Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “It won’t happen. He’s my magister. He’s protective, same as he was with Tommy. That’s all.”

  “Eli loved Tommy. He’s in love with you,” Dan said. “But what’s worse is you’re in love with him, too.”

  “No—” I stiffened, but he wouldn’t hear my denial.

  “Don’t, Em. Please,” he said, making me look him in the eye. “I don’t blame you, and I’m not even that mad about it. Okay, maybe a little. But I know you didn’t want it to happen and you don’t want to admit that it did. But I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut—looked away. When I looked back Dan was waiting, his brow knitted in a mix of worry and expectation. I sighed. “I do care about Eli; I won’t deny that. But it’s because I care about him that I won’t let him fall. When I’m with him I feel like I’m constantly battling not to say something I shouldn’t or forget what’s at risk. It’s exciting yes, but it’s also exhausting. With you though…with you I can just…relax. It’s comfortable…normal…calm.”

  He snorted. “Calm? Right. Who wants the excitement of uncontrollable passion when you can have normal and calm?”

  “Exactly,” I said, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of my mind calling me a liar. “Isn’t that what you want? Normalcy…a life of peace and quiet, going to work, having kids, growing old together?”

  He shrugged, not looking at me. “Truth? I’m not sure I believe that’s what you want. I think it’s what you think you should want. I mean, I care about you, Em. A lot. I think we’d be good together. We could be great, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But I’ve already been in a relationship where one of us wasn’t as invested as the other. It ended in divorce. Why would I want to do that again?” He rolled to his side, nestling in the pillow, eyelids fluttering low. “You’re great, Em, but you’re not being honest with yourself and it’s no good for either of us. We have to quit before it’s too late. I’m sorry, I just can’t….”

  His voice trailed off, eyes drifting shut. Thirty seconds later he was snoring.

  I stood and tucked the covers around him, my throat tightening. I blinked back the sting of tears I refused to shed. This was my fault. What did I expect? Dan wasn’t stupid. He knew I cared about him, loved him, even. But if there was a way Eli and I could be together, would I stay with him?

  The question had been haunting the back of my mind for months, but I’d pushed it away. It didn’t matter. Eli and I couldn’t be together—ever. Not as man and woman. And despite Dan’s worries, I did want the kids and the white-picket fence. I wanted someone to grow old with. Not just because that’s what I thought I should want, but because I wanted to share those things with someone. And Dan could give it all to me. But what was I offering him? He deserved someone who wasn’t just filling a void—filling a slot in her life. He deserved all my heart…or none of it.

  I had to decide who I could live without, and who should live without me.

  The decision wouldn’t be easy. I loved Dan and I could share everything with him, even the supernatural part of my life that I couldn’t share with anyone else. Could I do this without him—without having someone to talk to, someone who would understand? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  I tiptoed out of the room, flicking off the light and closing the door behind me. When I turned around I noticed a weird glow in the window that overlooked the backyard and crossed the hall to look out.

  The sky was still midnight black, the tall trees ringing my backyard little more than black shadows on a dark background. I squinted against the night, watching as the wind rustled through the leaves. I wasn’t sure I saw it at first but then the tiny twinkle of light blinked again. The moment I was certain it was there, I noticed another one several feet over, and then another and another.

  There were seven baseball-sized orbs of light floating in the trees. Weird. And then it hit me. I knew in my gut what they were. I spun, heading for the stairs. “Damn. The Council’s envoy is back.”

  I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t seen him from the second-floor window, but as I jogged across the backyard I could make out Eli’s form. The lights I’d seen in the trees were still there, hovering exactly where each of the Council’s envoy had been last time. But there were no angels, only those lights.

  And then I saw Fred. The familiar blood-haired angel was striding toward Eli from the shadows of the tree line, his cloud-white jacket fluttering around his calves. “You were told to stay away from the female. Your defiance would indicate your state of mind is grimmer than we first believed.”

  “She was under attack,” Eli said. “Jazar had been killed, and an innocent human was in grave danger. I had no choice. I needed to act.”

  Fred clasped his hands behind his back. “Jazar has returned to the divine ether of Father’s bosom. Such was his fate. It was not for you to intervene. The same was true of the illorum and the human. You thoughtlessly unraveled your brother’s work and restored life to the human, thus proving my point. You are adversely influenced by the woman.”

  I was pretty sure Fred hadn’t seen me yet, so I veered to the right, keeping to the darker shadows. Gram’s old apple tree made a great hiding spot, the fat trunk thick enough to completely block me from Fred and the seven balls of light. I peered around, straining to hear as much as I could.

  “Restoring life to Daniel has no bearing on the war. The act was a private matter—a personal decision, and one that many of us have made over the eons. I will not discuss it. Not when there are matters far more pressing at hand.” Eli straightened.

  “What issues the Council wishes to discuss is not for you to decide. But that aside, have you learned more in regards to the attacks on our brothers?”

  “Yes. The gibborim are being led by the demon Bariel. However, I have reason to believe he does not act alone.”

  The tall angel shook his head, his long hair shifting over his shoulders. “Even a demon of Bariel’s age would not have the strength to unbind a nephilim’s power.”

  “Agreed,” Eli said with a quick nod. “We’ve discovered the angelic power in many of the nephilim Rifion had called to him had already been unleashed. It lay dormant within them, but unlocked. Rifion was in the process of awakening that power when Emma Jane banished him.”

  Fred sniffed as though everything made perfect sense now. “Then the gibborim committing the recent attacks were empowered by the Fallen, Rifion. The demon is simply scavenging the spoils left behind by his master.”

  “Perhaps,” Eli said, hedging. “However—”

  He stopped in mid-thought, and both he and Fred turned to stare back at the glowing orbs. I’d thought they were solid balls emitting light, like tiny suns. But when a breeze swayed the branches of the trees and the leaves passed right through them, I realized they were just light with no apparent source.

  After a weird couple of seconds of silence, Fred turned back to Eli. His bright red brows were high as though he expected some sort of response from my ex-magister.

  Eli cleared his throat. “We…can’t be certain. There were hundreds of people in attendance at Rifion’s gathering. Perhaps a quarter were well into the process of awakening their dormant power. As many as half or more could have had their power unlocked, yet still not activated. The event in Pittsburgh was only one of several similar gatherings Rifion conducted all over the world. The number of potential gibborim is perhaps…in the thousands.”

  “You can locate them.” Fred made it a statement, like he thought it’d be that easy.

  “No.”

  Fred did his best Mr. Spock impression, one brow zipping up to his hairline in silent query.

  “Forgive me.” Eli lowered his gaze reverently. “The chore is too great for one. It’s too great for twenty. And the effort may be for naught.”

  “The Council would not ask it of you if they believed the task was not paramount. Humanity cannot be subjected to such unc
hecked power. Father would not permit it.”

  Eli moved forward, then stopped when Fred’s white eyes widened. “Even if we could locate all the nephilim who had been called to Rifion and focus their power with an illorum sword, marking them, it may not be enough.”

  “Explain,” Fred demanded.

  “It’s difficult. The only explanation I have I also know to be impossible,” he said. “The gibborim are already being marked, but not by Michael’s sword. Bariel has been fashioning black swords from a black spirit and using them to unlock the nephilim’s angelic half as well as mark them as gibborim. They obey him.”

  “You witnessed this?”

  “Yes… No. Daniel, the human whose life I restored, was offered one of the swords, but he refused it,” Eli said.

  Fred’s red brows tightened. “He is nephilim?”

  “Yes. His angelic half is still tightly leashed,” Eli said. “I must ask, brother, has an archangel fallen?”

  Fred folded his long arms across his chest, smirking. “Fear not. The son of perdition is secure in his chains.”

  “No. I meant other than Lucifer,” Eli said, taking that step closer he’d changed his mind about before, this time ignoring Fred’s withering gaze. “Only an archangel has the strength of spirit to call up a nephilim’s angelic half. Only an archangel’s sword has the power to focus a nephilim’s hunger for battle. Please, brother. Has another of our most holy fallen?”

  The Council’s envoy opened his delicate mouth as if to answer but then twisted to look back at the orbs again. Eli’s gaze followed in the same direction and after a quiet moment, Fred turned back to him and Eli bowed his head.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to imply that the Council is beholden to me. I only—”

  “The swords must be demon-forged,” Fred said, rudely cutting Eli short. “No more powerful than any other. Bariel is scavenging Rifion’s spoils. Pretending a strength he can never hope to possess. It is the only explanation. A demon cannot unleash a nephilim’s angelic half.”

  “Of course, brother.” Eli sounded dutifully compliant.

  “However, these spoils, these bastardized results of Rifion’s experiment, cannot be suffered to live. Their ill-begotten strength is an affront to Father,” Fred said. “They must be stopped. They must be put down.”

  “But, Fraciel, you don’t understand. We cannot sense them until it’s too late. Their power was called without the use of an illorum sword. Without Michael’s mark on them their soul feels no different to us than any nephilim.”

  Fred glanced over his shoulder at the orbs. “Agreed,” he said and looked back to Eli. “It is the only solution. They’ll all have to be put down.”

  “No!” I rushed from the shadows and Fred’s eyes opened wide, his whole body stiffening. Guess he really didn’t know I was there. “You can’t just go around killing these people. It’s not their fault.”

  “Emma Jane—” Eli reached for my elbow but I jerked away, stalking closer to the snobbish redhead who looked both outraged and terrified, like I might give him cooties just by speaking to him.

  “Most of them are innocent,” I said. “They don’t even know they’re half angel. Their power is still dormant. And a lot of the ones who have been tampered with don’t understand what’s happened to them. You can’t kill them.”

  Fred’s white eyes flicked past me to Eli as he would to a parent with an unruly child. I held my breath waiting for Eli to rein me in and tell me I was out of line.

  But instead I heard, “She is not wrong.”

  Fred’s red brows creased. “Ignorance is not an excuse. This mess is our brother’s making and Father has charged us to rectify it however necessary. It was your testimony that we cannot differentiate gibborim from dormant nephilim. The only solution therefore is to eradicate all nephilim thereby ensuring the wicked are ended.”

  “I can tell the difference.” The confession sort of blurted out of me like word vomit. But the instant it was there, I knew it was true. I’d felt the gibborim—something different about them, something wrong—every time I’d gotten close. I could use that feeling to target them.

  “Emma Jane, no,” Eli said. But it was too late.

  Fred looked over his shoulder at the seven orbs still bright in the trees. When he turned back he was nodding. “Very well, Elizal. Your illorum will hunt and kill all the nephilim whose power was unlocked by Rifion, whether it lay awakened within them or not. And you will teach other illorum how to sense the wicked of their kind and join her in the task.”

  “No,” I said, realizing why Eli had tried to stop my verbal upchuck. “I mean, I’ll take care of the gibborim, the ones killing magisters. But I’m not killing some poor sap who had the bad luck to get sucked in by Rifion’s song and dance and doesn’t have a clue he’s anything but vanilla human.”

  Fred’s white gaze stayed glued to Eli as if I hadn’t spoken, though his furrowed brow and clenched jaw said otherwise. “If your illorum refuses, we will have no choice but to destroy all nephilim—” Fred stopped short and looked to the orbs behind him.

  I took the opportunity to glance back at Eli and whisper, “What are those things?”

  “The Council.”

  “The Council. Archangels?” I swallowed hard. The thought of seven archangels hovering twenty feet away rattled me all the way down to my bones. “They’re a lot taller in their paintings. And, y’know, more humanlike.”

  “They didn’t anticipate an audience with humans,” Eli whispered. “This is their purest form, without the masks of physical bodies.”

  “What are they saying to him?”

  Eli opened his mouth like he’d answer, but then snapped it closed and reached for my elbow, pulling me back to stand beside him. He lowered his voice. “They’re reminding Fraciel that we can no longer eradicate all nephilim to eliminate the few who are a danger to humans. Father would not allow it. Not when they know there’s another way.” His smile beamed down on me. “You saved them, Emma Jane. Well done.”

  It tickled me too much that I’d pleased him. Damn, I had to get over it…for everyone’s sake.

  After a second of awkward silence Fred turned—his face even paler than normal. He blinked, nostrils flaring with his exhale and his creepy white eyes shifted to me. The oddity of it intensified the impact and I gulped a breath.

  “We accept your offer…Emma Jane.” He said my name like it left a nasty taste in his mouth. “I will remain with you until I have developed the ability to sense gibborim and I can then pass that knowledge to my brothers. With your…help…we will soon take up the task.”

  So basically I had to train Fred. Right. Color me lucky.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This is it,” Dan said, pounding an excited beat with his fist on the passenger’s side door. “One step closer to getting you out of this mess.”

  I flashed a smile his way. “Thanks to you. I never would’ve figured out where that photo was taken on my own. I mean it. Thank you.”

  “Happy to help,” he said and reached over to squeeze my thigh. Dan’s male pride swelled through my chest as warm and satisfying as if the emotion were my own.

  There was so little he could do to help me in my battles with demons and Fallen. Despite the fact he’d closed the door on our romantic relationship—a temporary situation if I had any say in it, though Dan didn’t seem at all interested in the possibility—I knew how important it was to him to provide this small but vital piece of the puzzle. It could be the very thing that ultimately won me back my old life—won me back Dan.

  I wanted that. He’d said that I wasn’t being honest with myself, that I didn’t know what I really wanted. Maybe he was right. But Dan was my only real choice, my only sane choice and our possible future together deserved my full commitment. I wanted to make it work. The fact that I hadn’t seen Eli in four days definitely helped. Unfortunately, thanks to Fred I hadn’t spent much time with Dan either…at least not alone.

  �
�Touching.” Fred leaned forward from the small back seat of my Jeep, his long frame seeming all the more giant crammed into the tiny space. “However, the search for your father’s identity is of no concern to me.”

  “So you keep telling me,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror, but I could only see his forehead. He’d wedged his broad shoulders between the front seats, his head and upper body taking up way too much space between Dan and me on the passenger’s side. “You don’t have to come along.”

  “Unlike you, I am focused on my task. The only way to develop my senses to detect gibborim is to study a creature who already possesses the ability—i.e. you. Since there is no way to know for certain when you will encounter a gibborim and since you refuse to actively hunt them, I must be with you at all times to ensure I am present when the event occurs.”

  “Or you could’ve said, ‘yes I do,’” Dan said leaning a little harder against the car door trying to put space between him and the other man. Dan didn’t like Eli much, but Fred really got on his nerves.

  “I could have.” Sarcasm was wasted on the angel, though four days with me had changed him. His eyes were darker, not by much—not even as dark as Jaz’s had been. But the egg-shell white of his irises had definitely gained the faintest cast of blue and his bloodred hair had turned more auburn, though he’d refused to cut it so he’d blend in better. Not that he really needed to. His angelic ability to go unnoticed meant he could practically walk around naked without garnering a second glance.

  I figured out that practically everything about an angel’s appearance could be altered to fit his needs—everything except the silky texture of his hair and the color of his eyes. Nobody seemed to know why those things were beyond their control, except that they both seemed to work as a kind of barometer of how pervasive an effect humanity had on an angel’s spirit.

  Fred had done nothing about his unusually large hands and feet either, but he at least kept his hair in a braid and wore a gray hoodie and sunglasses when we were in public. He looked so different in his jeans and graphic tee, like a twentysomething drummer in a rock band. That thought was still ping-ponging through my head when we pulled up to the Omni William Penn Hotel.