A chime sounded and continued. Michael jerked as if slapped.
Gideon tensed. Anything that rattled Michael was seriously bad. “What’s up?”
“No time,” Michael muttered and opened his palm. The vial of Braile’s essence twinkled like a multi-faceted gem. “He gave his life for you so you could have this. Don’t waste it.”
Gideon reared back, a growl crept up his throat. “You put Braile up to sacrificing his life to close the portal?” And here he thought Braile had discovered the way and made the decision on his own. “You fu—”
His free hand whipped out and closed around Gideon’s neck. “You will not use that language here! Know your place, UnHallowed.”
Gideon knocked Michael’s hand away and snarled, “And you think my place is doing your bidding.” He snatched the vial out of Michael’s hand. “Braile was a friend, even after I fell we kept company, shared a bottle. I do this for him, so his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”
“I expected no less. That’s why Braile, and I, chose you.” Michael pressed a medallion into Gideon’s palm. “This will take care of the sunlight.” He tapped the oval-shaped disk as the chime dwindled and ceased, “You’ll have to figure out the rest,” and pushed Gideon over the edge.
Gideon didn’t waste his energy on screaming, though his insides twisted with panic. Regardless of the cool metal in his hand, he expected to fry. The relief was short-lived when he didn’t. Normally, a fall from a great height wouldn’t kill an UnHallowed. A fall from the greatest height of all...on impact, he would disintegrate.
Nothing could slow him. Without wings, he fell as a bullet shot from a gun. He had no options and the closer the ground came, the clearer that reality became. Below him, a cloud drifted, casting a shadow on the landscape. If he could target that cloud, slip into the shadow it created...no, that wouldn’t work. Clouds shaded. They were nothing more than condensed water and not solid enough to cast real shadows.
As the buildings of the city came into view, an idea surfaced. The position of the one o’clock sun could save his life. He just needed a tall building. There were a few, but his angle of decline wouldn’t allow him to reach them. He’d have to settle for a smaller one. A much smaller one, he realized as the wind pushed him over a residential area.
One chance. That’s all he’d have to hit the mark. Single story houses came into focus. Shit! Their shadows were small, so small under the sun. He made like Superman and aimed for the small patch of shadow on the left side of the two-story building.
A frisson of power zapped his senses. The Cruor had just opened. “Oh, hell.”
Distracted, he veered off the mark. He had a fraction of a second to make a correction or make a splat. Gideon hit the sliver of a shadow dead on.
Cool darkness enveloped him and he rolled to a stop.
Gideon climbed to his feet and did a quick check of all the important body parts. Head—still on—dick—still attached. Medallion in one hand—could come in handy. Vial in the other.
The last drop of Braile’s grace.
Gideon refused to let it be in vain. His final words to Braile came back to Gideon.
“I will close the Cruor. Or die trying.”
He meant every syllable as he watched the Archangel turn to a husk in a grassy field created by his spilled grace soaking into the rocky cavern floor.
Now, after a taste of paradise in Dina’s arms, death was the last thing he wanted, but the dye wasn’t just cast. It was chiseled in fucking stone.
“I will close the Cruor. On the last drop of Braile’s grace, this I swear.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The chimes sounded again and Dina paused from racing out of her room. Gemma’s threat was hollow. She couldn’t go to the oubliette when she and all the other captains would flank the altar, symbolically guarding the body. Her absence would be noted and judged.
Gideon’s judgment would follow the ceremony. The shielding on his glass prison would be removed and he would burn. Having never witnessed a judgment, Dina’s imagination ran rampant along with growing panic. She couldn’t save him and the knowledge opened a hole in the center of her chest.
Gideon killed the chancellor. He had to pay for his crime.
And yet she loved him.
Numb, Dina stripped off the leather outfit borrowed from Scarla and called on her myst. A plain gown and her cloak took shape. Her cloak, much different from the designated black with the crimson trim of a Captain, was now the soft forest green of a witness. Her role as a leader was over and so was her need for a weapon.
Her gaze strayed to the Executioner in the corner. The sword, another relic she borrowed from the archives and had never returned. Because it once belonged to him, just like the armor.
She reached for it before she could talk herself out of the decision. What decision that was, she refused to name as she attached the sword to her side and pulled her cloak over it. Regardless of her new station, her warrior instincts were too honed for her to be weaponless and unprotected.
She exited her quarters and blended into the stream of angels flowing into the cathedral. Slowing, she let others pass until she stood at the back of the gathering, in the narthex, the area for the recruits. So great the multitude, the chancellor was just a shrouded speck in the distance.
This couldn’t, shouldn’t be her first duty in her new station, to witness this solemn spectacle and record it for posterity.
An Archangel began the prayers. Each would give their own invocation. She spotted Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Raguil…where was Michael? His place in the gallery overlooking the altar was empty.
Where’s Gemma?
Dina strained to see. When she found the empty space Gemma should’ve occupied, fear rippled through her. She fled the cathedral and leaped into the air as soon as she cleared the steps. She flew as fast as her wings could manage and landed on the edge of the oubliette.
Paralyzed with fear, her eyes were unable to accept the truth: Gideon was gone. Judged, sentenced, and punished all before the ceremony? Despair closing her throat and blurring her vision, she sank to her knees.
Unimaginable agony seared her. How could they? How could she not be here to—to what? There wasn’t a damn thing she could do except to witness his last moments.
And even that she failed to do.
A tear rolled down her cheek and fell into the circular prison. The single drop reflected the sunlight and illuminated a smudge on the wall of the dim interior. She reached down and ran her finger through the residue. The grayish goo of an UnHallowed clung to her skin. The smallest amount of grace pulsing within spoke to her, whispered a truth that caused another tear to roll down her cheek.
He lives.
“What have you done?”
Gemma’s shriek hit Dina with the force of a fist to her gut. She surged to her feet, ready to explain, but by the fury drawing Gemma’s face and the sword materializing in her hand, Gemma would not hear anything Dina had to say.
“You’ve lost all sense of what is right!”
“That is not true. I know what is right, Gemma. I did not release Gideon.” She didn’t say she was glad he was free and if he hadn’t been, she’d come here to remedy the situation.
Gemma raised her sword.
Dina backed up. “I don’t want to fight you.”
Gemma white-knuckled her weapon. “I don’t want to fight you either…but you have left me no choice. Dina, get into the oubliette.”
It was one thing to reach inside for a smudge, but once her feet touched the pressurized bottom, she’d be trapped. One step to the left, and she would be off the ledge and into the clouds.
Dina spread Gideon’s essence over her palm and took the leap. His essence seeped into her skin and she had his location just as another awareness seized her senses.
The Cruor! Now one opens!
Her duty would always be to find and somehow close the portal to Hell. The passion secreted within her led Dina down a different path. The path
leading her to Gideon. She tucked her wings, streamlining her body, which increased her speed.
Pain slammed into her back. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she spun. Gemma fired off another blast of power. Dina swerved and avoided the second blast. She raised her own hand to return fire.
Nothing happened. Great time to remember witnesses didn’t wield power. Michael and Aron had stripped her power and she hadn’t even realized it. She couldn’t even call her sword to her palm. But she had another weapon.
Dina yanked the Executioner off her hip and raised the blade. Regardless of what Michael said and her control of Gideon’s armor, she couldn’t access the power within the Empyreal steel since it obeyed only one master. However, it was still a weapon with a razor’s edge that could cut through the flesh of angels as easily as it could cut through the bones of humans.
She wouldn’t use it to kill Gemma. Just to wound and get away from her. A blast from Gemma whizzed past Dina’s head. The next one deflected off the flat surface of the blade. It zinged back to its owner and slammed center mass into her chest. Gemma was knocked off the platform.
Dina used the breathing room to refocus on Gideon and narrowed his location to New York City. As she descended, the location further narrowed to Washington Heights. Then to the George Washington Bridge. She found him on the catwalk of the Little Red Lighthouse situated at the base of the bridge.
She’d also found the Cruor suspended in the air over the lighthouse. The shimmering surface was invisible to humans in the afternoon sun. To them, it would appear as heat rising off the hot pavement. The evil emanating from the portal would hit them later…when it was too late to save their lives and their souls because the Cruor respected neither.
“Go back, Dina,” he said without turning to face her.
I have nothing to go back to. She wondered if she should tell him and quickly tossed the notion aside. She wasn’t here because Aron and Michael had stripped her power and leadership. She was here to save the one thing that continued to hold importance and make the burden of immortality bearable.
“How did you escape?”
He shook his head. “You’d just call me a liar if I told you. Now, go back.” He glanced over his shoulder and his furrowed brows deepened. “Why are you in that color? Where’s your black and crimson robe?” He pivoted and gave Dina his full attention. “Tell me Michael didn’t do this, punish you like this. Over me.” The last words were gritted through clenched teeth.
They didn’t have time for this. Gemma and her company would be here soon. “Whether to punish me or not, he removed me from leadership.”
He reached out for her, but then his hand curled into a fist and dropped to his side. “Damn him!” Then in a low caustic tone, “Damn me. Collateral damage sucks. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” His red-rimmed gaze landed on her with a wealth of sadness.
Suddenly, this moment felt like a farewell. A permanent farewell. She shook her head. She had no idea what he planned, and that terrified her. “Don’t, Gideon.”
His smile was wistful, painful. “Goodbye, Dina.”
Then he vaulted over the white railing and plunged into the Cruor.
She lunged for him and missed. A wave of energy erupted from his passing into the portal and knocked her to the railing. “No—”
“Do not move, Dina.” Gemma cut off her outraged cry.
Frozen by the shock of Gideon’s unexpected actions, Dina obeyed the command.
“I’m taking you back to the council where you will face the consequences of your actions.”
There was movement behind her, then Gemma stopped. “All these centuries and I finally see the Cruor. Did you know it was here? Is that why you fled?”
If only she could lie. “No, Gemma.”
She sighed, disappointment in the sound. “I will explain to the council. It still doesn’t explain you releasing Gideon, but finding another portal will put you back in their good graces.”
“I will never again be in their good graces…and I no longer care.” The weight Dina had carried since the Great Cleansing lifted from her chest.
A glazed, distant look came over Gemma’s face and Dina knew they wouldn’t be alone much longer. Gemma blinked and her gaze settled on Dina again. “I’ve contacted the rest of the company. They will be here shortly to guard the Cruor while I escort you back.”
Gemma hadn’t heard a word Dina said and she didn’t have a moment to explain because a pulse came from the Cruor. It was about to shift. When it did, Gideon would be trapped and lost to her forever.
She didn’t realize she’d decided until she’d made the jump. Gemma’s shout was an echo inside Dina’s head, amplified by her own scream as she crossed the event horizon of the portal to Hell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ice formed on her skin as Dina broke the surface of the Cruor and tumbled to the other side. Her free fall ended when her body collided with a stone edifice. The impact rattled her bones as much as the cold caused tremors throughout her body. The Antarctic was a sauna compare to this place.
Dina pushed off the gritty, weathered stone surface. Each movement caused the clinging ice to crackle and fall like glass chimes. Each musical tinkle announced her presence. Unfortunate, but there was nothing she could do to mask the sound, except die—as if that were possible. Even if she could die, that isn’t what she came here to do. This was a rescue mission.
Though she could be stranded here too. An angel stuck in Hell at the mercy of the Demoni Lords. Nothing could be worse than that outcome.
Dina forced the thought away. She came here for two reasons. Dwelling on the Lords and what could happen if they found her didn’t help. She climbed to her feet, fighting the pull of gravity that was stronger on this side of the Cruor.
She gazed into the night surrounding her. It was different from the stygian shadows Sammiél had dragged her into. This slice of darkness varied in degrees from light gray to glossy ebony and partially shrouded the crumbling stone bridge where she’d landed.
Which direction to take? To the right, the bridge had an incline into a grayish sky. To the left, it declined into a murky night. She touched her skin where she’d rubbed Gideon’s essence and tried to locate him via the link she’d created.
There was nothing to find. The link was gone. Or this place had nullified it.
How am I supposed to find him now?
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold environment snaked up her spine and had her wings trembling. This piceous environment had a sentient, oppressive presence.
It watched her.
Dina gripped the hilt of the Executioner, not reassured by its weight. Aron and Michael had removed her power to call forth her Empyreal sword as if snatching away her rank and station weren’t enough. Too bad they couldn’t foresee Witness Dina ending up on the other side of the Cruor.
Her sword was an extension of herself. As trusted as her legs and arms. Now, she had to rely on the borrowed weapon of an angel…who was now the UnHallowed she had to save. Her grip tightened on her only defense, desperate to unlock the celestial power trapped within.
Even if she hadn’t been demoted, she still wouldn’t have been able to access the power in the weapon. However, it continued to be a blade with an edge no amount of time could dull. Formidable, yet just a weapon and only as deadly as the prowess of the one now wielding it.
And she had been trained by one of the best.
Dina dare not pull it, not without a direct threat, lest she incite one. Left or right, the decision had to be made…or maybe not.
She opened her wings and…No wind beneath her wings. No air around her meant…No takeoff.
A rustling sound like fabric rubbing together circled her, then the darkness rushed her. Dina freed the Executioner and sliced at the inky curtain. It retreated, then swarmed. A rolling wave of darkness knocked her sideways. She stumbled and hit the back of her knees on the edge of the bridge and tumbled into a void.
She
forced her wings open, but with no air to keep her aloft, Dina plummeted. At least, it seemed like she was falling until inertia set in and she realized, she was going nowhere fast. And then it hit her, where she was.
Damn it! How stupid could I be?
Limbo. The first level of Hell. That’s where she was. In a time vacuum. Whether an hour or an eternity, she had no way to tell how long she’d been here. She had to get out, but how when stagnant water had more motion than the inky substance surrounding her.
A new sound reached her. A kind of chirping that reminded her of birds. Long forgotten teachings rushed back to her from books she unearthed in the archives. The days she’d spent in the shelves, curled around a treasured tome, until Gideon found her for training.
As on all levels of Hell, there were creatures in Limbo designed to make one’s existence…well, a living hell. They picked at the flesh of their victims and fed off their misery as they played with the internal organs, sometimes even regurgitating the organs and sealing the doomed inhabitant back up for later entertainment. A never-ending process while lingering on the first level of Hell.
Eventually, they’d work their way around to her. Each passing second, she weakened. Not her mind, that was still sharp. In Limbo, you knew you suffered in body and spirit. Soon, she would be a pliable canvass for the creatures. In every way possible, time was not on her side.
A shout crested, along with the chirping and a flurry of swishing sounds. The spot on her hand where she rubbed Gideon’s essence, flamed just as another shout and a low groan reached her.
“Gideon,” she whispered.
Dina drew the Executioner and sliced her palm on the edge. Grace spilled from the wound and floated away as little globules of light.
A shriek of outrage—or delight—she couldn’t tell which, replaced the chirping. Dina rubbed her grace on the flat surface of the blade and channeled her energy through the Empyreal steel. Light expanded around the weapon, illuminating the void twenty feet around her, and the inhabitants.
Only the Fallen (UnHallowed Series Book 1) Page 10
