Into the Abyss

by Brenda K. Davies

  “He was pretty protective of her when I saw them in the Abyss, but I saw no marks on either of them,” Hawk said.

  “Where is Amalia?” Rislen interjected, her composure slipping as she pinned me with a harsh stare.

  “I don’t know.” I quickly informed them about everything I went through, what Magnus had told me, and how he’d freed us. “I never saw Amalia. The horsemen and other jinn kept her with them. They’ll know something is wrong now that Magnus destroyed the symbol, and they’re going to hunt for him.”

  “They’ll use Amalia against him, Rislen,” Corson said in the tone I recognized as his “don’t fuck with me” voice.

  “Our brethren allowed more than one horseman into the Abyss,” Rislen murmured. “Why would they do such a thing?”

  “They shouldn’t have allowed any of the horsemen in there,” another jinni whispered to her, and Rislen bowed her head.

  “They let them in because they’re angry about being locked away,” another jinni said, “and they have a right to that anger. We all do.”

  “You do,” Corson agreed, “but does the whole world have to be demolished for them to sate that anger? And what if the horsemen and fallen angels aren’t satisfied with getting vengeance on Kobal and the rest of us; what if they seek more afterward? Maybe your fellow jinn will want to call it quits if Kobal is destroyed, but do you think Astaroth and the horsemen will let them? And what will they do when a new varcolac rises to replace Kobal? Will they blame that varcolac too? This is a never-ending cycle, Rislen.”

  Rislen kept her head down, but a muscle in her cheek twitched.

  “You know how twisted the angels and horsemen are. They won’t be satisfied with anything less than complete annihilation,” Corson pressed. “Maybe they’ll maintain enough control to leave some humans alive, and not destroy themselves in the process of getting their revenge, but maybe they won’t. That will be so many more lives lost, Rislen, and many of them will be innocent lives.

  “Think of all the suffering that will be created in this world. With your Faulted status, you will all feel it because not even the calamuts can shelter you from that much anguish. Not to mention, Amalia. Can you imagine what the horsemen will do to her? Are you going to let that happen?”

  I thought he might be getting through to her when Rislen’s eyes flicked toward him, but then she became expressionless again.

  • • •

  Amalia

  “Help with what, dear?”

  When the voice spoke from the shadows at the back of the cave, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Straining my eyes, I tried to see who’d spoken, but I didn’t spot Caim until he stepped away from the wall almost a hundred feet in front of me. The shadows hugging his body like a second skin caused me to gulp.

  Until recently, I’d had nothing to do with the fallen, but I’d heard enough about them to know I preferred to keep my distance from them. I didn’t get any bad impressions from Caim. Mostly he projected amusement, yet he still unnerved me.

  Was he somehow capable of hiding his emotions from me? I knew so little of the angels that it could be a possibility. Raphael came across as indifferent to almost everything, with a bit of boredom mixed in, but Caim, for all his smiles, was trickier to figure out. And why was he here when the others were gone? Had Caim turned against them like he’d turned on Lucifer to fight for Kobal’s side?

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he murmured.

  “You didn’t,” I lied and badly.

  He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his onyx, rainbow-hued eyes. The tips of the spikes on top of his wings caught what little glow remained from the dying fire and reflected it. Those spikes could skewer me in less than a heartbeat. I itched to open a portal and plunge back into the Abyss, but if the others were still alive, he might know where they’d gone.

  “What do you require help with?” he asked.

  “Where are the others?” I was proud my voice came out stronger than I’d expected.

  “They’ve gone to speak with your Faulted. They left me behind in case you and Magnus returned while they were gone.”

  “No,” I moaned. “That’s too far; it will take too much time for me to reach them.”

  Caim’s eyes flashed to the bites on my neck, and his smile vanished. “Where is Magnus?”

  “The horsemen ordered him taken away, and the jinn took him to the ruins. Then the ruins collapsed, and now, I’m not sure where he is!” I blurted. “I know he’s still alive; I feel it through our bond, but I don’t know if he’s buried underneath it all, if he somehow managed to get free, or if he’s somewhere else entirely!”

  By the time I finished speaking, I could barely contain my mounting terror. I took a deep breath to help calm me, but the longer Magnus stayed in the Abyss alone, the more something might happen to him.

  “The horsemen?” Caim inquired.

  “Yes, the jinn brought Pride, Lust, and Sloth into the Abyss. Pride killed…” I had to stop to swallow the lump in my throat before I continued. “He killed my mother.”

  Caim blinked at me before tilting his head to the side and running his gaze over me. “I will return to the Abyss with you and help you get Magnus away from them.”

  I had no idea how to respond. Did I dare trust a fallen angel when I’d felt the distrust of the others toward him?

  Then, I realized one thing—I didn’t have a choice. Even if Caim flew me to the Faulted, it would take more time than I was willing to spend on Earth to get there, and I couldn’t send him to retrieve the palitons while I returned to the Abyss.

  I might never get this chance to bring help back to the Abyss again.

  Caim continued to study me in that unnerving, bird-like way of his. “Do you not trust me?” he asked.

  No. But I bit the word back as I sought to figure out a solution to my problem.

  Then, I felt a slip in the humor he projected. A twinge of sadness slipped through his emotions before he smiled at me, but I still felt the sadness behind his smile. He couldn’t keep his feelings from me, but somehow, he was better than the others at suppressing them most of the time.

  His sadness tugged at my heart, and I found myself softening toward the perplexing angel. He couldn’t fake that feeling, no matter how hard he tried. It was impossible to fake emotions. He wanted… no, he needed to be trusted. He was once as golden as Raphael, once one of the elite, and now he was the one left behind to wait in caves.

  He was trying to atone for his past; maybe the others didn’t see that yet, but I did.

  “I understand your distrust of me,” Caim said. “But remember almost everyone on Hell, Earth, Heaven, and your Abyss want me dead far more than you.”

  I almost protested his words, but there was no reason to lie to him when we both knew the truth.

  “Right then,” I said firmly. “Here’s what you have to know.” I filled him in on the scene I’d left behind and what he could probably expect if he returned with me. “Would you still like to help me?”

  His grin revealed all his teeth as he skipped away from the shadows and toward me. Watching a fallen angel skipping across the open space may have been one of the strangest things I’d ever seen, but somehow it fit this peculiar being. As he skipped, both his index fingers swung back and forth in front of him like he was composing a song only he could hear.

  Gulping, I realized two things. Yes, Caim did indeed seek to help, but he might also be a little bit… no, he was full-blown crazy.

  And I believed this crazy was precisely what the horsemen would loathe. Things were about to get interesting in the land of the fae.

  “You know—” He offered his elbow to me and a new emotion wafted from him—comradery. I accepted his arm without hesitation. “—back in my golden days, when I was much more of a bore, I was a bit of an empath myself. I lost the ability when I fell, but I’ve felt twinges of it again since returning to Earth. It’s how I knew you were different from the other jinn.”

  “Of co
urse,” I murmured as it all made a little more sense. He wasn’t keeping his emotions suppressed from me; his ability was deflecting mine as the jinn’s did.

  “My ability wasn’t as strong as yours, I can sense that from you, but I would get impressions from the other angels. However, I think my empath readings are more to do with the raven in me than an actual empath ability.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “All animals sense things beyond what mortals and immortals do. Their instincts are better than ours in so many ways. But my empath ability was strong enough that I felt for other creatures when the rest of the fallen stopped caring at all,” he murmured.

  My breath caught when I realized Caim was something akin to the lone Faulted amid the fallen angels. For me, it was lonely enough being Faulted, but at least I had six others like me, even if I’d been torn between them and my parents.

  Life must have been incredibly lonely for Caim in Hell. It must still be lonely living with a group who didn’t fully trust him and might never do so.

  I vowed that, if we survived this, he would have a friend in me who would trust him and understand him a little better. But first, we had to return to the Abyss. I’d only been back here for a few minutes, but that was hundreds of seconds in which Magnus was left alone.

  Panic shredded my chest, and when I spoke again, my voice trembled. “When we return, if you grab me and fly as fast as you can, we should be able to avoid any jinn who might be waiting to pounce on us.”

  “And the horsemen?”

  “I’m hoping Pride and Lust are too arrogant to climb to where I was, and Sloth is too lazy.”

  “That would make sense,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll take you to Magnus if I can.”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  “And then I’m going to ruin the lives of some horsemen and one woman, of course.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued speaking before I could.

  “Nothing too crazy, my dear, I promise. When you’re ready to vamoose from the Abyss with your Chosen, I’ll be prepared to go with you, but you must let an angel have some fun.”

  His grin leaned toward the side of madness, but who was I to deny an angel their fun?

  CHAPTER 42

  Magnus

  After climbing through the rubble and slipping out a hole I found in the side of the ruins, I moved toward the front of the building in time to watch Amalia vanish from beside Absenthees. I hoped she never returned, but I had no doubt she would. She’d gone to bring back help, and she would come back with the others.

  And when she did return, I had to be near her, because the jinn were already settling in to wait for her near the monolith.

  I stopped to erase the few footprints I left behind as I moved. Earlier, I’d seen some of the jinn break away from the others and head toward a pathway I was sure would lead them to me. When they arrived, they couldn’t know I was heading toward them instead of away. I could have cloaked the prints with a small illusion, but it was more important to focus my energy on healing and keeping myself cloaked.

  Besides, I hadn’t left a print since I’d moved past the area closest to the collapse, where the sand and dirt of the ruined building was fresh and thick. Further away from the collapse, the ground was the color of sand, but as solid as a rock.

  From around a corner of a boulder, four jinn emerged and started toward me. Ducking back, I gripped the top of a three-foot section of wall and boosted myself over it without a sound. Though I’d cloaked myself and moved out of their way, I still crouched down when they neared.

  My horns had finally returned to normal, but now they slid forward again as my body pulsed with the need to kill. Amalia’s kind or not, I’d had enough of these fucking assholes. However, I remained where I was; to kill them now would let those below know I’d survived the collapse and was coming for them.

  My fingers clawed into my palms as the jinn strode passed me with an arrogance that infuriated me. It was the kind of arrogance I’d always exhibited—a “you can’t touch me” approach to life I no longer felt because I could so easily be destroyed now.

  Before Amalia, I’d never cared if I died and would have done so with a smile and a big fuck you to whoever killed me as I took them down with me. I’d been willing to give my life for my king, the cause of destroying Lucifer, and to keep Earth as intact as possible. Nothing had scared me before because there’d been nothing I cared about losing.

  I had so much now. I would still die for this cause—we’d all die if we didn’t fight the craetons—but I wouldn’t go into anything with the same arrogant indifference I’d possessed before. If I died, then so would Amalia. And if I lost her….

  For the first time, I understood terror as it settled in my gut and chilled my skin. I would level anyone in my way if it meant keeping her safe, and if necessary, I would do precisely that to get free of this place.

  When the jinn were out of sight, I moved away from the wall and toward the path.

  The fifth jinni stood at the head of the pathway with his arms crossed over his chest. He stared straight ahead, unaware I stood behind him though I was practically breathing down his neck.

  Gritting my teeth, I turned sideways and edged passed him. I ached to bury my horns in his throat and rend his head from him, but I slipped by and raced toward the monolith.

  I came to a halt at the end of the pathway and behind a sixth jinn. The path here was too narrow for me to pass him without touching. Standing behind him, I stared at his neck. He had to die, but I’d have to wait until Amalia returned before making my move. The second his body hit the ground, the others would know I was here, and I needed to maintain my element of surprise until Amalia returned.

  Lifting my gaze from his nape, I stared at the spot where Amalia had vanished as I waited for any sign of her return. I spotted a subtle ripple in the air before she emerged in Caim’s arms. Red filled my vision; my lips curled back as jealousy seared like a hot poker straight into me.

  Caim’s wings unfurled with a crack of air, but before he could take flight, two of the jinn crashed into the side of him. Swinging a wing out, he battered the jinn with it and knocked one of them back.

  Where are the others?

  As the question crossed my mind, I seized the head of the jinni before me. I tore it from his shoulders and lobbed it aside. Before it hit the ground, I created a duplicate image of myself and sent it forth. As the image ran forward, more than a dozen identical illusions broke off from it and ran toward Absenthees.

  I ran straight up the middle of the splintering figures as I headed for the monolith and Amalia. Caim gave up trying to fly and punched the other jinni in the face, but more jinn were converging on the two of them. Lifting his right wing, Caim turned it over and plunged the silver spike at the bottom of it into the eye of another jinni.

  “Go!” Amalia shouted at him when half a dozen jinn closed in on them. “Find Magnus!”

  Caim could have gotten free without her, but he remained by her side and, for the first time, I felt a twinge of respect for the fallen angel, even if I would still like to kill him for touching her.

  Some of the jinn rushed forward to attack the duplicates of me, which vanished when touched. As they were disappearing, I sent more forth until over a dozen mirages of me filled the cavernous space. I resisted my instinct to slaughter the jinn I ran past; I didn’t dare give away my location, or the fact I was cloaked again before I reached Amalia.

  One of the jinn ran past Caim’s wing and barreled into Amalia. With his shoulder in her ribs, the jinni lifted her off her feet and propelled her into the monolith. A cry escaped her when her back slammed into the structure; I barely suppressed a bellow as her voice echoed in my head. I’d tear the jinni apart for harming her.

  Arriving at the rocks mounded around the bottom of Absenthees, I climbed them faster than I’d believed possible as Amalia fought against the jinni trying to get a firm hold on her. A thunderous look crossed the jin
ni’s face when she wiggled free of him again.

  Have to get to her. Have to get to her.

  The jinni succeeded in getting one arm around her waist and was trying to lift Amalia when she pulled back her hand and punched him in the nose.

  Her face twisted in pain and she shook her hand while the jinni adjusted his hold on her. When we were free of this place, I would teach her how to fight.

  Halfway up the rock base, the coating of debris from the ruins shifted beneath my feet, and I almost went down. I managed to catch myself, but I couldn’t cover the rocks and dirt skittering away from me and tumbling down the base of Absenthees. They would know I was not one of the illusions.

  The noise drew the attention of the few jinn still climbing toward Amalia and Caim. They turned toward me, but I’d already risen away from where the sound was centered. One of them started toward where I’d almost fallen, but two others looked in the direction of where I was heading. They couldn’t see me, but they’d surmised it was me and were trying to figure out where I was.

  They guessed too accurately for my liking.

  Like locusts, a handful of jinn swarmed Caim while the others moved beyond him to Amalia. The jinn had all gotten too close for Caim to continue using his wings as weapons, and he was starting to lose the battle. Clutching his arms and legs, the jinn were about to lift him off his feet when he shifted into raven form.

  Some of the jinn yelped and stumbled away as Caim rose into the air. The three-foot-tall raven was easily a hundred pounds and had six-inch long talons curving into lethal hooks. Turning, Caim tucked his wings back and dive-bombed the jinn with a ferocious shriek.

  One jinni threw himself backward and toppled down the rocks. I darted out of the way when he bounced passed me. Another jinni wasn’t fast enough to avoid the raven; he staggered away with both his eyes and a good portion of his face missing. Caim rose higher before diving again at the jinn still swarming the rocks.

  Unaware I was there, Caim came straight at me to get at the jinn who had started in my direction after I dislodged the debris. I threw myself to the ground before he took me out with the three jinn he knocked onto their backs.