but not a third. And you wish me to do this without human assistance, when I have been using human magic to grow him."

  Florian gasped, his cheeks glistening from his tears. "Gabriel, the amulet. Touch my amulet. Augarten just said she was using Michi's magic to regrow you…I should have realized this before. Michi consecrated the amulet to protect me, but you should use it. Come back to me, darling."

  Augarten turned to me and sniffed, her nose twitching. "That angel is the one who is keeping you from your potential."

  I foundered at that. What?

  Florian scanned me with devastated eyes, as if he couldn't make out my shape anymore. "Gabriel, is Ian here? Call to him."

  Ian flinched. "The exorcists are coming."

  Solomon turned to Ian. "I will stop them. I'm so sorry…I all but led them here."

  "There will be time for penance later, depending on who makes it out of this alive," my angel said curtly.

  Florian leaned over me, hugging me to his chest and rocking softly. "I know you're there, Gabriel. Come back to me, sweetie. I love you. Please, Gabriel. I love you so. I heard you say it, too. You can come back. We'll figure this out together."

  His amulet fell out from his shirt and dangled over me.

  With all my might, in nothing but ether, I reached out and grasped it.

  Florian gasped and sat bolt upright. Energy flooded through me, like a dam breaking and rushing straight in. Yet it was a foreign energy, not Florian's beautiful white light but a midnight blue, darker than the night sky, and as thick as death. The amulet, all along, had been a download. A download waiting for me.

  I stood.

  Solomon's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "There he is. The ashes."

  Florian stood and took my hand. "Gabriel?"

  I looked down at myself. Indeed, I was covered in the white ashes of Florian's dead husband, his chips of bone flaking off me and falling to the ground. Yet underneath that layer, I was still invisible. I was still without a body, only etheric energy. Michi's ashes gave me form, but beneath that, I was still nothing.

  I turned to Augarten. "All along, you have been offering me the one thing that I wanted."

  She inclined her head. "I was gifted a treasure trove of human magic directly into the soil of my garden. I want it back, and you will have your story. You have but to let go and return that which you took from me."

  Squeezing Florian's hand, I held my other hand over my heart, and then out to her. "I relinquish my desire. I give up ever knowing who I am, or who I was. If you will let me live, what can I do for you in return?"

  She sniffed and tilted her head. "I want the magic back."

  You cannot give that to her, Ian commanded in my mind.

  Why?

  She does not want an urn full of ashes. That was Florian's mistake, in not realizing the ramifications of what he was doing when he buried Michi's urn under this tree in Augarten. She wants the magic that was put in the ground. That magic is attached to your soul. You cannot hand it over.

  I planted my feet on the ground, beseeching her. "I cannot give you what you ask, but I propose something in exchange. I will wield my human magic for you, every day for the rest of my life. Is that of value to you? Can that give me my body back?"

  "Stop right there!"

  Florian stepped in front to shield me. "Don't let them see the ashes, Gabriel. Get behind me."

  Three hooded figures in black robes ran through the garden gates, two in front of the third, angled protectively, as if the third exorcist were their leader.

  "Step aside, you washed-up reject," one of them shouted. "A failed priest cannot stop what must happen now."

  In a flash, Solomon dove at them, but the two lackeys overpowered him and took him down, kicking and slugging him.

  "Solomon!" I jumped forward but Florian pulled me back.

  It took a horrifyingly long time for Solomon to finally go limp, and I felt every impact as if it had been delivered to my own heart.

  Before I could protest, Florian kissed the pad of his thumb, then touched my forehead. "Light as a bird, set these ashes free. Fly, my love, fly away from me."

  With a poof, the pale grey ashes fell to the ground. Remnants of Florian's pale white magic skittered across my skin. I looked down at myself, completely invisible.

  Florian smiled. "Run."

  An exorcist kneed him in the gut.

  I reached for the black robes. "No!"

  Ian jumped in front of me, shielding me with his back. Don't touch the exorcists, Gabriel. Then it truly will be over. If they are worth their title, mere contact with them would kill you, leaving no way for Augarten to bring you back.

  With the wind knocked out of him, Florian couldn't put up much of a fight. It only took two more blows before he collapsed. One lackey threw Florian over his shoulder; the other grabbed Solomon. The central exorcist never even lowered his hood, just turned to leave without a word to Augarten.

  The nature spirit flicked her ears in annoyance. "You come to my garden as if you own the place."

  She snapped her fingers once. Magic flared around me and Ian gasped. Gabriel, she just—

  She snapped her fingers a second time, and my angel collapsed. Then she disappeared, and I rushed to his side. "Ian. What's going on?"

  He gripped his chest, heaving labored breaths, sweat dripping from his brow. "I'm okay. She could have sent me back to the astral plane, or even killed me, but she didn't. I'm still here, despite what I've done. At her mercy, I can still help you."

  I panicked—everything was wrong, and I didn't know what to do. "The exorcists took Florian and Solomon. We have to save them."

  Ian let me help him sit up, still rubbing at his sternum. "Okay. Just give me a minute."

  "We have to go after them."

  Ian nodded. "I have an idea of where they are going, but you need a plan."

/>   "You mean we, right?"

  He leveled grey eyes with me. "Where they are going is a place warded against angels...a form of hell on earth. I cannot follow you."

  Oh no. "We have to hurry."

  "No. We have a moment to think. Augarten just sent Florian and Solomon to the mental plane, their consciousness at least. They will not be awake enough to be interrogated for a while, unless the exorcists have some method of bringing them back."

  I stared at the wrought iron gate in the distance, wanting to sprint after them and throttle the exorcists. Pound them with my invisible fists.

  "Gabriel."

  I turned back to Ian and helped him to stand. "What is it?"

  My angel held a hidden sadness in his eyes. "I miss my friend."

  That took a moment to process. "Do you mean me?"

  My question clearly hurt him, but I couldn't think of an apology in that moment.

  Yet what he said had to be true—we had to be friends, because although I did not know him, I read him. "You made a promise to me, didn't you? A promise I don't remember, before this all began."

  Ian met my eyes, and in them, I saw the truth. He had. All of his secrecy lay behind that promise.

  But my heart had made promises, too. "I have to protect Florian and Solomon. I have to see this through to the end, and the end is not today. The end is when they die. Then I will let go, and pay you back for everything you have done for me. Then I will finally look at you and truly see you again. Then I will know the name that you call me."

  Ian's gaze drifted to the ground. He nodded slowly, silent.

  I grabbed him into a hug, and for the first time, I felt his angel wings, even though I could not see them. "Thank you for sticking by me, even when I doubted you, even when I accused you of betraying me. I don't know what you see in me, but I promise: one day, I will make this up to you."

  "You've got it wrong," the angel said, leaning his head against my neck. "This is not you making it up to me. You were right about guardian angels being people with karmic ties. This is me making it up to you, for reasons you do not remember."

  In his vulnerability, my angel was telling me so much, but I did not have time to realize the truth, to get a handle on the ramifications of his words. This would have to happen later, if fate gifted me with just a little more time.

  I pulled back to face him. "Let's save Florian and Solomon."

  Though Ian's smile was sad, there was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "Can you see my wings?"

  I summoned all of my willpower and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Ian's white wings unfurled in all their glory, white feathers twinkling like starlight.

  "Gabriel," he rejoiced. "You can see my wings!"

  Despite all my worry and stress in that moment, I whooped and pumped my fists. "Yeah!"

  We grinned at each other.

  "Now. You are invisible, so you have to visualize your human body, strongly enough that I can carry you. Don't let go, or there's nothing I can do to keep you alive. Without a physical body to cling to, your etheric energy will disperse from the material plane. I will go to meet you in the astral plane, but you will leave Florian and Solomon behind."

  "Okay."

  I breathed in and imagined the floodgates of power from Florian's amulet pouring into me, the deep midnight blue of Michi's magic. I lifted my arms, and even though I couldn't see them, I imagined with all my might that I was reaching up to the angel who beat his powerful wings and rose. Ian looped above me, gaining momentum, then swooped down and swept me up in a firm grip. Our hands and wrists locked around each other's elbows. Up we rose, over Vienna.

  Augarten fell away, and we rose up and up so even the Ferris wheel at Prater looked small, red tile rooftops everywhere. The second district carried on as if nothing special were happening: old women hauling groceries home, old men chatting together on the street corners, kids riding around on scooters, people walking their dogs. Up and over the Schöner Himmel, the shop a physical representation of all that Florian meant to me, so many warm nights reading by his fire, surrounded by the comfort of a partner's love.

  Sunlight sparkled on the water of the Danube canal, the statue of the Holy Mother almost too small to see from such distance. Straight ahead, the glittering roof and ancient stone spire of Saint Stephen's rose from the center of the first district. Ian beat his wings and we soared past the river, past the bridge with the beautiful view of the mountains, where Solomon and I so many times had watched the sunset. We flew into the central ring, what once was the inner wall of the capital of Europe's largest and longest standing empire.

  "Where are the exorcists taking Florian and Solomon? Why did Solomon's own order turn against him?"

  "To the catacombs of Saint Stephen's. That's where exorcists take demons and other spirits to separate them completely from the world, and why I cannot go with you. It is the only place where Florian's angel cannot come for him, though I fear the repercussions of them being separated."

  I wondered what could possibly make an angel like Ian afraid. Off to the side of the famous cathedral, down what looked like a nondescript alley, three figures in dark robes with pointed hoods carried two huge bundles inside.

  "There they are," Ian said. "Picture something on Solomon, hurry."

  I closed my eyes. "His crucifix."

  Ian released me, and I fell. "Good luck."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem…"

  I lay on cold, damp stone. Blinking, I pushed to a seated position. Solomon was seated on the ground near me, praying. His shirt was caked with dirt and blood. He had a split lip, an angry cut on his forehead, and two black eyes.

  "Solomon."

  He gasped, his eyes flying open. "Gabriel? You're so heavy, I thought you would hang me by my own crucifix. But I somehow knew it was you…my mind filled with an image of you as soon as it happened."

  I held my hand in front of my face and realized I was still without a physical body. "I'm here. Where is Florian?"

  He blinked, his swollen eyes bloodshot. "He's right over there. Can you not hear him?"

  I looked to where he pointed, across a space to another cell with iron bars. Indeed, aside from Solomon's voice, I could not hear or sense anything other than the hard stone. Our cell had to be some kind of sensory deprivation chamber, a spiritual Faraday cage. I not only could not feel Ian with me, I could not summon the hope that he would ever be near me again. With no light from a window to the outside, this was truly a hellish place.

  Squinting, I tried to see past the iron bars. There was a figure curled in on itself on the floor. Bloodied and tiny, my mind could not rationalize that that body was a full-grown man, that he was Florian. Then in the faint light, I saw something move, fingers clenching and unclenching in his hair. Florian had his arms wrapped round his head, as if shielding his face from being kicked. I zeroed in on that small, feeble movement. My ears opened and I heard steps in the hallway, water dripping somewhere, and a faint, hoarse voice. "Michael…Michael…Ne me quitte pas. Ne me quitte pas. Michael…"

  I turned back to Solomon. "They've hurt him."

  "…yes." Solomon worked his swollen jaw, rubbing the side of it. "They took his amulet. The order has been searching for Florian for years, but they didn't know his name. He is one of the most powerful occultists in Vienna, and since the Church wrongly equivocates all occultists with black magic users, I was assigned to hunt him down. He is dedicated to the archangel Michael, who has protected him all this time from being found. I was assigned to you because there was suspicion that you would lead me to him."

  He met my eyes, a dull sadness there. "Believe me when I tell you that I understand this only now. When I was assigned to you, I thought I was just monitoring a supernatural event as a new exorcist. I swear to you, Gabriel. Florian came to me early on. He was concerned my order meant to harm you. I blindly believed we were trying to help, but then all too late I began to realize that the information I
gave to my superiors was leading them to Florian, not to you. Then I left the priesthood, but the damage had already been done. I am so sorry."

  He had betrayed us. Pain and anger burned in my chest. The order of exorcists had been using Solomon to get to us, turning him against us for their own purposes. So much for me taking their patron saint as my family name. They would take what they wanted from us and dump our bodies in the river. At least Augarten had insisted on an exchange. "You didn't suspect they were using you?"

  Solomon shook his head. "I knew there was something more to your case than they were telling me. Once I figured it out, I left the priesthood. If I had stayed, I might have been able to protect you. Both of you."

  I put my hand on his knee. "There is still redemption, Solomon. We have to get to him. If Florian survives, the three of us will sit down and have a long talk."

  Solomon blinked at me. "We're locked in a jail cell. How can we get to him? You don't have your body, Gabriel. No one can see you right now. I can feel and hear you, but you're invisible."

  Indeed.

  I stood and marched over to the bars, hoping as a spirit I could simply walk on through. I charged at the bars but was abruptly halted.

  "That adds up," Solomon said softly. "I cannot feel any spirits down here. There are no angels."

  "How am I here?" I thought Ian had said my ether would disperse or something.

  He shrugged, then winced. "My guess is that you're somehow still human."

  That was a start, but that didn't get me into the cell with Florian, still whimpering and crying not five steps away.

  "The exorcists will come for me," Solomon said. "Florian has borne the brunt of their questioning, whereas I've just received a beating. Once they've gotten everything out of him, they'll start on me. At least then, the door to this cell will open."