by A. Catherine
“How did you get out?” Gabriel asked.
“We were let out.”
Kale prodded further, “By whom?” It hesitated, which was met with another shock of pain. “Answer the question.”
It spat out some of that black, oily liquid. It’s blood, then. “No,” it sneered.
Kale grinned evilly. “That’s not an answer we’re willing to accept.” It tried lunging for him, but it didn’t get far because of the chains.
“You should be glad we’re here, Heir Inferno. Our return will clean the earth of those abominations, and this time the arrogant angels will go with them,” it said to Kale.
Gabriel turned his attention to Kale, who had stood and now squared the wraith straight on.
“So your plan is to what, slaughter humanity once more. How exactly do you expect to accomplish that, your wraith friends are specks of dust,” Kale stated. His voice still calm as death, bored even.
“There are things even your kind don’t know about the world, hellborn,” it hissed.
Gabriel spoke this time, grabbing its attention. “How did you kill a Guardian?”
Its mouth clicked. “That wasn’t us.”
“And Heather, the mortal, there was one of you inside her mind, how do you explain that?” Gabriel asked.
The wraith turned and caught sight of me. Its eyes were hollow and fluid at the same time. A bony face with slashes and uneven features that made it hard to look at without feeling my breakfast rising from my stomach. Its oily sharp teeth grinned at me. It looked like some of the things I’d seen in my nightmares. The chill ran down my spine again.
“Darkness dwells where one can’t see.” It screeched in pain as if struck.
But Kale wasn’t drawing on the floor anymore. Instead he was simply glaring at it. Did he even need those markings to torture it?
Kale tilted his head when the pain subsided. “I don’t see any further use for it. It’s not going to give us anything more, even its grotesque mind is blocked,” he said.
Gabriel nodded, sighing. “We should send it to the pits, or one of the still secured prisons for holding.”
“Like hell. Kill the damn thing,” Seere argued.
“You’ve done enough killing for one day. We may need it to answer more questions later. Besides, violence is corrupting, we don’t need any more of it here,” Gabriel countered.
Kale glared at the archangel. “Violence, as I’ll remind you, has settled more issues than any other factor, buzzard brain. You’re in my house, and therefore my rules.” His tone was predatorial and commanding.
Gabriel turned away, looking at me. Not entirely surprised I was there, more worried than anything.
“I don’t support this decision. But I’ll respect your authority as long as I’m a guest here. Do what you will.”
Kale grounded himself, and simply turned his hand in the air as though turning a dial. Then a jolt of fire and lightning speared towards the wraith, lighting it on fire. It screamed as the hood and its skin blistered and singed away.
The smell of cooked flesh and soot filled my nose, making me gag. Not long and the fire retreated back into Kale’s hand, and the only remnants of the wraith that remained was a pile of ash.
Even though the initial power that had struck out of Kale had since gone away, Kale’s power leaked more than it did before. Like a hot coal still smoldering. That amount of power was effortless, as simple as unlocking a door. What kind of power could he unleash if he were actually trying?
Kale turned and caught my stare. Fear must have been written on my face because he looked ashamed when our eyes met.
But he dropped the expression quickly and turned once more to go to Seere. She watched him, stepping into tow next to him as he passed.
Gabriel was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, observing my reactions.
“I did say it would be gruesome.”
I dragged my gaze away from the retreating demons, clearing my throat.
“Ugh, yeah. You weren’t kidding. It just makes me worry what the rest of these primordials are like.”
“Worse,” Gabriel muttered. “Much worse.”
SEVENTEEN
Heather
TO PASS TIME I DECIDED TO DO SOME RESEARCH.
Looking back at some of my work during my undergrad and grad years on religion. All the more thankful that I had my laptop to do so.
Even looking for that drawing Kale used on the floor earlier. Maybe it was in one of the ancient texts I studied. I skimmed through some of the Greek myths, those were pretty easy to understand and could pull out some of what Gabriel was saying to me from them. I had a folder on my desktop for every religion/country.
I clicked on the Egyptian folder, a couple essays, a few articles and studies were inside. Some photos from various museums and archeologist reports. The deities they had were clear representations of the archangels.
Osiris, the God of the underworld, symbolizes death and resurrection. Lucifer perhaps? But then again, Christian religions depicted a completely different name as the Angel of Death. I clicked open my phone and made an electronic note to ask about that.
Isis, the wife of the God of the underworld, and depicted in Greek/Roman history as Aphrodite. But that didn’t make sense, the wife of the God of the underworld in Greek was Persephone, Hade’s wife. So maybe this was just a made-up tale rather than stemming from truth. Unless…it meant to depict Lillith?
I shivered—the idea of that temptress being depicted as Aphrodite or even Persephone for that matter just didn’t sit well.
Horus—sky god, embodiment of divinity…Gabriel? Michael? I made a note of it.
Oh, but wait, Seth the god of chaos and violence, so that must be Lucifer, yes? Hmmm. Noted.
Funny enough the Egyptians were obsessed with gods of death, because even Anubis was in charge of caring for the dead. I took a break from Egypt and ventured into the Mayan culture.
Their creator’ god was Itzamna. Ah Puch was their god of the dead. Chac was one of their oldest gods, associated with war and human sacrifice. Wow, it was amazing how much more all my studies meant now that I’d been thrust into the supernatural world.
While I was taking down a few more notes and questions to ask later, Jade and Jophiel entered from the main floor. I was using the dining table as a desk space to work on.
Jade came over to me right away, her smile warming some of my initial uneasiness. Jophiel, however, went to the counter and pulled out what looked like a few old scrolls from a bag I didn’t realize she carried.
Jade peered over my shoulder. “What are you up to?” she asked sweetly.
I continued to glance over at Jophiel when I answered.
“Um, I’m just looking back at some of my religious studies.”
Jade grinned and sat in the chair next to me, a knowing grin on her lips.
“Trying to find where we fit in?” She asked. I nodded. “Well, it’s not awfully hard to find the obvious ones. God and Lucifer have many depictions. Even Azrael gets a lot of attention in nearly every religion.”
I crinkled my nose. “Azrael…that’s the—”
“Angel of Death,” she said simply. My eyes widened.
“Oh! Well, that answers those questions. There were a few deities and gods that I wasn’t sure were supposed to be Lucifer or…Azrael. Why aren’t the rest mentioned?” I asked.
She looked back at my computer, seeing my Mayan section open.
“They are, you just have to know where to look. The Mayan god Chin, who was all about open sexuality, that is a rough depiction of Chamuel. He’s the second to youngest archangel, he oversees the division of destiny. You could think of his angels, the Amors, as cupids and then there are the Cherubims.” She winked.
“Chamuel? I don’t remember learning about him.” She shrugged.
“He’s not a very…powerful archangel. And his personality is gentle. It’s hard to be interpreted by mortals if you don’t make a lot of noise, as the others te
nd to.” She sent a smirk towards Jophiel.
Her eyes remained on the scroll she was reading, ignoring us completely. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how magnificent all of them looked.
“Are all immortals so…polished?” I asked carefully.
Jade laughed.
“You mean, good looking? We have the advantages of not growing old, and I guess our angel grace does add some extra sparkle to our appearances. Don’t feel intimidated by it, even the prettiest ones can have horrible tempers and even uglier dispositions.”
Another jab at Jophiel, who didn’t so much as blink.
I thought about Kale and Lillith, they too had unnatural good looks. Even Daevas and Seere were beautiful in their own way, but in a less divine manner.
“The demons…”
Jade smirked. “Their good looks are mostly hereditary. Lillith, was the first mortal woman created after The Tear, she was made to be as exquisite as she is. I mean, Lucifer was so infatuated with her that he paid a handsome price to have her.”
An Aphrodite indeed.
“What price was that?” I asked.
This time Jophiel did look towards us, and I noted it—the careful wariness in her face.
“My eldest brother is arguably the most powerful archangel to exist. His perversions for that succubus cost him some of that power,” Jophiel stated harshly.
Ah, so not only was there some deep-seeded hate for Lillith in there, but also an aversion to Lucifer—or of the decisions he made.
Jade didn’t let any of her calm kindness waver, leaning her head in one of her palms.
“He was in love,” she cooed, with a slight tone of taunting. A touchy subject?
Jophiel bared her teeth a little. “Lust and love are not the same thing, Jade. You know that. Besides, he eventually tired of her and demoted her—taking other wives even. So much for love.”
Her reactions made me wonder if this was about her brother having to now rule over hell, or that his love connection didn’t last. Not to mention, this must have happened millions of years ago, so why did she treat it like it was a fresh wound?
Or is it when you’re immortal, disagreements and grudges tend to fester longer?
Jophiel met my gaze, and it was filled with distaste and resentment.
“I understand that you’re new to all this, and you have a lot to learn. But we have more important things to do than sit around and explain all of our histories to you. Jade, we have work to do.”
The bite in her tone eliminated any sense of safety and trust I might’ve felt towards her. I guess the angelic kindness doesn’t extend to all of them, Jade did mention ugly dispositions.
Though I wouldn’t say Jophiel’s rudeness in any way dwindled her impeccable beauty.
Jade rolled her eyes, still calm. “Jophiel’s a very straight-forward character, as you can tell.” She patted the table with her hand twice. “Bring them here, Jo. I’m comfortable where I am.”
Jophiel proceeded to dump a few dozen scrolls, various papers and even some books bound in a strange material onto the table.
Jade grabbed a small stack of papers and quickly rifled through them and then decided which ones she would read right now.
“You can carry on with your research. You won’t be able to read the languages these are written in,” Jade said, gesturing to the pile.
“What are they?”
“Records. Scribes are a division of angels that record everything that happens in time. Both immortal and mortal. We went to a few of the Scribe outposts to gather anything on immortal deaths. Some of this goes back to before more than half the archangels existed. And the languages are old, which means we’ll be working pretty hard to translate what we can,” Jade explained.
Jophiel said, not looking up from her current reading. “Yes, and less talking would speed things up.”
Jade rolled her eyes and mouthed rawr while clawing the open air. I giggled a little but silenced when Jophiel glanced up through her lashes. I bit my lip and went back to my laptop.
I liked Jade. She was a lot more human than the others. If we had met in my…regular life, I think we would’ve been quick friends. I’ll have to ask her more about her position and her life. I just know that talking to her, even if her stories were about immortals, she would make it feel normal and human.
Though I was trying to focus on my own work, curiosity got the best of me. I’d peek at the papers laid out on the table. Both angels fully engrossed in whatever pieces they were reading. Jade was right, a lot of it was in languages I didn’t understand.
I did recognize a couple, a French document here, a Greek scroll there.
But my eyes locked onto one paper in particular; the dark-brown, faded paper had singed edges, and there were only six lines on them, and whatever the symbols that were written, they must have formed words or a text of some kind.
They reminded me of hieroglyphs or Norse runes. But these, something about them was familiar. One I recognized from a dream I had a few days ago, I would need to look further back in my journal to find where it was noted.
“I’ll be back,” I said quietly to Jade. She nodded and went back to reading.
I ran down the hall to my room, snagging the fabric coated journal on the bedside table and walked briskly back. All while flipping through the pages until I came upon that symbol again. I flipped again, and on the next page I had noted other symbols that looked like the ones on that paper.
I walked back into the dining room, and stood in front of my laptop, peering down to compare the images. They were the same.
I read some of the notes and the dream I had written in those particular entries. In my dream I knew what those symbols meant, and I wrote it down. I looked back at the paper and spoke out loud.
“What does a transition have to do with a dead angel?”
Jade and Jophiel’s heads snapped up, noticing that I was looking between my journal and a paper on the table.
“What?” Jade asked.
I picked up the paper. Pointing at it. “This symbol, it means transition doesn’t it? And this one here means will, and this one awakening. Or roughly means it at least.”
Jophiel stood from her chair and snatched the paper out of my hand, her brows furrowed together.
“You can read this?” she asked. She showed it to Jade, who looked at me shocked.
I eyed them warily. “Um, sort of. I dreamt of them and wrote about them in my dream journal. Why?”
Jophiel glanced back at the paper. “This is Zibµ, it’s an angelic language. An old one. There’s no possibility that you should be able to read it.”
“Incredible. Gabriel had said you were having strange occurrences in your dreams. But seeing Zibµ, I’m not even fluent in the older ethereal languages. What else did you see?” Jade asked.
I shrugged. “I—I don’t know what they are. But you’re welcome to look in my journal.”
She slipped it out of my arm before I could finish the sentence. She began flipping through the pages, her eyes bulging as she spotted something else.
“Enochian?”
Jophiel took the journal from Jade and looked herself. She read a few lines and turned the page before slowly gazing back up at me. The intensity of her stare froze me in place.
“You had a wraith inside your head, and Kaleus took care of it right?” she said.
I bristled, Kaleus? It’s better than a leafy vegetable, I guess.
“Yeah. He, uh, did something and it sorta disappeared—disintegrated. I haven’t seen it since,” I answered.
Jade scratched the back of her neck. “Primordials don’t know our languages, its presence doesn’t explain the markings.” Seemingly answering the silent assumption Jophiel was making.
The two of them made eye contact, silence filled the room. Were they communicating silently now?
Jade nodded slightly. “You’re right.”
I cleared my throat. “Hello, human here, can’t hear what you’re s
aying through the web,” I muttered.
Jophiel ignored me and turned to leave through the opposite hallway, the demon’s side of the warehouse.
Jade gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, force of habit. We need to look inside your mind, your conscious mind.”
My expression turned incredulous.
“I thought immortals couldn’t get inside a human’s consciousness, the whole loophole stuff they were telling me about.”
Jade nodded.
