by C. L. Coffey
Angel Exalted
Book Five
of the
Louisiangel Series
C. L. Coffey
Axellia Publishing
Angel Exalted
Copyright © 2019 C. L. Coffey
All rights reserved.
Published by Axellia Publishing.
Print ISBN: 978-1-912644-08-7
eBook AISN: B07Z18JF17
Cover design by Amalia Chitulescu Digital Art
Edited by Patrick Gilhooley
Proofread by C. Lesley and Naomi Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval systems, in any forms or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, unless for the purpose of a review which may quote brief passages for a review purpose.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locations are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons – living or dead – is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
ALSO BY C. L. COFFEY
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
ANGELIC SCHEMES: A SNEAK PEAK
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MICHAEL’S WARRIORS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WAYS TO CONNECT
ALSO BY C. L. COFFEY
THE LOUISIANGEL SERIES
Angel in Training
Angel Eclipsed
Angel Tormented
Angel in Crisis
Angel Exalted
Angelic Schemes
Coming Soon
THE HELLFIRE ACADEMY SERIES
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DEDICATION
To all the Coffey Beans:
The ones who were there from the beginning;
The ones who found Angel in Training and are still here;
And the ones that had to make their own choice between Eternal Happiness and Eternal Life.
Deep into that darkness peering,
long I stood there,
wondering,
fearing,
doubting,
dreaming no dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
~ Edgar Allen Poe ~
CHAPTER ONE
Intruders
December 22nd
New Orleans
“GET OUT!”
I ducked out of the door, narrowly avoiding the barely touched bowl of cold gumbo as it flew towards me. It smashed into the doorframe, the bowl shattering, sending the gumbo splattering all over my face and top. I wiped some globs from my bare arms with a sigh. I was lucky: if Veronica really wanted to hit me, she could have. I was still recovering and definitely not firing at one hundred percent.
Only two days ago I had managed to escape the underground prison Beelzebub had been holding me in. I’d been chained up in unholy water that had acted like a poison, making me ill, and stopping my already injured body from healing. Once free, I’d somehow managed to survive battling with both Beelzebub and Lucifer. They’d been defeated – not by me – but our side had received casualties. Too many casualties.
If I was at full health, I would have the same supernatural speed and strength the other angels had been gifted with. I would also have the same ability to heal. I think it was the water, tainted by the blood of the innocent that had seeped into my injuries, that was slowing the healing down. I was still faring better than had I still been human. The cuts and scrapes were nearly gone, apart from the one that had been gouged into my forearm. Deeper than the others, that one had been obtained when a teenager had broken into the convent, killed a potential, and then tried to kill me. He’d used a tainted angelic blade, given to him by one of the Fallen.
The worst injuries, however, were around my wrists. The Fallen had captured me and clamped shackles around my wrist – shackles just as unholy as everything else. The result was like a chemical burn. Two days later and the pain was enough that I couldn’t wear anything with long sleeves because the added pressure on top of the bandages brought tears to my eyes. Underneath the dressings, the wounds were raw. The skin had bubbled away, some of it had blackened, and none of it showed any signs of healing. In fact, I was taking pain killers to try to dull it down.
I glanced down at the remaining blobs of cold gumbo on my arm and sighed. It was irritating, but I couldn’t blame Veronica. I picked up the largest of the shards from the bowl and carried them back to the empty kitchen to dump them in the trash. Making a detour to the cleaning closet, I grabbed several items and then returned to the guest room Veronica was staying in to clean up the mess on the outside of the room. I’d try later to clean up inside – if Veronica would let me in.
Veronica was a cherub. The last of the cherubim in New Orleans. She had been held captive with me and one other: Garret. I never liked Garret. I wasn’t going to stand there and pretend I did, but that didn’t mean he deserved…
It was my fault they were dead.
That’s not me having a pity-party. I didn’t kill them, but I did lead Beelzebub to them, and all because I wanted to prove that the nephilim weren’t as bad as the angels were saying they were. Instead, the eleven cherubim who had remained in their base in the Plaza Tower had been slaughtered, and in the process, the explosions which happened when their souls left their vessels had destroyed most of the Plaza Tower and rained enough debris down on the surrounding area that several innocent humans had been killed too.
I cleaned the gumbo up, leaving a clean patch in the corridor. This room was one of the closest to where the fire had been. Devoted fans of pop star, Luke Goddard, aka Lucifer, had broken into the convent, stolen some weapons, and then set fire to the building.
In a few days there would be contractors in to start the rebuild and restoration work, but for now, there was a massive hole in the roof, and no matter how hard we cleaned, soot and grime would quickly build up. Technically that was not my fault either, but it was something else that happened under my watch.
It was no wonder the virtues – Zachary and Savannah in particular – were out for blood. Or at least, to have me removed as the Second of the House. If it wasn’t for Cupid and Michael, I would have given the position up without question.
I put the cleaning items away and then made my way to the second guest room. I rapped on the door, and getting no answer, entered. I’d visited several times over the last couple of days so I wasn’t surprised to not get a response. I also wasn’t surprised that the curtains had remained drawn and the room was in almost total darkness.
The figure on the bed was on her side, her back to the door and to me. I wasn�
��t sure if she was awake and ignoring me, or sleeping. I suspected the former. “I’m just here to take the plates away,” I told her, keeping my voice low, just in case she was sleeping. The inhalation of breath told me she was awake, but there was no verbal response from Paddy.
Paddy, known to most as Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, was grieving. Another of our casualties had been her partner, the Archangel Raphael. He’d defeated Beelzebub, only to be killed by Lucifer. Part of me was desperately clinging onto the hope that Raphael would return in a new vessel. But from the way everyone was grieving, I knew that wouldn’t be the case.
I wasn’t going to push her. I had lost my parents when I was young. It had taken years before I could talk about them without crying and I still thought about them every day. It wasn’t the same: Paddy and Raphael had been together for over fifteen hundred years. They had been in love. That didn’t mean I didn’t have an idea of what she was going through.
I gathered up the tray of untouched items, leaving the unopened bottled of water on the dresser, then headed for the door. I opened it, pausing before I left. “When you’re feeling ready to talk, you know where I am.” I closed the door behind me, not waiting for the response I knew wouldn’t come.
Depositing the tray in the kitchen, I scraped the uneaten food into the trash before loading the dishwasher. The kitchen was unusually quiet. We’d gone from having over a dozen cherubim in charge of the food preparation to myself, my aunt Sarah, and a handful of angels. The prominent angel was Eugene. Having had no cooking experience at all (which is saying something for someone as old as the planet), Eugene had discovered that he enjoyed it and he was good at it. He’d been the first to join Sarah (who did have the cooking experience) and learn all he could.
He was next on my list of angelic beings to check up on. Eugene had been kidnapped by Beelzebub, and eventually joined us in the underground tomb we had been held captive in. Of the three of us who had survived in there, he’d had the worst of the injuries: Beelzebub had tortured him beforehand.
After the fire, all the angels had moved out into the gym. Unused, it had been converted into a mass dormitory. We’d gotten bunkbeds in there, along with some room dividers to allow them to have some privacy.
As Eugene was still recovering, we’d put him in one of the rooms which had survived with minimal damage. It was just across the way from my new bedroom as this part of the convent had only suffered from smoke damage. The charred odor still lingered, but otherwise, unless you looked closely in the corners, the soot and ash had been cleared away.
I walked up the stairs, pausing at the top to catch my breath. Stairs were currently hard work. To be honest, most things were. I made my way to the bedroom, rapping on the door. Unlike the other angels I had just visited, the response here was much more welcoming. I stuck my head in and found Eugene awake, propped up in his bed with bright smile on his face. “Angel,” he greeted me cheerfully.
“You’re looking a lot healthier today,” I responded as I walked in.
The smile widened. “I’m finally starting to feel better,” he added. “I’m ready to get out of this bed.”
“Henry said to wait until Christmas,” I said, reminding him of the orders left by the Angel of Death (and current convent medic). “‘Angels have not experienced injuries by weapons like this, and we don’t know how we will heal’.” Sure, Eugene looked better. I looked better than I was, but I was also well aware that I was still experiencing pain at levels higher than I should be doing. Eugene was going stir crazy in this room, which I couldn’t fault him for. It was another prison, in some respects, but we all just wanted him to be better before returning to his duties.
“I could be doing something useful, though,” he muttered, looking forlorn as he fumbled with the blanket covering him. I glanced over at the window as a fresh breeze blasted rainwater inside. With a frown, I hurried over and started to shut it. “Don’t!” Eugene snapped.
I froze, the rain splashing over my face as I hovered in front of the window. The weather outside was truly miserable. It was about time this city finally experienced winter, having suffered from a supernatural heatwave for far too long. It was refreshing and somewhat comforting. But it belonged outside. “I’ll leave the window ajar, Eugene, but we can’t have this much rain coming inside.”
“It’s not like I’ll catch a cold,” he grumbled, folding his arms in a huff. Even though I watched him over my shoulder, it wasn’t hard to miss the discomfort he was trying to hide with his impatience.
It wasn’t just the underground prison he’d been held in with us, I realized. I pulled the window down, leaving a fist sized gap at the bottom which was more than enough to let the icy winds in, but small enough to keep the rainwater out. It would have been better to shut it completely, but if I was going to make a choice between keeping rainwater damage to a minimum, and the mental health of one of the angels, well, it wasn’t really a choice, was it?
“Where is Callum?” I asked, returning to Eugene’s bedside to clear his dinner plates away. Thankfully, he had been eating. “Didn’t you say he was going to spend some time with you today?”
“Later.” Eugene muttered.
I spared him a glance at him, not missing the disappointment in his face, or his voice. “Who has been to see you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Oh, just a few of the angels,” Eugene responded, vaguely.
Fixing a smile on my face, I turned to him. “I have to get on with dinner, but I will be back later. Sarah is bringing some of my old board games so I will teach you how to play Monopoly.”
Eugene instantly brightened. “Really?”
“Really, really,” I promised him. “Though I’m warning you now, a round of that could take some time, and I get very competitive.
“Sounds perfect,”. Eugene agreed.
I left him looking a lot more positive, taking the final tray of lunch remains to the kitchen to dispose of them. I set the plates on the side and pulled out my phone, quickly texting Joshua. It had been a while since I had seen him.
Fancy some company later? X
I put the phone down on the side and started loading the plates into the dishwasher, when it buzzed at me. I glanced down at the message as it flashed up on screen.
I’m working. Seconds later, the phone buzzed again. In Kenner. Won’t be free all day.
His response had me blinking in surprise. That was… unlike him. Maybe he was in the middle of something? I frowned, reaching over for the phone, but no sooner had I wrapped my hand around it, did everything seem to go crazy. Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye, and I looked up in time to witness two of the armed guards Darell had stationed outside running past, their guns drawn, barking something that I couldn’t hear into their headsets.
Almost immediately, Cupid’s voice was in my head, using our psychic connection. “Angel, get to the office, now!”
It didn’t take me long to get to the office I shared with Cupid, but it was still not quick enough. Behind my desk, armed with swords, were two people I had never seen before. The youngest of the pair, a boy, looked a little older than me – early twenties. Beside him, certainly taller, but also older looking, was a girl with long blonde hair that had been plastered to her head from the rain. She also had one of the angels, Nyle, pinned against a wall, with a sword at his throat. Right in front of my desk was Cupid. His hands were up in the air though I wasn’t sure if this was to show he was unarmed or to control the rest of the room… Behind Cupid, surrounding the desk in a small semi-circle, were five of Darell’s men, all with their guns pointed at the two armed intruders.
“Stop bringing more people into the room!” the boy screeched as he saw me.
“What the hell is going on?” I silently asked Cupid, freezing like I was playing musical statues.
“We don’t know if they’re human, Fallen, or possessed,” Cupid responded, not taking his eyes off the couple in front of him. “I don’t t
rust these humans Darell has placed here not to shoot them.”
“Okay, let’s not bring guns to a sword fight,” I said to the room. “Guys, please lower your weapons.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the closest and burliest of the men apologized, though sounding far from apologetic. “We are under the Commander’s orders and they state that any threat to the house will be neutralized.”
I could almost hear the disapproving growl from Cupid; or maybe he had decided to share that with me psychically… “Well, would one of you be so kind as to radio for him?”
“I said no more people in this room!” the boy screeched again.
“I’ll cut his throat!” the girl added, moving the blade just enough to draw a thin line of blood on Nyle’s throat. The action caused a scream of pain from Nyle as he cowered back against the wall, as though he could somehow magic himself through it. If only angels had that ability.
“Do not shoot!” I bellowed before the guards could react. I could see the irritation on the one who had spoken previously, but thankfully, there were no bullets raining out into the room.
“Angel, you need to do something before people start dying,” Cupid suddenly barked at me.
I shot a glower to the back of his head. “Cupid, I do not have any hostage negotiation skills!”
“And you think I do?”
“How about we let the professionals do their job?” I suggested.
Cupid glanced over his shoulder and gave me a pointed look. “Neutralize the situation?” he repeated back at me. “I don’t think they have hostage negotiation skills.”
While they did seem a little trigger happy, I was certain they would have some form of hostage negotiation skills. The problem was, I had a feeling they were in a ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ kind of mood.
“Okay,” I said aloud. “I’m going to move forward so that I can see who I’m speaking to,” I said to the intruders. With my hands held up to show I was unarmed, and moving slow, so as not to startle anyone, I inched forward.
