by C. S. Wilde
Her voice sounded cold, harsh, and yet it fit her lips all too well. “Ezra won’t kill you. He’s too valuable to the Order. I, on the other hand …” She shrugged and laid a palm on the hilt of her sword.
“No.” Ezra took two deep breaths, then in one quick move, he released Talahel’s lackey.
Ava felt like screaming. “What are you doing?”
“We can’t kill him without incriminating ourselves. Talahel would pay it back in blood with the full support of the Order.” He narrowed his eyes at the Archangel. “There’s a reckoning coming for you all, Sithrael. This I promise you.”
“You lack a backbone, my Messenger.” The Archangel straightened his spine and watched Ezra from above his nose. “Mine is the rightful side in this battle. Choose wisely. There’s still time, and Talahel is forgiving.”
He cast one last snobby glance upon Ava before leaving. As if she was filth or dirt.
The moment the door closed, Ava rushed outside and climbed on top of the marbled handrail of Ezra’s balcony. In a flash of light, her body felt heavier. Snow-white wings flapped behind her, eager to take flight even if they still hurt.
“Where are you going?” Ezra asked.
Wind tousled her hair in a gentle dare, night air chilly on her skin. “The Legion,” she said over her shoulder. “I need to keep training if I’m to defeat Sithrael. I can’t let him get to Vera.”
“Why would I let you fight him?” There was a frown in his tone. “We both know I’m not the kind of angel who sits back and watches.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you kill him, you might lose your place in the Order. I can’t have that; the Legion can’t have that.”
He shrugged. “Who said anything about killing?”
She drew an exasperated breath and turned back to him. “Sithrael will find her. He’ll find her before we do.”
“I know. He’s the Order’s best tracker, and he has centuries of experience in the art of battle. Something you do not have. Don’t engage with him unless you absolutely have to.” He peered at her from below stern, ashy eyebrows. “That’s an order.”
“I have to do something!” She threw her hands in the air, but instead of abiding to her urges and flying to the Legion, Ava jumped from the railing and back onto the balcony, perhaps to talk some sense into him.
As she walked closer to Ezra, she noticed a certain peace oozing from his core. “You seem excessively calm about all this.”
He went to a side table that stood near the balcony’s entrance and picked up a small tablet from the surface. He handed it to her.
The screen displayed a map of the Order, and a blinking red dot moving inside it.
She gaped at Ezra and the small device. “You put a track on Sithrael!” Ava threw her arms around his neck, slamming into him.
Ezra hugged her back so strongly it seemed he would never let go. “That prick will lead us straight to Vera.”
Hope bloomed in her chest, warm and soft. “And when he does, we’ll be ready.”
They stayed entangled for a while until Ava decided to step away. It felt wrong being this close to Ezra, even if a part of her craved for his touch.
“By the way.” He scratched the back of his neck, the muscles on his biceps pushing against the fabric of his bodysuit. “We need to help prepare the yearly ball.”
An incredulous chuckle escaped her lips. “We have bigger worries, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but Agathe is pressing me on this. Until we find incriminating evidence against Talahel, we need to keep things business as usual. Like it or not, this is Talahel’s game.”
Every year, the Order gathered to celebrate the Gods in an annual ball. It was a festivity of epic proportions, bathed in alcohol and music, and it was also the only occasion when lower and ascended angels united in the same room.
For angels at the bottom of the hierarchy, the ball was an opportunity to party with the ascended whom they worshipped almost as the Gods themselves. Ava remembered. Not long ago, she had been one of them, blind and trusting.
A fool.
“Why doesn’t Agathe ask Talahel and his Archangels to help?” she grumbled.
“He says he’s too busy defending the Order and humans.”
Of course. The head of the Order’s army got away with what he wanted.
Ezra set a hand on her shoulder. “Until Sithrael makes a move, we can’t do much. Besides, I was looking forward to spending this year’s ball with you.”
Her wings twitched with a mix of fear and exhilaration.
Fueled by alcohol and loose inhibitions, the ball often became an orgy at the night’s latest hours. It was a release many found welcoming, considering the heavy duties that the Order imposed. Besides, angelic power gave angels a lot of energy, which they loved to spend in the woes of the flesh. It was a part of angelic nature, something Ava had ignored for far too long.
Well, she didn’t ignore it with Liam.
Ava always left the ball before things got heated, but she often wondered if she had stayed, would she and Ezra have … she shook away the thought.
She remembered seeing him once, tangled in a crowd of lean limbs and smooth curves. Even now, the memory sent an irrational jolt of fiery anger through her veins.
This time, however, Ezra wanted to go to the ball. With her.
Heavens, Ava had waited an entire century for this.
But how could she give herself to Ezra when Liam was out there fighting and suffering? How could she celebrate when the In-Betweens neared extinction and the Order crumbled?
In a pulse, her darkness and light connected with a sensation far away. Lines of star shine and smoke stretched into the night, unseen but felt by her heart.
Heavens, she must be truly exhausted.
“We need this, Ava,” Ezra said, his blue eyes beckoning.
They’d been through so much. And she truly needed a distraction, especially now that they had to sit and wait before corralling Sithrael.
She stepped closer and tucked a loose strand of silver hair behind his ear. Like caressing the moon.
How could she not give him this? If there was a chance she could make him feel better …
“I’ll help you, of course,” she finally said. “And I’ll be honored to be your partner at the ball.”
For Ezra, she would do anything.
But not everything, the voices inside her whispered.
“Great!” Ezra gave her a shy smile before looking at his own feet. “In other matters …” He went to his work desk, where a sword wrapped in rough cloth waited for them.
He handed it to her, and Ava gasped when she removed the material. It was Michael’s sword. Silver, blue, and heavy in her hands.
Waves dashed across the strings of light and dark that connected her to something out there.
Help. It needed help.
An unsettling sensation spread inside her.
Was she losing her mind?
“I stole it from evidence,” Ezra said. “Being a demon can’t be easy. Maybe having the sword will help Liam remember the angel, and the Selfless, that he used to be.”
Ava blinked, shocked at Ezra’s unending kindness. “You did this for him?”
“Mostly for you.” He shrugged. “You try to hide it, but I know you worry about him.”
She set the sword aside on the table as tears stung her eyes. She stepped closer and cupped his cheeks. “You constantly awe me with your kindness. I don’t have the words to thank you.”
Oh, her dear Ezra. His light was magnificent. No, he was.
He kissed her forehead. “I never did it for your gratitude.”
Desperation sucker-punched Ava in one brutal strike, a nearly physical force that jerked her away from Ezra. Screams broke through her throat as the sense she was falling within herself took over.
“Ava!” Ezra yelled. “What’s wrong?”
The wrecking sensation waned only slightly. She gaped at the city outside, her breathing ringing in h
er eardrums as horrible bellows echoed in her mind, screams coming from the end of her strings.
The path to darkness. The path to light.
The path to him.
Ava took deep breaths, trying to regain her balance as her wings spread wide behind her.
Inhale. Exhale.
“I’m fine,” she lied, making sure to hide her shivering despair as she went to the balcony. “There’s somewhere I have to be.”
With a mighty swish of her white wings, she boosted into the night.
20
Liam
Hauk and the Possessor led the way. Liam and some twenty demons from the Gorge occupied a chunk of the sidewalk as they followed their leader, a dreaded silence filling the space around them.
He studied the slim robed figure beside Hauk, which moved like a person in chains and yet seemed lighter than smoke. The creature’s stride suited a living nightmare.
Archie once said that the darkness didn’t shape someone; it only freed the worst in them. People could overcome it or give in.
Maybe the Possessor had done both.
Screams rang dimly in the back of Liam’s mind, even now while he was awake. Firma’s shrieks woke him almost every night as the smoky stench of charred flesh invaded his nostrils. She was always with him. But Liam wasn’t a rookie, nor did he have a light stomach. He’d been trained to endure the grits of undercover work, and he would get over this.
Killing an Archangel to stop both a genocide and Master?
Small price to pay, really.
Perhaps being a Terror had started rubbing off on him. Or maybe fooling himself was the only way he could keep functioning.
“You okay, kid?” Archie asked from beside him.
The chilly night air felt hollow. Everything did. “Yeah,” he muttered, the weight of his monumental lie ramming onto his shoulders.
Hauk stopped and climbed on a fire hydrant. “Halt!”
The Possessor turned to him and then back to the demons, a soulless void underneath the hood. It was enforcing Hauk’s order.
Their leader smiled at the thing before addressing the Gorge. “Today you closed more deals than ever. Soon we’ll reach our quota, and angels across the globe will feel our wrath!”
Normally, the Gorge would’ve burst into applause after Hauk’s speech because they either agreed with him or they were kissing his ass. But this time, the group remained silent.
Pedro raised his hand. “Boss, we can’t take on the Order.”
The Possessor took one step forward and the demons on the front row jumped back, almost slamming against those on the second row—Liam, Archie, and Pedro included.
The worst creatures in the city feared that thing.
“Masssster believes we can.” The Posessor’s voice was more snake hiss than human, more last breath than living force. Three yellow eyes with slit pupils shone from the darkness under the hood. “Do you believe Massssster isss wrong?”
Three. Fucking. Eyes.
Pedro gulped. “O-of course not.”
The Possessor craned its neck and watched the members of the gang, clearly assessing each and every one. It probably read their minds, a skill most Possessors had.
Liam felt like he’d died. He remembered the sensation well, how time went still, how an eternity ran in a second. But he had trained with Archie for this since the first day they had seen the creature. So he shoved all memories of the Legion to the back of his head, fueling his mind with hate for Ezraphael and for the Order that failed him. The Order that kept failing every single Selfless out there.
Small truths to hide the lie.
Archie’s concentrated glare told Liam he did the same.
When the Possessor’s three-eyed attention fell on them, the thing hissed, “When the time comesss, will the Fury Boysss sssmite their preciousss Order?”
“The Order can go fuck itself for all we care.” He turned to the old man, who had his arms crossed, his spine straighter than a line. “Right, Archie?”
He gave the Possessor one assuring nod. “Let them burn.”
Hells yes, Archie still had it in him.
The Possessor tilted its head left, its breathing a rasping wheezy sound. It lifted a bony finger, but before it could say something, a deep voice from the sky shouted Hauk’s name.
An Archangel—his black bodysuit and wine red kilt were a dead ringer—landed near the Possessor. He kept his moss and white-tipped wings on display, a sign he was ready to fight.
“Sithrael.” Hauk made a beckoning move with his hand, a silent request for the angel to join them.
He didn’t.
“Talahel has a task for you,” the Archangel said, disgust oozing from his tone.
The leader of the Gorge looked down at the Possessor with a mocking grin. The thing’s three yellow eyes disappeared into the darkness of the hood. Its shoulders heaved with a shrill, cruel snicker.
“Pray tell, Archangel.” Hauk wrapped both hands behind his back. “What does your master want me to do?”
“Find an angel and kill her. Make it pass for an In-Between attack.”
Liam’s blood chilled. Another angel would perish.
Ava!
The Possessor’s attention snapped toward him, and Liam banished her from his mind. Just like that, she was gone.
At least for now.
The creature seemed content with that—a freaking miracle—and turned back to the Archangel.
Hauk bared his teeth at Sithrael. “We don’t do the Order’s dirty work anymore. The time for us to part ways has come.”
“We had an agreement.” The Archangel shook with anger. “If you break it, we will end your gang in a flash.”
Hauk laughed loudly and slapped a hand on his leg. Some demons laughed too, even if they didn’t seem to understand why they did it. The Gorge’s leader wiggled his palms, mimicking fear. “Please don’t smite us with your mighty light, oh holy one!”
Sithrael’s face twisted into something ugly and perverse. “You find my threat amusing?”
Hauk’s playful manner vanished. “Extremely so.”
“Do as you’re told,” the Archangel growled low in his chest. “This is your last chance.”
Hauk swooshed him away. “Go now, pigeon. You bore me.”
The Archangel stood there, befuddled. “Talahel will not forgive this insult.”
Hauk stepped down from the hydrant and approached him. The leader of the Gorge was shorter than Sithrael, but when he stopped in front of the Archangel, glaring up at him, Sithrael seemed smaller. “Be glad I feel merciful tonight. Now go take care of your own dirty work.”
The angel swallowed, then observed the Gorge. Demons had begun to gather around, ready for battle.
There was no way he could beat all of them.
“You just started a war, demon.”
“Oh, no.” Hauk grinned. “I didn’t start it. But I will win it.”
Sithrael snorted with contempt before his wings flapped, lifting him off the ground. Liam watched him disappear into the night sky with a pang of despair.
He hoped Sithrael wouldn’t find the angel he sought, and he hoped that angel wasn’t Ava. It sucked that hoping was all Liam could do right now.
“What an entertaining evening.” Hauk clapped his hands and addressed the Gorge. “Now, brothers and sisters, we celebrate!”
After watching the Possessor damn ten souls today, drinking felt like a good idea. Gods, it really did.
At least he, Archie, and Pedro had closed deals with lowlifes, wife-beaters, and thieves, people who had high chances of going to the dark anyway. Still, the memories of what happened would stick to Liam to the end of his days.
When they were done with the deals, the three of them gathered all the doomed in a group and called the Possessor with a burner phone. In a minute, the thing turned around the corner to meet them. How it had arrived so quickly remained a mystery—Liam suspected teleportation, but he couldn’t be sure. The Possessor then cursed
the souls, but two drug dealers ran away screaming before it finished.
The thing stopped them in their tracks with its telekinesis. The burner phone rang with another deal to be closed and the Possessor left, taking the two men with it. Their bodies floated stiffly in the air, following the creature. Their eyes screamed even if their tight lips couldn’t.
The rest of the victims stared at each other in a mix of fear and confusion. Archie had clapped his hands and said, “Well, folks, you know what will happen if you talk about this.” He pointed to the direction the Possessor had taken. “We’ll make sure your deals are done. In the meantime, enjoy your lives.”
The little they still had left.
Yes, Liam definitely needed alcohol tonight.
They stopped before O’Malley’s, a large pub near Fifteenth and Seventh.
The Possessor had disappeared, and as Liam searched for it, a hand landed on the back of his shoulders.
“It doesn’t drink or feed the way we do,” Hauk said, then nodded to the entrance.
A weight lifted from Liam’s chest. He wouldn’t need to hide his thoughts anymore, which was perfect considering he was about to get wasted.
All in all, O’Malley’s wasn’t a bad choice. The beer wasn’t the best, but Liam didn’t plan on having beer tonight. He would drown in fucking liquor until he forgot where and who he was.
The stench of sweat and pheromones invaded his nostrils as they crossed the dimly lit space. The pub was packed with men and women who flirted at the bar or gathered in groups in red-padded booths. A great deal ground against each other on a small dance floor.
The air inside was smoky and stuffy, and Hells, it was hot in here. Liam had already started breaking into a sweat.
The pheromones that filled the space slipped under Liam’s skin, and Ava’s face flashed in his mind followed by his old sword.
Michael’s blade.
What in the Hells?
It didn’t matter. Ava wasn’t here; she wasn’t his. She belonged to a good angel like the Messenger, not a cowardly demon. A good angel who better protect her from Sithrael or Gods help him, Liam would end Ezraphael with his bare hands.
