Angelfire (Dark Angel)

by Hanna Peach

  “I am so glad I finally found you,” the gravel voice echoes around her.

  That voice. The fear that shoots through Alyx makes her feel sick.

  “Michael.”

  “That is Elder Michael to you.”

  Alyx spins again and again. She can’t see him. “What do you want?”

  His voice becomes sickly sweet, like poisoned nectar. “Come home, Alyxandria. We know it’s all just a big misunderstanding. You won’t be punished. Everyone just misses you.”

  It sends a shiver down Alyx’s spine. “You’re lying.”

  “Alyxandria, I spoke to Symon. He told me you didn’t take the piece of the amulet. I believe him. So just come home.”

  “I know better than to trust you.”

  “Don’t be silly Alyxandria, I am here to protect you, guide you―.”

  “Like you protected my parents?”

  There is a pause. “Even a healthy tree sometimes has diseased branches. They must be removed quickly so as they don’t infect the rest of the tree.”

  “Are you calling my parents a disease?”

  “Your parents,” disgust is starting to trickle back into his voice, “disobeyed the Elders, your Elders.” There is another pause whilst he seems to compose himself. “I had hoped my dear that you would not prove to take after them. It’s not too late to return and atone for your sins.”

  “I thought you said you believed I didn’t take your stupid amulet?”

  There is a silence.

  “Come home, dear.”

  “No.”

  “Where are you Alyxandria?” he sings out. “Where are resting your little head? Where are you sleeping? Where, my dear, where?”

  Her mind turns to the theatre that she now calls home. The blank walls are starting to shift.

  “No,” chokes from her mouth. Her thoughts are leaking out from her and Michael is using them to redraw the DreamScape.

  Alyx tries not to think of Israel, lying naked next to her in the theatre. But he takes over her mind. His lips on her skin. His hips against her. His voice in her ear. The harder she tries the more the thoughts of him crowd her.

  The walls around her keep changing. She needs to move. She tries to fly but the air seems so heavy she can barely lift off the ground. So she runs.

  Laughter rings off the wall. “You can run my pretty. But eventually you will get tired. Then I will find you.”

  The grey walls of this twisted maze shift and change around her. Walls appear in front of her where there were none before. She slams into them, cutting her hands open on the rough bricks. She has to bite her lip to stop from crying out.

  She keeps running.

  The change spreads out from where her feet land. It travels along the ground and up the walls like a rabid vine, the grey brick changing into the faded insides of the abandoned theatre.

  She runs faster.

  Soon her legs burn and her lungs are heaving. Alyx turns left and right but keeps coming up against more walls. Her heart starts to sink as she realizes the truth. There is no end to this maze.

  “You seem tired my pretty. Are you finally slowing down?” His laughter echoes off the walls as they continue to shift and close around her.

  “Help me,” Alyx screams to no one.

  The earth starts to shake under her feet. The path starts to break apart, shards of dirt and rock stabbing up out of the ground. She stumbles to the ground.

  “Alyx.”

  She clambers back to her feet. Her heart pounds urging her along even as her legs scream for her to stop. She dodges falling bricks. Jumps over cracks in the earth.

  A large piece of wall tilts over in front of her. She screams, tries to move out of its way. Too late. Alyx falls under the weight of the thick wall.

  She is pinned to the ground, grit pressing into the backs of her arms and legs. She tries to push the wall off her, desperate, frantic, tries to slip out from under it. It’s too heavy.

  Again the voice calls her name. Again, again. The ground under her, as it trembles, is changing into faded red carpet. Around her the bricks turn to crumbling white plaster and explode into dust as it hits the ground.

  She needs to warn Israel. She can’t give him away. But now it seems that even he is appearing before her. “No.” Soon she will give everything away.

  The world falls apart around her.

  Chapter 49

  “Alyx.”

  She blinks. Israel’s face is close to hers.

  They are in their small room overlooking the theatre. She can see his worried eyes and the pinch of his scar as he holds his lips in a rigid press. Although his hands stop shaking her shoulders he doesn’t loosen his grip.

  A huge breath of relief exhales through his lips. “I couldn’t wake you. I was shaking and calling you for ages.”

  Alyx tries to speak but a sob escapes from her instead. She throws her arms around him and buries her face in his neck.

  He wraps her up in his arms. “It’s okay. It’s over now. You’re okay.”

  She lets him hold her, lets him rub one hand along her back. Soon she stops shaking, and her breath slows.

  Israel pulls back from her and brushes the wayward strands of hair off her cheek. “It was just a nightmare. But you’re okay now.”

  Alyx shakes her head. “It wasn’t just a nightmare. Elder Michael trapped me in a DreamScape.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We go to the DreamPlain when we sleep, even mortals, even demons. When we dream we create a DreamScape around us. Elder Michael is a DreamWalker. He can enter the Plain at will, can create and manipulate the Scapes. Think of the DreamPlain like space and everyone’s subconscious are like the stars. There are so many stars that it’s usually difficult to find someone.”

  “So how did he find you?”

  “If the DreamWalker knows you and can recognize your energy, it’s easier. If they hold something of yours it’s also easier. When I fled Michaelea I left behind a whole pod of things; clothes, weapons, books. Michael could be using any number of them.”

  Israel tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It’s over. You’re okay now.”

  “No.” Alyx fingers grip at Israel’s shoulders. “Michael was trying to get me to reveal to him where I was by letting my thoughts change the setting of the Scape. I may have given our location away. Israel, I may have given you away. We need to get out of here. Now.”

  They move fast, collecting only the bare necessities. As they leave the theatre the sun is getting low in the sky.

  They find a disused warehouse along the Docks. Inside the air is damp. It clings to their skin like cobwebs. Machinery and metal rollers lay out across the space like skeletons. Cranes grid the ceiling and off them, large hooks hang like a steel forest. But it is empty and for the moment... it is safe.

  Alyx misses their theatre already. That place was warm and cozy, a contained little world. This place is harsh and an unhappy wind whips through the cracks of the building.

  “We have to get out of Saint Joseph,” she says to Israel.

  “I’m not leaving till―.”

  “I know. That’s why we have to bring forward the plan. We start looking for Adere tonight.”

  Chapter 50

  The man moves along the cobblestone sidewalk of Solitude Valley favoring his left leg, his limp only noticeable if you are watching him. The glow of sex shops and alternative clubs ebb across his face as he walks through the bedrooms of the homeless and the drunk, crushing the used needles and condoms under his feet.

  Recently, parts of the Valley had undergone somewhat of a revival, a gentrification of sorts. Several small bars and restaurants had dared to open on the Valley’s main strip, but were still so cool that the mainstream night-revelers hadn’t yet discovered them.

  But this crowded strip is not where he is going. No. He walks deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Valley, where the dignified citizens of Saint Joseph will not even drive through.

  The m
an stops at the gate of a large two-storey house, the painted bricks now a dirty beige, several window boxes jut out from the rotting roof. A row of unloved trees stand like bony sentries on the strip of yard that divide the sidewalk from the building. From inside comes the cackling of a brassy jazz.

  Above the street, peering over the rooftop of a nearby building are two faces.

  “Why are we here if we aren’t going to confront them?” Israel says. He is itching to do something. All these weeks of training. And still no action.

  “We don’t even know if she’s in there,” Alyx says. “We can’t just waltz in there, swords brandished, demanding to know if Adere is here. It would be suicide.”

  Israel glances over at her profile, the moonlight dabbing a soft gloss on her forehead and nose. He wants so badly to touch her. He lets his arm brush against hers as if it were unintentional.

  Alyx nudges him. Israel looks down to where she is staring. The man walks to the small porch, flooded with a red light. He knocks three times using the large lion-face knocker.

  Israel doubts if anyone inside can hear the knocking against the music but within seconds the door is opened by a plump woman, her flesh rolled into a blue and gold corset trimmed with black lace.

  As she steps forward to greet her visitor her face falls under the red light, making the exposed pale bones of her demon face give off an eerie glow. Israel feels Alyx stiffen.

  “Is there something odd to you about her?” she asks.

  “Now that you mention it, demons in corsets? Not a good look.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.”

  The man enters the house and the woman closes the door behind them.

  Alyx gasps.

  “What is it?”

  “Did you see her hands? They looked like raw exposed bones from her forearms, same as her face.”

  “And?”

  “That’s a nightmare demon.”

  “There are different kinds. So what?”

  “Nightmare demons are supposed to be just legends... myths.”

  “Myth’s?” Israel frowns.

  “A nightmare demon is a greater demon. We were taught about greater demons by the Elders but After the greater demons haven’t been seen on earth.”

  “What? So what we’ve been dealing with here on earth has only been the lesser demons?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Great, only lesser demons,” Israel mumbles. “Where were the greater demons supposed to have gone?”

  “Stayed in hell or crossed over to the other worlds or other realms. Earth in this physical realm isn’t the most important place to the greater demons. Or, at least, it wasn’t.”

  “There are other worlds? Other realms?” Israel’s voice grows louder as he fights to process this information.

  “That isn’t a conversation for right now.”

  “But we are having that conversation right? Later?”

  Alyx waves at him to shush then points at two figures walking down the dark street. Both are middle-aged men dressed in suits.

  One of them swings a walking cane although it is obviously for aesthetics rather than assistance walking. Israel looks closer at his face; late thirties but holding it well, handsome, with a thick black moustache matching his conservative haircut, his skin the color of spice. Israel feels the sharp tang of recognition.

  “The one with the cane, recognize him at all?”

  Alyx looks again. “I'm not sure. He does seem familiar.”

  “That,” he says, "is Saint Joseph’s Mayor.”

  As the two men reach the porch of the double storey house Alyx and Israel are able to see their demon faces. The other gentleman’s demon face is green and has the familiar row of horns along the cheeks and forehead. But the Mayor wears red skin and has yellow slit eyes like a crocodile.

  Alyx curses. “The Mayor has become a hate demon.”

  “Another greater demon?” A strange prickle of fear starts to claw at the back of his neck and the feeling travels across his skin.

  Alyx nods. “Something’s going on. I have to get closer. Stay here.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you stay here.”

  Israel's shoulders pinch as he watches Alyx tip over the edge of the building and flies across to the roof of the demon house.

  He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like this at all. He shouldn’t have let her fly off like that. How useless is he if he has to keep letting her protect him?

  Alyx hangs in the shadows by the side of a protruding window. From here Israel can see that there is no one inside that room. Alyx moves down to peer into a first floor window.

  Unlike the second floor windows the lower ones are long and sleek. From this high angle Israel can only see a strip of red and gold floor through that window. He watches as Alyx moves back to the first window. She starts testing the edges of the window. What is she doing? She pries the window open and she disappears inside.

  No. Israel’s heart beats against his ribs. She’s going to get herself killed. He can’t stay here while she risks her life. He has to do something.

  He peers over the building. Confident he can see a way down, he swings his legs over the edge of the roof finding a little ledge with his feet.

  Alyx’s eyes widen. Through the ground floor window she can see a decadent sitting room fringed with red and gold curtains and matching carpet. Upon the mixed assortment of plump couches and settees – black leather, gold silk, red suede – lounges a dozen or so Darkened.

  She recognizes a few more greater demons: a nightmare demon, black skin over exposed bone, a fire demon, molten skin like lava, and two blood demons, thick blue and purple veins like twisted ropes across their ghostly skin. The hate demon Mayor is pacing the room and punctuating the air with his hands.

  Alyx’s spine tingles with a cold fear. What are a collection of greater demons doing here on earth after so many centuries of staying away? She has to get inside. She has to hear what they are saying.

  Alyx returns to the first window on the second storey. She pushes her fingers into the grooves around the window and pulls. It moves a crack. Yes. It’s unlocked. She pushes open the window, carefully, carefully, and slips in.

  Inside, she moves across the room to the only door. It opens to an empty landing, voices floating up from the stairwell. Alyx creeps to the top of the stairs and the voices become clearer.

  “...the sparrow is on our side. The balance of power is beginning to tip to us as prophesized. No doubt the rest of the prophecy will come about. We just have to be patience.”

  “I don’t want to be patient, dammit.” There is a large growl then a sigh as the speaker tries to calm himself. “We shall just have to keep searching for the keye in the meantime.”

  Alyx leans forward so she can hear them better. At that moment she feels herself fall forward. She has to clutch the banister to keep from tumbling down the stairs. Everything starts to fade... she is being pulled into Israel.

  Now is not the time, Alyx thinks in a panic. She bites her bottom lip, using the pain to keep her focused on here, and pushes against the insistent tug. It starts to ebb away. The stairs come back into focus.

  “What if Lucifer finds out?”

  Alyx hears a loud slap and a cowering noise. “Well, we just have to make sure he doesn’t find out won’t we?”

  “Yes, Samyara.”

  The front door at the base of the stairs opens. Alyx ducks back into the corridor to avoid being seen by this newcomer. She peers over the banister. It is another Darkened, a weathered faced man on the outside, green skinned and studded with horns on the inside. He is holding a body flung limp over his left shoulder, face hidden. Alyx’s heart drops as she recognizes Israel's boots.

  “Alzeke, what in the devil is that?” Alyx hears a female voice say.

  “I found him creeping around the side of the house milady,” the demon-man wheezes. “Mortal. Could be a tasty snack for later
?” He laughs, wet and throaty which turns into rough coughing.

  Dammit, Israel. Why didn’t you just stay where you were?

  “Deposit him in one of the bedrooms upstairs for now. Lock him in and bring me the key.”

  “Of course milady.” The demon moves towards the stairs.

  Alyx spins around and flies towards the room she came in through. She slips inside, closes the door as silently as she can, kneels down and peers through the keyhole.

  The demon is singing as gets to the top of the staircase and steps onto the landing. A moaning, wailing noise.

  “...my lover stole my heart one night, and with it she took my soul, she holds them in her hands so light, and then she swallow’d them whole...”

  Will he come into this room?

  Alyx glances around the room for a place to hide just in case. Closet. Perfect.

  She turns back to the keyhole in time to see the demon disappear with Israel into another bedroom.

  He reappears several moments later and locks the door behind him. He throws the key in the air and a large green forked tongue flies out from between his lips, snatching the key back between his toothy mouth.

  There is a glint in his other hand. A sword. It is Israel’s sword that had been hanging from his belt. The Darkened named Alzeke brings it up to his face and peers at it, frowning.

  “Milady,” he walks towards the stairs, “there’s something strange about this mortal. Milady?”

  Alyx curses under her breath. Once the demons in the living room realize that Israel has been carrying a sword on him they will no longer see him as just a mortal unlucky enough to have spied into the wrong house. She has to get Israel out. Now.

  Alyx turns from the door. The window. She flies across the room, pushes it open, slips out and moves along the outside wall towards the room that Israel is in.

  Through the window Alyx can see that Israel is sprawled on his back across a single bed, eyes closed. She tries the window. Locked. Dammit. She hears a commotion downstairs. Running out of time.

  Alyx grabs the top window sill and swings her body through the glass, feet first. It shatters with a terrible crash. She rolls up from the wooden floor, ignoring the tiny pieces of glass that have left cuts in her legs. There is a thundering of feet up the stairs. No time.