by Tegan Maher
I’d brushed off her words as I’d learned to do after hearing thousands of pipe dreams over the years and gone back to sleep, assuring her that I loved her and would see her in the morning. That’s where I’d messed up and what had made me complicit whether I’d meant to be or not. I should have taken her at her word.
Three hours later, the gate alarms had gone off. It had only taken my aunts and I a few minutes to dress and teleport there, but the gates had been wide open, souls pouring out. The battle had been fierce as we’d fought to push the escaping souls back in, but not a single one in sight had gotten away. Except the one with my mother. Still, we had no idea what had happened in those few minutes before we’d gotten there.
Adam had arrived less than an hour later. He’d been close with my family since before I was born, and I’d visited his castle often as I grew up. It was still a place of joy and solace for me. He was an elder, and though I’m not sure why, he’d always been there for me even though I hadn’t made it easy for him sometimes.
This wasn’t the first scrape he’d gotten me out of, but it was by far the worst. I had a long string of infractions behind me, mostly because I didn’t have much regard for rules if they ran in opposition to what I wanted to do. In retrospect, I’d gotten away with a lot more than I should have.
I closed my eyes and rolled my head, letting the sea breeze and the sound of crashing waves far below soothe my troubled soul. I knew my shortcomings. I was irreverent, I spoke my mind too freely, and I tended to bend the rules by sneaking in a bit of gray magic here and there if needed to get what I wanted, but I was also a pragmatist. This time, I had to follow the rules.
I blew out a breath as I accepted my fate. In the scheme of things, I’d gotten off lightly, and I knew that was probably Adam’s doing. If I messed this up, it would fall back on him, and the last thing I wanted was to drag him through the mud after he’d saved my wings and given me a chance at redemption.
Soft footsteps sounded behind me, and I braced my hands against the cool stone of the tower wall and pivoted my head expecting to see Adam. Instead, Callum stood there, hands in his pockets.
“Mind if I join you?”
A spark of irritation zapped through me, but I shoved it away as I bit back a sharp retort. I was stuck with the guy for who-knew-how-long, so starting off on the wrong foot would be a mistake. I lifted a dismissive shoulder. I wasn’t going to bite off my own nose to spite my face, but that didn’t mean I had to be nice. This was my private place, and he’d invaded it.
“How’d you find me?” I asked, not quite able to mask the sharpness of my tone. “This is called a secret tower for a reason.”
“Adam told me where you’d probably be,” he admitted. “He’s worried about you.”
I was a little hurt that Adam hadn’t come to check on me himself, but knowing him, he was sipping hundred-year-old cognac and feeling horrible for hurting me.
“He’s a good guy,” I said, not taking my eyes off the ocean. The moon glinted off a fin as it rolled in the waves, and I smiled. The Gulf of Mexico was renowned for dolphin sightings, and the towers of Castle Laurant were by far the best place to view them from as far as I was concerned.
“Great view you got here,” he said, his gaze scanning the panorama in front of us. That was the second attempt he’d made at breaking the ice, and I relented a little.
“It’s been one of my favorite spots in the world since I was ten,” I replied. That had been when I’d stumbled upon the alcove. I’d been hiding from my aunts and had accidentally tipped the portrait.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern etching his features as he stepped toward me and climbed up on the wall, careful to stay out of my bubble. “That was pretty brutal back there.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “it wasn’t one of my more pleasant experiences in the castle, that’s for sure. It could have been a lot worse, though.”
“Still, it’s a harsh sentence given your part in all of it,” he said. “Though I suppose if you’d fallen under mage law, they’d have stripped you of your magic.”
I nodded. “I’m lucky I didn’t lose my wings. This wasn’t exactly the first time my name’s crossed their celestial desks, and all the other times were because of something I’d done directly. I’m not exactly a rule follower.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t brutal to experience,” he replied, throwing a loose stone that was lying on the ledge. He opened his hand and twisted his wrist and the stone paused midair before bursting into a thousand glowing golden flecks that hovered midair for a few seconds before being swept away by the breeze.
I smiled a little despite myself. “Cool parlor trick. I’d heard mages were good at illusions.”
He lifted a shoulder and smiled back, and I couldn’t help but notice how kind his golden eyes were.
“Illusions aren’t my only game, but this one made you smile. That was the original outward role of mages, after all. Entertainment.”
“Outward?” I asked. I admit I didn’t know much about mages. In fact, he was the first one I’d ever met.
“Yeah,” he replied, twisting another stone in the air. This time, it changed color before turning into a sea gull and flying away. “We sorta played to the court. Silly stuff like that. But we also served a quieter role of advisor. Our training starts when we’re very young and encompasses everything from magic to history and science, to philosophy and strategy. Wars have been won—and lost—on the advice of mages.”
His generous mouth tipped up on one side as he cast me a sideways glance. “Of course, mages who led courts to defeat didn’t tend to live long.”
Wars were something I didn’t understand even though we’d had our share of rebellions among our ranks. It just seemed so barbaric. I said as much, and he nodded.
“They are. But so are humans. Of course, they’re also complex. Because they don’t have magic, they’ve had to learn to improvise. They’re quite clever, or at least some of them are.”
I tilted my head at him. “I’ve never interacted with them much. I’ve met a couple but didn’t engage much with them. They seemed nice enough, though. How do they get by without magic?”
My magic was such an intrinsic part of who I was that I couldn’t imagine going through a day without it. I had to think it would be like losing a limb. Or worse.
“They’re quite resilient,” he replied. “I suppose you can’t miss something you never had.” He scoffed. “In fact, most of them don’t even believe in magic anymore.”
I stared at him, aghast. “How can they not believe in magic? It’s everywhere around them. In the very air they breathe.”
He nodded. “It is, but they’ve managed to erase it from their minds. They write it off as fantasy found only in books.”
That was more than I could imagine. “Have they no intuition? No connection to the earth? Can they not feel the energy humming around them?”
“They can, I suppose,” he said, throwing another rock, “or at least some of them can. The rest have lost their connection to the web of life around them. Even so, there are still a lot of good humans. But when we go into their territories, we won’t be able to use magic in sight of them.”
That would be interesting. I’d never tried to make it an hour without using magic, let alone a day.
“So what do you think we should do first?” I asked. “Do you have any experience chasing demons? I mean, why did Adam choose you for this task?”
“To be honest,” he said, his expression thoughtful as the sea air mussed his hair, “I’m not sure. I guess he thought we’d be a good fit.”
I’d expected him to run on about how powerful he was or how smart, but instead, I’d gotten a non-answer. What did that mean, a good fit? Before I could ask him, Adam appeared behind us.
“I suggest you start here,” he said, handing me the file folder from earlier. “It should be an easier one and shouldn’t require any human interaction since it’s in Abaddon’s Gate. Adam,
do you have any idea which fear demon this may be?”
My new partner shook his head. “Not really. Killing somebody by scaring them to death isn’t exactly a unique trademark. I’ll have to see what we learn when we get there. I might get enough to narrow it down then.”
“Kira?” Adam asked, turning to me. “Any you can think of?”
As keepers, my family had a record of everybody in the valley, but that encompassed thousands upon thousands of souls. Though most were given a shot at redemption after serving their initial sentences, there were a lot of bad people in the world no matter what plane they lived on.
Not everybody who went to the valley turned into a demon, though that did tend to happen to the souls who were sentenced to eternity there. It was a fundamentally unstable place for a regular soul, especially when they were evil to begin with. Fear demons weren’t particularly rare, so I agreed with Callum.
“There are a lot of fear demons,” I replied after a moment. “That’s sort of their stock in trade when they’re alive, so it’s their go-to when they die, too. Callum’s right. I can’t tell who it is just from the fact that they scared somebody to death. I’ll have to get there, talk to people, see if anything weird’s been going on. Even then, they’re not particularly creative. I think we should just go in assuming it’s a powerful one and be prepared for anything.”
Adam pressed his lips together. “You do have one advantage,” he said after a few seconds. “They’ve just escaped, so they’re only at partial strength. The longer they’re out, though, the more of their original strength they’ll regain.”
Callum and I both nodded.
“Then we’d better get started,” my new partner replied.
I hopped off the wall and Adam handed me the folder. “You can do this, Kira.”
“It’s not like I have a choice,” I replied, and regretted my words before they were even out. It wasn’t his fault my mom was a hot mess or that I didn’t take her seriously, and he’d gone out on a limb for me yet again. “I won’t let you down, Adam, I swear.”
His half-smile was warm but tired. “You never do.”
3
A knock on my door woke me up the next morning before the sun was even up, and I groaned. I’d had a problem falling asleep, so I’d gone to the kitchen for a sandwich and hadn’t managed to doze off until well past midnight. Mornings weren’t my thing, and I contemplated how much extra trouble I’d be in for just blasting whoever was making such an unholy racket so early. I flopped over and pulled my pillow over my head, but a few seconds later, the pounding resumed.
“All right!” I grumbled, rolling over and stumbling out of bed. My sheet was wrapped around one ankle and I tripped, then automatically thrust out my wings to keep myself from face-planting. My newly reduced set didn’t do much other than to sour my mood further. I did manage not to kill myself in the end though and yanked the door open.
Callum stood there cringing. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I figured you’d be up.”
I scowled at him and scrubbed a hand over my face. “Why on earth would you think that? No normal being is up right now unless they haven’t gone to bed yet. It’s not even daylight.”
“It will be soon,” he said, tilting his head at me as if he were looking at an alien, “and I figured we should get an early start. Besides, I have something for you. Adam had to leave, but he asked me to give it to you.”
I hadn’t noticed the flat black box he was holding until then. I swung my door open, yawning. “Come in, then.”
He was still looking at me like I had sharpie on my forehead, and I realized I probably looked like a swamp monster. I wasn’t a pretty sleeper. I tossed and turned, I drooled, and I snored. Odds were good that my platinum hair was plastered flat to one side of my head and standing straight up on the other, and I probably had eye boogers and mouth crusties.
Still, he was the one who’d come to my room at the ass crack of dawn, so he got what he got. We were going to be spending a lot of time together, so I supposed it was better to get it out of the way now.
“Let me splash some water on my face and freshen up,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said, then blushed when he realized what he said.
I smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m well aware of my flaws. And just FYI, I’m not a morning person. And I’m definitely a coffee person.”
As if on cue, somebody else knocked on my door, and Brielle, my best friend in the world, swept in carrying a tray before I could even answer.
“I knew you’d want an early start, so I figured I’d bring you some caramel mocha so you wouldn’t be a Kraken when your hot new partner—”
She stopped mid-stride when she saw Callum standing there. Unlike most people, though, she didn’t blush or try to change what she was saying just because she’d gotten busted. “Oh, never mind. Your hot new partner is already here. Good thing I brought an extra cup then. I figured Adam might be here giving you a pep talk.”
I didn’t know whether to hug her or kill her. “I get why he thought I might be up. He doesn’t know I’m nocturnal. You, on the other hand, should have known better. What are you even doing up?”
She sighed and set the tray down on the antique cherry side table in my sitting area. “I was worried about you and couldn’t sleep. Brutus said you lost your wings. I came here last night looking for you, then checked the tower, but you weren’t in either place.” She examined my expression, her caramel eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Is it true?”
“Sorta,” I replied, then flexed my shoulders to produce what was left of my wings.
Brielle sucked in a breath. “Damn. Well, at least they’re not clear gone.” It took her a second, but then overwhelming pity crossed her face and she rushed forward to hug me. “Oh, sweetie. You can’t get into the city. Is it permanent? They’re not going to leave them like that, are they?”
“No, but I have no idea when I’ll get them back.” Trying to hold back my own tears, I pulled her to the sofa and told her the whole story while we sipped coffee.
“But that’s not fair,” she said, tucking a strand of curly black hair behind her ear. “Your mom’s the one who should be in trouble, not you.”
“Maybe,” I replied, taking a sip of my coffee, “but you know I don’t exactly have a sterling record, and Adam says they laid it on heavy with me because they’re super pissed and she’s not here for them to take it out on.”
“May I say something?” Callum asked. He’d taken a seat in a blue paisley wingback chair and had waited patiently without interrupting the whole time I’d told the story.
“Sure,” I said.
“Why is it such a big deal about the wings? I mean, I get it, sort of. I saw them before he did … that,” he said, motioning toward my back, “but he said you could get them back. Is it that you can’t fly with them?”
“Oh, I can still fly with them.” I hadn’t thought of that, though, and coldness washed over me. Then I remembered that lower-level angels could, and my wings were just like theirs. “Or I think I can. I hope I can. It’s that they were what granted me access to Celestial City. Without them, I can’t go to court.”
“But I thought you lived on an estate adjacent to the Gate? And you don’t strike me as a princess type, anyway.”
I smiled, but there was no humor in it. “That’s not it. It’s hard to describe to somebody who’s never been there. True, there’s a lot of pomp and circumstance when there are formal gatherings, but the city is beautiful and full of wonders. The skies are the softest pink, with big, fluffy lavender clouds, and the way the sun shimmers off the castle in the evening light … it’s indescribable. And it feels welcoming. Like home.”
“Yeah,” Brielle added, her chin quivering. “We don’t spend a lot of time there, but not being able to go when she pleases is a horrible punishment. It’s almost like a banishment. She’s been stripped of her station, essentially.”
“Wow,” Callum said, his voice soft
. “I’m sorry. Believe it or not, I do know what that feels like. I’m not exactly welcome where I come from, either.”
That piqued my curiosity. “Really? I figured for sure Adam had saddled me with a goody-two-shoes. You mean you’re not the poster boy for good behavior?”
He barked out a laugh. “Hardly. In fact, I’m surprised they assigned me to you. I’m damned good at what I do, but I have a feeling you’re no slouch. Other mages would have been better suited to the project, especially if part of this job is keeping you on the straight and narrow.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, afraid my suspicions had just been confirmed and that they’d assigned him to me as a babysitter. “Is that what Adam told you to do? Keep me out of trouble?”
Callum shook his head. “Not at all. He did ask me to watch your back, but I didn’t get the sense he was asking me to police you.” He picked up the box he was holding in his lap. “As a matter of fact, I’m curious to know what’s in here, to tell you the truth. I admit I tried to peek, but the lid won’t open for me.”
I took a closer look at the box I’d barely noticed before. It was black onyx with ancient golden symbols on all sides. Protection wards, I realized when I took the box from his outstretched hand.
Strangely enough, the lid opened just fine for me, and I lifted a piece of black velvet to reveal a dagger.
Brielle gasped. “Kira, it’s a divinity dagger. I didn’t even know those really existed.”
I gazed in awe at the weapon cradled in the box. It was carved from one solid piece of flawless diamond with a large onyx embedded in the hilt. Diamonds were a direct connection to the divine energies, and used properly, granted the wielder immense power. Onyx acted as a protection shield and also counteracted black magic and dark energies.
In my situation, it would give my natural angel magic a tremendous boost while cutting through dark souls like butter. I couldn’t kill them with it because souls were, by definition, not alive, but I could incapacitate one long enough for me to defend myself and get it into the box. The onyx would effectively negate its energy long enough for me to do what I needed to do.