Kaliel dropped down, dragging his back against the door. His eyes locked on the distant nothingness for a moment that seemed interminable.
“Don’t say that I told you” this time it was she who was begging. “I heard behind the door of Mikah's office when he met with Gabriel, Uriel and Rafael... It wasn’t on purpose”.
“Surely they knew you were there...” Kaliel said.
He was silent for a long time, his eyes empty of expression, still crumbling on the floor. Uncomfortable, Sabrina sat on the bed and forced herself to observe a book.
“Charlotte sold her soul so that death wouldn’t separate her from me” he murmured. “I walked away from her because of that but I think... I start to understand...”
“You fell in love with her...” Sabrina deduced.
“No”.
Vividness had returned to his eyes when he directed them to Sabrina.
“Charlotte was three hundred and fifty years ago. It doesn’t make sense that I was punished just two years ago...”
27
Immortality
Mikah wouldn’t help him. He needed someone completely alien to the Celestial War, someone beyond the forces of Good and Evil. So he immediately flew to Alexander's house. But it wasn’t the sorcerer but Charlotte, the sweet and innocent Charlotte, who opened the door. This was the first time in three hundred and fifty years that he felt no apprehension at seeing her.
“My father is not here” she murmured from the threshold, shyly observing the ground.
“Do you know if he’ll come soon?”
Charlotte shook her head negatively and stepped aside inviting him in. Three hundred years of suffering masked under the frozen innocence of a face that couldn’t grow old. Charlotte would remain detained in time until she understood her mistake. He had never understood it before. He would have been a god of fury and punishment but, luckily, he had only been an angel, closer to Earth than to Heaven. Instead, God should see her as he began to do now: with deep compassion. A sprout of Creation dangerously armed with freedom of choice but thrown into the confusion of a hasty life without knowledge. Or maybe that was his role as an angel, in which he had failed miserably. But there was a difference between angels and men, the former did know what they were doing. Did he know what he was doing when he failed?
Kaliel sat in one of the chairs. She passed by him without looking at him, straight toward the stairs, when he stopped her.
“ Charlotte...”
She turned slowly. It had been more than three hundred years since Charlotte had heard her name on Kaliel's lips.
“Forgive me” it was everything that came out. However, it was exactly what he wanted to say, without detours.
“Why?” She asked.
“Because I failed you” Kaliel said, holding his voice to sound deadpan.
Charlotte smiled and took hesitant steps towards him.
“You didn’t fail as an angel. It was my fault. Neither of the two failed themselves and that’s what matters”.
He knew it. It wasn’t about her. He remembered everything and knew that there was no sin against his condition, as Sabrina had said. At least, not with Charlotte.
She had lost her smile at his relentless silence and had turned toward the stairs with her back to him.
“You don’t sound regretful...” he murmured.
“I'm not” Charlotte said as she climbed the stairs.
“Wait! Don’t go…”
Charlotte turned, biting her lip, embarrassed. Kaliel jumped from his spot and went to her.
“Why did you do it?” This time there was no reproach in his voice but sincere doubt.
“Because I loved you”.
“But you lost everything...”
“What is everything? My soul? The eternity in Paradise? I have no idea what Paradise is like, Kaliel, but I’m sure of something: eternity without love is vain. Maybe that's why He created us”.
Charlotte's eyes sparkled with distant resignation as she lifted a hand to Kaliel and touched his face.
“I’d do it again”.
“No”. Kaliel took her hand away from his face but held it in his. “Maybe that's why your curse still continues”.
“It will continue then” she murmured. “They say that love is the enemy of death and that from there comes its meaning: a mortis, without death”.
“Who told you that?”
“You” she smiled. “My love and I will remain immortal”.
“It is impossible!” He released her. Then he moved closer to look her straight in the eye. “This world will pass and there is no way to survive at the end. Please, you have to repent...”
Charlotte's eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t!” She whimpered and threw herself into his arms. “Leave me, I'm lost anyway” she excused herself by adjusting her head against Kaliel's chest while hugging him. “I can choose and this is the way I choose to die”.
Kaliel snorted. Three hundred and fifty years of indifference had gone nowhere, so he embraced her too. Maybe, at least, he comforted her pain. He didn’t say anything else while she cried in the minutes that followed.
“How do you know you really love me?” He asked later. “What do you feel?”
It wasn’t just cheeky questions and she knew it. Charlotte pulled back and wiped her face with the backs of her hands.
“You are Heaven and Hell in one person for me” she said, standing up. The cold resignation returned to her face. “If you want to know if you feel it, ask yourself if she’s everything you want and everything you fear losing...”
Charlotte climbed the stairs until she locked herself in her room. Was she also thinking about Alanis or was she not referring to anyone in particular?
A hand on his shoulder made him jump in his place.
“She's in London with Xandria” said Alexander. “I suggest you hurry: he found her...”
It was less than two hours to London by train. It was night when they walked the streets of London. The station, the River Thames, the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben, the London Eye... All that beauty had been so close all her life but she had never been able to leave Salisbury and now it wasn’t the time to stop and contemplate them.
The place they were going to was in the Soho neighborhood. The witch's house, far from being the ruined hut that Ali imagined was a luxurious apartment on the top of a building. No cobwebs and all of lavishness. Bright red curtains embroidered in gold, vases and paintings decorated the main room. Xandria had to love that color because her hair was also deep red like blood. The overflowing light made the colors vibrate so that it was difficult to fix the view in one place without being attracted to observe everything avidly.
“Feel at home” the woman said with musical voice and invited them to come.
She placed herself on a scarlet velvet couch and told them to take their places in an armchair just like the other side of a low glass table.
“Is there something I can help you with?” She asked.
Alanis didn’t speak. Leave it to me, Larsen had said.
“We need to find a relative who has disappeared” said Larsen. “He was kidnapped”.
Xandria ran her hands down her neck to unlace a chain from which hung a pointed stone but Larsen stopped her with a hand signal without stopping to speak.
“But we know where he is. The problem is that magic can’t penetrate that place...”
Xandria narrowed her eyes.
“The Gladius Dei keeps him captive in The Altar”.
Xandria's eyes darkened at the sound of that name.
“Only Gladius Dei members know where it is” she said. “I'm truly sorry…”
“They say there was a person who managed to escape from there” Larsen's voice became sharp: “you”.
Xandria jumped from her exasperated seat. She snorted as she smoothed her violet gauze tunic.
“It's just a legend” she said.
“We are willing to offer a large sum for the in
formation” Larsen offered with a crooked smile.
“I have much more than I can ever spend in my long immortal life” Xandria said.
“Then do it for the memory of what they did to you”.
“What they did to me...” Xandria repeated in a ghostly tone that made Ali's skin prickle. “They will never reach to pay it. And they will do it to anyone who enters there!” exclaimed the woman as she rolled up her tunic and showed them arms crossed by horrid scars. Cuts and burns. “Will you enter, girl, and you will leave The Altar unharmed?”
A knot formed in Ali's throat as she observed those marks of torture and thought of her father.
“No” said Larsen, calmly. “I will”.
Xandria turned to him and assessed him with her gaze.
“They know how to deal with your kind...”
It was useless. The woman was determined not to talk. The anguish became desperation and, soon, it became fury and fire.
“My father is there and I won’t leave here without an answer!” Ali's voice exploded in the room like thunder as she stood in front of Xandria. The fire swirled in her arms from her hands. “My safety is not your problem!”
The witch recoiled in surprise. Then she regained her composure and gave them both a stern look.
“I didn’t manage to escape...” said Xandria. “I had to agree to my perdition with a demon to get out of there and that's why I am what I am now...”
“What?” Ali sighed. Her shoulders relaxed under the crushing weight of disappointment and the fire disappeared.
“As you heard it! Samael was the reason I ended up there and he offered me the exit in exchange for my soul” she said with a bitter smile. “Now I’m one of his many immortal wives...”
Again Samael, the Prince of Temptation. All roads led to him. And that's what he precisely wanted: her.
“But you can free yourself from the pact...” Ali said.
“I will pay with death if I do it and I have a very powerful reason to live. Is your reason so powerful as to face death?”
“I can’t stand life if I don’t do it” Ali said firmly.
Xandria sighed.
“The problem is not to find The Altar but to enter and, even more, to leave”.
The witch sat down again, apparently ready to speak and Ali imitated her.
“You must be a Gladius Dei member or let yourself be caught... That would be the easiest way”.
“Then there is a difficult way?” Larsen asked.
“Yes, there is. The order has a book that...”
“The Maleficat!” Ali said.
“Yes, a book with instructions for hunting and expulsion of demons and extermination of the Children of the Night. Because that was the original purpose of the order but when they started torturing humans, a group of adepts decided to betray them” deserters, Ali thought, like her father. “That happened just before they captured me. The three defectors copied the book before fleeing and added very precise instructions on how to find and violate the safeguards that protect The Altar. They knew that power would corrupt the Gladius Dei and it’ll come the time to destroy it... But nobody knows where that book is” Xandria went ahead of the question.
“Then the defectors have the book” said Ali. She could feel her heart beating louder and louder. With Patrick dead and her father gone there was only one person left who could have it.
“No. They got rid of it” said Xandria. “They would have been idiots if they kept it. The Gladius Dei found out so they had to flee...”
And if that was the reason why they looked for their father and not for her? If they didn’t know about her, if they didn’t expect it, then the surprise factor would be on her side, although it reduced the chances that they would keep him as bait.
“Anyway, if you don’t speak French that copy is useless... As I knew one of them did a second copy, this time translated into English”.
Ali stopped breathing.
“What was his name like?” Ali demanded.
“It could be anyone right now...”
“Was it Johnnatan Elliot?”
Xandria's lips trembled slightly as she fixed her eyes on Ali cautiously.
“Then he kept his name...” She said with a thin voice.
“My father...” muttered Ali and let the air escape from her chest. “My father had the book!” She smiled almost deranged to Larsen. He smiled back.
But when she turned to see Xandria, she was white as paper and her eyes about to come out of their sockets were peering at her with something close to dread.
“You say Johnny Elliot was your father?” She mused.
“Yes”. Ali stood up with a single movement. “We have to go back to Salisbury” she told Larsen.
The boy nodded.
“What is your price for the information you have given us?” He asked Xandria.
The woman continued stupefied. She muttered something like tears of blood and desolation before coming to herself again and fixing her eyes on Ali.
“I met your father when he was a priest. A great man and a great friend. Count on me for what you need” said Xandria.
Alanis thanked and hurried to the door. There was no time to lose.
“Can I ask what your name is?” Xandria said from the doorway.
“Alanis”.
“Alanis...” Xandria repeated. “It's a beautiful name. Promise me you'll let me know when you find the book and I'll go to The Altar with you. My magic and my immortality will be at your services to get your father out of there”.
She thought she saw how the witch's eyes were getting wet.
“I promise”.
Alanis walked away from the building where Xandria lived. Larsen didn’t take long to reach her.
“Calm down...” he said clutching her arm to make her come back. “Where do you think you'll go at this time?”
“To Salisbury, where else? If there is a place where to continue this search is there!” Ali growled suddenly in anger. “Surely Mikah knows everything and hid it all this time!”
Larsen pulled her closer to him trying to calm her down and she burst into sobs.
“Okay” he mused. “We’ll find it. Now, calm down”.
She let herself be wrapped in his arms as she cried, completely broken.
“You need to rest…”
“Did you see Xandria's scars? Who knows what they’ll be doing in that damn place!” Her crying became more violent. “My father is a deserter who betrayed the Gladius Dei and, in reality, is not my real father... And my boyfriend didn’t die, as he wasn’t really my boyfriend but the one sent by Samael to kidnap me... Not even I am the one who believed that I was! And you want me to calm down?”
“Yes” Larsen's voice became softer. He bent down just to be at Ali's height and lifted her chin with one hand as he gathered his tears with the other. “Cry tonight, if you want, and rest, but keep your head up. Tomorrow we will go and shake the world to its foundations until your enemies kneel before you”.
Ali gave him a tired smile. All the anger seemed to be drained from her body and her muscles relaxed. Larsen had a special, hypnotic charm. Never before had she concentrated so much on how attractive his features were so as to notice that heartbreaking beauty that couldn’t be human. Somehow, she couldn’t help but observe those feline eyes, closer and closer. Her pulse quickened and he moved closer, letting her feel the scent of verbena that had been so familiar the first time. His fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, stroking her neck as he passed and her knees loosened. Larsen kissed her cheek and looked at her again, with a smile she couldn’t identify. Then he kissed her again, this time closer to the corner of her mouth and her heart skipped a beat before resuming her march with madness. That smile intensified and when he came closer she was the one who kissed him. There were no more thoughts in her mind, only fire, fire running through everything, emerging from that point hidden in her chest and expanding everywhere... When Larsen turned away from her, she could
identify the nuance of that mocking smile as his eyes went towards something beyond her shoulder.
“I’ll tear you apart” a voice bellowed.
As if coming out of a spell, Ali turned around and found Kaliel with wings spread and bristling. His hands were shaking closed in fists.
“Baaltazhar...” he mumbled.
28
The fall
Kaliel passed by her like an ordinary mortal and hit Larsen in the nose. He didn’t move but remained in place while a contemptuous laugh came from a dark place new to Ali. Larsen was another lie. But this didn’t hurt; maybe she was getting used to them.
Kaliel's contained anger could be felt in the dense silence of the night, broken only by Larsen's reverberating laughter. Kaliel growled gritting his teeth and hit him once more. Larsen did nothing but raise a hand and Kaliel was dismissed as if an invisible force had struck him. The demon made sure that he saw him keep a hand in his pockets, as if one would be enough to win the fight.
“So you remembered our old rivalry” he said.
Kaliel stood up in a fury. His eyes gave off a fiery glow that soon also illuminated his wings and skin. The ground beneath Ali's feet vibrated. Kaliel raised his hand to the sky, now furrowed by lightning and one of them went to stop his hand to become a kind of spear. Then he threw it at Larsen. The beam of light hit him, but though his body flew out smoke, it didn’t seem to have caused him any harm.
“It seems that your new status hasn’t set you very well...” commented Larsen with false concern. “You look a little carnal”.
“And what about you?” retorted Kaliel, scathing. “How much do you have to descend to be commissioned to chase girls? Or now do you take care of Samael's errands?”
For a brief moment, Larsen narrowed his eyes. When he opened them there was a brightness of fun in them.
“You still don’t remember...” he said and turned to Ali. “Come on, it's not funny to fight like that”.
Ali rejected the hand that Larsen handed her. He seemed surprised.
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