THE CELESTIAL COMPENDIUM
The Seven Heavens
Araboth – The highest realm of Heaven, where the Throne of God and the Council of the Seraphim lay
Zebul – Sixth realm in Heaven; Dividing line between Upper and Lower Quarters
(For the purpose of this novel, the Forth and Fifth realm, Machon and Macon are combined thus.)
Machon – Realm that houses The Great Library and The Hall of Akashic Records; Guarded by the Powers and Virtues
Shemaq – Third realm in Heaven; Houses The Four Rivers and the Agricultural areas
Rai'ek - The first real realm in Heaven where people live; main quarters of Heaven; also houses The Gate Between Life and Death
Vilon – The lowest realm of Heaven; Houses The Fabled Garden of Eden, The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge
The Celestial Hierarchy
The First Sphere
Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
The Second Sphere
Dominions
Virtues
Powers
The Third Sphere
Principalities
Archangels
Angels
THE COUNCIL OF THE SERAPHIM
(Although there is much speculation between religions, denominations, traditions and scholars, for all-intensive purposes of this novel, the Seven Archangels selected to serve on this Council are named thus.)
Michael, “Who Is Like God” : the Commander of the Holy Legion; Chief of the Archangels; Wielder of the Sacred Flame, Lamafuere
Gabriel, “Strength of God” : God's Messenger
Raphael, “God's Healing” : Araboth's Chief of Medicine (honorary member on the Council)
Uriel, “Fire of God” : Member on the Council
Samael, “The Severity of God” : “The Angel of Death”
Camael, “One Who Sees God” : Original guardian angel of Eden
Barachiel, “Brightness of God” : Supervises the Grigori
THE DEMONIC HIERARCHY – ARCHDEMONS
(Leaders of The Triad)
Mammon – Archdemon and Weapons-master of Hell
Abaddon - Archdemon and member of the Triad
Na'amah – One of the Four Queens of the Underworld; Arch-Mage of Sheol
Lilith – One of the Four Queens of the Underworld, said to have been Adam's first wife
Astaroth - Archdemon and member of the Triad
Ba'al – One of the oldest and most respected of all Archdemons; member of the Triad
Lucifuge Rofocale – Gehenna's field general, One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Azazel – Archdemon and member of the Triad
Asmodeus - Archdemon and member of the Triad
Belial - Archdemon and member of the Triad
Forcas – Chief Librarian of the Underworld
Mephistopheles – Chief Adviser of the Underworld
LOCALES & TERMINOLOGY
In The Realms of Heaven
Araboth – (see The Seven Heavens); while it is a realm of Heaven, it can be used interchangeably with the word Heaven
Elohim - a.k.a. God, YHWH, El Shaddai; the name for God used by the Celestial realm
Seraphim - a.k.a. The Seraph; the highest title and rank conferred to an angel; Council which oversees all of the realms and Destiny itself
Nephilim – a.k.a. The Fallen; Angels who have lost their wings or immunity from Araboth; considered to be betrayers of God
Lamafuere – The flaming sword Archangel Michael used to fight Lucifer; one of the most holy artifacts in all of Heaven
Garden of Eden – the fabled location in Heaven where mankind first walked and the place where it's said pain and suffering entered into the world from
The Hall of Akashic Records – A guarded hall that contains all of the knowledge about every living being to have ever existed or will ever exist
On Earth
Assiyah – a.k.a. Earth; The human world
Grigori – a.k.a. The Watchers; A group of angels who watch over Assiyah unbeknownst by mankind; Neutral party
In The Realms of Hell
Gehenna – One of the two main realms of Hell; traditional Underworld; includes wild lands where demons roam free, as well as traditional “pits”
Sheol – The main quarters of the Underworld where the bulk population resides; much akin to a military compound or city
The Triad – Group of Archdemons that oversee all of Hell
CELESTIAL ALPHABET
ENOCHIAN ALPHABET
Novel Playlist
(All Lyrics & Music Are Copyright Their Respective Artists)
1. ONE REPUBLIC - Secrets
2. Full Metal Alchemist (Anime Soundtrack) – Dante (Instrumental)
3. Papa Roach – FOREVER
4. Thriving Ivory – Angels on the Moon
5. Lady Antebellum – Need You Now
6. Train – Calling All Angels
7. The Fray – You Found Me
8. Fuel – Innocent
9. Michael Buble - Lost
10. Sara Barielles – Gravity ** (Amelia's song for Camael)
11. Daughtry – What About Now ** (Adam's song for Amelia)
12. Shinedown – I'll Follow You ** (Camael's song for Amelia)
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EYES LIKE MINE
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Prologue
It would start and end in blood.
The blood of innocents, the blood of the guilty.
It didn’t matter whose. All that mattered was that it was real and not a figment of my imagination.
A Master of Time and yet it still had me under its thrall. I was no sooner free from my hell than a marionette thinking itself free from its bonds.
I, too, would die soon and then there would be no one left to save my brother...
...to save them all...
Chapter One
My brother stood at my mother’s bedside, his black eyes blurred with unshed tears. At the whopping age of fifteen, he didn’t have the capacity to understand what was happening to our mother, let alone the two of us. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to. He stared at her from the opposite side of the makeshift hospital bed, hopefully making peace with whatever god that had forsaken our kind.
But I knew better.
He had too much anger to pray for mercy for her when we had never been shown the first bit ourselves.
When my mother developed an obscure, rare form of cancer, the doctors could barely explain it, let alone cure it. But who could blame them when even treating her could get them sentenced to execution. Their willingness to cooperate stopped at the morphine.
Now, months later, what freedom she had was reduced to a respirator and an IV that did little to lessen the burden she carried.
My brother blamed her in his naivety, a error on his part that would forever haunt us both.
My mother reached across the knit comforter toward him, and in his arrogance, he denied to hold the hand of the woman who had given birth to him.
Who could blame a child for being upset though, I mean, really.
Our lives were forever changing.
My leaving for the university fell by the wayside the moment the doctors had made the call. I knew it. My brother knew it. My mother knew it.
Though I’d never outwardly blame her for such a thing, my one chance at escaping this living hell was gone. Over two hundred and twenty miles from the hometown that sought to destroy our kind, a fresh start at a new life was all that anyone could hope for.
Hope, however, was a lying bitch, and it was ignorant of me to think I’d ever get out. The only way out was in a body bag.
/> The doctors had quoted some arbitrary amount of time at my mother, throwing a year of life onto something that could have been a day. It was better this way though. With our mother dead, she would no longer have to suffer—have to worry. She wouldn’t be around to fear the raids or the gas chambers, or anyone learning our secret now that both Father and Mother would be gone.
“Danny, please,” she said weakly, the only words she could muster.
To me, she said nothing, but she really didn’t have to. I knew what I had to do—what must be done.
As I sat in the wicker rocker my father’s mother had given them as a wedding present, rocking was all that I could do to keep what sanity I had left.
The history books were right. Thou shall not suffer a witch to live, and so just like that, my mother’s life was forfeit.
l
The sun had already crested the horizon as I sat with my legs knee-deep in the cool waters of Lake Hope, a tributary off Lake Michigan, the one place where I could go and still feel human, alone and miserable.
Everywhere else, I just felt alone and miserable.
The burnt copper leaves danced off the maple trees surrounding the lake as I sought to forget everything colliding in my life. I leaned back against the wooden plank, my head resting on my arms as I closed my eyes.
And for a moment, time stopped.
A power granted those able to see past fate’s fickle hands for those brave enough to use it. But it came with a price as did all things in those days.
They would come for me soon just as they had with my father and attempted with my mother. I would have to be ready if I was to protect him—protect Danny.
Danny.
With his eyes black as night and dark as sin, they would seek to corrupt him the moment the government laid hands on him.
I had to get him away—had to keep him safe.
A shadow hovered above me, blocking the offending sunlight from my line of sight. My eyes shot open and with it the world around Lake Hope began to move once again. I ignorantly hoped that it was just my imagination playing tricks on me; I didn’t have the strength to deal with him today of all days. Any other time might have been different, but today I just wanted to suffer through it in silence and let the offending memory pass until next year. But I knew better, knew that he would not leave me to my own destruction. Not this year, nor any other.
Two startling blue eyes, so blue they were almost white, filled my vision, the corner of their eyelids turned jovially upward at me. “I brought you a sandwich,” the eyes’ disembodied voice called down to me. “No onions. Extra pickles. Splash of vinegar.”
I pulled down the part of my shirt that had peeled up in the warm August humidity as I glared at the object in its hands. “I didn't ask you to.”
“You didn't have to. Now eat.”
“Fine.” I tore the package out of the hands of the man I had known my whole life and sat up, ripping off the paper wrappings that encased the food he had brought me.
“I'm not going to tell you thanks,” I muttered between large, masticated bites of food.
A tall, lean man with eyes as dangerous as mine sat down on the dock beside me, his socks and shoes tucked neatly behind him as he tore into his own meal.
We sat there in silence for several minutes, neither of us wanting to break free of its respite.
Avery knew everything that had ever happened to my family. He had been there when the city officials had taken my father, the five of us gathered around the dinner table half-deep in meatballs and garlic bread.
That had been before the war, before they had marked everyone.
Now each of us carried the weight of all those left alive in the North District. No one was immune from the Red Death, the battalion with clean cut faces and haunted eyes, their insignia emblazoned on their starched uniforms as they marched through the suburbs, tearing families apart as if they were little more than mottled cloth.
My parents had known even then, the grim lines of their misfortune present on their faces as they served up the garden salad to my brother and me.
The first knock came like the wind, the only warning we were given.
The second involved the splintering of wood from its hinges, the door's remnants slamming back into the sun-faded cornflower wallpaper of our foyer wall. A ridiculous color that my mother had selected during her better years. Back when peace ruled the free world.
Now, decades later, it seemed ironic.
A three-star general appeared in the doorway to the dining room, my parents already ushering my brother Danny, Avery, and me out of sight. His blue eyes burned at us, their disdain evident as they sized up my father.
With chestnut locks and matching irises, my blue-collar father was part of the backbone of the country's working class, and considerably not a threat. Or so they thought.
Hidden behind contact lenses to protect his actual identity, my father's amber gaze served as our only method of protection.
Color meant everything, the difference between prosperity and poverty for some, and life and death for others. Our irises held the key to our magic, to the skills passed down by our predecessors.
Broken down by rarity, we were ranked into classes, and with them came our social classes, freedoms and opportunities.
The Browns, the most common among us, served as the working class, the laborers and those without magick. The next most common, Blue, Hazel and Gray respectively, served as the doctors, scientists and scholars, the intelligentsia of our society. What magicks they were born with all but dwindled after puberty and into adulthood. They, too, proved to be little threat to the Red Death and therefore were allowed to live and work amongst the public.
Those whose magicks remained were taken out and shot upon discovery of their powers, left to rot in the middle of the cobblestone streets and piled one on top of another. A visual reminder to those who stepped out of line, and because of that, those who weren't assassinated on the Third Night or dragged into concentration camps hid in underground bunkers.
But, sometimes, when the world grew quiet, at times when those with violet eyes like mine or black like my brother's joined the world of the living, things seemed almost normal again.
“Want a pickle?” I asked Avery, dangling a vinegary cucumber from my fingertips, hovering it over his head like a treat for a dog.
He eyed me contemptuously for a moment before snatching it out of my hands and tackling me back against the dock. With a firm grip he latched onto my wrist and bit the pickle right out of it, swallowing it with a satisfied grin.
I muffled a laugh with my hand as I glanced around the bank, knowing how easily one small action could ruin everything.
In another life we might have been something together. Instead, we'd have to settle for this - a half life that knew so many bounds and not enough freedoms.
It was a hopeless dream that I knew better than to entertain. Avery's eyes were blue like ice, cold and distant unless you knew how to melt them into cerulean like waves just before they crashed against the shore.
There was power in them. I was sure of it. The white ice seemed almost iridescent, something I was sure no one else had, and should the inspectors ever notice him on the wrong day, I might be eating alone.
My eyes were dangerous enough on their own, let alone Avery's. He might outmatch Danny's if given the chance but I didn't want him to.
I had my own mortality to deal with, let alone both of theirs.
One of the rarest eye colors out there, my violet gaze granted me the ability to control time, a skill that would certainly see the gas chamber should the wrong person discover my ability. Though not limitless in its power, what time I could control happened only in seconds, not in hours or days.
I could not bring my father back.
I could not bring my mother back.
I could not save those God had abandoned, and for that I was forever sorry.
l
“Do you have the book, Kara?”
my mother asked me from the other side of the room now that Daniel had gone down to the cafeteria for sodas.
I now stood beside my mother, her eyes glossy and silver from the way the overhead light hit them.
I nodded numbly, not saying a thing as I stared back at her.
“Make sure they never know you have it, or you and Danny will be next.”
The “book” in question was the family grimoire that had been passed down the line of Erikssons since the pre-civil war era. A true hereditary line of witchcraft. There were thousands who claimed to have the lineage but only a few that could truly claim such a feat.
It didn't make us deadlier. It just made us dead.
The whole damned thing had been started over books such as these. The Führer, in his infinite madness, desired to take control of every grimoire known to the continent, and in turn, had taken upon his militia, the Red Death, to search and destroy every book in sight.
A testament to their ignorance, our book remained safely buried at the bottom of my leather backpack, hidden away from prying eyes.
“I'm serious, Kara.” She inhaled sharply again from the plastic mask pumping oxygen to her lungs and couldn't fight the ragging cough that threatened to overtake her.
FALL FROM PARADISE Page 27