Long shadows stretched from one second to the next and a breeze had picked up to whip empty cotton candy bags, paper napkins, and discarded programs into small eddies at odd corners around the stadium. My stomach rolled, then dropped like I’d stepped off the edge of a cliff and was free-falling, the intensity so great I reached for the cinder block wall to steady myself.
Gibborim. I recognized the wrongness of their power. Like putting the left shoe on your right foot, the feeling was familiar but wrong. And it was worse than I’d ever felt before. There had to be more than one nearby—maybe five or six, maybe a hundred. I couldn’t tell.
I turned and put my back to the wall, closing my eyes and breathing through the maddening discomfort. After a few agonizing seconds, the sensation eased and I opened my eyes, scanning the few faces that passed by.
Everyone seemed normal. No one looked as though their stomach had just tried to exit through their feet. Of course it wouldn’t have been as bad for them. There was only one of me. I was suffering the feel of who knows how many of them.
It dawned on me then that this might not end well for me and a knot of fear tried to wedge itself between my shoulder blades. I shook it off, trying to put the itch of doubt from my mind. I couldn’t turn back now. Not when I was so close to getting my life back…even if it wasn’t the life I really wanted anymore.
I exhaled, digging for strength and courage, and pushed off from the wall. I walked through the partially covered snack and souvenir area and up the concrete ramp to the lower deck seating. The first drops of rain were beginning to fall as I turned to scan the private boxes high above. I hadn’t even looked at my ticket. I had no idea where my seat was. I didn’t care. I hadn’t come to watch the game.
“Can I help you?”
My stomach clenched, the stench of rotten eggs churning the bile up the back of my throat. Holy cow, demons smell. I turned to see a man dressed as a park employee. He was an older guy, mid-forties, salt-and-pepper hair with an extra ten pounds or so around his middle. It didn’t matter how old he looked or how out of shape. Demons were strong and fast, in whatever form they’d been given out of the abyss.
“No. Thanks. I’m good,” I said and spun back to start up the long flight of stairs toward the luxury boxes. I’d covered two steps before stopping short as another demon moved to block me. This one was tall and thin—all sharp bones, big eyes, and baggy clothes. He was like a skeleton in a skin suit, and his name tag read Jack.
“Can I see your ticket, miss?” he asked. I could almost see the green cloud of brimstone wafting off him, stinking up the whole park. Jeezus, how could these two demons stink so much? I started breathing through my mouth.
“Oh. I’m not going to my seat.” I glanced behind me at the older demon and back. “I, uh, want to get some peanuts.”
Demon Jack’s gaze flicked over the wide section of seats before he caught sight of the person he was looking for. He snapped his fingers and gestured for the peanut hawker to come over.
I could tell by the stink that he was another demon. “You want some nuts, lady?” The guy was a bowling ball—round body, round face, and tiny eyes with an itty-bitty strip of fuzz under his bottom lip.
“No. Not really.” I shifted my gaze from one to the other. “Listen, I just want to go up the stairs.”
This was stupid. I knew what they were, and they knew that I knew. Worse, they knew what I was. They had to. We were all playing normal, and not one of us was.
“There’s nothing up there for you, illorum,” Jack said.
I slipped my hand to the small of my back, my fingers finding the hilt of my sword. I was too close to ending this craziness to let these gung-ho minions get in my way. “I’m going up those stairs, boys. You can either step aside and enjoy the view of my ass as I go, or”—I drew my sword, willing the blade to form—“you can stare at the walls of the abyss from now until forever. Your choice.”
The lady a few seats over gasped, and I glanced at her just as she pulled her little boy out of his seat to her lap. She looked more pissed than scared, but I could see that her freak-out threshold was just below the surface. A group of guys talking loud and throwing back beers hadn’t even noticed the four of us standing on the steps below them, but the guy with his arm around his date to the left of them had. The couple, along with a spattering of others, watched and listened.
I didn’t care. This wasn’t my doing; it was John Bedford’s. “Your boss okay with us doing this here…now? ’Cause if you think the three of you can drag me out of sight to take me on, you’re in for a rude surprise.”
The bowling ball laughed and it shook the tray of peanut bags resting on his belly. “And if you think it’s just us three, little girl, you’re in for a painful revelation.”
The other two demons chuckled demonically. Of course they did. A cool sweat trickled down my back, the hairs on the back of my neck and along my arms tingling. I looked around, looked closer at the eyes staring back at me. Demons. Lots of them.
Thunder rumbled like a far-off train, and the patters of rain came faster, harder. All over the stadium umbrellas popped up here and there. People shifted in their seats, some tugging up the hoods of their jackets, others raising a newspaper or program to shield their heads.
Among those normal movements—the human reaction to the light shower of rain—were the chilling stillness of demons, hundreds of them. They were watching me, and I could almost feel the tension of their muscles coiling, ready to attack at any second. My stomach rolled again, settling in the soles of my feet—sensing the gibborim hidden among the humans. The intensity, the irritating feel of their power chafed against my nerves.
The Pirates caught a pop-up to center field and earned their third out. The crowd cheered as players filed off the field and the Yankees took their place. Organ music played a lively chant over the loud speakers and the electronic billboards flashed cartoon word balloons and explosions of fireworks. It was all so perfectly normal.
This was wrong. All wrong. The Fallen never travel without protection, eyes and ears unwaveringly loyal to warn them of coming danger. But this was too much, too many. No one needed this much protection unless they were expecting an army…or collecting one.
“It’s a setup,” I whispered to myself. So much for the mystical forces of good luck.
“Emma Jane, so good to see you again.”
I turned at the sound of Bariel’s voice. He stood four steps up from demon Jack, his narrow features at odds with his thick face and stout body. He smiled and it lit his violet eyes, bringing a warm glow to his cheeks. It looked good on him, despite the odd sight of his pale green sherwani suit.
“Bariel. Figures you’d be here,” I said, already guessing that Bedford was the Fallen behind Bariel and all the attacks on magisters and their illorum. But why? What was the endgame, and what did it have to do with me? Tension stiffened through my muscles, answers so close I could taste them.
If Bedford really was my angelic father, he had to be some kind of major player with the power to not only unleash a nephilim’s angelic half but to fashion the person a black sword and mark him as a gibborim. Demons, even one as old as Bariel, didn’t have that kind of juice.
Fred and the Council had said only an archangel could manage the power needed to do what Michael had for the illorum. But they’d also said no archangels had fallen since Lucifer. Hadn’t they? Or had they just implied it? Did they even know for sure?
Angels lie. The words whispered through my mind in a voice so familiar I wasn’t sure if the thought was mine or placed there by someone else. How powerful was Jonathan Bedford? How old?
“I’ve come to welcome you,” Bariel said. “And to present you with a unique opportunity.”
“So you’re Jonathan Bedford’s bitch now?” I asked.
The muscles around his eyes and at the corners of his lips tightened, but he reined in his offense and forced a brighter smile. “I serve my savior, Jukar.”
“That�
��s his real name? Last year Rifion was the wind beneath your wings,” I said. “Pretty fickle for a demon, aren’t you?”
He scoffed, and for the first time his smile faltered. “Rifion served a purpose. I did not serve him. His bloated ego allowed him to believe many things that were too fantastical to be true. My allegiance was but one of them.”
“So you were using him?” I asked.
“He played his part in a grander plan.” Bariel smoothed a hand down his chest, puffed up with pride. “Just as you will…if you choose to accept my offer.”
“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ the odds aren’t looking good for that. I mean, with you being a smelly demon and all.”
“I am not making the offer,” he said. “Your father is. He’d like to meet you. Present the offer himself.”
“He’s just gonna let me, an illorum, walk right up to him?” I shrugged. “Cool. Makes it easier. Lead the way.”
Bariel looked amused by that, even chuckled, and held out his hand. “Your sword.”
“Uh…no.”
“It is the only way you will ever get near him,” Bariel said. “Not many of your kind are given such a gift. You, above most, should be grateful for the opportunity.”
“Right. I am all kinds of grateful. I’m just not stupid. I’m keeping the sword.”
“Then you will die having never spoken to the most divine creature that walks the earth,” he said. “There is none other like him—none as powerful, none as gifted.”
“What is he?” I asked. “What makes him so special?”
“You can see for yourself,” he said. “I ask you again to relinquish your sword. No harm shall come to you. Jukar wishes to meet his child.”
It was dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb with a big-honkin’ capital D. But sue me if a small corner of my heart wanted to meet my father. Curse you biology! This was it. I’d found him. My pulse raced, a mix of anticipation and fear thrumming under my skin. I handed over my sword.
After that, getting close to the fallen angel was as easy as taking a step. The next instant I stood on the patio of the luxury box with Bariel, and my sword, behind me. Glass doors made up the wall of the box—inside of which were tall tables and chairs with a plush leather couch and chair further back. People milled around the long buffet table against the wall, hot foods laid out for the taking. In the back was a small bar with a TV overhead, and a second buffet table filled with deserts. It was bizarre in its utter normalcy.
The door slid open and a tall, blond man with coral-blue eyes, a nicely athletic physique, and carrying a tall glass of beer in one hand stepped out to greet us. Fire sizzled through my mark and I flinched, cupping my hand over the spot on reflex.
The man’s rugged face creased in genuine concern. “Sorry about that. I keep forgetting the slap my brother Michael gives our children when we dare come too near to each other. Like training a puppy to bite the hand that feeds it. Smack its nose every time it sniffs its food, and you’ll train it to starve to death.”
“That’s cruel,” I said.
“Yes. It is.” He held out his free hand. “Jonathan Bedford.”
I glanced at his hand but didn’t move. “Let’s cut the bullshit. Your name’s Jukar. You’re a fallen angel. And I’m an illorum.”
“Indeed. Very well.” He brushed his thumb and fingers together, disappointed, and dropped his hand. “I know who you are, Emma Jane. You’re the daughter of Carol Hellsbane.”
“Right.” I snorted. “Like you remember her.”
His light brows went high, and for a second I could see myself in the familiar line of his nose, the curve of his lips. “Of course I remember her. I loved her. I had a child with her. I had you.”
“Fallen don’t love anything but themselves,” I said.
“Really?” he asked. “Is that true of your Eli as well?”
“No.” My stomach clenched, thoughts stumbling over the flaw in what I’d been told, what I believed, and what I knew to be fact. “Eli’s…Eli is different.”
“No doubt. I would dare to say the same of myself.” He turned and rested his hands on the round, metal railing, one hand still holding his beer, his gaze staring out at the field below.
The rain was pouring harder now, and the announcer came over the speaker to say the game would be delayed. Bat boys and stadium employees in matching black rain jackets raced onto the field, working as a team to pull a huge tarp across the infield.
“Exactly how different are you?” I asked. “What are you…really?” What am I?
“Ahh…that is the question of the ages, isn’t it?” he said. “Perhaps because the answer is so much more complicated than the question would imply. What am I? What was I? What have I become? Everything. And nothing at all. At least I nearly was. But my spirit rallied and became more than I’d ever dreamed. It began with you. Did you know?”
I shook my head and stepped up beside him.
“You are the youngest of my children, and after the memory of me had been taken from you, my sense of loss had reached its limits. I knew one day that you, too, would be turned against me and I couldn’t bear it. I was tired. This existence had become intolerable.”
“What were you planning? Suicide?” Could angels commit suicide? Did it matter? This whole sob story was most likely a lie. I listened anyway.
“Rest. I wanted no more of this world—its passions or pains. I longed for peace where nothing could wound me by thought or action. I’d found the spot, in the deepest parts of the ocean where I might lay down my head until my Father put an end to it all. But it was Bariel who saved me, bringing me back—just as I’d saved him from the abyss centuries before. He reminded me that the power turning my children against me was no greater than my own. I had the strength to win them back, to offer them what Michael had pretended to give.”
“Pretended?”
He glanced sideways at me, a flash of anger flaming behind his brilliant blue eyes. “Your gifts, your blood, is from me. I gave you these things as my brothers passed their gifts to their children. It was Michael and the others who made us bind your powers, making you less than you were born to be. It was the only way to hide you among the humans and the seraphim who sought to destroy you.”
“Our angelic fathers bound our powers?” I wasn’t sure I believed that. I didn’t want to, but something resonated in me telling me there was some truth there.
“To protect you, yes.” He took a sip of his beer and licked his lips. “Some of us, like myself, did not tie the bind too tightly and your powers emerged as small gifts: intuition, foresight, empathic. The seraphim saw these powers and sought to use them—to use our children to do what they lacked the courage to do.”
“Hunt the Fallen,” I said. “Yeah, they explain it a little differently.”
He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. But there is no denying the truth, Emma Jane. Our children are not born loathing us or craving our heads. Don’t you agree? It is only after they are seduced by Michael’s sword that they turn against us.”
I shrugged, not wanting to answer, not wanting to embolden his logic.
He sighed. “Yes, well, it wasn’t until I suffered the loss of you to his sword that I decided I could not allow it to continue.”
“You really think you can go against Michael? Against the Council?” He didn’t look crazy.
“Michael has done nothing that I cannot do as well.”
“No. Only an archangel has the strength to focus a nephilim’s will, to mark us.” I heard the naïveté in my voice, but I wanted so desperately to believe that Fred and the Council had been honest with me. I needed things to be black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. Everything Jukar said only muddied the waters.
“Exactly.” His smile brightened, but I looked away, dreading what this meant about him…about me. “Did you believe a weakness for human women was our only flaw? Pride is a dangerous thing. To admit that the strongest among them had stumbled is a great and painful blow. Easier to deny all those who st
umble, regardless of rank and power. We are all equal in their disregard.”
The storm thundered harder beyond the overhang of the luxury box patio. The seats lower down had nearly all emptied; only a few die-hard fans huddled under umbrellas and plastic sheets. The driving rain had exposed the demons though, most of which sat unflinching, soaked through, waiting for their master to call them into duty.
“I am an archangel, Emma Jane,” he said. “And you are my child. I love you as any father loves his child, but you must realize, we stand at the brink of war, and it is time for you to choose a side.”
“What do you mean? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing they have not already done,” he said. “I’ve recruited our children to help make our kind safe from persecution. Together we will ensure that no more of my brothers will be punished for loving too much, and no more of our children will be whored into battle against their own blood.”
“What about Rifion? You talk like you’re the victim in all of this, but I bet Rifion would disagree. Did you let him take the fall for you?” I asked. “He was your brother. Didn’t you love him?”
“Rifion was warned not to interfere in my work. He was meant only to aid me in breaking the tethers our brothers had put on our children’s powers. It wasn’t time to awaken them, but his ambition got the better of him,” he said. “And, I might add, I was not the one who banished him for his actions.”
My cheeks warmed, remembering the moment my sword sliced through Rifion’s neck and I looked away. This was too much, too confusing. My heart pounded so hard that I could feel its beat vibrating over my skin. “Everything I’ve ever read, ever been told, says that angels weren’t meant to be with humans.”
“What does your heart tell you?” he asked.
“That I love Eli. But what does that matter if it’s forbidden?”
“Forbidden or simply denied?” He turned to face me. “Reward is not given to those who do not fight for it. The angels were made to love humans, commanded to do so. To what degree we are to show that love has yet to be settled.”
Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane Page 26
