Howler's Night

by Marie Hall

  Those were Allora’s words, and many years later I discovered how true they were. She’d tried down the centuries to create a whole host of us, but for whatever reason, only seven priests could exist at a time.

  Which was fine. We were strong, terrifying. We were Gods among men.

  Allora taught me to fight, she gave me the sword of Veritas. The training was rigorous, and as the years progressed, my love for her knew no bounds. She was all to me; she was my world, and I thought I was hers too.

  Allora taught me carnal desire, she taught me to fight, she taught me to hate. In time I began to hear rumors of a council known only as the Triad. I did not know what it was, and neither did any of my compatriots.

  We only knew death and bloodshed. Violence followed in our wake, and we reveled in it.

  I was the most brutal of them, taking delight in ripping the heads off those bastard Nephilim bodies, cursing them ten times to Dante’s lowest pit of Hell, hating them all. So superior and smug in my calling.

  I had the blood of angels coursing through my veins.

  And then Allora came to me. We stood upon misty Scottish moors, and she whispered to me of a prophecy and of how there would be one who’d come to destroy us all.

  I was filled with indignation, filled with fury at the thought of it. But when I asked her who it was, she could only shrug and tell me that the prophecy hadn’t yet revealed who, only that she was coming.

  That was the first night I ever began to question her will. For how could there be a prophecy of nothing? She didn’t speak again about that night for many years. So long in fact, that I’d very nearly forgotten it.

  My days and nights consisted of slaughtering anything and anyone like you. And I did so with gleeful abandon.

  Then one day she came to me, and I was given a name of a demon I must kill. Her name was Ya-el.

  It took me months to track you down, so good were you at eluding me. Even then I think I began to develop feelings of pride for you, at your skills, your instincts. You were a worthy match for me.

  And when I finally tracked you down, all I can remember was that time paused, as if you were a memory skipping through reality. The wind died down, colors were sharper, smells richer. Your skin so pale, your hair so dark, and your lips like a ruby red apple. You were more beautiful than Allora, than even the glittering stars shining in the heavens, and when you smiled, it wasn’t capricious or sinister, it was real, and it stole my breath.

  You stood beneath the twilight, and you held that little girl, and though there were no tears, I felt your soul ringing through the lullaby you sang her. I was so close to you that night, little demon, I’m surprised you did not sense me. I was the shadow just behind you, I had my blade pointed at your heart, and I would have thrust it through you had you not administered the girl her last rites.

  “May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”

  How often had I spoken those words in the past and yet I’d never felt them so keenly as I did that night alone with you beneath the stars with a dying infant in your arms.

  When I returned next to Allora, she was beside herself with fury that I’d not found you yet. I warred with myself, wanting desperately to tell her everything, as I’d always done. But also struggling with the knowledge that perhaps you were not as soulless, as evil, as I’d been led to believe.

  For nights after that I watched you. But my obsession took me to dark, dark places. I battled with what you were, and who I was. Battled with my need to do my duty while equally desirous of learning why you were so important to my mistress.

  At first I learned nothing of any value, nothing that mattered, and I was beginning to suspect that your lustful charms were the cause of what was wrecking havoc with my sanity.

  My curiosity had begun to turn to hate. Hate that you’d made me falter, hate that you’d made me break my vows to my Lord.

  I cut myself for years, for every time I saw you and did not end you. For every time your laughter made my lips twitch. For the times when I saw you in bed with Luc and he touched you and I hated that you let him. For the shadows that crawled through your gaze afterward.

  My violence was unparalleled in those days. I touched no one within your family. Some part of me felt they were an extension of you and so therefore off limits to me, but anyone else unfortunate enough to cross my path was fair game.

  Then one day Allora came to me and told me that they’d finally learned the identity behind the prophecy and her name was Aquilla.

  I did not stay to hear anymore of what she had to say; it did not matter. My purpose was clear: go to Greece and end its life, no matter the cost to me.

  That was the night I finally learned the truth of the Triad, of the prophecy, and most especially of my mistress Allora...

  ~*~

  His eyes opened somewhere around the six o’clock mark. But instead of getting up and driving us off as he had the day before, he tightened his arm around me.

  “I love you, Pandora.” His whispered confession made me smile.

  “I love you too.”

  His touch was gentle as he traced my bottom lip. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m about to discover who Allora is. But I have to say, Ash, with the way you were going on, I really thought it would be so much worse than this.” My lips twitched, but he didn’t return my smile.

  Instead he rolled over, got up, and walked into the bathroom.

  I frowned at the closed door and looked back down at the book in my lap. Apparently the worst was yet to come. But I really thought he was over reacting. I’d expected his past to be tainted, considering who he was. But all things considered, I wasn’t surprised by any of this. It was just standard priest procedure as far as I could tell.

  When he walked out of the bathroom, he came back to me, still nude as he’d been during the night, and instead of saying a word, he plucked the book from my lap, settled himself on top of me, and proceeded to give me one of the best orgasms of my life.

  A solid two hours passed before we finally broke apart. I ran my fingers through his hair. “You okay now? Can I finish?”

  “Finish it, Pandora.” He sighed. “But today I’m not going anywhere.”

  ~*~

  Entry 4

  Aquilla was bathed in blood, plowing through the bodies of the Order as if they were nothing—as if each member of our unit didn’t know exactly how to end the beast, how to kill it. As if they were nothing more than laymen.

  But she was powerful, more powerful than I could have imagined. I was outside looking in, trying desperately to get inside, but wards had been placed around the dungeon so that even I could not enter. I hissed each time I tried to cross the trail of demon blood warding the gates.

  I could not understand how I, an angel’s emissary, could not overcome a bit of demon blood, and yet each time I placed my finger upon it, my flesh sizzled and burned. Hissing, I snatched it back to my chest, yelling at those inside to let me in. But they couldn’t hear me. They were tying the demon down, and they held a device in their hands.

  A large, handheld machine cast from iron. I’d never seen such a contraption before, but now I could say it looked like some sort of suctioning device.

  They placed it upon her chest, and she screamed with a sound I’ve never heard before or since. Her body writhed and shuddered, the force of her movements sending shock waves through the stone beneath my feet.

  I gazed on in horror as I saw them pumping what looked to be bluish orbs of light from her body.

  “Those are souls. Demon souls,” a small voice whispered beside me.

  I glanced down to see a young girl, no more than eight or nine years old, standing beside me. Where had she come from? I’d never even felt her presence until she’d spoken up. I whirled on the child, who I knew was much more than a child.

  Her eyes were entirely opaque and ringed in blue. Her blond hair was smashed down upon her head and coated in mud, and twigs poked out of it. She
was dressed in a dirty gown with holes covering her from head to toe.

  I recalled then that I’d seen that girl earlier in the evening, sitting outside of the castle walls, mumbling incoherently to herself, laughing and cackling, telling tales no one could understand. And yet here she was, gazing up at me.

  “Who are you?”

  She smiled, revealing rows of blackened teeth. “Who we are does not matter. But who you are, does. You are Asher the priest.”

  I narrowed my eyes, extracting my blade, ready to do I didn’t know what to her. She held up her hand.

  “You know we speak the truth. Do you not want to know it, Priest?”

  I clenched my jaw then opened my mouth to tell her no, but said “yes” instead.

  “You and she, you are fated. One path for good, one path for evil.” She cocked her head slowly. “Which side shall you choose?”

  “What are you talking about? Who is she?”

  “Ya-el.”

  I clutched my chest, glancing quickly around, terrified that any should hear of my weakness. My shame. “How do you know that name?” I snapped. “Speak!” I lifted her chin with the tip of my sword.

  She effortlessly shoved it out of her face and laughed. “Do you not know who you really are, Priest? The atrocities you’ve committed in the name of your Lord?” She stepped in closer to me, her frail body bristling with so much energy and power I knew it was not she speaking to me, but someone through her. Someone powerful enough to break through her splintered mind.

  Tipping her head back, she cackled, and the sound ran like ice water through my veins. “You are no angel, Priest. You never were. The blood that runs through your veins belongs to Greed. That is why you cannot cross this ward.” She pointed to the blood, for that was the true blood of angels.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Allora is—”

  “Greed’s emissary.” Her stained teeth repulsed me, and I cringed away from the miniature and macabre features. “Why do you think you’ve only ever killed Lust, Wrath, or Envy?” She lifted a finger with a sharp-tipped nail. “Answer me, priest!”

  My eyes widened. “I haven’t.”

  “You have, for that is your true enemy. Not demons. Not nephilim. But the Triad, the high caste demon lords. Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, and Pride will do everything in their power to prevent a shift in control, even if it means killing their only chance for release.” She held up her fingers and ticked one off with each name she spoke. “Lust. Wrath. Envy. For it is they who truly govern the Order. That is why you were sent here, that is why you are to kill the nephilim. Because only Lust’s line bears the marker to open the Gates of Hell.”

  “Shut up!” I shoved the blade against her jugular, only just shy of piercing, and still the child did not flinch.

  She smacked my hand away, and I let her because it all was starting to make a sick, perverted sort of sense. I ran through my memories, looking for any moment I could have killed anyone not possessed by Lust, Wrath, or Envy, but I couldn’t find a one. Nor could I think of a moment when any of my partners had.

  My hand shook as the sword clattered to the stone at my feet. “What is going on? Why do they want Pandora?”

  She smirked. “So that she can release them. They will infect her as they have Aquilla. They will turn her, and in turn she will unchain the three of them.”

  “So then I should kill her? I should do what Allora has bid me—”

  Her hand found my face so fast it snapped my jaw back. I grabbed my throbbing cheek, staring at her in fury and rage. But she stood proud and unflinching, and I became sick as I realized that not only had I not been the Lord’s emissary, but that I’d signed my soul to a devil.

  “What have I done?” I muttered to myself.

  “Hubris, man of Adam. That is what you have done. Your arrogant pride blinded you to the truth of that night.”

  I shook my head. “Then help me to undo this.”

  She laughed. “We cannot. You exist to serve your master now. But you can achieve redemption, should you wish it.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “Choose the right side.”

  “And what side might that be?”

  “You already know it. She will need you to be strong for the horrors that come.”

  “But I am still owned by Allora.”

  “Then you do for us what you did for her. You protect Ya-el, who shall be renamed Pandora. It is too late for Aquilla. Do not allow them to do to her what they did to this one. For we fear that Pandora will be much stronger, but her heart is also much more yielding. She is not afraid to love, and love is a power stronger than any other in the universe. It is only through that love that this curse can be overcome.”

  I shook my head. “I cannot protect a demon.”

  “You are a demon, Asher. What you believed you knew about the world was skewed and tainted by the high caste lord’s thirst for power.”

  “And how do I know that you are not one of them too?” I snarled. “I’ve been fooled before.”

  She smiled. “You don’t. But isn’t that what faith’s all about?”

  “What if I told you I do not believe any of this?”

  “We know you do, Asher. We sense the discord in you. It is why we came to you instead of the others. For you desire that demon and we shall grant her to you. She will want only you, thirst only for you, live only for you, and in return you will keep the gates sealed.”

  “No.” I shook my head, even as my soul trembled, as my mouth watered. To have her look at me, to want me as I wanted her. To have her know me… could I do that to her? “Not without choice.”

  “Does it matter in the end, Priest?”

  My fists clenched as I warred with my desires. “It matters,” I gritted out. But though I said the words, I fear my flesh was weak.

  But the girl had only laughed, and then she’d blinked and looked at me strangely, and the light of intellect was gone. Then she began babbling in a tongue I could not comprehend…

  ~*~

  I tossed the journal away and grabbed the book, flipping to the end, desperate to see that I’d translated it wrong. That somewhere in there it showed my emotions hadn’t been manipulated, that I was still my own woman. But the shaking in my hands and the dryness of my mouth spoke volumes. I hadn’t translated it wrong; there was nothing else to read. This was where the book ended. I threw it across the floor and stared at Asher in horror.

  “Pandora, wait.”

  “What did you do to me, Ash?”

  I ran my fingers across my skin where he’d been touching me, suddenly needing to get away from him, from this trailer, from what I’d just read in that book. Was everything I felt a lie? Nowhere in there had it said that I hadn’t been cursed.

  “Pandora, stop. It didn’t—”

  But I couldn’t stand to hear another word. Without looking back at him, I traced from the room.

  Chapter 17

  Pandora

  I was sitting between the branches of a massive redwood tree staring out at the forest floor below me, trying desperately to forget the words I’d read.

  He’d never said whether the angel, or demon, or whatever the hell that thing had been, had cursed me to love him.

  Was it possible that none of what I felt for him was real? That once again I was being influenced by the will of another? I jumped to my feet and paced back and forth on the branch, running my fingers through my hair.

  “And what does it matter if you are?” I growled. “I can’t change these feelings, can’t undo them. Do I want to?” I twirled around. “Yes!”

  Because without will, all of it was a lie. Everything I felt, everything he’d done for me. Did it matter now? Was it real? Was any of this real?

  Was my life still not my own?

  And as if the weather sensed my mood, the gray clouds opened up, and I was covered in rain. I buried my face in the trunk of the tree, lost and terrified, scared to return back to that trailer, and damning Asher to Hell because I w
anted to. Everyone wanted a piece of me, and I was so tired of giving it to them.

  I didn’t want Luc.

  I didn’t want Grace.

  And I didn’t want Asher.

  But I shook as my mind screamed it for the lie it was; I did want him. Desperately. The memory came to me of the time I’d first seen him at my ride: the immediate shock, the immediate sense that I’d needed him, wanted him. The feeling so intense, so demanding, one I’d never known before, and yet I hadn’t questioned it either. Because it’d felt so real.

  The way I’d protected him, shielded him from Luc’s scrutiny, from Grace’s mechanizations. I’d put my safety on the line time and time again because of my overwhelming need for him.

  And for what?

  For something that wasn’t even real. I closed my eyes, and a dry sob tore from my throat. This betrayal was so much worse than Grace’s, than even being stolen and broken by the Triad, because my hope, my faith, anything good in me, hinged on my surety of Ash. That in all the world, I’d found one truth and I’d clung to it for all I’d been worth, so desperate for that truth.

  “So you’ve been cursed to love another. My, my, that’s a fate worse than death.” A smooth, deep drawl had me whirling around, dropping into an immediate crouch, and hissing.

  “Oh, sorry.” Death held up his hands. “Demons hate to be surprised.” He winked and then glanced up, frowning as if glaring at the rain.

  Immediately it stopped. I didn’t want to attribute it to him, but yeah…

  “Why are you here?” I shoved a lock of my wet hair behind my ear.

  Licking his front teeth, he ran his palm over a section of the tree branch until curls of steam rose from it. Then, nodding, he took a seat. It was more than just a little bizarre to see a man dressed in a suit and Gucci loafers swinging his feet back and forth over a hundred feet above the ground.

  “I came to have a little chat. So how are you really, demon girl?”

  I hugged my arms to my chest. “How the hell do you think I am?”

  “Well, you look pretty pissed.” He twitched a brow. “Do I got the gist of it ‘bout right?”