by J. L. Myers
The details didn’t matter. The result did.
There were no angels here. No souls that had passed on from Below running scared of the beings that sought to devour them.
Cyrus’s knuckles creaked, aching around the angel sword he clung to. “Where are you?” He’d seen the silhouette of two sets of wings disappearing high into the night sky, one gray and one pure white. Someone was here, somewhere, and Cyrus needed to find them and the entry to Heaven first. Anarchy had been unleashed below, black-winged angels and even vampires infiltrating their camps to burn their means to travel above. Time was slipping through Cyrus’s hands, making him sweat and feeding his desperate agitated state. Darius was below, protecting their means of travel while awaiting the order to bring all of their Hell power above. To turn the light of Heaven to darkness as the blood and power of all the souls up here drained out of their very beings. To end the God who’d banished him and all of his men to Hell for the sins of his own angelic child. “Damn this place.”
The pool of water drew Cyrus’s eye again. Standing so close to it, he could feel the celestial power that haloed it, an intense force that seemed to stretch up from the crystal clear surface to beam up at the bright nothingness above. Cyrus had the innate sense that he was missing something, that he was so close but yet so far away from what he desired.
Cyrus snarled as twenty of his soldiers flooded in from four different glowing arched entries. But none came too close, their swords remaining in hand and their eyes anxious. “Where the Hell is everyone? Where is God?!”
Each of them glanced from Cyrus and to one another, and a couple edged back. They had no idea, either.
A few opened their mouths to speak, but Cyrus raised his hand before a single one could. A persistent sound had reached his sensitive ears. A sniffling. Crying?
Shoving his men aside, Cyrus stormed right through them, picking up the pace as he sped down the same corridor the sounds had come from. He was moving so fast he almost missed it—but then he pulled up short, a few strides past an open entry.
Inside was less bright than the corridor, the walls lined with square cutouts that glowed as if they trapped stars. Centering the room was a well that shot near-on blinding blue fire up into the endless glow above. In front of that, a radiant platform hovered before a log, and atop that log sat a weeping girl.
Cyrus silently sheathed the angel sword and crept closer.
The young girl had golden flesh and long tangled hair that resembled strands of pure silvery light mixed with radiant gold. She was hunched over, her head dropped to her arm on the platform. And in her other hand—the angelic dagger with its missing tip.
Catching his breath before he could make a sound, Cyrus reconciled the facts. She was young. Too young to be the baby that had vanished from Hell. Too young to be Lucifer and Gabriel’s daughter. But then he remembered how long Gabriel had carried the child in her belly. Almost twice as long as a normal human would. A fluttering shadow quivered in and out of existence behind the girl. Wings. White and pure that bled out to the darkest of blacks.
This was Lucifer’s child.
Cyrus knew it without a shadow of a doubt. He had never heard of angel children, he’d only ever seen grown angels. This distraught little girl was the spawn of Hell. The culmination of all that was light and dark in this world compiled into one vessel. One living body.
Cyrus noticed then a discarded scroll on the ground between where he stood and where the girl sat. The edges were curled up, but the inked scrawl on the thick papyrus stood out. With his enhanced vision zooming in on the black lettering, Cyrus saw the name of an angel he had come to know all too well. Michael. The segment of writing above that was bordered by two tiny handprints and was somewhat smudged. Cyrus’s eyes bulged.
…is more powerful than I ever anticipated. More powerful than any of us could ever control. And now the end draws ever nearer. The vampire you spared has seen the event that will ruin us all. Darkness is on the horizon…and her spilled blood by evil into pure water is our undoing. An event I will prevent when I take her life…
The curled paper cut off the rest of what was written, but what Cyrus had read was all he needed to know. This small child, this little girl who now wiped away her tears, was the one thing he needed to uncover the real Heaven and the God who hid up there like the spineless coward he was.
“I am sorry I could not know you better, Gabriel. Mother.” The girl lifted the dagger then, sitting up straight and unaware of the danger that lurked so close behind her. She sighed deeply, lifting the weapon to point the tip that came alive with glowing blue to her chest—right over her heart. Her words were soft as her back straightened with purpose, a sniffling farewell, “I know what I must do, Michael.” She thought Cyrus was Michael? She knew he was loitering behind her? Yet the girl did not turn to confirm the facts. Instead, she kept on with her quiet murmurs. “I can do it for you. I am ready. Goodbye, Father.”
Darius’s words swirled through Cyrus’s mind. We can open the door to Hell and light above, so long as the banished returns to where he is not welcome. So long as his reason to return lives on for him to save. Keep his winged lover alive. If she dies, so does your chance to escape. Lucifer’s actions in saving Gabriel had only ever been a stepping-stone to the end Cyrus desired. It had never been the ultimate action needed. The writing on the curled papyrus proved it. The blood of this girl was the one thing Cyrus had needed from the very start. Her blood was the key to opening the door to Heaven. Blood that was no good to him if she were dead by her own angelic hands.
The girl pressed down on the blade, but Cyrus darted forward, grabbing her hand and twisting it back. She yelped as the smaller bone in her arm cracked. Her unusual violet eyes popped wide in surprise. “Who—who are you?”
Cyrus smiled devilishly, red eyes flashing and pointed fangs lengthening. “The future.”
Relieving the girl of Lucifer’s dagger, the wavy length dulled to plain metal as Cyrus nestled it through the strap over his chest. The girl shot upright to run, but he still had a hold of her arm and yanked her back. She cried out again, but then turned and bashed her free hand into his armor before trying to swipe the blade. Cyrus caught her other wrist and joined them both together with one strong hand. Then he dragged the girl by her hair and arms from the room.
Her screams bounced off the corridor as Cyrus stalked back the way he’d come. Her bare feet squeaked as she kicked out behind her, leaving dirty smears as evidence of her fighting spirit. The only evidence that would exist soon enough, besides her lifeless body that he intended to leave floating in that pristine pool.
Re-entering that circular room, Cyrus found all his men where he’d left them. Staring at him, they did not make a move or even have a shift in their expressions at the sight of the flailing girl. “The key to our success awaits death.” Cyrus hiked his chin at a smaller group of the gathered soldiers. “Time to collect the others. Go now!”
Producing a black feather each, ten of the twenty soldiers nodded. With whispered words, they disappeared in a puff of white light mixed with swirling smoke. At the same time, Cyrus lifted and launched the girl into the air, and she came crashing down with an eruption of water. Leaping into the shallows, Cyrus took hold of her neck before she reemerged, holding her below the surface. The girl batted at his forearms, her strikes slow beneath the surface. But then she gave up and placed her open palms flat on his skin, staring up at him through the rippling water.
Cyrus sucked in air at the gentle contact, feeling his never-failing strength drain out of him as if he were strung up and bleeding out. Words of concern came from his remaining men, but they only looked nervous or baffled by Cyrus’s sudden rigid quietness.
This was the power Michael had written about. The power no one would ever be strong enough to control.
The power Cyrus was not going to let stop him now.
Reaching up with a shaking hand, Cyrus patted his hip for the weapon he needed. A cramp hit his le
gs, and he began to submerge—right as the girl pushed up, her legs suddenly stronger than his hands that fought to hold her under. Crown of hair splitting the surface, water beaded to create tracks down her golden face before trickling from her pointed chin. “I am not your sacrifice to take.”
Dumbfounded, Cyrus went to his knees—but then the hilt of his sword thrust into his free hand as it hit the base of the pool. The angel sword. As it blazed to life with blinding blue light, Cyrus retracted the weapon, jabbing the butt of the hilt into her face.
The child’s small hands fell from his arms. Under the water, her lids drooped as soldiers leaped into the water and bound her arms behind her.
Feeling stronger by the second, Cyrus nodded all the guards out of the water. Beneath the surface, the girl was dazed, her mouth open and consciousness fading. Cyrus tugged her up, spinning her around so that her back was flat to his chest. “I take what I want. I always have.” She spluttered, spraying water out in a coughing fit—until the angel sword rose up to lay across her neck. “Time to die, spawn of Lucifer.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Michael’s gleaming sword speared through the air, narrowly missing Evangeline’s head to bury itself in Cyrus’s shoulder. His enemy grunted and relinquished his hold on Evie. Michael felt a spark of triumph as the angel sword splashed from Cyrus’s grasp into the water. Not a mark was left on Evangeline as she stared at Michael with wide eyes. But then he cleared the bright corridor and found Cyrus’s men waiting to either side of the circular room.
They all moved at once, weapons aiming as they came at him. Michael moved too, launching up into the air and dive-bombing. Plummeting back down, the element of surprise worked in his favor. With Cyrus’s focus divided between the sword that impaled his shoulder and the girl that was wading through the water and away from him, Michael twisted. His feet bashed into Cyrus’s chest as he caught the hilt, shoving his enemy under the disturbed water and yanking his bloody weapon out. Michael stabbed again, but Cyrus rolled beneath the surface, and the metal got his side rather than his heart.
A scream halted Michael’s return jab, spinning him around.
Some of Cyrus’s men grabbed at Evangeline from the pool’s edge, snatching to get a hold of her. But their possessive hands didn’t restrain her for long, flinging away as pain scrunched their faces and they fell to their knees. The remaining soldiers saw the reaction and took a different approach. Shoving their falling men aside, they stabbed out with their weapons, aiming to cut flesh.
Michael jumped up at once, clearing the water to plummet right back down behind Evie. His arms looped around hers and then they were airborne, his strong wings lifting her from the pool and above the chaos. Michael plucked a single feather as he spun mid-air, and his message was sent as the downy length vanished. “Send help.”
Something suddenly wrapped around Michael’s ankle, and then a tug wrenched him back, pulling him down at speed. Cyrus had flung one of the chains surrounding the pond up at him and it was twisted around his leg. Michael beat his wings harder, but a second sensation flared up his arm where Evie clung to him. Crippled by searing pain, Michael’s grip on Evangeline released. She fell as he was pulled back into the fray, landing mere feet beyond the recovering men she’d drained. Her eyes were wide, fear resonating in their violet depths as the fanged men turned their red stares onto her.
“Run. Evangeline, run!”
They crept closer, tense arms ready to take hold, while others poised their weapons in preparation to take Evie down. But she remained still, frozen in fear. Her small legs quivered as water flowed from her hair and face and trickled from the stained material that clung to her little body.
Michael’s feet kissed the water before his strength had time to recover from Evie’s siphoning. A sudden stab to his side brought him fully down. “Evangeline, go!” Michael lost sight of her over the heads of the fanged creatures as his knees and then waist were pulled quickly under. The pressure in his side ripped free, and the blazing blue dagger appeared over his shoulder, poised at his jugular. Michael’s skin seared where it touched him.
“Now you will watch her die. You will bear witness as the life bleeds from her eyes and her lifeblood turns this pool silver.” Cyrus retracted the dagger and Michael went to spin as his mobility returned, to free his folded wings and shoot from the water—when the blade plunged into his gut.
Mouth gaping, Michael stared as Cyrus’s smiling eyes pulsed red with anticipation. But this wasn’t the end—not by a long shot. A vibration rose up from beneath Michael’s feet, riding up his body in a climaxing wave of power that made the water around them tremble. His toes scraped the edge of something hard and sharp and cold. The angel sword. “I am going to take pleasure in watching you die, Cyrus. In sending you to oblivion.”
Some of that eagerness drained from Cyrus’s face even as he twisted the dagger in Michael’s gut, freeing a stream of silver into the glowing water. “You are dead—”
The glass beneath them burst upward, driving Michael and Cyrus up with the pressure of uprising water. Michael tugged the suddenly released hilt of the dagger, renting it free of his gut. The angel sword flung up at the same time, and Cyrus caught the hilt—as angels spewed up through the broken barrier wielding glowing swords like a gray and black-winged invasion.
Startled, Cyrus’s minions spun to the commotion Remiel led with his sword arching down as Cyrus landed by the edge of the looking glass with a wet crunch. The ones who’d had hold of Evangeline let go too, swinging their ready weapons in the direction of a new and imminent threat.
Flashes of light appeared behind the murderous group. Each one reformed into even more warrior angels. Ready to lay down their lives to protect a cause bigger than themselves as they blocked the red-eyed men from the small girl behind them with illuminated swords.
Cyrus screamed to his followers before holding up a black feather. “Dammit, ascend. Ascend!” The feather vanished; a summons sent.
“Now, Evangeline. Run!” Michael yelled.
And this time, she did.
As Michael circled the air above and the other angels touched down, metal clashing in instant battle, Evangeline turned and ran. Her bare feet slapped the radiant floor, her legs moving so fast he almost expected her to fall. But she didn’t as she faded into the brilliant light beyond a columned opening. She kept on going.
Evangeline had escaped a death that would ruin Heaven and murder God. And now…
It was time for Michael to finish what he had begun.
It was time to end the threat of one innocent child for good.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tied to a tree by chains, Lucifer tugged and pulled, gasping for breath and roaring in anger. His arms above his head ached at the joints, each pull threatening to dislocate the limbs from his shoulders. Which he had considered doing, followed by ripping his arms clean off. Lucifer would do anything to save his daughter. Evangeline. The child he’d felt moving with life inside Gabriel’s belly. The child he’d loved before she was born. The child he would kill for—the only other life, aside from Gabriel’s that he would die to protect.
But disfiguring his body wouldn’t get him far.
Lucifer’s wings were stuck to his back between the tree—and they were frozen solid like his hands. Sweat drenched him from his never-ending struggle, but despite how hard he tried, his call to fire was a lost cause. That damn vampire, Ruthaven, never took his eyes off of him, keeping his frigid control and ensuring no tricks would get Lucifer free of his trap. The next failsafe was the vampire next to him, a dark-haired skinny vampire with cloudy eyes. He kept the air thin, restricting what Lucifer could draw in with each shallow breath.
Their merry band of young misfits had taken off moments ago to check on the other vampires who had arrived and left at the pureblood’s orders. Though Lucifer was relieved of the constant kicks and punches that riddled his body with aches and had turned his flesh black and blue, he was weak, immobile, and out of l
uck. Had Gabriel gotten to their child in time? Had she managed to protect her from Michael somehow?
The thought that Michael might have killed Gabriel set Lucifer’s veins alight. But even as he tried to hold on to the fire within, the tunneling cold that seeped from his wings and down through his body refused to let even a spark come to life.
“You cannot agree with Michael’s plan. You pledged yourselves to protect and never to kill.” Lucifer had said all the words before, but he couldn’t stop himself. He would go stir crazy if he didn’t keep doing something, if he accepted the truth and resigned himself to the reality that nothing he could do would save the life he had created. “Now you aid a plot to slaughter an innocent child?”
Not a single one of the remaining six purebloods even batted an eyelash. But Ruthaven did look sidelong into the trees as if they had heard a noise. Lucifer had created these fanged creatures, and now they faithfully aided the slaughter of his own flesh and blood.
Lucifer ground his teeth and changed tactics as desperation bubbled up his throat that threatened to close with the dread of it already being too late. “Hell is my domain, a place reserved for those who commit the vilest crimes. Aiding in the murder of innocence, in that of a child? There is nothing more vile than that. But it is not too late. Free me now and I will remember it when you fall below. I will go easier on you.”
“Close your trap,” Ruthaven snapped, squeezing his fist shut to freeze Lucifer’s tongue in his mouth. He looked around, eyes narrowing as the wind sweeping through the trees seemed to grow louder.
The nephilim broke through to the clearing, weapons drawn as they swung back around to the bordering trees. The one Michael named Micah spoke, “ Something’s com—”