His face moved closer, until his cheek rested against hers. Until his lips moved against her ear, his breath hot and moist. “You truly have no idea the power you’re dealing with, have you? Your puny mortal brain just can’t stretch far enough to grasp what lies outside you, and anything of the divine in you is long gone, too diluted to make any difference. So what is it that he sees in you, then?”
Alex pressed her lips together, refusing to answer. Or to release the agony building in her throat. The claws pressed a little harder and she felt one pierce the skin.
“Did you know that I loved someone once?” Caim asked softly. “Not just someone. My soulmate. She didn’t follow when I left the One, and when I tried to return to her, Aramael stopped me. I lost her forever because of him.”
Alex swallowed against his grip. She could think of nothing more bizarre than discussing a demon’s love life right now, but she needed to keep him talking. Needed to give Seth time to find another Power. “But I thought soulmates were taken from all angels,” she rasped. “Even if you return, she won’t remember you.”
“But I would finally find the same peace that she has.” His face twisted. “Nearly five thousand years I have lived with the memory of her loss. Five thousand years of feeling my soul slowly bleed to death, because my brother denied my return. Denied my cleansing.”
Alex tugged in vain at Caim’s hand and struggled for air. She willed herself not to black out. Not yet. “I’m sure he didn’t mean—”
His hand left her throat, wrapped into her hair, and threw her to the floor. Her head cracked against a baseboard and explosions of light and fire went off inside her skull. She clenched her teeth against the wave of nausea that washed through her and struggled to sit up. A foot shoved into her face, sending her to the floor a second time. Her nose shattered with an audible crack and a fresh jolt of agony ripped through her. She gagged on the blood flooding her throat and remained down, staring up at her captor through the tears streaming from her eyes.
Caim stooped and grasped her chin in a cruel grip, a yellowed feather dropping from a wing and brushing against her cheek in its descent to the floor.
“Never, ever think that your angel is any less merciless than the one he serves, Naphil,” he grated. “He knew. He knew, and he told me my memories would be just punishment. Told me I deserved to suffer for my actions against the One.” His eyes became like chips of black ice. “He knew, and now he will know more. He will understand what he sentenced me to with his betrayal.”
He grasped her hair again and hoisted her to her feet as if she had no weight, no substance. Then he slipped behind her, one hand at her throat, the other resting over her heart. “Call him,” he commanded. “I want him to see you die.”
“I can’t—”
He jerked her against him. “Call him.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Say his name!”
Alex thought of the torment she had glimpsed in gray, turbulent eyes during unguarded moments. Thought about the war that might be triggered by the pain of a Power’s loss, and what new level of agony would be added to that pain if he had to witness that loss. Knew that she could not allow that to happen. Would not.
“No,” she whispered. Please let Seth have found someone. Please let him be on his way back … please.
“The Appointed was right, you know. I can make you.”
Caim’s voice had roughened and the texture of his skin against hers had changed. Alex did not want to know why. She stood tall, closed her eyes, and braced for the worst.
“No,” she said. “You can’t.”
“Poor, naïve mortal,” Caim whispered in her ear. “You really don’t understand, do you?”
Three distinct, icy-cold points dug into Alex’s chest over her heart and her eyes flew open. Heat followed the cold, as the points raked across her, shallow at first and then deepening, gouging, tearing through tissue and bone alike. Agony pierced through to the very core of her sanity. The next time Caim’s voice growled its command to call Aramael, she did so—obediently, instinctively, mindlessly.
ARAMAEL STOOD AT the edge of a roof, thirty-four stories above the streets, and watched the city come to life below him. Hundreds of thousands of mortals beginning their day, going about their business, all oblivious to the drama playing out in their midst.
Oblivious to an angel’s torment.
He raised his head and glowered at the morning sky. Damn it to hell and back, how he ached to be with her. Ached for this hunt to be over, so he could return to her. Hold her, feel her presence mingle with his, discover how complete the melding of their energies might be.
His mouth twisted. But as much as he desired the end of this hunt, he dreaded it, too. It would only be a matter of time before he was cleansed as the others had been; before his recognition of a soulmate was removed from him and she became nothing more than a distant memory. There, but without context. Without meaning.
Aramael bit back an oath and he turned to pace the roofline. Froze in mid-swivel. His head snapped up and he stared out at the sunrise, focused, rigid, waiting. A long moment slid by, then another. He frowned. He was sure he’d felt—yes. There. A ripple along the edge of his consciousness. The stirring of an awareness that he’d almost missed amid the chaos of his thoughts. An awareness he’d almost forgotten, it seemed so long since he’d felt it.
Caim.
Savage exhilaration filled him. Head high, he tensed, centered himself, willed himself to stillness. Caim’s energy surged through the air, bold, vile, and entirely traceable as he transitioned to his demon side. Sudden thunder rolled overhead, a low, ominous growl that signaled Caim’s interference in a universe he had no business toying with. The city’s sounds faded into the background. The fire of the hunt licked along Aramael’s veins, kindling the cold rage he carried in him. The rage that was him.
Satisfaction snarled through his center.
I’m coming, Brother.
But on the verge of increasing his energy vibration to give chase, he went still. Something was wrong. He fought back the fury, struggled to control the instinct that would overtake him. No, not wrong. Missing. His center turned to ice.
Alex.
He could feel Caim, but where the hell was Alex?
Aramael forgot to breathe. Forgot, for a moment, how to think as his heart collapsed inward, drawing every fragment of his attention, every atom of his energy. He felt no Alex.
The impossibility of failure loomed in his mind, all encompassing, all consuming. Then, even as agony began to rip him apart from the inside out, a scream of anguish tore through his mind. Pierced to his core.
His name.
Alex’s voice.
ARAMAEL TOOK IN the scene before him, missing nothing. Caim, half changed to demon, holding Alex’s limp body; the gashes across Alex’s chest spilling a frightening amount of blood over her captor’s withered arm and curved, deadly claws.
A haze of red descended over Aramael’s vision and he fought to see through it. To see the truth, and not to lash out mindlessly. Brutally. Alex wasn’t gone yet. As soon as he’d arrived here, he’d felt her presence again. Weak, thready, but clinging to its earthly vessel. He could still save her.
If he maintained control.
He tamped down the ferocity that boiled in him, demanding release. He flexed his wings. Inhaled deeply. Felt his nostrils flare.
“Caim.”
“Aramael,” his brother rasped in return. “Glad you could make it.”
Caim shifted his grip and Aramael heard a tiny gasp from Alex. Her eyes opened, met his, clouded with pain and regret. Aramael’s heart contracted.
“You’re here,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I tried not to call.”
Her words ended on a groan as Aramael’s twin gave her a rough shake. Pain spasmed across her face and her eyes drifted shut again. Aramael’s rage battled the prison he imposed on it.
“How touching,” Caim drawled. “A mortal trying to protect t
he great Aramael. Have you become that weak, Brother?”
Aramael unfurled his wings. Struggled grimly to hold on to his temper. “Release the woman,” he snarled in return, “and let’s find out.”
Caim’s own tattered wings flexed wide at the challenge and, for an instant, he seemed to consider the idea. Then he shook his head. Smiled. “Oh, I’ve no doubt you can still overpower me. You carry the full force of Heaven behind you, after all. But there’s more than one kind of weakness, isn’t there?”
He forced Alex’s chin up and back, exposing the curve of her throat. His claws extended, reaching their full, deadly length, and his skin drew tight and thin over the bones of a body that had lost its substance. In an instant he became fully demon—a living, skin-clad skeleton, his flesh consumed by the evil and hatred that had eaten away at him since his downfall.
The same hatred that burned in his eyes now.
“Even now you hesitate, Power. You can stop me, but your feelings stand in your way. What do you call that, if not weak?”
For the first time in Aramael’s existence, impotence held him immobile. He felt the truth of Caim’s words like a blow to his gut and struggled for words that would buy him time. That would buy Alex time. “You don’t even know this will work,” he said. “And even if you do succeed, you’ll never be allowed to stay.”
Weak as the words were, momentary doubt crossed Caim’s expression. Then he shook his head. “She’ll understand,” he said. “If I can just talk to her, I can make her understand what it’s like in that prison. The emptiness. The nothingness. An eternity with no touch, no thought, nothing but the memories of all that I have lost.”
Caim straightened and his claws slowly sank into the skin of Alex’s throat. “I’ll make her understand what she sentenced me to. I’ll make you understand.”
“Caim—”
“Oh, please do, Aramael. Please beg. I’d like that.” Caim’s hand tensed and began to pull back. “Beg as I once did, when I asked to return and you refused me.” His claws ripped through Alex’s flesh as if through an overripe plum.
Aramael saw Alex’s eyes go wide, heard air gurgle in her throat. Shock reverberated through him, carrying with it a horror that pierced to his core. He extended a hand to his brother. “Caim, no!”
Caim regarded him calmly. Sadly. “I never wanted this, Aramael. I wanted only to go home. To go back to the way it was. But none of you would let me.” He shook his wizened head. “You may be right that I cannot succeed, but whether I do or not, I will find a certain peace in knowing that I leave you suffering as I have suffered. That I have taken from you what you denied me.”
Aramael felt Alex’s life force waver, her presence fade. The red haze he’d fought turned black and slipped between him and his brother. Between him and reason. With a speed he had never known, an iciness he had never encountered, Heaven’s wrath swelled in him, strained against the confines of his control, and then broke free.
His wings lifted high with a thunderous crack, flames licking along the edges, igniting each and every feather. Golden fire turned bloodred, streamed along his limbs, set his body alight, threatened to consume him. Aramael clenched his fists at his sides in an effort to slow the fury, to control what threatened to control him. Then he raised a hand and sent a blast of divine energy across the room, knocking his brother into the wall, startling him into releasing Alex’s throat.
Caim’s eyes went wide, but after only a split second, he dug his claws into Alex again. Aramael sent a second surge into his brother, tearing Alex from his grip. Then, still grappling for mastery over his fury, a third. And a fourth.
His center began to give way under the strain.
Blast after blast hammered into Caim, channeled by Aramael’s hand, driven by his loss. Flames joined the energy leaving his body, scorched his brother’s withered frame and wings, licked along the blackened edges of the wall and across the floor toward Alex. Pooled blood sizzled in the heat. Aramael’s restraint slid another notch and he hurled Caim through the wall into the room beyond.
The effort it took not to follow nearly ripped his soul from him. He fought through the agony to deny his purpose, to deny the need to finish the capture and tear Caim from the mortal realm and cast him into Limbo. Instead, he staggered to the broken, bloodied body of the woman who had so briefly completed him. The anguish of defeat, of failure, felled him to his knees.
Hand shaking, he pushed back blood-soaked hair from her face, groping for the fragile spark of her life’s presence somewhere in his awareness. It was there, but only just. Floating weakly in a well of emptiness and betrayal that he had ignored for almost five thousand years. Aramael sucked in a quick breath and centered himself, reaching clumsily to steady the spark. She was still there. If he was careful, he might still—
The spark dimmed. Guttered. Disappeared.
Aramael stared at the empty vessel that had been Alex. His soulmate. The other half of the whole he’d never known he could be. From a place far distant, he watched Caim lurch through the flames to stand over him, swaying, gloating, triumphant.
“I guess you were right,” his brother croaked. “It didn’t work after all. What a shame. But not a complete loss, I think.”
He stepped across Alex’s body and crouched down until he was on a level with Aramael, the skin below his eye swollen and split. Blood trickled down to the corner of his mouth and he licked it away.
“I’ve taken her from you, Aramael. Taken away the only thing you’ve ever loved. The way you took my life from me. How does it feel?” He reached across Alex and touched the center of Aramael’s chest. “Do you feel it here, the way I did? A great, gaping hole where your heart is no more?”
Aramael flinched from his twin’s touch and tried to shake his head, to deny the words. The truth. The hatred he had seen in Caim found purchase in his own belly. He swallowed against it. Searched desperately for his connection to the One. Felt it slip in his grasp, tightened his hold.
He saw Caim reach out to Alex’s face and stroke a single finger down the curve of her cheek. His own hand shot out. Encircled his brother’s wrist and snapped it like a twig.
Unflinching, Caim smiled. “Go ahead,” he said. “Send me back. Not even Limbo will be unbearable now. Not with this memory to sustain me.”
Aramael didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not past the coldness he felt rising in his soul, the blackness that belonged to a part of him he didn’t recognize. He sucked in a great, shuddering breath. Looked down again at the lifeless woman before him. Felt the emptiness engulf him.
Alex.
He rose to his feet, fluid and powerful, and yanked Caim upright. Thrust him away. Threw back his head and drew all the fury of Heaven into himself. Readied it, balanced it, held it close.
Stared into the eyes of the one he had once called Brother and cringed from the satisfaction there. The gloating. The connection to the One began to fray. Aramael struggled to retain his hold on it for a moment more, just long enough to complete his task, to fulfill his purpose—and then Caim stretched out a booted foot and nudged Alex’s body and a barely discernable whisper of air escaped her lips.
Life.
Caim went stiff and raised a startled gaze to Aramael’s. For the barest instant, neither moved. And then, before Aramael could raise a hand to stop him, Caim dived toward the woman between them—toward Alex.
The already-fragile connection to the One snapped and, in a single, massive surge, Aramael’s full power slammed outward, shattering Caim’s body into a million shards that hung, suspended in the air, as if startled to find themselves there. Startled to find themselves separated from one another; from their host. From a broken place inside himself, Aramael watched flames flow from his outstretched wing tips, turning the shards to blackened bits that fell to the floor, greedily seeking the tiny shimmer of Caim’s immortality at their center. Enveloping it. Destroying it.
Then, before he could go to the woman who had been his soulmate, the woman who was
still alive, Aramael felt the rush of other wings.
Felt his arms and legs pinioned.
Felt himself ripped from the human realm.
THIRTY-SIX
Hot. “Alex?”
No. Not hot. Cold.
“Alex.”
Cold inside. Hot out. Odd.
“Open your eyes, Alex. Give me some indication you’re still alive, because I’m not permitted to bring you all the way back and I sure as hell can’t face telling Aramael you’re dead.”
And tired. So tired.
And smoke? Not good. Should move. Get out.
But so tired … and heavy. The sensation of heat contrasting with cold grew stronger. She cracked open her eyes and watched the flames licking at her blackened extremities. Frowned. That didn’t look good. She needed to move. But how? Maybe if she rested for a bit—
“Damn it, Alex—”
Wait … that voice. She knew that voice.
She forced her eyes a fraction wider. Saw more flames. The beginnings of fear twisted through her. Out, Alex. Get out. She tried to force her limbs into action, but no part of her responded with so much as a twitch. Inside her grew colder.
She felt a gentle touch on her cheek.
“Oh, Alex,” the voice said sadly.
Seth. It’s Seth. Talk, Alex. Say something to him.
She tried to swallow. Agony screamed through her, her throat its epicenter. She waited until the world righted itself and the dark faded. That hurt. She released the breath she’d held in a long, low groan, barely audible to her own ears. The hand on her cheek went still, then cupped her jaw with utmost care.
“I heard that,” Seth said, “and it’s good enough for me. Hold on. I’m going to make some of this better.”
Alex felt a hand at her throat. Fragments of memories crowded in on her, black with terror, but her attempt to struggle resulted only in the barest lift of her chin and another jolt of pain. The hand covered her throat, accompanied by an intense heat … and then a slow lessening of the pain there. A tear trickled from the corner of her eye and pooled in her ear.
Sins of the Angels Page 28