by Rae Foxx
"That won't work," Lucifer said. "The realm was created with my magic. Even you couldn't build a wall like that in Abaddon."
"I know," I said. "But it'll keep them busy and they're useless to us now. Unless they have the power to transport us into Raphael's realm, at least it will keep my brother out of my hair."
Lucifer shrugged. "Have them research a spell that would be able to block or steal the most powerful Archangel's powers."
My jaw dropped. Of course. "Asmodeus!" I yelled. I trickled a little power in my voice that would call him to me.
He appeared a few seconds later. "Change of plans. Go to the libraries in the palace in Abaddon and research a spell or Object, Relic, anything that is powerful enough to strip Lucifer of his power."
Asmodeus's eyes lit up. "Of course, sister. You know I enjoy a good trip through the ancient tomes vaults."
I waved him off as he disappeared again. "Sorry, Luc. That didn't occur to me."
Lucifer grunted and walked into the kitchen, followed closely by Jellybean.
"Demonic plane, huh?" Gabe asked. He'd walked out of the room while I spoke to Asmodeus and returned with my old laptop. "So, the humans are reporting strange things worldwide. But you're right, they can't see the demons."
Demons, Fallen, ghosts, angels, we all appeared on a different plane within the Earth realm. we could see and interact with one another, but the humans were oblivious unless we wanted them to see us. Most demons couldn't show themselves, but then, some humans had a special ability to see the truth. They were more than likely descendants of Nephilim but hadn't been born with the gene that gave them magic. They were still a bit special, but nothing like the ‘Mary’s’ of the world.
"If we can get the demons back to Abaddon soon, the humans will write this off. You know how humans are," Michael said.
He was not wrong. Humans denied anything that didn't make complete sense to them. Even to the extent of taking it out on their fellow humans if they didn't understand one another's cultures or identities.
"One news article is blaming Russia," Gabe said as he browsed the internet. "Said it's biochemical warfare making people act crazy."
I snorted. "Good one."
"Most people agree it has to be some sort of solar flare or EMP." Gabe closed the laptop. "So, that buys us a little time. The people that can see the truth will be dismissed as crazy or religious fanatics.
The sound of a phone ringing drifted into the room. "I recognize that ringtone," I said. "That's Connie's phone."
"We put her on your bed," Michael said. "That's all we'd gotten done before you returned."
I walked past him and noticed Lucifer sitting by himself in the kitchen. Jogging up the stairs, I was jolted by seeing my body on the bed.
Oh, what a strange feeling, to see one's own dead body. I had a brief stab of sadness for Connie. Her life was over, forever. She was part of me now, but for a while, she'd been her own person with her own identity.
The phone stopped ringing as I stared down at the woman that had housed me for far too long. She looked a lot like me with small differences. The shape of her nose, the curve of her jaw. Her hair was a slightly different shade of black than mine. Her breasts were a bit bigger.
When the phone pinged that it had a voicemail, I jumped and walked forward, then carefully slid the phone out of Connie's pocket.
Then, with that small part of me that was creeped out by being in the room with my own dead body spurring me on, I went quickly back down the stairs. Michael was in the kitchen with Lucifer, making another sandwich. How could they think about food right now?
"It was Mary," I said. The call history showed four calls from her. I pressed the buttons to play the voicemail on speaker.
"I don't know if you're here or gone or what, but you gotta get this mess figured out!" Her bossy voice filled the living room. I smiled, very fond of the powerful woman. I hoped we could get through all this without her coming to any harm.
"People out here talking about mass hallucinations. You and I know the truth, but you're the only one with the power to stop it. So stop it already!"
Two more voicemails followed that one with similar messages. She sounded sad in the fourth and last one. "I'm guessing this means you've gone since you're not answering. I hope you haven't left us to deal with this ourselves." The phone made a clicking sound when she'd hung up.
"We certainly can't leave them to deal with it themselves. What can we do to contain the demons?" I asked.
"Not enough power to create a new realm," Luc said from the kitchen in a sullen voice.
"Can't build a wall to hold them in Abaddon." Michael walked in with his sandwich. "I'm out of ideas."
"And they're not listening to us anyway," I said. "Let's go see Mary. Maybe she's got some ideas in her books. At least we can calm her down and make sure she knows we haven't abandoned her."
Lucifer walked in from the kitchen with one hand on Jellybean's head. "Are there any government statements about this?" he asked.
Gabriel shook his head. "I searched for that, but the biggest governments of the world are mum. They either know what it actually is and don't want to cause mass panic, or they're clueless and trying to figure it out."
"Why don't you go sneak around?" I asked. Gabe loved popping in the president's office or the royal throne rooms and listening in on what was going on.
He grinned. "My favorite pastime."
After leaning over and popping a kiss to my lips, he disappeared.
Clearing my throat I looked at my other two mates, “Is everyone else going with me?"
They nodded and Luc held out his hand. "Here, carry me with you like a baby."
Instead of taking his hand, I wrapped my arms around his waist. He looked down at me in surprise, but his arms circled me, and he squeezed.
Maybe a little vulnerability would be good for him. He needed to learn he wasn't lord and master of the universe, anyway.
If anything good could come from all this, anything at all, I'd be grateful. Because so far, it'd been a shit storm.
3
"Why am I not surprised?" Mary shook her head and opened the door wider. "Where's the other one?"
"Gabriel?" I asked. "He's checking out the leaders of the world."
Mary hissed a laugh through her teeth. "I'm glad you fools are still here. Let me have a look at you."
We stopped in her small living room, and she turned her shrewd gaze to us. "Oh, you've gone and done it, haven't you?" She shook her head. "Come on. I was making tea. Come tell me what's going on."
We followed through to her kitchen, and she pointed at the table. She wanted us to sit.
We sat. Even Lucifer. He was too cowed at the moment to argue with anyone, anyway.
"Now," Mary said.
She set a mug in front of each of us. Mine was black with a big yellow sign on it. It read Caution. This might be witch's brew.
I snickered. "Cute mug."
Michael showed me his. Witch, please.
He grinned. "I like it."
"I'm so relieved you approve of my coffee mugs. Here." She set her gaze on Lucifer as she took his mug and poured hot water over a teabag. "What's wrong with you?"
"I don't have powers," he said sullenly.
She burst out laughing. "Boy, you sound like my grandson when his mama takes his video games away. Is that all you're made of, your powers?"
Lucifer's jaw dropped, and he started to look indignant, but then his puffed-out chest collapsed. "Yeah."
She rolled her eyes and plopped a teabag in my mug. "You gotta teach him better than this. You know we take them to raise when we marry them."
I gave my pouting mate a wry look. "Technically I didn't marry him, does that mean I can let him figure it out on his own?"
She chuckled and filled Michael's mug. "It's your headache."
Luc glared at us with his chin on his palm, and Michael tried not to laugh.
"Start at the beginning," Mary instructed
. "Go through it all. Maybe something will come out that we can use." She poured herself a mug and grumbled as she did it. "Angels and demons in my house, thousands of years old, but can't figure out their own problems."
I couldn't pretend that that hadn't stung, but she was right. When it came to matters like this, unless we had help, we were powerless.
"The beginning," I said. "Okay. Well, it started when Gabe woke me up from my Earth cycle."
"And that is?" she prompted.
"Oh, we're going that deep." I hadn't realized she needed that much explanation. "Okay, Angels and Fallen are connected to the fibers of the Earth realm, especially Archangels. If we don't live on Earth as humans every five hundred years or so, our power weakens. We usually die within plenty of time to get Lucifer back to Abaddon, where he must be to maintain the magic of the walls of the Realm that keep the demons inside."
"So, you were happily churning on as human, but Gabriel..." She looked at Michael. "Not you, the other one, he tried to get you to remember? Why?"
"Michael remembered first," I mused and looked at him. "Do you know why?"
He shook his head. "I knew who I was from sometime in High School. I had to watch you and Lucifer live your lives as Lucian and Constance." He scoffed. "That sucked."
"Yeah, Connie always thought you were just creepy and inappropriate." I winked at him.
"It came off that way, but I just missed my wife," he said.
"Well, Gabe had been waiting on us to die, as we always did, before the walls of Abaddon weakened," I continued. "But then time dragged on and on, and we didn't die. Then, I got pregnant."
"Is that relevant?" she asked.
"I'd say so," Lucifer retorted. "As our daughter is still kidnapped."
Mary held up a hand. "Okay, okay. I just meant to the whole mess going on with you."
I jumped in before Lucifer pissed her off and she stopped helping us. "Sandalphon coincidentally decided to help us get pregnant because he'd heard my inner lamentations over all the years that I couldn't have children. It worked out in favor of Raphael somehow, because he's got Ariel and we're left panicked and feeling hopeless."
She nodded. "That child has to be something special."
I couldn't stop myself from glancing at Lucifer after Mary said that. He'd been irate that I'd given Ariel up to a human family to raise. He hadn't believed for a moment that she'd been fully human, but at the time, I'd thought she was.
He very purposefully stared at his tea.
"So, you knew what was going on." She pointed at Michael. "And you finally got your memory back?" She pointed at me.
I nodded. "Lucifer was harder. We needed him to die because when we're in our Earth cycles, when we die, we go home to Abaddon, which is where he needed to be to bolster the gates."
She nodded. "Right. But you couldn't kill him."
"No. Nothing we did worked. Then, I had the baby, and we took her to my human friends and started trying in earnest to kill Luc. We got a piece of the True Cross from the humans."
She held up a hand and looked at Michael. "You're angels. Don't you have access to Objects of Power?"
"Nothing significant," Michael said. "Raphael is a collector. If we came across anything, even if it wasn't his to keep, in Elysium, we would take it to him for safekeeping. His collection is heavily warded."
"And you can't get to it?" she asked.
"It's been cleaned out," Michael replied. "The big, heavy hitters are all gone. The large piece of the True Cross is gone."
"Carry on, then." She waved her hand as if permitting me to speak.
"Okay, so we got the small piece of the True Cross and used it, but it was only enough power to get Luc his memories back. He and I were still stuck in our human bodies."
"And where was the baby?"
"We thought with Constance's friends," Lucifer said. "But as soon as I had my memories and true self back, I knew there was no way Lilith and I, even in human bodies, could produce a human baby. We went back to get her, and she was gone."
Mary shook her head. "Okay. I'm trying to process this all as if it's new information. So, you figured out it was Raphael. Then what?"
"Um, we went searching for known associates and got the information we have from them. Raphael wants to prove to the world that Abaddon and Elysium are real by giving them irrefutable proof."
"Demons," she said flatly.
"Demons," Lucifer echoed. "Luckily, right now, they're not visible to most humans."
Mary nodded. "But how did he get the gates open? I know they weaken the longer you're away from them, but how did he manage it?"
Lucifer shrugged. "Even as weak as they were, it would've taken some insane power to do it. I'm not totally sure the True Cross piece he has would've been enough. Or if he used that at all. They were open. Not broken."
Lucifer's face slackened at the same moment I realized what he said. "They were open," I whispered. "Only you can open them. Nobody else in all of creation. There is no key, no magic, no spell."
"So it would be break them down or nothing at all?" Mary asked.
I nodded and stared at Lucifer with wide eyes. "He had Ariel."
Lucifer dropped his head to his arm on the table. "Ariel can open the gates."
Mary grunted. "Then she can also close them."
"I need my powers," Luc whispered.
"When did you realize you didn't have them?" Mary asked.
"When he appeared in Abaddon and tried to close the gates," I said. "He went into a bit of shock then."
He wasn't totally out of it yet. "He had Ariel, but she was older. About four, maybe a bit younger."
It was Mary's turn to look shocked. "I've never heard of that. Now, I have heard of a spell to steal the power from an angel, but it's been a while." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Where did I hear about that spell?"
Standing suddenly, she pulled her microwave cart away from the wall and pressed her hand to the wallpaper. Oh, cool, we were going to get to go to her hidden room. It was a treasure trove of angelic and demonic oddities. Probably nothing we could use now, but it was still cool.
We followed her through, leaving our mugs on the table.
"Feel free to look around, but careful what you touch. Some of these items are sensitive, and I don't know if they'll like you lot touching them."
Lucifer and I exchanged an amused look. Even though she'd known us for a little while now, she still viewed us as inherently evil. Nothing was farther from the truth. We wanted the same thing everyone else did, we just put fewer restrictions on ourselves to get it.
While she searched, I picked a bookshelf and browsed. A title caught my attention. It was handwritten on some sort of ancient leather.
"Can I look at this book on the Nephilim?" I asked.
"Sure," Mary's voice came from somewhere far away. She was deep in the apartment.
Pulling out the book, I held it and peered into the next room where Lucifer stood staring at the craziest-looking fish I'd ever seen. I wanted to ask Mary about them but didn't want to distract her.
There was an armchair in this room, so I sat down and opened the book.
And lost myself in the information. It was handwritten inside, too, and the flowing script wasn't easy to read.
From what I could tell, it was written by a Nephilim. A rare find. They'd been out of all known history for quite a few hundred years. "How long has it been since you've seen a Nephilim?" I asked as I tried to read the script.
Luc turned from the fish tank. "Before my last Earth cycle, at least. Not that I go looking for them."
A word at the top of a page drew my full attention. It was a passage titled Cambion.
The Cambion is the mortal enemy of the Nephilim. We have taken our divine mission seriously and have rid the world of them. We continue to wait and watch, ever ready to defend. The prophecy cannot come to pass.
Prophecy? "Luc, look at this." I read the passage out loud to him. "Do you know about this prophec
y?"
He shook his head. "Maybe Mary does."
We tiptoed around the house looking for her. Michael was engrossed in studying a rock. "This thing, it calls to me," he whispered. "I can't figure out why."
"What?" Mary walked out from behind a bookshelf. "Oh, it's the stone David used to kill Goliath."
We all stopped in our tracks and stared at the stone. It was roughly the size of a baseball, and smooth with age.
"Really?" I asked.
Mary nodded. "Yes, but its power was used or stolen long ago. It's just a paperweight now."
That couldn't have been true. I put my hand over it as Michael held it and probed it with a bit of magic.
Nothing. It held no power of its own. Damn. It would've been nice if we could've used it.
Mary tutted. "Put the old rock down and look. I found it." She set a book on a small table and turned on a lamp. It was another handwritten volume but didn't look as old as the book on the Nephilim I'd been reading.
She turned a few pages, then pointed. "Here. It's written in a secret language the Nephilim used. It details how to steal the powers of an angel. I don't see why it couldn't have been used on a Fallen angel as well. But it says the angel must be in a vulnerable or unconscious state or it won't work."
"Maybe he did it while I was human and in utero," Lucifer suggested. "Or a baby."
"We're not supposed to be able to find each other as humans," I said. "How did Gabe do it? How did he find me?"
Michael laughed. "We can always find you. Always have been able to."
Mary nodded. "That's a simple spell."
"So, he stole Luc’s powers. Does the spell explain how to get them back?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. It just specifies how to take them." She crosses her arms. "Let me consult with a colleague of mine in Mexico. He's a powerful Brujo. I don't spend a significant amount of time in his presence, as he tends toward the darker side of magic, but he is very knowledgeable."
We walked back toward the main part of Mary's home, and I realized I still carried her book on Nephilim. "Mary, I'd like to read this. Could I borrow it?"
She shook her head. "No. It can't leave this place. But I'd be happy to let you stay and read while I contact my colleague."