Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  He huddled around me, his lips brushing my ear, sending a quick volley of tingles over my skin. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  I swallowed hard, drowning in the emotion at the back of my throat. “I’ve missed you too,” I said, but my voice cracked, the last of it barely a whisper.

  He turned me around, one arm holding my waist, the other hand catching my chin and raising my gaze to his. “They were wrong, Emma Jane. What I feel, it’s not what they think, what they fear. It can’t be…it’s more than that. I’ve been at home—at peace with my brothers, but you have never left my thoughts. There are so many wondrous things on heaven and earth that I wanted to show you, to share with you. It seemed every moment something new would make my mind turn to ask for your thoughts and my eyes search for your face. A comfort I’d grown accustomed to without realizing. A comfort I am finding it difficult to live without. I am lost without you. For even surrounded by all those who love me I am alone—unfinished. I missed you. Why is that wrong?”

  My chest tightened and I inhaled hard, forcing my lungs to fill. I knew by the way he’d said it that he wasn’t really asking me, but I wished with all my heart I could give him an answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.” Before the last of his words left his mouth, Eli leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.

  Heat spread through my body like a bolt of lightning, warming me from the inside out in an instant. My mind spun as his tongue stroked against my lips, gentle at first and then more demanding. I opened to him, tasting his sweet warmth—the warmth of an angel.

  His arms slipped around me, pulling me closer until our bodies molded to each other. The hardness of his excitement pressed against me, cueing my brain, crystallizing my awareness. The risk we were taking, what it meant if we let go of our last thread of control, melted from my thoughts. We could do this. We could be together. All that was stopping us was…

  Eli’s eternal life and…Dan. I broke the kiss and pushed back from Eli’s heavenly embrace, the cool chill of the falls’ misty breeze making the loss of his warmth all the more acute.

  “I’m sorry. I…” Like a curtain had suddenly been lifted, reality blazed through my thoughts. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a soft laugh. Angels have little concept of time.

  He reached for me, but I moved back checking my watch. “Shit, Eli. I’m late.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I wasn’t sure if Eli knew where the meeting was or if he would try to follow me, but when I teleported from the edge of the Canadian falls to the Mount Washington overlook in Pittsburgh, I couldn’t worry about it anymore. Without missing a step I drew my sword and willed the blade to form, calling molecules from this plane and the next.

  This was supposed to be a meeting, a negotiation, but what I walked in on fifteen minutes late was a full-on battle. From the corner of my eye my brain registered Dan on his knees, hands up in surrender, a sword point denting his neck.

  A jolt of fear froze my heart, stole my breath, but I forced a slow exhale, focusing. I’d get him out of this—alive—but only if I could push my worry for him from my thoughts and keep my head clear. Dammit. Of all times to be late. I knew the man—the demon—who held him on his knees. Bariel.

  He was a chunky demon, built like a two-hundred-pound bowling pin in a business suit. His short, honey-colored hair, violet eyes, and round face were exactly as I remembered from a year ago when he was the go-to bitch for Rifion.

  I shifted the information to the back of my mind and focused on the more immediate danger that had both man and demon distracted for the moment.

  Jaz hadn’t listened any better than Dan. With long, determined strides I stormed across the wide concrete overlook toward the three gibborim working hard to find an opening in his defenses. Two men and a woman, each with gleaming swords that could only be angelic.

  I picked my target, the biggest of the three—scruffy face, dirty jeans, flannel shirt, and vest. He looked like a truck driver except for the huge honkin’ sword in his hands. “Hey. How about we even the odds?”

  For half a second everyone hesitated and in that exact moment I swung my sword. I don’t know if the guy’s brain had time to register what was about to happen—to see the glint of the streetlights off my sword, to feel the first sting as the blade broke his skin. But that’s all the time he had before my sword was through his neck. His head toppled off and hit the hard concrete with a sickeningly wet thump.

  I shuffled backward to avoid the wobbly roll of his head and watched his bulky frame crumble. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the gush of thick blood pouring from the sheared-off stump of his neck, pooling around his upper body, growing wider and wider. The red liquid shimmered in the light of the streetlamps, smooth and flawless, like the shine on a candy apple—pretty and wrong. So wrong.

  My brain shifted to the man I’d just killed, then to my sword and the blood running down the edge, dripping from the point. I waited… For what?

  He wasn’t a demon. He’d been human. His body wouldn’t melt into a convenient pile of rank black goo. He wouldn’t disintegrate leaving no trace to prove he ever was. He was real, human, and I’d killed him. I’d taken a life.

  “Fucking bitch.” I heard the curse like a voice on the radio—distant, separate from the reality I occupied. But instinct lifted my head and despite the slow response of my brain I stumbled backward, narrowly avoiding the sword slicing past my face.

  The female gibborim came at me again with unfathomable speed, teeth clenched, long, coffee-brown ponytail flaring out in her wake. She was dressed like a Sunday afternoon jogger—black Spandex pants and mint-green sports bra, her white sneakers unmarred except for a splash of crimson red. She’d stepped in her dead partner’s blood, leaving a footprint indented in the thickening pool and track marks after every step.

  My stomach gave a hard, nauseating roll and I barely lifted my sword in time to block her next strike. The impact sent a shock down my arms, jangling through my nerves, making even my teeth hurt. I staggered back, tried to adjust my stance to attack, but she was already striking again. I blocked, stumbled back, and blocked again.

  “Stupid seraphim puppets.” She snarled. “Weak and slow. No way are you getting away with killing Jeb.”

  I wanted to argue, to fight back, but I couldn’t. She was so fast, so strong, it was all I could do to keep her sword from ramming through my gut or slicing me in half. I spun and willed myself some twenty yards away—to the other side of the overlook. I’d moved at nearly the speed of thought, but when I came to a stop she was already there.

  A smug grin stretched across her thin tanned face. “Seriously? You’re as slow as my grandmother.”

  She swung and I ducked, then sliced my sword up in an undercut, aiming to rip her from hip to shoulder. But Jogger Girl twisted and blocked, then rammed her elbow into my nose. Pain exploded through my brain and I stumbled back, fighting to keep both my hands on my sword.

  The jogger bitch laughed. “God, you’re pathetic.”

  She was right. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. My gaze flicked behind her to Jaz. He and the third gibborim—dressed in medical scrubs and a white lab coat—fought for their lives, both of them going for the kill with every strike. Their bodies blurred, and every few seconds they’d blink out of sight only to reappear a few feet away or across the street or on the next overlook down. I couldn’t tell who was chasing whom, or which one was winning, but I knew the battle wouldn’t last much longer.

  I had to get to him. I had to help. My gaze flicked back to Jogger Girl, determined.

  She laughed. “Forget it. He’s already ether.”

  My jaw dropped. She’d read my thoughts? Of course she had. With that stolen sword she was nearly as powerful as an angel. No wonder I couldn’t outmaneuver her. She knew my moves before I made them.

  Confident, she lowered her sword, toying with me.

  I hate that. I sighed and dropped my sw
ord to my side. “I don’t get it. You’ve got an angel’s sword in your hand. The only reason you can even use it is because you’re half angel. You have to know that. You have to believe in angels and demons and God… Yet you’re killing angels for their swords. Why? Aren’t you the slightest bit afraid of pissing off God?”

  She snorted, too sure of herself. “God? Who do you think told me to do it?”

  I felt my brow wrinkle. “Kinda doubt that.”

  Jaz and his doctor attacker popped in fifteen feet behind Jogger Girl. The moment the thought occurred to me, I teleported behind his attacker, swinging my sword before I’d even come to a stop.

  My blade sliced through the air, nicking flesh and spraying blood. But it wasn’t the doc’s blood, it was Jogger Girl. She was fast, too fast, and had materialized right in the path of my sword. Doc gibborim was a few inches taller than her, so the swing I’d meant for his neck hit her temple, slicing across her eye and nose.

  The eyeball popped from its socket before she could reach up to cup her face. She screamed, blood seeping between her fingers, streaming down her face as she twisted back around, her free hand wielding her sword for the strike. I dodged, trying to stay in her blind spot, but an agonizing cry from Jaz made me trip and I hit the rough concrete.

  Skin scraped off my hands and knees as my sword bounced out of reach, clanking along the cement. I twisted fast, ignoring the pain, blindly scrambling backward for my sword. Jogger Girl stomped after me, but my fingers had finally found the solid hilt. I gripped it tight, ignoring the brush of something soft and cool against my knuckles. My gaze went to Jaz, clutching his sword arm to his chest. A ghostly white mist oozed out from the short stump where his hand should’ve been.

  Mercilessly, the doctor swung his sword at the wounded, unarmed angel. Reflex made Jaz lift his bleeding arm to block the strike.

  “Jaz, no!” I screamed, even as the gibborim’s stolen angelic sword sliced through the meat and bone of his forearm and then glided right on through his neck.

  The angel’s white-blue eyes flicked my way, wide and surprised. His head tilted as if he were about to ask a question and then kept going until it tumbled off. Before it hit the floor a flash of light burst from the dismembered head and severed neck.

  An instant later his whole body exploded in a brilliant blaze of light, so bright we all had to shield our eyes. A hot wash of wind blew over me, knocking me back so I had to brace my arms to keep from falling over. And then he was just…gone.

  “You fucking bastards!” I yelled, launching to my feet with a speed and strength I’d never felt before. I swung my sword, my gaze and aim perfectly synced. Jogger Girl never saw it coming.

  She was closest and she’d be the first to pay. In a blur so fast even I could hardly track it, my blade sliced through her waist and out the other side. Her body fell in two pieces—the blood seeping from her eye was nothing compared to the buckets spilling from her middle.

  I turned to the gibborim who’d killed Jaz and found myself close enough to strike the moment the thought entered my head. I wasn’t sure how I’d moved that fast or why, and I didn’t care. I just swung my sword—my heart aching, crazed, and furious beyond reason. But the sword-wielding doctor was ready. He blocked and attacked, our swords striking metal to metal so hard sparks lit from the blades, showering the ground at our feet.

  He was a better swordsman than me, but not stronger, not faster. Not this time. Still, I couldn’t stand my ground—giving way one fast step after another, backing across the overlook. My foot bumped into something behind me and I stumbled, trying to catch my balance, but my feet couldn’t find solid ground and I slipped, going down—hard.

  “Stop!” Bariel’s bellowed command stopped the gibborim’s blade mid-swing.

  The rumpled doctor panted—chest and shoulders heaving, face frozen in rage. He straightened, slowly regaining control as he tugged the edges of his lab coat, smoothing his green scrub shirt underneath.

  “Hello, Emma,” the demon Bariel said. “So nice of you to accept my invitation. Now, be a dear and hand the sword over to Dr. Westly.”

  Dan twisted to see me—his hands still up but ignoring the sword at his throat. “Just run, Emma. They’ve already got me. That’s enough. Run.”

  “Silence, boy.” Bariel flicked his wrist and sliced a quick line across Dan’s throat, instantly drawing blood. It wasn’t deep, but Dan jerked back around—his hand going to the wound.

  “Dan, don’t—” I shifted, ready to teleport to him, but the doc stepped closer just as fast to stop me.

  “There are plenty more like you all over the world,” Bariel said to Dan. “My interest in you is not without limits.”

  My blood ran cold, fear weighing in my stomach like iced lead. I couldn’t let anything happen to Dan. I couldn’t lose him—not like this. He was the only thing standing between me and the insanity of this bizarre supernatural life. He’s what grounded me in reality, gave me reason to fight, to hope for a future without demons and death. No matter how I felt about Eli, Dan was the embodiment of normal life for me. He held the light at the end of the tunnel for me to follow. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t.

  I looked at the doc still glaring at me, his lips a tight, flat line. He must’ve been in his mid-forties, his brown hair showing the first signs of thinning. He had at least a day’s worth of beard stubble, and other than the sword in his hand he seemed as normal as Jogger Girl and Trucker Guy. It was as if they’d been in the middle of an average day when Bariel called them to come kill Jaz and me.

  Jaz. My chest squeezed. I couldn’t believe he’d been killed right in front of me, and I hadn’t been able to stop it. Anger clenched my teeth and I fisted the hilt of my sword. And now they’d threaten to take Dan too? Hell no.

  Faster than the gibborim doctor could track I was on my feet, ready to do whatever I had to in order to protect Dan.

  “You want my sword? Let the human go and come get it.” But something was wrong. The weapon didn’t feel right. My sword had been made especially for me—made perfectly to fit snug in my palm. I looked at the hilt in my hand. It wasn’t mine.

  “Not your sword, my dear,” Bariel said. “The seraph’s.”

  My gaze shot across the overlook to where Jaz had been killed, where he’d screamed cradling his bleeding arm, and where I’d dropped my sword.

  There it was. My illorum sword lying right where I’d left it—half-hidden on the other side of the trucker’s headless body. The hilt was only a few inches from the pool of his blood, a pool that still seemed to be growing larger as I stared. My gaze dropped again and I opened my hand—for the first time feeling the slick, ghostly sensation. Jaz’s misty blood was practically invisible, but the hilt of his sword was covered in it—and now so was my hand.

  “You may keep it if you like,” Bariel said. “Simply kill your magister.”

  My gaze swung up to the gibborim in the doctor’s coat and scrubs, hatred a vile, bitter taste in my mouth. “My magister is already dead, you sick bastard.”

  “No.” Bariel chuckled and the sound turned my blood cold. “Jazar was the housemother the Council sent to spy on you. He meant little to you. I want a true display of your loyalty. I want the sword of Elizal, your real magister. Kill him, take his weapon, and I will ensure the threats of demon attacks end. You, your family, all you love will be safe. Retrieve Elizal’s sword and you can reclaim your life…and still retain your power.”

  My gaze flicked to the stout demon, a sickening weight settling in my belly. Jaz’s blood was on my hands—literally—and this bastard thought I’d use his sword to hurt Eli? “Go to hell.”

  Bariel’s light brows shot up. “Not a particularly clever retort, dear, but I understand you’re under a measure of stress. In fact, I’ll allow you a moment more to reconsider. Perhaps you do not fully comprehend what I am offering. Quite simply, I will restore your life as you knew it, before you picked up that boy’s sword. You would be forever safe from demons. No
t simply you, but your entire lineage, and those you truly love safe from evil and all its faces—until the end of days.”

  His words slowly crystallized in my brain. He wasn’t just promising that the people I love would never be attacked again; he was promising that demons would never touch our lives in any way.

  If he could do it, the offer was better than gold. Most freed demons were resentful, vengeful creatures, taking comfort in causing human suffering. And they were good at it. Child molesters, serial killers, corrupt CEOs, crooked politicians—demons never appeared as the evil things they really were. Instead they insinuated themselves into society—manipulating, whispering evil, destroying humanity from the inside out. And all those I loved could be forever protected from it.

  But even if Bariel had the kind of clout he’d need among demons to keep all of them off my case forevermore, it would mean I’d have to turn a blind eye to the evil my angelic half allowed me to see. It would mean killing Eli. The people I loved would be safe, but the cost of that safety was high. Too high.

  I raised my chin. “Go to Hell.”

  Bariel snorted, his violet eyes flicking down to Dan, the sword still hovering agonizingly close to his neck. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw the brave man’s shoulders drop, and my heart pinched.

  “There, you see?” the demon said. “I told you she wouldn’t take the deal. There is nothing more important to her—not her family, not you, not even the safety of your children. She sacrifices all to keep her angelic lover, Elizal, in her life.”

  “I’m not sacrificing anyone. I’m choosing to save as many as I can. What do you want, Bariel—really?” I ignored the crack about Eli. He was playing on Dan’s insecurity, and I had to hope Dan knew it. The worry that he didn’t, that he’d believe Bariel’s rhetoric, twisted my stomach into a quick, tight knot.

  The demon looked my way again. “I want that sword, or if you prefer, I want you to use it in defense of your kind. I want you and the boy here to join us. And I want to free the power shackled within all my brothers’ children so they might one day take their rightful position and stand at their father’s side.”