I couldn’t hide forever. Raphael was hell-bent on closing the gates, and I was his weapon. Adriel might do everything in his power to protect me, but Raphael would find me. But, even if he didn’t, he might find another way to get what he wanted.
Could I live with the guilt that everyone in the world would be destined for Hell and I could have done something?
I searched for Adriel everywhere I went. I would tell him that I wanted to go back. That I needed to go back, but he was nowhere to be found. I knew that he was watching, but he kept his distance.
WE stopped outside Carson’s apartment complex. Carson’s apartment had the same number of rooms as Jonah’s, but each room was more spacious.
“I’ll order the food,” he said. “Why don’t you find a movie?”
“What do you feel like watching?” I asked.
“Nothing with flying cars or government conspiracies, but barring that I’m game for just about anything.”
My laugh was quiet. Air left my nose as I grinned. I plopped down on the couch and browsed the movies on the TV menu. I landed on a movie about killer tomatoes who ate people, and I stuck with that.
The food came a quarter into the movie. Carson laughed with a mouth full of chow mein. I laughed when he laughed. I glanced over from time to time, but I wasn’t watching the movie.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he chortled. He lived without worries. When the credits rolled, and all we had were empty paper boxes on the coffee table, Carson placed his hand on mine. “You have great taste in movies.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. His voice was breathy. He leaned in close to me, but his motions were so subtle I didn’t notice until his face was inches from mine. He looked down at me and searched my eyes as if he examined a new piece of sheet music—both fascinating and unfamiliar.
“Is this okay?” he asked as he moved closer to me.
My head nodded without my thinking to do it. His lips latched onto mine as if my assent broke a dam, and all the water rushed out. His kiss was soft at first as he explored. But as my fingers pressed into his shoulders, he pressed his lips onto mine with a bruising pressure.
“Do you want to…” He trailed off.
My head nodded away again, but this time my voice joined in. “Yes.”
His hand was around mine as he pulled me from the sofa and down the hall. My head was so clouded I didn’t look around. My back hit the soft mattress.
Carson’s lips covered mine again, and I wasn’t so cold anymore. He kissed my jawline, my neck. His hands traveled up beneath my shirt and touched my chilled skin, setting it on fire. My hands grabbed fistfuls of his t-shirt.
His mouth breathed into my ear. “Are you sure?”
I was about to say yes when a low rattle sounded from somewhere in the room.
My eyes popped open.
A skinny, red-skinned demon crouched in the corner, its elbows on its knees, hands over elbows, and a wide leering grin on its face.
I pressed my body into the mattress. My hands flew up to Carson’s chest. I grounded my palms into him.
“What is it?” Carson asked. “Did I hurt you?”
“There’s something in here,” I said without thinking.
Carson got from on top of me and whirled around. “Where?” His eyes darted around the room, sweeping over the demon, not seeing it.
With two clawed fingers, held up like the peace sign, the demon pointed to its eyes and slowly turned a long, crooked finger to me.
I crawled backward on the bed. “I don’t feel comfortable in here.”
“Okay,” said Carson. A frown was on his face, and his eyes were full of concern. “We can go back to the couch.”
I darted into the hallway and stood at the door. Carson took his time. He grabbed something off the nightstand. The demon’s eyes followed his movements.
“Hurry up!” I blurted out.
“Alright, jeez,” he said. “Are you feeling okay?” He moved from the bed to the hallway. I watched the demon’s face through the sliver until Carson closed the door.
We sat back down on the couch, and he kissed my neck. I looked toward the hallway and imagined the door creaking open and the demon crawling towards us on its crooked, red limbs. If I leave tonight something might happen to Carson when I’m gone.
“Stop. I have to tell you something,” I said.
Carson pulled away from me. “What’s up?”
“There’s something in your room,” I said.
He squinted at me.
“This is going to sound crazy…”
“You saw something I didn’t?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“That’s just the thing, I did. I do. There’s a…demon in your bedroom.”
Carson scratched the back of his head and laughed. “Look, Lia—”
“I’m not joking,” I said. “I see them sometimes. There’s one in there right now.”
“You’re serious?” He whistled air and leaned away from me. “That’s quite an ability: seeing demons.”
“I’ve been seeing them since I was a kid. They can only be killed by Arcadian Steel. I have a sword, but I left it behind when I came back.”
“Came back from where?”
“Hell.”
“Okay, maybe I should take you home.”
“You can’t come back here,” I said. “I don’t know what it wants from you, but it could hurt you.”
“Lia, you can stop now. It’s not funny.”
“I told you this is not a joke.”
Carson stood and put on his jacket. “I’m taking you home.”
“No, you have to believe me.” I pulled on the sleeve of his jacket.
He shrugged me off. “All I have to do is bring you home, and that’s what I’m doing. Get your coat.”
I stared at him, but no amount of standing there was going to get him to believe me. I sounded crazy. A year ago, I thought I was.
Carson drove me back to Jonah’s apartment. I looked down as the car idled at the curb. I couldn’t look at him, but I could feel the tension between us. I grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open. I stepped out of the car and slung my guitar strap across my chest.
Once I was at the front door, the car pulled away and zoomed down the street. I unlocked the door and stepped inside the apartment. Jonah’s keys weren’t on the counter so he must have been at work or one of his meetings.
Light came from the living room. I tossed my key onto the counter and turned the corner. I froze.
Three angels stood in the room. Light glowed around them. Arcadian Steel swords hung at their sides. Their soft hair looked as graceful as the feathers on their wings. They wore steel plated armor.
As they charged, a flash blinded me, and, like a bolt of lightning, Adriel faced the attacking angels. He carried a dagger. I wasn’t sure what match the dagger would be against their swords.
Adriel slashed one of the angels and left a long, thin cut at the base of his neck. All three angels surrounded Adriel. He cut, slashed, and ducked. But the angels left a pattern of cuts along his arms and chest.
Sprays of silver blood speckled the walls and cushions of the couch. The television screen was cracked, and the small, square dinner table lost its legs.
Adriel was on his back, an angel above him, ready to sink his sword into Adriel’s chest. I rushed forward, colliding into the angel’s back, feeling his soft feathers against my hands, feeling them burn. The embers flaked into the air like burnt newspaper. The blood pounded in my ears.
A rip like torn fabric cut through the chaos. A portal opened, a tear in space, a glowing open wound. Nash came through that wound, followed by Chandra, Adrianna, and Kiran.
Nash stared at me like I was the lock ness monster. “Grab him,” he ordered the others, without taking his eyes off me.
Chandra and Adrianna grabbed either arm of the fallen angel. They moved him through the tear and disappeared on the other side.
Nash’s eyes stabbed
me. “What are you going to do?”
The glowing portal beckoned. Adriel fought one angel. He dispensed the other one who knelt on the floor. Silver blood leaked out of a massive wound in the angel’s side where his armor had given way to Adriel’s dagger.
Adriel would be fine. He was a Seraph. I couldn’t let him stop me from doing what I must do.
The world is a harmonica, and its music must be played.
“I need to go back.” I took Nash’s hand, and he pulled me through the portal.
TWENTY TWO
THE air was still. Everything was dull and gray. The sky looked like a painting. The off-white clouds were motionless. Light seemed to peer through as if my eyes were covered by a thick, dark veil.
Sim’s warm body settled against me as I clenched her to my chest. The poor cat passed through nearly as many portals as I had.
The fallen angel hung limply in the arms of Chandra and Adrianna. Nash was at my side. I could feel the warmth of him, but dared not look at him. Kiran stepped through behind us. No one spoke.
We stood so close, but a gulf was between us.
Adrianna smiled at me guiltily. “I’m glad Raphael didn’t tear you to pieces.”
Raphael wanted me alive, but the thought of him ripping me apart limb from limb still gave me the chills.
I followed Nash as he strolled with his hands in his pockets, but I kept my distance.
Bob was parked outside Nash’s house. He said something to Nash with a smile, but I couldn’t make out the words.
When I approached, Bob said, “Nice to see you again, sweetheart. It wasn’t very kind of you to leave us.”
“I wanted to keep my friends safe.”
Bob walked with me to the door. “You’re lucky they weren’t tossed into the Pit after your little stunt.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but I should have. Of course, Lucifer would be angry, and she would toss the first demon she could get her hands on into the Pit. I felt an unsettling feeling like when I catch myself after a bad fall or when I’m not careful when handling sharp objects. I’d made a mistake I narrowly escaped.
Bob smiled and gestured towards the open door. “After you, my dear.”
I stepped into the foyer. Tom was on the couch in the living room. He looked up from the large tome he was reading.
His eyes met mine. He smiled and went back to his book. Was that sadness in his eyes?
It had been three months since Alex died, and Chandra wasn’t the only one who missed her brother. Tom had cared for him. I never apologized to Tom for letting Alex die.
Nash made us coffee. I sat on the couch next to Adrianna. Nash sat in a chair across from me. His eyes were on his cup.
Nash glanced up. When his eyes met mine, they glistened. He shook his head. He pushed himself up from the chair and walked over to me. “You got what you were looking for?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I realized I couldn’t stay.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He put his hands in his pockets and walked up the stairs. When he was half way up, he turned his head. “If you want your old room back, it’s yours for as long as you want to stay.” He disappeared into the hallway.
“He’s been like that the whole time you were gone,” said Adrianna. “I think it really got to him that you didn’t say goodbye.”
How could I say goodbye? Nash would have tried to stop me. They didn’t know I was trying to save them. They thought I was being selfish.
That night, Nash hosted a dinner. The table was laid out with a variety of rich food, no doubt all cooked by him.
I wore the red dress. I asked Adrianna to do my hair. I wanted to make amends with Nash.
Tom, Adrianna, Kiran, and Chandra chatted and laughed. I drowned out their voices like the white noise of a TV as it lulled me to sleep. Adrianna stole some glances at me to make sure I wasn’t sulking, but it wasn’t me she should have been worried about.
Nash had barely taken three bites of the food he had obviously worked tirelessly to prepare. He didn’t join in on the conversation, and his eyes avoided mine.
He downed his glass of wine. “I’m going to bed.” His voice cut through the banter, and the room went silent as he left.
I pushed the food around on my plate some more before I climbed the steps to my bedroom. My guitar rested on the bed. Sim was curled into a crescent of fur on the pillow.
She watched me as I grabbed my guitar and crossed the room to hook it up to the amp. I strummed a few quiet notes before my fingers picked up speed.
The music was hard and fast. It hit my ears like a hand swatting a fly.
My guitar pick slipped from my fingers, but I continued to play. Despite my calluses, pain flared, and blood dripped onto the cold, marble floor.
The music faded in one long, dissonant note. I slumped to the floor. Fat tears fell among the drops of blood.
I couldn’t do anything right. All the shame and exhaustion that made me leave the first time came flooding back. What was I doing? I couldn’t defeat an Archangel.
“THIS is the next weapon we’ll go after.” Tom pointed to the picture in a large book he rested on the coffee table in Nash’s living room.
The sword was curved. The hilt was decorated with steel angel wings.
Chandra and Nash hadn’t come to our meeting. I doubted either of them would ever forgive me.
I sighed.
“What’s wrong?” asked Adrianna.
“If we go out there again,” I said, “they’ll be ready for us, just like last time.”
“And we’ll be ready for them,” said Kiran.
Over the last week, I trained harder than ever to make up for the months I lost. Nash didn’t say much to me, but he did give me instruction. Dark circles crept under his eyes.
“Lia, I need to talk to you,” he said.
I nodded and followed him out of the house and to his car. He opened the door for me, and I got in. He started the car and zoomed out onto the street. He drove faster than usual, but I knew he was in control. My stomach was getting used to his driving.
He parked at the edge of the Pit. This was fast becoming our spot, though I didn’t want it to be.
Nash chose it because no one would bother us here. No one in Sheol wanted to be this close to the Pit.
Nash stared out into the abyss.
“Nash?”
“How was it?” asked Nash. “On the outside.”
I removed my seatbelt and sat back against the seat. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, but I didn’t want to lie to him either. “It was everything I hoped it would be. I still want to go back to it after we defeat Raphael.”
Nash looked up. He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Nash.”
I didn’t know what he expected of me. He didn’t think that I’d stay in Sheol with him forever? After all, the only reason I fought Raphael was so Lucifer would free my soul.
“I don’t want to die,” I said.
He looked at me with determination in his eyes. “I won’t let that happen. But I do think you should reconsider your reasons for doing this.” He wanted me to stay with him.
“I know.” I looked down. “But there’s one good reason. It’s Hell, Nash.”
“You don’t belong here,” he said.
That surprised me. But he hadn’t flirted. He barely touched me. I was reading him wrong. No, I hoped he saw me differently, but that wasn’t reality. If not for Lucifer’s orders, he’d want me as far from him as possible.
“After you complete her agenda, Lucifer will never let go of such a powerful weapon. She isn’t going to let you go back home, and when you die, she’ll keep your soul so she can test whether the ability still lives in you.”
“But I have to trust her. If she is lying, what other choice have I got?” I asked. “I do have another reason for doing this. My mom and dad are in Heaven. I know they are. I’m not going to let Raphael boot them out even if it means I have to stay down here.”
“I do.” I remembered the strange scars on his back. “Have you been there?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I wondered if that was the first lie he told me.
FOOD covered the surface of the table: Caesar salad, stuffed eggplant, roasted potatoes, and risotto. Nash put his heart into this meal as he always did.
He joined in again. He laughed with Kiran at the end of the table. But after what he told me at the Pit, I wondered if his joy was manufactured.
We were all dressed in our usual dinner attire. I wore a long, black dress with lace detail in the bodice.
Despite my feelings about Nash, he, Adrianna, Kiran, Tom, and Chandra had become my family.
The only person who was missing was Adriel. He’d done so much for me, but he didn’t support me fighting angels, and I needed to fight angels to keep my friends alive.
I wondered if he still watched me from a distance. Perhaps he did.
A flash flooded in from the windows.
We fell silent.
“What was that?” asked Chandra.
Nash bolted from the table, and we all followed. He threw open the front door as the sky flashed bright again.
Lightning zipped across the gray and came down like thin arms, seeking to take all Sheol with them.
And there they were, clad in silver, their wings bathed in Arcadian Steel. More than fifty angels.
“Holy hell,” said Tom.
“They’re attacking Sheol,” said Nash. “Come on, grab the weapons.”
We rushed down to the armory and grabbed our weapons. As we made our way out the door, the angels descended.
“Get in the car!” Nash shouted. “There’s no time.”
We threw the weapons in the trunk and piled into Nash’s car. It was a tight fit. Adrianna sat on Kiran’s lap.
Nash sped down the street.
“Where are they?” asked Kiran.
“It looks like they touched down near the Pit.”
“Near the Pit?” Chandra’s voice wavered.
“I’m afraid so,” said Nash. “Hold on!” He curved around the corner.
Something hit the car like a brick. Wings flared out as an angel, sword raised, knelt on the hood of the car. Images of my parents hanging from their seats hit me. I couldn’t breathe.
The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Page 24