The Holy Dark

by Kyoko M

  I fell asleep in seconds, surrounded by warmth and darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MICHAEL

  “Selfish, thoughtless, hardheaded, short-sighted, pain-in-my-ass woman!”

  My aggravated bellow didn’t echo. It couldn’t. After all, there were no walls here in the astral plane between Heaven and Earth. It was the bridge between worlds. All that existed were snow-white rolling hills and the gorge where the souls of the dead passed on towards Judgment.

  My wings flapped once, kicking a gust of air up into my face. I couldn’t keep my breathing in control. She drugged me. My own damn wife drugged me to protect me from something she was about to do—something reckless, no doubt. With my body weak from losing the fight with Moloch, I couldn’t regain consciousness until it happened naturally, so I was stuck here. Nothing short of getting a new body would help me. Or so I thought.

  “Something on your mind, kid?”

  I froze. A male voice spoke from behind me—soft baritone with a hint of a Southern accent. Great. Just who I needed to see right now.

  “If you’re going to punch me in the face again, save it for later,” I growled. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that goin’ around,” Andrew Bethsaida said, walking up next to me. I stood at the top of the hill overlooking the millions of wispy grey ghosts floating through to the other side. For centuries, I came here when I needed space to think without the interference of others. Andrew knew that, so he used it to check up on me, and his adoptive daughter, on occasion.

  “I mean it, Andrew. Just go.”

  “Go where?” he asked, tucking his large hands inside the pockets of his black suit pants. Every soul wore what they considered to be their personal self-image after death. Andrew’s consisted of a white button up shirt, plain black tie, black slacks, and a grey duster. It was the one Jordan still wore on Earth even though it was way too big for her. He had smiled when I told him so a couple years ago. “Back upstairs where there’s talk of a war? Where damn near every one of them wants your head mounted on a pike? No thanks. I could have stayed on Earth as a ghost for that kind of hostility.”

  “What do you care?” I spat. “You won’t be fighting anyway.”

  He grabbed my arm then, turning me towards him. Andrew wasn’t a small guy. He was my height and had me by at least thirty pounds of muscle. He had a square chin and deep blue eyes with a scar running through his right eyebrow, a couple of claw marks on his neck, and some on his hands. When he glared at me, I didn’t just see it, I felt it. He was one of the few souls who could pull that off. “Watch what you say, kid. This is my world too. I helped build it. So you’re damn right I care if someone’s gonna tear it down.”

  I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself. “Why are you here?”

  “My Spidey-Sense was tingling,” he snapped, rolling his eyes. “Why else do you think I’m here? You should be down there trying to clean up the mess and yet you’re up here screaming bloody murder about something Jordan did. Which leads me to believe you might need some counsel.”

  “She drugged me.”

  Both of his eyebrows shot upward. “Pardon?”

  “She slipped something in my tea to knock me out and then she left for God-knows-where. The last thing I remember before I conked out is that she told me to find you.”

  “Ah, hell,” he muttered. “Had to drag me into this. I’m too dead for this shit.”

  That almost made me laugh. Andrew was good at that. He sighed, raked a hand through his unruly black hair, and regarded me with a serious look. “What are the facts?”

  I filled him in. Andrew snorted. “The angel named after a porn star went bad? Well, gee, there’s a shocker.”

  “Not helping.”

  “Sorry,” he amended. “So what’s the play, then? What would Jordan do that was so bad she had to get you out of the way?”

  “My guess is something that has to do with Belial.” I couldn’t help sneering as his name escaped my lips. I was itching to get out of here, and chopping that demon’s head off was at the top of my list, next to tying my wife to a bed and doing unspeakable things to her in retribution for this mess.

  “Calm down. You know she’s not going to accept his offer. She’s probably using him. Would Belial know what Moloch’s up to?”

  “Probably, but he won’t talk. Not without the proper incentive. We couldn’t break him the first time. He only made a deal to save his own skin.”

  “Right. So she would need to find a way to get him to talk. We both know she’s not going to give him her soul in exchange for the information, not after what he’s done to her.”

  “That’s all he really wants. He won’t fold for anything less.”

  Andrew nodded. “Then her best bet would be to find a weaker link. Locate a demon’s nest and squeeze one of the grunts.”

  I shook my head. “She wouldn’t need to knock me out to do that. We could find one and do that as a team. Why would she go alone?”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t add up unless she was going to do something that would endanger you all.”

  He paused, frowning as if something occurred to him.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not possible. It’d be suicide.”

  “What would be suicide?”

  “She wouldn’t do it. Not even if—”

  “—if she watched her best friend die in front of her?” I asked quietly. “If she held him in her arms while his soul vanished from existence? What wouldn’t she do, Andrew?”

  He closed his eyes. “Damn it. I pray to the Father that I’m wrong, but…she could have drunk Belial’s blood to gain enough power to find Moloch on her own.”

  Ice water rushed through my veins at the very thought. I could accept a lot of things, but the idea of Jordan drinking demon blood made my stomach churn. “If she did that, then it would get her killed. Even with all the strength it would grant her, she’d get in over her head. The demons would hunt her down and eat her alive for assaulting them. Hell, Belial himself would kill her for taking his blood without permission.”

  Andrew nodded. “I hope I’m wrong. She would’ve known better. If she’s got my journal, she’d know that it’s not worth it. That stuff is poison. Kills everything that touches it.”

  “Alright, so we have a theory about what she did. Now the question is how do I find her?”

  “Follow the bodies,” he said. “Demon blood amplifies every single sin hiding in your heart—anger, pride, greed, lust, all of it. Trust me. She won’t be quiet. She’ll head straight for a demon safe haven and make noise. Won’t be too hard to find her.”

  I rubbed my forehead with a weary sigh. “When did this get so complicated? It used to be about saving ghosts with unfinished business. Now it’s us against a pantheon of pissed off angels while trying to win a war without losing our own souls. I miss the good old days.”

  “Ha. What good old days?”

  “The shit that happened in the Bible was a cakewalk compared to this.”

  He smirked. “Point taken. But that fancy title of yours comes with a price.”

  “What title? Haven’t you heard? They want me out for good.”

  “And people in ice water want hell.”

  Again, I almost smiled. Andrew’s expression softened into something I dared to think was borderline fatherly. “Your job isn’t to be liked. It’s to save lives. So what if they demote you? You’re still Michael the archangel. You shoved Lucifer’s ass down into that hole. You did that. No amount of mistakes can change it. I don’t care if they turn you into a janitor. It’s just a rank. You are more than a soldier. You’re a natural born leader. No leader is infallible. Don’t let them take that from you, son. It’s who you are.”

  He punched me in the shoulder. It hurt. A lot. “Now get your big archangel ass back down there and save the damn world like you’re supposed to. This ain’t a picnic.”

  I did laugh that
time and it felt great. “What? No speech about how I should take care of your little girl?”

  “She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s a woman. She’s made mistakes too. It’s not my place to tell you what to do about your marriage.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and started down the hill. He stopped at the base and glanced at me over his shoulder.

  “But if you still love her like I think you do…find a way to get it through that thick skull of hers. If you want her back, you’re gonna have to break down that wall she’s got. Don’t be gentle. You owe it to yourself.”

  Something resembling a smile touched my lips. “Thanks. Give Catalina my best.”

  “Will do.” He nodded to me and then kept walking. I watched him go until his image vanished, indicating that he’d ascended to Heaven.

  I faced the gorge again, my eyes passing over the spirits below me. Affection bloomed in my chest. He was right. I may have been a massive screw up lately, but I was a protector. Everyone, no matter how holy or horrendous, deserved to reach this place on their own time, not early, not thanks to some piece of shit demon with a God complex. The son of a bitch took my brother from me.

  Time to even the score.

  Unfortunately, my timing wasn’t much better when I regained consciousness. My ears caught the frustrated words of a woman’s voice seconds before someone’s fist whacked me dead in the cheekbone.

  “Wake up, dammit!”

  My body reacted before my brain could catch up. I caught her wrist and wrenched her down onto the bed, cocking my fist back. Then the cobwebs slid away from my eyes and I realized it was just one very ticked off Myra.

  I lowered my arm, sighing. “Do you wake everyone up like this, or am I just lucky?”

  She scowled. “I was getting impatient.”

  “No shit,” I said, rubbing the slightly swollen skin on the right side of my face. She certainly didn’t hold back.

  “You weren’t waking up,” Myra said, wiggling her hand free from my grip. She sat up as I swung my legs around to the side of the bed so I could sit.

  “Jordan duped us. She’s gone. But you already know that, don’t you?”

  I shot her a sarcastic look. “What was your first clue?”

  “Don’t get snarky with me. That’s not our only problem. Belial gave us the slip too.”

  “Of course he did,” I snapped, testing my balance as I got up. The drug still had its clutches on me, but I could stand straight-ish and my vision was clear. I’d been out for at least an hour. My powers were returning. A normal person would have been knocked out for way longer. That, or she gave me a smaller dose than I predicted.

  “How long ago?”

  Myra tossed me the handcuffs Belial had been bound with. They were in perfect shape. He hadn’t broken them, which meant someone else got him out. “I figure no more than about fifteen minutes after we left. When we got back, the hideout was torn apart. He must’ve called in some backup to free him. What do you figure he’s planning?”

  I told her what Andrew and I had theorized. She caught my shoulder when I stumbled a bit as I headed towards the door. “And what’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to find Jordan.”

  A haughty tone crept into her voice. “What’s this ‘I’ shit?”

  I tossed an annoyed look in her direction. “I need you and the guys here to get ready. Moloch’s going to make a play for the rest of the coins and then the war will start.”

  She pressed her palm to my chest to keep me from walking forward. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  I shoved her arm aside. “I’m not a child.”

  “Like hell you aren’t. You’re going off as half-cocked as she did. At this rate, you’ll both end up dead. Not on my watch.”

  I stilled. She was right. I was still running off the fumes of my anger at Jordan’s betrayal. After several breaths, I drew that unfocused emotion into me and flattened it.

  “Myra,” I said, and this time I sounded like myself. “I need you to back up Avriel and Faust. You’re smart. You’re experienced. You’re the best shot with a sniper rifle that I’ve seen in ages. They need you more than I do. Please. Stay here.”

  She searched my gaze for a long moment. “Fine. But you either come back with her or you don’t come back at all. She left on my watch. I want her in one piece so I can kick her ass up and down this cathedral. Understood, angel food cake?”

  I slapped on a smile that I hoped was reassuring. “Understood.”

  She cracked her neck and rolled one shoulder. “Alright. Enough of this sensitive shit. Get that fine ass of yours out of here. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JORDAN

  I awoke to heavenly warmth surrounding me from head to toe. I knew this kind of comfort. Strong arms around my waist, the faint scent of cologne, and a slightly grizzled chin resting on my forehead. My cheek lay along the groove of a collarbone, one arm draped along his side, the other limp between us, both legs sprawled and entangled with his. No leg hairs scratched my shins. He was wearing pants. Odd.

  “Michael?” I mumbled, shifting enough to look up. My vision blurred and swirled with white, black, and grey at first.

  “No,” a soft voice answered. “I am afraid not.”

  My eyes focused to see milky white skin and hair as black as oil framing cold blue eyes. Belial stared at me, expressionless like a masculine China doll.

  I stared right back at him, then closed my eyes, sighed, and returned my head to the comfortable spot on his chest.

  “Oh.”

  Silence stretched between us. He didn’t move. I didn’t either.

  “Oh?” he echoed.

  “What?”

  “Did the withdrawal process melt your brain?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then you are aware of the fact that you are in bed with your mortal enemy, dressed in nothing more than your undergarments.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And you are…fine with this arrangement?”

  “I’m too tired to care at this point. Besides, I figured it out.”

  He shifted this time, his arms gliding down my sides until one of them was free to hold his weight. I opened my eyes to see those alien eyes inches away, pensive and yet intense. “Figured what out, my pet?”

  “Why I can’t seem to get you out of my life.”

  Belial smirked. “Have you finally accepted your undying infatuation with me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. I just realized that it’s not about lust, power, or greed when it comes to you and me. It’s about balance.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Balance?”

  “Balance,” I confirmed, propping myself on one elbow. “Yin and yang. One can’t exist without the other. We somehow ended up sharing part of our souls. There is something horrid and selfish and reckless inside of me, just as there is something noble and honorable and respectable inside of you. It took me this long to recognize it because I was so scared of crossing the line. Well, last night, I crossed it. Thoroughly. And now I know why you are the way you are. That kind of power is the most corruptive thing I’ve ever felt. You had no choice when you fell from Heaven after you tasted something so sweet. I think I understand us both a little better.”

  He studied me for a long moment. “Did you just admit we are soul mates?”

  I frowned. “Is that really all you got out of it?”

  He offered me a rakish grin, inching his large hand down towards my backside. “Is that all I’m going to get out of it?”

  I glared. “Yes.”

  The grin faded, leaving his handsome face strangely contemplative. “You seem to have thought a lot about this. Would you like me to tell you what I think?”

  I found myself missing his irreverent humor. This serious mood was deeply disconcerting. For once, I didn’t opt for a snappy comeback. I just nodded.

  He touched the side of my face. “You need me b
ecause I am the line between good and evil. You need me to stop you from falling from grace. You need me because I am the darkest desires of your heart realized and in physical form. You need me because you are a flawed, beautiful woman and I can appreciate that more than your husband can.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head. “Let me finish. You are broken, Jordan Amador. It might have started when you lost your mother, it might have started when your aunt began abusing you, or it might have started when you killed Andrew Bethsaida, but the result is still the same. You seem to misunderstand what I am offering you. It is not simply sex, but comfort. An eternity of pleasures you simply cannot fathom. You were born into a life in which you had few choices, and many of them devolved into terrible ultimatums. Yet you still managed to fight and win several battles against all odds. I am offering you the life that you deserve to have. The life you have earned. You have suffered greatly over the years. Is it not right that you should be relieved of your duties as the unfairly appointed savior of mankind? Aren’t you tired?”

  I tried to look away then, but his fingers tightened on my chin, holding me still. He wasn’t angry—merely determined. There were no more walls. He held me naked before him, stripped of every defense I’d taught myself since I was a little girl.

  “If you can look me in the eyes and tell me you aren’t tired, then I will let you go.”

  A lump formed in my throat, one so large I couldn’t even swallow. His words made all of the things I’d buried inside me gush up to the surface. It wasn’t just one emotion, it was thousands of them swirling together and dying to claw their way out of me. I hurt. Plain and simple.

  “I am tired,” I whispered. “I’m so tired, Belial.”

  I touched his hand where it rested on my face. “But the thing is…I don’t deserve you. You are evil. You are vile. And yet you’re still beyond my reach. I don’t understand it, but I know I’m not worthy of such pleasures. I have scars for a reason. Maybe this is just who I’m supposed to be. Maybe I don’t get a happy ending with you or with Michael. Maybe the path I chose is one I have to walk by myself. I don’t know where it ends. I just know that I can’t ask you to wait for me.”