Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “At least. Most of us have ascended beyond that rank…I mean, those of us on this side of the rope.” He laughed, glancing at the poor saps in the back of the room. I didn’t like him as much anymore. “Of course, not everyone has the intellect to ascend. Most humans will never be even the lowest angel. The induction weeds them out.”

  “Arch Hubert touches the minds of everyone who’s been inducted?” I asked.

  His smile turned conspiratorial. “That’s what we’re paying him for. He touches our minds to get us ready for the enrichment. Sort of opens us up, makes our bodies more receptive. The friend who got you the seat didn’t tell you any of this?”

  I shook my head. “Wanted it to be a surprise.” I smiled. “I’m surprised.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet. I feel twenty years younger. And the things I can do…”

  He was a nephilim, but what he was describing were illorum powers. I caught a glimpse of his wrist. No mark. How was that possible?

  His gaze slid to the stage, eyes going wide and glassy. “Here he comes.”

  I stood with everyone else, a rush of adrenaline charging through the crowd like a wave crashing on the shore. I could feel the power of their excitement thrumming through my veins, tightening my chest.

  The room thundered with applause as the man from the website strolled onstage—Fallen angel Arch Richard Hubert. The illorum mark on my wrist burned, flames shooting up my arm, stinging through my brain. I clenched my jaw, kept my scream trapped inside. Bastard. My friggin’ wrist hurt.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” he said into the headset microphone. The gizmo hooked over his ear, a stiff wire, barely visible, wrapping around his cheek to the corner of his mouth. His perfect, white-toothed smile beamed, plumping his apple cheeks. Cobalt-blue eyes glistened, brilliant beneath the intense lights.

  He wore the same Sherwani-style jacket as the other men, the golden material fluttering around his knees against matching churidar pants. Delicate pale green embroidery wove around turquoise stones and Indian sapphires, sparkling down the center of his jacket, around the stiff collar, and at the ends of both long sleeves.

  “I have to tell you,” he said. “I have to tell you, my heart is filled to overflowing to see so many striving for a better existence, striving to find the truth beneath the lies your soul has been fed for eons.”

  Another uproar of applause drowned out his “Amen” and “Thank you.” Most people probably only saw him mouth the words. He nodded, raising his hand in acceptance of their accolades.

  The man worked the stage like a virtuoso, strolling from one end to the other, making eye contact with the besotted nephilim down front, then coming around center stage to throw a few charming glances to the cheap seats.

  His long, curling hair shimmered in the harsh lights, pulled to a ponytail at the base of his neck. The light sugar-cookie color was so much like Tommy’s, and the thought pinched my chest. Anger kindled in the pit of my stomach. He was tall like Tommy, too, but then it seemed the larger height was a common trait among angels.

  “Now,” he said, his gaze scanning the darkness at the back of the hall. “I know why you’re here. I know you’ve heard the rumors. People whispering about how their life turned around. How after an hour worshipping at Faith Harvest Church, they felt better than they had in years. You’re curious. Suspicious. Disbelieving.”

  The hum of voices softly admonishing those people rose up around me, like a kettle of water brought to a simmer. The nephilim seemed as much a part of the sermon as Hubert.

  “We at Faith Harvest Church welcome your doubt. We encourage your questioning intellect. The intelligent mind thrives on reason and logic. At Faith Harvest Church, we don’t just want to enrich your soul, but your body and mind as well.”

  Another burst of applause deafened me, my tablemates whooping and whistling. Hubert’s smile brightened. He’d expected the reaction, planned for it, and when the applause had gone on long enough, he took a breath to speak, and all went silent in anticipation.

  He was larger than life up on that stage, his voice a smooth satin caress over the audience. They’d have done anything to have his attention. They would’ve done anything he asked. The angel’s voice was like a long drink of wine, relaxing tense muscles, buzzing the human mind, and I had to fight to keep my thoughts focused.

  “And how do we do that, you might ask.” He paused, wringing every ounce of dramatic effect out of the pregnant air. Soft murmurs hummed over our heads from the seats farther back, the audience’s curiosity stirring.

  Hubert smiled. “We don’t.” Pause. Pause. Pause. “You do.”

  The nephilim jumped to their feet, cheering. Upbeat organ music piped a joyous beat through the speakers. But this time, Hubert’s microphone overcame the noise.

  “You do,” he repeated. “The power is in you.” The cheers grew louder. An unseen choir joined the organ music, singing praise to a beautiful new day. He strolled the stage, tossing a small wave to this person or that, clasping his hands at his mouth as if praying—he wasn’t—as the noise level softened, both real voices as well as piped music.

  The excitement calmed, and people found their seats again.

  “At Faith Harvest Church,” he said, when all was quiet, “we show you how to find that power. It’s there inside each of you, waiting to be tapped, waiting to fill you, to move you to a better level of existence. Because you were all meant to be…so much more. So much more.” He shook his head, lowering his gaze, feigning sadness. Oh, he was good.

  “We’ve all experienced it, right?” he said. “The supreme power of the human mind. Precognition. Déjà vu. What about the power of will? How many times have you prayed and prayed and prayed for something…and then it happened?”

  The back of the room rumbled softly, sounding like they weren’t sure they wanted to follow where he was leading.

  “We’re always so eager to give the credit away. Oh, I didn’t do that. I’m just human,” he said, scoffing. “Exactly. You are human, and the power…is in you. The power is in you!”

  The people at the front of the room were on their feet again, the cheers louder than any explosion before. Their utter belief in his words was like a force in itself, pushing the rest to believe as well, swirling and rising and filling us. I could feel their angelic power. Could they? Did they know that unearthly sensation was coming from them?

  “How about the power to heal?” Hubert said. “A man suffering from terminal cancer meets the girl of his dreams. He decides he won’t die of cancer and the tumors go away. How? The power was in him.

  “How about the woman in a horrific car accident, losing vital blood by the second, but she doesn’t die. She refuses. She won’t leave her little girl trapped in the backseat alone. She holds on until help arrives. How?”

  “The power was in her,” the closer group murmured around me.

  “That’s right,” Hubert said, his voice soft, cajoling. “The power was in her. Just like it is in you. And you. And you. And all of you.” He swept his arm across the crowd. “You’ve seen it. You’ve tasted it. You know it’s there, or you wouldn’t be here asking about it, how to tap into it, how to let it elevate you to a higher state of consciousness.”

  The way he spoke, the sound of his voice, the cadence—it was getting to me. I blinked, realizing my thoughts were slowing, like walking in thigh-deep water. I wasn’t bothered by the sensation, and that bothered me. I shook my head, tried to clear the stroke of his warm liquid voice from my head.

  “He’s hypnotizing everyone,” I said.

  My tablemate shushed me, and I glanced back to see him staring like an eager puppy at the Fallen angel onstage. This had to stop.

  “Humans were meant to be more. The proof has been around you since the beginning of time,” Hubert said. “Your ancestors saw it, wrote about it in their holy books…”

  “Angels!” a nephilim yelled from across the room.

  Hubert snapped in his direction, pointing. �
�That’s right. Angels. The perfection of the human spirit. Pure soul. Perfect health. Eternal life. The goal of human evolution, the highest level of existence. And you have the power within you to rise to it.”

  “How?” someone yelled from the cheap seats, and the forward crowd rumbled with understanding laughter.

  “I’ll tell you how,” Hubert said. “By letting go of the limitations of mortal life. This is not your first time around. No. Your soul has ridden this mortal coil time and again, striving to rise above it. And every time, the trials and disappointments of living break you down, hold you back, make you believe you can’t reach the heights your soul aches to achieve.”

  Reincarnation? “Seriously?” I murmured.

  My tablemate shushed me again. I was really starting to dislike him.

  “These people here have done it.” He pointed to the preferred section, his finger swinging over my table and back the other way. “I’ve done it.”

  Hubert pointed to the back of the room. “You can do it. Right now.”

  Applause echoed across the large room, more subdued. Those in front mildly happy for those in the back, those in the back unsure what he meant.

  Bariel stepped onstage again, crossing to stand in center stage, microphone in hand. Hubert lowered his head as though meditating, his hands clasped in front of him.

  “Blessed are you mortal men, for you are in the presence of an archangel,” Bariel said. “Feel him stir the power within you.”

  The Fallen exhaled loudly into his headset, his shoulders heaving with the effort. All at once his head snapped back, his arms flying out to his sides. The spotlight brightened, or maybe it was him, and the crowd gasped.

  A moment later, soft moans floated forward from the cheap seats. Someone fainted off his chair and then another.

  “Oh my God!” someone cried.

  “Not God,” Bariel said.

  The cries and soft cooing quieted, and Hubert slowly lowered his arms, straightened, opening his eyes. “That was only a taste of what the coming new faith can bring you.”

  “Teach me,” someone yelled from the corner. “I want to be an angel, too.”

  His gaze shifted to the tables, the ticket holders eager, sitting on the edges of their seats. “My children, those prepared to rise higher, come forth,” he said. “Let my spirit enrich yours so that you might enrich others. Together we will alter humanity as a whole and complete the evolutionary struggle.”

  Everyone seated in the front row of tables stood and a steel cord of nerves knotted in my gut. This was it—my chance to be near enough to the fallen angel to strike. But how close could I get before being discovered? I’d resisted the brainwashing power he was pushing through the audience, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my thoughts straight the closer I got. Still, I had to try. I held my breath and filed along with the others toward the stage, forming two long lines. I followed like I knew the drill.

  “Blessed are you. For you are in the presence of angels,” Hubert said to the rest of the room. “Behold, these once mortal men and women. They are without illness, without worry, without doubt. They are Dominions and Powers, the second order of angels here on earth. They follow the path I lead, rising higher and higher, and soon will be one with me at my side.”

  The first two in line stepped up onstage, and Hubert reached out, taking their hands. The threesome closed their eyes, lowered their heads.

  To the ignorant skeptic, this was all a huge crock. Hubert was a con artist scamming these people out of their hard-earned money. Looking at the three people standing onstage, a skeptic would claim they’d been swept up in Hubert’s elaborate production, compelled to play along. Who could tell?

  I could. I could feel his power stretching out to the two unmarked nephilim, seeping into them, searching, tempting, calling to that part of them that was so familiar to him. Like calling like. I stood in line, the truth dawning. He was calling up their angel halves without triggering the illorum mark.

  If he succeeded, they’d be nearly as powerful as angels without even knowing it. He’d be in control of them. His own army of human angels.

  “I don’t think so.” I drew my sword, willing the blade to form.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I couldn’t let a thing like Richard Hubert build his own superhuman army. The burning flesh sensation on my wrist began to ease. Like the nausea, it was a warning, sounding and then dissipating.

  The weight of my sword settled perfectly in my palm, loose at my side. I stepped out of line, heading toward center stage with long, even strides. People glanced, eyes going from my face to my sword, alarm rising through their bodies as I passed. I didn’t stop, coming dead center, stepping up in unison with the next two nephilim in line.

  The first pair was finished, already walking offstage. I could feel their power, same as mine, snaking out of them, twining through people, through minds, exploring. Power with no direction, no purpose—raw and dangerous. Placing these people in the hands of a Fallen angel seemed the worst possible fate.

  The ballroom erupted the moment those farther back caught sight of my sword. Screams echoed through the hall, catching and spreading like fire in a windstorm as more and more people noticed. Sheesh, it’s not like it’s a gun. No one is going to get hit by a stray swing. Probably.

  Metal doors banged against the brick walls, frightened people slamming through them, running for safety. Most of the nephilim stood their ground, Hubert having thoroughly screwed with their brains so they valued his Hell-bound life more than their own. They rushed onstage to gather around their personal archangel when most everyone else was running the other way.

  The smell of brimstone turned my stomach a second before demon hands latched around both my arms. I glanced behind me. The demons were on either side, both dressed in the same Sherwani jackets as Hubert, peach and purple respectively. The one on my left was a few pounds lighter than his partner, but they were muscle, nothing more. Of course they weren’t going to let me get close enough to strike.

  Didn’t matter. That’s not why I’d stepped forward.

  “Illorum,” Hubert said, parting the protective wall of human nephilim in front of him so there was no one directly between us. “I’m so glad you decided to join the ceremony. I thought you might never move into action. I do hope you’re not planning anything…unfortunate.”

  “Who, me?” I said, feigning innocence. Then I sobered up. “Archangel? Seriously? You’re lucky God hasn’t struck you down already.”

  His brows shot up, surprised. He laughed. “God? Oh, you are new, aren’t you?”

  Crap. And here I’d been going for cocky experience.

  “If God were going to raise a finger against me, if He could, don’t you think He would have by now?” Hubert said. “There’s no God here. The creature you speak of abandoned this world eons ago. He was impotent. These people have no need of a God so powerless that He’d allow the atrocities of mortal life to keep them stunted and unable to evolve into the masters of their own destiny, Gods in their own worlds.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really know about all that garbage, but I do know you’re wrong about one thing. God has raised a finger against you.” I shrugged. “Here I am. Guess which finger.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Do you believe you’ll leave here alive?”

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I will.” It’d be easier if I wasn’t surrounded by demons, with one of them squeezing his nails into my arm.

  “Better illorum than you have tried.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  “You’re right. I don’t know how good you are.” He clasped his hands behind him. “How good are you, my lovely, young illorum?”

  Maybe it was me, but my brain went straight into the gutter. Good at what? I wanted to be grossed out. I mean, he was only one step above a demon from Hell. Right? But I was learning demons don’t always look…y’know, hellish. Fallen or not, Richard Hubert definitely had the alluring ang
el thing down.

  It wasn’t just his muscled, manly stature, or his heart-melting, cool angel-blue eyes, or his smooth as silk voice, or even those shimmering golden locks a girl could lose her fingers in. It was…him. Call it charisma, charm, mojo, whatever, the guy had it in spades. Those cobalt eyes focused on me made my heart pound a little faster, made muscles low inside me warm and flex.

  I liked having his attention. I liked having him talk to me, ignoring everyone else. I wanted to keep his notice. I wanted to hear him say my name. I wanted to see his lips turn to a smile for me, because of me. I wanted to be special to him.

  Even knowing it was wrong, knowing his angelic powers were working me hard and fast, didn’t make it any easier to snap out of it. And knowing that pissed me off.

  Apparently, anger is an amazing motivator for me. “Tell you what, have your demon dog let go of my arm, and I’ll show you how good I am.”

  The bodyguard still holding my sword arm jerked me hard enough I stumbled back a step. I tried to yank my arm free, but he held firm, his fingers digging deeper.

  “My apologies,” Hubert said. “Mr. Imad and Mr. Jalil are compelled by a fierce love and loyalty to me. They fear for my safety. To dissuade them would be to insult them.”

  I scoffed. “Loyalty. Right. Why not? You got their banished asses out of the abyss.”

  Another hard jerk, and I thought I heard something tear under the skin on my shoulder. Pain stabbed up to my brain, but I clamped my teeth down and kept my yelp bottled up.

  “I did for them what I would do for any one of my brothers. Though I cannot say the gesture would be returned in kind.”

  I huffed. “Oh, I’ve got a gesture for you.”

  “We are judged and sentenced by a small group of elitists ruling by ignorance and fear,” he said, ignoring my comment. “The Council of Seven has no authority. There is no unseen God for whom they speak. It’s all been an elaborate hoax, and those of us who’ve refused to live by their oppressive, separatist rules have been cast out.”