Angel Slayer

by Michele Hauf

  Was she safe from other Fallen who thought to put a nephilim inside her? She stroked the mark on her forearm. The Roman numeral had not faded. It looked the same as it always had.

  Tentatively she touched her forehead. A plaster chunk had fallen from the ceiling. She’d seen it drop toward her face and hadn’t been able to struggle out of the way. The wound felt deep, but it no longer bled. Blood crusted down the side of her face and in her hair.

  Stroking her palm down her cheek, where the angelkiss had abraded her skin, she found it did not itch. Perhaps it was only effective while the instigator was alive. Could it attract other Fallen?

  She needed answers. Now. And if Ashur would not return, she’d give someone with a higher rank a call.

  “Raphael!”

  Eden had no idea if the angel would heed her summons a second time after he’d deemed the first unnecessary. But since an angel lay dead on her floor, she figured someone in the holy ranks must be paying attention.

  “I demand an audience. Come to me. I…need you. Please. Don’t you see? One of your own is dead!”

  Nothing. Dust motes floated before the window, seeking the pale beams of moonlight. Below, on the ground, havoc had torn a hole in the earth where the two supernatural beings had battled.

  Eden squeezed her hands into fists.

  Maybe Michael Donovan could help? He’d left his business card. No, he was as confused by this situation as she was. And Ashur had not liked him being here. She would respect his dislike for the halo hunter.

  “Please, Raphael. I don’t know what to do.”

  She had felt Ashur’s heart pulse beneath her palm. The heart he’d claimed hard and black and incapable of feeling had beat. For her. She knew it. She selfishly wanted it so.

  A flash of white light prompted her to shield her eyes. Behind her a man spoke in a British accent. “What now?”

  Eden reached back with an arm. “Can I look?”

  “Yes, yes. I am in human form, not my dazzling cloak of divinity.”

  She turned to Raphael.

  “What do you require, muse? Ah, I see Zaqiel has been dispatched. You mustn’t label him one of my own. Egads. He left the ranks of his own free will. He ceased to possess divinity so long ago.”

  “Where is Ashur?”

  “He’s gone Beneath. You didn’t know? Quite the sacrifice. Saves me the trouble of taking him there myself.”

  “You would have sent him Beneath? But he hasn’t done anything wrong, except slay a wicked angel. And save me!”

  “Bang-up job he did of that. You’ve a concussion. Avoid shut-eye for a while, if you don’t want to slip into a coma.”

  Eden swallowed and touched the wound again. Really? She didn’t feel light-headed or tired.

  “They never do,” Raphael said. “And then they die.”

  He toed the angel ash, which revealed a single white feather embedded within the diamond dust.

  “What is that?” Eden lunged and grabbed the item before the archangel could. “A feather?”

  Raphael snatched for the feather, but she clutched it to her chest. “No, this belongs to Ashur. For his crown. He said he claims them after he slays each angel.”

  Raphael crossed his arms. “Indeed? He’s told you much.”

  “I love him. We share everything.”

  “Not everything, sweet peaches. He obviously didn’t tell you about the deal we made.”

  “Deal?”

  “Ashur has done his job, and he’s done it well. He is highly revered by the Sinistari, by demons throughout Beneath, despite his infuriating tendency to fall in love with mortal women.”

  “He never admitted to love.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know him. He is in love.” The angel sighed. “Again.”

  “Well, it’s too late for you to banish him. I think he did it to himself. My God, why didn’t he take the souls?”

  “He was offered a soul for Zaqiel’s death.”

  “What?”

  “With a condition. Since he’s refused so many times before, I had to add a proviso, you understand.”

  “He refused a soul again? But he could have been with me. What was the condition?”

  “That he kill you.” Raphael brushed his fingernails over his suit, polishing them with bored disdain. “He didn’t even try. Idiot.”

  Eden hugged herself to prevent the shivers but still her body trembled. He’d made a deal with the archangel to kill her? “What would my death serve?”

  “It would remove you from the running. As you’ve noticed, just because a Fallen one has mated with its muse doesn’t stop it from seeking other muses.”

  “But that’s not right. I’m not Zaqiel’s muse. I’m Ashur’s—”

  Raphael tilted his head at her. “You know that? He’s been exceedingly indiscreet with you.”

  “Ashur knew? That must be why he left me.”

  “He came to me recently. I told him what he suspected was truth. And then he ran home to tattle to you.”

  “No! I figured it out. He has a six on his neck. I’m a six. We’re a pair, right? But I don’t understand why. Ashur could have been a Fallen? He might have come after me to…”

  “You got it. Wham, bam, start the apocalypse, ma’am.”

  “Why not kill all the muses? If you kill me, you must kill the rest. Or is it just me you’ve got a problem with?”

  “Of course it’s just you. Eden Campbell, painter of Fallen and Sinistari.”

  “But those images of angels came to me in my dreams. Maybe all muses are like that. Do you know? And what does it matter? No one will ever recognize the truth in my paintings.”

  “Someone already has.”

  “The vampire?”

  Raphael nodded.

  “Your artwork is insignificant in the greater scheme. Yet you’ve thrown a wrench into the workings of Sinistari versus Fallen. Ashuriel the Black fell in love. Again! One would have thought he’d learned the first time around. Torture and all that, don’t you know.”

  “I love Ashur, and I know he loves me. It’s wrong to punish someone for enjoying the most wondrous emotion on earth? Isn’t God all about love?”

  Raphael sighed. “Semantics. The Sinistari are not His subjects.”

  “They used to be! Ashur said his feet never touched the ground. He was still divine before he was made into a demon. That’s got to count for something.”

  “I will not argue the rules, muse. Just be thankful you yet breathe. You got the feather. That will be your lovely parting gift. You can tuck it in your hair and forever remember your tragic hero.”’

  Just like that? Raphael would walk away and she’d never see Ashur again?

  “What about the vampires?”

  Raphael huffed out a sigh. “Insignificant to the greater order of things.”

  “Michael Donovan was pretty worried. They’re after the halos.”

  “A halo is worthless in the hands of a vampire.”

  “They don’t want to use them as weapons. Don’t you know anything about the vampires?”

  “Of course I do. I don’t need to discuss them with a muse. Now…” Raphael lifted his arms, as if to lift into flight.

  “Wait! I have to see him. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

  “He chose to part with you, Number Six. Accept that. Get on with your humdrum life.”

  “But I won’t. I—I have to give him this feather. It belongs to him. Is he not the master of the Sinistari?”

  “Ashuriel the Black, Stealer of Souls.” Raphael angled a coy look at her. “You want to place that prize in his crown?”

  Eden knew what that meant. Ashur had returned Beneath. A place she could only imagine must be hell. He wore his crown because he was master over all the Sinistari, and because with every innocent mortal soul he had stolen he had earned the right to sit upon a throne. A lonely, silent throne that annihilated his memory and battled to steal his joy.

  Joy was his definition of love. She wouldn’t let him
lose it this time.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I want to place this in his crown.”

  Raphael’s eyes changed to an unnatural blue. They glowed like the halo in the kitchen. It must be Ashur’s, she thought. His halo.

  Raphael’s smile carved into his face. “Indeed, it was.”

  “Can he wear it again? It’s got his earthly soul in it!”

  “Never. Once demon he can never return Above. Despite his divinity, his feet have touched earth, you see. But the feathers are his consolation.”

  “So the soul is in the halo?”

  “It seeks Ashuriel, which is why it glows. The only way he could have possibly gained a human soul was through my mercy or if he committed a selfless act.”

  “But letting me live was selfless.”

  “Really?”

  She thought about it. This was not the end. Just because Zaqiel had been dispatched didn’t mean she was safe from other Fallen. And if she lived to then carry a Fallen’s child, she would bring a wicked, evil creature into this world.

  He should have let her die.

  “Yes, well, you see what havoc love imposes?” Raphael extended a hand. “I suppose he believes he did the right thing.”

  The right thing.

  Chris, her ex-fiancé, had used those same words when he’d proposed to her. They were her least favorite words in the world.

  “It wasn’t the right thing. It was what Ashur’s heart told him to do, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  “If that is how you wish to term it. Shall we?”

  Eden nodded. She reached out, expecting to take Raphael’s hand, but he did not do the same.

  And the world darkened. The floor fell away and rippled like obsidian lava beneath her feet. Eden’s tattered red robe listed across her flesh but the breeze was so hot she felt the burn all the way to her bones.

  The only sound was a steady pulse, a deep throb echoing from within her heart. She sensed no danger, yet she suspected this was not a place where she could survive for long.

  “Beneath,” she mouthed.

  Striding forward, Eden stepped across the wavering black liquid. It was not deep. Each footstep sunk in up to her ankle, and when she pulled her foot out the black slipped away like oil. It was hot, but not oppressively so.

  “Ashur?” she whispered, not daring to speak aloud for the silence possessed a soul of its own. A menacing presence tickled her soul and threatened it with dark seduction. Come to me.

  No, she was imagining that, allowing her fear to get the better of her.

  If Ashur had accepted a human soul for killing Zaqiel he would have had to kill her. And why not? Ashur deserved a soul. Had he not served as a Sinistari long enough? He was not beyond humanity; she knew that well. In fact, it was the one thing he clung to in an attempt to remain humane.

  But knowing she would not have been around to watch him come into his own soul devastated her.

  Clutching the angel feather as if a candle before her, she wandered toward a dark mass set on the horizon. It was miles away, and yet each footstep brought her closer as if a rocket had launched her the distance.

  In three more steps she stood before a grand throne that grew out from the black liquid and pulsated as if alive. Upon the throne sat the demon master, his horned head bowed. The crown of feathers and bone clasped in one hand marked a bold, colorful gleam against the bleak landscape.

  Eden stepped up and placed the feather in the crown. She palmed the feather tips and counted fifteen total. One was of amethyst, another of gold. One moved like green digital code against a black setting. Another wavered like seaweed yet was bright as a bluebird’s egg.

  Gorgeous, all of them. Yet they were prizes he’d claimed from fallen angels intent on spreading menace and chaos across the land.

  Ashur had sacrificed so much to keep mortals safe from the nephilim. Sure, he had stolen souls, and she could not forgive him for that. But truly, this demon was kind beyond a measure that had any meaning to him. Because he had no means to measure kindness. Slaying the Fallen was his task, his life. He did it because he knew nothing else.

  She prayed he would remember her love for him. That it would be the joy he would hold for centuries to come here in the Beneath.

  “It belongs to you,” she told him. She touched his hand, cold and hard, yet he flinched away. “Sorry.”

  She waited for him to lift his head and look at her. He did not, and instead glanced across the undulating ocean of darkness.

  Eden could not stand this. She needed him to look at her. Did he not understand that she would never be the same without him? That if he did not regard her now, she would always wonder if she had imagined their closeness, the love they had shared?

  Do not abandon me as the others have.

  “I love you,” Eden said, her voice wobbling.

  “You cannot.” His deep voice rumbled like gravel. Immense in depth, it echoed across the black sea, sending ripples fleeing in wide circles. “Don’t look at me. Turn away. I am an abomination.”

  “You are my lover. I love you no matter what form.”

  “Go away from me, Six!”

  “I am not a number!”

  “You will always be just a number.”

  “Really? Then I am your number. We were destined for each other since before you fell from Above. I am your muse, and you have been my muse. I belong to you, Ashur. I am yours.”

  “And I will not have you!”

  His bellow sent her stumbling away from the throne, but Eden did not cower. “You’re just saying that. Raphael told me about your deal. You could have had freedom, a mortal soul.”

  He looked down, not meeting her eyes. One horn dangled at the back of his head, an injury from his battle with Zaqiel. Eden wanted to touch it, to soothe away the hurt.

  “Thank you,” she offered. “For my life. Many times over.”

  Exhaling, she set back her shoulders and wondered how soon Raphael would retrieve her. She wanted to stay, even if it meant suffocating in the oppressive atmosphere. Just to be in his company. He was not ugly to her. This man, this demon with the black heart, was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

  “I painted you before I knew you existed.”

  “Means nothing.”

  “It means you’ve always been a part of me. In my soul. You, Ashur, were my muse.”

  It was incredible to say, and more incredible to believe. But she didn’t have to believe. Eden knew. He had inspired her.

  “Foolishness,” he muttered.

  She’d forgotten he could sense her moods and her thoughts.

  He placed the crown upon his head. It hooked on a horn and tilted at a jaunty angle. The demon crowned in angel feathers and bone stood and towered over her. The black lake rippled silently around them. If he had sat here for a thousand years, he had suffered more than the souls he kept in his heart.

  Eden could not fathom existing in nothingness for so long. He was her opposite in every way, for she had been tormented by images of angels always, while his mind must be void and black.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “Hold that in your heart, if you can.”

  Finally he looked into her eyes. The myriad colors of an angel’s eyes looked back at her. Raphael had said Ashur had not lost his divinity; it had become tainted with the sins of mortals. Eden recognized that divine spark in his irises. Much as he believed he was evil, nothing could destroy his joy.

  “There is something I must do,” he said. What sounded like a sigh wavered in the air. “You have changed me. Made me…better.”

  “You’ve always been good, Ashur.”

  “Goodness does not steal life. The souls within me, I have greedily taken and relished their institution, no matter the pain.”

  “You knew nothing else. It’s what you were made to do.”

  “I could have refused them and taken a mortal soul millennia ago.” He looked across the undulating black sea. “I recall you asked if I could rel
ease them. There is a way.”

  “You would do that? That would be wonderful.”

  He walked around behind the throne, his hooves sinking into the oil-like surface. The throne began to melt before Eden, slipping into the black sea surrounding them. Ashur stalked away from her to the end of the island they stood upon.

  Lifting his head, he declared, “I am Ashuriel the Black, Stealer of Souls, Master of Dethnyht!” He produced Dethnyht and lifted it above his chest.

  He turned to her and said, “And I love the mortal, Eden Campbell.”

  She gasped. He admitted his love for her!

  “This is for you, Eden.”

  He plunged Dethnyht into his demon chest. The steely black flesh opened wide spewing out the glinting souls of thousands.

  A scream caught in Eden’s throat.

  Even while she was horrified Ashur may have killed himself, the beautiful souls swirling above stopped her outburst. So many of them, wispy and sprite. Dashing into a tornado of freedom and spinning deliriously. With one great burst, they were gone. Vanished. Returned to their rightful resting place, be it Above or Beneath. But at last they were free.

  The demon dropped to his knees. It required monumental effort to lift his head and look to Eden. “I wish I could have given you more. A…child.”

  “No, it’s not what I need from you. You’ve already given me—”

  The demon began to fade.

  Eden ran toward him, her steps splashing up viscous black oil. She would not let him die. He must not after such a sacrifice. He was hers. The world could not deny their love. “You’ve given me hope!”

  Halfway across the sea that distanced them, her feet landed in wet grass and Eden plunged to the ground in daylight.

  Chapter 30

  It was the most extraordinary thing. He’d never expected the demon to give up the souls. And now that he had, Blackthorn had a lot of work to do. Souls to collect and ferry on to their final, much-awaited resting place.

  He had no preference for either Beneath or Above. His job saw him visiting both places myriads of times daily. Each had its appeal. Neither would ever hold his bones when he was dead.

  But first, he strode through the roiling black sea, jauntily kicking up the liquid and pausing to do a tap step. Swinging his cane, he ambled on toward the fallen Sinistari.