by C. S. Wilde
Angelic hands tended to do that—steal things that belonged to him.
Archie charged, his steps silent against the training room’s padded floor. Their blades clanged, once, twice.
Step back. Attack.
Liam held his defense, which was better than during their first sword fight. Back then, Archie slashed a deep cut on his thigh in less than a minute.
The darkness purred inside him, pleased with Liam’s progress, their progress. It felt weird. The darkness might be many things, but supportive wasn’t one of them.
Archie took advantage of his distraction and pushed Liam’s blade away, slashing a diagonal cut across his stomach. Blood poured from the wound.
“Sunovabitch,” Liam grumbled before dropping his sword and falling to his knees.
He stamped his hands on the deep gash in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. His consciousness would slip away any moment now.
A pitch-black fog shot from Archie’s hands and enveloped Liam’s trunk. The fog seeped into his skin in icy tendrils that pierced his core.
The wound soon numbed. Blood stopped pouring. When the fog retreated back into Archie, Liam’s deadly wound had been completely healed.
He wished his darkness could do that. Maybe someday it would.
He glanced at his fallen sword and snorted. Useless. He needed Michael’s sword, his sword, because Liam was Michael. Or at least he used to be.
“Why can’t we remember?” he asked quietly.
The old man stepped closer. “You mean our time as angels?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know. Because this is a new life?” Archie sheathed his sword. “Michael and Acheron—that was my name by the way, or so I was told—their lives are gone. There’s no use in mourning them.” He dropped on the padded ground beside Liam. “We should look forward, not backward.”
“I was forced to become a Selfless.”
“You weren’t forced to become a demon.” Archie propped both elbows on his knees. “The darkness isn’t good or evil; it just is. It crashes against you, like the light does in newborn angels. And I guess some part of you, the part that was still Michael, knew this.”
Liam chortled. “Stupidest decision I ever made.”
“I don’t think so. You knew exactly what you were doing, even if it’s not clear to you now. The light makes you softer, the darkness makes you harder, but you’re still you. Make sense?”
He snorted. “Nothing does these days.”
“True,” Archie chuckled. After a moment of silence, he asked, “What do you know about how demons organize?”
“They don’t. Demonic factions have always been scattered.” Liam shrugged. “It’s why demons were never able to stand against the Order.”
“And now they’re tampering with wolfsugar, stealing blood supplies right under the Order’s nose, and making angels do the dirty work for them. What does that tell you?”
Liam gaped at him. “They’re coordinating.”
“Microscopically so,” the old man added. “For the first time in millennia, demons are uniting under one goal. What it is exactly, I don’t know. My gut feeling tells me it goes beyond exterminating the In-Betweens.”
Liam’s jaw clenched, and his heartbeats quickened. “How do we stop them?”
“By observing.” Archie lifted his finger. “A snake is nothing without its head. We find the head, cut it off, and the whole thing ends.”
“Is this why you went undercover?”
“Yes.” Archie tapped his leg and stood. “We’ll meet a demon today. The Legion, the Order, the entire world … they all hang on this mission, kid. Our mission.”
Liam crossed his arms. “Gee, no pressure.”
“That’s how we roll, partner.” Archie winked at him before walking to a gym bag he’d left near the corner. From inside, he pulled Liam’s old black leather jacket.
Liam focused on the glassed walls, then on the floor. “I’m not a Selfless anymore.”
“You’re right.” Archie stepped toward him and sat on his own heels. He pushed the jacket against Liam’s chest, poking the spot where his heart was. “This is the only faith you need to follow. What does it tell you?”
Liam squinted at the jacket.
Look what good it did to us, his own voice whispered. Shadow tentacles brushed softly against his mind. Greater good, the darkness chortled. The greater good took Ava from us.
Liam slammed a hand on his forehead. “Shut the fuck up.” He gritted his teeth as he pushed the tentacles away, but they stuck like glue.
Something nudged his chest again, and he looked down at his leather jacket. Archie wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Worry formed soft wrinkles on the old man’s face. “Are you with me, kid?”
Liam blinked and focused, pulling from his core that sharp determination which controlled the beast.
The darkness silenced.
“When wasn’t I?” He took the damn jacket.
The demon waited for them on an empty pier. He was scrawny and slightly shorter than Liam. If it weren’t for the stench of sulfur and the darkness pulsing inside him, which tingled against Liam’s own, he would have mistaken the creature for a normal human.
He had short copper hair and hazel eyes that neared orange. His skin was too pale, and it contrasted with the black makeup that contoured his feline eyelids. His mouth was painted black, a mirror to Archie’s own.
Maybe the members of this gang were all goths.
“You bring me a new recruit, Archibald?” The man’s voice was cracking boulders and rumbling clouds, a tone that didn’t match his frail appearance. He snorted as he eyed Liam up and down. “You don’t look very powerful.”
“Neither do you,” he countered.
Archie smacked the back of Liam’s neck. “Kid’s not very smart, Hauk.”
The demon’s wide grin spread through most of his jaw. “At least he’s honest.”
“And a Fallen, like me,” Archie added.
“Hmm.” He watched the old man with calculating eyes. Finally, Hauk clapped a hand on Archie’s back with such strength his shoulder bones cracked. “Offer accepted!”
Not a hint of pain flashed on Archie’s face. His black fog sprouted from his skin and enveloped the wound, popping bones back into place.
The old man had always been a tough fucker.
“I assume this is Liam Striker, your former partner?”
“Yeah,” Archie said casually.
Hauk didn’t know Liam was also Archie’s son. It might come to their advantage someday.
“Ah, the Fury Boys.” He licked his lips. “What a win for our side. Master will be pleased.”
Master?
Liam shot a curious look at Archie, but the old man ignored him, his attention focused on Hauk.
The demon gave Liam a nonchalant shrug. “I’m glad to see you follow your partner wherever he goes, little demon.”
“Little?” Liam eyed Hauk with contempt. “I’m bigger than you, asshole.”
Archie shot him a glare filled with reproach, but Hauk mockingly stamped a hand on his chest and feigned shock. “Why, such language, little demon. Would your Gods approve of this?”
“Not my Gods anymore.”
Renouncing them wasn’t hard. Liam had never believed them in the first place. Maybe Michael did, but Liam had survived enough shit in his life to know that no one was watching.
No one cared.
Hauk studied him, then sniffed the air. The demon’s nose crinkled, as if he’d smelled something rotten. “He might be Fallen, but his darkness is too haphazard. Just look at his beady eyes and sharp teeth. I have no use for youngsters who can’t control the darkness.”
After all Liam had gone through, it still wasn’t enough?
Well, screw you too.
“He’s almost there,” Archie said. “Give me a couple of days. He’ll be ready.”
Hauk raised an eyebrow at the old man. “Oh, will he?”
A fog of darkness spread behind the demon to reveal enormous gray wings without any scales, the surface identical to shark skin.
Without warning, the talons of Hauk’s right wing snatched Liam’s shoulder and flung him some ten feet away like a freaking football.
Liam still hadn’t crashed when Hauk boosted above him. The demon sucker-punched his stomach midair, and Liam’s back crashed against the ground. His body dragged for a few feet before inertia let him go.
He bent over and gasped blood. His stomach ached, his muscles throbbed. Also, he might’ve thrown up a lung when Hauk punched him. Breathing hurt like the Hells.
If Liam was still a Selfless, he would be dead by now, but demonic bodies were tougher than human flesh.
Hauk’s features changed as he strolled toward Liam. His wings snapped the way twigs break, then merged into his back. His bones cracked and shifted underneath his skin. Liam could swear the demon had grown taller.
Muscles bulged from Hauk’s thin frame, close enough to rip his skin open. His eyes shifted color, from orange to clear green, but he kept focused on Liam as if the process didn’t hurt at all. His skin grew some shades darker, and when he was done, Liam stared at a perfect copy of himself.
Well, not himself exactly. Hauk’s version didn’t share Liam’s beady eyes and sharp teeth. This wasn’t who he was now.
It was the man he used to be.
“What the fuck!” he bellowed.
Archie had told him that Behemoths had the ability to shapeshift, but he’d never seen a change. He never imagined it was so brutal.
Hauk smirked with perfectly square teeth, unlike Liam’s pointy ones. That bastard had become everything he craved to be: himself again.
“Take off my face,” he croaked, his voice weaker than he’d intended.
“It’s not your face.” Hauk chuckled and assessed him top to bottom. “Not anymore.”
Liam forced himself up, every muscle aching. Flames sprouted from his skin and whipped around him.
From a distance behind Hauk, Archie shouted, “Let it go, kid. He’s just teasing you.”
The old man glared at him in a way that begged, “Don’t screw this up.”
Liam focused on Hauk. “Consider myself teased. Now take my face off.”
“Why?” The demon stepped closer to Liam so they were eye-to-eye.
Liam balled his fists, and something sharp bit into his palm. He looked down to see his blazing hands had turned into draconian claws. Sharp, four fingered talons coated by night-dark scales.
Hauk’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “Your Terror can shapeshift like a Beast, Archibald.”
Liam’s flaming hands—claws—shook as he remembered what Archie had told him. Terrors such as himself evolved into Drakars like Jal. Beasts evolved into Behemoths, like Hauk and Archie. And Obsessors evolved into Possessors.
Being a Terror, Liam shouldn’t be able to shapeshift.
He glared at his flaming, beastly claws. His stomach clenched, and he might as well throw up now.
“That’s new,” Archie said in the same tone he used when Liam was eight and decided to play tightrope on their balcony’s ledge.
Liam took a deep breath, easing his nerves. His claws shifted slowly back into five fingers, cracking underneath scales that soon smoothed out to skin.
He didn’t know how he’d done that, either.
At least shapeshifting didn’t hurt, nor did it look as nasty as Hauk had made it seem.
Liam kept his flames burning, though. He bared his teeth at his opponent. “I asked you to take my—” He coughed and spat blood on Hauk’s face.
Shit. His lungs weren’t right after the last attack. But by the fury in the demon’s eyes, Liam wouldn’t survive the day anyway.
The darkness spread within him, tentacles of wrath filling his chest, stretching into his arms and legs, preparing him to battle. And beneath the darkness something burned, something close to lava. Or melted gold, he couldn’t tell which.
Hauk charged with an angry howl. Liam dodged.
He was just as flabbergasted as his opponent—a lower demon couldn’t possibly be faster than an ascended one.
He didn’t have time to figure out any of this. The flames intensified over his right fist, enveloping his hand in a fire ball.
Hauk was still gaping when Liam jumped up and smashed his burning fist against the demon’s face; the face that had once belonged to him.
Hauk’s screams drowned the air, but Liam kept pushing his fist into the demon’s forehead.
The bastard fell to his knees, bellowing in pain, half of his face melting and cracking under Liam’s strike.
“Stop it!” Archie shouted.
But Liam didn’t listen. He kept pressing. “It’s my face!”
“Enough!” Archie showed up from nowhere. His knuckles smashed against Liam’s jaw, sending him away from Hauk.
He watched as the old man bent down and shot a dark fog at Hauk’s face. The demon swatted Archie away, and through what was left of Liam’s semblance—a mess of melted and charred flesh—he grumbled, “I can heal myself.”
Liam’s legs buckled, and he fell to his knees. He coughed blood that spattered on the ground, the same blood that filled his lungs.
Archie ran toward him. “Hellsdamned, Liam!”
He kneeled on the floor and pressed a hand over Liam’s chest. A cloud of darkness burst from Archie’s hand, enveloping his torso in a gripping yet refreshing cold.
The pain vanished. After a moment, Liam inhaled deeply. His ribs and stomach didn’t hurt anymore, and breathing got easier.
“You almost ruined it,” Archie whispered through gritted teeth.
“It was me,” Liam croaked, his voice cracking. “It’s who I was. Who I’ll never be.”
“You’re Liam Striker. My boy, no matter what you look like. Understand?” Archie’s furious glare softened. “We can’t afford mistakes, kid. There’s a lot hanging on our shoulders.”
Once he was done healing him, Archie helped Liam up.
He still ran his hands over Liam’s chest, being the worried father that he was, scanning for further injuries.
Hauk stepped toward them, now in his original form. His jaw bent unnaturally to the left, and when he cracked it in place with a loud snap, Liam winced.
The demon watched them like a hungry lion. Finally, he smiled and pointed at Liam.
“You’re valuable. Reckless, but valuable.” He nodded at Archie. “Get him ready.”
8
Ava
“It looks abandoned,” Ezra said as he watched the mansion’s decadent façade. He narrowed his eyes at the garden of blackened leafless trees with curling branches. “Are you sure someone who lives here can help us?”
Ava nudged him with her shoulder. “Have faith.”
Ezra could sense her emotions, so she wrapped her blooming excitement somewhere deep inside, safe into her wall. There she allowed happiness to bubble, because today she might see Liam.
Feeling like a giddy schoolgirl felt wrong, though. There was so much at stake. The entire fate of the Order—and the Legion—depended on Ezra’s acceptance of Jophiel as a Seraph. Only by uniting with the Legion could they stop Talahel.
On they went, crossing the stone path that cut through the garden. Dried bushes lined the way. In their silence, Ezra’s words echoed in Ava’s memory, bringing a sour taste to her tongue.
What if your Guardian instincts got mixed with your real feelings?
She observed him with annoyance as they moved on, trying to hide the tang of bitterness that swam across her.
In truth, Ava was angry with herself. Disappointed really, that Ezra had so easily infected her with doubt.
But did this mean she agreed with him? Had she truly taken advantage of Liam?
They reached the wooden door, and Ava opened it. A huge, golden chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a wine-colored carpet rested on the floor. The golden symbol of the Gods—the triangl
e within the circle—was woven into the tapestry.
She smiled at the sight of the Legion’s main hall.
“Is this a place of the Order?” Ezra frowned at the symbol in the carpet.
“In a way.”
Ahead, a row of stairs led left and right to an inner balcony and the second floor. Below the balcony stood a wooden door—the entrance to the Legion’s training underground.
Ezra sniffed the air and stepped back, immediately unsheathing his sword and acquiring a defense position. “Vampires. Too many of them.”
She gently pushed the blade down. “I know.”
Ezra forced the sword up, shock and hurt swallowing his glare. “Ava, what have you done?”
“What I asked of her.” Jophiel appeared from the top of the inner balcony, leaning on the railing.
Before Ezra could ask who in the Hells he was, Jophiel’s light exploded from his essence in a golden sandstorm that smashed against them. The brightness should’ve blinded her, but Ava could see clearly. The whiteness engulfed the room, and golden lightning peppered it like veins.
Jophiel’s heavenly light was a living, breathing thing.
Ezra stepped back from the force of it, and so did she. Their legs buckled under Jophiel’s squashing light, a sun flare that burned through the room, through their very core. And yet, this unmerciful power was kind. It filled Ava’s heart with the peace and love from the Gods.
Tears escaped her eyes as serenity spread inside her. She couldn’t recall the last time she had felt so at peace.
This was only a small glimpse of Jophiel’s power. She sensed the extent of his burning light stretching to an endless distance inside him.
By Ezra’s gaping, he felt the same. His sword clanged on the ground, his jaw hanging open. His breaths came out ragged and shallow. “I-It can’t be.”
Ava put a hand on his shoulder. “It is.”
Tears tracked down Ezra’s cheeks as Jophiel descended the stairs, his golden essence still thrumming against theirs.
