Cursed Darkness (Angels of Fate Book 2)

by C. S. Wilde

  Or so she hoped.

  They passed by a small fountain, then palm trees and blooming flowers, all peppering the vast, white marbled space. Big arched windows let in fresh air.

  Too many angels milled about nearby, so Vera pointed to a corridor on the left. They followed it until it was so empty that Ava could hear their footsteps.

  “As you might know, Ezra met with Jophiel after whatever happened between you and Liam,” Vera said quietly, her mouth barely moving. “The Seraph didn’t tell him anything, of course, but if I figured out something happened between you and demon boy, so did Ezra.”

  Ava swallowed. “He’s been avoiding me.”

  “Talk to him. He might be the Messenger, but he’s also a man in love, and men in love tend to do stupid things.”

  “I will,” she said quietly.

  “Good. Now, let me get you up to speed.” Vera watched the empty way ahead. “There’s only one way to bring down Talahel in a peaceful manner.”

  “Incriminating evidence.”

  She nodded. “The Legion is busy with demons and In-Betweens, trying to figure out who’s behind all this. That’s their problem. Ours is to remove Talahel from the high-angel council before he destroys the entire Order.” Vera checked the space around them again. “My gut feeling tells me that Talahel isn’t simply attacking uncontrolled In-Betweens or making an alliance with demons. He’s working for them. But the bastard can cover his tracks and—” Vera snapped her lips shut.

  Steps clicked from behind. They both turned to see a tall Archangel with short brown hair and cruelty hidden beneath a mask of kindness. A flash of light burst from his back, and moss-colored wings that faded to white at the bottom spread wide behind him.

  “What’s your intention, Sithrael?” Vera asked as she watched him the way a lion watches prey. “Show off or fight?”

  He crossed his bare arms and eyed her up and down. “Maybe I want to fuck, Vera.”

  “Oh Gods no, dear.” Pity filled the old owl’s tone. “No one here wants to fuck you.”

  The Archangel shot her a smirk filled with anger. Ava could feel it, a slashing and burning sensation that built on itself.

  Instead of acting on it, Sithrael bowed respectfully at them. “We request your opinion on a task-force matter. Finding you today was quite hard. Were you hiding by any chance?”

  Vera rolled her eyes. “I don’t appreciate being followed.” She gave him a weary sigh. “Nevertheless, I shall be with you in a moment.”

  The man’s gaze lingered on Ava, then on Vera, before he went away.

  “That’s Talahel’s watchdog,” Vera whispered once Sithrael left their sight. “He’s jamming the investigation, throwing in false clues, and tampering with evidence. Lisle’s on to him, so am I, but he’s always three steps ahead.”

  Ava ground her teeth. “Talahel’s goons are doing the dirty work for him like Gabriel once did. Which means that if they’re caught, there will be no ties between their actions and the Sword.”

  “Indeed,” she said. “Ava, this task force is going nowhere. Lisle and I are pushing as much as we can, but we need someone outside our jurisdiction to investigate.”

  Ava smiled as the idea came to her. The useless, powerless angel who had taken over her for the past week vanished, giving place to her usual self—not who she used to be, nor who she wanted to be, but who she was now.

  She didn’t believe in signs, but this must surely be the next best thing.

  “I know the right angel for the job.”

  12

  Liam

  Liam entered his cell after a long day training with Archie. They had started so early in the morning that the sky was still dark, and they had finished when the sun had lowered in the horizon.

  His hair was damp from the shower he’d just had, his muscles sore. He threw his training bag on the floor and caught his reflection in the small mirror hanging above his bed.

  A few days ago, Liam had used his shapeshifting abilities to morph into Ezraphael and then back to his old self again.

  Since then, his eyes would sometimes look human and green, only to turn into dark beads shortly after. Sometimes he woke looking perfectly human, sometimes perfectly demonic.

  Right now, his right eye was pitch-black while his left eye showed green irises streaked with hazel at the borders. His teeth remained saw-sharp, however.

  “It’s the darkness,” Jal explained from beyond the bars, startling him. The demon could be sneaky as fuck. “You’re getting used to it.”

  Was he?

  Liam watched his arm. He could feel the darkness thrumming under his skin, but underneath that chaotic, cruel mass, there was light.

  Whatever Jophiel had done to him, it had helped. Still, compared to his darkness, the light was nothing but a speck of dust.

  Warm and shining but always hiding.

  At least he controlled the darkness now. Except when Ava was near. Or when he thought about her for too long.

  “She saw me as a demon,” Liam said quietly as he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. It would be a warm night. “I didn’t want her to see me like that.”

  The right side of Liam’s face was still swollen from one of Archie’s punches. He touched the wound with the tips of his fingers only to wince in pain.

  Archie would’ve healed him if he’d had the time, but Jophiel had summoned him at the last minute. The old man left faster than Liam could say goodbye.

  He felt Jal’s eyes rolling. He wasn’t looking at the demon, but the darkness showed him Jal’s movements, as did the shy light inside him. The light wasn’t a new sensation, more like a distant memory Jophiel had unlocked.

  “You’re still conquering the darkness,” Jal said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Next time, when you see her—”

  “Will there be a next time?” Liam muttered, turning toward him. “Ava doesn’t feel the way I do; she said so herself.” He balled his fists and took a deep breath, forcing them open. “Her presence triggered my darkness. I can’t understand why, but until I do, I won’t see her again. It’s not safe for her.”

  “For you, either.” The demon shrugged. “Look, she’s confused. So are you. You should both stop being drama queens and give yourselves some time. Have faith.”

  Liam chuckled. “Now you’re just mocking me.”

  Jal gave him a playful wink.

  “Maybe I could help.” Lilith walked into view.

  She moved in a sinuous way worthy of snakes, her hips performing a slow, sensual dance. She stopped beside Jal near the entrance and waved at Liam.

  Jal licked his lips, his attention fully locked on Lilith’s butt. The vamp wore a skin tight red dress down to her knees and black high-heeled shoes. Her crimson hair was tied in a high bun, her curls framing her face.

  She gave Jal a lopsided grin that said she was perfectly aware of her effect on him.

  If Liam weren’t so appalled by Lilith, he would also think she was attractive. Heck, if he didn’t need Ava like the air he breathed, and if Lilith hadn’t glamoured him …

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How can you help, bloodsucker?”

  “If experience has taught me anything, it’s that one’s frustrations can be appeased with a little …” She bit her bottom lip slowly, sensually. “Release.”

  Did she mean sex again?

  Liam blinked, his mouth gaping open. “You have to be joking. I said I don’t want your girls to—”

  “What if you could be with Ava?”

  Jal chuckled, and Lilith shot him a death glare. “What?” she snapped.

  “Are you saying you want to have sex with him?”

  “No. I said there’s a way for him to be with her, you idiot.” She stopped in thought. “But what if I were proposing sex? Am I forbidden to be lascivious just because I’m a woman? Am I a whore simply because I enjoy fucking, Jal of Jaipur?”

  “You tell me,” he said calmly, hands behind his back.

  Lilith growled
underneath her breath, her fangs on full display. “You had sex with half of the supernatural world. Does that make you a whore?”

  Jal showed his teeth in an elated grin. “Absolutely.”

  Lilith eyed him up and down with a mix of anger and lust. She waved him off and turned back to Liam. “It’s just a harmless mind trick, baby demon. But it could help you.”

  “I’m not following.” Liam frowned. “I can’t be physically close to Ava.”

  As if to answer, Lilith’s features changed, but not like Archie’s or Hauk’s. This change caught him by surprise. One moment she was the queen of the vamps, the next his Ava stood before him, occupying Lilith’s place.

  She wore a black leather jacket and jeans, the same clothes from when they were investigating Archie’s murder.

  His partner. His Ava.

  No. Not his.

  She spun in a circle. “Good enough?”

  Heavens, it was Ava’s voice. Liam couldn’t speak, so he just nodded. He knew this was glamour, but he didn’t want it to stop.

  Lilith waltzed into the cell, every tilt of her hips a calculated move that oozed sex. It put him off. His princess didn’t move like that. Ava had no clue of how beautiful she was, how perfect, which made her all more appealing.

  Lilith had done an outstanding job, though. She’d nailed Ava’s curvy waist, those legs that went on for days, her rosy lips, and her kind blue eyes.

  She even smelled the same as Ava.

  A knot twisted in his throat as Lilith—Ava—draped her arms over his shoulders.

  Liam hugged her, taking in the lavender scent at the curve of her neck.

  “How can you smell like her?” he muttered.

  Ava said nothing. She just stayed this way, holding him, her hand slowly caressing the back of his neck.

  He took a deep breath and stepped away. Tears piled in his eyes as he watched this fake doll that mimicked his Guardian. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

  Ava blinked at him, as if he had caught her by surprise. She shot Jal a worried glance, but the demon encouraged her to play along.

  “You weren’t yourself,” Ava said. “I forgive you.”

  “You know what’s worse? The real you did forgive me.” He snorted. “She’s the greatest angel I’ve ever met, and I don’t deserve her. I’ve always known that. Maybe that’s why I was so angry.” Something in his chest shrunk. “Losing her was inevitable.”

  A certain peace washed over him, and he couldn’t understand why.

  This wacko therapy of Lilith’s might be working.

  “You need to forgive yourself, too,” Ava said, planting the palms of her hands on his chest.

  A sting of pain coursed through his body because that’s what the real Ava would have said, or at least the Ava he used to know.

  Was she truly gone?

  He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “You fear that what you felt for me wasn’t real. But I know it was, Ava. It had to be.”

  “And if I don’t feel the same way about you anymore?” She cupped his cheek. “Will you still be all right?”

  She leaned closer. Liam remembered faintly that this wasn’t Ava, but she sounded and smelled like her. So he wrapped his arm around her waist, bringing her closer.

  She stood on the tips of her toes, her nose almost nudging his.

  Liam lowered his head and completed their kiss. He did it slowly, gently, nibbling at her lips cautiously, the way he had done before they’d made love.

  So long ago …

  He broke free from the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. “I think I’ll be fine.”

  “All right,” Jal clapped his hands loudly, breaking Liam from whatever trance had taken hold of him. “Time out.”

  In his arms now stood Lilith, pity and sorrow carved in her pretty features.

  Pretty.

  That was the first time Liam saw her this way.

  “Thank you,” he muttered, still holding her in his arms.

  “Anytime.” She gave him a sad, tight-lipped grin. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

  “Don’t be.” That’s all he could say. Because his loss, his sorrow, they weren’t Lilith’s to have.

  They were all his.

  “What’s going on here?” Archie stepped into view, frowning at Liam and Lilith from outside the cell.

  Jal cleared his throat. “Shock therapy?”

  Archie wasn’t buying it; Liam knew this expression well. It was the same one he had when Liam told him he’d been to the movies with friends, when actually he’d been making out with Rosie O’Connel in the parking lot.

  The old man let out a weary sigh, then slammed both hands on his waist. “Suit up, kid. Time is of the essence.” He nodded to Liam’s jacket, which was sprawled on his bed. “We’re infiltrating Hells’ Gorge today.”

  13

  Liam

  “I look like a jackass,” Liam said as he watched his own reflection in a car window.

  His eyes—both green this time—were outlined by charcoal eyeliner, his mouth painted with a deep black. He gritted his teeth and watched perfectly white squares appear in the reflection.

  A smile bloomed on his lips. He might resemble an emo dude from the nineties, but at least he looked like a human emo dude.

  Ever since Liam had become a demon, his hair had grown into an unkempt floppy mop that nearly touched his chin line. He should get a haircut, but Michael had long hair, and sometimes Liam felt him in that faint wisp of light inside, the one he was barely aware of most of the time.

  It was strange, wanting to be a man he’d never met, and yet he was in this mess so that he wouldn’t be like Michael. After all, the Archangel’s darkness had once made him kill humans.

  Was that why they had become a demon? To learn to control this raging juggernaut inside them?

  There was a difference between having darkness within and letting it consume you. Michael had said so himself.

  Liam watched his reflection again. He took an elastic band from his pocket—a gift from Jal, “Because really Liam, not every man can pull off a long luscious mane”—and tied his hair in a man-bun that only increased his douchbaggery. But at least he felt half-way between himself and Michael.

  A pretty good compromise.

  “If it helps, we both look like jackasses, kid,” Archie said, pointing at his own panda eyes and black lips. The old man’s sand-blond hair was combed back in a style that belonged in the fifties. Or a Grease musical. “It sucks, but the whole emo thing is the signature of the Gorge, and we have to follow it. You ready?”

  Liam patted the two holy guns strapped in the shoulder holster underneath his jacket. Archie had cursed the bullets with his essence, so he supposed they were damned guns now. Liam then patted the sheathed sword attached to his belt. “Let’s go fool some demons, old man.”

  Adrenaline pierced through his body. Liam had missed fieldwork, and a part of him still couldn’t believe that the Fury Boys were back on the streets. An eager smile broke across his lips only to disappear as fast as it came.

  The Fury Boys weren’t here to protect. As gang members of the Gorge, he and Archie were here to wreak havoc.

  They stopped before a brick warehouse with broken windows. Not long ago sector thirteen had been inhabited by vamp covens, but demons had “evicted” them.

  Lilith told him that the darklings left two bloodsuckers alive to spread the word that this was now demonic territory. Two out of hundreds. Lilith had cried then, and that was the first time he saw a vampire’s tears. They weren’t dark-red as in most stories, just clear as a crystal. It made Lilith, with all her pearly skin, unnaturally blue irises and sharp fangs, look all too human.

  Blood rolled faster in Liam’s veins.

  “You’re unfocused, kid. If I can sense it, so will Hauk,” Archie said, his attention on the upper floors of the façade. “You got your shit together?”

  Liam took a deep breath, steadying his heartbeat and the storm in his dark
ness.

  “Better.” Archie scratched his own chin and clicked his tongue. This never preceded good news. “Look, you’ll have to do things to earn their trust today. Things that will haunt you. Change you.”

  He scoffed. “Not my first rodeo, old man.”

  Archie gripped the back of Liam’s neck and pressed his forehead against his. “You’re strong, son. So much more than you think. And I’m here, okay? We’re in this together.”

  “I know.” Liam swallowed, fearing what awaited them for the first time. “The price we pay for the greater good, huh?”

  Archie let him go and watched him with a certain longing. “I never did it for the greater good, kid. Just for you.” He sighed deeply. “When all seems lost—and it will—remember we’re not trying to save the whole world. Just those we care about.”

  Liam froze there, letting the words sink in.

  “Whatever it takes,” he said quietly.

  Archie nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

  Inside the warehouse they went.

  Fire flickered dimly in the center of the cavernous space, the only source of light in the darkness. Liam counted at least twenty demons talking with each other where the light hit, thirty more hidden in the shadows—the darkness showed them to him, their essences thrumming against Liam’s own.

  He straightened his posture and tensed his muscles. He knew pack psychology and that he had to assert himself. There was no place for the weak here.

  The demons silenced as he and Archie approached the fire pit.

  Hauk was watching the flames. They highlighted the red and orange in his hair, and for a moment, Liam wondered if his head was catching fire.

  They stopped behind him, but Hauk didn’t turn around.

  “Is he truly ready, Archibald?”

  “He is,” the old man assured with complete confidence.

  Hauk spun around and narrowed his eyes at Liam. “Remains to be seen.”

  He and Archie remained unfazed, their hands behind their backs, their chests puffed in perfect military fashion.

  A shadow spread behind Hauk, revealing his gray, scale-less wings.