The great doors opened in front of her, and she immediately found the eyes of Raphael, the archangel.
“Azrael, the black winged Seraphim of Death,” Raphael greeted her. “How long has it been since your last ascent to Heaven?”
“Far too long, I believe,” Azrael answered. “I see many changes in our home. And I am not pleased.”
“And we see changes in you, as well,” Raphael told her. “Before Our Father left, He trusted you with the great honor of watching over the cycle of death and life. I am saddened at the thought that Father may have made a mistake.”
“Oh, He did not. You did,” Azrael argued. She looked over to the angels that surrounded them, watching their conversation as if mortals in a courtroom. “Blind loyalty does one good, and the rest badly. While your superiors hand out the orders, you never question the intentions of your tasks, even though it does not coincide with Our Father’s orders.”
“What lies do you speak of?” Gabriel demanded.
“I speak not of lies, my sister,” Azrael told her. “I speak of the truth you all have turned a blind eye on. And soon you will realize that mistake. On the day Lucifer walks in our home once again.”
The angels who caught the name all looked aghast at her accusation. Murmurs arose from all around, questions whispered in hushed tones.
“Dare not to speak that name again, Azrael,” Gabriel warned her.
“Why? What will you call him when he arrives then? When you free him!” Azrael’s eyes bore her fury. “Our Father will return soon, and your beloved archangels, the ones who He had trusted Heaven to, are working to release the traitor he banished from Heaven! And they are slaughtering all those who hold information. That includes our brother, Ramiel. Where is he now, Raphael?”
“Ramiel suffered his punishment for initiating a rebellious group of monsters, waging war against Heaven,” Raphael replied, unfazed. “And you will suffer the same punishment for continuing what he had created.”
“You will kill me then?” Azrael scoffed. “I am Death! I lead those who guide the souls to Purgatory, and if you lay me to waste, they will not fulfill their duty. What will become of Heaven without the souls of the mortals that pass through all of us, brother?” She laughed. “The cycle of life will be thrown off the track, and both Heaven and Hell will collapse on themselves. You put an end to me, and you will have taken the same poison.”
“You speak no lie, my sister. But death is not the only punishment for the sinner.” A voice spoke, one that caught the attention of all the angels present. Azrael searched for the owner of the voice, knowing full well who it was. Then, just behind Uriel, stood the figure of a tall man with gentle eyes and dark hair. The angels parted to give way to him as he walked towards her. Azrael held his gaze, unwilling to show defeat against her foe.
“It has been a while since you have shown yourself, Michael.”
Chapter Twelve: Daughter of the Damned
Determination fueled Caelum, along with the fear that still weighed him down. But he had decided what he wanted to do long ago, and he would see it through. Time was running out, now that he knew what Lucifer was planning. He dared not wait much longer, for the sake of the angel he’d once loved.
He could almost laugh at the thought. Fate was indeed creative in crossing the paths of the demon with the angel he had fallen for while he was still human. And now here he was, a demon fighting against Hell to rescue an angel from Heaven. But the image of Ariel being captured and taken to the gateway burned in his memory, and it was enough to drive him to place his trust in the manipulative demon his daughter had trapped.
“So, you want me to go back to Hell, just when they’ve place a target on my back?” Lili asked him in disbelief.
“I am not asking you to come with me, Lili. I am merely asking you to give me the information I need,” Caelum said.
Another voice argued with him. “So you’re planning to go alone?” Mikaela looked at him with wide eyes as she stepped into the living room. “Are you crazy? Have you forgotten what you got yourself into the last time we were near a gateway to Hell?”
“I have a plan, Mikaela. Don’t you fret,” Caelum claimed.
“Oh, sure. You got a plan?” Lili scoffed. “One demon against an army. Not to mention that mutated dog. Oh, and let’s not forget. You are actually trying to get yourself an appointment with Lucifer. The Lucifer, the archangel gone bad.” Lili laughed. “That’s just wonderful.”
“Indeed it is.” Caelum stuffed his hands in his pockets, a confident smile on his face. “So, will you tell me how to get to the magic cage?”
Lili shot him a glare. Her blue eyes narrowed into slits as they met his hazel ones. “You are suicidal, after all.” She contemplated. “And what do I get in return?”
“A chance to spit in Azazel’s eyes,” Caelum said with a smile. He looked at the Devil’s trap that held Lili. “And freedom, of course.”
Lili bit her lip, weighing her options. “All right. But I tell you, it ain’t gonna be easy.”
“Oh, I don’t expect so,” Caelum said, extending his hand to her. Mikaela watched as Lili eyed Caelum’s outstretched hand warily before taking it in her own and sealing the deal. Caelum bent down on his knees and procured the black dagger to make a scratch on the trap drawn on the wooden floor.
“Well, then!” Lili hopped off of the carpet, beaming at the two. “Shall we get started?”
“Wait,” Mikaela interrupted them. She turned to Caelum, her face full of concern. “You still need to replenish your energy. And you can’t even go near a gateway without alerting demons of your presence. You need to get your strength back up before you go.”
Caelum sighed. “I guess…”
“I can help with that,” Lili offered. The two turned to her curiously. “I’m guessing you’re getting weak because Azazel cut you off from the resources, huh? But I know a way to fatten you up without relying on Hell’s pool of tortured souls.”
“How?” Caelum asked.
“Give me back my dagger, then I’ll tell you,” Lili demanded. Caelum glanced down at the dagger he held, then back to Lili. Hesitation was in his eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s mine, anyway.” Lili reminded him. But Caelum had a different thought in mind.
“I already gave you one of your prizes, Lili. Better start talking about something before you demand another,” Caelum told her.
Lili groaned. “Fine. How about this? I go and collect for you. I wasn’t really planning to share my secret with you, anyway.”
“Collect?”
“Got a Soul Keeper lying around here?” Lili asked with a smile on her face. Mikaela looked to Caelum, considering if she should trust the femme demon with one of her items. But the purpose outweighed the value of such an artifact.
Lili agreed to return by nightfall, enough time for her to gather a soul and for the father and daughter to prepare. Mikaela felt herself shaking as she flipped the pages of her reference book. She hadn’t slept in more than a day, and fatigue was fighting the stress that fueled her mind. Caelum had assured her not to worry, but she couldn’t help it.
“Do you need any help?” Caelum offered, standing at the doorway of her bedroom.
Mikaela looked to him, questions filling her mind. She shut the book in front of her and dared to ask the question she wanted to. “Why are you doing this?”
“What?” Caelum asked, walking to stand near her.
“You’re risking your life to rescue some angel,” Mikaela said. “Why?”
Caelum sighed, folding his arms. His eyes were cast down, bearing all the fears and concerns in his mind. “Because I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because, at the least, I owe it to her,” Caelum answered. “I owe it to the angel who saved me. When I was about to be killed in that church, and when I was still human.”
“What?” Mikaela’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t finish reading the journal, did you?” Caelum let out a weak laugh. “I did.
And I know now what happened to me. Ariel… She was the one I met when I was human. When all was lost to me, she saved me from despair. And she paid for that. For three hundred years.”
“I don’t understand…” Mikaela began; Caelum let his arms fall to his sides.
“Please, just understand that I have to do this,” Caelum requested. “And it’s not only because of how I feel about her. Now we know that Ariel being there could spell trouble for all of us. Just consider that,” he said, turning around and walking towards the door. Then, he hesitated by the threshold, his hand leaning on the frame.
Without looking back, Caelum added one last thing before leaving her. “I’m sorry, Mikaela.”
Something caught in Mikaela’s throat at his words. A flash of memory fought to return, and Mikaela tried to suppress it. It’s not the time for that.
She looked around her room for anything that might distract her, or anything that could help her reach an epiphany to save her father’s life. But no matter how hard she looked, Mikaela felt lost. She lowered her head on the desk, massaging her temples with one hand. She trusted that Caelum had a plan, but she couldn’t shake away the nagging feeling that something else would happen, something that they hadn’t considered in their calculations.
She lifted her eyes to the Hellfire sitting on her desk, blazing in its jar. So much had happened since Caelum had appeared in her home, wounded and holding the fire in his hand as if it was nothing. She reached out her hand and tapped the glass that trapped the Hellfire, noting its cool temperature, no more than room temperature. The fire hadn’t heated up the jar even though it had been inside it for days. Because it’s a different kind of flame.
Mikaela’s head shot up; how could she have forgotten? Without wasting another second, she hurried to gather a pen and paper and cast the spell that would take her to the location she needed.
“I can’t believe you talked me into doing this…” Jenny muttered, her forehead against the table in the archives. On her lap was the third book she had skimmed through, upon her brother’s request.
“Mom and Dad agreed to help, didn’t they?” David reminded her. Though the news had utterly surprised him when Jenny delivered it. I guess curiosity got the better of them. He and Jenny had continued to research the angels, more specifically Lucifer, since Mikaela had gone. David had slept for only three hours since then, his mind too bothered to rest.
“What was that?” Jenny’s head suddenly snapped up, her eyes wide.
“What’s what?”
“Shh.” Jenny lifted a finger to her lips. David looked at his younger sister weirdly, his head cocked to the side as he listened nonetheless. After a few seconds of nothing but silence, David spoke.
“Jenny, you’re probably just tired—”
His words were cut off by the sound of footsteps running down the stairs to the basement. Jenny jumped up from her chair just as Mikaela appeared on the landing, heaving.
“M- Mikaela!” David called, sounding a little more pleased than he would have allowed himself. “Err- You’re back!”
“I need to look at a few things,” Mikaela said, marching to the file cabinet at the other end of the room.
“Don’t scare us like that,” Jenny warned her, returning to her seat.
“Hey, what happened?” David asked, joining Mikaela at the back of the room. He watched her flip through the folders inside the file cabinet, her eyes scanning frantically at the words printed. “Hey.” He tapped her shoulder, but Mikaela turned to one of the bookshelves before answering.
“Caelum’s returning to Hell tonight,” she announced. “And I need to finish something before he goes.”
“Wait, tonight? Why so soon?”
“Because whatever they’re planning to do to get that bastard out of his cage, it’s going to happen soon,” Mikaela told them, alarming the brother and sister.
“What?” they exclaimed in unison.
“Yes,” Mikaela took four books from the shelf and headed to the table. “So, either help me out here, or don’t bother me. That would be great.” She opened a book as she spoke and began scanning the pages.
David and Jenny looked at each other, having a silent conversation as they did when they were younger. Mikaela’s panicked state made it clear to them how urgent the matter was, and they were already determined to assist in stopping the release of Lucifer from his cage. Nodding to each other, they agreed to help Mikaela with her research.
Hours went by as the trio wrote notes from the books Mikaela had gathered. When she told them what she was looking for, they thought she’d lost her mind. But the witch knew it was possible, given the facts she had gathered about the cycle of the souls from the moment of their release, to their reincarnation. Mikaela did not wish to give up; she knew it could work.
“I have it,” Mikaela announced, holding a book about necromancy. She stared at the page in her hand, memorizing the materials she would require and taking down more notes. Jenny and David moved over behind her, reading the same page as Mikaela.
“Wow,” Jenny mouthed. “I never knew a spell like that existed. Much less that our ancestor stumbled upon one!”
“Mikaela.” David called for her attention, his voice worried. “Are you sure about this?”
Mikaela breathed deeply, weighing his words. Before she’d set foot back in the archives, she knew she had to do this. But now, fear was eating at her again. She shook it off and replied, “Yes.” She stood up from her seat when she’d finished taking the notes and made for the stairs. She stopped, biting her lip.
“Thank you, for all your help,” Mikaela said to them; she disappeared into the darkness to finish what she’d started.
Caelum had been reading Cornelius’ journal over and over, digging deep into his mind for the images locked away after he had damned himself to Hell. Just like as he was about to do all over again. He sat atop the roof of Mikaela’s house and stared at the sun, slowly lowering over the horizon. In a few hours, he would return to Hell to rescue the angel who’d sacrificed so much for his sake. Death was not something he feared; he feared failure. If his last action was to pay his debt to Ariel, he would make it happen.
He just hoped he could do the same for the witch who had locked herself away in her room to create whatever experiment she was working on.
He shut the journal and put it aside. He found it laughable, how his last day on Earth was spent like this. Caelum might have imagined it before, welcoming the end of the world with fireworks and chaos. Panic in the streets and nightmares that haunted those in their dreams; that was how he would have wanted it. But he could not bring himself to celebrate, not when his worries weighed on him.
“Hey,” Mikaela’s voice called to him. Caelum turned around to see her climbing up. Carefully, the witch walked up to him and took a seat beside him. “Seriously, this is how you’re going to spend your last night on Earth?”
“One must always take the time to appreciate the sunset, my dear. This is nature’s symbolism of combining two extremes: night and day, light and darkness, Heaven and Hell!” Caelum held out his hand, stretching it towards the sun. “All coming together as the greatest of them descends.”
Mikaela chuckled at his prose, squinting her eyes against the light of the sun. She’d never found comfort in being out in the open, especially during the day. But now, she wanted to be nowhere in the world but here. Her mind began to look back on the days when she’d smiled at the sun and the moon alike. The young witch sighed at how much things could change in just a few years.
“Do you still remember what my mother looked like?” Mikaela blurted out the question.
Caelum looked to her, both curious and worried. “Yes.”
“What was she like?” Mikaela asked, her eyes lowered.
Caelum leaned forward, considering his answer. “First of all, you look almost nothing like her. Except for your eyes, all your good-looks came from me.” He forced a laugh, but it came out as nervous. The demon sighed h
eavily. “But she was a nice young woman, very artistic. A tad bit cynical, which was something I found interesting about her. She would paint these odd works and people would look at them with such awe, not realizing that the inspiration for her works was their own stupidity.”
Mikaela laughed this time, imagining the scenario. Caelum looked at her, appreciating the smile on her face. “I was truly saddened by what happened to her. I truly was, Mikaela. Especially because you never met her.”
Mikaela stiffened, hugging herself to keep warm from the lowering temperature. She remembered the story, how her mother had died giving birth to her. Her aunt, who was the only relative present during her birth, had left her in front of a church instead of taking responsibility for her. Caelum had taken her before the nuns of the church even got out of their beds.
The young witch had been raised by her father from Hell, learning spells and curses and the workings of the world beyond the mortals’ eyes. Until the day came, ten years ago, when he’d turned his back on her.
“Tell me something,” Mikaela began. “Why did you leave me?”
The question struck Caelum. His fists tightened as he forced the answer out. “Because I didn’t want you to end up like me,” he confessed, surprising Mikaela. Her green eyes turned to him in bewilderment as he continued, “I am no one’s ideal guardian, Mikaela. And my urges are things a child should never see. I am a demon. I am manipulative and scheming and murderous. I seek chaos and chaos seeks me. I did not wish for you to take the same path.” He paused, his eyes darting around but never towards her. A weak laugh escaped him and he added, “I guess my efforts were futile, weren’t they?”
Mikaela stayed silent, despite his jab. She looked to the sun again, barely a line of orange light now, and what was left was slowly dissolving in front of them. In just a few seconds, their half of the world was in darkness. Cold wind brushed on their skin and one by one, the stars blinked above their heads.
The Damned and The Pure Series: Books 1-4 (The Damned and The Pure Series Box Set) Page 33
