by KD Jones
“Michael, check her cross to see if she’s awake.”
Ari came closer to watch as the angel pulled out the silver chain and Cass’s cross, and held it in the palm of his hands.
He grimaced in pain. Not his own pain, but the pain Cass was feeling. “She’s awake. She is tied down to a stone altar. It’s wooded, no lights from the city can be seen. She’s fighting her fear, trying to find a way to escape.”
“We have a park with trees. That’s where the portal is located. Would he perform the ceremony there?” Raphael asked.
“Yes, somewhere close to it. Still, it’s a big park. Do you think you could track her if we get closer?” Ari asked Michael.
“Yes.”
Ari went outside and down the fire escape. He stopped at his motorcycle. “I can get there faster, but I can only take one of you with me.”
“I have the station wagon.”
Michael motioned for Father Raphael to go ahead and ride on the back of the bike. “I’ll follow you from the air.” He bent his knees, then stretched outward and his wings popped out. Ari had to admit, they were impressive.
“Try to keep up with me, birdman.” Ari started his motorcycle and revved the engine. He took off with the priest on the back and hoped that they made it in time.
We’re coming, sweetheart. Just hold on.
Chapter 6
She was being tortured, no doubt about it. She woke up and found the guy spewing crazy shit about being a demon and saying that he would sacrifice her. Cass growled out when the demon cut her wrists and then moved on to her ankles. He’d said that bloodletting was part of his ceremony. What is wrong with this guy? He was sweating up a storm, and kept looking at his watch.
“What’s wrong? Am I keeping you from a more pressing business somewhere else?”
“I have less than twelve hours before I’m called back.”
“What does that mean?” Why was she talking to the crazy person? “Called back to where—Hell?”
“Yes. Well, to the third circle of Hell. I’m not accepted into the inner circle yet, but I will be.”
“After you kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Why would anyone care about me? I’m nobody.”
He moved closer and stroked her hair. She tried to jerk away from him as far as she could. His touch made her feel sick inside. “You really don’t know who and what you are, do you? You are born from an angel breeding.”
“I’m not some half-human half-angel nephilim. That’s crazy.”
“No honey, you’re not nephilim. You’re something else entirely. The angels were wise to add demon blood into the breeding process.”
“I don’t have demon blood in me. I’m not evil.”
“You have demon blood in you, but you still have to choose to be evil. Unfortunately, you won’t live long enough to make that choice. A shame, losing someone as beautiful as you.”
She didn’t want to listen to his mad claims, but some part of her kept asking questions. “So my father is an angel—”
“Arkangel, yes.”
“He knocked up my mother, who is half-human and half-demon, then just left us here.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he even bother with getting her pregnant?”
“It’s all part of the prophecy of the Child of Light.”
This had something to do with what that priest had been telling her. “What is the Child of Light’s prophecy?”
The demon grew impatient with her questions. “It doesn’t matter now, you’ll be dead soon and I’ll have my place next to the Channel.” He walked off to remove his clothes. Evidently part of his ritual required him to be naked. She looked away.
How was she going to get free before crazy guy over there bled her dry? She took in more of her surroundings and knew she had to be in a park somewhere in the city, so he hadn’t taken her that far. She was stretched out on some kind of rock, which was not all that comfortable.
The demon had one of her uniforms, which he rubbed her blood on. He must have gotten it when he broke into the diner and killed Tim. She heard a noise to the left of her, near the woods. Her blood was attracting something: human, animal, or worse.
Her head felt a little heavy, probably from losing so much blood. But what was amazing was that instead of feeling fuzzy-headed, things were coming into focus. She could smell her own blood, her eyes picked out every detail of the area around her, she could hear the noises in the woods and knew instinctively that at least three people were approaching on foot. One of those people was familiar to her—Ari. What was he doing here?
Cass closed her eyes and focused on the ropes. They were tight on her, rubbing against her skin. She hated the feel of it, reminding her of one of the foster parents who liked to tie her up with his belt. Anger surfaced at what that man had done to her, a helpless and defenseless child. She swore when she ran away that she would never let anyone make her feel that helpless again.
Something in her rose up and a current of electricity zapped through her arm down to her hand, burning through the rope. She yanked her one arm free with surprise. When the demon came back toward her, she pretended to still be tied up.
“Come, friends, it is time to begin the ceremony.”
She hadn’t realized others were showing up. There were two women and four men. All of them began to take their clothes off too. Were they going to kill her? Or were they going to have an orgy? Maybe they planned to do both. This was so sick. She concentrated on trying to have that same electricity happen again to her other arm, but her fear was blocking whatever she’d done before. “Come on, light up.” Nothing happened.
The demon guy came back and rubbed his hand over her body. “It’s time, beautiful. I have only one regret—not fucking you when I had the chance. Know that your death is going to give me my rightful place.”
“Bite me, you asshole!”
He raised up his hand, which held a large, curved knife. Was this it? No fucking way! She wasn’t going to die at the hands of some wacko without putting up some kind of fight. She wanted to live. Anger mixed with her survival instincts and surged through her.
She watched as the knife came toward her. Sounds from the people in the woods distracted him, and he turned to look the other way. She took advantage and lifted up and swung out with her free arm to punch the demon in his face. He dropped the knife by her side and stumbled backward.
Cass took the knife and cut her other arm and legs free. She sat up and looked around. A tall, muscular man with gorgeous blond hair was brandishing a sword. A fucking sword!
“Hey babe, could you climb down now?”
She looked over and saw Ari. He was wearing his usual badass leathers, and he was kicking ass but doing it with his bare hands. His eyes glowed, and he winked at her. He was enjoying himself. Seeing Ari and this golden Apollo wasn’t the strangest part of her night.
“Oh child, I’m so glad you’re alright!”
“Father Raphael?” She was not only shocked to see the elderly priest there, but he too was brandishing a sword that looked like it weighed more than he did. She looked behind the priest and saw movement.
“Look out, Father!” She didn’t know where it came from, but somehow she leapt off the rock platform, did a flip, and landed in front of Raphael, blocking a man from striking the priest. She still had the curved knife in her hand and struck out with it, hitting the man in the chest.
He clutched at his wound, backing up. Cass watched in surprise and horror as the man’s blood bubbled and smoked, and he fell to his knees. What the hell? His eyes changed color and his body seemed to morph into a large bipedal lizard with a tail.
“Get behind me. Don’t let any of his blood touch you or it will burn you.” Father Raphael pulled her behind him. For an old man, he was pretty strong. She kept hold of the knife, ready to defend them from behind. She wanted to grab the sword from Raphael, afraid he was just going to hurt himself. Luckily, the other demons started to make
their retreat.
“Drey, you should have never taken her.” Ari growled out at the demon.
“Ari. Does your family know you’ve been in league with the Arkangels? I’m sure they will be very interested in that news.”
“Kill him so that he can’t go back to his circle of Hell!” Ari called out, trying to fight his way over to the blond angel, who was fighting with the demon that had taken Cass.
“I don’t need a demon to tell me how to fight another demon!” The blond man growled out.
What was he talking about? Ari wasn’t a demon. Even as she thought that, Cass looked over and watched at Ari grew in size and his eyes glowed yellow. Fucking yellow!
“Michael, watch out!” Father Raphael called out just as another demon came from the other side.
Ari jumped between the man named Michael and the demon that had kidnapped her, and slapped something silver on the demon’s wrist. The demon gave a horrifying scream and shoved Ari backward, making him collide with Michael. The two men fumbled with their hands and feet, both falling to the ground.
“Idiot! He’s getting away!” Michael shoved Ari away as he got up to give chase to the demons. What happened next would always remain with her.
She watched as large white wings sprouted out of the slits in the back of Michael’s coat. He took two running steps, leapt into the air, and flew out in the night.
“Wow.” Cass’s knees started to give way, and she would’ve hit the ground hard if Ari hadn’t caught her in time. Angels were real, demons were real. Then everything went dark.
Chapter 7
Cass thought twice about opening her eyes. She winced listening to three men in the room argue about whether they should take her to a doctor. She wasn’t sure if she needed a doctor, but a psychiatrist was starting to sound real good right about now. She’d been kidnapped by a demon and saved by an angel.
“The bleeding’s stopped, there’s no reason to take her to a hospital now,” Ari argued.
Father Raphael’s voice growled out, “She was cut and God know what else. She needs to be seen by a professional.”
A stranger’s voice spoke up. His voice was pleasing and husky. “Why don’t we ask her, she’s awake now.”
Busted. She opened her eyes and slowly raised herself to lean against the headboard. “Where am I?”
“An attic apartment over the church. It used to be the caretaker’s apartment, but we haven’t had one since the economy went down. We’ve had many of our parishioners move away. I had to take over much of the caretaker’s responsibilities,” Father Raphael rambled as he offered her a glass of water.
“What happened?” She looked down and saw the bandages around her wrists. So she hadn’t dreamed it. She felt strange, maybe that was from the blood loss. She knew what had happened, but somehow she needed someone else to be the one to say it out loud.
Father Raphael sat down on the bed next to her. “You were kidnapped—”
“By a full demon.” The handsome man named Michael spoke up.
“His name is Drey.” Ari offered.
“Drey, a full demon, as opposed to…”
“Half-demon—but we prefer the term demi-demon.” Ari stood at the foot of her bed, looking his usual devil-may-care self. He had a bruise on his cheek, but nothing could detract from his dark good looks. Seeing him always made her feel…safe.
“Demon. Right.”
This was all too much. She just wanted to go home and get back to her normal, boring life. She went to get off the bed but all three men moved forward to stop her. She frowned at them.
“Look, I appreciate you all coming to my aid. Everything that happened—it’s too much. I need time to process it all.”
“We need to hunt this demon, Drey, down, before he can contact someone from one of the inner circles.” Ari paced over to the door.
Michael glared at him. “You shouldn’t have interfered.”
“You should have killed him instead of playing with your sword and showing off. I did what needed to be done to keep him from returning to his circle.”
“What are you two arguing over? The demon is probably dead by now. I stabbed him pretty deep, and he was bleeding a lot.” Cass got to her feet with Father Raphael’s help.
“A demon can only be fully killed if he is decapitated or struck through the heart with a pure silver sword dipped in holy water. The bracelet I slapped on him has a special spell on it that will keep him from returning to his circle. He won’t be able to open a portal door, and if his master calls him all portals will block him.”
“You know this guy?” Cass asked, still trying to wrap her mind around there being demons.
“Yes, Drey is from the third outer circle. The bracelet will also prevent him from healing, so he will be bleeding and growing weaker.”
“That’s good, then. He’ll be too weak to cause any more harm.” Cass looked for the positive in all this.
Michael snorted. “Your half-demon here just made things a lot worse for everyone.”
“How?”
“A weak and desperate demon is the most deadly kind you could face.” Father Raphael was the one to answer her.
She turned to look at the priest with new eyes. “You sound like you’ve dealt with demons before.”
“Once, a long, long time ago, I was a young, strong Arkangel like my friend Michael. I wielded my sword against many a demon and served my Lord with honor.”
“What happened?”
Raphael looked over at Michael first before answering. “I failed in my duties to protect an innocent. My wings were taken, and I was left to remain on the Earthly circle, or Earthly plane, as my punishment.”
“How is being on Earth a punishment?” Cass wasn’t sure if she should be insulted.
“The longer an angel remains here, the more their powers fade, until they are basically as human as the next person. Angels must return to their own circle—the Heavenly plane—in order to replenish their power.”
She got the feeling there was more to the story than Raphael just remaining behind, but she had other questions she needed answered first.
“Drey said he wanted to kill me because he thought I was the ‘Child of Light.’ He gave me his version of what that was, but I want to hear it from someone who’s not trying to kill me. What is the Child of Light?”
When neither Raphael nor Michael answered her, Ari spoke up with anger in his voice. “It’s the Arkangels’ attempt at trying to play creator and make themselves a weapon against demons in the form of an innocent child.”
Michael was immediately in Ari’s face. “You need to shut up and leave. You’re not welcome here.”
“How about both of you go outside to the garden and calm down.” Father Raphael pointed to the door.
Ari gave her a quick look. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
She watched them both leave and heard their heavy boots on the staircase. Cass went over to the window and a few minutes later watched as Ari and Michael emerged into a private garden surrounded by a tall stone wall.
Both of the men looked ready to fight one another. They were a contrast: Michael the white knight, and Ari the dark one. Both of them were physically perfect and sexy as hell. She imagined herself kissing both of them, and the thought was appealing. She just didn’t know either of them that well. She’d known Ari longer, but she had no idea that he was part demon. It made her question everything she did know about him.
“How close are you to the half-demon?” Raphael asked from behind her.
“We’re—friends. Don’t change the subject. Tell me about the Child of Light.”
Raphael walked over and took a seat in a nearby rocking chair. “Many many years ago, the Arkangels and demons were fighting on the Earthly plane. Angels and demons have had many battles throughout history, but this one was particularly bad for the angels. We lost many of our number. A prophet had predicted that a child born of light, raised in the darkness, would rise up and l
ead us to victory in the next big battle. It was hoped that she would tip the scales.”
He paused as he looked out the window, up at the clouds. “A few of the lead Arkangels took from the prophecy that an Arkangel would father a child, but they also wanted to stack the deck.”
“Stack the deck how?”
“Angels can fight demons easily enough on the Earthly plane, but if the fight is taken to the demon’s circle, it is almost impossible to defeat the demon. In fact, no Arkangel has been able to get past the fourth circle to reach the inner circles. Angels are too pure, they would be outnumbered, and the longer they are in the circles of Hell, the more their powers fail them. They become weakened.
“In turn, the demons can come to the Earthly circle to fight angels, but they’re on a time table. They’ll be called back within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. When they are called back it’s like a vacuum that sucks them back through the portal to their circle.
“However, a half-demon can travel back and forth with no time restraint.”
“Why are they different?”
“Half-demons are born with their souls intact. They are neither inherently good nor inherently evil, neutral until they decide. If they choose to be evil, they give up their soul and become a full demon.”
“Okay, so what does all this have to do with the Child of Light?” She settled on the window seat, trying to take it all in.
“The Arkangel commanders believed that if an Arkangel bred with a half-demon, a child born of that union would have all the strengths of both and none of the limitations.”
“You guys wanted to create a child you would make into a weapon, a super-soldier, to hunt the demons in a way that the Arkangels couldn’t—by going to the inner circles.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the priest. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Is that right?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“I’m the Child of Light?” She wasn’t sure what answer she was hoping for.
“Yes.”
