Surrender the Dark
Page 31
It was all so beautiful that emotion tightened her throat. She was supposed to be dead by now, but he’d found her on the night when she’d seen a demon take her ex-boyfriend’s life, and she’d been hell-bent on also taking her own.
But with a touch, Azrael had pulled drugs and alcohol out of her system. With patience, he’d convinced her to stop running from him and that she hadn’t had a psychotic break—that no, she hadn’t lost her mind. Then he’d shown her that angels and demons truly did exist and took her on the most hair-raising journey of her life.
Time was relative. Three short months ago she’d met an angel and everything she thought she knew about the so-called normal world had been shattered in an instant. Three short weeks ago she’d lost the last living relative that she cared about—her aunt Niecey, and yet because of Azrael, she’d been at peace with that. Now that she knew there was actually another side and that what she’d heard all her life hadn’t been rhetoric, it was easier to accept many of the losses, especially the hard ones, like losing her mother and Aunt Niecey.
Tears rose to Celeste’s eyes and then slowly burned away when she thought about all that Azrael had given her. He’d claimed that she’d saved him; but what she could never explain was that it was the other way around.
Before him, there was only fear and self-destruction. No one understood her gift, save her dear late auntie. Until Azrael had shown up, the only thing she’d known to do to stop the pain of seeing demons and frighteningly horrible weirdness was to drown it all through a bottle. Her so-called gift was so debilitating back then that it left her weak and vulnerable, unable to work with a psychiatric file as thick as a phone book. The ravages of poverty had taken its toll on her health and self-esteem. And all along she’d thought it was all her fault, until Azrael came to show her that she’d been targeted by the dark side because of the coming work she was about to do.
Sudden joy filled her heart now as she watched him bend and turn, the cabled sinew stretching along his thick biceps and forearms, her gaze going to his massive but graceful hands that could caress ever so gently and heal, but that she’d also seen wield blades of death to behead demons. Surreal.
Oddly, that made her feel safe, after all she’d seen in her life. And yet, the warrior angels who’d been trapped on earth since the first big battle with the fallen, some twenty-six thousand years ago, had been waiting for her, waiting for her prayer and her willingness to sacrifice herself for them so that they could return to the Light, even if they’d violated the edict and had lain with the daughters of man while here.
And after twenty-six thousand years, all it took was the right combination lock of her prayer as a member of the Remnant—a Light Nephilim with twelve strands of DNA hiding in her half-human genetic code, to fuse with the Angel of Death’s intention to liberate his trapped and suffering brethren. Profound. She’d sent up the heartfelt request; Azrael had opened the portal to the Light. But there was only one taker, Jamaerah, a gentle spirit with province over manifestation that could no longer take his entrapment in the flesh. Liberated back to the Light, he demonstrated to her how angels and positive spirits still help from the etheric realm. Yet the battle-hardened, Jack Daniels drinking, partying crew that thought all was lost and lamented about not being able to return, had stayed when given the choice, deciding to ride or die with her and Azrael to the end.
That was the thing they’d taught her, too—just knowing one could leave if one wanted evaporated the illusion of being trapped. That mental paradigm shift was the freedom that the angels with dirty wings, her guys now, needed. She’d given them that and they loved her for it, calling her the key, since she’d unlocked their minds and commuted their sentence for violating the prime directive while on earth. In return, they’d given her protection and knowledge that was unparalleled. Many a night and well into the dawn they’d all sat up with her other Remnant sisters debating the merits of the lessons learned by having everything angelic except immortality stripped from their beings.
To hear Bath Kol tell it, hellfire would have been easier. But they’d each agreed that, by being made manifest, by temporarily losing their wings and being thrust into all the temptations of the flesh, gave them empathy for humanity that just couldn’t be fully perceived while in etheric form.
To experience heartbreak, suffering, physical pain, desire, rage, jealousy, lack, need—all of that had given them serious respect for the human condition. Now when they fought for humankind, they fought with a whole different level of respect for the beings that endured here even with demon oppression besetting their existence. After twenty-six thousand years here in the flesh, this special dirty angel corps knew that humans weren’t just weak cattle. They’d been outgunned and outmanned by evil immortal forces way stronger than humans could ever hope to be. Yet many people still endured, held the line, helped their neighbors, sacrificed their lives for others, were honorable and loving and reached out to those less fortunate, despite the tidal wave of negative forces. That was courage under fire, to be sure.
And her angels said that had been what the Almighty had known and seen in the divine creation, they’d all subsequently learned. It was also why to not serve humans was such a defiant act. To be righteous and perfect when one is all-powerful is not difficult; to do so when mortal and weak and hungry and afraid is heroic. Azrael told her that the Source of All That Is saw that striking quality in its creation and demanded the angels respect that. Most did, but some did not—hence the war that has raged on since the planets aligned the last time to open the veil between worlds.
For all that Azrael and the others gave her, the one thing none of them could bestow upon her was complete peace of mind as to the date of when the next alignment would approach.
Celeste quietly sighed. The soft sweep of Azrael’s wings and the gentle pat of his bare feet against the floor were soothing. Had his dance not been so profoundly beautiful she would have closed her eyes and allowed the constant metronome-like rhythm to lull her back to sleep.
But there was no way of closing her eyes on that splendor, just as there was no way to un-know all that she’d come to see and learn since he’d entered her life. Never in a million years could anyone have ever told her she’d be living with a battalion of angels in a retrofitted warehouse with the future of the planet hinging on one date, 12/21/12.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Conquer the Dark