Celestial Storm

by Emma L. Adams

  “This place draws bad luck, doesn’t it?” muttered Rachel.

  “You’re telling me.” I had years of experience dealing with magical explosions, mostly of my own creation, but the smell drifting from within the bar was unfamiliar, and the lingering smoke left an acrid taste in my throat. I’d need to get inside the place to see what might have caused the blast.

  Two vampires stood in conversation at the entrance. No doubt Madame White, their leader, would already know as much as the police did, but there was no sign of her here. She’d know about Javos, too, so she’d have no reasons to pin the blame on the warlocks.

  “Who do you think did it?” Rachel asked. “D’you reckon the person who set off the explosion was caught in the blast? Or did they throw in the explosive from the outside?”

  “No clue,” I said. “Let’s go in.”

  Rachel transformed into a middle-aged male vampire in a business suit. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. “I’m pretending to be one of Madame White’s people.”

  “Good plan.” I readied myself with more of Nikolas’s attention-diverting power, but as we reached the entrance, the two vampires moved to block our path.

  “Hey,” I said to the vampires. “We’re here to check the place out, since I’m an expert in explosives.”

  “What’s it to you?” asked one of the vamps.

  “I invited her,” said Rachel, her voice deeper than usual. “The sooner we find out who did this, the better.”

  The vampires looked at one another. I hit them with a dose of Nikolas’s lure ability, and they staggered back, looking at me vacantly. One of them literally started drooling, his gaze skimming me from head to toe. “Huh,” he said. “I never noticed how fuckable you are.”

  “Good lord,” I said, giving him a swift kick in the shins as we entered the bar. “That explains why Nikolas doesn’t use that power often. Not exactly subtle, is it?”

  Rachel snorted. “I can tell you a few stories.”

  “I don’t really want to know, to be honest.”

  I swore softly at the sight of the wrecked bar. The reports had said more than twenty people had died in here, but I’d been too stunned by Javos’s abrupt death and Harvey’s transformation to read all the details. The leather sofas and wooden floor were coated with remnants of a black tar-like substance. The smell of human blood lingered, along with something acrid and unfamiliar. Not brimstone, though I’d expected it. Sprinklings of glass-like black shards lay scattered on the wooden floor.

  My heart sank down to join them.

  “Damn,” I whispered.

  “What?” asked Rachel.

  “It’s demonglass.”

  Burned-out demonglass, shattered and useless—but destructive enough to reduce this place to a ruin.

  “How?” Rachel blinked in confusion. “It’s not an explosive.”

  “It’s a source and it stores magic. Any kind of magic. One of Harvey’s people must have been this way, and…” I stepped back, the taste of burning making me cough. “This seems like… like a middle-finger to the preternatural community in general. Hey, I can use your valued resources against you.”

  Demonglass wasn’t what you’d call a common source, but if it was being smuggled into this realm behind the scenes—or already here—it was more clear than ever that Lythocrax’s death hadn’t been the end of his revenge on me, and Earth. Not by a long shot.

  “They moved the bodies,” Rachel said quietly. “All the dead were vampires. Do you think one of them might have done it?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe, but it could just as easily have been thrown in from outside. If there’s no surviving witnesses, I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  Least of all a substantial link to the Divine Agents, if there was one. They covered their tracks thoroughly.

  We headed back to the car. I sat behind the wheel for a moment, trying to get rid of the image of shattered glass and screaming. Rachel sat in the passenger seat, fiddling with her phone.

  “There’s a video on DivinityWatch,” she commented. “Someone was filming the bar from outside.”

  I leaned over to watch. The video was too fuzzy and unclear to make out any faces. The person filming had been in the outside seating area of one of the other pubs further down the road. As we watched, glass exploded outwards from the bar’s windows, and everyone in the street began running. Then the film cut out.

  I squinted as the video replayed. “I didn’t see where the blast came from.”

  “If anyone was filming inside, they’re dead,” said Rachel. “Sorry, this is the best video there is.”

  “Yeah…” I let out a breath. “Right… I’m going to find Faye. I assume Fiona’s with her. The celestials didn’t jail her yesterday, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried.

  They hadn’t even asked to talk to me yesterday, not even for an explanation of why one of their people had transformed into an angel.

  “Okay,” said Rachel quietly. “Can you drop me off at Niko’s place? I… I want to be alone for a bit.”

  “Sure.” I didn’t know how to comfort her. I’d spent long enough in the grip of grief myself to know it wasn’t something that went away easily. It didn’t lessen with time, either. You learned to live with it. Like living with my celestial mark. Every mark on my heart and my soul. I’d never forget them—any of them.

  My parents, who’d died while I’d survived.

  Rory, killed by a pawn of the Divine Agents.

  Gav, killed for finding out the truth.

  The Divinities had caused me more grief than hell had.

  I dropped Rachel off at Nikolas’s house and drove on towards the tower block where Faye was staying. Turning the corner, I muttered a curse under my breath when I spotted a large number of balaclava-clad vampires gathering outside. Not again.

  I parked the car at a safe distance away, then walked to meet the crowd.

  “Put the cameras away,” I said to the vampires, elbowing my way through to the doors. “If any of you would like to admit to writing on my car yesterday, I’d appreciate it.”

  A vampire caught my arm as I rang the buzzer. “It was me,” he blurted. “I wanted to… uh, show my appreciation.”

  “You can’t call yourself my biggest fan and then wreck my paint job, you dick. If I didn’t have better things to do, I’d repaint your face to match. Leave the bloody car alone.”

  I rang the buzzer again, ignoring the snapping cameras and jostling vampires. The door opened and Fiona appeared, ushering me inside.

  “Thought I’d find you in here,” I said to Fiona, once we were safely in Faye’s flat. “I went to the site of the attack at Mather’s bar. Turns out it was demonglass they used.”

  “What, the explosion?” said Faye, from where she sat on the sofa, polishing a knife.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They must have loaded the glass with some kind of explosive power. But there weren’t any survivors to question. I don’t know who did it, but I can guess.”

  Fiona paled, her gaze darting to the door. “Damn.”

  “Why would they use demonglass?” said Faye. “I can think of a dozen other demonic explosives that would have been way more effective.”

  “I think killing twenty-odd vamps is effective enough,” I said, sinking into an armchair. “It feels… personal. I already had to clear up all the pieces I left lying around, and I can’t risk carrying any on me since Harvey decided to use it to hop into this realm. Also, I don’t know if you’ve tried to get into Purgatory, Faye, but it’s locked.”

  “Oh,” said Faye. “Thought so. I can’t get in, besides. I don’t know the fancy ritual or whatever it is.”

  I kept forgetting she was a celestial grade below me, despite her notoriety. “The guild didn’t arrest you?”

  “They tried,” she said. “But Mrs Barrow saw what happened yesterday. The angel was clearly not on our side, and given what he did to that warlock, she’s been forced to admit that maybe heaven’s got a rog
ue problem after all.”

  “About bloody time,” I said. “So they just… let you go?”

  “That might change when their backup gets here,” she said. “I think they’re going to ask some of the others from different cities to permanently relocate here, but considering the inspector’s disappearance and all the attacks, everyone thinks the city is cursed.”

  “They’re not wrong,” I said. “What about your other contacts?”

  “Dwindling by the second,” she said, her expression darkening. “It’s dangerous for me to let too many people find out my identity. Or, it was. It probably doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Is that what Mrs Barrow said?”

  “Not exactly.” She grimaced. “I think the only reason she didn’t jail me on the spot was because she was afraid I’d bring more angels on her tail. But she’s called for reinforcements from outside the city, so they’ll be showing up any day now. And Lydia’s gone, too. I guess she stayed on Purgatory.”

  “Damn.” It didn’t matter how many celestials came here, not when anyone might fall under the influence of the Divine Agents. “I guess it’s no surprise. We’re officially at the point where the leader of the warlocks can be murdered in broad daylight and people will still swear up and down that the murdering angel is in the right.”

  “Funny,” said Faye. “I think I realised that when the guild pinned a high-level demon summoning on a single celestial who didn’t even know how to open a portal.”

  “Sorry. Slipped my mind.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Faye. “I often wonder if it might have gone any other way, but the guild—their system is set up to fail. If they give people the benefit of the doubt, they get blindsided. If they don’t, hell gets to them anyway.”

  “Yeah, the guild’s pretty much a lost cause,” I said. “But I’d like to know who booby-trapped that demonglass. I guess it was one of the other celestials, but I wouldn’t have thought they’d just leave without making a huge scene.”

  Her forehead scrunched up. “Demonglass. Where’d they get it?”

  “Who knows?” I said. “This is Lythocrax—I’m certain he specifically asked them to use that particular source as a means of revenge. I can guess which realm it originally came from, but the person in charge isn’t exactly on top of things.”

  Zadok hadn’t set up any trade with Earth yet, that I knew of, which meant either the demonglass had been traded before… or someone was acting behind his back.

  “Do the rogues have contact with warlocks?” asked Faye. “I don’t know the details of inter-dimensional trade, but surely it was the warlocks who actually brought that demonglass into this realm to begin with. Not Lythocrax, either.”

  “Wait…” I stiffened. “The rogues did have contact with a warlock trader. Harvey told me. Before they ran off to Purgatory. He said they used the guild’s back doors, with the help of an outsider warlock collective. I was going to look into it at the time, but then things got a little out of hand.”

  “Outsider warlocks?” she echoed. “I’m no help there. The guild might think I’m a traitor, but I’m still a celestial, not a demon.”

  “Shit, maybe I can find them,” I said. “I do know the warlocks’ hangouts…” A weird pang went through me at the thought of the Harpy’s Nest without Javos there.

  Fiona shook her head at me. “The last time we went to a preternatural bar, a couple of incubi tried to kill both of us because they thought you were the person murdering them. I’m taking a wild guess that they know you were with Javos when he died.”

  I groaned. “Yeah, they would blame me for it. Bloody typical. I doubt rogue warlocks will go to the same places as their leader, anyway.”

  But if I found them, maybe I’d also be able to find the demon who’d turned my own weapon against me. Even if all clues led back to Purgatory, I was in dire need of a face to punch that didn’t belong to an angel.

  My phone buzzed. Nikolas. “Hey,” I said, taking the call.

  “Devi,” said Nikolas. “Where are you?”

  “Faye’s flat. You’re with the warlocks?”

  “Yes, I am. The warlocks are insisting on calling a vote on their new leader this afternoon. I’ve barely managed to bring them under control.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Actually, it’s a good thing,” he said. “Once the vote goes through, it’s final. I’ll be their leader and they won’t be able to challenge me.”

  I frowned. “It’s that easy?”

  “We don’t make things as complicated as humans do,” he said. “However, there’s an outsider warlock collective who’ve made a petition to oust me as the new warlock leader before I even started. I’d like you to be there for moral support in case they decide to interfere with the vote.”

  “An… did you say an outsider warlock collective?” No way. He can’t mean the same one.

  “Yes,” said Nikolas. “They didn’t give Javos too much trouble, but since he died before I could legally win the leadership contest, others have stepped in and are insisting I can’t just declare myself leader without allowing everyone else an equal chance.”

  “Oh shit,” I said. “Who is this collective, exactly?”

  “A group of rogues who live on the outskirts of the city,” he said. “They’re being fairly insistent. I think they always felt Javos ignored their needs and now they have an opening, they’re claiming they want to overhaul the whole system.”

  The words ‘overhaul the whole system’ never meant anything good in my experience. “You should probably know what I just found out,” I said. “The explosion at the vampires’ bar yesterday was caused by demonglass, which was likely smuggled into this realm illegally. And—and the rogue celestials told me, when they lived here, that they had a warlock supplier with access to the guild’s back doors, who gave them their demonic props. I can’t think of any other way something as protected and dangerous as demonglass might have been sabotaged.”

  He swore quietly. “I never had the chance to look at the crime scene. Are you sure it was demonglass?”

  “Nothing else was left behind. I tried asking around, but there weren’t any surviving witnesses. They’re stepping up their game. Openly using my own power against me. This is personal. And public.” If someone working for the enemy was challenging Nikolas for leadership, too… I didn’t believe in coincidence. Not anymore.

  “I sincerely hope you’re wrong, Devi.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I’ll come and keep an eye on things. Even if they’re just disgruntled and harmless, I won’t let anyone sabotage your chances.”

  “I’d appreciate it, Devi,” he said.

  I hope I’m wrong. But the Divine Agents didn’t need to hide. They were no longer afraid of being discovered.

  Which meant they were ready to declare war.

  11

  I drove to the house of the warlocks’ new headquarters as quickly as I dared, hoping that I was wrong and the warlock collective was just a group of Javos wannabes rather than the alternative. Please, please say the Divine Agents haven’t got to the warlocks too.

  I parked down the road from the house. Nikolas waited outside, his wings out and his aura simmering with shadowy magic. The murmur of voices came from behind the partly open door, punctuated with shouts.

  “A little impatient, aren’t they?” I said.

  “They’ve been bombarding me with questions all day,” he said. “None of them witnessed what happened to Javos, so they got the embellished version from DivinityWatch.”

  “Since when did warlocks use that site?”

  “You’d be surprised. There are videos… someone recorded the incident, and it doesn’t paint the celestials in a good light.”

  “Because Harvey turned into an angel?” Damn. I should have guessed the warlocks would think the worst. How did you explain to people who implicitly distrusted the celestials that the enemy wasn’t actually on heaven’s side, despite looking and speaking exac
tly like they were? Most of them wouldn’t believe me. And if Nikolas insisted on telling them the truth, that put him at a disadvantage compared to any warlock who could give them a more believable story and a more obvious enemy to strike at.

  “By the way, Rachel was looking for you,” I said to Nikolas. “She was pretty much distraught. I don’t know how to help her.”

  He swore. “I’ll go and speak to her later, but this is more urgent.”

  “Yeah. If it’s true—if they’re the ones responsible… I won’t make a scene, don’t worry. But what if they win the vote?”

  “They won’t,” Nikolas said. “I have far more experience than any of the other candidates, and besides, nobody knows who they are. I’ve worked for Javos for nearly as long as I’ve run the castle on Babylon.”

  There was the cocky demigod I knew. “I hope you’re right, because we don’t need any more declarations of war. If the Divine Agents have any warlocks dancing to their tune, what’ll you do, execute them?”

  “If necessary,” he said. “It’s risky you being here at all, but as the only celestial demon, I don’t want you left out of the negotiations.”

  “I don’t have a great recent record with being diplomatic.”

  And my attempt to be reasonable with Harvey had met with disaster. Let’s face it, a lot of warlocks wouldn’t want me in the meeting at all. But if I stayed on the fringes, I might never find out if any of the warlocks vying for leadership had sneakily been helping the rogues on the Divine Agents’ orders.

  I walked in behind Nikolas, keeping my sleeve firmly down over my celestial mark. At least most people in the room didn’t have aura vision and couldn’t see my split soul. They had witnessed my magic, used in battle, which was reason enough for them to distrust me, but hopefully their fear would hold them back from lashing out.

  The main downstairs room had been cleared out and filled with chairs, but most warlocks stood or sat on the floor, looking expectantly at the door when we walked in. I’d sensed Nikolas using his lure ability to stop them from looking at me, but there were too many of them. They were baying for blood.