But logic and I weren’t always friends, and it certainly didn’t make this any easier. It was as if my entire identity had been ripped out from under me. I’d always thought I’d known who I was, and I’d been confident in it. Now, all of that certainty and confidence had gone up in flames. Literally. Who was I now? And what did it even mean?
Questions for another day, I guessed. Right now, we needed to find out where Berith might have taken that damn amulet.
“You’ve got that distant look on your face again.” Lizzie handed me the half-translated book and settled into the chair beside mine, folding her legs underneath her. She wore an all-black outfit that she liked to sport during training exercises, and it suited her. Lizzie was really starting to fit into her new place in the Order. “Are you upset about what happened on the boat?”
“I don’t know if upset is the right word,” I said, sighing. “I’m more…melancholic. I don’t know who or what I am anymore, Lizzie. I know you’re kind of going through the same thing. You chose to stay here, too, but you’re still you. The angel daughter of two perfectly normal angels.”
“The fire demon thing doesn’t make you not you, Erela.” She gave me a sad smile and pressed a long strand of silver-blonde hair behind her ear. “You’re the same girl I’ve always known. The only major difference I see is that you’ve stopped using your nonsense words, like shitoodles and heckinbob.”
A flutter of movement whispered from behind my head, and a soft, warm blob landed on my shoulder. A pair of whispers twitched at my cheek, making a smile creep onto my face. “Hi, Mr. Whiskerson.”
It was my rat. Well, he wasn’t my rat, really. He was his own damn self, free to go wherever he pleased. As it turned out, he liked my company, though that probably had something to do with the fact I’d saved him from a hungry Archdemon who had wanted to turn him into dinner. That was the reason I’d ended up in Lower Realm in the first place. And now, Mr. Whiskerson had a tendency of sticking to my side. Sometimes, it even felt like he could understand human conversation.
But that was ridiculous. He might be smart, but he wasn’t that smart.
“See, your rat pal agrees,” Lizzie said, reaching out to give Mr. Whiskerson a scratch behind his little ears. “Besides, it might not look like I’m having trouble adapting, but I am.” Her voice suddenly went very soft. “I miss Isaac.”
“Ah, Isaac.” I sighed and shook my head. Isaac had been part of our trio up in Celestia. The three of us had been inseparable. He’d had the bright idea to go out for drinks in the neutral territory the night before my initiation ceremony, and that had been the last time I’d ever laid eyes on him. I’d been worried that the Archdemon from the bar would toss him down to earth to punish me even more (just like he’d done with Lizzie), but there hadn’t been a peep from that particular pain in my ass for awhile.
Isaac would probably love it down here. He’d always had a flair for trouble.
“He’s probably worried out of his mind, you know.” Lizzie shifted in her chair, biting her bottom lip. “He was freaked out when that demon sent you down here. He said he was going to go straight to your father, but…well, you know how hard it is to get Michael scheduled for a meeting.”
Oh, did I know. My father, Michael, was one of the Archangels. As such, he had a massive web of sons and daughters that spanned centuries. He also led the Order of the Seraphim, and he routinely led hosts on missions and battles against the demons. When I’d been young, I’d rarely had any time with him myself. My instructors at the Academy had raised me. I’d always assumed his distance from me was because of his busy schedule, but now that I knew what I was, I suspected it had been more than that.
He knew I was part fire demon.
“My father isn’t going to talk to Isaac.” I shook my head, finding it hard to speak around the pain and the heavy sense of abandonment. I didn’t want to go home, but I hated that my own flesh and blood didn’t give a rat’s ass about where I was. “And he’s certainly not going to make any attempt to come make sure we’re okay. He’s probably glad I’m down here, out of his way, to be honest. That way, none of his Archangel buddies will ever find out exactly what I am. And who he slept with.”
Needless to say, an Archangel sleeping with a fire demon? That wouldn’t go over very well. In fact, Gabriel had killed Az’s family when the Archangels had suspected his father of having a relationship with a demon. Half-angels and half-demons were an abomination to them.
We were the Nephilim, practically a curse word among the Archangels.
So, yeah. My dad would make no move to get me back home.
“Fuck him,” Lizzie said.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Now, Lizzie. Good little angels don’t use that kind of language. Keep talking like that and you’ll end up as part of the…” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Evil Order of the Fallen. They like to eat puppies in their spare time.”
Lizzie snorted. “Can you believe we fell for that crap?”
“No.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes, more at myself than anything. I’d been so gullible. “I honestly can’t. It sounds so insane now.”
The scent of spice and leather drifted into my nose, and the weight of the room suddenly shifted. I twisted in my chair to find Az standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, his icy hair tied up in a tight bun. He lifted an eyebrow, shaking his head. “I came to see if you’d made any progress, but it sounds like you’re too busy talking about puppies to bother yourself with looking through some old books.”
“Oh, don’t get testy.” I stuck out my tongue at him. “We’re working on it.”
“Need any help?” He strode into the library, the width of his broad shoulders barely fitting through the door.
“Sure. If you really want to sit in here reading some dusty books that were written in Old Enochian.”
He grimaced.
Az was good at a great many things. Archery. Swordplay. Kissing.
Language translation wasn’t really his forte.
“That’s what I thought.” But despite his expression, I leaned forward and patted the free chair opposite Lizzie’s. At first I thought he’d object, but then he sauntered over and folded his muscular frame into the small seat. He made it look like a child’s chair.
“We’re about halfway through this book.” I held up the old tome. Even though we’d spent the past few days flipping through its pages, the thick leather cover still emitted a constant fog of dust whenever it moved. “This is the one with Berith’s portrait, though that page doesn’t say much that we didn’t already know.”
Mainly that he was an asshole who liked to make deals to screw people over. Apparently, he’d spent decades trapping humans this way, far before the portal had even opened. The author of the manuscript seemed to find the entire thing incredibly amusing and had detailed a long list of his various deals.
“It’s become blatantly obvious that a demon wrote this book, so the details he’s chosen to share aren’t exactly helpful.” I pointed at a passage two pages past Berith’s portrait. “Here, he’s telling a story about how Berith made a human King think he was dying. In order to save his life, he had to repeatedly kill off his wives as sacrifices.”
Az let out a low whistle. “Henry the Eighth. I always wondered about him.”
“Yeah, well. Berith had a lot of fun with the guy. But then he eventually got bored and gave him some kind of disease.” I flipped the pages, pointing at a drawing of a coffin, presumably of the dead King.
“That’s interesting and all, Erela…” Az leaned closer, and I could feel his hot breath on my lips. It was all I could do not to stumble forward so that my lips would fall right on top of his. He hadn’t kissed me since…well, since Ramiel had yelled at us for kissing, and I wasn’t going to be the one to make the next move. “But we don’t need stories about old Kings. We need some kind of hint about where Berith would take the amulet or open the portal.”
“You think you can do better?�
� I asked with a flicker of irritation. Az drove me absolutely crazy sometimes. There were moments when I had the urge to plop a bucket full of water on top of his head. And then there were other moments when I wanted to actually watch rivulets of water dripping down his skin...
And, of course, a lot of the time I wanted to do both at once.
He was infuriating. And annoying. But he made me feel alive.
Not to mention the fact that he’d once told me that he loved me.
And it didn’t hurt that he was sculpted to perfection.
Az practically growled, his eyes reflecting the heat I felt in my core. “Give me the book.”
“Is this one of those times when I should politely excuse myself and Mr. Whiskerson from the room?” Lizzie asked dryly. “You know, so you and Az can be alone?”
“No,” Az and I growled in unison.
“Yeah, if you say so,” Lizzie said, not sounding convinced.
Az didn’t reply. Instead, he grabbed the book from my hands and frowned down at it. After a few moments, his eyes began to cross, and he flipped the page to read the next passage. Or, pretended to read, anyway. He didn’t know Old Enochian any better than any of the other members of this Order. Only Lizzie and I had studied any element of this language.
After a few silent moments of flipping pages and glaring, he finally sighed and dropped the book back onto my lap. “Fine. You win. I can’t read that shit.”
A satisfied smile spread across my lips. “Are you conceding that I can actually do something better than you?”
“Don’t get too smug or I’ll suggest that Ramiel start you up on some training again.”
My smile died. Ramiel’s definition of training was a lot different than mine. I happened to think of it as something that involved learning swordplay combinations, steady breathing exercises, and centering one’s mind on the task at hand.
Ramiel seemed to think that knocking me onto my ass was an appropriate teaching method. Something about learning to expect the unexpected and being prepared to bounce back after suffering from a serious blow.
I didn’t want to admit that his training had made me quicker on my feet, but it had. Just not quick enough. Yet.
“I’ll stick to translation for now, thanks,” I merely replied before glancing back down at the book before me, sighing. Az had flipped through so many pages that he’d lost my place. Most of the pages looked the same, and I hadn’t used a ribbon to mark the page I’d been translating. “Ugh, this is probably going to take me an hour to sort back out.”
“Wait.” Lizzie’s head popped closer, and she placed the tip of her fingernail against the old parchment. “What’s that?”
“It’s a castle,” Az said, stating the obvious.
The author of the book had hastily scratched out the outline of a castle near the sea. It stood tall and commanding on a cliff, the towers casting dark shadows on the beach far below. My eyes skipped down the words written just below it. For a moment, the library was full of silence while my mind worked through the translation.
I gasped when the words clicked together in my brain.
“It says that Berith once lived here, during the reign of Henry the Eighth. It was part of their deal. The King gave the demon this land in exchange for his support and counsel. This was Berith’s home, Az.”
Az gave a nod, his own eyes lighting up with excitement. “If this was his home once, he might have taken the amulet there for safe-keeping. We know where we need to sail.”
Chapter Three
Erela
The house burst into activity after Az, Lizzie, and I delivered the good news to Ramiel. He agreed that it seemed like the best (and only) lead we had, and Berith’s old castle home was a likely location for the amulet. It was finally time to make a move.
I took the stairs two at a time and grabbed a bag of clothes from my room. We hadn’t lived here long, but I’d gathered enough shirts and jeans to fill a small backpack. Most of the clothes had belonged to Lilith. We’d been about the same size, though she’d been taller. At the thought of my demon friend, I slowed as I shoved another t-shirt into my pack. If only she were here now. She’d be jumping at the bit to track down Berith’s old castle.
A pair of whiskers twitched across my cheek just as a tear slid from my eye. “I hate that we’re leaving without burying her, Mr. Whiskerson.”
Berith had made certain that we couldn’t. When he’d done his little teleporting trick to steal the amulet away, he’d also taken Lilith’s body along with him. He’d left nothing behind but a pool of blood on the sandy beach, the only remnant we had of her. It was the worst thing he could have done to her, even after her death. Both demons and angels had to be buried with the proper ceremony. Otherwise, their souls would never get to rest.
I had vowed to find where he’d taken her. Her soul deserved peace.
Of course, there was no telling how long that might take. If Berith had taken the amulet to his old castle, he probably hadn’t taken Lilith there, too. That would be making things far too easy for us.
“Let’s do something,” I said to Mr. Whiskerson, tossing my bag onto the bed. We might not have Lilith’s body, but we knew where she’d been slain. We could say a few words, send up a belated goodbye to whoever might be listening, if anyone was. It was the next best thing to a proper funeral.
I hurried back down the staircase with my little rat friend perched on my shoulder, passing Uriel and Az on my way out to the beach. They each shot me a questioning glance, but they didn’t stop to join me. There was far too much for us to do before we could leave.
When I pushed open the back door that led to the wooden walkway, the cool winter air settled over my skin like a cocoon. Ever since realizing my new demon powers, my body heat had definitely gone up several degrees. Now, the cold felt comforting. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t want to be part fire demon, and I definitely didn’t want to be more demon than angel. With a deep breath, I strode down the walkway, the wood creaking underneath my feet. I came to a stop at the edge, at the very spot where Berith had blinked out of the shadows to take Lilith’s life.
I hadn’t seen what had happened, but Ramiel had. He just hadn’t been quick enough to stop it.
The wind had blown the stained sand away in the days that had passed, but there were still flecks of red amongst the pale brown. I sunk onto my knees and placed my hand on the spot where she had fallen. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath, whispering my sorrow onto the light wind. Mr. Whiskerson sat still, as though he realized the weight of my words.
I was sorry. My heart hurt from the guilt of what had happened to Lilith. It was definitely my fault in a sense. Ramiel blamed himself, too. Lizzie told us both that we needed to focus all the blame outward, but neither of us were able to bear it. Ramiel had tasked himself with spotting Lilith while she scouted the beach. He’d been distracted from that. Because of me.
I’d made him turn his eyes away from the lookout.
“I’m so sorry, Lilith,” I whispered.
Quietly, I pushed up from the ground and gathered a cluster of rocks that Sam and I had been using for target practice these past few days. He’d been trying to teach me how to control my fire power, but I had barely improved. In fact, I could have sworn I was getting worse instead of better.
With the rocks in my arms, I strode back over to Lilith’s spot and placed one stone on top of each other. It made a lopsided mound, but it would do. I pulled my dagger from the sheath strapped to my thigh and pricked the tip of my thumb. I winced at the contact, but only long enough for the blood to pool.
“I hope you rest in peace, Lilith,” I sighed and pressed my thumb on the rock before drawing a jagged L.
Mr. Whiskerson twitched his nose and then scurried down into my shirt, burying himself beneath the fabric, right on top of my heavily beating heart.
“This was a nice idea.”
I jumped, my heart jolting as I whirled toward the unexpected noise. Sam
stood just behind me, his brilliant hair backlit by the setting sun. “Sam. Don’t sneak up on people like that. You scared me half to death.”
“I’m sorry.” He smiled crookedly, and heat filled my cheeks. “I’m so used to my silence that sometimes I forget to make noise.”
I pressed my hand to my heart, taking comfort in the warm little bundle beneath my shirt, and pushed up from the ground. “I just thought I would make a little memorial for Lilith. I know it won’t help her soul find peace, but I feel like I can’t leave here for good without doing something.”
“You never know. It could help her.” He nodded at the mound. “But just as importantly, it will help you. I can tell you’re still hurting over her death.”
Hurting was an understatement.
“I’ve never met anyone like her. And I probably never will again. She was one of a kind, Sam, and there’s no reason in hell she should have died.”
Sam gave me a sad smile. “Why don’t we take a short walk down the beach? Take a moment to say goodbye to her before we start loading up the boat?”
“You know what? That’s actually a great idea,” I said gratefully. Sam understood my need to say goodbye. We would be leaving the last place she’d been alive. Her body and our mourning ritual had been stolen from us, and it almost felt as though I’d never gotten closure on her death. Sure, we’d left this house a few times over the past days and weeks, but it had still remained our base. We’d always returned. Now, with our eyes aimed on the distant horizon overseas, it was likely that we wouldn’t return for a very long while. If ever.
The two of us made our way closer to the waves, the ocean spray dusting our skin. We fell into an easy silence as we picked our way down the beach. An orange glow lit up the sky and fingers of pink stretched out behind the hulking shadows of the house. It was a beautiful sight, one I’d come to appreciate during our time spent in Rhode Island.
Nebulous: Order of the Fallen - Book Two Page 2