“Didn’t like hearing the truth earlier?” he asked once he released her. “Feeling a little hostile?”
“When aren’t I feeling hostile?” Her brothers were right, as much as she hated to admit it. And it continued to get worse. She had to visit the mortal plan and find a man to relieve the tension that built inside of her as a Sex Demon. It made her brothers and father nuts when she did it. But they knew if she didn’t get the sexual release her body needed, she could become a menace to them all. Damn her mother for being a Sex Demon and her father for falling for her tricks. She didn’t know who she hated more. Especially since she couldn’t have sex with the one individual she most wanted. No, she had to settle for second rate, one night stands.
“Are all our visitors finally gone?” If anyone remained in the Fortress other than family she remained fully cloaked, and she hated it. It kept her safe, but after a few hundred years, it had officially run its course.
“Yes, except for Marcus, however, he should be leaving soon.” She nodded and grabbed her cloak. She swung it over her shoulders and headed for her room. She needed to get out of the Infernos for a while. But to take any extended time away, she first had to get her father’s permission.
Celeste showered and put on a clean linen gray Grecian style dress that bared one shoulder and hung on her lithe form. She wound red beads around her waist showing how slim she was and went barefoot to find her father. A half-skeletal house servant stopped her, which could only mean her father entertained someone. Swearing to herself, she grabbed a cloak from a peg and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling up the hood.
Celeste opened the door quietly and stepped through, letting it close behind her.
Marcus stood at the foot of her father’s dais. At first she wanted to demand that the Fallen return to his sick bed. He couldn’t be healed all the way. She tamped down her reaction and stood quietly by while they spoke.
His hair caught the light of the candles that lit the room, turning it golden brown. Celeste took the opportunity to just stare at Marcus. Green eyes sparkled with the pain she knew he tried to hide. His hair was just long enough to run her fingers through. She knew from doing it while he had been unconscious. She also knew it felt like silk through her fingers. He had a strong brow, and even though she rarely saw him she knew he was quick to smile which emphasized his strong cheek bones and jaw making his green eyes sparkle. Slight stubble covered his jaw, which she found sexy. Her fingers itched to run along the planes of his face. The face of an Angel. She started to shift uneasily from foot to foot. That Sex Demon in her was fully awake now with the combination of the fight she had earlier with Christian it was taking everything she had to hold herself back from doing something stupid.
“Thank you for, you’re…” Marcus’s words faltered. “Hospitality?” He finished with a sly smile on his lips. Celeste smiled herself. Marcus played a fine line with the Reapers and Dante.
Dante laughed. “How many times will you come to us Marcus? Ask favors that force my hand?”
Marcus shrugged, and Celeste could see the pain that passed through his beautiful green eyes even from across the room. “There is very little I would not give in order for light and good to triumph.” She could be wrong, but she thought she sensed a slight bite of sarcasm in his voice.
“Bullshit,” Dante barked. “Your quest to feel alive is going to leave you a broken and beaten man and nothing but a shadow.”
Dante’s words didn’t seem to faze him. Marcus took a step up the dais and extended his hand, shocking Celeste. “We will, of course, meet again, Dante.” One should never offer a hand to Dante. Not in all of her existence had she known someone to willing be Touched by Dante. Celeste’s mouth sagged open in shock for a moment. To be Touched meant you owed your soul to Dante, and you didn’t want to owe your soul to the ruler of the Infernos.
Her father stared hard at the Fallen’s offered hand. “You offer more than you have to give.”
Marcus shrugged again, this time hiding the pain. “I offer only what I am willing to.”
“And you grow weary?” Dante asked. Marcus said nothing, leaving Celeste to wonder about his motives. Dante reached forward and took the Fallen’s hand. Marcus shuttered, but otherwise showed no other emotion of being touched by Dante. “When it is time, I shall claim your soul myself,” Dante promised before releasing Marcus’s hand.
Marcus stepped back and nodded. “I would be honored, Dante.”
Again her father laughed. “We shall see, my friend. We shall see.”
He turned to leave, but stopped when his eyes fell on Celeste. She very much wanted to step back when piercing green eyes seemed to focus too deeply into the shadows of the cowl she wore. But she held her ground. He didn’t know she existed, but his green eyes burned into her for a moment. His deep stare created a shiver that worked its way down her spine and into her lower back, making her ache with such need. After what seemed like an eternity, he looked away and continued out of the hall.
Dante didn’t turn from the dais and his seat. “And what brings you to see me, Celeste?” He asked once the door closed behind Marcus.
She shrugged out of the cloak, letting it fall to the floor. She strode up to stand next to her father. He smiled when he turned to her.
“You must want something. You’re wearing a dress, and your hair is down.” He knew her too well. She sank to her knees and laid her head on her father’s lap.
“I need to visit the mortal plane.” Her body burned for touch, she hated and loved it at the same time.
“Yes, I had assumed so. But the mortal plane is fast becoming a very undesirable place to be,” he said looking down on her.
“You know of another plane where I can get what I need?” she asked, knowing she pushed her luck with her sarcasm. As Dante’s only daughter, she had leeway where her brothers did not. But even she knew how far she could push him. And they both knew she could go to Lust, the fourth degree of the Infernos, where the female Sex Demons had been banned thousands of years ago. But in doing so it could backfire on them all, driving her insane instead of easing the pain. Too much lust and sex could sometimes kill or drive a person crazy. Not something either of them would chance.
Dante’s hand fisted in her hair, where he had been stroking just moments before. But just as quickly released her. “You go too far, Celeste.”
“I apologize, Father.”
“You may go. However, if something happens, and you are called home, you will come immediately.” She had been known to dance around the requests of her return, for days and even weeks at a time. “I will not allow you to go until you agree to that one point.” He had never demanded this of her before.
She turned and looked up at her father. “And if I refuse?”
“If you refuse, then I will deny you the right to go to the mortal plane. And if you accept yet fail to heed my call, you shall be punished.” She shivered knowing he would punish her, regardless of her being his only daughter.
Dante shook his head. “You sometimes are far too similar to your mother.”
She smiled. Her mother had lived in the Fortress for the first hundred years of Celeste’s life. And even though in the end, her mother had gone mad needing and craving the touch of a man, she still remained her mother, and Celeste loved her. Celeste had visited her mother several times in Lust. But when her mother’s ravings had become too much, Celeste had deemed it unwise to continue the visits. Besides, her mother came in and out of sanity, and Celeste never knew exactly what she could expect when she visited.
“I promise to come when you call, Father,” Celeste promised standing, she kissed his cold cheek.
He squeezed her hand a strange look in his eyes. “Be safe, daughter.”
She laughed. “Even you have to admit that of all your children, I have the ability to defend myself with the most success.”
Dante nodded. “Yes, you are a warrior at heart, with the abilities of a Demon, and a Reaper combined. However,�
�� he said, touching her chest where her heart beat strong, “someday I believe that you will need to let someone in. And I wonder if after everything I have done to keep you safe, you will be unable to do so. I fear that in doing so it will crush the spirit I love so much.”
“I will never allow anyone that close. There is no mortal, or immortal with the ability to crack me.” Her mind immediately pulled up a picture of Marcus, but she disregarded it just as quickly. Having agreed to her father’s conditions, she left the great hall and went toward her room. She had no intention of ever letting anyone in. She was nothing but an abomination. No one would be able to understand who or what she was.
Celeste entered her room and threw some clothes into a bag and braided her hair, pulling it up so that the spiked ends were tucked into the base of her neck. Mortals didn’t understand the spikes that she had weaved into the ends of her hair. She changed into leather pants and a t-shirt before she opened a portal and appeared in a back alley in the back streets of Chicago. She waited for several moments. She sensed nothing that could track her entrance into the mortal plane. However, with her ability to Trace Marcus, she knew he was close, which could mean he could be in the same state, or on the next street. She couldn’t help but feel some comfort at the knowledge that he could be so close.
She pushed him out of her head and headed downtown to the club-district. She needed a man, and that should be the only thing she should be concerned with.
****
Three days later she lay in a bed with a man she had spent the last two days with. He had satisfied her need for sex, but she remained empty inside. An existence she now realized she couldn’t keep up much longer. It was looking as if she would end up with her mother in Lust, craving for the touch of man she could never have. The thought sent a shiver of dread through her. She would rather die, have her soul dispersed never to be recycled again, rather than spend eternity wanting something she could never have. Pay for her sin of coveting Marcus, in the Infernos. After all she had grown up there and knew for herself that ultimately there was no other fate for her, it was why she trained so hard, fought so diligently to gain control of herself. But after this visit, she understood her current existence was going to drive her insane if not kill her.
Celeste glared at the dingy ceiling and swore, causing the man next to her to murmur in his sleep. She should leave, go back to the Infernos at least there she had more control of her Demon side. The mortal planes decadence offered a near sensory overload that was harder and harder to control.
She was about to climb from the bed when out of the corner of the Motel room, Victor appeared. “Argghh.” Celeste scrambled for a sheet to cover her nakedness.
Victor grunted and looked away. “Heard of a door?” Celeste snapped.
“It’s time.”
“And why is that?” she asked sarcastically.
Victor growled, which meant she shouldn’t have asked. Celeste swore under her breath and wanted to kick something.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he swung around to her. “Do you really want to fight with me?” His eyes black as death he looked from her to the sleeping male.
She flipped him off and grabbed her clothes. Throwing them on, she snatched up her bag and gave her brother a sweeping gesture. “After you.”
Victor snorted and opened a portal. Celeste leaned over the bed and whispered a few words of power into the mortal man’s ear, making him forget everything that had happened in the last two days, and then followed her brother back into the Infernos and complete and utter chaos.
Something that looked eerily like an arm disconnected at the elbow, flew at her. She ducked out of the way just in time. Screams of pain, terror and rage ripped through the air. More than just the screams of the damned where the sounds of fighting and panic rendered through the Infernos like a wildfire. Terror seized her for a moment.
Victor looked at her. “Keep it together.” He handed her two deadly short Swords she sheathed in her boots. “Calliope broke in,” he said over the noise. “Mason is dead.” His voice was flat and emotionless, he turned to fight off a damned soul that came at him.
Unexpected tears stung Celeste’s eyes. “What are you talking about?” she screamed kicking off an attacker. “What level are we on?”
“Heresy. When Calliope came through, he killed Mason, and the inhabitants felt the loss of power and broke through.” Another soul attacked, and for a moment Victor and Celeste fought back to back as they moved to where their other brothers were making a stand.
“He has moved to Dante’s Peak,” Christian bellowed. “We were just waiting for you two.”
With a flash of fire they all transported to Dante’s peak. They stood in the shadows of Dante’s garden. They could hear the fighting and as a group ran toward one of the bases, hidden by rock and shadows, stood the opening to Pandora’s Cave. Dante stood there with a long Sword in his hand. He fought to protect another brother. Celeste wanted to crumble to the ground at what she saw. Victor shoved her behind him as a huge black winged figure flew from the mouth of the cave.
Calliope laughed, his head thrown back as he taunted Dante. “Do you honestly think now that I am free you will be able to put me back into one of those boxes? That I would submit to you and your pitiful offspring?” Calliope looked at each Reaper that stood with Dante.
Dante laughed. “I’m not going to put you into one of those boxes, Calliope.” Calliope hovered just out of reach. His eyes narrowed, but Celeste could see the hope there. “I’m going to cut you into a million pieces and send you straight to Hell.”
This time Calliope raged. “I will rule the Infernos like they were meant to be ruled. And when I do, you shall beg for forgiveness on your knees, Father.” He slurred the last word. Dipping down he attacked.
“Get into the Cave, Celeste.” Victor pushed her toward the opening.
“I can fight,” she growled.
“No. Go get the Black Sword,” Victor said.
Celeste wanted to slap herself in the forehead. She scrambled past her brothers and into the Cave, sliding her short Swords into the sheaths in her boots.
Calliope had ransacked the place. Boxes and treasures littered the floor. She wondered briefly what he had been looking for and prayed to the gods he hadn’t found it. She started throwing things aside, climbing over precious objects, and avoiding dark objects that would suck her very soul out of her body. Tripping and falling several times, the bellows of pain and rage and her brothers drove her forward.
Dante had brought her down to Pandora’s Cave when she was old enough to know what she was, he showed her the treasures he had collected through the ages. Showed her the Sword and explained that being half Demon and half Reaper it made her the only creature in this world or the next that would be able to hold it and not be consumed by its darkness. Celeste had conflicting sides in her soul that would keep her safe.
“Then how did it get here?” She had asked.
Dante had looked so sad when she asked that question. And it frightened her; she had never seen human emotion on her father’s face before. “An Angel gave herself to the dark in order to in-tomb it here.” That was all he had said, and she was too frightened to ask him anything else. Something that upset Dante, would terrify her.
The Black Sword remained where she had seen it with Dante, buried deep in the red bedrock, and Celeste hoped it didn’t kill her as she wrapped her hands around the hilt and tugged. A tingle spread up her arm and into the base of her skull, she could feel it probe her. Trying to decide if she was evil or not. For a moment her brain was flooded with images she couldn’t explain, and then it was filled with light. As quickly as it had started, it ended, and she was left staring at her hand wrapped around the hilt of the Sword she tugged.
It didn’t budge.
More screams from her brothers at the mouth of the cave. “Please,” she begged the Sword. Pulling with everything she had, it still didn’t move. She felt tears fall down her fac
e, and she wiped them on her shoulder. Then she tugged at the Sword again, again it didn’t budge.
“You bitch,” Celeste screamed at the Sword in frustration. She put her leg next to the hilt and heaved and pushed with her foot at the same time. It came loose with a grinding noise. Her momentum sent her across the cave to land in a collection of boxes in a heap. Ribs cracked and Celeste saw stars for a moment.
Shaking it off, she scrambled to her feet and out of the mouth of the cave, just as Calliope disappeared through a portal. Several of her brothers lay in the dirt, but she knew they were still alive by the subtle rise and fall of their chest.
She stepped forward gasping for air. Victor took her by the arm, stopping her. “There is nothing more that can be done here.”
“It wouldn’t come loose,” she offered lamely looking at the Sword in her hand.
Victor nodded. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. He is testing the waters, seeing what our strengths and weaknesses are.”
“And?” Celeste asked.
Dante stepped forward vibrating with rage. “He knows as a collective he cannot take us. Individually, we are weak. That’s why we are two down. However, what he doesn’t know is that we have a secret weapon.”
There was quietness at his pronouncement, Celeste could feel the air being stolen from her as she looked at her father. His eyes shown with rage, and she knew there was no getting out of this now. Calliope had broken into the Infernos. He was going to cause havoc and destruction, and someone had to destroy him. Unfortunately she was the only one that could hold the Sword, and they all knew it.
Victor pushed past Celeste, tucking her behind him protectively. “You cannot use her that way.”
Dante slammed a fist into Victor’s chest. He sent Victor flying backwards, Celeste barely moved out of the before he flew past into hard red stone. He fell unconscious into the dirt.
Lost In Time: A Fallen Novel Page 2
