by A. Catherine
He tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, “I’ll try to be back sooner next time,” he chuckled lightly.
I’m gonna vomit if these two don’t stop their gushy touching. I practically screamed down the bond to Seere.
I heard her giggle. You need to get laid, fire-boy.
The archangel turned to me and opened his mouth to say something—but I cut him off.
“Yeah, yeah. Protect the mortal, no funny business, let you know if anything happens. Get outta here already, featherbrain.”
Gabriel glowered at me but shook it off and extended his wings once more, beating them once and shooting back into the skies. Heather watched him fly until he disappeared beyond sight before lowering her head to look at me once more.
I could see the words forming in her eyes, but before she could open her mouth to speak, I turned and walked towards the roof door.
“Kale—” she called.
“Save it.”
I had the roof door half-open when she said, “Please.”
I don’t know why I paused, but I did.
“I’m sorry. What I said the other night was stupid. I shouldn’t have let fiction influence my opinion of you. I know there’s a lot I have yet to learn, and I’m going to try to be open minded. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”
I gripped the roof door tighter, almost to the point of bending it. I knew she was genuine; I knew since she returned soaking wet that night that what she said was purely human, and that she actually didn’t say a lot—rather I too jumped to conclusions. I knew I wasn’t even all that mad at her for it—not really.
It was a misunderstanding. So why did I feel angry?
It all just reminded me that I was hardly worthy of the friends I already had. And I shouldn’t expect anyone who hadn’t experienced our level of hell to see through the flames.
I wouldn’t share any of those facts with her though.
No, I would spare this mortal the pain which often came with being friends with a hellborn. Save her from the real demons within.
I will stick to the cinders of beasts where I belong.
In the end, the only response I could give her was, “I know you are.”
THIRTY-TWO
Heather
THE NEXT DAY WE DIDN’T WASTE ANY TIME pouring ourselves back into the pile of papers.
Us being me, Seere and Iaoel at least. Duma and Daevas had apparently gone to visit the Mosco Scribe archive, Gabriel and Jade were still off taking care of Guardian angel business.
I hadn’t seen Lillith for a couple days, but Seere implied that she was spending a lot of time in hell as of late.
Kale was here as far as I knew. But still avoiding spending any unnecessary time around me.
After my apology, I could tell that he needed more time to forgive me. But when he looked me in the eyes, his expression was beginning to soften. At least I knew we were beginning to move forward.
The most I could do with the records was to jot down anything I could understand. My journal was filling up quick with random symbols that didn’t make any sense.
Some of them were the demonic language—Aļik, among other demonic and angelic languages that I definitely wasn’t fluent in.
It was frustrating that some of the ethereal languages struck some recognition, my half-angel blood managing to form words and phrases from them. And then others would be complete gibberish to me. If translating was a part of my Nephilim abilities—it sure wasn’t as helpful as we needed it to be.
After we poured over what was collected, we were managing to make a dent. But with seven other outposts to visit, our pile was only going to get bigger. And unfortunately, what information we were finding was leaving us with next to zilch.
“Are there any other places that records of the relics could be other than in a Scribe post?” I asked.
Iaoel flipped a pager over, scanning relentlessly through the information. “Heaven. But we’ve already checked there.”
“And Hell’s records are copies upon copies. And small in quantity,” Seere added.
She rolled the piece of parchment she had in her hand into a tight ball and threw it over her shoulder. It landed perfectly in the waste bin next to the kitchen counter. Seere did a small fist-pump victory dance.
Iaoel rolled their eyes. “Could you please not do that? We do have to return these.”
Seere fiddled with her braids. “That one was about some dumb shrine of muses in Egypt. Trust me, no one will miss it.”
“Someone might seek out that information in the future,” Iaoel countered.
Seere snorted, “Not likely.”
Indeed. A lot of what we were reading was of mundane events and places, hardly helpful to our situation. If they really kept all of this information, I was beginning to think the angels had a hoarding problem. Along with their obvious organization issues. I mean, would it kill them to digitize?
Shrine of the Muses.
I straightened in my chair. Where have I heard that before? It sounded so familiar, but my brain felt so foggy from overreading, I wasn’t sure I’d manage to conjure up that information.
And maybe I shouldn’t, if Seere had determined it to be useless. Still though, the nickname referred to something right at the tip of my tongue…
Wait a minute…
“Shrine of the Muses?” I clarified as I stood and went to fish the ball of parchment out of the trash.
Seere watched me with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah. What of it?”
“Wasn’t that what they called the Library of Alexandria?” I asked.
Iaoel lowered their paper to look at me. “It’s one of the Library’s nicknames. But a large portion of it burned down in one-forty-five B.C.”
I unraveled the ball, smoothing out the wrinkles on the paper so I could see its writing more clearly. Most of it was written in Greek, which I was relatively familiar with.
But that wasn’t what caught my eye—right alongside it on the edge of the paper were five small fading sigils, one of them was what they told me was the sigil for the Eternal—Irul, which explained why they grabbed this piece in the first place.
I traced the lines and circles that made up the other four.
I didn’t know what they meant, but as my fingers grazed over them I felt a strange pull that I didn’t fully understand. It was like a small thread in the back of my mind was being tugged on.
Darkness dwells where one can’t see.
“I think we need to go to Egypt.” I stated, not able to take my eyes off of the curved lines.
“Jophiel and Jade already went to Egypt, they didn’t find anything,” Iaoel replied.
I shook my head. “They went to Cairo, right?” I asked. They nodded. “We need to go to Alexandria. It could be nothing, but my gut is telling me that we’ll find something there,” I explained.
Seere furrowed her brows. “Something like what? The ruins are a tourist attraction now.”
“Heather could be right. It was once one of the largest collections of knowledge in the mortal world. We’ve been focusing our search on immortal archives, but what if we should be also looking in mortal locations too. I know some of the Nymphs hoarded information and hid it when they dispersed. What better places to put them than in normal human libraries, where someone wouldn’t even bother taking a second glance at them,” Iaoel said.
Seere shrugged and got to her feet, adjusting her buckles and belts that held small, sharpened weapons in them.
“I guess it couldn’t hurt to look. But you’re navigating.” She pointed at Iaoel. “I can’t focus with all those crowds taking selfies and wearing bright colored Hawaiian shirts,” she giggled.
Iaoel nodded and stood as well. Both of them started walking towards the archway.
“Can I go?” I asked.
They both paused mid-step and looked back at me. “You should probably stay here, in-case there are primordials nearby,” Iaoel replied.
“Oh come on, she’ll be fine. Let her c
ome along,” Seere argued.
Iaoel looked at Seere disapprovingly. “It could be dangerous for her.”
Seere scoffed and waved them off, “Last I checked, the Egyptian prison is still sealed shut. So it’ll be fine. Besides, the poor girl is starving for some sunlight.”
She looked at me and winked.
“Gabriel wouldn’t allow it.”
“Well, Kale says it’s fine. And he’s the one I take orders from. So she’s coming.”
Seere didn’t give Iaoel another moment to object before she clasped my wrist and dragged me out the archway and down the stairs with her.
Iaoel hesitated, but eventually sighed in resignation, following us down to the pentacle. Thank God I wore my sneakers today.
Seere stopped us in the center, keeping her grip on my wrist. Which was surprisingly not that hard for someone of her strength.
I leaned over and whispered in her ear before Iaoel reached us.
“Did Kale actually say yes to this?”
Seere snorted quietly. “Like I’d actually need his permission to do anything.”
Well then. I was a stowaway.
When Iaoel entered the pentacle next to us they gripped Seere’s free hand and looked us both up and down.
“We’ll keep this portion of the report out,” they stated.
Seere elbowed them. “You got it. I owe you one anyway.”
Just as I realized that this was the first time I’d winnowed with someone besides Gabriel, a thin field of light surrounded us, and the wind whipped my hair more fiercely than it did before. It felt like I was on a rollercoaster, doing bends and loops at sharp speeds.
The feeling was making my stomach jolt. This was a lot more jarring than it was with Gabriel.
It lasted longer too. Instead of a few seconds, we winnowed together for about two minutes before it finally subsided. The fading light revealing the rising sun on the Mediterranean’s horizon.
We were on the coast just outside of the modern building of the Library. I turned to stare at it, and the ruins close by.
“How big was the original Library?” Seere asked. I looked at her and she shrugged. “It was before my time.”
“Huge. We’ll have to find an entrance into the old structure, see if there are any hidden chambers or tunnels,” I answered.
For once I was in my element. I had learned about this place and could actually contribute more than I had been just sitting at that dumb warehouse table. The feeling was exciting.
Iaoel looked the structure up and down. “The best place to start would be inside the Bibliotheca. Let’s go.”
Once inside we were faced with hundreds of shelves, and an endless stream of study tables. It was a very modernized looking library, large and expansive to accommodate hundreds of knowledge seekers and tourists. But there were no immediate signs of anything old.
The three of us walked further into the library, passing a couple additional spaces where there were exhibits of some of remaining artifacts from the original Library.
But still no sign of even a basement door.
“Maybe I was wrong,” I mumbled.
Seere touched my arm to stop me. I paused and looked in the direction she was looking—at Iaoel. Who had gone completely still and wasn’t blinking.
“What’s happening?”
“I’m assuming since they’re an Angel of Sight, that they are having a vision,” Seere explained.
“Well I hope it’s a vision about where to go.”
“You and me both, chickpea.”
We waited while Iaoel stared off into nothing. I was expecting their eyes to go white or something when they had a vision, at least that’s what I envisioned when Gabriel told me what they were.
A full minute passed when Seere spoke again, sighing audibly.
“Holy hellfire, it must be a long one.”
“Are they usually not?” I asked.
Seere grinned to herself. “The first day this whole alliance started I went with them to Reaper’s Creek, remember?” I nodded. “Iaoel had a vision of me, of what exactly I have no idea—anyway, that vision only lasted like twenty seconds,” she explained.
“How do they work exactly?”
She threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “Hell if I know, chickpea. You should ask them,” she said as she pointed to Iaoel still as a rock.
I sighed and approached their motionless body.
“Iaoel?” I called. I waved my hand in front of their face, nothing. I placed a hand gently on their shoulder. “Iaoel?”
Suddenly they blinked and the air they had been holding in came whooshing out of their mouth. Their eyelids fluttered and then their pupils focused on me, finally seeing me in front of them.
“I know where we can get in, come on,” they said, immediately walking again.
They led us to the back of the building where the crowds had disappeared, until we reached a door that read, Μόνο το προσωπικό.
Staff only.
I read it over and raised an eyebrow at Iaoel. “You’re sure?”
They rolled their eyes. “So little faith, even now you know of our existence.” I shrugged and nodded.
We all took one last look around us making sure no one saw us before Iaoel broke the lock with the push of her thumb.
“Breaking and entering isn’t very angelic,” Seere teased.
Iaoel smirked back at her. “Perhaps your methods are rubbing off on me, hellborn.”
Seere’s eyes twinkled. “Speaking of rubbing, remind me to break out the oils later,” she purred seductively.
I didn’t say anything, even though I felt extremely awkward suddenly taking on the role of the third wheel between the two.
Iaoel chuckled and turned to walk through the door.
I let Seere go in front of me and mumbled behind her, “Are all you demons such shameless flirts?”
Seere laughed louder than I expected. Made me worry someone might hear us.
“Just you wait, chickee-dee. When Kale is done being mad at you, you’ll find yourself at the receiving end of flirting that’ll make you blush so hard, it’ll make your feathered prince charming look like Charlie fucking Brown.”
“Oh joy,” was my only response.
She continued to giggle quietly as we found ourselves descending a metal spiral staircase.
Down a story we stepped into the basement, which looked more like the electrical room. Translucent cabinets revealing row upon row of blinking lights of every color. Iaoel kept walking though, so Seere and I kept following as they led us through another much older door that took a little pushing to get open.
And by little, I’m sure to a human like me it would have been impossible.
Through it we were going down a tunnel, large pipes running along all sides. After turning a couple corners the equipment gradually got older, and unused. Even the smell of the place aged. Wet mud that reeked of mold and sewage. I cringed against it.
The ground softened and electric light became extremely limited. Before long, the walls of the tunnel hardened into what looked like aged stone.
“It’s not much farther,” Iaoel informed.
“What’s not much farther?”
They didn’t answer, but when the space opened up, they didn’t need to. The tunnel opened into a semi-large antechamber, where the walls were lined with stone shelves and other dark doorways that led to alternate locations. There were rotting wooden boxes and broken pottery scattered around the space.
There were four dark pathways, one of which had collapsed—given the fallen stone covering its entrance.
Iaoel pointed down one of them.
“Each of these should lead to another room like this, it goes on for a while. But there should be some scrolls here and there. Most of this was canvased when they were doing the renovations, but they missed some things,” they explained.
“How do you know?” Seere asked.
“My vision showed me. But unfortunately, it d
idn’t specify which chambers to go down. We’ll have to split up.”
My eyes widened. “What? Why? Is that a good idea?”
Iaoel gave me a sympathetic look. “There’s nobody down here but us. You’ll be fine.”
I suppressed a scared whine and looked between the angel and the demon.
