The Crumpled Sword

by Sydney Presley

  Manakel chuckled. “At times, but you get used to it. There’s always the hum of someone speaking, but it’s up to you as to whether you tune in and listen—really listen. Will you really listen to me?”

  “I’ve always tried to.”

  “Yes, you have. But this time, I’ve brought you here not only to put your mind at rest as to where your soul will eventually reside should you wish it, but to meet with you properly, let you see me, so you know who to trust when things take a darker turn. And they will. Idaline will be spitting mad that I have done this, and she’ll fight hard and unfairly to stay alive so that she can convince you that the underworld is the place where you should be. Only you can decide which you prefer—here, or there.”

  There wasn’t any decision to make. Warwick would choose this place every time. “Do all shifters get this dream? This choice of where they will go when they die?”

  “Superiors do. When they receive their Hail, they are brought here shortly after.”

  “And what choice will Superiors have once David and myself bring the underworld down?”

  “It will not be brought down how you expect. It will still be there, only empty of the caves and the wicked souls. New structures will be built by us, and new souls will arrive there, but they will be governed by some of us Angels. Better that evil is ruled by good, don’t you think? Perhaps then we can instill that goodness in them somehow, so they can possibly change their ways and be accepted here instead.” Manakel gestured around them, his arm raised.

  Warwick nodded absently. “I understand. A new Hell, a holding place for change, and once change occurs, the once-tainted souls can move on to Heaven. I like that idea much better than the current arrangement.”

  “Of course you do. You’re a good man, so you would want damaged souls to have a second chance. We’re under no illusion that some souls can’t be changed, though, but still, at least we’re trying. Peace must come—true peace for everyone—and the road won’t be smooth, but stumbling into the potholes will be worth it if our plan succeeds.”

  “Are those living in the current underworld too wicked to be saved?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes. We have managed to win millions of them over, but those who remain… They are more atrocious than anything you can imagine. They have been trying to infiltrate us for so many centuries now, to bend us to their fiendish will. Enough is enough, yes?”

  Warwick nodded. “It’s just a shame the same can’t be done on Earth.”

  “We have tried there, too, but the place is far too crooked.”

  Warwick sighed, his mind wandering to his mate. “David can’t be reached by dreams. So how will he be brought here? How will he see this?”

  “By you bringing him here.”

  “What?” Warwick gawped at him. “How am I meant to do that?”

  “By gazing into the Waters of Were and summoning him.”

  While they’d walked, Warwick hadn’t taken much notice of the surroundings, but now the white was cracked apart by a wondrous vivid blue pond ahead. There were no island-crags like the one near the cabin, just a smooth surface reminiscent of glass, and the others from the crowd stood around it, their heads bent and hands clasped in front of them in what Warwick assumed was reverence.

  Manakel came to a stop at the edge, some clouds at ground level curling over the water, like smoke from an unattended cigarette.

  “This is where we enter dreams or pass on thoughts and knowledge,” Manakel said. “We look into the water, see that shifters are sleeping or in need of assistance, then we project images into minds. It is here that you’ll pull David in to join us.”

  Warwick looked from the pond to where Manakel had stood, but the Angel had vanished. As had all the other people. In their places stood wolves, glittering fur the hues their hair had been. Beside Warwick, Manakel was a large russet similar to a red fox, who dipped his head and lapped from the pond.

  Ripples wavered, and the part of the pond Manakel drank from became a small whirlpool, colors coming in to layer themselves from the outside in. The other wolves also drank, and more whirlpools appeared. Warwick returned his attention to what was happening directly in front of him, in Manakel’s watery vortex, and he saw himself and David asleep on the sofa.

  “David,” Warwick whispered. “David…”

  David stirred, knuckled one of his eyes, then snuggled closer to Warwick. It was so strange to see it happening but not be able to feel that snuggle, smell David’s scent or have his warmth penetrating his body.

  “Follow my voice,” Warwick said, knowing by instinct that he was required to call his mate in this way.

  The eddy spun faster, erasing the image of them sleeping, then David’s face appeared at the base of it, growing bigger as it reached the outer edge, his body following close behind. The pond spat his mate out onto the bank, and David sprawled amongst the ground clouds, staring up at Warwick, shock written all over his features.

  “What the fu…?” David said.

  Warwick crouched beside him and, instead of opening his mouth to speak, he transferred all the information he’d gathered here into David’s head.

  “Seriously, we’re in Heaven?” David asked, looking at the wolves still drinking, then at Manakel, who lapped on as if he hadn’t had a drop of liquid on his tongue for years.

  Warwick nodded. “Isn’t it beautiful? This is what will be lost if we don’t act. Idaline and her followers will take it over. We must preserve this place. We can’t fail this mission.”

  David scrabbled to his feet, gazing around, and Warwick felt the awe that built inside David.

  “Uh, Warwick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Who the bloody hell is that?”

  Warwick turned to where David was pointing, back the way Warwick, Manakel and the other Angels had walked. A man stood there, clean shaven, his jaw defined, his hair so blond it bordered on gold.

  “That, as you put it,” the man said, approaching them with a smile, “is your Angel. And blimey, you really have made it difficult for me to get through to you.” He thrust out a slender hand.

  David took it, his mouth hanging open, and Warwick stifled a chuckle.

  “Um…hello?” David said.

  “Hello, David. I’m Gavreel, named after an Angel of Peace, the same as Manakel. I’m so very pleased to meet you.”

  Chapter Nine

  David woke and instantly stared down at himself, expecting to be drenched after being told by Gavreel to jump in that whirlpool. But he was dry, as was Warwick, who sat beside him, grinning, eyes sparkling.

  “That was amazing, wasn’t it?” Warwick asked.

  “Brilliant, but at the same time weird.” David couldn’t get over how fantastical it had been—and to know Warwick had been there with him, that dreams could be linked like that… Fuck me sideways. “I’ve never had an experience like that before. Have you?”

  Warwick nodded. “Yes, I’ve had many a dream, but I’ve never been shown Heaven until now. And it sounds mad, but I wish we could have stayed there. It was so damn wonderful.”

  David had to agree with that. Although he’d only spent a short time with Gavreel and Manakel, he’d felt such harmony that he could only describe it as pure silence—an inner and outer hush that obliterated everything bad. Oh, to feel like that all the time and not have immoral or indecisive thoughts, to know exactly what was good and right without even having to think or worry about it. The world he’d grown up in seemed such a fraudulent place now, except he reminded himself that there were a few decent people scattered here and there that made the place still worth living in. Earth was full of such a load of noise, though. Such a load of bullshit.

  Could that be changed? Could the billions of people who resided on this planet become better so there wasn’t any need for a shifter underworld or human Hell at all? It would be nice, but in spite of David’s resolve to stop being so negative, he knew that kind of perfection was just a pipe dream. Greed, need, envy, jealousy and so ma
ny more things governed humans—and shifters, too. The world was too far gone to change now.

  Wasn’t it?

  A sobering thought.

  David glanced through the window to divert his depressing musings. It was nighttime out there now, the moon a vibrant orb peeking over down-feather clouds that cloaked it up to its chin. The sky itself was plush dark-sapphire, and stars blinked like wide-awake eyes that were eager to see what their time alive would bring. Perhaps they were the Angels, or the Angels were directing the stars to glimmer so brightly in an attempt to help David and Warwick see that they weren’t alone. That they were being watched and urged to complete their mission so an attempt at ultimate after-death peace could be achieved.

  It was such a lovely scenario that tears pricked the backs of David’s eyes.

  Gavreel had told David the rip they would need to find, the entrance to the underworld, was out there at the lake. David had recoiled at that information—he had never expected to visit that place ever again. But it seemed he’d have to. Where the rip was exactly, he didn’t know, and Gavreel hadn’t seemed in a position to tell him. Perhaps the Angels could only give mortals so much data. Maybe the outright of telling all was classed as manipulation and taking away free will, free thought.

  But what David and Warwick had been told was enough for them to make a decision between right and wrong. It was up to them whether they chose to make a difference.

  How could they not? The idea of only using the underworld as a holding place for souls who just needed the Angels to show them goodness and love was too excellent to ignore. It was the kind of utopia most people would opt for, wasn’t it? To actually wish for a shifter underworld or a human Hell…you’d have to be pretty warped and fucked up to want that kind of place to exist, for there to be a need for it. To want to live there once your time on Earth was done meant you had something in you that matched Idaline—and that made David incredibly sad.

  Warwick said, “Your thoughts, they’re something to strive for. Paradise. For most of us, shifter or human, there’s hope that decency will win the day. Perhaps, centuries into the future, total peace will happen everywhere, but I have to agree with you, sadly, that I don’t think that time is now.”

  “But we’ll do our part to set things on the right track,” David said.

  Warwick nodded. “Which means we should grab something to eat then head out to find the rip.” He drew David closer to him. “I know you don’t want to go out there, to the lake.”

  “I don’t, but I will.”

  David stood so he didn’t have time to persuade himself to bolt and hide somewhere, then held out a hand. Warwick grasped it, rising himself, and they went into the kitchen, preparing a light meal of sandwiches together. David was all too aware of the poison glimmering on the counter and the effect it would have on the damned souls, and he had to remind himself that those souls were so damned that there was no redemption to be had there. Those devil-things weren’t interested in any form of goodness—Manakel had told Warwick that. Many chances had been given, and each demon had proved time and time again that they weren’t interested in changing their way of thinking—only in changing the minds of those still living and drawing them to the dark side.

  After eating their sandwiches at the table in silence—but unfortunately not the blessed and already missed silence of Heaven—David collected his hoody from where it hung on the newel post in the hallway and shrugged it on.

  It seemed as heavy as the burden of their mission.

  When he returned to the kitchen, Warwick was wearing his sports jacket, and they looked at one another across the room, two men being sent into battle armed with nothing but a killer potion in a salt cellar and passion in their veins.

  “Don’t doubt yourself,” Warwick said.

  “I won’t.” I’ll try not to, anyway, but maybe old habits will die hard at the end of the day.

  Warwick smiled a ‘You’ve got this’ smile. “Things will become clearer as we go along, I’m sure of it.”

  “Me, too. Now I’ve met Gavreel and Manakel, I feel different somehow. I can’t put my finger on it, but I have this new strength inside me—the sword put something inside me, as well. Can you feel it?”

  Warwick bobbed his head, a languid movement. “I can. Come on, get the poison then we’ll be on our way.”

  David clutched the little shining bottle, slid it into his pocket, which he zipped up tight, then followed Warwick out into the back garden. He closed the door and stood gazing at the sky for a moment, wondering if he’d ever come back to this cabin. Then he admonished himself. Yes, he would be back. He would see each and every room, ones that were steeped in memories, the walls rich with them, holding the residual remnants of the joy and pain that had been lived through here. He’d stare down between the floorboards again, seeing not only the ghosts of the past—his family seated at the kitchen table eating breakfast, or his mother making her beloved soap, or Rachel, on one of her nicer days, coloring in—but also Warwick sitting there, waiting for David to get out of bed and join him.

  He had to believe that would happen. It would be what kept David going until this was all over. A life here—or in Branchley, or even some other city or town—with his mate.

  “We’ll go wherever you want,” Warwick said. “Wherever you choose, I’ll go with you. So long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter where we put down roots. We’re partners now. Always.”

  You’re mine…

  David wasn’t sure if he’d thought those words himself or if he’d heard Warwick think them, but however he’d heard them, he was glad he had. It gave him even more strength, even more resolve to get this job done. He took a deep breath then led the way through the back garden and out into the woods.

  The moonlight fought nobly to penetrate the canopy of leaves above them but lost the battle. The leaves were too dense, the trees too many, but a different light guided the way in the form of two bobbing silver spheres in the near distance.

  “Our Hails have found a way to lead us, look,” Warwick said.

  “I see them.” David smiled despite trepidation threatening to take over him. He pushed back any disparaging thoughts and focused on the outcome and what he wanted it to be. “Hopefully they’ll stay with us all the way.”

  “We can but hope.”

  They followed the Hail beacons to the lake, which appeared as a vast, sighing, moonlit expanse, the crags taking the form of ominous, hulking beasts, their tops layered with a strange turquoise light. The water ripples wore the same hue, and the small waves that slapped at the edges by David’s feet seemed like tongues that wanted to lick him, to taste him before the lake ate him, swallowing him like it had his family. He shivered and stepped back a bit, the wet slurping noises unsettling him further.

  “It’s your mind or Idaline playing tricks on you,” Warwick whispered. “Although I know exactly how you feel. It’s creepy out here. It doesn’t feel right. Like someone’s watching. Waiting to pounce.”

  “You’re not wrong there.”

  The air was vibrant with unseen and unheard things—what those things were David couldn’t define, but they were there, a malignant, loitering presence that seemed to want to worm its way inside him and corrupt.

  “I won’t let you win,” he said to whoever listened. “We won’t let you win.”

  He patted his pocket to reassure himself that the bottle was still there, and a shrill female laugh rang out, startling the hell out of him. He gasped—cursed himself for showing fear, too—and listened to her giggle echoing back and forth over the lake, bouncing off the crags, an undulating swell that brought goosebumps to his skin and jelly to his bones.

  “Fuck you,” he shouted. “Fuck you, Idaline.”

  And he knew it was her, reaching out from the underworld, showing him she was there—there, so very there—and that he could do nothing about it. He could run but he couldn’t hide—and he fully understood the meaning of that saying now. Jesus Christ, did he
. He hated her and felt sorry for her in equal measure, the warring emotions making him nauseated as sorrow tussled for prominence. No, he couldn’t let that side of the argument win. Hate had to fuel him, otherwise he’d fail at the first hurdle.

  Rephrase that. The need for goodness has to fuel me.

  The Hail lights floated across the lake then hovered above one of the crags, blinking indicators of where they must go. And of course it had to be that crag, didn’t it? The one the boat had crashed against so many years ago. Idaline was playing games, he knew that, but much as he tried to remain focused on the task, on the chosen spot—if that’s what it was—the site that had been selected still hurt like an acidic son of a bitch.

  “Looks like we’re going for a swim,” Warwick muttered.

  “What a surprise…”

  David moved closer to the lake’s edge, and the water sloshed at it, those greedy tongues licking again. He glanced at Warwick, nodded, then, at the same time, they dived in. The cold, wet clutch of the water almost had David sucking some of it into his lungs but he stopped himself, clamping his mouth shut. What felt like a large hand pressed down on his head, and he was fighting against it, struggling to swim to the surface but getting nowhere. He thought about shifting into his wolf, but that wouldn’t do any good. He’d be tangled up in his clothing, unable to get away.

  He sensed Warwick had made it to the top, that he was breathing precious air, and an image of Warwick’s panic-stricken face as he discovered David was locked under the water tore a chunk off of David’s heart.

  “Help me!” he thought, hoping to the Angels of Wereling that Warwick would hear him. “Warwick, help me!”

  The hand applied more pressure, and Idaline’s laugh floated through the water, faint and reedy gurgles that meshed with the dense, dull sounds of David’s thrashing arms and legs and the rushing bubbles their manic movements produced. His chest burned, and he closed his eyes, seeing just as much blackness as he had with them open. A push from the hand sent him deeper, and he swore one of his feet touched the bottom of the lake. He snapped his eyes open again and moved them up, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever pinned him, but he saw nothing except endless darkness. His lips parted, and he knew he would instinctively try to breathe—and he was powerless to stop the action.