Keeper of Crows (The Keeper of Crows Duology Book 1)

by Casey L. Bond

  I couldn’t feel Gabriel. I couldn’t feel my crows or her. There was nothing. I was alone.

  Somehow, I had to find my way back to Purgatory.

  CARMEN

  Gabriel was angry. He brooded day and night, training every hour of that time as if his archangel-ness was going to somehow increase. Dressed in the black chain mail, I watched him swing his sword in great arcs.

  “Let me fight you, or spar with you, or whatever it’s called,” I said, pushing myself up off the wooden chair.

  With a chuckle, Gabriel dismissed me with a firm, “No.”

  “Yes.” I jogged down the hall to the room lined with row after row of gleaming metal swords and daggers, testing the weight of those I could reach. The broadswords were too heavy, but the thinner ones were in the Goldilocks zone: they were just right. I ran back to the training room, to the brooding archangel.

  “I’m ready,” I challenged.

  “No, you aren’t, and I’m not sparring with you.”

  “Yes, you are. Stop being such a misogynist.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he explained, easing the tip of his sword to the ground and leaning over it.

  “Yes, you do. I piss you off. I’m not asking you to cut a limb off, but let me try to help.”

  This was stupid. He probably thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. A girl helping an archangel? What could I possibly do to make him better? Raising the sword over my head, I brought it down slowly, wincing when the metal slammed into his blade. I never even saw him move his arms to protect himself.

  Fire blazed in his eyes. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  Oh, hell no. I brought the sword up again, and this time, there was no wincing; just the glorious sound of surprise when Gabriel defended himself with metal and a grunt I knew he didn’t mean to let out.

  I grinned in victory, right up until he raised his sword at me. Then, I nearly shit myself.

  “Uh…”

  He smirked. “You said you wanted to spar.”

  Sparring, to Gabriel, meant pushing my body to its limits. My muscles were puddles of gelatinous goo when he finally stopped attacking me.

  “I wasn’t attacking you,” he said, responding to my inner thoughts. “I was training you.”

  “For what? Armageddon?”

  “What if something happens and I’m called away, maybe given a new assignment? I’m unassigned right now, and it’s been the longest time between assignments I can recall. If I’m called away, you’ll be unprotected.”

  “The crows will protect me.”

  “I’m not sure I’d place my faith in them being able to beat Lucifer. He’s the oldest evil in the world. He has tricks up his sleeve even I can’t comprehend, and I’ve seen a lot of them over the millennia.”

  I let that sink in. Gabriel might have to leave. He hadn’t been here long, just a couple of days, but if he left, I’d have to soften the veil and weaken the shield that so far, had held against Lucifer. If Gabriel was right and Lucifer was testing it and me for weaknesses, he would find one soon enough.

  Gabriel was quiet. I knew he heard my thoughts, so I sent another to him.

  Strengthen me again.

  “I shouldn’t. I won’t always be here to bolster you.”

  “But you’re here now, and I agree with you. I need to train.”

  Gabriel’s sword gently slid between his wings, adhering magically.

  “Magic has nothing to do with it.”

  Gabriel was about the same size as Michael, built the same. His tattoos flowed gently. When he looked up, his eyes softened to a caramel color. “I’m not him.”

  “I know. You look so much alike, and while there are things you share, like the tattoo thing, you aren’t him.” Gabriel’s chin lifted a tick. “You’re glad not to be him.”

  “I am.”

  “Pride isn’t a sin anymore?” I smiled.

  His eyes burned, scorching the caramel and charring it. “I’m not proud. I only do what I must because that’s what I was created for. Nothing more, nothing less.” He looked away, effectively dismissing me.

  It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard.

  His eyes snapped to mine again. “Why would you feel sadness for an archangel?” he scoffed.

  “I don’t feel sadness for an archangel. I’m sad for you, that you think you’re only valuable for one reason, when there are so many things that make you amazing.” When he opened his mouth to protest, I held my hand up. “You aren’t Michael, and I’m not in love with you, but you’re worth so much more than you give yourself credit for. As a friend, I think you should hear that once in a while.”

  “We’re friends?” he asked quietly.

  “Duh. Now make me superhero strong so I can kick some devil ass.”

  He chuckled lightly. “You’re the strangest human I’ve ever met.”

  “Because I’m the first you’ve taken the time to get to know,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him.

  “Come on,” I instructed, waving to him. “Make me strong again. I’ll warm up my ass-kicking skills on you.”

  His brows raised. “I’ll make you strong, but only because I don’t want to hurt you, human.” When his thumb brushed my forehead, it was like a line of frost had been drawn. I wasn’t burning from flame, but from ice. I was turning to stone. Pure strength, better than adrenaline, coursed through my body and I reveled in the feel of it. Soon, the soreness was gone. The fatigue vanished.

  Literally bouncing on my toes, I told him, “I need you to bottle that just for me. This is like a thousand energy drinks, only it won’t explode your heart.”

  27

  We fought, blade against blade, until Gabriel was breaking out in a sweat, his body coated in a beaded sheen. The crows watched from the windows, each bird’s eye focusing on the way the blades sliced through the air before they found their mark. “I gave you too much strength,” he grunted, shoving me away from him.

  I just grinned. “I love it. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as too much.”

  “Every human loves power. It’s your nature.”

  “It’s not yours? You don’t love what you do? You’re an angelic warrior with pretty wings, for crying out loud.”

  “My wings are ‘pretty’? That’s the word you’d use to describe them?”

  “Yes. What’s wrong with pretty?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Nothing. I’ve just never heard them called pretty before.”

  “Never?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Hmm. They are, you know,” I said with a shrug.

  He just smiled, his cheeks flushing. “I see it now.”

  “See what?” I asked, catching my breath.

  “I see why he’s so taken with you.”

  Uh. How to respond? Gabriel was definitely a friend, but he would never be more.

  “I know that,” he hissed, charging at me with a look of fierce determination on his face. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. As I raised my sword to block his blow, the block beneath my feet shifted to the side. Actually, the whole castle did. Dust from the grout above us flurried onto our heads.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked breathlessly. Another jolt and the world lurched again. Screams erupted outside. The crows took to the sky, cawing loudly.

  Flinging the large wooden door open, I ran outside. The Earth shook again. No, not Earth. Purgatory. Purgatory was being attacked. The veil shimmered with each jolt. Dark flashes filtered across the sky, like macabre northern lights.

  “It’s him,” Gabriel said, sword at the ready, standing by my side.

  “I’m not ready!” I yelled over the commotion.

  “Did you really think he would wait until you were?”

  I wanted to run, scream, or cry. Maybe all three.

  “You should go inside,” Gabriel said softly, turning me to look at him. “This is my assignment.”

  “What is? Battling the devil?”

  “No,” he said, smiling sl
ightly. “Defending the Keeper of Crows.”

  My mind flashed to Michael, but I remembered that I’d taken the position from him when I threw him from this gray place.

  The ground jolted again. “Get Lucifer’s sword and cloak it! Then relax the veil and let him fall into this place. He’ll expect you to strengthen the barrier. He won’t expect you to let him in.”

  Everything in me wanted to make the veil stronger than titanium, to keep Lucifer away from this place and away from Gabriel, the sword, and the souls below.

  “Go, Carmen,” Gabriel said sternly. “If he gets the sword, any soul he touches with it will be sent to Hell whether they belong there or not.”

  “And you? What happens if he hurts you with it?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Will it kill you? Or will it send you to Hell?”

  “What’s the difference?” he asked pointedly. And he was right. There wasn’t one.

  I ran. I had to hide the sword.

  My feet stopped inside the stone walls, arms raised to cover my head every time the castle shook above my head. A single crow flew alongside me. The sword was wrapped in the fabric I’d wound it in while practicing, but it still needed to be contained. The veil had to be solidified. I needed to make it much stronger than what I’d been able to make it so far, because it was about to fail entirely.

  Focusing on solidifying the fabric was easy. What was hard was ignoring the screams of the souls outside. I told the veil to let Lucifer in, and then Gabriel roared as a bright flash of light heralded the arrival of Satan himself.

  Focus, I told myself.

  The clashing of Gabriel’s sword rang out, metal on metal, and the shrieking intensified all over Purgatory. I moved to the balcony. Wisps of souls flew frantically through the air. I sent the crows to care for them and the birds obeyed, swooping to collect them.

  Demons poured in through the torn fabric. No chance of escape for souls, they ran through the streets and hid in their homes. When the demons found them there, they tried to get away…but there was nowhere for them to go.

  Below me, Lucifer, clad in white chain mail, collided with Gabriel, his pearly teeth bared menacingly. Gabriel shoved him away and regained his footing, but Lucifer was stronger. I could see it, feel it. He wouldn’t be stopped. He wanted Purgatory for himself.

  The devil’s eyes snapped to mine and he smiled lazily.

  Gabriel looked at me over his shoulder and shouted, “No!”

  The half second it took for him to worry about me gave Lucifer exactly what he wanted: a moment of weakness. Gabriel paid for it as Lucifer drove a sword into Gabriel’s side with a fierce grunt. “She’s next,” the devil hissed into his former friend’s ear.

  I knew he was coming for me. Gabriel was dying. Could he die? The veil was torn. Demons. Killing. Torture. The souls screamed.

  Calling the crows, I told them to dispatch the demons. “Send them back to Hell!” I commanded.

  Cawing in unison, they dove, shooting deadly feathers at those breaching the barrier, the demons who chased the souls, and the ones who dispatched them. I called to the Lessons to end the demons as well. Come into the city and stop them.

  The crows and Lessons weren’t the only things that obeyed me. With everything in me, I called to the veil. Conceal me.

  It stretched toward me from above, the fabric wrapping around my body until I couldn’t tell where it ended and I began. My vision of Purgatory was darkened, but clear through the swirling tempest. Lucifer flew to the balcony, searching for me. I released the sword from the fabric that bound it and clutched the handle in my palm, squeezing tight. The sword hummed, calling its master, but Lucifer couldn’t hear it, he couldn’t feel it, and he couldn’t see me.

  “Where are you, Carmen?” he shouted into the castle. “We can come to a deal, you and me.”

  The sounds of torment below didn’t bother him in the slightest, while it made my stomach sour. He made me sick, and I wasn’t in the mood for bargaining. I just hoped Gabriel could hold on a little longer.

  When he began walking, I asked the fabric to stretch and move with me. When I was right at his heel, I shoved the sword of Lucifer into its master’s back, impaling him. His loud gasp filled the air, despite the cacophony of screams around us. I asked the fabric to fall away and it retracted.

  “That was unexpected.” He coughed, eyes wide as he turned around to face me. The devil could bleed. He wiped a string of blood from his mouth.

  But he would see no mercy from me. “You should have been more creative. Giving my father the only sword that could kill an angel wasn’t your brightest move.”

  “He never would have betrayed me.”

  “He was weak!” I screamed.

  The darkness faded from his eyes, leaving them crystalline blue as he fell to his side, his feet scooting against the stone one last time as his muscles gave a jerk.

  It felt like the darkness he lost had found its way to me, that it seeped into my tissue and filled my lungs. Calling the crows again, I ordered them to carry him away. The demons in Purgatory stilled as their master’s life faded into nothing, as he became nothing…nothing but a puddle of tar.

  I sealed the fissure they’d made, and with it, entombed the demons that dared to attack this place. The crows dispatched them all with deadly accuracy. The only remnants of them were the oil slicks where they once stood.

  And emptiness.

  Everything was empty. So many souls were killed.

  And Gabriel… Where was he?

  Crows descended and carried me to where he lay beneath the balcony, wings outstretched, wincing in pain. He wasn’t dead.

  “Are you okay?” I cried, my voice hitting an octave I didn’t know existed.

  “You’re asking me if I’m okay? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine! You’re bleeding. Oh, God. What do I do?” I searched for something to hold to his side, where blood was bubbling like a spring. He coughed violently, making the blood gush like a geyser.

  “You have to leave this place to heal, don’t you?”

  He nodded, again wincing, a sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip. “I can have them take you,” I offered, ticking my head to the crows. If it were possible, I’d take him myself.

  “I know you would. Let them carry me.”

  Calling them by the thousands, I helped Gabriel to his feet.

  “Lucifer?” he asked haltingly. His eyes were glassy, feverish.

  “Dead.”

  “How?” His mouth gaped open, more blood webbing at the corners.

  I leaned my forehead against his as the crows swirled around him, giving him the memory. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. “You used his sword against him? But that doesn’t make sense… an angel can’t die from his own sword.”

  “You saw it, through my eyes. He was dead, lifeless. That should get me a bargain with Heaven. You tell them that!” The crows I called lifted him into the sky and I relaxed the veil just enough to let them through.

  His blood dripped from the sky above me until he crossed the barrier and disappeared, nothing but feathers fluttering angrily in the air.

  Lessons and the remaining crows continued hunting down the demons that were still trapped. I walked away from the castle, energy and power still coursing through me. I’d never hunted before, but there was a first time for everything.

  When only tar puddles remained, the Lessons stilled and waited for further instruction. I asked them to line up, dispatching each with the sword of Lucifer. The demons had used Purgatory as a dumping ground for long enough, and while they’d helped me send the ones who created them back to Hell, I was done with those assholes.

  The ones who attacked the safe house Michael and I stayed at seemed cognizant, aware of who we were and what they were doing. I realized now that was because my father made them that way. The Lessons were blank, mindless soldiers used as pawns. But beneath it all, they were people. They were bad peo
ple, but did they deserve to be used like puppets? No. If they deserved to burn, it was best to get on with it.

  The sword hummed in my hand as I shoved it into the heart of each Lesson. When I came to Dimitri, it emitted a high-pitched howl, as if sensing my connection to him and the fact that I enjoyed ending him for good. He was hollow, a void. He’d become his own worst nightmare, a puppet for my father. Something easily discarded. Trash.

  He would never hurt another person or soul, living or in the in-between. When his soul flew from his body, I watched as a crow swallowed it whole and dove into the concrete beside me, the stone rippling like water.

  I didn’t linger on him. He wasn’t worth it. I kept killing them until it was second-nature; until their gray skin was cut cleanly and the birds knew the routine well.

  The Lessons had no orders but mine, which meant they never fought back because I wouldn’t allow it.

  When there were no more Lessons, I called a single crow to me. Number two hundred thirty-five. “Fly to Gabriel.”

  Was he healed? Was he dead? Where was Michael? The questions flitted through my mind. Did Gabriel hear me when I told him Heaven owed me a bargain? I had killed the one their warriors couldn’t, and now I wanted Michael. I wanted out of here and I wanted to be with him, without consequences.

  Having returned from Heaven, Gabriel waltzed down the invisible steps an hour later, stepping onto my balcony. “How did they heal you so fast?” I asked him.

  “It wasn’t fast. Time works differently in Heaven. It passes differently on Earth, too.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “The host of Heaven celebrates your victory.”

  Heaven could celebrate all they wanted. I wasn’t happy.

  “Did you tell them that I want something in return for having killed him?”

  “Heaven rarely strikes bargains, Carmen,” he said softly, his toes stepping up to mine.