Nash stopped the car.
“Where are we?” I asked.
He got out of the car. I followed him, wondering why he was so solemn. The road opened to a barren plain. Nothing but dirt and sky stretched for miles. The scent of smoke stung my nose. The clouds hung low like birds too fat for their wings.
Nash held out his hand and stopped me in my tracks. I gasped as I looked down. I almost stepped into a gorge larger than Nash’s training field. The hole was so deep, I couldn’t see the bottom. Staring into the dark abyss was horrifying.
Nash kicked a rock off the edge, and it tunneled down.
I waited for the rock to hit the bottom and echo its final descent, but it never did.
“What is this?” I asked.
“The Pit,” he said.
I gulped and stared into the fathomless depths. I heard of a sinkhole that buried a house in Florida. On the news, witnesses claimed that the hole was deep, but I couldn’t imagine that hole was as endless as the one before me.
“It’s where we go if we fail in our duties. It’s where we will go if we die on Earth.”
“Demons can die?” I regretted my words. Some who lived in Sheol were demons, although Nash explained to me that he wasn’t one, but I still didn’t like the word. Adrianna, Tom, and Kiran were demons, and they were among some of the nicest people I’d met.
“I use the word die,” said Nash, “because it’s the simplest way I can explain it. But it’s not literal death…or it’s not what humans call death. But when we’re down there, we can never come back. Our eternity is an endless fall.”
“That sounds awful.” I backed further away from the Pit.
“I wanted you to know what the stakes are,” said Nash. “I also wanted you to know that I’m not just doing this because Lucifer demanded me to. I don’t want you down here. It’s not where you belong.”
I didn’t know what to say. I gave him a thin-lipped smile. I wasn’t anybody to him. Why would he be doing anything for me?
I tried to fight against my defensiveness. When my parents died, all that was good in the world died with them. Hell seemed like an odd place to find something good.
“We should go back to the house. I don’t like being here,” said Nash.
I could sense his discomfort and was glad it was because of the bottomless pit of doom and not my less than ceremonious response to his sacrifice.
When Mom and Dad were alive, I was more trusting. No one ever hurt me before.
The car zoomed through the dark, misty streets of Sheol. I held onto the sides of my seat. Nash’s brow furrowed. Being near the Pit bothered him yet he brought me there anyway. He wanted me to know something he wasn’t saying.
“Do you think this will work?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t put you through it if I didn’t.” The evenness of Nash’s tone set me at ease. He didn’t take his eyes off the street. “Raphael needs to fall.”
“I’m talking about the other angels,” I said. “His followers. Do we know how many there are?”
“We know enough,” he said. “Tom has been researching.”
“But we don’t know how many.”
His hands were tight on the wheel. “No.”
This wasn’t something that was going to end in a few months.
Outside, the street lights glowed in the dim, not quite darkness, in the cold world of Sheol.
As Nash turned the corner, I glanced at something outside the car window. A creature ambled across the street. The thing was a cross between a man and a deer. It was skinny and gray. Antlers protruded from its forehead.
“What is that?” I asked.
Nash looked in the direction I pointed. “That’s a Jinn.” His lip turned up, and his nose crinkled like he smelled vomit.
“Oh, like a genie? Like the kind that grants wishes and stuff?”
“Where in the world did you hear that?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of Aladdin?”
“No,” said Nash. “A Jinn is one of the three sapient creatures created by God. You know those people who think they’ve seen demons? How they describe them as dark, gruesome creatures? Well, more likely than not, what they saw was a Jinn. Jinn can go between worlds at will. They don’t need any portals. They’re shape shifters and can take on any form that pleases them.”
“You don’t like them?”
“I don’t trust creatures that don’t seem bound by any rules.”
Nash pulled up to a two-story house. The house was smaller than his mansion but had the same clean lines and smooth modern finishes.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Kiran and Adrianna’s house. Kiran is coming with us. I’m bringing you to see Waylon.”
“The blacksmith guy?” I asked.
Nash mentioned him before. He said he was the only one who could forge weapons of Arcadian Steel. But Nash had a bunch of weapons in the vault. Did he think we needed more?
“ARE we going to talk about our strategy to defeat Andromeda?” Kiran asked.
“Is that the angel we’re going to hit?” I walked alongside Nash.
He nodded.
“What about a gun?” I asked as we walked. Nash was very dismissive of the use of guns. “I know what you said before, but a gun has got to be the most effective way to fight angels. I mean, they fly, right?”
“Guns are out of the question,” said Nash.
Our voices echoed down the tunnel. Sheol had the cleanest sewers I could imagine, not that I journeyed down many sewers, but rats and the smell were both assumable problems. Problems that the Sheol sewers didn’t have.
“You want to shoot Andromeda with a gun?” asked Kiran.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I’m not all too confident in my sword-wielding abilities.”
“But you are confident in your gun-wielding abilities?”
He had a point. Though Kiran challenged me, I found it hard to resent him. He was so soft-spoken with an accent of which I wasn’t familiar. His voice was so soothing I sometimes forgot that he carried a sharp sword at his side.
“Why does Waylon stay down here?” I asked.
“He wants to be left alone,” said Nash. “And Lucifer wants to keep an eye on him. This way, she knows where he is at all times, and yet he feels secluded.”
I shivered. So, Lucifer had her thumb on this place too. As soon as I entered the sewers, I felt safe within its metal walls, but that was a false sense of security. Lucifer had her eyes everywhere. She was the perfect puppet master.
We continued onward, our footsteps echoed through the cold metal tunnels. Nash quickened his pace. We walked for another half hour.
“Here we are.” Nash stopped at a wide corridor.
Heat came from deep within. Waylon’s blacksmith forge settled at the end of the wide corridor. Swords, daggers, shields, and bracers hung on the walls like something out of medieval times. Although I don’t know if they had sewers in the Middle Ages.
Waylon hit the flat of a sword with a hammer as fire rose around the blade. He stopped hammering when Nash approached him.
“We need a weapon,” said Nash.
Waylon looked up at Nash. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and a thin sheen of sweat wet his naked torso. He wore jeans and boots. He hadn’t trimmed his beard in a long time, and his dark hair was unkempt.
“I’ll assume,” said Waylon. “That the she-devil knows you’re here.”
“She does,” said Nash.
Did she? Nash hadn’t left the house in the last two weeks, and cellphones didn’t seem to be a thing in Sheol.
“We need something lightweight and sharp for Lia,” said Kiran. “Something made of Arcadian Steel.”
I was about to get my very own sword. I never considered that I might one day own a sword, but the idea did intrigue me.
“Show us what you have,” said Nash.
“You think I have a sword like that ready?” said Waylon. “I normally make Arcadian Steel weapons with girth to them. I do
n’t make them for humans.” He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed.
“You have something,” said Nash. “I know you, Waylon. You’d want to challenge yourself. You just don’t want to sell it to us.”
“What I don’t want is to give it away to you for free,” Waylon ground out.
“You won’t have to.” Nash reached into his pocket and withdrew several gold coins. “Good for dozens of drinks at the bar.”
“I don’t go to bars.” Waylon snatched the gold from his hands. He moved away from the forge and turned the corner down a tight corridor alongside the wider one.
When he returned, he carried a small sword. The blade couldn’t have been any wider than a drumstick.
Kiran took the weapon from him and balanced the blade in his hand. He whipped the sword through the air. “It’s light. Good balance. Not much power, but she can handle it.”
He handed the sword to Nash. The blade glanced off the string of lights that lit the tunnels. He offered the grip of the blade to me. I took the hilt gingerly. I practiced with dulled blades, but I never held a sharpened sword and not one of Arcadian Steel.
The sword was light, lighter than the sword with which I trained. I had no doubt speed would be the likely advantage with this weapon, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to get close enough to find out. I frowned. Of course, I would. I needed to get close enough to touch Andromeda.
NASH parked the car, and I got out. When I glanced over, his arms were folded on the roof. “I thought we might do a little training today,” he said.
I sighed. I thought I was getting the day off and didn’t want to see Chandra jeer at me from the sidelines.
“Just you and me,” he said. “There are a few things I wanted to show you after seeing you fight Adrianna. Plus, you need to practice with your new sword.”
I learned to wear tighter clothes when training. Loose clothes slowed you down, and I needed every second if I wanted to stand a chance against any one of Nash’s friends.
I got stronger, but I was nowhere near capable of pinning one of them.
“The main thing you’re doing wrong,” said Nash, “is that you’re not watching your opponent.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Of course, I’m watching them.”
“You’re looking too much here.” He pointed to his face.
That wasn’t true. More than a few times my eyes drifted. I liked looking at Nash. I liked looking at him almost as much as I liked listening to him talk, which he was doing now. I realized I should be listening to the words and not only to the sound.
“Sometimes you might guess what an opponent might do by looking at his facial expressions, but more telling is the subtle movements of his body. I’m going to attack, and I want you to watch my body. Just the body for now, don’t worry about getting hit.”
“Because you won’t hit me?”
“I didn’t say that.” With that, he punched me in the arm. The punch was light. His fist was barely formed, but I failed to dodge the blow.
“Don’t look here.” He made a circle around his face with his hand. “Look down.”
I saw the motion of his arm, the way his shoulder dipped downed, the way his foot pivoted into the punch. The punch still landed, but I saw it all.
“Good,” he said. “But you need to stand straighter.”
He placed his hand on my back, encouraging me to straighten it. The warmth of his hand suffused through my back, and I found myself leaning into his touch rather than taking direction.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry.” I arched my back away from his hand.
Bob walked onto the training field. He was dressed as usual in his fitted black suit and red tie.
Nash paused when he saw him approach. I put my arms down and turned to Bob. Nash closed the space between them, and I walked up to join them.
“I know what you’re here for Bob, but she’s not ready,” said Nash.
“I think she’s more than capable of reaching out and touching someone.” Bob chewed on a toothpick.
“You know it’s not that simple.”
“She wants me to go now?” I asked.
“She wanted you to go yesterday,” said Bob, “and by yesterday, I mean five weeks ago.”
I couldn’t do this. I still fell on my ass at every training session, and she wanted me to go and fight a winged warrior of God?
Bob plucked the toothpick from his mouth and held it up to his eyes with a frown before flicking it to the ground. “Kiran tells me you’re going after Andromeda first. A wise choice,” said Bob. “I’ve heard Andromeda is getting pretty rusty.”
“Andromeda may only be a Dominion, but she is a supremely powerful one.”
A Dominion? That didn’t sound like the title of an angel of low rank.
“It’s only a matter of time before Raphael finds out that she is in Sheol,” said Bob. “That angel who was with her is probably spinning his wheels to find her, and who knows what side he’s on.”
Adriel. I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. I imagined his long, white feathers against the stormy sky of Sheol. Could he really be looking for me?
“Maybe he’s right,” I said. “I’ll never be ready, but I need to get this done so I can go back to living my life.” I couldn’t believe I used the words “get this done” like it was a math test.
Nash looked at me and sighed. “She isn’t ready. Lucifer didn’t call me in to get her killed. She trusts my judgment.”
“I can’t go to her with that, Nash,” said Bob.
“I’ll go to her myself,” said Nash.
“Good luck.” Bob turned on his heels, and his long legs carried him off the field.
Nash took a long look at me.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re staring at me.”
“Staring through you.” He was distant but came back into focus as Tom’s voice cut through the stillness.
“I was right.” Tom approached us. “It’s a Jikininki. Disgusting bastards, but it shouldn’t give you too much trouble. Getting some training in?”
“I was helping Lia with her form,” said Nash.
“Yeah, her form sucks,” said Tom.
I folded my arms and glared at Tom.
“Chandra, Adrianna, and Kiran are on their way,” said Tom.
STEPPING through the portal was like climbing through an icebox straight into the humid warm air of southern France. The edges of the portal were freezing like Nash had cut a hole into a thin sheet of ice.
My sword was in a sheath at my side as a precaution only. Nash didn’t want me using it. Besides, Adrianna explained that the demon was going to get a stern talking to first, and if it decided to come back with us through the portal, it wouldn’t have to be killed. Comforting thought. I hoped the demon was reasonable.
Large mossy crypts rose from the ground. Names and dates were carved into the cold stones. The thick air smelled like wet grass.
“Come on.” Nash’s sword gleamed in the moonlight.
Adrianna and Kiran drew their weapons. Chandra had on her brass knuckles.
“Stay behind me,” said Nash.
“I won’t be able to see anything if I’m behind you.” Maybe that was a good thing.
We moved in as a group. I was close behind Nash. Quiet sounds cut through the graveyard, the sounds of gnashing teeth. The further we walked, the louder the sounds became.
Dirt flew into the air from a hole in the ground, not hole, holes. Nash stopped walking, and I ran into him. “Oh, sorry,” I said. His back was tense.
“Shut up,” he said through clenched teeth. He put his hand out, and the others backed away. I wondered what was wrong. Why weren’t they marching in there and doing the demon negotiation thing?
The digging and gnashing sounds stopped. Nothing is more uneasy than the sound of silence. My heart no longer had a rhythm to match and thumped erratically in my chest as if played by a tone-deaf drummer.
“Go,” said Nas
h.
We turned on our heels and ran. I made the mistake of looking back. Dark forms crawled towards us. Their thin bodies were like spiders.
“Tom said there was only one of them,” said Kiran.
“Tom has been making a lot of mistakes lately.” Nash ran alongside me. He kept pace with me. His long legs surely could take lengthier strides than mine.
He stopped and held out his hand. The portal started to form.
“Nash, you can’t focus!” Chandra backpedaled towards him.
“I can open the portal.” Nash spread his fingers, and the glowing tear appeared in front of him.
Chandra climbed through the portal followed by Adrianna and Kiran. Right before I touched the icy walls of the wormhole from Earth to Sheol, Nash grunted.
My head whirled around.
A demon pinned Nash to the wall of the crypt. Its long claws grazed the stone.
I froze.
“Go!” Nash yelled. His jaw was tense. His hand rigidly held out to the portal.
The demon’s body was thin, anorexic-looking. Caked, black filth covered its skin. Its hair was twisted into a single, stiff tangle that ended in a long point at the back of its head. It did not look like the type of creature that was able, much less willing, to talk this one out.
“Get off him!”
The demon turned its head towards me. Its eyes were round and large. Its mouth protruded, and each tooth was filed to a point. The steel tip of a sword launched through its body and cut it down the middle. Nash withdrew his sword, painted in black.
A low growl sounded behind me. I spun around, and another monster so like its dead companion stretched its mouth open, exposing all its teeth.
Nash grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the thing. We ran through the graveyard. Nash gripped my arm so tightly, I knew he’d leave a bruise, but I didn’t care. I’d rather have a bruised arm than be a demon’s dinner. In front of us was a church among the gravestones.
Nash and I burst through the doors. We sprinted around the altar to the back of the room where a long hallway stretched off to our left. Turning around the corner on all fours was another demon.
The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Page 9