Wicked Nights aotd-1

by Gena Showalter

  As you wish, he’d replied.

  But, Zacharel…do not doubt that worse awaits you should you disobey me again.

  He’d thanked his Deity for the chance to do better and he had meant it—until his very next battle. He had hurt and killed multiple humans without thought or mercy, because they had hurt and killed Ivar, one of the Deity’s Elite Seven. A warrior of unimaginable strength and ability.

  The fact that Zacharel’s actions had been in the name of vengeance hadn’t mattered—had actually harmed his cause. The Most High was to decide how to handle such a situation, and as He was the higher power Zacharel’s Deity answered to, His word was law. Zacharel should have displayed patience.

  The following day, the Deity had again summoned him.

  He’d hoped that, despite what he’d done, he would be chosen as the next Elite, but instead he learned he had earned another punishment. “Worse,” he discovered, was exactly that.

  For one year, Zacharel would lead an army of angels just like him. The ones no one else wanted under their command. The rebellious ones. The tortured ones. His assignment: to teach them the respect that he himself had yet to demonstrate—for the Deity, for the sanctity of human life. And to ensure that he took his responsibility seriously, he alone would bear the consequences of his warriors’ actions.

  If any of his angels killed a human, he would suffer a whipping.

  He’d already suffered eight.

  At the end of the year, if Zacharel’s good deeds outweighed the bad, he and all of his angels would be allowed to stay in the heavens. If the bad outweighed the good, he and all of his angels would lose their wings and their place in the sky.

  Clearly, Zacharel had mused, the Deity was cleaning house. This way, he could rid the heavens of every thorn in his side in one fell swoop, and none on his Council could call him cruel or unfair, for he’d given them a year’s worth of chances to redeem themselves.

  So here Zacharel and his army were, tasked with handling chores far beneath their skill level. For the most part, that meant finding a way to free demon-possessed humans, aiding those who were immorally influenced and participating in the occasional insignificant battle.

  Tonight marked his army’s nineteenth assignment—though only their third round of combat—and each one had ended worse than the last. No matter what he threatened, the angels seemed to enjoy disregarding his orders. They flipped him off. They cussed at him. They laughed in his face.

  He did not understand them. This year was their last chance, too. They had just as much to lose. Shouldn’t they seek his favor?

  “Now?” Thane asked eagerly, his voice more smoke than substance. Once upon a time, his throat had been slit…and slit and slit until scars had become a permanent necklace.

  “Not yet. I mean it.”

  “If you fail to sound the battle cry soon…”

  They would act anyway.

  “Does no one care that they will suffer my wrath?” he groused. He peered down at the Moffat County Institution for the Criminally Insane, which was hidden in the mountains of Colorado. The building was tall and wide, with a barbed, electric fence, and armed guards walking both the parapet and grounds. Halogens shone bright light into every corner, chasing away the shadows.

  What the guards couldn’t see, no matter how intense their lighting, were the demon minions crawling all over the walls, desperate to slink inside.

  But like the guards, the demons could not see the threat surrounding them. The twenty soldiers under Zacharel’s command remained hidden. Their wings, usually white threaded with gold, were now a star-pricked onyx, a mirror of the heavens. The effortless change was made with only a single mental command. More than that, their angelic robes were now shirts and pants fitted to their muscular bodies, black and combat ready.

  “Why would demons choose to overtake this place?” Zacharel asked. And they had attempted to do so for years, apparently. Other armies had been sent, but none had made any real progress. As soon as one set of minions was taken care of, a new crop would arrive.

  There were only two reasons no other army had thought to find out why. One, they had not cared to aid the humans inside the building. Or two, their job had ended with the battle. Either way, Zacharel would not make the same mistake. He couldn’t.

  Golden hair curling innocently around a face somehow more devilish than saintly, Thane cast a wicked sapphire gaze his way. The contrast between innocent and carnal could be mesmerizing, or so Zacharel had heard. Human and immortal females alike threw themselves at Thane—who made no secret of his sexual desires when he revealed himself to those who were not supposed to know he was there. Especially since his desires skirted the edge of dangerous…of acceptable.

  Most angels belonging to their Deity, whether they were of the warrior class or among the joy-bringers, were as immune to the passions of the flesh as Zacharel. But then, most had not been captured by a horde of demons, trapped and tortured for weeks, as Thane had been.

  When you lived as long as they did, he supposed, especially when those years were spent at war, you were more likely to learn the true meaning of pain and to seek refuge in whatever pleasure you could find.

  Xerxes and Bjorn, Thane’s equals in terms of strength and cunning, had been trapped and tortured, as well. The three were now inseparable, the trauma and horror of the experience bonding them. Warping them—yes, that, too, as proven by their place within his army’s ranks, but bonding them nonetheless.

  “Evil craves the company of other evil, desperate to destroy anything worth saving,” Thane said, wisdom replacing his earlier irreverence. “Perhaps someone inside summoned them.”

  Perhaps. If so, the battle had just become a dilemma. The summoning of demons was strictly forbidden, a crime punishable only through death. Death that would not be collateral damage but intentional, and yet, Zacharel was not sure how the Deity would react to such a slaying.

  Humans, he thought, shaking his head with disgust. Nothing but trouble. They had no idea the dark power they danced with. A power that might seem exciting at first, but one that would merely eat away at their humanity.

  “None of the demons have actually entered the building,” he said. “I’m curious as to why.”

  Thane’s head tilted to the side, his study of the demons intensifying. “I hadn’t noticed, but I see now that you are correct. Majesty.”

  No reaction. “Capture one of the demons, and cart it to my cloud for questioning.”

  “That will be my pleasure.” As much as Thane enjoyed debauching his lovers, he enjoyed torturing demons more. “Anything else, Lord of Us?”

  No. Reaction. “Yes. On my signal, the army may attack, but I want Bjorn to bring the most feral demon he can find to the roof of the institution. Quickly.” Zacharel could have—should have—spoken the orders inside the minds of his soldiers, as all commanders could do, but doing so would have invited their voices into his mind, and that was an intimacy he would not allow.

  A smile of relish flashed, straight white teeth revealed. “Consider it done.”

  Before Thane could whisk himself away, Zacharel added, “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that no humans are to be harmed during the battle. If you must forgo a demon kill to save a human life, do so. Make sure the others know.”

  At first, he hadn’t minded when his men opted to destroy a human to get to a demon. After his third whipping for a crime he had not committed himself, he’d begun to mind.

  One beat of silence, two. Then, “Yes, of course, Leader of the Supremely Unworthy.” With that parting shot, Thane disappeared in a burst of motion to alert the others even now circling the building.

  A scant minute later, swords of fire appeared in every angel’s hand, the flames more intense, far purer, than any found in hell. Menacing shards of amber light licked over determined expressions and hard-won muscle…and those lights began to arc down in swift succession, screams of pain—and final gasps of breath—soon echoing. Scaled, gnarled and
now-headless bodies rained from the walls.

  So much for waiting for Zacharel’s signal. That would have to be dealt with later.

  Though he would have enjoyed slaying the demons alongside his men, he waited, for he sought bigger prey this night. A path eventually cleared, and he glided down…down…and landed gracefully on the flat edge of the roof. He tucked his wings into his back.

  “The feral demon, as requested, Magnificent King,” a familiar voice said from beside him. “Quickly.”

  A huge beast thumped lifelessly at Zacharel’s feet. Poison beaded at the end of its claws. Large horns protruded from its shoulders, and patches of fur and scales formed a double helix pattern on its legs.

  Slight problem. The demon had no head.

  “This demon is deceased,” he said.

  Only the barest of pauses before Bjorn responded, “Thane relayed your order verbatim. In this, you were not wise enough to specify a preference.”

  “True.” He absolutely should have known better.

  Bjorn, hovering at the side of the building, said, “Shall I bring you another or do you think to reprimand me for your mistake, Glorious King?” The words held a bitter edge.

  Bjorn was a brute of a man with bronzed skin veined in gold and glittering, multihued eyes of purple, pink, blue and green. A startling contrast.

  Soon after his rescue from the demons’ brutal clutches—and his subsequent rampage of death through the heavens, where none had been safe from his indiscriminate wrath—the Heavenly High Council had ruled Bjorn unstable and unfit for duty. Falling was too lenient a punishment, they’d said, and so he had been sentenced to a true death, his spirit, the power that fueled his life, his soul, the embodiment of his emotions, and his physical body to be wiped from existence entirely.

  Thane and Xerxes had protested, demanding the warrior be reinstated and promising they would be responsible were any other problems to arise. They’d also vowed to ensure they died the true death as well if separated from their friend.

  The Council had reluctantly given in. With the amount of demon activity plaguing the world, warriors of their caliber were in high demand. Still, Zacharel doubted such a threat would ever work again.

  “There will be no reprimand,” he said, and Bjorn blinked in surprise.

  Zacharel’s gaze caught on the serpe demon even then slithering over the railing in an attempt to escape notice. Serpes possessed the head and torso of a human but the lower body of a snake, and were more temperamental than the two combined.

  Leaning over, Zacharel grabbed the thick, rattling tail and jerked. The serpe twisted, fangs bared, arms raised to attack whoever had dared stop him. Zacharel maintained a tight hold, winding its length along his forearm while using his free hand to latch on to the demon’s neck. He squeezed.

  Crimson eyes widened with alarm as talon-tipped fingers slashed at him. “Not Zacharel, anyone but Zacharel! I go back, I go back, I ssswear.”

  Finally, respect for his authority.

  “This one will do,” he told Bjorn. “You may continue with your duties.”

  The angel inclined his head even as his eyes glazed with bafflement. But he said nothing more, instead springing back into battle.

  “Pleassse! I go!”

  The demons might have been unable to enter the building for whatever reason, but Zacharel had no such problem. He commanded his body, as well as the serpe’s, to mist, and the two of them sank through the stone. Seconds later, Zacharel stood on the building’s bottom floor.

  Forgetting who held him, the serpe sighed with bliss and reached up toward the ceiling. “Time for my fun…”

  Zacharel tossed the demon across the lobby’s freshly polished floor. Multiple security guards patrolled the area and several human females manned the desk, but not a single one noticed the intruders in their midst.

  Up the walls the serpe slinked, ghosting through the ceiling and disappearing from view. Following him proved easy. Zacharel moved from floor to floor, a mere step behind. Finally the serpe ceased climbing, shooting into one of the rooms on level fourteen.

  Inside, the walls were covered with black padding. There were no windows. A single vent in the ceiling provided the only breeze, and a frigid one at that. The room was barren except for one lone piece of furniture. A hospital gurney, with…a young woman strapped to the top.

  Every muscle in his body knotted. For a moment, the past threatened to rise up and swallow him whole.

  Kill me, Zacharel. You have to kill me. Please.

  Long ago he’d built a dam to hold back his memories of the past, a barrier he’d desperately needed. Would always need, it seemed. He refortified that dam now, blanking his mind of anything but the present.

  At first glance, the woman appeared to be asleep. But then her head lolled to the side, her attention seemingly ensnared by the demon she shouldn’t be able to see. Horror, anger and fear suddenly pulsed from her.

  Had she, a mere human, somehow sensed the serpe?

  Zacharel considered her. She wore a paper-thin gown, dirty and torn, her slender frame shivering. Long hair tangled around a delicate face, the strands so black they appeared to be a breathtaking midnight-blue. Dark circles marred the fragile skin under her eyes, and her cheeks were more hollowed than they should have been, not to mention terribly bruised and scratched. Her lips were red, chapped. Her eyes were ice-blue, and in their depths he saw a never-ending storm of pain no human was equipped to bear.

  No, those eyes did not belong to a mortal, he realized. They belonged to a demon’s consort.

  Somewhere out there was a demon high lord—the most dangerous of all hell’s fiends—who considered this human his exclusive property. His to possess, his to torture…his to enjoy in whatever fashion he desired. The demon had poisoned her eyes, marking her, ensuring she could see into the spiritual world that coexisted alongside the mortal one. His world. In doing so, he had brought her to the attention of other demons, as well.

  She had to have been a willing participant in her marking, for humans could not be forced. Seduced, yes. Tricked, absolutely. Eager to dabble in the dark arts, beyond a doubt. But never forced.

  Had the high lord grown tired of her? Was that why she was here without him? No, Zacharel decided a second later. A demon never grew tired of his human. He stuck around until the bitter, bloody end—or until the human wised up and forced him to leave.

  So…why not kill her and try to hide his crime? Demon and mortal pairings were forbidden, the act carrying a sentence of death. The demon’s and the human’s. Not that Zacharel or any of his men would kill this one. That still was not on today’s menu. There would be no collateral damage.

  “Stay away from me,” she said, drawing Zacharel out of his mind. Her voice was raspy, either from drugs or strain. Or was that her natural tone? “I’m a terrible enemy to have.”

  For someone who had agreed to bond her life to a demon’s, she did not sound happy with the results. He was willing to bet she had been seduced or tricked, and now regretted it.

  Humans so rarely learned until too late, yet it didn’t have to be that way.

  “I’ll hurt you if you come any closer.” She clearly possessed Japanese ancestry, yet her voice held no hint of an accent. Odd in a way, but all the more exotic because of the lack. Soft and lilting, and the perfect contrast to her bold features.

  “Hurt me, female. Pleassse…” Tail rattling a fatal rhythm, the serpe slithered around the bed. His forked tongue darted between his fangs. “That’sss what I like—before every sssnack.”

  The minion wanted her, not because of her but because creatures of the underworld loved nothing more than one-upping their brethren. Bragging rights were as valuable as gold, as was the accompanying sense of superiority. Well, that, and the thrill of ruining someone who was supposed to be under the protection of the heavens.

  Tensing, the female said, “Touch me once, just once, and I’ll find a way out of these restraints. I’ll remove your head. I’ve d
ecapitated your kind before, you know. Maybe even friends of yours, eh?”

  An interesting response, going deeper than mere regret.

  The brave words earned a hiss of anticipation. “You lie, you lie, you delight me asss you lie. Ssso deliciousss.”

  “I’m serious! If you think a little thing like shackles will stop me, you’re more brain damaged than I thought. And news flash—I thought your IQ was in the single digits.”

  She gazed left, right, as though searching for someone to help her. While the female could see the serpe, she could not see Zacharel. That wasn’t exactly a revelation—if he did not wish to be sensed, he would not be sensed; not by a demon, or a demon’s consort, or even by other angels.

  Curious about her reaction to him, Zacharel materialized in his natural form, at the same time creating a sword of fire from nothing but the air. His gaze never leaving the female, he slashed, decapitating the demon and ending its miserable existence. Yes, killing was that easy for him. He dismissed the flames.

  “What— How—” Crystalline eyes found him and widened. Her teeth began chattering. “A-am I dreaming? The drugs… I have to be tripping. Or dreaming, maybe. Yes, that makes sense.”

  “It does not, for you are not.”

  “Are you sure? You look like the prince I once…uh, never mind.”

  She once…what? “I am positive.”

  “Then wh-who are you? What are you? How did you get in here?”

  Despite her questions, she seemed to know that he was not like the creature he had just defeated. Demons did their best to evoke fear. Angels did their best to evoke a sense of calm. Or rather, they were supposed to.

  “What are you?” the female asked again. “Are you here to kill me?”

  Kill me, Zacharel. You have to kill me. Please. I can’t live like this anymore. It’s too much, too hard. Please!

  Again the past threatened to rise up and consume him. Again he blanked his mind. Though he owed the female no explanation, though she was a demon’s consort and couldn’t be trusted, he found himself saying, “I will not kill you. I am an angel.”