Shattering Halos

by Sunniva Dee

  From thin air, seven of Michael’s angels materialized around the cherubs in the middle of the room. Calmly, they took hold of a dimpled hand each through the bars and remained still.

  “Shouldn’t they be flying off with those angel babies?”

  “I don’t think they can, Gaia. A superior’s will is the only thing that can open locked doors in our realms. The cherubs would have been too panicked to safeguard if they freed them now anyway. They need some love and comfort first.”

  Ramiel landed at the center of the star, right under the wailing babies. An enormous sword was extended in battle above his head. With a luminous glare narrowed on the seven white angels surrounding the cage, he grazed the chest of one, then the thigh of another. Ruthless, he got in a stab on the third.

  A radiant wing sailed to the ground. Feathers and down burst off it and scattered in a desperate quest for an escape of their own.

  No, no. This can’t possibly be happening.

  Next to him, demons bellowed with laughter. I hated that angels bled a glistening scarlet.

  Gabriel’s eyes closed in pain when his brother fell and they stomped him into the dirt.

  An angel of God perishing?

  Gabriel couldn’t meet my gaze. Quietly, another of the seven took the dying angel’s place. Dropping his sword, he held the hands of two cherubs instead of one.

  As if on cue, the seventy hovering above plummeted in streaks of white feathers. The Grigori angels shot up to meet them in a ferocious collision of energy, of power.

  A small group of Celestials mounted the cage and fought the two demons already there. They dropped off it in a burst of black liquid as Angelical swords slashed them open.

  The Celestials yanked at the chain and pulled the cherubs higher, out of reach from the deadly daggers. A fresh load of demons immediately outnumbered them from below. Glued to the bottom of the cage like spiders, they jerked it back down.

  The Purest Ones stood eerily tall. With weapons lifted, they awaited their moment to kill.

  Tremors began to stir within my muscles. It took a while before they reached the surface. My hands began to tremble first. Then tiny hairs stood on end across my body.

  Before I shook in earnest, Gabriel turned and seized me. He enveloped me in front of him, securing me against the banister. I shut my eyes, blocking out the cruelty of the sight, and my baby’s breath caressed my hair.

  “Sunshine, have faith. Look—Hadraniel, Zadkiel. Gazardiel. They’re all there now.”

  The grim podium suddenly held the golden shine of the angels, one landing at the tip of each point.

  “Yes! The ones Michael appointed to the humans!”

  Zadkiel, the Angel of Freedom, faced the old king. He enveloped the gnarled hand clenching the dagger with his own.

  The angel met mortal eyes with a love so unfathomable that my chest tightened. His other palm rested over the monarch’s heart. Just a man after all, he halted, unsure of the angel’s strength, of the insistence backing it.

  Each point of the star stilled in the same silent encounter of Zadkiel and the king. All around the stone, the unreserved violence turned chaotic.

  Behind me, Gabriel pressed us against the railing, a fist grasping tightly on each side of my hips.

  Ramiel was pure rage. Black belches of smoke blustered from him while he thundered out orders. “Lilith: Bring Kakabel. Grigori: Destroy Zadkiel’s unit. They cannot turn the Purest Ones!”

  The angle changed. All of a sudden, the grand hall spread before us from above.

  “What just happened?”

  “My brothers who melted through the ceiling are showing us this view,” Gabriel explained.

  It was gory, hideous, and glorious all at once. Flickering wall sconces provided the outer ring. A circle of shimmering black wings stormed toward the center of the room, where each point of the star was a peony made of pearlescent feathers mingled with bright yellow silk. In the midst of the pandemonium, they remained trance-like, quiet.

  Hadraniel held the two-year-old who blinked into his eyes. Rapt in wonder, she let him soak her in concentrated love. The dark ring tightened, swords glinting in the shine from the lava sconces.

  A still circle of pearlescent wings coalesced inside the black one. With blades raised, Gabriel’s brothers awaited the attack serenely.

  From above, the scene formed an enormous flower, with the cherubs, glowing with love and fear, at its center and a sputtering Ramiel underneath.

  The Grigori only vacillated for a second. Then, the spell broke in an uproar of shadowy motion.

  Gabriel stiffened behind me. I saw Cassiel as he leaped up the stairs to the balcony, away from a white angel chasing him.

  No! He’s on our side!

  Cassiel didn’t have a sword.

  “Sweet sun of mine…”

  Goddamn, don’t even think it, Gabriel!

  I knew what he was about to say and whirled around. “Please don’t. It’s dangerous!”

  Gabriel’s stare penetrated mine. His devotion, but also his determination moved through me in waves.

  He gave me a single, soft kiss. “Gaia, I love you always. I’m getting him out.”

  “Will you ever listen to me?”

  Gabriel disintegrated around me before I had finished. Now, I was alone on top of a freezing world. My furious screams must have carried all the way to Spring Hills. So much for having a say in this relationship.

  Once he had left, I couldn’t track everything that happened in Galdhopiggen. Too much happened simultaneously.

  Lilith touched down on the balcony just as Cassiel arrived. Surprised, I watched her fling herself in front of him. Oozing a deep green fog, she caused Cassiel’s pursuer to slump to the ground.

  The angel squirmed in pain. Reminding me of wilted lilies, his wings crumpled awkwardly against the steps when he hit the surface, and I wanted to roar out my impotence.

  I hate—I hate that angels die!

  Lilith had just saved Cassiel, but the two of them didn’t acknowledge each other. Instead, she ran to the railing and yelled down to Ramiel.

  I searched and found him fighting Celestials from the midpoint of the sacrificial stone.

  “The moon’s eclipsing, and Kakabel is ready! Prepare the sacrifice!” she screamed.

  Out of nowhere, he appeared on the gallery next to Lilith. Slender and statuesque, his beauty made my eyes water even at a distance. Yes, there he was. Kakabel, Yofiel’s twin.

  With hair reaching down his back in undulating alabaster, the rest of him glowed pale like the moon.

  Charcoal streaks stood out against iridescent wings. His irises glimmered in the spring green of birch leaves. But when I squinted through the mist, the evil in his eyes knocked the air out of me.

  The Grigori slew one after the other of the angels guarding the star. Every time the sword of a Fallen hit the entrails of a Celestial, a new white angel stood tall. Silently, he’d take his dying brother’s place and protect the humans and the angels working to turn them.

  Zadkiel’s group remained absorbed in their all-encompassing task. Immobile, they willed purity back into the twisted hearts of the humans.

  Love incarnate rubbed against absolute evil with the ring of demons and Grigori tightening around them. Their focus was bottomless, and their aim didn’t falter. A happy sob curled out of me as I detected a hint of color on the pallid cheek of the ancient monk.

  Yes, absorb it, old man.

  Ramiel’s regal demeanor was deteriorating. His eyes darted restlessly around the room, not taking the time to revel in his fallen enemies. With all his might, he personally gripped the bottom bars of the cage and yanked.

  The cherubs hid in the upper left corner of their prison. It seemed to keep them safe for now…as long as nobody rocked the aim of Zadkiel and his unit.

  Without warning, the throne hall blared with a light so bright that I strained to discern movement. The flapping of one set of immense wings overpowered every grunt, every r
oar, and growl in the mountain.

  Gradually the light softened, but Grigori, demons, and Celestials remained frozen in place. In my mind, they conjured warriors I’d seen immortalized in a medieval tapestry.

  Then, I saw him. Michael.

  He descended slowly to the stone, and the force of the stare he bored into Ramiel knocked the wind out of me.

  “Yofiel! Now!” The archangel bellowed.

  I gasped and scanned the room. Glowing like a faery from my childhood dreams, she expanded from a lone grain of light at the gallery. Floating two feet above the floor, she locked Kakabel’s stare with hers.

  Yofiel drifted up and rested her forehead against his. Her bearing did not reveal disgust or surprise over his contorted essence. Those pink irises flooded his green ones with not just celestial love, but the devotion of a sister. Cherry lips arched and shifted in gentle murmurs. Oh, how I wished I could hear what she said!

  The Celestials fought for the Heavens and for their existence, for the Earth, and for our afterlives. The darkness might swallow us all, and I felt so alone with the knowledge.

  Gabriel, I can’t see you!

  I missed him. Gabriel’s ring slept dead and cold around my finger. He must be buried somewhere in the pandemonium in front of me.

  Ramiel broke free of Michael’s stare-down, twisted his head toward the balcony, and roared, “Lilith, stop her!”

  His voice propelled his dark minions back into the battle, but now the Celestial forces had Michael; his presence strengthened their resolve. Was it me, or were they vibrating with energy?

  My hopes rose as more Grigori fell than Celestials. Not a single of Zadkiel’s angels had been wounded, and none wavered from their mission with the Purest Ones.

  Michael and Ramiel didn’t exchange words. Facing each other, Michael straightened, and I’d never imagined him capable of the merciless glare he was drilling into his evil brother.

  The woman from Germany placed a hand on Gazardiel’s cheek, her gaze soft and wondrous. The teacher from the Bronx released his dagger. It thumped to the floor as if it were utterly insignificant.

  That was when Ramiel screeched.

  And even if I knew better, his pain was so raw that I flinched.

  Chapter 33 — Pivot

  Cassiel

  I’d been saved by a chick with no say in the matter. A stroke of that sword would’ve nixed me if my favorite fog machine hadn’t jumped to the rescue. I guess I was lucky.

  What an odd situation to be one lucky angel when everything else looked so bleak. On one side, I found myself alive and flapping. I was flanked by Lilith and Yofiel, the most attractive broads ever created.

  On the flipside, my chances of survival were beyond depressing. Everybody and their brother—especially their brother—had legit motives to kill me. The only Supernaturals not interested in obliterating me were Lilith and Michael. And maybe Kakabel at the moment.

  Kakabel hung with us until his hot sister entered the picture. Pumped and eager to show off, he was bouncing like a pro boxer in the shadows of the gallery. As soon as Yofiel arrived though, she trapped him in a mind-bending stare-down. She tried her damnedest to dig out a remnant of goodness in him to work with.

  Why the hell hadn’t I requested a sword before this brawl began? Apparently, the poor bastard who’d been gassed by Lilith wasn’t attached to his anymore. I snatched it from a limp hand and hopped back onto the balcony.

  Some of Michael’s angels poured up the stairs while others dove at us from the ceiling. I wondered about the dimwitted impulse that had overcome Lilith when she yelled down to Ramiel, and I quote: “Kakabel’s up here at the gallery, and we’re totally like the super-easiest target in the universe for anyone who’d like to slaughter us!”

  Pretty sure those were the exact words, complete with uncensored valley girl lingo.

  Maybe she’d been nursing a grand plan. Who knew, she might have banked on taking them all out with her poison. Unfortunately for her, Michael’s posse knew who they were fighting, so of course they went for full protection.

  Oh yes, the white angels came tanked up on nectar. It instantly reduced the majority of counter plans to the most ludicrous ideas ever. The rightful owner of the sword I held was a good example. He already stirred after, what, ten minutes?

  Let’s just say the situation didn’t kick ass. Soon, I’d be toast, over and done with. In no time I’d throw in the towel. My fun existence as a Free Fallen was over, but at least I could elect to go down fighting.

  Choices, choices. Should I use my new weapon on Kakabel and Lilith or slay as many Celestial Ones as possible?

  Come to think of it, no option would have me come out victorious. For me, there would be no winning or losing. Whatever I chose, I’d bite the dust so who the hell cared?

  Yeah, I’d just not bother. With minutes left of my existence, what I wanted was a drink—and a chick.

  First, they got Lilith. With a swift stab, they penetrated her chest and tossed her unceremoniously off the balcony. She landed with an unhealthy crack across Ramiel’s throne, her green blood generating the mess of the century. Eventually, she dissolved and seeped through the floor.

  Samael was nowhere to be seen. Not much of a mate she’d gotten herself when he couldn’t even tear away from Sataniel’s court long enough to help. Who knew, though. Maybe the gargoyle urine they swore by downstairs could fix her. If somebody felt like stepping up to the task.

  Seven of them came for Kakabel, and he looked too damn funny. Instantly disarmed, he put up one hell-of-a fight to no avail. I watched, unable to keep the chuckles at bay.

  For us Fallen Ones, it’s always been destruction or banishment. When I realized they were trying to grab the star-pusher alive, I stopped laughing.

  I mean, really? The Grigori had spent two thousand years on making him plunge. Then, once they owned the pretty-boy, they replaced every morsel of love with evil.

  Michael clearly craved a pet project. He sure as hellfire would have fun with this one. Oh well. At the moment, my problem was more along the lines of not getting minced.

  In seconds, five white angels had their swords poking at me, prepping to transform me into a colander. As I spread my wings in an idiotic attempt to flee, Gabriel swooped in. He glowed like a goddamn streetlamp, and for the second time, I was downgraded to damsel in distress.

  “He works for Michael,” he said in this low, knight-in-shining-armor voice. The angels heard him and disappeared in pursuit of meaner boys.

  “Last minute, huh,” I smirked.

  “Brother, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…” he trailed off with an expression too mushy for words.

  “Dude,” I huffed.

  No reason to thank him since it was his ass that had plopped me into this bottomless muddle in the first place. Luckily, he didn’t dive into one of his touchy-feely speeches. Instead, a golden bottle of angel nectar solidified in his palm.

  “Drink up. It will allow you to leave through the ceiling.”

  I stared at the substance and hesitated. Being a Fallen, I knew how freaking nice I’d be for a while if I swallowed the contents. The alternatives were dwindling, though. Getting the hell out of Galdhopiggen sounded dandy about now.

  I drank up and threw the container over the guardrail. Too soon, a warm, fluffy sensation filled me. I wanted to be mad about it.

  “And you, Gabriel?” I grumbled.

  Sadly, those Earthlings had infused me with politeness. Truth be told, I didn’t care if he stayed or left. I should make it a point to stay away from Earth more. Freaking starting today.

  “Since I’m here and the one responsible for this mess, I need to help however I can before I leave,” he said.

  Oh, Gabriel, Gabriel. Always ready to take the blame and pay the price. I wasn’t going to spend energy on doling out opinions he wouldn’t heed. I gave him a vague thumbs up, my gaze already seeking my blessed escape route.

  Then, I took off. The nectar carried me through a ce
iling that felt strangely buttery, and there I was. Free. To do whatever I wanted.

  Chapter 34 — Winged

  Gaia

  I knew how Heavenly beings looked when they soared. What approached overhead didn’t match the criteria. It might be a bird heading in my direction, but unless I’d misjudged the distance, the thing would have to be enormous.

  The aquamarine stabbed around my finger. I watched the color turn a menacing charcoal. Cassiel’s explanation of how it would react to the Grigori came to mind, causing adrenaline to shoot through my veins. I tore it off and hurled it against the table.

  Maybe I could hide. I took in the open build of the cupola, the glass table, and the narrow space under the loveseat. There really was nowhere to take cover. I twisted and scanned the exit leading down into the mountain.

  Could I lock the door from inside? If I did, would it keep whatever was coming out? The sound of heavy plumage beating against the wind reached me. The familiar sound, usually so comforting, now made my heart shrink.

  My gaze snapped up, and I squinted toward the sky. As the being shortened the distance between us, I discerned the dark shine of its feathers.

  I ran to the balustrade, leaned out, and scoured the throne hall for clues. Lilith had been at the gallery with Cassiel, Kakabel, and Yofiel earlier. They had all disappeared without a trace. The swarming, gory chaos persisted, centering around the stone, with Michael and Ramiel in the middle.

  I can’t tell who’s who in this madness!

  Fast approaching, the shadow grew bigger, a shimmering contour in the night.

  “Damn it!”

  I ripped away from the sight again, desperate to find Gabriel.

  Oh God, there he was—alive…and too far away. The joy expanding my chest lasted for one blessed moment before I discovered the danger he was in.

  With a sword in each hand, Gabriel stood in the thick of battle, backed up against the sacrificial stone. Demons crowded him on three sides. A slash incapacitated one of them, but others took over, awaiting their turn for a strike.

  Then, there was the blood. Blood that streaked my baby’s cheeks!