by C. S. Wilde
Liam!
She rushed to him and quickly dropped by his side. She pressed her heavy, gold-coated hands on his chest, shoving the beast’s light, her light, into him.
“Please, please …”
If it weren’t for the gaping wound on his chest and his blood-soaked chin, Liam could very well be sleeping.
His cold body didn’t react to her light. There was no life there to be saved.
“I’m sorry, Ava,” the Angel of Death’s soft voice rung in her ears.
“No,” she whined, caressing his cheek. “I swore I’d protect you.” Her voice cracked into a sob. “I’m so sorry.”
Miles ahead, Gabriel broke through the water, rising up like a rocket. He landed before them, dripping wet, his cruel grin showcasing white teeth.
Ava leaned down and kissed Liam’s forehead. “I’ll finish this. I promise.”
All she wanted was to curl up and cry by her fallen partner’s side, but instead Ava stood, her hands balled into fists.
She was perfectly aware she should try to escape and warn the Order or the Legion. But she wouldn’t. Not until she had Gabriel’s head.
Her light beast purred in agreement.
“You’re an interesting nuisance.” Gabriel pointed Liam’s sword at her. “I haven’t had a challenge in a while.”
Ava picked up the sword of revelation, which lay on the ground not far from them. Gabriel didn’t try to stop her; he just watched. He must know he couldn’t hurt Ava if her golden shield was up, or at least that it would take a great effort for him to break through—an effort he clearly wasn’t willing to make.
A rumbling calm took over her, a serenity filled with rage.
The calm before the storm.
“Why can’t any of you see?” Gabriel showed her the city beyond the water line. “This world must end so a better one can rise. One with no demons, no In-Betweens, and no humans. Just us, the Gods’ truest servants. We can make Earth the fourth Heaven!” He laughed loudly and ran a hand through his blond curls. “Why must you be so stubborn?”
“You forget one thing.” She raised her sword. “You stand no longer with the Gods.”
Ava shot forward, remembering Liam’s lessons. Attack, dodge, charge. Her blade clanged against Liam’s sword. Unworthy, she thought. Gabriel had no right to wield that weapon, and she’d make him pay.
The Archangel’s attacks, however, easily pierced her defenses. Gabriel was a powerful second-tier with many centuries of experience, and Ava was a simple Guardian. Her golden shield spared her life, but it also pressed upon her body. It slowed her down and sucked all her energy.
Her breaths came in chunks now. Keeping the shield up took more effort than she could afford.
Just as the golden surface swept down her face, Gabriel snatched a punch that made her spin twice. Then he kicked her unprotected stomach, sending her several steps back. Her sword fell on the ground, all too far from her.
Pain stabbed inside Ava, and she bent down. Her entire shield sunk into her core the way water goes down a drain.
Hells!
She couldn’t win against Gabriel, not like this. So she forced the rift open, drawing power from the light beast. It roared, shaking her essence. Golden lightning shot from Ava’s rift and whipped in the air around her.
A storm of gold.
“Marvelous,” Gabriel muttered.
The lightning snapped toward him, and he took the attack with open arms.
Back at Club 23, her lightning had disintegrated Warriors because of the boost provided by the sword of revelation. Now the sword was dormant, and the lighting didn’t feel as ravenous and chaotic as before. So when the jolts of electricity hit Gabriel, he only shook slightly.
Heavens, her attack should’ve caused him at least some degree of pain.
Was she so powerless?
“I’m not a weak lower angel, little Guardian,” he said with an eager grin.
Perhaps she was using the wrong approach. The beast inside the rift growled, and the crackling electricity slammed farther, penetrating into Gabriel’s conscience. It only stopped once it found the borders to his mind, a long wall that felt like it was made of bones.
Bones she could crack.
Gabriel chuckled as he stepped toward her. “You can’t force your emotions into me. You’re only a third-tier.”
She shoved her power into his wall regardless.
It didn’t work.
Gabriel was approaching fast and soon he would be here, ready to cut off her head.
A rumbling sound caught her attention, a mix of thunder snapping and waves crashing.
At first, Ava thought it had come from a distance, but no, it came from inside her. The beast beyond the rift demanded to free something, and Ava knew exactly what.
The sound of glass cracking echoed in her ears.
Obsidian glass.
The darkness was free.
A pitch-black mass shot from her depths like a geyser, and her rift discharged golden light forward. Both forces mingled, forming a swirling mass of light and dark inside her.
Gabriel frowned. “You all right, little Guardian?”
They were almost face-to-face now.
Ava barely heard him through the frenzy of light and darkness that raged under her skin, like water flowing downriver, possessing, consuming, and at the same time, freeing.
Cold and foggy, the darkness fed on the anger of Liam’s loss, on the heartache she had felt as he bled before her, and on the deep sadness that took over when he was gone. Her warm light countered with the joy of helping others, and how wonderful it had felt to spend a fraction of her existence with her partner.
Serenity to balance the rage. Joy to balance the sorrow.
Her hands closed into fists, and she shot her lightning forward once more. It smacked into Gabriel’s wall, cracking the surface as easily as an eggshell.
The Archangel stopped midway, glaring at the black and golden lightning crossing through his chest. He slammed a hand on his head, trying to push her away from his essence, but he was only an Archangel. The children of the God of War couldn’t raise powerful mental walls.
Ava smiled. Or maybe it was her darkness, or her light, she couldn’t be sure. They were all the same now.
“Stop!” he barked, an angry scowl forming on his face.
Ava shot forward the despair of seeing the sword plunge into Liam, how she had died if only for a second. Gabriel dropped to his knees and bellowed the same cries she’d bellowed.
Ava added musings of what she thought the Hells were like. Lakes of lava, sulfur hanging heavily in the air, and then there was Gabriel, tied to a wooden log that sank into the magma, his skin hissing and smoking as his wings burned behind him. She snuck all of it into the golden and black lightning that shattered his wall to pieces, injecting raw, maddening pain into every crevice that made Gabriel who he was.
The Archangel howled louder, clawing at his lungs because they burned from inside, even if only in his head.
Once, Ava would’ve stopped.
Not today.
Guilt for what she was about to do birthed from the light and fueled the dark. She shot it at Gabriel, through the golden lightning, the corroding sensation a piercing blade.
Gabriel grasped for air. “Stop!”
Images burst into Ava’s mind. An Archangel with hazel hair smiled at Gabriel as he kissed a trail down his naked chest. The scene then shifted to Gabriel, holding on to the Archangel’s lifeless body, and howling the same screeches Ava had bellowed when she lost Liam.
She pushed that gnawing despair into Gabriel ten times over, hammering his greatest hurt into him. The dead angel’s face was ingrained within the lightning that possessed Gabriel’s mind over and over again.
“Raphael!” He screamed so hard he soiled himself.
Once, Ava would’ve felt mercy.
Not today.
Gabriel didn’t notice her approaching. She grabbed Liam’s sword from the ground and
stopped behind the Archangel.
What Ava was about to do went against everything that had guided her this far. Perhaps killing Gabriel would end the best part of her. But this monster had murdered Liam, and if the cost for his punishment was her soul, so be it.
She raised her sword swiftly and shot Gabriel one last image of his dead lover. He stretched his hand toward the canal and the city beyond.
“My Raphael,” he whispered.
Her sword went down in a circle, slashing Gabriel’s neck. His head hit the floor with the harshness of a ripe coconut, and his body slumped forward, blood squirting from his neck and pooling on the ground.
Once, this gruesome death would have appalled her. Once, Ava doubted her hands could inflict such horrors. Today, her shoulders slumped and she inhaled deeply, leaning her head back.
Ava closed her eyes to the sky and felt—felt the wind brushing her skin, heard the waves crashing to shore, and the seagulls cawing in the distance. Every sensation seemed sharper, clearer. Failing Liam destroyed her, but her cracked pieces glued back together, only in a different order, making her anew. Even if the pieces were still the same.
“Ava?”
She turned to Ezra, who stood behind her. He glared shock and disappointment all at once. “What have you done?” His tone was weak, much like the owner.
The storm of light and dark inside her faded. The two beasts slowly went to sleep but not before snarling a threat at Ezra.
Easy, Ava told them, well, herself. They were one in the end.
“I did what I had to do,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, you didn’t.”
Without meaning to, she bared her teeth at him. Let Ezra try and punish her for killing that monster. See how well that would fare for him.
Ezra stepped back, and a shivering cloud of splinters and jagged pieces brushed against Ava’s essence.
Fear. The Messenger was afraid of her. Perhaps she should fear herself too.
Ezra swallowed, then surveyed the scene around him. “Gabriel lost his mind. Yes, that’s what we’ll tell the Order. We’ll tell them I killed him.”
“No, Ezra, I—”
“They already want to punish you for blowing up an army of Warriors.” He pressed his lips together, assurance flowing from him. “Let me handle this, Ava. It’s the least I can do.”
The sensation was a prickle on her back at first, a scratch that escalated into whipping pain. Blades of bone cut through her skin from inside out. It felt as if a tree was growing from her spine, and Ava screamed as she fell to her knees.
Bones that hadn’t been there a moment ago kept cracking into place, and it all sounded awfully like wood snapping. The structure behind her cracked some more, and then it stopped. The flesh on her back burned as it spread over her newly formed bones, pulled in a thousand different directions.
Ava stored the pain in tight-lipped screams that made tears flow from her eyes.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, the pain waned. A soft breeze caressed the brand new and aching limbs that sprouted from her back.
A white feather tipped in blood swung gracefully in the air before Ava, dropping the way snow falls.
Ava caught it, then looked up. “Heavens …”
Majestic blood-soaked wings enclosed her in a cocoon. White wings.
Her wings.
She took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs, still entranced by her brand new feathers. Her back was sore, her muscles still ached. She tried to flap her wings, but they bent awkwardly behind her.
“I’ll teach you how to use them.” Ezra watched her with awe. “They’re such a pure white.”
Ironic. Those pure white wings had been acquired through bloodthirst and fury.
Far back on the street, Ava spotted Jophiel and Jal. The grief on their faces asked her for forgiveness; she didn’t need to sense their emotions to feel their mourning.
Jophiel gave her a supporting nod, then left. But Jal stood there, his hands balled into fists as he watched Liam’s body.
Ava remembered meeting Jal and Kevin as she headed to the precinct, both of them wounded in different ways. Kevin couldn’t run, and Jal couldn’t fly. They had said, “Liam” and “Dock 5,” and that’s all she needed to run after him.
The Angel of Death materialized through thin air, standing beside Ezra and blocking Ava’s view of Jal.
“It’s time,” she said.
Ava nodded and walked to Liam. Her wings refused to gather behind her, bending at uncomfortable angles.
She knelt on the floor and propped Liam’s head on her thighs, caressing his cheek as he blinked back into consciousness.
“Hey there, princess.” He gave her that charming half-manly and half-boyish grin.
“Hey.” She sniffed back tears. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, I—”
“You’re one hell of a Guardian, Ava. Don’t ever doubt that.” He frowned at her wings. “Got a promotion?”
She chuckled. “Kind of.”
His playful grin vanished and fear crumpled his face. “Gabriel?”
“Gone.” She brushed her thumb on his temple. “Don’t worry. Everything is fine.”
Ava wished she could keep him here with her for just a little longer.
The Demon of Death materialized beside them. He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, as if he considered his job a complete nuisance. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
The Angel of Death stood on Liam’s right, the Demon of Death on his left. Together, they said in unison, “Liam Striker, as it is told, as it is said, the Selfless are granted a choice at their time of death. Like the humans they swore to protect, like the flesh and bone they chose to become. Be reborn as a human, an angel, or a demon. If you refuse, be cursed to the In-Between. The Gods and Devils require your decision.”
“It’s time to come home,” Ezra said with a soothing tone that reminded Ava of the Messenger who had taken her in, the man who taught her all about kindness and compassion. The man who had defied the Order in his own way.
Yes, Ezra was still there. He could still be saved. The Order too.
Liam looked at Ava, and tears slid down his cheek. “There’s a difference between having darkness within and letting it consume you.”
His words hit her like a speeding car. “No, Liam,” she mumbled.
“I’m not ready to be Michael again,” he said. “I think I’m not supposed to be.”
Ava’s breath hitched, and she squeezed his hand. “I will always stand by you, no matter what.”
He smiled weakly and raised his shaky hands to nudge her heart. “This is the only faith you should follow, princess.” He took off his pendant with the symbols of the Gods. He didn’t turn to the Angel and Demon of Death; his gaze remained locked on Ava’s. “I choose to become a demon.”
“Heavens!” Ezra stepped back, his mouth half open and about to ask Liam why he’d made such a choice. But Liam’s hand had slumped on the floor, showing the pendant, the symbol of the Gods, in his lifeless palm.
The Demon of Death leaned over and touched Liam’s forehead, sacramenting his body. He then gave Ava a supportive nod before fading away.
Ava kissed Liam’s forehead one last time, then laid his head gently on the floor.
She stood wearily, feeling old and broken.
And alone. So alone.
Ezra wrapped her in his arms. Ava didn’t want his arms around her or the beating of his heart against her ears. But she was too tired, and pushing Ezra away might as well push him into Talahel’s side.
The sirens of the clean-up teams wailed from the distance. Soon they’d be here.
Ezra let her go. “We’ll transport him to the Order and find a way to help him when he wakes.”
“Forgive me for not trusting the Order with one of mine.” Jal stepped out from behind a container. He shot Ava a look that seemed to say, “Not until you’ve cleaned up your house.”
She nodded.
Jal took Liam’s body, wincing at the weight inflicted on his half-broken arm, but he didn’t let go.
Ava stepped forward and pressed her forehead against Liam’s. “Always,” she muttered. “I’ll always be with you.”
Ezra put an arm around her and pulled her gently away from her partner. “Ava, I know he was important to you, but if he’s not taken to the Order, then we’ll have to kill him once he wakes.” He glared at Jal. “Release him at once, demon.”
Jal’s expression was unmoving lines. “Make me.”
“Let him go, Ezra,” Ava more demanded than asked. “He’s not safe in the Order.”
He blinked. “B-but we’re bound to the Gods, Ava.”
Bound to the Gods?
She smirked. Ava was bound to nothing but herself, to the faith inside her.
She observed Liam one last time, already feeling the pang of longing that would only grow stronger.
“Keep him safe,” she told Jal.
“Will do.” He smirked, clearly enjoying the outrage that flashed in Ezra’s face.
The demon turned and walked away, soon disappearing beyond the containers.
Ezra gave her a desperate sigh but soon took her hand. “Come. I believe we have much to discuss.”
They certainly did.
As they walked off the dock, Ava nudged her heart and smiled. Helping others was her faith, but there was something else now, a hunger for justice, to set things right, no matter the cost.
Light and darkness balancing within.
She would rid the Order from evil, and to do so she would sneak right under a devil’s nose. Perhaps she would have to become a devil herself.
Ava turned back and locked eyes with the Angel of Death, who was still standing where Liam had fallen. Her empty, glowing stare cast a question, one that had always been with Ava since she’d been reborn as an angel.
Why do you think you’re here?
A soft smile creased her lips. Ava knew her purpose now.
She was here to start a war.
Find out what happens next in CURSED DARKNESS, the second book in the Angels of Fate series.
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