“She’s only a child,” River whispered.
“She’s dead; her age doesn’t matter,” Caim replied bluntly. “They most likely chose a child because she would be less intimidating to you.”
“Why am I the only one who can see her?” River asked.
“Because you are the one they want to see her.”
“What are they trying to guide River into doing?” I inquired.
“Alas, I do not know the answer to that,” Caim replied. “But they are trying to show her something.”
“And we’re supposed to believe anything you say?” Hawk asked. “You’re about as evil as it gets.”
Caim folded his arms over his chest. “You are no longer human, yet your mind is still so small. Humans are the ones who deemed angels everything good. They held the angels in such high-regard while they made demons things of evil and disgust. Humans feared the demons because they looked different, yet they worshipped the angels for their perceived perfection in looks.
“When some of those angels fell, humans deemed the fallen more evil than demons. So much eviler that in a great deal of human lore, the humans imagined one of their disgraced angels as the ruler of Hell. They gave Lucifer horns, a tail, turned him red, called him Satan and other ridiculous names, but most of all they made him the ruler of all things evil and baaad.” Caim waved his hands around his face as he drew out the word bad.
Dropping his hands back to his sides, he continued speaking. “Yet he is not the true ruler of Hell, something you now know. Humans esteemed to be like the angels who remain above, but you missed one vital thing about all three of our species.”
“And what is that?” River inquired.
“We are all flawed. Perfection can never be attained. Yet you humans kill yourselves trying to become something you can never be; perfect. Angels were created by the being you hold above all else, but even that being is flawed. It has to be flawed; it was created with a world that has imperfections.
“Unlike the being, none of us were created in the very beginning, but we all came into existence in one way or another. Humans and demons evolved in unimaginably hostile conditions. The being forged the angels in the image of man. We are simply more powerful forms of humans, and humans are about as imperfect as it gets. It’s pure stupidity to believe anything can be perfect, or that it can be entirely good or bad,” Caim retorted.
“Pure stupidity does describe a human perfectly,” Magnus said and ignored the irritated look River gave him.
Caim’s wings fluttered forward. He settled his spikes onto the rocky ground. I stepped forward to launch at him as the hackles on the hellhounds rose and they emitted a low rumble.
Caim held his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “If I had come here to fight, we would be fighting, Kobal.”
“Where are the other fallen angels?” I demanded.
“With Lucifer, fighting against your followers,” Caim replied. “They believe me to be out doing reconnaissance.”
The hounds spread further out around us, creeping forward with their heads low and their eyes locked on Caim. The skelleins watched us from the other side.
“What do you want to discuss?” I asked.
“I was thrown from Heaven with Lucifer. I sheared off my wings with him on Earth and I followed him into Hell, but I cannot follow him in what he is doing now. If Lucifer succeeds in ending the human race, or somehow regains entry into Heaven to continue his war there, it will be the destruction of everything and I have no wish to die. I have come here to offer my help to you.”
CHAPTER 9
River
Many things in my life had astounded me, but when Caim announced this, I was pretty sure someone could have pushed me over with a finger. His eyes held mine, the varied colors within them coalescing together. His jet-black hair stuck to his forehead from the sweat running down his flushed face. The black clothes that had transformed from raven to angel form with him stuck to his skin. I realized that, like me, the heat of the oracle affected him more than the demons. That was the reason the angels hadn’t been seen near it before.
“Interesting,” Magnus murmured.
“Or a lie,” Kobal replied and stepped toward Caim.
I grasped his arm, halting him before he could go any closer. The hounds released another low rumble and bared their fangs. “Wait,” I said.
“We can’t trust him,” Corson said.
“The angels are nothing more than flying rats!” Lix declared from across the way.
“I am part flying rat,” I reminded Lix.
Lix ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. “We like you,” he muttered before pulling the top off his flask and taking a swig.
I turned my attention back to Caim, whose gaze remained on me. “How did Lucifer open the gate from Earth into Hell?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Lie,” Bale hissed.
Caim didn’t look at Bale as he replied. “It’s not a lie. My brother is the only one who knows what he did to open the gateway. He would never tell us. There is power in the mystery, and Lucifer won’t give up an ounce of power.”
“Can I close it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I do know my brother wants you for himself, badly. It leads me to believe you are capable of many things.”
“Why are you willing to help us? Aren’t all the fallen angels not evil, but ah… looking to rule or enslave humans and demons?”
Caim lifted his wings from the ground and closed them behind him once more. “Not all of us, or at least not me. What Lucifer plans is madness. He refuses to see that he could destroy everything if he continues on this path.”
“So this is a save-your-own-ass type of situation?” Hawk asked.
Caim snorted. “Is there any other kind?”
“Yes, there is,” I said. “There is protecting the ones you love and there is a greater good.”
“I have never been like the rest of my fallen brethren, but that is a woe-filled tale best kept for another day,” Caim said. “However, your tender heart will not survive my brother. Perhaps you should let some of your humanity go and face the truth; you must be vicious to live through this.”
“I faced that truth a long time ago,” I retorted. “But I will not give up what makes me me. I will defend and protect my loved ones no matter what it takes. I will not become like you.”
“The sad thing is, you remind me of myself before the fall. So idealistic, so certain you can make it all better, so determined to do so, but nothing can ever be all better again. The fall taught me that.”
“Is the fall what severed the angels’ bond to life?” I asked, desperate to know the answer and to keep it from happening to me.
“Ah, child, that was a mixture of steps taken that never should have been taken. Once taken they could never be reversed,” Caim replied with a flick of his fingers.
“What steps?” I demanded.
The casual way Caim assessed me reminded me of a bird. I had no idea how he had shifted into a raven, but it was clear the bird was a part of him, even in his angel-form. “You fear it happening to you,” he murmured.
Kobal took another step toward him. My hand tightened on his arm. There was no way I was going to keep him held back if he decided to go for Caim, but I had so many questions, and I needed answers. I doubted all of what Caim revealed would be the truth, but if even a fraction of it was, then I had to hear it.
“Kobal, don’t,” I pleaded.
Flames flickered to life around his fingers and rose to his wrists as he froze before me. The hounds stayed low to the ground as they crept closer to Caim. I took an unsteady step forward, not realizing how weak I was until my legs nearly gave out. I locked my knees into place and defiantly held Caim’s gaze.
“I think it could happen to me,” I admitted to Caim.
“You do not wish to be like your father Lucifer.”
“He’s not my father,” I grated. “I’ve had the misfortune of meeting my
father in this place, and he’s dead now.”
“A soul cannot be destroyed,” Caim stated.
“His was,” Kobal replied, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Bale edging closer to the ocean of fire and trying to come up along the side of Caim.
Caim glanced nonchalantly at Bale before focusing on Kobal again. “That’s a first. My brother must be pissed you took his toy away.”
“My father’s soul wasn’t a toy!” I retorted.
Caim shifted so that he stood half in and half out of the shadows. “Your father is Lucifer, my brother. His blood runs strong in you. It has forged you and your line. It will forge your children’s line too. If you live to have children.”
The sound Kobal made caused Caim to slip further into the dark and the skelleins to raise their swords. “Wait!” I gasped, knowing Caim was preparing to leave. “I deserve answers!”
Caim’s face reemerged. I blinked as the shadows surrounding him created the effect of a disembodied head. Then, he rippled his wings, and I realized it wasn’t the shadows creating the effect. His body had transformed into a raven, while his head remained a man’s.
“The fall started the break in the connection,” Caim said. “The shearing of our wings made it so only the slightest of threads remained between us and life. I can still recall my desperation to hold onto that thread with everything in me.”
A look of yearning spread across his face, and his head bowed for a minute. “Some of my fellow fallen made choices that severed the last of their thread while we were still on Earth. Others lost it when we followed Lucifer from the human realm into this one.”
He lifted his head and those multi-hued ebony eyes met mine. “I felt the snapping of the connection when the gate closed behind us. It was a loss so profound that only madness could follow, and follow it did, for all of us.”
“And are you no longer mad?” I asked.
“Sometimes even the lost soul of a monster can rise from the madness to see the truth.”
“What is the truth?” Kobal inquired.
“That to continue this path and do nothing to stop it would make me something far worse than a monster. If Lucifer succeeds, he will annihilate all the realms and all those who reside in them. I may be one of the fallen, but I will not be a part of that. I love my brothers and sisters, but I cannot allow them to continue this destruction.”
Everything in me screamed that none of the fallen angels could be trusted, that he was most likely here for Lucifer and to manipulate us, but the desperation in Caim’s gaze pulled at me. I found myself believing him.
“So you want to know if the severing of the bond can happen to you. It can,” Caim continued. “One wrong step can weaken it, and with each weakening, it becomes easier and easier to take those wrong steps until one day it’s gone, and all you’re left with is…”
“Emptiness,” I said at the same time he did.
A small smile curved the edges of Caim’s full mouth. He didn’t possess the ethereal beauty of Lucifer, but his near perfect features and raven wings were striking.
“Why are your wings different than the others?” I asked.
“I sliced the wings from my body to try to survive on the human realm. However, I could never sever my bond to the raven within me. All angels were created with small differences to give us something unique when not much is unique in Heaven. I am one of the few who possessed a significant difference from my siblings. That difference is my ability to embrace the raven’s spirit and form. It’s a bond that survived all the things I’ve done. The raven has made it so I can see past the insanity the loss of my connection to life created. Perhaps it is that bond which also allows me to retain a piece of the benevolence that once ruled me. There are always endless questions, but there are never answers for all of them.”
My fingers dug into Kobal’s skin as Caim slid further into the shadows again. “If I choose to join Kobal, if I died and became a demon, would it sever my bond to life?” I blurted before he could leave.
This time Caim didn’t remerge from the dark as he uttered his reply. “Yes.”
My heart sank. I wanted to scream denials at him, but I knew he was right. Kobal had known it for a while now. A crushing sensation squeezed my heart as my last bit of hope for an eternity with Kobal burst like a bubble.
“You cannot embrace your demon side without experiencing the madness,” Caim continued. I heard a flutter of wings, and then a shadow rose to swoop across the ceiling of the cavern. “Know that you have someone working with you from the inside now.”
The raven dipped to the side before vanishing out of the cavern over the heads of the skelleins. Stunned silence followed his disappearance.
“He could be lying about the experiencing madness thing,” Corson finally said, and I knew he was only trying to give Kobal and me some hope.
“He’s not.” I tore my attention away from where Caim had been and to Kobal. His eyes eased from their amber color to their pure, obsidian depths. “He may be lying about turning against Lucifer, and he probably is, but he’s not lying about the severing of the bond.” I placed my hand against my chest, over my heart. “I feel the truth of his words.”
Kobal wrapped his hand around my neck and pulled me against his chest. Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to shed them. I clung to him, my fingers digging into the solid flesh of his back.
He bent his head and rested his lips against my ear. “We have to get out of here. He could be bringing Lucifer back.”
I reluctantly released him and leaned against his side as he led me away from the oracle.
CHAPTER 10
River
“If the angels are trying to communicate with me, it explains what happened when we were in Magnus’s cavern,” I said sometime later when I felt strong enough to talk now that we were away from the oracle.
Kobal’s body stiffened against mine as he led me around a turn in the rock tunnel. I still had no recollection of the strange dream, or whatever it was that had caused me to leap to my feet and say “The angels,” before collapsing.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“I’ve kept my ability to share another’s dreams shut down since I shared that one with Lucifer.” I didn’t even dare to use it to reach out to my brothers for fear I would somehow draw Lucifer in too. “The angels may have been trying to get me to open it again, or maybe they were trying to communicate with me in a different way that caused my reaction.”
“Maybe.”
“How did you know Angela had something to do with the angels when you saw her?” I asked.
“Because of her scent. The angels in here, and you, have the scent of rain or water about them. Your scent is crisp whereas the fallen angels’ has been tainted, but I detected water on her. Whatever abilities they use for the guides, they can’t disguise their scent.”
“I see.” I tilted my head back to look at him. “You don’t want me communicating with them?”
“I don’t trust any angel, fallen or not.”
I didn’t bother to remind him I was part angel and identified more with my angel side. We were both aware of that; it was what would keep me mortal after all.
“They could be trying to help,” I said.
“They could,” Hawk agreed from behind us.
“Or they could be looking to eliminate Lucifer’s line, permanently,” Magnus said. I frowned as I glanced at him over my shoulder. He stared pointedly back at me. “Even after what Caim said, are you still trying to convince yourself the angels above are all that is good and right in the world?”
“No,” I said. “I know they’re not, but we already have enough enemies; we could use some allies, and there is a chance they could be trying to help us.”
“I don’t think the angels want to kill River,” Hawk said.
“Still relying on that misplaced human faith in the angels?” Magnus inquired.
“Still resorting to that douchey demon attitude?” Hawk retorted. �
�And no, I’m not. I simply don’t think they want to kill her.”
“Why not?” Corson asked.
“Because if they felt it would solve everything, they would have attempted to kill her by now, but they haven’t.”
“And they have tried to protect me,” I said. “Angela tried to stop me from going into the canagh nest before Vargas and I entered it.”
“See,” Hawk said and gave Magnus a gloating look. “The angels would have let her stroll on in there without any warning if they wanted her dead.”
“There’s no way to know what the angels are trying to do. I still don’t trust them,” Magnus said. “We should have killed Caim.”
“We weren’t going to reach him before he flew away,” Bale argued.
“The fallen have always underestimated the intelligence of the demons and believed themselves above us. Let them think we believe Caim will help us,” Kobal said.
“You think he was lying about helping us?” I asked.
“Don’t you?”
“Maybe, about some things. In others, I think he told the truth, or at least parts of it. He knows we don’t trust him. If he’s playing us, he’ll report that distrust to Lucifer. If he’s not toying with us, I think we’ll find out what was true and what wasn’t soon enough.”
“That we will,” Kobal replied and pulled me to a stop before a large slab of gray rock.
His arm slid away from me when he stepped forward and bent down. Something made a clicking sound as he felt over the bottom of the rock before rising to run his hands over the top of it.
Another click filled the cavern before Kobal placed his hand in the center of the slab. The slanted Z symbol I recognized as Eiaz materialized beneath his palm on the rock. During one of the times I’d explored the numerous symbols on Kobal’s body, I remembered coming across Eiaz. He’d explained the symbol represented speed, heightened senses, and protection.
Into Hell (The Road to Hell Series, Book 4) Page 6
