Diminuendo
It’s quiet now.
One of the Horsemen has been unleashed and the world is dying.
I’ve bought us time by doing this.
I’ve also guaranteed that I’ll never be allowed in the Above again. Not only by releasing the Horsemen ahead of time, but by lying with my devil, Deveraux in the Ninth Realm. I’ve committed a great offense by doing this, but as I lie there next to him, listening to his steady breathing, I knew that I would be okay in giving this all up for him.
I got out of the bed and walked to the crystal coated window and looked out.
Isaiah had the angels and devils sitting together, co-existing.
I never thought that was something I would ever see.
I never thought that I would learn to love a devil, let alone sacrifice all I’ve ever known for one. But now I was prepared to do so. For Deveraux, for Arissa and Hadrian, for Keilyn, and for all the devils that were suffering excruciating pain being in the Above for the sake of saving us from the Thunderbirds. I saw that some of them had welts on their skin from being in a place so pure, while others were starting to develop burn marks on their flesh.
We have to hurry.
I heard my devil stir behind me, then almost immediately felt his hands caressing my sides. He had been so worried when I was first cast out that he would use any and all means to be by my side as quickly as possible.
The feeling of his fingertips on my bare skin was intoxicating. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against him, what was left of my wings trembling gently. As he held me close he looked out the window and his body tensed.
“We have to hurry,” he said softly, mimicking my thoughts.
We dressed quickly and made our way back down to them. Dev walked over to his family and began to inspect each of them as Arissa struggled to heal the others while her skin kept bubbling in blisters. I watched as Zahara and Dorian were doing their best to heal all of the devils and relieve them temporarily of their pains.
Isaiah walked over to where I stood and handed me the second scroll.
I knew what he wanted me to do.
I looked at Micah for reassurance who nodded.
I broke the seal.
From behind us the wind picked up and a white horse carrying a horrid monster galloped passed us and over the side of the Ninth Realm toward the Earth with a deadly trail of flames behind him.
“I call forth the Horseman, War.”
Twenty
“This is the Eight Realm and it’s my dominion,” Isaiah told the group as we walked through the gates.
“What’s in here?” Dev asked curiously.
“Obedience and Trust.”
I felt him flinch next to me and I saw a small burn starting to appear on his arm. I reached back and pulled out one of my feathers and wrapped it around his burn. I was curious as to why he wasn’t reacting like the rest of the devils, but I assumed it was because he was so old. I looked up at him and he smiled at me, giving me a small nod in thanks and we continued walking.
“Interesting,” Isaiah said.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing has been destroyed here. Look around. It’s as it always was.”
He was right. The simple buildings made of brick and wood were all standing in pristine condition. The only thing missing were the angels bustling about and the Songs of The Realm being sung.
“I don’t like it,” he said quietly to me.
“Why?” I asked in confusion.
“Because this means that the other realms will be as they were as well, yet yours was not? You were targeted from the beginning. It means someone has been trying to get you cast out. I would assume to take your place. You said the humans did this?” he asked turning to Dev.
“That’s what we were informed in the Western Province,” he confirmed with a nod.
“Hmm.”
Isaiah stood there silently for a moment.
“May I borrow Lucy?” he asked Dev who looked completely unwilling to let me go.
“No,” he said bluntly.
“I’m pretty sure Isaiah isn’t going to hurt me, love,” I said rolling my eyes.
“I don’t care. The last time I didn’t have a firm grip on you, something tried throwing you to Earth in a blaze of feathers and stripped glory. The answer is no.”
“Deveraux, I need to speak to her in private. I won’t move further than ten feet away. I promise. She’ll be in arms reach but I need you to let her go for a few moments,” Isaiah insisted.
Dev looked like an angry little boy who was being told he couldn’t have something he desperately wanted. I reached up and put a hand on the side of his face. He looked at me with his angry amethyst eyes, but he soon melted when I kissed him gently and promised him that I would be okay.
“Please don’t be gone long,” he whispered his lips still close to mine.
“I swear I won’t be.”
He let me go and watched as Isaiah and I walked the ten feet that were promised to him. Isaiah looked at me and started to speak in our language so that Deveraux couldn’t understand us.
“It wasn’t the humans. Not one sect of them would be strong enough to summon Thunderbirds. It was either a devil or an angel. I don’t believe it was anyone in the Deveraux’s house. They wouldn’t be able to hide it for this long, especially not from their Elder. I do not believe it was an angel only because there is no realm here for there to be a plot that would not have been found out already. I think it was a devil in one of the other provinces. And ... I think that they used the girl as bait to keep us out of Deveraux’s province to take it over and then make their way to the Ninth Realm. I think we all just fell for it and we need to get back. Also ... That girl ... I know where she is. But if I tell you, I need to tell you and him together,” he said uneasily.
“Wait, you’re telling me you’ve known where she is this entire time?”
“No! When I heard the cries from below us I figured it out. I can’t tell you without the Elder devil here,” he said glancing at Deveraux.
I signaled Deveraux over and looked back at Isaiah, “He says he knows where Keilyn is and he will only tell me if you’re here to listen.”
Dev and I looked at Isaiah expectantly.
“Don’t you dare tell her!” Arissa yelled, fast approaching us. “It’s not the time for that now!”
Deveraux looked at Arissa, “Are you telling me you’ve known where she is too?”
“Yes,” she confessed looking away.
“I’ve been going through hell to find her. I’ve been cast out, I’ve had my wings burned, I’ve been humiliated, I’ve been throwing up blood. And you BOTH have known where Keilyn is?!” I had never been so angry in my existence.
“I will take the appropriate action against you once we’re back in the Western Province,” Deveraux said to her in a low, dangerous tone.
“Yes, Master,” she replied quietly.
A happy squeal took our attention away from Arissa. I looked and saw Josiah holding Keilyn by the hand who was struggling to pull away from him when she saw me and Deveraux. Her beautiful blonde curls were tussled and her face was riddled with dirt, burns, and welts. She had been up here too long and I didn’t know if we would be able to heal her.
Deveraux dropped to his knees and she ran into his open arms and hugged him tightly. He held her so closely that I was afraid he might break her. She looked up at me with her head on his shoulder and smiled her wide toothy smile and held up one hand to me. I took it and she pulled me down toward her and Dev, so that he could hold us together.
“I want to go home,” she said in a shaky, hopeful voice.
“We will go home soon,” Deveraux promised her as he held us close to him.
Keilyn smiled at him and hugged us tightly. I could hear the angels and devils behind us suddenly gasp. My eyes were closed but I could see a bright light shining throughout the Eight Realm. She pulled back and looked at me.
“Can I go
home?”
“Of course, Kei. That’s why we came to find you, so that we could take you home,” I said brushing her curls away from her face.
She smiled and stood up.
Dev also stood up and brought me up to stand next to him.
Keilyn looked around at the angels and devils and waved at them.
Then in an instant she put a hand on my belly before she crawled inside of me.
My stomach swelled.
Now the nausea and throwing up blood made sense.
Now I knew why they were keeping her a secret.
Now I understood why she had taken so kindly to me.
Her hair color made sense to me. Her hair should be black like Arissa’s and the rest of the female devils, but her color was a perfect mixture of mine and Deveraux’s.
Keilyn was our child.
Now she was growing in my belly.
She was home.
Twenty One
Isaiah and Arissa each grabbed one of my arms as I fell over screaming in pain. Deveraux had to be restrained so he was of no help. I started to throw up blood again. Only this time it didn’t seem like it was going to stop. Arissa held my hair back as Isaiah kept me as steady as he could on my knees.
Micah and Hadrian kept bringing me honeydew nectar to sway the nausea. After what seemed like an eternity, the nectar worked and I stopped throwing up. I spit out one last small puddle of blood and tried to catch my breath.
“How ... could ... you ....” I started.
I took a deep breath and looked at Isaiah with accusation in my eyes, “How could you not tell me she was my daughter?”
“Because we tried to save you from this. That’s why the Thunderbirds came after us,” he said quietly. “But somehow the devil child managed to walk the Earth still. She’s special, Lucy. She will be the key in fixing everything. She will be the one we need to recycle the Earth and the humans, but we have to keep you safe now until she can be born as she was meant to be,” he said.
Deveraux, in a fury, broke away from his captors and kicked Arissa in the side so hard that she fell through the Eight Realm down to the Ninth.
Hadrian went after him for attacking his woman, but Deveraux, being the Elder and the stronger of the two, turned and grabbed him by his throat and lifted him off the floor with his dangerous ice blue eyes.
“Remember your place,” he said to him with his deadly dual vocals.
In an instant he dropped Hadrian and fell through the division of the realms. I could hear Arissa scream in terror. The echo was horrible, her screams, her fright was so powerful and prominent that I covered my ears at first.
Help her or he’ll kill her.
That voice that just spoke to me wasn’t my own. It was the devil child growing inside of me begging me to help Arissa.
“Master Deveraux, please! I beg you! DON’T!” she screamed.
I looked at Dorian who was the strongest and largest of the male angels and he nodded. Running over he grabbed me and hoisted me on my back as he dove through the realms trying to find where in the Ninth, they were.
“No Dev! Don’t!” I yelled seeing him with Arissa cornered and cowering in a corner of a ruined chapel.
He looked up at the sound of my voice. I took that moment of his distraction to jump off of Dorian’s back and as I did he swooped for Arissa and snatched her from her corner, flying her back up to the Eight Realm.
“She’s known this entire time. She needs to be punished,” he said looking at me.
“Not here. Not in the Above,” I said putting my hands on his face.
Come back to me. Come back, Dev.
“You both could have died.”
“But I didn’t and we have Keilyn back. She’ll be an amazing scion, you heard Isaiah. Our baby is the key to fixing everything. She’s right here Dev,” I said placing his hand on my swollen belly.
Keilyn moved inside of me. Deveraux’s eyes went back to normal. He sighed and dropped to his knees in front of me and kissed my belly. I looked down at him and smiled.
“I never would have survived all of this if she hadn’t saved me. If you hadn’t been so diligent in protecting me. If the angels and devils hadn’t worked together. I never thought I would be able to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, but now I can. I can give you a child.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to forgive Arissa. I’ve forgiven Isaiah already, but I need you to show the same compassion. Keilyn loves her. I can feel it. For our daughter, let Arissa live.”
“Our daughter,” he repeated in a distant voice.
Dev got to his feet and looked down at me, nodding.
“Because my bride and child have asked this of me, I will let her live. But I want the devil who has betrayed us dead.”
“Lucy?”
I heard Isaiah’s voice from above us.
“I can’t fly us up. My wings... they’re not as strong as they should be yet.”
Dev opened his mouth to say something when suddenly my body began to shake. My eyes opened wide and I stood straight up on my tip toes. Something odd was happening and I didn’t know what it was. He reached for me and was thrown back by a shock of electricity. I watched him shield his eyes as that same bright light that had engulfed him, Keilyn, and I surrounded me. I heard the sounds of the wings as they fell off of me and I heard the ripping sounds of flesh as new wings grew in their place. I was momentarily lifted off the ground and then the light disappeared. Deveraux put his hands down and looked at me with shock on his face.
“Lucy, you ... have new wings. And they’re white... but,” his voice trailed off.
“But what?”
I looked behind me and I saw that these were not the angelic feather wings that I was used too. These were sharp pointed and bony. They were webbed skin and they were the color of snow, only ... they were demon wings. They were the wings of the true enemy.
“She’s trying to help,” he started, “but she made the only wings she knew how. Oh my God,” he said suddenly covering his mouth with his hands.
“What?” I asked wearily.
“Your skin,” he said softly.
I looked down at my arms expecting to see them completely burned beyond recognition, but instead I watched as a black vine pattern began to weave its way from my fingertips all the way up my arms and I felt the ticklish sensation of the pattern continue to weave its way down my back all the way down to my feet. The feeling stopped once they reached my toes.
Keilyn was trying to protect me but she didn’t realize that she had made me to look like a monster. I could only hope that the wings and the patterns were temporary.
Deveraux slowly got off the ground and approached me cautiously.
“Your eyes... they’re ... amethyst. You’re absolutely breathtaking,” he whispered taking my face into his hands.
“This isn’t me though,” I responded my voice cracking.
“I know my beloved Lucy,” he said. “But I’ve never seen anything as beautiful in the Below that has looked like this. I could keep you in either form forever and would never love you less or more because of it.”
Suddenly I felt a pain in my back.
Keilyn wasn’t done with me yet. The webbing on my back started to spread slowly and the wings became more rounded out.
“Ugh,” I fell against Deveraux in slight pain as he steadied me.
“Oh Kei,” he said with a soft chuckle.
I closed my eyes and grit my teeth as the pain briefly increased, then disappeared as quickly as it was upon me.
“Spread your wings, Lucy,” he said gently.
“Why?”
“I want you to see what our daughter has done.”
Obediently I spread my wings. I pulled away from Deveraux and lifted them up so that I could see. These new wings. They were mine. She gave me my wings back. Even though they were black, they were still angel wings. I looked up at him with tears in my eyes and he smiled.
“She left a little something for me I see,”
he said mysteriously.
“What do you mean?” I asked as I stretched my new wings, getting ready to take us up to the Eight Realm again.
“You have our eyes still,” he whispered.
“Is that why this place looks so uninviting suddenly?” I asked with a laugh as I glanced around.
“Now you see what we’ve been seeing,” he replied dryly.
I laughed and gave him a shove.
“Thank you my little love,” I said rubbing my belly causing her to move with happiness.
“Come on,” I said getting behind Deveraux and gripping him by the sides, “We have to go get everyone and head back to the Western Province. Keilyn showed me who the betrayer is.”
Twenty Two
The angels were still trying to get used to me having the eyes of a devil more than they were the fact that I was swollen with the child of an Elder devil. I thought it was amusing. Maybe it was because they couldn’t see Keilyn and they could see my eyes.
Before we had left the Above I had Deveraux speak to Arissa and Hadrian. I wanted them to know that they weren’t in any danger. Of course he had to do it his own way, to let them know that what he did was for their own good, even if he might have slightly overdone it.
We reached the Western Province in to time. But as Isaiah had said, it looked like a war had been waged in the time that we were all gone. The iron, wrought gates had been knocked down and the small village and even Deveraux’s home looked like they had been leveled by a small Earthquake.
“Hmph,” he said with a smirk.
I knew he didn’t care really for what happened here. I didn’t think him to be a material kind of devil, and as an Elder he’d just have to think it and it would be rebuilt again.
Arissa came over and stood by me protectively.
“Master Deveraux, I don’t want to step out of my place, but we need to remove Lady Lucy. Now,” she said almost in a panic.
“What do you see?” he asked her.
“The Betrayer. He knows we’re here, he knows Lady Lucy is swollen with your child. Master, please! He wants to kill them both. He’s.... he’s killed the Elder of the Eastern Province and means to do the same with you. Let the angels take her away, please! He’s knows we’re here,” she said frantically.
Lucy, Fallen (The Infernal Paradise) Page 8