Celestial Storm

by Emma L. Adams

  He pulled the metal device off the wall. Half the stone came along with it, leaving a gap wide enough for a person to crawl through. With a glance at my cell, he moved to the window, pressing something to the bars. “This is likely to react badly with the building’s defences.”

  Smoke began to pour from the wall. “You’re not wrong.”

  The inspector took a step back. A tremor ran through the floor. “Uh, Inspector. You might want to get out of the—”

  The wall exploded. The inspector leapt through the gap between our cells, his body slamming into mine. The bars dividing the cells toppled over as their foundations fell to pieces. The inspector’s weight pressed into me, forcing the breath from my lungs. I gasped, trying to shove him off me—then dampness soaked my hand. Blood.

  Blinking dust from my eyes, I feebly shoved at the inspector again. He’d shielded me against the blast, but—that was a lot of blood. I inched upright, and he flopped over onto his back. Some of the bars were still in place, but others had broken loose, lying where they’d fallen like sharpened poles. Even the explosion couldn’t destroy demonglass.

  “Devi…” The inspector coughed feebly. His clothes were drenched in blood. A pole had impaled him through the back. “Please…”

  He wouldn’t survive. He was asking me to finish him off so he could die with dignity.

  I leaned forwards and grabbed one of the demonglass bars, now unsupported by stone. Sharp enough to cut.

  “Divinities have mercy on me,” he gasped.

  “Better hope they will.” I slit his throat, swiftly, easily. His blood soaked my hands, and he was silent.

  I climbed to my feet, stepped between the remaining bars into his cell, and leapt out of the gap in the wall. The light was so bright, it hurt to look at. I turned around, seeing no signs of Clover. She must have been moved to another prison… or killed.

  The pentagram was still there, though—the one that led to the gates of hell. My hand dripped with the inspector’s blood. Celestial blood.

  “All right, you bloodthirsty bastards. I met your requirement. He’s dead. I killed a celestial.”

  My voice rang into the silence. I moved closer to the pentagram, wondering where Clover was. Maybe she was already dead.

  The gates of hell were safer than here. The ground inside the pentagram was scorched slightly, as though I’d brought part of that realm back with me. Maybe I had. I still had its dust and dirt on my clothes, along with the dirt of Babylon and here. I didn’t know if that would be enough, but anything was worth a shot at this point.

  I stepped into the pentagram, and spoke. “I request entry to the gates to the netherworld to speak to the angels of hell.” Like entering Purgatory, or any realm for that matter, the words didn’t matter so much as the intention. “I request entry to upgrade my magic.” Blood dripped from my hand as I clenched my fist around the demonglass bar. Demonglass was a source. Enough to power a portal. “I demand entry to the gates of hell.”

  There was a flash of light, and the barren landscape vanished. A moment later, the distant shape of hell’s gates wavered before my eyes. “That’s more like it. Hey, you feathery bastard, I met your requirements.”

  “Did you?”

  In a beat of wings, the fallen angel landed in front of me again. Or, beat of wing. One of them hung limply at his side, while the other was missing several handfuls of black feathers. His face was bruised, too.

  “Yes, I did,” I answered. My hands dripped with the inspector’s blood. My body ached with exhaustion. I had less than twelve hours to get back to Earth in time to save it, and if the angel didn’t upgrade my demon magic, I’d rip his remaining wing off.

  “Get out,” said the fallen angel.

  “I met your requirement,” I said. “We had a deal.” I held up my right hand, which continued to drip blood. My demon mark hummed, reminding me I still held the demonglass bar, its sharp edge glittering. Reflecting my dark aura.

  Hate simmered in the fallen angel’s eyes. “You dare to have the audacity to claim a deal with me after you tried to take my life?”

  “Working for Lythocrax is fun?” I eyed his battered wing. “I don’t want to make a deal with you. You killed Lydia for no reason. But I earned the upgrade. If it’s true that I have to kill a celestial to earn Grade Four demon magic, then I deserve it. I wouldn’t have bothered coming back to this shithole if I didn’t need that power. And you’ll be in more trouble if I don’t stop Lythocrax.”

  “You won’t stop him,” he said, his eyes glittering. “He slaughters angels for sport. You’re a mere human.”

  “Trust me. I killed him once already. I’m telling the truth.”

  His jaw tensed. “You cannot upgrade your magic until you go into his own realm, celestial.”

  “And what then?” I asked. “I get a favour, right? In that case, I request my own demon name.”

  He gave me a long look with those fathoms-deep eyes. It struck me that he was fairly young, for an angel. And Lythocrax had crippled him.

  “When you upgrade,” he said, “you will be permitted to choose your own demon name. Once you do, the name is set, and cannot be used against you unless someone hears you speak the name aloud.”

  A demon name would prevent me from being summoned using my given name. It wouldn’t save my neck if I walked onto an arch-demon’s territory, but what the hell, maybe it’d be another layer of protection against Lythocrax. It made sense that if I picked the name and told nobody, then no one would be able to steal it from me unless they bribed or tortured me into telling them. Nobody had known Lythocrax’s true name, after all.

  “Get out, Devina Lawson, and never darken the gates of hell with your presence again.”

  I gripped the demonglass bar. “Fine with me.”

  Was there even any demonglass left on Lythocrax’s realm? I shouldn’t need a portal to travel there, not when it was the source of my own power. I raised the bar, seeing a city reflected crookedly in the glass. A city I knew.

  Dusty ground replaced the gates of hell, a paler sky replaced the red one, and the distant form of a city came into focus. I’d expected more fanfare, but then again, I hadn’t even noticed my demon power upgrade the last two times. I transferred the demonglass bar to my other hand and flipped my right wrist over. The demon mark had darkened, its lines spreading to cover my entire wrist, like it’d gained a life of its own. Lines crept to my elbow, like shadows, and darkness spread across its surface, swirling within, depthless, angry.

  Grade Four demon power.

  Clover had said it’d be enough to kill Lythocrax.

  And I can choose a demon name.

  “Shadow,” I whispered, thinking of Nikolas. I needed to find him. Destroy the demonglass before Lythocrax did, and before he had the chance to be reborn.

  20

  I squinted into the distance. The blurred shapes resolved into buildings, the sky above them overcast, almost black. I walked towards the city, curious despite myself. I hadn’t come back to check up on the fallen since I’d left them here on Lythocrax’s former world, not wanting to bring any more trouble on them. But it seemed awfully quiet.

  “Devi,” gasped a voice.

  A head popped up from behind a rock. One of the fallen. Like the others, he was pale, his form skeletal, his aura the colour of a demon-infected wound.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked him.

  “He… he came back.”

  My heart lurched. “Lythocrax did?” Oh, no. I should have known he wouldn’t leave Purgatory without good reason.

  “No… him.” He pointed at the shadowy sky above the buildings, which cast them into darkness.

  Wait. That wasn’t a thundercloud.

  Casthus.

  My heart gave another jolt. “No.” No. Damn him. He’d said he’d leave Earth alone… but hadn’t said anything about the fallen. “How did he get here? This world was cut off from the other demon realms.”

  “He used a device to summon
one of us.”

  “The pentagram.” I never should have taken it near Casthus to begin with.

  The fallen. This was his revenge on both me and Lythocrax. No wonder he’d let me go so easily. I was beginning to see where Zadok had got his cunning nature.

  “Does he still plan to open a bridge?” I asked.

  “Maybe.” The fallen looked at me, his gaze dim. “With him here… I remember, Devi. It was the one who calls himself Lythocrax who abandoned us on Babylon.”

  I frowned. “What—he did? I thought he was lying. You mean when he was a Divinity?”

  He’d been to Babylon before. Was that when he and Casthus had met?

  The fallen pushed himself upright with his frail arms. “We were half angel, half celestial, chosen by the gods. There were some realms that used to be in harmony between both heaven and hell. Demons lived alongside celestials and warlocks and angels. Not unlike Earth, if it were a little more divine. One of those realms was Babylon.”

  I gaped at him. “Uh. I thought—damn, okay, that makes sense. Celestials and demons wiped one another out on that realm, right? And… and Lythocrax and Casthus were involved in the fighting.”

  So Lythocrax hadn’t been talking complete nonsense when he’d claimed the fallen were his own children after all.

  “On Babylon, peace turned to destruction almost overnight,” said the fallen. “An angel killed the demons, and hell retaliated in turn. Casthus claimed that realm for his own with the help of his demonic allies. And we were unable to die, and so we remained behind.”

  “Damn,” I said. “So… Lythocrax—I suppose if he was still a Divinity, he just flew back to heaven. Babylon ended up a dead end… and he couldn’t go back there even if he’d wanted to.”

  Or to Earth, for that matter. So to have his revenge on hell, he’d needed to fall.

  “No,” said Casthus. “He couldn’t.”

  My blood iced over. The arch-demon’s shadowy form blotted out the sky as he descended, hovering above me. I backed up, gripping the demonglass tight, but even my newly acquired magic was no match for his.

  “I see you’ve managed to free yourself, Devi. And you’re trespassing.”

  “This world doesn’t belong to anyone but the fallen,” I said, a tremor in my voice. “Can’t you leave them in peace? They’ve done nothing to you.”

  “They did me a great deal of harm, once,” he said, his dark wings beating.

  “Oh. Oh. They fought against you in the war.” No wonder he’d enslaved and tried to sacrifice them. “But I still I claimed them from you. I won.”

  “Now I’ve conquered this world, they are mine by default.”

  “You conniving bastard,” I said. “Why bother letting me win, then? Or is this supposed to be fun, toying with people’s lives? You and Lythocrax are as bad as each other. What do you want to do, create another bridge?”

  “Not quite,” he said. “Eventually, perhaps. Babylon wasn’t the right timing. I thought someone was manipulating events, and I was right.”

  “You…” He’d guessed the Divine Agents were trying to manipulate him. So I’d had it right when I’d suspected he’d let me claim the fallen after all. “You can’t go back on your word.”

  “Oh, can’t I, Devi?” His aura grew, dark and endless, swamping the city. A threat. He’d kill them all if I acted against him, and as they couldn’t die, they might well suffer forever.

  I can’t let him do it. But I couldn’t leave Earth to Lythocrax’s wrath, either. “Babylon… it wasn’t always your domain, was it? It was him who wrecked it. Lythocrax, and his angelic army.”

  Seven hells. Clover had told me Babylon was the realm where she’d died and was reborn, and that it was the last realm to fall. She’d also said the celestials had made a deal with the angels in order to prevent any other realms from falling. As a result, the Divinities had left, leaving the fallen trapped and the world to turn to decay…

  But the divines hadn’t been true Divinities. Not all of them, anyway.

  “The angelic snake hasn’t changed with the centuries,” Casthus said. “I knew him for a traitor long before I fell myself. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he decided to try to bring down my empire.”

  I’d guessed right. An angel killed the demons, and hell retaliated in turn.

  “But you won the war,” I said. “Right? You killed the celestials, the angels… everyone.”

  “Yes, we did,” he said. “My armies slaughtered heaven’s warriors by turning their own weapons against them. The other arch-demons and I formed an alliance against heaven, but Babylon paid the price.”

  “The other arch-demons,” I said. “Was one of them Themedes, by any chance?” Nikolas had told me they were allies, if not friends.

  “Themedes was one of many demons who offered their help against heaven’s abominations. He took a large share of the prize, which was his right.”

  “And you kept the fallen imprisoned after you won because you knew if they somehow turned into angels again, they’d beat you,” I said.

  “No, I kept them because they could not die, and I had to find a way to destroy them without inviting him back into my realm.”

  “You said, so it is you, when I beat you. Is that because you recognised his power in me?”

  “You carry a bare fraction of his power,” he growled. “The one who calls himself Lythocrax is the embodiment of heaven and hell, and you will lose this war, Devi.”

  “Wait, so you’re not going to kill me yourself?”

  His dark wings beat, the sky lightening as his aura drew in. “Why would I need to? One life means nothing in the battle of heaven and hell, Devi.”

  That’s where you’re wrong. One person could destroy an empire, or decide the outcome of a war.

  But he’d given me an opening to leave. It was a mere few hours until Lythocrax made his dramatic rebirth. I had to use the magic I’d taken to destroy that demonglass.

  Time to see if Clover was right.

  I gripped the demonglass bar in my right hand, focusing as hard as I could on the image of Lythocrax’s hateful face reflected in a sheet of demonglass trapped in a warehouse. With my power upgraded, new doors were open to me.

  And like it or not, Lythocrax and I were bound.

  Take me to his source. Take me to Lythocrax’s source.

  A flash of light engulfed me, and I landed hard, on my knees, on the warehouse floor.

  Well, crap. It worked.

  “Ow.” My knees throbbed. My whole body ached, telling me I hadn’t taken in nearly enough regenerative power. But my demon mark exuded smoke, as dark as night. I’d taken on some of Casthus’s power.

  I could destroy the demonglass, and Lythocrax’s portal along with it.

  Turning around, I faced the glass, trapped in the mechanism affixing it to the warehouse wall. Shadows wreathed my reflection. I’d never seen my aura like that before, and to be honest, it sort of freaked me out. I wasn’t a shadow demon, right? Maybe my mark had taken my new name literally.

  I transferred the demonglass bar to my left hand and pressed my right one to the glass. Casthus’s power brimmed at the surface, and dark shapes appeared within the glass.

  I jerked my hand back, my heart pounding. The source was active. Lythocrax had already turned it on, or one of his angels had. If I used demon power on it, it’d turn into a portal into hell there and then. He planned this.

  Nice try. Lythocrax had wanted me to take the power. On the off-chance that I survived, I’d be the one to bring about Earth’s end.

  It won’t happen.

  But… what was I supposed to do to the demonglass? I couldn’t leave it here, not with hours at most until Lythocrax’s rebirth. Think, Devi.

  My left hand tingled, reminding me I still held the blood-stained demonglass bar. It glowed brighter than the source behind me. I raised the bar, frowning. Beneath the blood, it showed the image of Zadok’s new palace, which he’d fashioned into the mirror of his old tower on Ba
bylon.

  When I’d first started to use demonglass, the tower had kept calling me back. Like part of me was bound to it… bound to the source.

  Celestial light bloomed at the surface of my left hand, mingling with the glass’s light. Bright… more like heaven’s than hell’s.

  My armies slaughtered heaven’s warriors by turning their own weapons against them, Casthus had said.

  Babylon was last place heaven and hell had lived in harmony.

  “Light and dark are both divine,” I said, half to myself. My reflection was split. And so was the glass.

  Demonglass wasn’t hell’s weapon. It was heaven’s, too. Light and dark are both divine. The glass absorbed demonic magic… could it absorb heavenly magic, too? I’d used it as a shield against the clone he’d created. I’d made it into a weapon.

  I passed the still-glowing bar to my right hand, and pressed my left palm to the sheer surface of the glass before me. In all this time, I’d never touched a piece of the source using my left hand. After all, it’d been my demon powers that enabled me to travel through the glass. I’d never thought it could possibly work with my divine magic as well.

  Immediately, the glass’s surface brightened, chasing away the shadows that darkened it. My celestial mark vibrated, glowing ever-brighter. Is it taking in the power? Or cancelling it out?

  Celestial magic burned out anything demonic. That was the whole point of it.

  I called the light to the surface of my left hand, and pushed it towards the glass. The shadowy shapes in the glass began to disappear. It’s working.

  Heaven burned out hell. Divine light destroyed demonic. And he’d burn along with them. He wouldn’t rise.

  You lose.

  A scream of rage erupted from the glass.

  “You were supposed to destroy it,” Lythocrax howled, his eyes flickering in and out as the divine light burned the glass. “You were supposed to bring the shadow demon here… even your angel was fooled.”

  “Isn’t it lucky I don’t trust a word any demon says?” I continued to feed power into the glass, watching its glow brighten. The shadows faded, and divine light replaced them, bright as the bar in my hand.