Appropriate, Adriel thought.
Nasriel stood over him as Adriel’s fingertips bit into the flat headstone.
“I’m sorry,” Nasriel said.
The wind pushed the hair around Adriel’s face. A few strands stretched away from him as if they struggled to leave his ill-fated head. His hair was dark gray when the locks used to be black as midnight. It matched Nasriel’s more closely now.
“Where’s your headstone?” Adriel scanned the vast distance.
“Why? So you could put yours next to mine?” Nasriel asked.
The grittiness of the stone beneath his hands left impressions in his no longer impervious skin.
Nasriel shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Adriel closed his eyes. “It feels so . . . lonely. I used to be able to sense the others, our brethren, but now, there’s nothing. I just feel this terrible disgust for what I’ve become.”
“That will change with time,” Nasriel said.
“Will it?”
“A lot of time.”
Adriel stood. Tension crept through his shoulders. Was his back bowed?
Nasriel glanced over Adriel’s shoulder. “I can help you saw off the bones if you like.”
Adriel had not yet looked in a mirror, and he did not want to. From the corner of his eye, he could see the blackened bones that had once been covered with soft, white feathers. He knew his golden-brown eyes had darkened to black, and his hair had become ashen. That transformation happened to all fallen angels, but he didn’t want to see it.
“They can get in the way sometimes,” Nasriel said, “and it’s not like they’re of any use anymore.”
Nasriel needed no special shirts to accommodate his wings. They were gone. How long had it been since he severed his wings from his body? Knowing Nasriel, he probably chose to do it as soon as he plummeted to Hell. Nasriel never let emotions get in the way his aims. He always followed through.
“No,” Adriel said. “I want to keep them to remember what I was.”
Nasriel grimaced. “You might as well rid yourself of them. It’s not like angels have ever risen back into God’s good graces.”
“They remind me of my shame,” Adriel said.
Nasriel raised his eyebrows. “This didn’t happen to you because you went against your god. It happened because a girl burned you. That’s the problem with you, with the others. Why would you want to follow a god who would slough you off so easily?”
“God didn’t do this to me.”
“No? The creator of all things can’t find a way to bring your Grace back?” Nasriel laughed.
Adriel clenched his jaw, and the muscles in his body tensed. He knew what he felt, but the feeling was never so intense before.
Adriel’s hand wrapped around Nasriel’s neck. He didn’t squeeze, but he held Nasriel in his grasp. He was proud of his control, especially in the face of such burning rage. The pride and wrath were unfamiliar, yet so satisfying.
Nasriel pulled Adriel’s fingers from his neck and thrust his arm away. “You guarded his throne for millennia. We both did. Not once did he grace us with his presence or show his damned face. What do you owe him?”
“My life.”
“I hope you’re thinking about that when you enter the Angel District.” Nasriel spit on the ground. He turned and walked away with his hands in his pockets, not bothering to avoid the headstones, but planting his feet down on them like they were pavers.
He became a black dot in the distance, a speck, a bug, a fly like the rest of them. Adriel was no better.
“It’s time.”
Adriel turned toward the voice.
A man stood a hand taller than Adriel. He wore a black suit and red tie. His hair was slicked back, and his golden wristwatch gleamed in the light.
“Beelzebub.” Adriel’s nose crinkled as he said the demon’s name.
“You can call me Bob,” he said.
“I’ll call you by your true name,” Adriel said.
“Suit yourself. You won’t be seeing much more of me anyway.”
“That will be a blessing.”
“Trust me. Where you are going there are no blessings.” Beelzebub strolled past Adriel and led the way to the lands beyond.
Adriel stared after him.
Beelzebub turned his head. “It’s not a short walk.” Beelzebub grinned, and when he did, there was no joy in it. His grin threatened like the smile of a crazed killer.
“You’ve been demoted to ferryman?” Adriel asked.
“I volunteered, my fallen friend.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t that interesting,” Beelzebub said. “You’ve come with a newfound curiosity.”
Adriel hadn’t considered it. He had never asked many questions before. Now, he wanted to know the answers for reasons other than utility. He was, as Beelzebub had said, curious.
“Do you still want to know?”
Adriel was quiet. He was ashamed that he did want to know. It was a part of what he had become.
“Of course, you do,” Beelzebub said. “I heard you were Seraphim. We don’t get many of those down here. Since you’re done polishing God’s throne, you’re not a Seraph anymore.”
Adriel frowned. He wasn’t some monkey at a zoo. “I left my post a long time ago,” Adriel said.
Bob walked on, and Adriel followed.
“Against Michael’s orders, I assume,” Beelzebub said. “I never did understand that. How Michael, an Archangel of lower rank, can order around the highest choir of angels.”
Adriel grimaced. He didn’t like the familiar way Beelzebub spoke about his brethren.
“I know you won’t tell me about it,” Beelzebub said. “You’re not the first angel who’s fallen. They’re all loyal to a fault when it comes to matters of Heaven or angels. Well, that is apart from the original Fallen. Most of their souls have been demonized. I’ve heard the guilt goes then. I could put in a good word for you.”
Adriel cringed. He had never seen it, but he had heard of angels turning into demons. If anything was worse than becoming a fallen angel, it was becoming a demon. He couldn’t imagine any fallen angel choosing that horror.
A cluster of buildings came into view beyond the horizon. A tall, iron gate surrounded the buildings.
Beelzebub stopped. “There it is,” he said. “The Angel District. Welcome home.” He approached the gates where two giants stood. They were identical except one had a swollen eyelid. The corner of the eye creased so he looked like he was winking.
They carried broadswords at their sides.
“Morning, Bob,” the unblemished giant said. “Looks like you have a new one for us.” He glanced over at Adriel.
“That I do,” Beelzebub said.
“We’ll take good care of ’im.” Shut Eyed grabbed Adriel’s shoulder.
The giant’s hand was cold and moist.
Adriel shrugged him off.
“Testy one,” Unblemished said.
Shut Eyed reached for the sword at his side and clubbed Adriel’s head with the flat of the blade.
Adriel sank to the ground, putting his hands on the sides of his head. Ringing accosted his ears as he put his head to the ground, trying to make it stop. It wasn’t the pain that bothered him, although it was there. If he stood right away, he knew he would stumble. He was on the ground the moment the blade hit him. He didn’t want to let those demons see him stagger as well.
After a moment of spinning, Adriel stood up, careful not to show any expression of pain on his face. Pain was more acute now. He wouldn’t forget that again. Next time, he wouldn’t show it. He would set his feet and bear it.
“That’s alright,” Beelzebub said. “I wanted to take him in myself. We have ourselves a Seraph, boys.”
“This is a Seraph?” Unblemished asked.
Shut Eyed laughed. “He don’t look any different.”
“I’m not Seraphim,” Adriel said. “I’m a fallen angel.”
“That’s what I l
ike about you lot,” Unblemished said. “You got humility.” He and Shut Eyed pulled either side of the gates and opened them to Beelzebub and Adriel.
“Good luck, ex-Seraph,” Unblemished said as he and his twin brother sealed the gates behind them.
Beyond the gate, a gravel path curled into the cluster of buildings. Trees, naked of leaves, surrounded the path. Their branches leaned toward the trail as if they wanted to capture those who treaded it.
The music of the city grew louder. A series of beats sounded without vocals. Adriel’s muscles tensed. Despair rose beneath the song. The screams and cries coming from the city echoed the feeling the music gave Adriel.
“What will happen to me in there?” Adriel asked.
“Others will hold a mirror to your shame,” Beelzebub said. “And it won’t matter because you’ll feel it anyway, right?”
“Then, what’s the point?”
“Those who feel shame are the weakest here. They hesitate and prefer to live in self-pity,” Beelzebub said. “If you were human, your shame would damn you to the Circles. But fallen angels feel pain differently from humans. Their greatest pain is the shame. And no one has more shame than a fallen angel. That is why this place exists. Do you know the best way to make a man feel better about himself? Show him a man who’s far worse off.”
Beelzebub patted Adriel on the back. “You’ll be an example to others. But don’t look so glum, my boy. You’ve hit bottom. You need fear nothing more now. There isn’t any further to fall.”
Adriel recoiled at Beelzebub’s touch and his words, but he was right. Adriel didn’t have any further to fall. It didn’t matter how he had fallen. He was down here. The Devil had him now.
Beelzebub strolled onto the street, and Adriel followed. Bright neon lights assaulted his eyes, and stabs of loud music came from all sides. Adriel’s vision blurred.
“Whoa.” Beelzebub gripped Adriel’s arm to keep him upright. “I know. The lights are brighter to you now. It will take some getting used to. Your eyes aren’t what they were when you used to look into the light of God, but they’re still better than a demon’s and certainly better than a human’s. Come on.”
Adriel blinked a few times, and his eyes adjusted to the light. The lights were pink, yellow, green, orange, and blue. Demons crowded the streets. They chatted, drank, and laughed. Their skins were crimson, obsidian, and burnt with eyes of black and red. Horns curled from a few heads, and teeth were like the points of daggers.
“Pick them up,” a deep voice roared.
Desperate hands scrambled to grab the glittering coins from the ground. Fallen angels sank to the earth on their hands and knees, not in prayer, but to lift money from the dirt. Their necks were collared, and chains led from the collars to the hands of horned demons, barking at them while the crowd hooted and laughed.
“Eat it!”
A demon shoveled a thick, brown gruel into the mouth of a fallen angel in chains. The angel’s stomach bloated like she was pregnant.
“Hit him!”
Demons forced another angel to lash the backs of his brethren with an Arcadian whip. Whelps and lines of black blood were drawn across the backs of angels who knelt on the ground.
Adriel’s heart clenched, and a sting erupted behind his eyes. Both were sensations he wasn’t accustomed to.
“What is this place?” Adriel grabbed the collar of Beelzebub’s shirt.
A grin split Beelzebub’s face.
Adriel fisted the fabric of his shirt. “Why are you smiling, you devil?”
“They let these things happen to them,” Beelzebub said, “and you will too, because you hate yourself.”
The fallen angels were collared, but they didn’t fight. The collar seemed a mere symbol to their shame. Adriel, too, wanted to hurt himself. The thought of pain, the feeling of punishment, would for that moment cloud his mind and help him to forget he was doomed.
Adriel lowered his eyes and released Beelzebub. He did hate himself. Regardless of the circumstances, he had failed in his duty. He should have stayed at his post as defender of the Throne, but he left to find a friend and stayed to protect a girl who lost her guardian angel. None of which were his assignments yet he failed in those as well.
Beelzebub smoothed down his shirt. “Now, let’s get a collar on you.”
He twisted around the corner, and they strode down the street. Adriel’s ears numbed to the music, the shouts, and the jeers. He didn’t want to look at what happened to his fellow fallen angels.
“Here we are.” Beelzebub opened a door in the alley. Graffiti marked the door with the word dog-catcher.
Inside, a fat man squatted at a workbench with a soldering tool. Hours of sweat drenched the front of his yellowed shirt. He held an iron collar that had not yet been welded shut. He glanced up at Beelzebub and Adriel as they walked in. He had a glass over one eye to help him see his work.
“It’s done,” he said. “Now, let’s get it around his neck.”
The room was dark, a relief to Adriel’s eyes. But a bright light glowed above the table where the man worked. The brightness stung as Adriel bent his head, pressed his cheek onto the table, and allowed the man to reach his neck. The light caused him pain, but he could look into it. Beelzebub was wrong. Adriel could see the light of Heaven, only not without sacrifice.
Part One: The Fallen
One
I sat on the end of my bed. The rumpled blanket was cool to the touch. My feet dangled in the cold. My hands gripped the mattress. I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose.
I wore a thick sweater and hadn’t changed out of my pajama bottoms. What was the point?
Nash hadn’t returned. I wasn’t sure where he had gone.
But with the trainings, the hunt for angel weapons, and the attacks on over a dozen angels, I didn’t have time to process my feelings for him. I had feelings, but they were jumbled puzzle pieces on the floor.
I hated the way he treated Adriel, but there was something about Nash, something undeniable.
Sim’s food and water dish rested near the door. The food in it grew mold.
My feet padded across the cold floor. I picked up the dish and brought it to the bathroom. I tossed the food in the small trash can and rinsed the bowls in the sink.
Sim was never here. My skin crawled at the thought of the creature that was here—a Jinn, imitating my cat. The Jinn spied on me and reported to Raphael my whereabouts and what I was up to. That’s how the angels knew when to come. That’s how they knew to retrieve their angel weapons.
The real Sim, what became of her?
I grabbed a towel and dried the bowl.
It was my fault the angels attacked Sheol. Adriel losing the Twinblade and worse, his Grace, was my fault too. Worst of all, Raphael knew where I was, and he knew what I was after. I had no way to stop him. Dad and Mom were in Heaven, but because of me, they wouldn’t be for long.
I dropped the towel and hummed the food tray against the wall. The plastic chipped and fell to the floor.
I screamed and beat the wall until the sting bit my hands. I gripped the edges of the sink.
“Lia?”
I walked to the door and slid it open.
Nash stood in the hallway. “Are you alright?”
“Sure.” I struggled to keep the tremor out of my voice. “What’s up? Why are you dressed like that?”
Nash wore a black suit like he was going to a funeral. “I was visiting a friend.”
A dead friend? But all Nash’s friends were dead and not dead at the same time. They were immortal. Everyone was. I will be or am too because when I die, I’ll go to Heaven if Lucifer keeps her end of the deal. Big if.
“We have to go,” Nash said. “Tom found a fallen angel. We need to bring her to Sheol.”
Fallen angels and demons were standard Sheol Parole Officer fare. Nash oversaw enforcement. I wasn’t complaining.
Hunting fallen angels and demons meant spending some time on Earth where the air wasn’
t so stale. I couldn’t stand the stagnant air of Sheol and the way the weather never changed. I missed listening to rain drum against the windows while I strummed on my guitar.
“Okay. I’ll get dressed.” I slid the door closed and pulled on a pair of black pants and a shirt. I wrapped my belt around my waist and slid my sword into its sheath.
My hand stopped on the hilt of my sword. My skin prickled. What if this was a trap? Raphael might be trying to lure me back to Earth so he could send my friends to the Pit.
I rushed out of my room and met Tom as he came down the stairs from the third floor. “What if Raphael planned this?” I asked. “What if he made that angel fall to trap us? He can’t come to Sheol, so he making us come to him.”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “You sure don’t bury the lead, do you?” Tom sighed. “The fact that you thought of it means Raphael won’t do that. He wouldn’t try something that even you could figure out. Besides, Raphael can’t make an angel fall. Angels must go against an order they believe is from God.”
I shook my head. “Then, why hasn’t Raphael fallen?”
“Clearly, he believes he isn’t going against God,” Tom said.
I narrowed my eyes. “But he is. God made Heaven for humans, and he is directly opposed to that.”
“It gets complicated when the message isn’t coming from God Himself.”
“Then from who?”
“You have a fallen angel to hunt,” Tom said. “We can talk more about Heavenly politics when you return. But an angel can’t decide to go against God to become fallen if he believed that very sacrifice to be in the name of God. Therefore, Raphael couldn’t get one of his followers to do it unless they believed that what Raphael pursued was an act opposed to God, and, if they believed that, they wouldn’t be one of his followers.”
Choice and belief matter a lot in both Heaven and Hell. That fascinated me. You could end up in Hell because you believed you belong in eternal damnation, and angels could fall on the mere belief that their actions are against God.
Tom turned away from me and continued down the hallway.
“You aren’t coming with us?” I asked.
“Can’t,” he said. “I have some scouting to do.”
The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Page 26