Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “So what are you asking? You allowed me to come up here to explain why I should spare your life? Why? So you can fight the seraphim for the right to free love?”

  A great smile blossomed across his face and he threw back his head in laughter. Just when it was becoming damn annoying his chuckles died off and he straightened with one last sigh. “Oh, Emma Jane. No, my daughter. I am not pleading for my life. I am making you an offer, giving you an opportunity to survive the coming war.”

  “Right. And how’s that?” I’d taken out an angel before. He was a fool if he underestimated how much I wanted the hell out of this life.

  “Work for me. Be my eyes and ears among the seraphim ranks.”

  “No.” Spying took a kind of deviousness I just wasn’t capable of. Besides, the seraphim were the good guys…right? “I can’t do it. I won’t.”

  “Not even for Eli?” he asked. “Spy for me and I’ll bring him to you. He’s one of us now. As much as he’d like to, he cannot hide from me, not completely. I can feel his heart aching for you. Help me win this war and be with him forever. Refuse me, and I will make certain he is banished to the abyss for all eternity.”

  My heart surged, the glimmer of hope tempting me more than I liked. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

  “No, Emma Jane. I’m an angel.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dan pushed through the sliding glass door from inside the luxury box just as the announcer called the game due to the rain. He wasn’t in uniform, so he held up his badge to my Fallen father and his demon minion before his suspicious gaze fell on me. “What’s going on, Em?”

  “Me? What are you doing here?”

  “I was watching the game and saw you on TV. Should’ve known when they said the sudden freak storm system would force them to cancel the game that you were behind it somehow.” He shoved his badge into his back pocket and glanced from Jukar to Bariel. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine, but you need to go.” The Fallen can’t sense an unmarked nephilim the way demons could, but Bariel already knew what Dan was. I didn’t want him spilling the beans to Jukar, especially since the fallen angel was looking to recruit soldiers for his army. But of course, Dan didn’t listen.

  “Good afternoon, officer,” Jukar said, offering his hand. “I’m Jonathan Bedford. This is my company’s box. Is there a problem?”

  Dan looked at the man’s hand and back to his face and propped his hands on his hips. “You tell me.”

  “This is the nephilim I told you about,” Bariel said. “His powers are still leashed, but he is aware, thanks to your daughter.”

  “Daughter?” Dan’s gaze shifted to me, the hurt I’d seen before—of being left behind, of losing me—flashed for an instant and then was gone.

  I nodded. “This is Jukar. He’s…my biological father.”

  Jukar’s eyes widened at my blunt admission, and Dan gave him the once-over. He looked back to me. “And why is he still standing there with his head attached?”

  “Because he’s offered Emma Jane the one thing you can never give her,” Bariel said. “The man she loves.”

  I tried not to cringe, ignoring the sickening surge of guilt. “Shut up, Bariel.”

  “Is that right?” Dan closed his eyes and shook his head. He was smiling, even chuckling under his breath, but I knew he didn’t find it the slightest bit funny. He looked at the demon standing at the end of the patio behind me. “So why are you still alive? What did you offer her?”

  “Me?” The man shrugged, making the long jacket of his sherwani suit sway. “Nothing.”

  “I thought so.” In a very smooth, very human move, Dan pulled his gun from its holster on his hip and shot the demon square between the eyes.

  Bariel’s head snapped back, blood spraying in a quick explosion behind him. He collapsed to the cement floor of the patio, my sword clamoring out of his hand.

  “That’s for screwing with Emma, and the shit you pulled on me on Mount Washington,” Dan said. “Don’t do it again.”

  I’d jumped at the gunshot, startled. “What the hell?”

  “That won’t kill him,” Jukar said.

  Dan didn’t look at either of us. Instead he walked over to Bariel’s unconscious body and grabbed my sword. I tried to will the blade to dissipate, but nothing happened. It was my sword, the solid metal forged in the fires of heaven, molecules from this plane and the next, brought together by my will… at least it was supposed to be. But now it was in Dan’s hand, his will, the will of a nephilim, making it solid and real, making it possible to initiate him into the ranks of illorum, just like Tommy’s sword had done for me. Dammit.

  Dan brought it back and stood beside us. “I know. But it felt good.”

  The angel nodded, rolling a shoulder as though he completely understood. “Fair enough.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, no offense, but,” Dan said, looking at me, “will you kill this son of a bitch already, Em?”

  “Why would that offend me?” Jukar said, clearly offended.

  “I can’t. Not now,” I said.

  “Because of Eli?”

  “No.” Maybe. “Because I’ll lose my power.”

  “You won’t need it anymore if you kill him,” Dan said. “Em, you’re this close—this close to getting your life back. You’ll be able to hang out with your family and friends without worrying that a demon will attack. There’ll be no more midnight chases across the world, no more angelic powwows in your backyard. You’ll be free from all this. You’ll be normal.”

  For the first time since this started a year ago, that word didn’t trigger happy thoughts of sunny days and peaceful nights and uninterrupted sleep. Instead, the sound of it tied my stomach into a cold knot. No more angels hovering in the tree limbs in my backyard, no more trips around the world, no more knowing the truth in a person’s thoughts, no more phone calls to Liam and Amon, no more possibility of ever seeing Eli again.

  I pushed the cloud of sorrow from my thoughts and cleared my throat. “You don’t understand. There’s more going on than you realize. I need my powers.”

  “Why?” Anger made his tone sharp. “What could possibly be going on that’s more important than getting your life back on track?”

  “Look.” I pointed out to the huge baseball stadium and the demons sitting like statues in the pouring rain everywhere I looked. The last of the diehard fans had left, leaving only the loyal demons behind in their seats. There were more of them now, and as I watched even more were blinking in, appearing in empty seats—gathering. “They’re going to start the war. If I kill Jukar, I can’t fight.”

  “If you kill him, maybe you can stop the war before it gets started.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Jukar said. “I can hear you.”

  Dan and I glanced at him and then back to each other.

  “Killing him will only take me out of the fight,” I said.

  “And my death won’t change the course of events already set in motion,” Jukar added.

  “Yeah.” Dan snorted. “Like you’d say anything different.”

  The fallen angel shrugged.

  “Y’know what? Let me test that theory.” I could tell Dan was fuming. He doubled fisted my sword and raised it to take a swing at Jukar.

  I moved without thinking, putting myself between the cop and the fallen angel faster than Dan could track. I grabbed his wrist. “Dan, no. What are you thinking?”

  He jerked free. “I’m thinking that if you can’t save yourself from this mess, I will. Jeezus, Emma, what’s happened to you? Used to be this was all you wanted, all you wished for. Now here he is and you’re having second thoughts? You’re protecting him?”

  “I’m not having second thoughts.” I shoved Dan’s wrist and he stumbled back a step. My reasons for allowing Jukar to continue sucking air were selfish and I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t kill him. Not yet. Not if there was a chance of finding Eli. “You don’t understand. You can’t. Just give me
my sword before you do something stupid like getting yourself marked.”

  “He loves you,” Jukar said, making an awkward situation a billion times worse. Thanks.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said.

  “I care about her.” Dan looked me in the eye. “There’s a difference.”

  Jukar wasn’t listening to either of us. “He’s passionate, driven by his emotions. I could use that kind of zeal at my side in the coming battles.”

  I spun around. “No. He’s still just a normal human and he needs to stay that way.”

  Jukar’s sapphire eyes dropped to me. “He was never a normal human.”

  “He’s got kids,” I said. “Leave him out of this.”

  “None of our children will be left out of this, my dear.” Jukar stepped around me, speaking to Dan directly. “The seraphim have persecuted our children before and they are doing it again. They are hunting nephilim regardless of the status of their power.”

  “Because you’ve pushed them to it,” I said. “You’re ordering attacks on illorum, killing magisters, stealing their swords. Did you think they’d just let you get away with it forever?”

  “There is much I have…gotten away with,” he said. “My pious brothers are brilliant at turning a blind eye and deaf ear to avoid taking action of any kind.”

  “I’m not one of your pious brothers,” I said, remembering why this bastard had to die. “You’re done getting away with ordering the deaths of good people. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “We do what we must to protect our children,” he said. “If some perish in battle, such is the nature of war. They die so others might live, so others might love in peace.”

  “Love human women, you mean,” Dan said, pulling Jukar’s attention.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve got a problem with that.” Dan’s grip tightened on my sword.

  “Hmm…yes. Because of Elizal. I would imagine you do.”

  Dan’s mouth tensed. “I have a problem with illorum being causalities of your self-indulgent need to screw human women. Especially when someone I care about is an illorum, and people she knows and cares about are targets too.”

  “Ah. Clever.” The angel’s face lit with delight. “I do like you, Daniel. Your mind works remarkable feats of logic to appease your pride. Allow me to ease your concern somewhat. Emma Jane, as well as any of our children, need only lay down Michael’s sword and join us to be safe from such aggressions.”

  Dan snorted. “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?”

  “I would,” he said. “It pains me to see any of our children pitted against their fathers. It pains me even more to see our children fight for beings who would rather see them dead, or worse, impotent.”

  “The point is what they fight for, not for whom,” Dan said.

  “Pick up Michael’s sword, or mine. Those are your choices. But make no mistake, children, everyone will soon have to pick a side.”

  “He still walks the earth?” Fred’s voice suddenly came from the seats below and we turned to see him perched on one of the seat backs. “I hoped that you had completed your duty, Emma Jane. But I do appreciate your aid in locating this loathsome betrayer.”

  Ronny, Fred’s new illorum, popped in a second later, standing on the steps next to his magister’s seat. The kid was getting drenched in the rain. Fred was dry as a bone. “You again? Shit. You gonna let another one get away, babe?”

  “Don’t call me ‘babe,’” I said. “And pull up your pants. You look like an idiot who can’t work a belt.”

  The wannabe thug shrugged, smirking. But it was movement behind him that caught my eye. Some of the nearest demons had stood to watch us, the rain pooling in the seats around them, drenching their hair and clothes.

  I scanned the rest of the stadium—the number of demons had doubled. There were hundreds now, and at the tops of several of the stairs protected by the overhang were what I assumed must be gibborim. They were men and women, teenagers and adults, all holding black swords in their hands. I counted at least fifty. We were so outnumbered.

  Jukar tossed his half-empty beer, the glass shattering on the concrete steps and hard seats a few yards away. “Fraciel,” he said, drawing his sword, the blade gleaming like a captured star in his hand. “So it begins. Long time no see. I expected a magister would come to my daughter’s aid, but I’m surprised to see it’s you.”

  Fred ignored him, unconcerned, and looked at his sad excuse for an illorum. “Kill the wicked beast, Ronald.”

  Ronny bolted like a dog let off his leash, racing up so fast that he cleared the distance to the patio easily.

  “Crap.” I didn’t even think about it. I just spun in front of Jukar, snagging his sword from his hand and bringing it up to block Ronny’s blade. I shoved the kid back, and he tumbled over the seats, falling out of sight between the rows.

  My wrist stung with that icy burn the second our swords clashed. I fought hard not to let the pain show on my face. “Don’t be stupid, Fred. Can’t you see this is a setup? Look around. He’s built an army, and now he’s trying to bait you into a fight. He wants you to start the war.”

  “He’s been baiting the seraphim for weeks,” Fred said. “With the first magister to die by his command, the truce was broken. Now he will suffer the full wrath of heaven.”

  “Not now. Look around, Fred. Hello? All of heaven isn’t here. Don’t let him suck you into a battle you can’t win.”

  Ronny pushed up from where he’d landed, rubbing the back of his head. He’d live, for now, but raising my sword against him, a defender of God, had already done its damage. I could feel the lingering ache of my mark. I wouldn’t look. I had bigger things to worry about. If Fred let himself get suckered into a fight with Jukar, I wasn’t sure if any of us would survive it.

  “I am not the one he is manipulating.” Fred’s pale eyes glanced at my wrist and I resisted the urge to tuck my hand behind my back, hiding my mark that I was sure had splintered again. “Do you believe he could not have stopped Ronald’s attack if he wished? He wants you to defend him. He wants to separate you from your duty.”

  I knew it was true, and I knew it was working, but not for the reason Fred thought. Jukar wasn’t seducing me into seeing things his way. He was using my feelings for Eli to make me want to keep him alive. But even I recognized the difference between keeping him alive and defending him was pretty thin—thin as air.

  “How many archangels are there? Did you know that he was one of them?” I asked Fred.

  “Archangel?” Dan repeated, eyes wide. “Your biological father’s an archangel? So the stuff you can do that you shouldn’t be able to…?”

  “All my offspring have been exceptional,” Jukar said, beaming with pride.

  Fred ignored them both and answered me with a shrug. “How many? How many seeds are in a watermelon? How many feathers on a bird? There are as many archangels as Father intended.” For the first time, Fred’s narrow eyes shifted to the fallen angel behind me. “And yes. I sensed what he once was when I arrived.”

  “But the Council said no archangels had fallen since Lucifer.”

  “He is no longer an archangel,” Fred said. “He is Fallen. What this vile creature once was has no bearing on the thing he has become.”

  “But he’s just as powerful, or powerful enough…and you sent your shiny, new illorum after him anyway?”

  “You see, my daughter?” Jukar leaned close like he’d whisper in my ear but he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “He knows my strength, knows even he is no match for me and yet he freely orders my brother’s child to fight me. These sanctimonious seraphim do not value the lives of our children. You are pawns—cannon fodder to be used and destroyed—doing what they, themselves, are too frightened to do.”

  Then softer, so that only I could hear, he whispered, “But behold how earnestly I esteem thee. My gift to you, my powerful child. Let it be an eternal reminder of my love.”

  He kissed the back of my he
ad and a warm squirm of heat wiggled down the back of my neck and into my chest. My heart beat and the heat he’d sent into me exploded with a surge of blood, sending the sizzling sensation through every vein in my body. I sucked a quick breath and clenched my teeth. I didn’t know what he’d done, but I knew I hadn’t given my permission for him to do it.

  Fred’s pale eyes met mine. “He must be ended.”

  “Yeah? Well that’s my job,” I said and spun, Jukar’s angelic blade firm in my grasp.

  An illorum’s sword has the power to send a Fallen to the abyss. A magister’s sword will send an angel back to start, but I had no idea what kind of power was still juicing inside the Fallen’s sword. And before I could find out, it was jerked from my grip and my loving father’s iron-hard slap sent me sailing backward off the patio.

  I crashed onto the hard, unforgiving stadium seats—one cracking me straight across my back, punching the air from my lungs. My head snapped back, smacking against the next seat down, and stars burst behind my eyes as I slumped between the rows—scraping my neck and legs, bruising my elbows.

  I’d landed somewhere near Fred—I’d seen him race past me toward Jukar a split second before I hit the seats. But the world was going dark, and pain ate at every part of my body. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. But as my vision tunneled, and the world receded into the misty haze, a flash lit the overhang and the sound of blades clashing echoed in the growing distance. I strained to look, but I already knew.

  The angels were fighting. The war had begun. There was no turning back now.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Em, wake up! Get out of there!”

  I opened my eyes, blinking against the constant drum of rain, expecting to see Dan. I was sure it was his voice I’d heard but it was a soaking-wet, demon Pirates fan I saw standing over me.

  “Crap.”

  Thunder rumbled the ground and a crack of lighting lit the sky, just as the beer-bellied, Mack truck of a demon reached down and fisted the collar of my blouse. He lifted me up from between the seat, so high the toes of my boots barely scraped against the floor.