The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels

by Valmore Daniels

  Aside from recognizing Jonathan and Billy among them, I couldn’t tell if the others were Grigori or mortals. Though the angel radar had alerted me earlier that they were here, the signal was gone. Maybe the power only went off under certain conditions. A part of me wished I’d taken the time to learn more about my abilities, but then, if I’d waited any longer, I wouldn’t have been here to see what the Grigori were up to.

  Thick velvet ropes, similar to the dividers used for the customer lines at banks, were set in a large square around the spectator area and clipped to brass poles. Once we were all inside the room, Mr. Ulrich hung one length of the thick rope across the doorway behind us.

  Then he moved down the aisle toward the altar, ducking under the rope dividing the seats from the altar area.

  Sam gestured for Jenny and me to take one of the available chairs.

  I started to feel better. My stomach wasn’t fluttering anymore, and I was able to steady my breathing. Maybe I’d fooled them all into thinking I was fully with them, and now I was out of danger.

  Wondering what kind of ceremony or ritual I was about to witness, I sat down beside a reed-thin man with silver hair. He smiled at me and nodded, the leathery skin of his cheeks stretching as he did so. Was he a Grigori? He couldn’t have been a mercenary.

  Sam sat down beside me, Jenny on the other side, taking the aisle seat. Billy and two of his mercenaries sat in the row directly behind us. When I glanced back at him, he gave me a polite smile and then looked away. It was as if I were completely unimportant to him.

  Letting myself relax, I faced forward.

  Seeing that his audience was settling in, Mr. Ulrich stood behind the altar and raised his hands above his head.

  He began to speak in a purposeful voice; the words themselves sounded like gibberish.

  “Is that Latin, or something?” I asked in a whisper.

  Sam answered, keeping his voice low enough that I had to strain to hear over Mr. Ulrich’s recital. “It’s Ancient Aramaic, the language used by the prophet Enoch.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “He’s praising all earthly things, giving thanks for the bounty of the world, and vowing to honor the will of Heaven.”

  With one of those long barbeque matches, Mr. Ulrich lit two fat candles, one on either side of the altar. He reached down and picked up an object hanging off a thick chain. It was a golden metal ball that had a seam running around its center. He pulled the top half of the ball off to reveal some gray and black powder resting within. When he lit it, a heavy column of smoke began to rise, and an odd smell filled the room.

  Mr. Ulrich gently swung the container forward three times, the smoke billowing out. He spoke again in the ancient language.

  Sam said, “The incense in the thurible will carry our prayers to the other side.”

  Putting the thurible on the far edge of the altar, Mr. Ulrich turned to a side door and motioned. “Bring them in.”

  Four people entered.

  The first was a woman who looked to be in her thirties. I’d never seen her before, but she was somewhat familiar to me. She wore robes similar to Mr. Ulrich’s. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her face was clean of makeup; that only served to show the angry scars running along one side of her cheek, over her jaw, and down to her neck.

  Two of the newcomers were men, and I recognized them as mercenaries from the fight with Billy at Anak Acres. They wore plain clothes, but I could see they each had a gun in a holster at their belts.

  It was the last person entering who made me gasp. I recognized her. I hadn’t seen her since I’d run away from Maine. I never thought I’d ever see her again. She’d been the first person to show me any kindness. Without her help, I might have given up ever trying to find my father.

  “Henrietta!” I said loud enough that a few of the spectators glanced in my direction, though she didn’t react to the sound of her name.

  Sam smiled at me. “We tracked your movements over the past few weeks, and our search led us to her. You might think it’s a coincidence that she carries the genetic trait of the Anakim, but you’ll find that our kind often find ourselves gravitating toward each other naturally.”

  Henrietta’s eyes were glazed over as if she were drugged. She allowed herself to be led to the altar. The two mercenaries lifted her up and placed her on the top of the marble slab.

  “What is she doing here?”

  I started to get to my feet, but strong hands grabbed me from behind—it was Billy—and pulled me back into my seat. I felt something sharp and cold press against my neck. It was a knife.

  Immediately, I tried to summon my power. I was going to fight my way through all of them if I had to.

  Nothing happened, and I knew, suddenly, that it had been a trap all along. It had been a grave mistake for me to come.

  “Oh, my dear,” Sam said. “There can be no interference from the Grigori during a ritual of summoning. That’s why we’ve arranged for the priests to consecrate our section of the theater.” He pointed to the velvet cords surrounding the seating area. “In this little area, the influence of the Grigori within us is dampened, for the time being.”

  It had to be something similar to the spirit trap that Darcy and the others had described to me, only it robbed us of all our powers. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was; I’d walked into it willingly. I was as helpless as the day I was born.

  On the other side of Sam, Jenny had a satisfied smirk on her face. “Did you think you could fool us that easily? Just like that idiot, Thomas, you were never with the program. Good riddance to both of you.”

  “Now, now, Jenny.” Sam waved a finger at her. “All in good time.” He sat back and motioned for Mr. Ulrich to continue the ritual.

  Henrietta hadn’t budged from the altar.

  I found my voice. “What are you going to do to her?”

  “It’s the blood, Serena,” Sam said. “It all comes down to the blood.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I lunged forward, but the edge of the knife bit into my neck, and I cried out.

  “Not your blood,” Sam said in a chiding voice. “You’re already joined with a Grigori. Patience, my dear. Soon, we will break those bonds for you, and you will be free of the burden—isn’t that what you’ve wanted all along? For now, please do not interrupt.” He pointed to the scene at the altar.

  All the stories that I’d heard of how the fallen angels had come to possess human hosts flooded back to me, and I put it together as the unfamiliar woman in the robes moved to stand beside Mr. Ulrich.

  I remembered Henrietta mentioning that I reminded her of someone close to her who had spent a lot of time running on the wrong side of the law.

  “Her sister…?”

  Sam spoke in a low voice, careful not to disturb the ritual. “Charlotte never had it easy, overshadowed by her older sibling. Where Henrietta was always pretty, her younger sister was disfigured when she fell into an abandoned well at an early age; the wounds she sustained never healed properly. Henrietta excelled in school and was a cheerleader. Charlotte spent most of her time in detention, and had been expelled before she could graduate. Henrietta got married; Charlotte got six months for solicitation.

  “Things got worse for Charlotte after she got out. But it was when Henrietta—who said she was only trying to help—called the cops on her sister’s pimp that Charlotte knew she’d never make anything of herself, so long as her sister was there as a constant reminder of how much of a failure she was.

  “When we approached Charlotte, she was more than happy to sacrifice her sister for the opportunity to join our family. With us, Charlotte will have the chance to redeem herself.”

  My eyes wide, I said, “You’re insane!”

  The insult didn’t seem to affect Sam. He kept his eyes forward as Mr. Ulrich’s ritual seemed to come to a close.

  With a few final words in the gravelly language, he drew the ornate knife out of its sheath, and placed it in Ch
arlotte’s hand.

  He took a step to one side as Charlotte moved to stand over her sister.

  “Henrietta!” I yelled out. “Get up! Run!”

  Billy’s blade sliced through the top layer of skin on my neck, and I felt a trickle of blood run down to my chest.

  Tears sprung to my eyes, both from the pain of the cut, and from the knowledge that there was nothing I could do but watch as Charlotte raised the ceremonial knife, chanted a few of those ancient words, and then plunged the dagger into Henrietta’s heart.

  Even though I knew it would earn me another cut from Billy, I cried out, “No!”

  Henrietta’s glazed eyes widened at the moment of penetration, and she gasped, as if trying to form a question. Then the life faded from her.

  “You killed her,” I hissed at Charlotte, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me. “Mr. Ulrich! How could you do this—?”

  Before anyone had the chance to say anything more, I heard a bizarre sound. The room shook as if we’d been hit by an earthquake. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

  Charlotte screamed, her body writhing, and I realized that a spirit of the fallen angel had possessed her.

  I’d experienced it, and I recalled the sick feeling that had come over me, the sensation that every cell in my body was about to explode. Seeing it happen to another person was fascinating, and I couldn’t stop staring, despite the horror I felt at witnessing my friend’s murder.

  The struggle was over in moments, and Charlotte punched her hands in the air in triumph, a look of ecstasy on her face.

  “Welcome back to the world, brother,” Sam called out, obviously addressing the fallen angel who’d just crossed over from the abyss.

  Dropping her hands to her sides, Charlotte caught Sam’s eye, and for a moment, it seemed like she had no idea what he’d said. I remembered the feeling of disorientation when the fallen angel had first possessed me. To use a reference Eugene would understand, it was as if she were a computer being rebooted; her program wasn’t fully loaded.

  She looked down, her face pulled into a frown as if she were trying to think things through.

  I saw her expression brighten, and then, with a smile, she lifted her arms to either side of her and closed her eyes.

  A light green mist formed around the altar, and at first, I thought it might be the incense from the thurible; then I realized it was coming from her. She opened her mouth and a billowing cloud of the same smoke poured out.

  “She’s hosting Opetoson,” Mr. Ulrich screamed, dancing away from her. “Angel of poisons!”

  “No, stop!” Sam commanded Charlotte, but it was too late.

  Overwhelmed by the new power, Charlotte was at its mercy. The green cloud thickened.

  The two other priests backed away, but before they could escape, they all fell to their knees, their hands clutching their throats. Mr. Ulrich raced out the side door.

  Beside me, Sam shot to his feet. He recognized the danger to himself an instant later. Behind the spirit damper, all the Grigori in the room were as powerless as I was. They were at the mercy of Charlotte’s poisonous cloud of death.

  Pushing Jenny out of the way, he scrambled over his chair and raced for the door at the back of the theater. The other spectators—both hosts and mortals—all had the same idea, and they crushed each other in their mad attempt to escape the damper. Once on the other side, their powers would return, and they’d be able to protect themselves from the poison.

  Billy’s sense of self-preservation was no less than anyone else’s; he was a step behind Sam. The other mortals were climbing over one another to get out.

  Beside me, the only one who wasn’t fighting to get out was Jenny, who’d been knocked to the floor.

  No one was paying attention to me, but the poison cloud was drifting in my direction.

  Charlotte, her eyes wild, her expression blissful, continued to make more poison.

  If I ran the same direction as everyone else, I’d be at the back of the crowd. There was no way I could escape.

  I had no other choice; holding my breath, I ducked under the barrier, toward the altar. I figured if I could race past Charlotte, get to the side door, and get out before inhaling any of the poison, I’d have a chance to survive.

  Charlotte seemed to sense that I was heading in her direction and, as if I were a threat, locked her eyes with mine. Her look of ecstasy turned to rage and she waved both of her arms at me. The green cloud rolled outward faster.

  The closest tendrils were only a few feet from me, but as I moved past the barrier, my powers surged back to me.

  Immediately, I drew enough moisture out of my body to create my water armor. The poison floated around me, unable to penetrate my shield.

  Charlotte screamed in rage, her voice cracking. The cloud thickened, blinding me.

  Desperate, I shot a column of water in her direction.

  It hit her with enough force to throw her to the other end of the room, and it must have knocked her unconscious. Her scream abruptly cut off. She fell to the floor in a slump.

  I don’t know if it was the fallen angel inside me, or the intuition it had gifted to me, but I sensed the danger a split-second before it happened.

  I turned around on my heels and saw Jenny running at me. The hate in her eyes was enough to make me catch my breath.

  I didn’t have enough moisture left at my command to keep my armor up against the poison still floating through that end of the room, and to create any water bullets to fire at Jenny.

  In a flash, I thought back to how I’d disabled Dwight’s rental car. Instead of using my own bodily fluids, I could use Jenny’s against her.

  I caused all the water in her body to stop flowing.

  The effect was instant. She stopped moving forward, and stared at me with horror-filled eyes. Even as she gasped for air, every cell in her body must have been screaming for oxygen. She jerked up straight, gasped, and then dropped to one knee.

  She reached out toward me, then fell to the ground, her skin turning blue.

  In the moment before she died, she gave me a strange look. It wasn’t terror, or rage. It was almost as if she were grateful that I’d stopped her.

  Then the horror of what I’d done hit me.

  I’d just killed someone. There was no mistaking it; there was no chance of her surviving the attack.

  Jenny could kill with a touch; I could kill with a thought.

  I realized that the thing in me—the fallen angel, or Grigori, or whatever it was called—was worse than evil. It was corruptive. Instead of making me do terrible things, it had given me the power of destruction to use as I saw fit. I alone was responsible for murder.

  Maybe Ananiel had chosen me over my father because he was a good man, and I was evil at heart.

  I had always run in the past because I’d been helpless. Now, I had more power than anyone else in the world did, and there was no one out there who could stop me.

  I was immortal; invincible; godlike.

  I was meant to kill; the spirit inside me had chosen me because I was very much like him. I was an executioner.

  In that moment, I knew, instinctively, that it was Ananiel who had been the one who’d flooded the earth in that great deluge thousands of years ago. He’d been the one who’d nearly wiped out that which he loved—humanity—under orders from Heaven.

  I could do it again … here…

  I had the power to stop Sam Lancaster and end Grigori Ventures’ plans once and for all. After all the killing my fallen angel had committed, what were a few more lives?

  I swung around toward the fleeing hosts and mortals. Most of them had managed to get out, but there were still half a dozen people in the room.

  Gathering more water from the two dead priests, I sent a wave at the velvet cords, knocking them over and disabling the spirit damper.

  It didn’t matter that the Grigori hosts would automatically regain their powers; they were no match for me. I was the ultimate angel of deat
h.

  The power I held in my hands was intoxicating, and I wanted to savor it. What better way to enjoy it than to use it?

  By then, there was only one other person left in the chamber. A middle-aged woman was sitting on the floor, holding her ankle. Her eyes were crazy with fear as she waited for me to kill her. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t place where I knew her from.

  It didn’t matter. I extended my hand out toward her, intending to flood her lungs and make her drown in her own bodily fluids.

  “Please,” she said, her voice small. “I’m not with them. I hate them…”

  Her pleading stopped me, but only for a second. I decided I didn’t care why she was here. Whatever her reasons for being a part of Henrietta’s murder, she was as guilty as they were. The only sentence suitable for her was death.

  At the same time, a small part of me screamed out: I did care.

  What if this woman were telling the truth? Or, what if she’d been tricked into working for them? Sam had a silver tongue. He’d convinced Thomas to stay with the organization; he’d fooled me into thinking they only had the best interests of humanity in mind.

  Yes, I was an executioner; but did that mean I was a judge or jury? What right did I have to pass a death sentence on someone I’d never seen before?

  The fallen angel inside me raged. I could feel him urging me to finish the job.

  No.

  Darcy had told me that we had a choice. We could overcome the evil influence.

  Slowly, I lowered my hand.

  The woman struggled to her feet. Casting fearful glances at me, she limped out of the theater.

  By that time, the cloud of poison from the altar area had all but disappeared.

  I looked down at the body on the floor that used to be Jenny, and I didn’t know what to feel.

  One thing I realized was, despite who I was or what I’d become, the original mission needed to be completed.

  The Grigori still had to be stopped.

  Pushing the knowledge that I was a murderer to the back of my mind, I headed for the side door Mr. Ulrich had used.

  I knew that, if I came across any of the hosts, I would have to fight them—to the death—and I didn’t want to go down that path again. I would deal with the guilt afterward.