by Lori Adams
“I don’t understand,” Michael said. “Why would Sophia’s mother ask me to protect her?”
“Another question!” Camael barked. “Stop answering questions with questions! Did she or did she not ask you to protect Sophia?”
Michael stiffened at the outburst. He’d come to know Camael better since the trials; the Squad Master was professional, if anything. But he always seemed to radiate suspicion where Michael’s talents were concerned—his superior control and ability to make the death kill on demons. Something no other candidates, not even some veteran warriors, were able to achieve. During the trials, Michael had felt he’d been scrutinized more closely than the others. Now as a true warrior he’d hoped to have earned Camael’s respect.
After considering his options, Michael decided he knew where this conversation was headed. He could answer yes. He could say he was asked to watch over Sophia. It would provide an explanation for his interest in her. It might assuage their curiosity about him hearing Sophia’s voice in the tunnels, and why the demons knew to use her as a weapon against him. But, more than likely, he’d be caught in the lie, if someone thought to ask Celeste herself.
Aside from all that, the personal inquisition helped settle things in his mind. Sophia was right; he shouldn’t tell the Halos that he was in love with her. He shouldn’t tell anyone except the one who married them. Whatever the Halo Masters were after, Michael was sure it wouldn’t help his cause.
“No,” he answered firmly, and immediately sensed Raph’s distrust. He refused to look at his brother. If Raph was feeding the Halos suspicions about him and Sophia, there would be hell to pay. Later.
“As I thought,” Sachiel said, speaking directly to Camael. “Besides, she is a spirit walker now. It’s done.”
Camael didn’t look convinced.
“What’s done?” Michael asked with a spike in his spiritual energy. Something was wrong; he could feel it.
“I did as you asked, Michael,” Raph broke in. His voice was tight with sarcasm. Michael finally faced him. “I asked them if they knew anything about Sophia’s overabundance of power. If they noticed, like we did.”
Michael boiled inside. He hadn’t asked Raph to speak to the Halo Masters. He’d asked Gabe, who would have been more clinical and less personal about the situation. Not that it mattered now.
“Of course we noticed,” Sachiel scoffed. “We’re old but not blind, boy. That girl has more power than…” He caught himself and changed course. “But you will leave it alone, Raphael. As a guardian, it no longer concerns you. Sophia St. James is now a member of the spiritual family. Her existence will not be questioned. And, Michael, you have more to occupy yourself with than searching for answers about her. Our scouts tell us that legions below are moving in untold numbers. Demon scouts have been seen in the Borderlands. There’s talk of abnormal unrest; something has stirred Hell like a hornet’s nest, and we mean to find out what.”
Michael was barely listening. Something Chief Master said had stuck in his mind. Her existence will not be questioned. He’d never heard anyone defended like that, much less a spirit walker. And what the hell did he mean to say, That girl has more power than… what?
An unexpected breeze rustled the foliage behind them and lifted the edge of their cloaks. The men turned toward the balcony where a Halo centurion appeared between two giant stone pillars. He looked frantic as he hurried down the invisible staircase and marched across the bridge. Taking a knee before the Chief Master, he handed over a folded yellow parchment. “Urgent,” was all he said.
Sachiel turned away and snapped apart the red wax seal. Then he took in a deep, deliberate breath as faint tendrils of incense—a concoction of storax, onycha, galbanum, and frankincense—seeped from the broken seal. He recognized the scent and understood that the holy message was authentic and contained only the truth. He read quickly and then handed it to Camael. The Squad Master scanned it and then crumpled it into a ball. The parchment turned to ash in his hands and he brushed away the remains.
“Gather your weapons,” Sachiel ordered Michael. “We are called.”
As Michael strode to the weapons chamber behind the waterfall and suited up, his fellow warriors appeared in the meadow. Twenty in this band. The call to arms had been put out immediately, and they answered without delay.
Chief Master Sachiel scribbled a response to his superiors on a parchment that he’d pulled from beneath his breastplate. After folding the parchment, he opened the large ring on his middle finger and poured wax onto the seal. He closed the ring and stamped its holy insignia into the hot red wax. The centurion hurried away with the message.
—
The Borderlands had once been considered holy ground, a garden of unblemished tranquility where souls communed and pondered which gods they believed would welcome them home. Which angels would guide them. But that was a long time ago. Before the days of the great philosophers. Before the wise prophets and the Messiah. Well before the days of the Rebellion, when wars in Heaven raged and traitors were cast out. From that, Hell took shape in the depths below the Borderlands and with it a Dark Master, the most powerful traitor with greed in his veins. Greed for power and vengeance. Greed for the souls of man.
Evil spawned more evil, and the darkness swelled into factions and those into separate kingdoms. Walls were erected, gates built, and then came the competition, bred from the Dark Master’s insatiable appetite. He would pit the kingdoms against one another in the reaping of human souls to win his favor. Minor nobles took command of individual kingdoms and did the Dark Master’s bidding. The Borderlands were later sacked in what became known as the Grandis Incursio, the Great Invasion. The archangels had been caught unaware and countless souls were Taken by demons in the name of their master. The result was the largest reaping of souls in unrecorded history. Thereafter, Halo warriors were Born of Light to combat the evil, and Demon Knights created from post humans to counter them. Balance was restored, if only temporarily. From that day forth the Borderlands were no longer considered a safe haven for lost souls. Fearful, they scattered with the wind. And the holy ground became a constant battlefield. Bold demon armies that came looking for lost souls were met with legions of Halos or smaller bands of warriors.
These days, the Borderlands were a conflicting visual tapestry. Some areas were woven together by soft iridescent fog, cool green grass, tepid lakes, rolling hills, and deep valleys. Other places were as dry as an old skull and filled with shadows that hid vile creatures and hideous, unnatural beings never meant for a Forgiven’s eyes. The Dark Master had a warped sense of humor that he often unleashed on the Halos in the form of wild beasts.
Michael and the Halos quietly ascended onto a clearing known as Weeping Rock. It was a grassy knoll with trees at one end and a large conglomeration of boulders at the other. Michael had never spent much time there. As a guardian, he’d occasionally passed through the area with a Forgiven soul on his way to the final resting place. But Michael knew the origins of the name, same as anyone.
In the ancient days, before the Great Invasion, lost souls who had turned away their guardian helpers came to the rocks to weep at their foolishness. They waited in vain for guardians to help them cross over, unaware that it was too late; it was not the guardian’s duty anymore. Once a soul had refused a guardian’s guidance, it was set loose among the spirit realm. It would be spirit walkers—humans awakened to the call—who eventually found them. Their only job was to help the lost souls cross over the Borderlands and into the sweet place of resting. As time went on, this gentle reaping did not go unnoticed. When the Dark Master became aware of the lost souls he could have claimed, he roared with cold-blooded rage. Nothing infuriated him more than losing lost souls. They were easy pickings; he had to have them. By his oath and blood, he created soul seekers to search out these unfettered souls and to battle spirit walkers for them. For every entity born or called to protect human souls, the Dark Master created an opposite to battle them, once again restoring
balance to the chaos.
There were twenty warriors in the meadow at Weeping Rock; fifteen veterans, two warriors who’d trained with Michael, plus the pair of Halo Masters, Camael and Sachiel.
“Look to the cliffs,” Camael ordered. He motioned that they should spread out. “Invaders from the south like to claw their way up. But watch your backs.”
Because the Borderlands carried no sun in its sky, only a stationary bright glow overhead, there was constant light. There was also a constant rolling mist that came and went in various degrees. Demons were especially fond of hiding in it if only for a moment. An Angel’s vision was not something one could avoid. Solid, liquid, or darkness, they could see through anything.
“Surprise attacks rarely happen in this section,” grumbled the warrior next to Michael as they stalked across the meadow, heading toward the cliffs. Axel, the others had called him, was a burly veteran with steel in his gray eyes and gravel in his throat. He had dark skin, curly white hair cut close to his scalp, and a matching short, tight beard. “More likely, it’ll be us lying in wait. Chief Master likes to allow an entire horde to march into the open, pretty as you please. And then we rain down justice on their asses.”
“And why would demons blatantly roam into the Borderlands?” Michael asked. “Don’t the demon hordes know we’ll be waiting? Don’t they have experienced commanders to lead them?”
“Sure they do. But sometimes they just don’t give a shit. Usually it means that war between the kingdoms in Hell has escalated or taken a change in leadership. We never know what upstart overlord’s maneuvered his way to the top, this time. Or who planned an invasion on another kingdom by way of the Borderlands. Nor do we care. Leadership in the five kingdoms changes like the tide. And loyalty is a rare find. All we care about is one constant factor—there’s always a lapse in reaping during an uprising. Their nobles don’t give a shit about human souls when the kingdoms go at it. Power is what they’re after.”
“How long are they usually preoccupied?” Michael asked, picking his way through a patch of stones buried in the grass.
“Not long enough for our taste.” Axel grunted. “And it never abates completely. No doubt their Dark Master wouldn’t allow it. Greedy bastard. But we like to encourage the hostilities. Whenever a demonic scouting party enters the Borderlands looking for deserters, traitors, or fresh meat, we get Intel. Give a little back. Offer a trade. Stir things up. Demons love to give up their so-called allies.”
Michael jolted to a stop in surprise. “You trade human souls for information?”
Axel scoffed. “Not bloody likely. What do you take us for? Savages? Our trade is to let the son of a bitch leave here in one piece. If we like the Intel. If not…” He clicked his tongue and jerked his thumb at his throat. “We know the royals by name. By their scent. The ones that come topside anyway. So if they change forms, we can always scent them out. They may inhabit different bodies but their core stink always stays the same. You’ll see. In time. That bit comes with experience to a Halo. And more than likely we’ll know when one’s lying. We’ll kill it on the back end if we find out later that it’s lied.”
The death kill, Michael thought. He worked this over in his mind, realizing he should’ve guessed there would be more to destroying or killing demons than just slice and dice. There were maneuvers to make, traitors to buy, information to gather. With the endgame always the same: Kill as many as possible and save souls.
Michael moved along a sheer cliff, which wasn’t so much a cliff as a carving away of matter. The Borderlands were ugly with them, sporadic pockmarks on a once glorious terrain. It happened during the Great Invasion, when the Dark Master had sent his hordes. Legend says that the gashes in the glorious matter making up the Borderlands were grooves cut by the archangels’ holy swords. They’d fought a magnificent battle against the demon horde but couldn’t stop the onslaught. Instead, they carved away sections where the demons had gathered. Like separating chunks of ice from the mainland, the matter broke away and slid into the darkness below. And with it a multitude of demons. The strategy changed the course of the war. But what remained were cross sections of matter that solidified into crystallized crags. Over the millennia, reddish black fog seeped up from the depths and charred the crags into ugly black and silver-slick walls. Every hundred yards or so, the beautiful terrain that should have dissolved into a pleasant iridescent mist gave way to these cliffs. The meadow of Weeping Rock had an especially ugly precipice.
Michael peered over the edge, easily spotting a band of dirty underlings clinging helplessly to the face of the sheer wall. He noted the fear radiating from them. Six in all. No, seven. One had tried to hide below another. Axel moved in beside Michael and pointed out yet another one making its way up a dark ridge. Michael’s eyes moved over each grimy face and the wide hollow eyes staring up at him. They were pathetic and unskilled at climbing.
“Weaklings, at best,” Axel muttered. “You see? No liveries. No weapons.”
“But why would they be hanging here?” Michael wondered aloud. “Why attempt this route instead of that sloping path just beyond the last cliff?”
Michael hesitated on one of the females. She was poised not twenty feet below him, her bloody, mangled fingers digging into a handhold. It wasn’t the disheveled hair or polluted features that drew his attention. It was the look she gave him. While the others trembled with fear, she smiled cold and deadly. Her eyelids half closed.
The answer came to them at the same time, and Michael drew his sword while Axel wheeled around and yelled, “Behind you! The underlings are bait!”
The warning came a moment too late. A small band of demons in green leather had been flushed out of its hiding place. They came from beyond an outcropping of mist-covered trees to the east. By their harried, rambling charge, they appeared to be lesser demons wielding swords, battle-axes, and spears. They swarmed in a wide, clumsy arc and would have missed the warriors altogether if they hadn’t been discovered first. It seemed their target lay up the hill to the north, where a similar-looking horde in black liveries was pouring over the crest like scattering ants.
As the warriors merged into the band of lesser demons, the distinct clang of metal against metal repeated throughout the Borderlands. Most warriors wielded two hip swords or long daggers, saving the larger broadsword for more worthy adversaries. They easily cut down the unskilled demons. An occasional spear or ax slammed into a warrior, catching him in the chest but barely breaking his stride. They had yet to develop a weapon to kill angels. Most often the warrior would simply yank it out and return the favor.
The demons were thinning out, hectic as rats. Most were killed with a whirling blade to the back as they headed for higher ground. They ran away not out of fear but to meet the oncoming siege from the neighboring kingdom.
“They’re after their own!” Sachiel shouted as the demon he faced had turned and raced up the hill. He spun a dagger into its back and watched it crumple. “Damnit to hell! I wanted that one!” He spun around, searching for another.
Axel had one by the throat, a scrawny heathen with wild eyes. He lifted it off the ground with the sword buried in its belly. A second demon attacked from behind, a battle-ax ready for Axel’s neck just as Michael sent his dagger whirling through the air. It caught the second demon between the shoulder blades. His body arched on impact and the battle-ax wavered in his hand. Michael moved quickly. With his fetching out, he shot across the distance, ripped out the demon’s spine with one hand, and yanked his dagger free with the other. He landed on his feet as an ungodly howl pierced the air. So startling was the sound that it caused nearby lessers to flinch and look back in fear. What they saw was a bold new warrior poised with a bloody spine in one hand, a blade in the other, and a fellow demon crumpled at his feet. The last of the demons fled after that.
Axel removed his sword from the destroyed demon. The form immediately began to smoke and dissolve into a pool. He rounded on Michael with a surprised expression. “Da
mn, boy.” He grunted out his approval while he eyed the dripping spine. Sachiel had witnessed the death kill and, glancing around, shouted to another warrior who still had a live one under his boot. A sword was poised at its throat.
“Stop!” Sachiel ordered. “Tristan, bring that one to me.”
Tristan, a sandy-haired boy who was big for his age and eager to please, had trained with Michael in the barn. At the command, he looked up with murder in his eyes. Noting the other warriors gathered around Michael and the bloody spine at his feet, he guessed the obvious. Michael Patronus had made another death kill.
With a look of disappointment, Tristan obeyed, dragging the demon to its feet. He hauled it across the short distance and shoved it to the ground. The lesser demon looked to be no more than twenty years old, scared, and shivering under the warriors’ scrutiny.
Sachiel stepped through the band of warriors and circled the demon. He made an obvious sniffing sound, and then wrinkled his nose. He failed to recognize the stench.
“Which one are you?”
“I am Darrow, m’Lord.”
A smattering of deep chuckles came from the warriors while they took turns cleaning the black blood from their blades across Darrow’s ragged shirt.
“I am not your lord,” Sachiel said. “And not your grace or your honor or any other unearned title you scum like to toss around below. Now, you will answer my questions or I’ll shove my boot up your asshole. You scum from below still have assholes, don’t you?”
Darrow trembled and shifted onto his knees. He held up quivering hands as though he’d been struck. “Aye, m’Lor— I mean, yes, sir. We’ve assholes down in Hell. Lots of…ass…holes,” he said to a rumble of laughter.
“And don’t we know it!” Axel shouted, his booming voice making the demon cower.