The man holding him grinned and yanked the chain again, tearing another pained moan from Nevar.
“You know this wretch?” The man’s smile held and Veiron had never seen such pure evil. It shone in his golden eyes as he turned them on Nevar, grinning down at him. Pride fluttered across his face and he reached down and stroked Nevar’s bruised and swollen cheek. The white-haired angel tried to move out of reach of the man’s caress but the chain bit into his neck, choking him.
“Let him go.” Apollyon’s voice boomed around the black cavern.
Nevar’s green eyes slowly opened and settled on Veiron. He swallowed and his hands twitched, and then he tried to catch the chain. The man holding him pulled on the chain again, stretching Nevar’s arms, and he cried out, his scream echoing for long seconds after he had bitten his tongue to silence himself.
“Let him go.” Veiron drew his spear. “Or I swear I will butcher you.”
The man laughed and kicked Nevar in the head, ripping another cry from him. “No… I do not want to release him.”
He turned his focus on Apollyon.
“Brother,” he said and Veiron looked at Apollyon out of the corner of his eye. The dark angel glared at the man.
“Never call me that.” Apollyon drew one of his golden swords out of the air.
The man shrugged, shifting his black wings. “Perhaps you are more like a father.”
Apollyon growled and the air around him thickened, flooding Veiron with a sense of his immense power. “Definitely never call me that. Release the angel, Asmodeus.”
“No.” Apollyon’s doppelganger shook his head. “I like him where he is. The angel was prying, seeing things that he did not like. I will make him forget.”
Nevar bucked and pulled at the chain, pushing himself up the rock with his bare feet. “No. I don’t want to forget… not as Veiron has.”
“Be quiet.” Asmodeus pulled the chain again and it tightened around Nevar’s throat. He looked down at the guardian angel.
Apollyon roared a battle cry and attacked. The doppelganger snarled, released Nevar’s chain and a sword materialised in each of his hands. He launched himself from the rock and crashed into Apollyon. Apollyon rolled with him, avoiding his blades, and came out on top. He kicked off, spread his huge black wings and beat them, flying towards the edge of the plateau.
Asmodeus followed him.
Marcus and Veiron stared after them.
“I’ll explain about him later,” Amelia said and rushed over to Nevar. She drew a silver sword out of the air and brought it down hard, smashing the chain. Nevar fell to the ground in a heap, wheezing as he fumbled with the chain.
Veiron carefully removed it from his bloodied wrists, his arms and bruised neck. Marcus stood with his back to them and his two curved silver blades in his hands, watching the fight between Apollyon and his twin, guarding them all, and Veiron was grateful. Time was of the essence. He needed to make sure that Nevar was going to be all right and then he had to see what Heaven had done to him. Once armed with that knowledge, he would go after Erin. He needed to see it first though, was sure that it was crucial he know now what had happened to him because he shared Apollyon’s suspicion that Heaven hadn’t changed only his memories.
“What happened?” Veiron said as he finished removing the chain and cast it aside.
“I saw it all,” Nevar whispered, voice hoarse. He struggled to breathe without coughing and sat back, leaning against the rock. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I needed to know the truth. I came here and found the pool. I saw, Veiron. They made you forget.”
“I know.” Veiron laid his hand on Nevar’s bare shoulder and wished there was something he could do to ease the angel’s pain. He glanced at his hand. He could heal him.
He drew a deep breath and focused on his hand. The wounds beneath it healed and he moved his hand, sweeping it over only the deepest cuts and then the black bruising around Nevar’s neck, until they began to heal and fade.
“I wish I could do more,” Veiron said and curled his fingers into a fist. “I cannot spare the strength though. I must find Erin.”
“You knew her.” Nevar slowly lifted his hand and rubbed his throat. “When you were reborn. You remembered her and everything about your past life. You weren’t reborn as you should have been. Something interfered with it.”
“What?” Veiron frowned at him and Nevar waved to his left, towards the pool.
“I think I know. I will show you.”
He knew? Veiron helped him stand with Amelia’s assistance and carefully placed his arm around Nevar’s waist. He guided him around the corner and halted.
“He killed them before turning on me,” Nevar whispered and Veiron looked away from the three dead angels strewn across the rough basalt ground. “He does something that stops them from being reborn.”
Veiron nodded and helped Nevar towards the pool. Apollyon had defected but Veiron was sure that he would destroy whatever evil he was fighting if he saw the dead angels. The man still felt some allegiance to Heaven and his kind, and no angel wanted to face true death. These angels would have fought the monster that looked like Apollyon because they believed they would be reborn if they died. It would have given them courage. Now, God only knew where they were. Were they dead, their souls caught in limbo forevermore? He shuddered at the thought of suffering such a fate.
Nevar collapsed in front of the pool and held a trembling hand out over it. The images rippling across its surface shifted to reveal the same moment that Veiron had witnessed. He was walking a moonlit shore with Erin, holding her hand.
The scene continued past what he had seen in the pool before and he watched it playing out.
Nevar pulled his hand away from the pool and the image froze on one of Veiron kissing Erin.
“How did this interfere with my rebirth?” Veiron frowned at the image and what he had seen. “I can’t see how it could have.”
“Neither did Heaven.” Nevar slumped backwards, sitting on his feet. “You bound yourself to a power, one independent of Heaven and Hell. Heaven didn’t realise it. It is a weak contract as it is though. She did not have enough power at the time to bind you to her in a lasting way. Each day sees the contract weaken.”
Veiron wasn’t quite following. He stared at the image of them kissing, the words they had spoken to each other playing on repeat in his mind. They had pledged themselves to each other for eternity. “Are you saying I wasn’t reborn as an angel of Heaven?”
Nevar nodded.
“But my appearance?” Veiron looked down at his armour and then at the spear.
“The work of Heaven. See for yourself.” Nevar motioned towards the pool.
Veiron leaned over it and held his hand out above the surface. He needed to see his death again and follow himself this time. He had to see what Heaven had done to him.
The images swept forwards and he didn’t slow when he saw himself fighting the angels and then his death. Heaven burst into view and he watched in horror as he was reborn in the same form he’d had before death and the angels killed him again.
It didn’t affect anything.
He came back as he had been before, only his eyes were no longer crimson. They were golden with scarlet flecks running through them.
Heaven killed him again.
And again.
Veiron’s stomach twisted and turned, and he bit back his fury and his need to destroy Heaven for what they had done to him. After his fifth death, when he lay drenched in blood and weakened, they stripped him of his armour, broke his scarlet wings and tore them from his back, and chained him. He growled the whole time he watched them changing him, sending angel after angel to use their talents on him, erasing his memories and altering his appearance.
He didn’t want to see any more.
He turned away and Amelia was there, her grey eyes soft with compassion.
“Veiron,” she whispered and he shook his head and stood.
Now wasn’t the time for th
is. Erin was in danger and he had to find her and save her. He had to stop her from giving the Devil what he wanted. She was his to protect.
Mine.
She was his master.
Apollyon rounded the corner, one arm braced across the throat of his twin, the other clutching the end of the chain that now restrained him, wrapped tightly around his broad chest and pinning his arms to his sides. Asmodeus snarled and writhed, cursed them all in a black tongue that Veiron understood. The language of Hell.
“What were you doing here?” Apollyon said and his twin laughed. He tightened his arm across his throat, cutting off the evil angel’s air supply, and then loosened it again. “Tell me.”
“My master told me to guard the pool, so I guard the pool.” Asmodeus struggled again and then relented when Amelia drew her sword and aimed the tip of it at his stomach. “He desires all angels are kept occupied while he tends to a certain delicate matter with his daughter.”
“Where is Erin!” Veiron burst forwards and grabbed the chain around the man’s chest. He dragged him from Apollyon’s grip, getting in his face, and growled. “Tell me where she is.”
The man smiled cruelly. “I would not disturb them. My master would not be pleased. It takes a lot of focus to inhabit the body of another, even if it is your own flesh and blood.”
Veiron raised his spear.
Apollyon’s twin ducked to evade his strike and twisted. The chains binding him blazed red-hot and Veiron cried out as they burned his hand and released them. A gust of wind hit him and he raised his head in time to see the man lifting into the air. Veiron growled. He would pay for that.
“Leave him,” Apollyon said, deep voice deceptively calm. “You are no match for him and time is of the essence. You must reach Erin in the pit before she does something we shall all regret and the Devil gains control of her.”
Veiron toyed with telling him to go to Hell and then thought the better of it. He needed to reach Erin. His male pride would have to wait. She was more important than proving Apollyon wrong about his strength by defeating his doppelganger. He snarled, turned away from the dark angel and unfurled his wings.
They weren’t completely silver-blue. Some of the feathers were lilac, as though his original crimson wings were trying to break through.
If he had contracted with Erin and had been reborn as her servant upon death, then he would have expected his appearance to change, as Marcus’s had when he had contracted with Amelia. Marcus had explained that he had been a guardian angel once and Amelia had become his master. That was why Marcus had wings like her. Had Erin truly liked his demonic appearance and hadn’t wanted to change it, not even subconsciously? He smiled at that. It was just like her to accept everything about him and not want to alter him. He beat his wings and took off, heading towards the edge of the plateau.
Amelia and Marcus followed him. Apollyon shouted something foul in the language of Hell and went after his doppelganger.
Veiron kept low to the ground, beating his wings as quickly as he could, determined to reach Erin before she allowed the Devil to inhabit her body. The edge of the plateau zoomed towards him, the abyss beyond it glowing fiercely. Heat washed over him and the air thickened, the humidity making it difficult to breathe when combined with the stench of sulphur. He shot over the edge, spun in the air and dove. The hot air buffeted him and he wove around the strongest currents, spinning and twirling, his wings pinned back to maximise his velocity. The ground hundreds of feet below came up fast.
He spun in midair just twenty feet above a black and orange river of lava and flapped his wings. Fire broke from the surface, barely missing his legs, and he stretched his wings wide, catching the thermals and using them to his advantage. He sped over the cragged black landscape of Hell, over the heads of demons that clawed the air in an attempt to grab him and spat black words when they missed, his eyes pinned on the distance and the immense black fortress that rose up to pierce the cavern of Hell.
Erin.
He was coming for her.
“Veiron, slow down,” Amelia called after him but he didn’t relent. He flapped his wings again and again, picking up speed, intent on reaching Erin before it was too late. He didn’t care if he had to go one on one with the Devil. He had to reach her.
He rolled in the air to avoid a spire of black rock and shot upwards, over the huge spikes of obsidian that surrounded the fortress.
His gaze sought Erin.
She stood in the middle of the courtyard, facing the Devil.
They were still separate.
“Erin!”
She whirled to face him and he shot downwards, landing so hard behind her that he shattered the black slabs that paved the courtyard. He rose to his feet and drew his spear.
“Erin,” he said and her amber eyes met his.
A huge blast of black energy struck him in the chest, sending him careening into the wall of rock encircling the area. He grunted on impact and again when he smashed into the ground. Veiron pushed himself up onto his knees and then stood, unfurled his wings and beat them. He shot towards Erin and she reached for him. Another blast slammed into him and he crashed into the wall again, hard enough this time that the spire of black rock shattered and rained down on him, burying him.
Every bone burned in agony and fire filled his veins, stealing his strength. He pressed his hand against his chest and focused, using his ability to heal to dull the pain, and then pushed the rocks off him and wobbled to his feet.
“I will not let you stop me,” Veiron snarled and skidded down the black rocks to the courtyard. He stalked towards Erin.
The Devil growled. “You always were a stubborn maggot.”
“Erin.” Veiron ignored him and reached his left hand out to her, clutching his black and red spear in his right. “Come back to me. Forget all this. I know what happened to me now, Erin. I saw what Heaven did to me.”
“I can’t,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around herself. “I made a deal.”
Veiron halted. “No.”
The Devil smiled. “Yes. You are too late. She has already agreed to my terms. You should be happy. She does this for your sake.”
Veiron growled at him and swept his right hand out, causing the black rod of his double-ended spear to extend. The twin blades glowed crimson.
Erin stared at it and then at his armour. “I don’t understand.”
“Heaven did not only change my memories, Erin. It changed my appearance too... but the more time I spend with you, the weaker their hold on me becomes... but your hold on me is weakening too.”
She shook her head, her black eyebrows furrowing so they disappeared beneath her fringe. “I still don’t understand.”
The Devil laughed, disappeared and reappeared right behind Erin. He reached around her and stroked her cheek, and she swallowed, fear brightening her eyes.
“This is somewhat annoying and unexpected, but it does not matter now. She is mine. There is nothing you can do about it.” The Devil ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek again and Veiron’s blood boiled.
“Let her go.” He stormed towards them and the Devil held his left hand up.
Black flames danced across his fingers and wrapped around his palm like ribbons. Veiron halted again. One more blast of the Devil’s power, and he would probably end up back in Heaven. Using his healing ability to stifle his pain drained him of strength. He couldn’t afford to attempt to heal himself again.
Veiron lowered his spear. “Use me instead. Let Erin go and I will take her place.”
“No, Veiron.” She struggled against the Devil and managed to escape his grasp, only to be caught and pulled back against him. “You hate what they do to you. When you fall, you remember everything, and you hate the game they play with you and the fact that you are always destined to fall even when you love Heaven so much. I don’t want you to go through that again.”
He smiled at her, silently thanking her for caring about him enough to be here trying to regain h
is memories for him so he didn’t have to fall. He wished she had told him this earlier though, back on the beach before she had contacted her father. He might have done then what he would do now, and could have spared Erin the torment of dealing with her father. If he would remember everything by falling, then he would do just that. His contract with Erin would keep him from truly being the Devil’s servant and they could escape this place and cement their bond. He could trick the Devil into giving him back his memories.
“It is my choice this time, Erin.” Veiron focused and shortened his spear, and sheathed it at his waist. He held his empty hands out. “I will pledge myself in service of you, Devil. Forget this deal and accept me as your servant.”
“No,” Erin shouted and struggled again. “Don’t listen to him, please. You don’t want to fall, Veiron. Don’t do this.”
Veiron stared into her eyes. “I do want to fall, Erin. I want to remember you. I want to remember everything for once. I have the power to regain my own memories. You do not have to sacrifice yourself for my sake.”
“Veiron,” she whispered and shook her head. “Please, don’t.”
“I want to remember our love and the reason I cannot take my eyes off you... the reason you make me feel alive. I know it would become more than a distant glimmer of a feeling if I had my memories back and everything that has been done to me is undone. It is my choice this time and I am going to fall, Erin... I need to. I need to remember you and our love.”
The Devil sighed. “All very touching... only I have no intention of accepting your offer.”
Erin tensed when he pulled her closer to him and cupped her cheek with his right hand, running black claws over her sun-kissed skin.
“Heaven chose a clever place to hide her but they should have known I would find her one day. A daughter,” the Devil said and slid his amber gaze towards her. “She is everything I had hoped for too. So noble and willing to do whatever it takes to save those she loves. So pure and virtuous.”
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 70
