Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  But then suddenly the pressure lifted, my lungs expanded, and the quick intake had me coughing—sucking air hard on all fours.

  “Ask it to tell us what is meant by the words scrawled on their nest,” Fred said, proving he’d only let me breathe so I could answer his questions.

  Eli exhaled, though his shoulders were still tense. He turned to me. “Fraciel asks if you know what the words on the apartment wall mean.”

  I blinked up at Eli, thinking. I didn’t know for sure what the words The Coming meant, but I had an idea. Months ago, when Rifion had tried to create his own heaven on earth, he brought nephilim into their power without giving them direction—without marking them. The fallen angel hadn’t used an illorum sword the way most nephilim were inducted. Somehow he’d done it with his own angelic energy. He didn’t want to use the sword—with good reason.

  The illorum sword didn’t just put the blade and crossed keys mark of the illorum on a person. It enhances a nephilim’s innate desire to hunt Fallen and their demons. Without it, the nephilim he had altered were just powerful half angels, susceptible to normal human temptations and the pitfalls of healthy egos. Without the mark they could be dangerous to normal humans and there was no reason the seraphim would allow them to live.

  There were whispers back then about The Coming of a new faith. Of creating gods on earth. Those whispers died when I kicked Rifion’s butt into the abyss, but Eli knew all that. That’s why he’d shown me the bloody writing on the wall. So why hadn’t he told the ginger-headed prick? I swallowed hard, winced, pretending I was still struggling for a good breath. It wasn’t hard. My chest ached as though his power had actually bruised me. Maybe it had.

  I shook my head, kept my gaze low, and said, “No. I don’t know what it means.”

  Eli hesitated a second, catching my eyes. He looked worried but turned back to Fred. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Ask it if the other illorum did this,” Fred said as I stumbled to my feet.

  Eli turned. “Fraciel asks if—”

  “If that kid somehow managed to kill her magister and then fatally wound herself? No. I doubt it.” My breathing was getting easier. I inhaled hard, finally filling my lungs. “The girl has brimstone in her wounds. That spells demon to me.”

  “She believes demons were involved,” Eli said.

  Fred huffed, looking away. “No demon could harm a seraph. Even a seraph laboring as a magister.”

  “Then what can kill an angel?” I asked.

  Fred tipped his chin at Eli, and my dark-haired magister turned to me, a hint of reluctance in his pale eyes. “There is nothing on earth that can harm a seraph.”

  I laughed. “I think Maion would argue that point.”

  “Save the hand of God, only a seraph’s sword can return an angel to the heavenly spirit from which he was made,” Fred said to no one in particular.

  “Another angel did this?” I asked.

  Fred’s attention snapped to me. Even with his mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes, I could feel his glare slam into me—like a physical weight, it pressed down on my shoulders, squeezing my brain. I held my breath, clenching my jaw, but after a few seconds I couldn’t take the crushing sensation and looked away.

  That’s when I saw the rest of them. Angels, seraphim, perched in the dark trees at the end of the alley, grown men balancing on limbs no thicker than a pencil. There were twenty or so peering through the thick foliage, watching.

  Just…watching.

  The girl, the illorum, had said “they” watched but none of them would help her. Had she meant the tall, meticulously dressed men with their eerie light eyes and unearthly silence? Had they watched her lying there bleeding, dying, and done nothing?

  “A seraph would never harm his brother,” Eli said.

  “Stranger things have happ—”

  “Never,” Fred said, his voice a whip of anger in the night air.

  “Then the demons must’ve gotten their hands on a seraph sword somehow,” I said, following the only chain of logic left.

  “A seraph’s sword is made of the same…material, the same spirit, as his physical body,” Eli said. “It’s a part of him. To have a seraph’s sword is to possess a piece of the seraph himself. No angel would allow such a thing. He would fight to his end to prevent it.”

  Fred sniffed from on top of the Dumpster as though my suggestion was stupid and the reason obvious. The guy was really starting to bug me.

  I grabbed my sword from where I’d dropped it, willing the blade to disband. The gleaming metal fractured, light dispersing, fading on the wind until there was nothing but the hilt in my hand. I slipped it back into its special leather sheath at the small of my back. “Well, someone must’ve figured out a way. Either that or you’ve got a rogue angel on your hands.”

  I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse. Either way the possibility was scary…like apocalypse kind of scary.

  Chapter Three

  Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. I looked up at Fred perched on top of the Dumpsters, his sharp chin high, face a somber mask. “Why didn’t you help the girl? Why didn’t you comfort her?”

  The angel’s attention swiveled down to me from behind the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses and the corner of his tight lips curled ever so slightly toward a smile. Then he vanished without a word.

  “Prick.”

  “Emma Jane,” Eli said, chastising. “They understand that word and like you, they can hear.”

  “Yeah? So why didn’t any of them lift a finger to help the kid?” I gestured to the dark trees at the end of the alley, its limbs still crowded with angels watching in silent fixation.

  “They can’t—”

  “I know they can’t interfere in the battles between illorum and the Fallen by healing her or anything like that. But they could’ve comforted her. They could’ve eased her pain.” I pushed past him angrily and jogged back to the girl. She was still out cold. The cauliflower swelling from the brimstone under her wounds had gone down, but she was still pretty bad off.

  Before I could look up again, Eli was kneeling next to me. “The nephilim, even after they’ve picked up the sword, are…corrupted in the eyes of seraphim. They are still…unclean. A seraph wouldn’t even touch this illorum’s mind to discover how it was possible for someone, or something, to kill one of its own. And trust me, Emma Jane, they are in a panic over the mystery.”

  I stroked the girl’s face. She was just a kid. “You’re saying they wouldn’t ease her pain because…because they didn’t believe she deserved the kindness? They wouldn’t comfort her because she wasn’t a pure human?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aye,” someone said from behind us. “They’re a holy bunch of arses, they are.”

  I looked up at the familiar sound of a thick Irish accent and into the bright green eyes of the oldest illorum I knew. “Liam McGregor.”

  At fifty-six, the man still looked a young twenty-five—the age he’d been when he was marked. He was about as mature as a sixteen-year-old and thanks to his five foot nothing frame and kinky, orangish-red hair, he reminded me of an X-rated leprechaun.

  “How’ve ya been, lassie? Lookin’ mighty fine, I must say.”

  Just then the ambulance pulled up at the end of the alley, lights flashing, blinking off the walls with a kind of strobe effect. Our reunion was put on hold while the attendants saw to the injured girl and the police, who had pulled in behind the ambulance, asked the three of us a million questions twice over.

  Thanks to Dan, I knew most of the cops in Pittsburgh, so Officer Mike Rizzo and his partner, Larry Weinbaum, were more surprised to see me than I was to see them.

  “Emma, what are you doing here?” Mike asked. His compact, powerhouse body made me think he could’ve been on the same high school wrestling team as Dan. You could tell Mike was Italian just by looking at him. With his black hair cut short on a wide, sharp-boned face, he looked like an extra off the set of The Godfather. The right turn of hi
s nose didn’t help much. The tough guy never had it set right after a break. “You okay?”

  I nodded, stepping out of the way of the attendants wheeling the battered illorum toward the waiting ambulance. “I’m fine. I was the one who found the girl. Called it in.”

  “You know her?” Larry asked, stepping up beside Mike. Physically, Larry was Mike’s opposite—tall and lean, more swimmer than wrestler. His hair was a few shades lighter than Mike’s and an inch or so longer. He wore glasses, dark frames with silver accents, on a very large beak-like nose that Dan said made him insecure with women.

  “No, ya gom,” Liam said. “She just found the bird bleedin’ on the ground there and did her moral duty, is all.”

  Mike narrowed his eyes on the frizzy-haired Irishman. “And you are?”

  He flashed a wide, boyish smile and bowed. “Liam McGregor, at your service.”

  Such a creepy, little freak.

  Mike jotted a note on his pad, nodding. “So you were with Emma when she discovered the girl?”

  “Aye,” Liam answered at the same time that I said, “No.”

  Larry laughed, but a shadow of doubt flickered behind his eyes. “Which is it?”

  The two cops shifted their attention back and forth between us, their brows shooting high when Liam slipped his arm around my waist.

  “Aye. Yes. Out paintin’ the town together we were.” Liam puffed his chest, stretched his five-foot frame to its fullest, and let his smile turn lecherous, brows bobbing.

  “Really?” Mike said.

  “Dan’s okay with this?” Larry asked.

  “No. We weren’t…I mean, Liam’s just—”

  “My nephew,” Eli said, moving close behind me. “I was showing Liam and Emma Jane where I grew up. It was just down the street, off Fifth. We were walking by and heard the poor girl crying…”

  Larry lifted his chin, dark eyes peering from beneath the bill of his police hat suspiciously. “And who are you?”

  “This is Eli, he’s my, uh, martial arts teacher,” I said. It wasn’t too far from the truth. Eli had taught me everything I knew about fighting—some martial arts, but mostly sword combat.

  “Is that right,” Larry said.

  It took another thirty minutes playing question and answer before Mike and Larry let us go. Eli gave them a fake cell number and address. I wasn’t sure if Liam’s information was any more real. I figured I’d find out if the police had more questions and couldn’t reach anyone but me. Something to look forward to.

  We made a right out of the alley, heading down Clyde toward Fifth, sticking to Eli’s story about showing us his old neighborhood. Liam tried slipping his arm around my shoulders again and I elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Oww…” He rubbed his side, chuckling. “When did you get so hard ta’ play?”

  “What are you doing here, Liam?”

  “Heard a magister had his holy arse returned to the start. Can’t say as I’d be seein’ that every day. Came to snap pictures.” Liam wasn’t a big fan of angels—fallen, seraphim, or magisters.

  “His illorum nearly got her ass handed to her too, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Aye. I noticed,” Liam said, sobering. “Any word on what beastie pulled it off?”

  “Beast?” I asked. “You think whatever did it wasn’t human?”

  “Those angel pricks are a might hard to kill,” he said. “Couldn’t be anythin’ less than supernatural that did the deed. Nothin’ human for sure. If we’re lucky, the bloody angels turned on themselves.”

  “Watch your tongue, boy,” Eli said, his irritated gaze flicking across me to Liam, then straight ahead again. “You’ve no idea what intolerance your magister endures from our brothers to help you complete your mission. What we all endure.”

  “Aye, that be true. But if not for one of my magister’s brothers raping me Ma and buggerin’ my arse in the processes, I wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with,” Liam said. “So forgive me if I don’t weep for one less of ya walkin’ the earth.”

  “What are you really doing here, Liam?” I asked.

  He glanced sideways at me, his red lashes pale under the streetlights. “I have me reasons, lassie. Personal. Had to see with me own eyes if it be demons behind the killing.”

  “I don’t know who, or what, was behind the attack, but demons were there tonight,” I said. “The girl was full of brimstone.”

  Liam’s gaze fell to his feet and he nodded. “Aye. I thought as much. You’ll let me know if the little lassie points a finger?”

  “Sure.”

  He stopped, turned to face me. “It’s important, Emma.”

  I studied his face for a moment—saw the worry, the sincerity that deepened creases along his forehead and tightened the corners of his eyes. “What’s going on, Liam?”

  “Just promise you’ll let me know,” he said.

  I nodded. “Promise. But how will I get in touch with you?”

  His expression eased. “Ask your boyfriend. Just gave me number to his mates, didn’t I?”

  “Right.”

  “Now.” He sighed and held out his arms, his gaze dropping to my breasts. “Give us a squeeze before we part ways. No tellin’ how long I might go without feelin’ the soft curves of a woman’s body in me arms again.”

  “Um…no.” I wasn’t sure how Liam remembered our last encounter, when he’d nearly allowed a demon to take my head. But we were never that close.

  He dropped his arms, feigning hurt feelings. “You be a cruel hearted bit a’ fluff, Emma Jane Hellsbane. But a right fine fluff to be sure.” His smile flashed, green eyes bright. Then he winked and vanished.

  “Such a creepy, little guy.” I shook my head.

  §

  Muzak droned innocuously through elevator speakers while everything inside me screamed for me to run, to find a deep, dark hole somewhere and hide…forever. The emotion wasn’t mine, but that didn’t make it feel any less real.

  I was tracking the girl, the illorum from the alley, inside Children’s Hospital by following her bone-chilling fear so powerful it threatened to choke out my own reality. Fighting the impulse wasn’t easy, and neither was reasoning with my brain that the emotions weren’t mine. My heart raced like a caged bird despite my effort. Every muscle in my body tensed, spring-loaded, ready to flee.

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The moment I stepped into the hall I knew which room was hers.

  “A little conspicuous, don’t you think?” I said.

  Eli glanced down the hall toward the clutch of angels gathered around the hospital room door. “Unlike magisters, seraphim do not reside on this plane. They are spirit only and therefore humans can’t see them unless the seraphim wish it and cross over.”

  “Seriously?” There were ten men at least, all of them tall like Eli, lean, with the same broad shoulders and stern face he sometimes wore when he was deep in thought. Like a men’s choir, they were all dressed in suits that were close enough in color and style to make them seem similar, but on closer inspection no two were exactly alike. In shades of white, gray, and black—the fabric melded to their bodies perfectly, like skin, as though they’d been born wearing them. Maybe they had.

  They were all sublimely handsome with long hair past the smalls of their backs. Butter yellows, steel grays, honey browns, and midnight blues, the colors so rich they seemed both supernatural and completely normal at once.

  The girl’s fear was still a prickling sensation at the back of my skull. But the nearer I came to the angelic mob, the more their warm thrum of power pulsed through me.

  Like stepping from a bitter cold rain into warm bathwater, my muscles relaxed, my heart slowed. Their power enveloped me, washing away even the faint sense of fear, of vulnerability that comes with being alive. My head fuzzed, drunk on the heady comfort of their power. The light scent of fresh meadows drenched in sunshine filled my lungs.

  A nurse walked through the group from the other side and as she passed, the angel
s popped out of her way and back again. She didn’t look up from her metal clipboard, her pen hand jotting notes as she walked. But her lips curled in a soft, satisfied smile—her eyes fluttering closed for a moment until she’d passed through the cloud of their power.

  I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to curl up on the floor and let myself drown in that soothing sensation. “What are they doing here?”

  “Waiting for you,” Eli said.

  We walked past them, zigzagging through the crowd until we reached the door. They didn’t move for me. Eli pushed open the room door, and I stepped through without a word to the waiting angels. Not that they would’ve spoken to me anyway.

  The instant I crossed the threshold, goose bumps rippled over my skin and dread chilled through me like the scratch of bony fingers all over my body. My stomach knotted—my heart a frantic pulse in my chest. I clenched my teeth, fisting my hands, trying to deny a sudden, smothering sense of despair swamping through me…swamping through the girl. For whatever reason the soothing effect of the hallway angels didn’t reach through the walls of this room. Or was it being purposely blocked?

  The small, private room was even more crowded than the hall. Another fifteen angelic men crammed shoulder to shoulder around the hospital bed, making a wall of their bodies that blocked my view of the girl. Each angel was as beautiful and powerful as the ones in the hall.

  But it was the one perched on the narrow frame at the foot of her bed that commanded the room and my attention.

  “Fraciel, you cannot do this,” Eli said.

  The lean, redheaded angel swiveled his head toward us, monster-movie slow, his eyes hidden behind those damn mirrored sunglasses. “It is not human. I can do what I like.”

  “She’s half human. You’re tormenting her,” Eli said. “To what end?”

  “He’s behind the gloom and doom cloud in here?” I looked to Fred. “What, she didn’t suffer enough tonight? You figured you’d make her off herself, too?”