by A. Catherine
Gabriel had returned to reading the scroll in his hands. I finished the last of my sandwich, sneaking side glances at the golden archangel.
After a few minutes I cleaned my plate in the sink. Gabriel scrunched his eyebrows and distantly looked at the wall. Another facial expression that I was beginning to learn that meant someone was talking to him telepathically through the angel web.
“Oh,” he mumbled out loud.
“What?”
“Duma was just explaining to me what happened last night, with Seere,” he replied.
Oh right. “Yeah, Seere and him had a little fighting match. She said that he invoked her demon name and then they had to do it.”
Gabriel nodded. “Duma regrets his part in it.”
“Seere’s demon name…do you know it?” I asked.
Gabriel’s eyes locked on mine, and warning was in them.
“I do. But I won’t say it out loud, and it’s probably best that you don’t know it.”
“Can you write it down?” I asked. He shook his head.
“I know you’re curious, but I don’t think we should risk you saying it out loud unintentionally. Even if she yielded to save you from the fight, I don’t think you’d enjoy watching what that would do. You’d feel guilt for a great deal of your life after that experience,” he explained.
“What do you mean? What happens when she yields to the challenge?” I asked. If Seere wasn’t going to tell me, maybe he would.
Gabriel looked away, listening to someone for a moment and then dragged his darkened gaze to me once more.
“You’ve seen her scars?”
I nodded. Some clean cuts, but others jagged and bubbled as if from burns.
“If Seere ever loses and is forced to yield to the challenge of combat invoked by that name, every scar and injury she’s ever endured in her past reopens and her healing doesn’t resume until a full day has passed. Seere can’t die from it, but she would feel all that agony. It’s a spell Lucifer tattooed into her flesh that she can never escape from,” he explained.
Oh god…
Gabriel grimly nodded when he saw the horror in my eyes.
“If you ever doubted Lucifer’s cruelty, that punishment is a decent reminder of his proclivity for it. I would leave it be though, especially to Kaleus. He’s very protective of Seere. Pissing him off would make Lucifer look like a saint.”
“Noted,” I breathed.
I understood now why Duma yielded even when he was winning the fight. He knew what his victory would mean for the demon and chose to save her from it.
Even when Seere was willing to choose that agony.
There was so much about these immortals that continued to surprise me. I had certainly taken my mortal existence for granted, and now I wasn’t sure I would even be able to go back to it—knowing what I knew.
To return to the mundane human life where I was one final away from my master’s degree, readying for a trip to China.
To begin my career in religious studies and anthropology as though these awe-inspiring and equally terrifying supernatural beings hadn’t come in and swept the world I knew away.
Gabriel returned his attention to the scroll and, standing in the living area, I remembered how filthy my skin was—just sitting in my own sweat, probably reeking of it. But Gabriel didn’t seem to notice or acknowledge it. Either way, I desperately needed a bath.
“I’m going to shower. You still going to be here when I’m done?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded. “I’m back on Guardian duty for the rest of the day, so yes I’ll still be here.”
He smiled at me and I smiled back. And then I left down the hallway towards my room for a change of clothes.
I would wash away the dirt, grime, and sweat from my skin. But I would never be able to wash away the last week.
TWENTY-NINE
Kale
IT WASN’T ENOUGH TO JUST BURN THEM to mere cinders.
That was easy, effortless. I wanted to feel the life leave their bodies. But even that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me, but it’d have to do. Seere and I winnowed straight to Tasmania near where the Nessus prison had burst open.
This prison had a lot of smaller primordials inside that were now wreaking havoc on the locals.
Among them, my personal favorites were the Eriking and Leapers. Leapers were little, no bigger than the palm of your hand. Their skin was green and scaled, reptilian and lizard-like. With only three fingers on each limb pointed into a claw. They had long tails that they used to climb, and small-sharpened teeth.
Humans would likely describe them as miniature dragons. But they swarmed like bees, climbing up their victim’s limps and then clawing through the skin enough to tear open veins, capillaries, and arteries. With so many of them on you at once, you would bleed out before you could get them off.
The Eriking was worse. With no real physical form, it was a mist creature that would whip around its victims without being noticed. Their favorite method of killing their prey involved plunging into their airways and stealing the oxygen from them. It fed on your air, on the nutrients that you needed from it. Which it could easily get without killing you. But that was the thing about primordials, they didn’t need to kill you—they enjoyed it.
Something they and the hellborn had in common.
Seere made herself busy with the Fafnir. A lion-jaguar combination beast with pitch black fur, yellow eyes, and razor-sharp talons.
She played with it, letting it chase her and pounce only to disappear before it could rip her to shreds. It was vicious, but its size made it slow.
And Seere was very, very fast.
She moved with such stealth, giggling each time it pounced and failed as though she hadn’t been beaten in a childish squabble with an angel only the day before.
Whereas I was taking my time tracking the Eriking. Letting it think that it was luring me to my death. It would be sorely mistaken. Small strings of my shadows worked into an invisible web around the trees and brush, and every time the misty primordial touched one it sent a vibration to me. I knew where it was at all times.
I’d forgotten how much fun hunting could be. The action in hell has long since fizzled into barely anything. The universe had settled into a calm that was boring for creatures like me. And after I had put restrictions on myself for violent acquisitions, I’d become restless.
This alliance was something new, something to occupy my time. But with information filtering in slower than a snail, I was growing bored again. Until we had more information and a direction to go in, we would be waiting.
There were three prisons opened now. And the primordials that escaped were giving us all something to do. While the angels were in a rush to take care of the problem quickly, I was in more of a mood to relish in the challenges these nasty creatures offered.
Each one was unique in such ghastly ways even my own imagination couldn’t have come up with. And the method needed to kill them was usually just as unique. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t intriguing to find out what made these things tick. Afterall, these creatures had never encountered a thing such as I.
The Leapers had been following me for quite some time and, now that I was standing still, listening, and watching the Eriking float around me, they took their chance. I felt them as they began climbing up my legs like ants, circling my limbs until all twenty of them had found the best access points to vital veins.
I smiled to myself, letting them do as they wish, even taking the opportunity to look at the little lizards up close. Their drawing depictions didn’t do them justice—missing details such as the yellow skin between their spines and ridges on their necks.
I was still connected to Seere while she fought. If these little dragons weren’t about to try to slice me open, I would keep one as a pet. I joked internally.
I felt her chuckle. I don’t see why you can’t. Can I keep fluffy over here? She asked.
I laughed internally. I’m afraid he would be much har
der to sneak into the pit.
A vibration to my left notified me that the Eriking was closing in. Maybe it was sensing my distraction. Good. Let it come closer.
I heard what sounded like a tiny chirping noise come from a Leaper that had made its way to my neck, no doubt ready to open my carotid. A bunch of identical chirps came from the other Leapers, and then I felt them start to slice. Or at least try to slice.
I had already hardened my skin before they got there, slicing through would take more effort than that of miniature lizards. I let them try for a minute, and then I released the fire from my skin. I smelled the burning flesh before I heard their little cries.
Over the course of a few seconds the tiny beasts were nothing more than ash floating off my skin. All of them save for the one on my neck, who I left unharmed. It clung to my skin but couldn’t break through. I reached up and grabbed it in my hand. It chirped and thrashed.
I looked at the small creature, waiting for it to calm down. Eventually it looked up at me and snarled.
I chuckled out loud. “I think I’ll call you Absonath, Abson for short.”
I saw it then, the purple mist of the Eriking curling around my feet. It was so similar to my own smoke, curling and moving against my skin. Quick as an asp the mist plunged for my airway but was stopped short when I projected my own smoke against it, blocking its path.
It tried to move around it, but I willed my smoke to cut it off again and again. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would work. It was a gamble to see what one could do against it.
The Eriking retreated back and fumed together into a form, the mist opening up where a face would be. I heard the sound of a whispered wind come from it as it faced me.
“What are you?” a whisper of wind asked. If I weren’t fully focused on it, I wouldn’t have heard its wispy voice.
“Not mortal,” I answered plainly.
I willed my smoke to encircle me and loosened the shell I had over my form. Ochre fire leaked through the cracks of my corporal form. I felt the smoldering core churning because of it, I had to keep my focus to not release it fully.
With my form lowered, I let the Eriking see a glimpse of what I was underneath. Let it see the liquid fire simmering in my eyes. The purple mist solidified further, showing a more distinct form.
If there was anything in this world similar to me, this came closest. A dark-purple mist primordial to counter my fire and smoke.
“So this is your form?” I asked.
With no face I couldn’t read any expression it might have had. It only remained in front of me, seemingly assessing me for weakness. But I was doing the same. It couldn’t get past my smoke, which made me wonder if its weakness was what it took from its victims. Air, oxygen. Could it be that simple?
“How do you die?” it whispered.
I snorted. Clearly it wasn’t as smart as I had originally guessed if it was stupid enough to ask.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Perhaps I don’t.”
Its form was breaking, suggesting that it couldn’t hold it for long. I had been hunting it for a while now, it would be now or never to finish it off.
“But you do,” I stated.
Its mist began to break away from its form in response—but I was faster. I surrounded it with a vortex of smoke, spinning and closing in on it with a trap. Everywhere it tried to escape it was cut off from the air.
The only sounds of its distress were the increasing whooshing of wind. I wrapped my smoke around tighter and tighter until nothing else remained. Until even my smoke dissipated into nothing.
I lifted the hand that still held the Leaper and looked at it. It had wrapped its tail around my index finger and had watched me kill the Eriking.
“I hope this means you’ll be a good pet, Abson?”
The creature responded with a chirp and then twisted until it perched on the back of my hand and finger, like a large ring.
“Good,” I said.
“Just wait until Heather sees that thing,” Seere quipped.
Right. Heather. The main reason I had left to kill monsters.
I could already see her laughing and smiling like a love-sick teenager next to Gabriel. Much happier among the bright and shiny angels than with someone who was born in darkness and torment.
“Scowl any harder and your face will be stuck like that,” Seere stated.
I rolled my eyes and walked through the trees and brush to search for any remaining things for me to kill.
Seere followed me, humming her favorite song. We passed the body of the Fafnir, now gutted and soaking the ground in its oily blood.
I summoned a small flame in the opposite hand Abson was in and flicked it to the furry body, setting it ablaze. We couldn’t leave evidence of the primordials for mortals to discover.
When we had arrived here, there were enough creatures to keep us busy for hours. Making plenty of noise—it was now quiet. Our work done.
It was unlikely that these were the only Leapers, Eriking, and Fafnir to escape from Nessus, and honestly, I was considering going and finding the rest. If only to delay our return to the warehouse just a little while longer.
I couldn’t blame Heather for wanting to get out of it for a while. Even I had begun to feel stifled and stir-crazy inside. I wasn’t even going to give her a hard time about her evening jog.
In-fact I would have offered to run alongside her, use the opportunity to feel a little more human myself. But she made it pretty clear that she couldn’t stand to be around a creature like me.
Though she didn’t seem to have any problem spending time with Seere afterwards.
“She is sorry about it.” Seere read my thoughts, which were no doubt flowing freely down our constantly open connection.
I sighed. “I don’t care.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I halted. “Seere, let it go.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I will when you do,” she countered.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, my shoulders tense.
“I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to listen to you, or be nice to her, or forgive her. Because there is no reason to. Whether she meant what she said or not, it is what it is. I tried being nice, I tried being friendly, and in the end, she learned what I was and decided that that was all she needed to know. I don’t blame her. We are monsters, Seere. She’d be stupid not to steer clear of us.”
Seere glared at me. “You can be a real hypocrite, fire-boy.”
I gave her a smirk that didn’t reach my eyes. “Aren’t we all sometimes.”
“You are always up my ass about being insecure and down on myself. Yet here you go doing the exact same thing. What happened to not letting your demons eat you, Kale?” she demanded.
I glared at her but didn’t say anything.
She continued, “We have a chance here, to make friends, to gain allies in heaven. With all that your father is plotting, don’t you think that would be a good idea?”
“He’s been planning that shit since the beginning of time, Seere. It’s not going to actually happen, I’m in better control.”
“Barely. All he needs is one chance to break through that calm exterior and he’s in. As soon as your guard is down, he’ll use it to your advantage. These angels can help you, stand with us against him when that happens. Daevas and I can’t fight Lucifer, let alone the army he has behind his back.” Fear laced the edges of her tone.
We’d always been planning for that eventuality. Lucifer wanted power—he created me specifically for that purpose. I did everything I could to maintain my distance and control over my own abilities.
But Lucifer didn’t get his reputation from allowing his property to defy him. He knew how to pull the right strings, press the right buttons to get what he wanted out of anyone.
Yet another reason I tried to keep Seere with me at all times, especially around him. She was one way he could control me, and the moment he truly knew that would
be the day I’d have to take a stand against him.
But I couldn’t do it alone, and Seere was right. Seere, Daevas, and I—however strong we all were—were nothing compared to Lucifer’s arsenal.
Having angels on our side could mean the difference between victory and an eternity of bending to the devil’s rule.
“We’re still a long way from that, Seere,” I replied simply, offering her a sympathizing smile.
She didn’t look convinced. “We need to make friends, Kale. Heather is a Nephilim, which means her rare kind of grace is a powerhouse of energy. Having her as an ally could be exactly what we need. Plus, being nice to her would make us more favorable with the angels, especially Gabriel. An archangel in our corner would be huge.”
