Hellsbane Hereafter (Entangled Select Otherworld)

by Paige Cuccaro

  “Maybe.” Eli smiled, just as fake and slightly horrified as me. “The archangel wants to talk with us, so… We’ll get back to you about the cookout.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Rumyal laughed. “Of course. I mean, if you can make it, just swing by.”

  “Absolutely,” Eli said, and we turned to walk down the short hall to the desk at the end and the elevator behind it.

  I glanced out the wall of windows overlooking the city below before turning my attention back to Jukar’s personal assistant at his post. “Hey, Danjal.” Genuinely happy to see the auburn-haired fallen angel, I rested a hip against his oak desk and fiddled with a magnetic desk sculpture.

  “Domina, Elizal.” He smiled widely, his voice just this side of a squeal.

  I gave a cheerful finger wave. “How’s Pinky?” Pinky was Danjal’s poodle. “Did he come through the, uh, alteration okay?”

  Danjal was built like a swimmer: tall, wide chest, long arms and legs, solid muscle. And with that warm, autumn-leaf-colored hair and soft, baby blue eyes, a round nose, and strong chin, he was a definite heart-stopper.

  “Yep. Came through with flying colors. He’s now ball-less, just the way Kevin wanted him.” His smile flattened. “And then the bitch left us.”

  I gasped. “He didn’t.”

  “Can you believe it? Girrrl, you don’t know how bad I wanted to slap the stupid outta him. Turns out, mine were the balls he wanted to get rid of.”

  Danjal was gay. That is, he actually preferred men, unlike most angels, who didn’t seem to have a preference either way. And he was such a nice guy, my mind instantly flipped through the Fallen and demons I knew that I thought he might like. I actually did know another gay-by-preference Fallen. Amon. He was a sexy GQ type—weren’t they all—but he was in a seriously committed relationship with an illorum who reminded me of a leprechaun. To each his own.

  “I’m so sorry.” Not that I was all that surprised. I mean, Kevin was kind of self-centered. Apparently it’s a Fallen thing.

  Danjal straightened, shaking his head. “Never mind me. Where have you two been? What’s new? C’mon, spill. What’s the famous couple been up to?”

  I laughed; I couldn’t help it. The guy was just so cheery. It was infectious. “Famous? Hardly. Notorious, maybe.”

  “Not in my circle, honey,” he said out of the side of his mouth as though it was a not-so-well-kept secret. Danjal’s circle of friends was a little more liberal-minded when it came to angelic politics. They were more liberal-minded when it came to just about anything. “You two are the it couple. Everyone wants a fairy-tale love story like yours. Star-crossed lovers giving up everything to be with each other.” He sighed. “So romantic.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not all hearts and flowers. Believe me.”

  “No?” Eli rested his hand on the small of my back, and I met his confused expression.

  “Oh, no. I mean, it’s great.” My brain did backflips trying to explain. “You’re great. I mean, us together—we’re awesome. I just meant the other stuff, y’know, like switching sides and fighting with Fall—”

  I looked at Danjal, who seemed to consider my meaning.

  “Not that I’m not okay with that. I mean, it’s just that I used to fight for the other team. So it took some getting used to. But I’m here now, right? We’re here…working for Jukar. Y’know, trying to win the war…and stuff…” I needed to shut up more often. I looked at Eli and smiled. “Love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Awww…you two are just adorable.” Danjal clasped his hands under his chin, tilting his head with a whimsical smile. Then he sobered. “But you better scoot. The archangel would have my wings if he knew I held you up. Go. Go on, get.”

  He waved his hands, shooing us toward the opening elevator door. There were only two buttons inside, one up and one down. Eli stabbed the up button, and my heart picked up speed, anxious as the elevator hummed into motion.

  The top floor of The Bedford Company held one really big office. No surprise it belonged to Jukar. The doors opened into the penthouse suite, floor-to-ceiling windows framed the New York skyline on three of the four sides. The long wall stood slid open, so the room spilled out onto a wide terrace. Sheer white curtains hung like gossamer stirring in the soft breeze, and white furniture denoted different areas of space. Thanks to the fallen archangel’s power, there was always a gentle breeze washing across the terrace, even this high up. A cluster of plush office-style chairs sat around a long conference table, tall stools nestled around a gleaming bar in another area. A big pool table stood off to one side, and a walk-in, marble fireplace near a massive desk on another. Everything was white. Everything.

  The back wall opposite the long terrace had two doors, one at each of the far ends. Before Eli and I moved four steps from the elevator, the farthest door opened, and Jukar strode out, the sound of a toilet bowl filling echoing behind him.

  Nice touch. Angels didn’t have a need for toilets. He pretended for me or for his human employees. Who knew which? Who cared?

  “Emma, my darling daughter. And Elizal, so good to see you.”

  “It’s just us, Jukar. No humans.” I gestured to the bathroom behind him. “No need to pretend you’re anything more or less than you are.”

  He wiped his hands on a paper towel. “I see that. But it’s easier to maintain the illusion if the actor never breaks character. Don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.” Jukar and I didn’t have that cozy father-daughter bond some folks have. I kinda hated him.

  “You sent for us?” Eli followed beside me toward Jukar’s desk.

  “I did.” Jukar smiled, tossing the used paper towel into the trash as he took a seat in the white, high-backed desk chair.

  “Yeah, about that.” I sat in one of the plush, leather chairs opposite Jukar’s. Eli took the other. The man seriously needed to widen his color palette. “When I welcomed you and everyone loyal to you into my home, the invitation didn’t extend to my bedroom.”

  “You didn’t specify,” Jukar said.

  “I thought it went without saying.”

  His corn-silk blond brows rose, and he shook his head. “It didn’t.”

  “Well, I’m specifying now.” I leaned forward, resting my arms on the edge of his desk. “Keep your boys out of my bedroom.”

  The archangel shrugged thick shoulders. “But you are my daughter. We agreed if you were going to live on your own, you would stay in touch.”

  The shrug was way too casual of a gesture to see on a man like him, professional in his pale pink shirt and gray slacks. He was a tall man, though not quite as tall as Eli, with an impressive athletic build, like he’d played baseball or some sport in college and still worked out. My father’s hair was a lighter shade of blond than mine, but just as straight and fine. He kept it brushed to the side over azure blue eyes, and I wondered how, after so many eons as a Fallen, those eyes weren’t an even darker shade.

  “I’m not a child.” I shoved back in my seat, suddenly wanting distance from the Fallen archangel. “Your chance to play Daddy Dearest is long past. Next time use a phone, okay?”

  “I am your father, Emma; there’s no escaping that fact.” He pushed forward, resting his arms on his desk following my retreat. “Moreover, I am your archangel. Accept this. When I need you, I will summon you in any manner I see fit, as we agreed. Unless you want to renegotiate our arrangement?” His gaze shifted to Eli, and he smiled. But the hint of wickedness in his beautiful blue eyes sent a chill racing down my spine.

  Eli raised his chin, his expression stoic. “I will repay any debt Emma Jane owes to you.”

  I put my hand on his, meeting his eyes. “It’s okay. I’ve got this.” I looked back to Jukar. “What do you want?”

  Jukar relaxed back into his chair, his hand idly stroking the light scruff on his chin. “I have a job for you. An innocent who needs your protection. You enjoy that sort of thing, don’t you? Protecting the innocent?”

/>   “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “Who is it?”

  “My son.”

  Chapter Three

  “I have a brother? Wow. I can’t believe how much I don’t care.” Okay, so that wasn’t totally true, but I knew Jukar had sprung it on me just to enjoy my reaction. Screw ’im.

  “Technically, he’s your half brother.” Jukar leaned back in his chair. He curled his long fingers under his chin, eyes fixed on me. “He’s in danger, and I want you to protect him.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I’m telling you to,” he said, very daddy-like. “And because you have come into your powers, and he hasn’t.”

  “Does he know what he is?” Eli asked, settling deeper into his chair, one ankle crossed over his knee.

  “No. The boy doesn’t know he’s a nephilim. And of course, he has no idea I am his biological father. As I said, he’s innocent. His name is Abram Marino, and he’s attending a university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” Jukar straightened and shifted papers on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. After a quick scan, he handed it to me. “He’s staying in a house off campus with a group of other young men. Here’s the address.”

  I took it and read the address. 261 Parkman Avenue. “Swanky. You seduced a rich man’s wife?”

  Both Jukar and Eli bristled at that, shifting in their seats. Too far? Darn. Jukar cleared his throat.

  “The expenses are shared between all the boys in the house,” Jukar said. “I believe there are twelve of them.”

  Eli’s dark brows furrowed. “Why are you concerned for his safety?”

  Jukar’s attention shifted to him with a swing of his gaze. “Because he is my son.”

  Arrogant ass. I kept the thought to myself. Look at me…maturing right before my eyes.

  “Before Emma Jane, my enemies were uncertain what gifts my seed passed to my children. Now I fear if they were to discover who he is, they would strike him down while he is still in his fragile human state.” Jukar templed his hands in front of his mouth, making his earnest expression seem more sincere.

  Okay, so that made sense. Drat. “So why not clue him in and bring him over? Unlock his power like you’ve done to all the other gibborim who work for you?”

  The archangel cringed at the word, if only for an instant, before he shut down the slip of emotion. Too late. I kept my satisfied grin on the inside.

  I knew how much he hated the term gibborim. Eli had coined it before his fall as a way to refer to any illorum who’d turned against the seraphim to fight for Jukar and the Fallen. Gibborim had become a kind of derogatory term. And once we realized Jukar was offering swords to nephilim triggering their power, the name stretched to include them as well.

  Triggering a nephilim’s power was something only archangels could do. The archangel Michael had started doing it forever ago, handing out a piece of himself, fashioning it into swords for each illorum. Through his power, the swords intensified the illorum’s instincts to hunt and kill their Fallen fathers. Jukar figured out he could do the same thing, only he refocused that hunter’s instinct against seraphim.

  “Because it’s not time.” Jukar pushed to his feet and strode the few steps to the wet bar behind his desk.

  I checked my watch, then looked back at him. “Huh?”

  Jukar used tongs to plop one huge ice cube into a thick crystal glass, then poured two fingers worth of scotch on top. “There’s still more the boy must experience as a simple human. It’s too soon for him to discover the truth about his parentage, about his power.” He twisted to offer up the heavy bottle to Eli and me. “Would you like some?”

  Eli totally ignored the offer, and I shook my head. I was too wigged out by Jukar’s protective daddy routine. It wasn’t a good color on him. “Right. Well, as much as I’d love to babysit the little bro, I’ve got a life. In fact, I have a client coming in about half an hour, and I still have to open the shop. So…”

  “This wasn’t a request, Emma Jane.” Daddy Dearest took a quick sip of his drink while strolling back to his desk. “You will protect this young man, or I will not protect those you love.”

  Love? The bastard didn’t know the meaning of the word. “I have to make a living, Jukar. I can’t be with this kid twenty-four-seven.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Jukar lowered elegantly into his chair and leaned back, satisfied. “I’ve positioned others to guard his daily activities and report back. But I need someone stronger, more powerful, for him to call if the situation becomes dire.”

  I looked to Eli, and he shrugged. “Your half brother. It would be interesting to meet him.”

  I thought so, too. I sighed, pushing to my feet. “Fine. I’ll be his on-call bodyguard.”

  “Wonderful.” Jukar stood, and Eli followed suit. “He’s expecting you tomorrow. I wouldn’t go before noon. The boys tend to sleep late.”

  “Right.” I remembered those days. “What am I supposed to tell him? I mean, I can’t tell him I’m his sister.”

  The archangel smiled, and I could feel it like a wash of sunlight over my chest. I sucked a quick breath and looked away, fighting to keep my reaction to a minimum.

  “You’re his new landlord.” With one quick tip of his glass, Jukar finished his drink and set the thick tumbler on his desk with a hard clonk. “You own the house.”

  “Seriously? I mean, literally? You put the house in my name?”

  “Yes.”

  Awesome! “Oh. Okay. Y’know, whatever.”

  Maturity, it’s a one-step-forward-two-steps-back process.

  …

  I used to meet clients in my home, and then I had to invite Heaven’s most wanted through the front door. Thanks, Dad.

  Being an intuitive, consciousness explorer, otherwise known as a psychic, came sort of naturally. My empathic ability to feel other people’s emotions had gotten me started in the field, but as my illorum powers grew, so did the quality of my readings. I’d built a solid reputation that had gained me at least local celebrity status. Which basically meant I never had to wait for a table at the T.G.I. Fridays in White Oak. Woot!

  When you can read people’s thoughts, predicting trips they’re already planning or describing dark handsome strangers they’ve already met is pretty easy. The fact that I can read the dark handsome stranger’s mind, too, just means I can actually give helpful advice.

  But since demons and Fallen might drop by my house whenever, I decided it was probably best to move my business somewhere less demonically accessible.

  I parked my Jeep Wrangler three spots down from the Isle of You Hair Salon & Consciousness Exploration Café on Butler Street. It was kind of a rundown area but on the rise, even more so since a local celeb had moved in.

  The shop wasn’t mine, at least not the hair salon part. It belonged to a good friend, Sadie, who I’d met at a trade show years ago. There were two things about Sadie that proved our arrangement was a match made in Heaven. One, she had awesome skills at picking business names, and two, she was Wiccan.

  Sadie was a sweet, charismatic platinum blonde who’d said yes before I finished the question: can I do readings in your shop’s back—

  Hell, she’d already protected the place with spells and hung mirrored balls at every door and window to ward off evil before I’d even thought about moving my business there. It was perfect. Plus, Sadie was totally open to all things supernatural, despite having never actually seen any evidence. She didn’t blink an eye when I told her my house was being visited by demons. She just sent me home with some herbs, candles, and a cleansing spell then offered to help kick the bastards to the curb on the weekend after her coven’s drumming ritual. Sadie rocked.

  I had my hand on the doorknob to the shop when a freakishly hard wind kicked up, pounding at my back. I glanced over my shoulder into the gated parking lot of the Allegheny Valley Bank across the street. A giant eddy of dust and debris spun around the half-empty lot, triggering car alarms, bending the little tree on the sidewalk, an
d rattling the tall iron fence. It wasn’t random.

  I could see the angels battling at the center of the wind funnel, moving so fast they were a blur to human eyes. I didn’t need my illorum senses to know one was a Fallen and the other a seraph. Battles like this had been breaking out all over the city, all over the world, for months, ever since the war restarted.

  Thankfully, the news reported them as weather phenomena like microbursts brought on by global warming, freaky jet stream currents, El Niño, La Niña, or whatever. There was always a logical explanation.

  Instinct stirred inside me, my palm tingling for the leather-wrapped handle of my sword. I should go help, get involved like Tommy had said in my dream, do something. But for which side? I’d managed to avoid getting sucked into any fights since I’d started taking orders from Jukar. But my luck would run out sooner or later. It always did. And then I’d have to choose.

  My brain screamed at me to get inside before the angels noticed me, but everything illorum inside me, everything that was warrior, held me to the spot. The creatures battling in the parking lot were captivating, even in the throes of a deadly fight. I couldn’t look away.

  Gleaming hair the color of ripe plums fanned out like the petals of a flower as the seraph spun, swinging his sword, attacking then defending. The bright, unearthly shade and the white, karate-style Gi uniform were all further clues that he’d come to Earth for no other purpose but to fight the Fallen. The bare feet were a pretty big tip, too. Most seraphim who’d only come to Earth to fight weren’t the slightest bit concerned with Earthly trappings. They didn’t give a thought to blending in. Not that they had to. Humans just didn’t seem to notice them.

  The other angel was the total opposite. A Fallen could either live in seclusion or become as human as angelically possible. His business-short, sandstone-brown hair and his neatly fitting suit only added to the average-Joe impression.

  There was no humanizing the long and deadly sharp swords, though; the angels slashed at each other with them, their speed blurring. Metal clashed against metal, sparks lighting off the blades like mini fireworks. Dust, shredded paper, and other random debris whipped in the air around them, caught in the wake of their speed. They raced around cars, moved over street signs, and seemed to float in midair at times. Their speed was unbelievable, their skill terrifying, and as quickly as it had started, it was over.