by Rae Foxx
Blood Dawn
Queen of Abandon, Book Three
Rae Foxx
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Afterword
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1
She'd had black hair and plump lips and pale cheeks with the slightest pink tinge to them. And she hadn't been scared. She was brave, that little girl of mine. She'd seen all the demons pouring out of the gates around me as I stood in shock, the moment that it took me to send out my power to try to grab her. She'd watched them with curiosity in her eyes, but not fear.
She was either brave or desensitized. I hoped it didn't mean he'd had her around hordes of demons. As Queen of Abaddon, even I wouldn't have introduced her to the subjects of my rule for many years yet.
Either way, she was brave. But why had he brought her here? To tempt us into searching harder for her. Or to mock us.
"Lilith," Lucifer yelled. "Do something!"
I snapped back to the present. I stood with my arms spread and my deep magical reserves strained as I held up a shield of power to keep demons from escaping Abaddon.
My mind whirred with idea after idea, but none were feasible. I couldn't put up a shield and leave it. If I didn't have enough power to maintain this one, I certainly couldn't leave one. The demons would shred it in seconds.
They were weak alone, but in a mass like this, their powers worked together to batter at me.
"Freeze!" I screamed, using magic to amplify my voice again. I weighed the words down, soaking them with as much power as I could.
"Thank goodness you're back." My brother's voice carried over the sounds of the demons snarling and scraping. I saw him walking through the crowd. Demons moved aside for him. Asmodeus. My little brother. He'd sided with us during the rebellion and had been sent to live under our charge. The first Fallen we'd created, and general of our armies.
The armies that should've been helping us now.
"What is happening?" I asked. I wanted to scream in frustration, but I was back in Abaddon. Even if all the demons had found a way to ignore my every word, I was still the Queen.
He reached the front of the crowd and stepped up to the shield, wincing as he touched his finger to it. The demons ran all around him, still battering at the wall of power.
"How are you doing that?" I asked.
He dropped to one knee. "Forgive me, Sister, Lord Lucifer."
I glanced over my shoulder at Luc, who still stared at the gates with a constipated look on his face.
Asmodeus gave me a questioning look. "Is he well?"
"He is not. Can you help with these demons?" I asked.
"They refuse to listen," he replied. "The Fallen and I are useless. They are running and hiding if I'm not mistaken. The demons were giving us a berth, but there's no discernible reason."
"Go find them. Round them up," I hissed. "Get up." I still stood with my arms outstretched. "Start rounding demons up as you can and get them back to Abaddon. Work on Earth to the best or your ability. It is going to be overrun if we don't stop this soon."
He gave Lucifer one last glance, then nodded. "Of course."
He couldn't leave without fighting against my wall of power unless I dropped it.
"Luc," I called over my shoulder. "Come here."
How he'd managed to get back into his ethereal body without his magic made me want to gnash my teeth. What had Raphael done to keep Lucifer's magic blocked so soundly?
He walked over, staring at his hands. "I don't have my power," he said like a lost little boy looking for his mommy.
"I know." I couldn't hold the shield up much longer. A few more demons had slipped through at the edges. I understood Lucifer's lost expression. In a few minutes, I was going to be forced to let the shield go and allow the demons of Abaddon loose on Earth.
There were countless demons in Abaddon. Hundreds of thousands at the least, maybe millions. Some demons could procreate. Like our version of rats. We were able to keep them in relatively low numbers thanks to the Hounds—oh, the hounds. What of Jellybean? Where was he?
"Jellybean!" I yelled, projecting my voice. It wouldn't reach out of the realm, but if he'd come back, he'd hear it.
"Where are my powers?" Lucifer whispered.
Asmodeus and I exchanged a look. He'd never been like this. We'd been by Lucifer's side since the dawn of time, in Elysium and then here in Abaddon. He'd never been lost. Scared. Diminished.
Right now, he was all of those things. "Luc, grab my arm," I told him. I'd have to figure this shit out myself. Find his magic, find our daughter, and fix Abaddon.
He put his hand on my shoulder and seemed to notice the demons for the first time. "What is happening?"
I sighed and tried not to be exasperated. He'd just lost his powers, after all. "Raphael opened the gates. He had Ariel. As soon as the gates were opened, the demons poured out."
"I can't close the gates," he said simply. "I tried."
"I know, Luc, I know. I'm holding them back, but I have to let go. Hang on to me."
He nodded.
I turned back to Asmodeus, who had been watching our exchange with a shocked expression. He wiped it from his face when he saw my gaze return to him. "Find the hidden Fallen and do what you can. Check in with me often."
"Ready," I whispered. I counted up to three, then let the magic go.
Asmodeus had been correct. The demons streamed around Lucifer, Asmodeus, and me as if we were trees standing in their path. Nothing they could do but go around.
I watched them go for a few moments, then grabbed Luc's arm and disappeared.
We couldn't normally stay on Earth in our Ethereal bodies for long. Short visits and quick trips were all we could handle; our ethereal bodies being tied to Elysium or Abaddon. Either place could sustain us.
Which was why it had taken such an extraordinary amount of power to create Abaddon all those years before. Luc had it, from the Fall, and he'd nearly killed himself creating a realm that could hold Fallen Angels. Especially Archangels like Lucifer and me.
We'd do the best we could on Earth, then if we weakened, we could return to Abaddon. It would probably be empty of demons by then, at this rate.
A particularly large Incubus ran toward us as I disappeared. He seemed as if he was going to run smack into me, and it startled me. I lost focus as we disappeared from our home.
Shit. Where would we land?
Miami. Lucifer and I appeared in the middle of downtown Miami. I recognized it because Constance and Lucian had once vacationed there, not long after college.
"Why are we in Miami?" Lucifer asked, his voice stronger. He sounded a bit more like himself which was a small relief.
"I have no idea." I sighed and looked around. "When we left Abaddon, I was distracted, and we went out at random."
The smell of the salt air directly contrasted with the high-rise buildings, as if big cities couldn't be near the sea. Miami proved them wrong.
Luc held out his hand. "If we go to the house, maybe Michael and Gabe are still there." I took it, realizing without his powers, he was like lugging a human arou
nd. He was vulnerable, and far too many wanted to hurt him.
If the demons had realized who and what he was at the gates, they would've attacked. It was his magic that had held them in the realm for the entirety of their afterlives. I wasn't sure why they hadn't attacked. Maybe they hadn't recognized him without his magic. Or possibly they'd been in such a frenzy to leave that they hadn't noticed any of us there.
Just before I moved us to the house, I noticed something strange.
A car drove down the street, but nothing human was in the driver's seat.
The Incubus. The one that had charged me, seconds before, in Abaddon, was behind the wheel. His skin was a hue of pink that might've been red, might've been pink. He had somewhat humanoid features. All Incubi did. I wasn't sure if they'd glamoured themselves that way so much over the years that evolution took care of it for them, but it helped them make humans comfortable, so they'd give them their deepest desire. A desire to an Incubus, or Succubus, or Siren, or the many other variations, was a mighty snack. They made the object of the human's desire come true, whether it was sexual or something else, but it was twisted. Then they fed on the negative emotions the desire evoked. Fear, horror, misery. Incubi were loathsome creatures, nothing like the human romance novels made them out to be.
This one saluted me and drove down the road while Lucifer and I gaped at him. I considered using magic to stop him, but then what would I have done with him? Stuffed him in a vault?
Humans wouldn't have been able to see that, the incubus driving. What would they think when they saw the car? It wasn't new enough or fancy-looking enough to be a driverless car, and I wasn't sure those were even legal yet, anyway.
A woman walked past us on a cell phone. "I'm telling you, Frank, there was nobody driving the car."
Oh, no.
"Lucifer, walk with me for just a few minutes. Something strange is going on."
He nodded. "I saw it, too."
"Did you see the Incubus?" I asked under my breath.
"Yeah."
At least he had that much, the ability to See. "Keep your eyes peeled."
Seconds later, I saw another. A small Spectra rode on the shoulder of a woman walking toward us with tears streaming down her face.
"Excuse me," I said. "Are you all right?"
She ignored me. If I could get her to stop, I could at least knock the Spectra off of her shoulder. It resembled a small monkey, all cute and fuzzy.
It was anything but cute inside. They liked to live in old homes or places that had seen a lot of death and torture. Spectras were responsible for most of the world's haunted places, not actual ghosts. Those were exceedingly rare, as Lucifer and I did our jobs very well and souls didn't escape our charge often.
Until now. Who knew what was happening in Purgatory and Limbo?
Spectras, being small, quick, and wily, escaped Abaddon all the time, unfortunately.
"Ma'am," I said at nearly a shout.
She kept walking, and the damn little monkey chittered at me as they passed.
"I don't think they can see us," Lucifer said. "I think we're on the demonic plane."
It remained to be seen if that would help us or hurt us in the long run. We would be able to come and go as we pleased, but if we needed human help, it would be very difficult to get it. I could make myself appear to humans from this plane with my magic, but Lucifer couldn't.
A squirrel ran past, then stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. It raised on its hind legs and looked around, then set its beady eye on me.
With a snarl, it ran straight for me. I watched, bemused, as the creature neared, but then it bared its sharp teeth.
And I, Queen of the Underworld, the dead, and all the demons in existence, had to stop myself from screaming in fright.
Lucifer stepped forward and kicked it, square in the face. I gasped in relief as it flew across the road, but then jumped when a public bus, passing by at the worst possible moment, slammed into the gray animal. It bounced off of the bus's front window and fell into the road only to be run over by the bus's giant tires.
"Ew," Luc said.
"The poor squirrel. It was probably possessed." I hated to think of one of my demons destroying the life of such an innocent creature.
"Why would they possess a squirrel?" he asked. "I've never heard of even the lowliest demon bothering with anything but a human."
I stared at him, completely befuddled. "I have no idea." I spotted an alcove in a brick building. "Let's just stand here a minute and take stock."
We leaned against the wall and watched people go by. I listened to phone conversations. "Yeah, it's all over the news," one woman said. "Some people are saying it's a solar flare."
"What are you talking about, Mom?" A young man sounded exasperated as he spoke to his mother. "I haven't seen anything weird."
He must've been the oblivious type because a bird flew past his face—upside down. I didn't know about him, but I'd never seen a pigeon fly upside down, except in a cartoon I'd watched as a child when I was Connie.
"We better get to Michael and Gabriel," Luc said as he watched a woman walk down the street talking to herself.
"I agree." There was nothing we could do to help these people, and this was almost certainly happening all over the world. "Even if we sent these back, they'd just leave again."
He grunted. "Let's go."
I took his hand and this time didn't get distracted as we disappeared.
2
"What the hell?" Gabe gaped at me when we appeared in our living room. "What are you doing here?"
Michael walked in from the kitchen with a sandwich in his hand. "Back so soon?"
Luc glared and walked toward Michael. He took the sandwich from him and took a big bite. "Long story," he said around the mouthful.
I shook my head. "Um, quick rundown. First, why are you two sitting around here like it's Friday night and you've got all weekend?" They just stared at me. “Second, we got to the gates. Raphael was there with Ariel, but Joel was right. She looked about three. Maybe four. I tried to grab her, but they disappeared. Finally, Raphael has done something, and the gates are open. Demons pouring out."
I collapsed beside Gabriel on the couch. "It'll take days for them to all evacuate Abaddon, but it's already going to shit out there."
Michael crossed the room and looked out the window. "I don't see anything."
Good grief. Had he always been this dense? I didn't think so.
Jellybean walked in and sat at Lucifer's feet, silently begging for a piece of his sandwich. Luc dropped some, of course. He was one of the most difficult men I'd ever known, but Jellybean had Luc wrapped around his paw.
"There are potentially millions of demons in Abaddon, but there are billions of people on Earth. They'll blend in. It won't be like a mass type thing, but even standing for a few minutes in downtown Miami, we saw several.”
Gabriel's jaw dropped and Michael turned from the window in disbelief. "Did the humans see them?"
"No," Luc said. He took another big bite of sandwich, so I continued explaining.
"They're on the demonic plane. As are we."
Michael looked from me to Lucifer and back. "So do something. Close the gates."
"You forgot that part," Luc said, then laughed.
But his laugh had a tinge of hysteria in it. He wasn't dealing well with the fact that he'd just been reborn into his Ethereal body, but he had no powers. Not that I blamed him.
"Yeah, when Luc appeared beside me, he discovered he still has no powers."
Gabriel jumped to his feet and whirled around to face Lucifer, who still stood in the doorway, sharing his stolen sandwich with Jellybean. "Do you sense them at all?"
Luc shook his head. "When I was Lucian, and I remembered, I felt them. Like they were just out of reach."
"That's how it felt to me until I figured out how to unlock them myself," I said.
"But now I feel nothing. I imagine this is how humans feel all the time," he m
used. "I quite dislike it."
"I'd say so," Michael said bitterly. "So, what's the plan?"
I didn't have a plan. I didn't even have a piece of paper to write the word plan. "How long were we gone?"
Michael looked at Gabe and shrugged. "I don't know, maybe an hour?"
Asmodeus appeared beside Michael, startling him. Michael jumped and a blue ball of energy appeared in his hand. "Cripes, man, I almost attacked you!"
Asmodeus, as was his way, bowed and scraped. "Apologies, cousin."
I hated it when he called my mates cousins. We'd all been created the same way, from the same materials, the fibers of the universe, before even the first planet was created. If that was considered cousins, then we were cousins.
But I didn't consider that to be cousins, because that made it icky in this day and age.
Asmodeus was my brother because all angels were created from Archangels. Asmodeus had been one of the first created using my DNA. I hadn't been fully aware at that point, and we'd been raised as brother and sister.
"What is it?" I asked. I hadn't expected to see him so soon.
"I've found about half of the Fallen, and we're able to get demons to listen to us when one-on-one."
"That's great," I said. "Good work."
He nodded and gave a half-bow. "Thank you, Sister. But that's the only good news. We send them back to Abaddon and they forget our instructions. We can command them to stay within the walls, but as soon as they appear there, they run back out. Though they do return when commanded."
One blow after another. "Find the rest of the Fallen. See if you can create a temporary wall behind the gates to keep them from escaping."
He nodded. "Wonderful idea, Sister. I will go at once."
Asmodeus bowed and disappeared again.