If Gabriel had planned on stepping down, I wouldn’t blame him. The thought had crossed all of our minds at one point or another, some more than others lately.
“I’ve been thinking about it. I haven’t quite decided yet. I enjoy battle, but I love Amy more. I just don’t know if I can put her through what I see the other families go through.”
“I get’cha. It’s a hard life. Always having to leave at the drop of a hat and never knowing if or when you’ll make it back. But, say you do step down. You’ll need to nominate a replacement. Any thoughts of who you would choose?”
When the Great Circle of Arches had been created, it seemed to have a revolving door on who served, as the members constantly changed. We had all become Arches by nomination and election when our predecessors decided they had served their time or could no longer bear the responsibilities.
Young, inexperienced, and known troublemakers, gossip flourished that none of us would be able to handle the burden that came with the job, and most believed we would be unable to last a week as we each took our place in the Great Circle of the Arches. It had been difficult at first as we all put more time into attempting to set our dominance over each other rather than training. With nothing being accomplished due to our fighting one another more than our enemies, Father stepped in, quashing the battles over leadership. It had taken a while to get used to the pecking order but once we had worked out the kinks, we had become a great force to be reckoned with. More than simply harbingers of justice, we had become a family all of our own; brothers beyond blood.
So deep had been our bond and loyalty that even after I fell, my brothers refused to have another take my place. For centuries my chair in the war room remained empty until I returned. But that had been an entirely different case than what we would be facing if Gabriel left the Great Circle of Arches. The Arches would be at a great loss if Gabriel chose to give up his shield and sword. My brothers and I would have no choice but to accept and break in a new member.
“No. As I said, I haven’t decided.” Gabriel replied.
“Well think long and hard before you do. Don’t want to nominate someone who can’t handle it, or us.” I chuckled, giving Gabriel a wink.
“Do any of us handle it, Ra?” Gabriel said, dropping all expression as he stood with the door to his minivan open.
“Pizza’s getting cold.” I said, ignoring the depth of his question, hopped in my car, and took off to make my deliveries.
Chapter Three Etta
I had hoped the first day of my internship at the Prince William County Mental Health Department would go off without a hitch. However, my mother, Persephone, had somehow been able to pass the message that she desperately needed to see me through my first patient, a 65 year old indigent who suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and rapid–cycling bi-polar disorder. Fortunately enough, I had been able to play off the odd message relay in front of my co-workers by making it appear as though I had simply been patronizing the elderly man in a polite and professional way. It had been a strange and unexpected way to receive a message, but it was the only way my mother, being a Demon, had to contact me in public.
My mother had been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic shortly after my ninth birthday. Similar to my first years as a mental patient, pills had been shoved down her throat to make the demons fade away. Unfortunately, the demons she saw were real. Physically and mentally exhausted from trying to make her distant marriage to a grunt marine work, raise a daughter the devil had tried to lay claim to, and fight off the soldiers he sent to take me, she saw no other option than to make a deal with Lucifer in exchange for my safety.
With a kitchen knife, my mother slit her throat with the assumption that if she died, Lucifer would leave me alone. Lucifer claimed my mother’s soul and found ways to dance through the loopholes in her deal. Well, that had been no surprise to me. The phrase ‘the devil is in the details’ had been coined for a reason... a warning to those who thought they would outsmart one of the greatest politicians and lawyers any world had seen.
Under close watch, by armed guards, my mother had no choice but to stand back and witness the torment I suffered at the hands of Lucifer and his soldiers. It hadn’t been until the return of Ra and the Arches in my life that she had the ability to step forward, aiding me against the dark forces. With everyone in Hell greatly distracted, her guards were pulled from her detail to focus on greater threats. No longer under guard, my mother helped me keep to the right path and warned me of any unforeseen dangers whenever safely possible.
Of course, this wasn’t the history my dad, John, shared with me. I grew up on the lies that forced me to believe my mother had been killed by a drunk driver. I didn’t find out the truth about my mother’s death until she began speaking to me in my head six months ago. At first I thought she was a voice my sick brain made up, desperate for someone, anyone, to listen to me. It hadn’t been until I finally got to meet her, face to face, that I knew she hadn’t been a figment of my imagination. I hadn’t seen her after she helped me defeat Vetis and Pyro three months ago, but we talked every day since that night.
All of our conversations had been normal mother-daughter catch up and girl talk. I’d tell her about my life with dad and Ra. She’d tell me about her life with her new husband and her three step-children. At first it had been weird thinking that I had a human family, an Angel family, and a whole Demon family but after a few conversations with my mom, it just became normal in its own twisted way.
What hadn’t been normal was my mom insisting on seeing me after work. Leaving Hell to see me had been a seriously risky move on her part, so whatever she had to tell me I knew had to be of the utmost importance. Once I got off work I raced home and bolted up the stairs to my room only to find Ra passed out on my bed. Protective and paranoid, Ra insisted I sever any and all ties with my mother after I told him of the few conversations we’d had. Bored with the bickering, I ignored his ultimatum and quit telling him about my mental visits with Persephone. However, if my mother appeared while Ra was in my room, I’d be hard-pressed explaining the demonic visit.
Thankfully, today, being the day before Gabriel and Amy’s wedding, gave me plenty of believable excuses to get Ra out of the house. After waking Ra up, it took forever to get him on the road. With him stalling at every turn, I’d been running out of time to make sure it was safe for my mother. A twinge of guilt fluttered for wanting to get rid of him, since I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks but thinking back to the severity of my mother’s tone had been enough to shake off any shame I carried for deceiving Ra.
After I finally got him out the door and on his way, I rushed back up to my room. Flinging open the door, I jumped back, releasing a yelp. Standing in the corner of my room had been one of the biggest, ugliest, Demons I had ever seen. With the ripped and toned body of a legged shark and the head of a bull, gigantic glowing orange eyes, and long protruding blood stained horns. The Demon stepped toward me. At that instant, a flood of memories crashed in my head.
I had seen this Demon before. The beast went by the name Nicor, the former ruler of the seas in Heaven. Next to Alastor and Ra, he had been the next highest ranking officer in Lucifer’s army. A rank well earned by his ability to connive in silence, which kept his friends and foes guessing.
Without reservation, he’d flash his rows of razor sharp teeth in a sorry attempt at a smile, pretending to be your best friend, while sticking a dagger in your ribs. Ruthlessness blended with an insatiable bloodlust, he enjoyed killing more than the boundless perks of being a Demon had offered. After his fall, battlefield tales spread across the heavens, instilling dread in those who chose to believe the tales. Instead of visiting one of the many brothels in Hell to find release, Nicor preferred the euphoria of watching the life force dim from a soul’s eyes. It had been those very reasons he had been removed from his celestial duties and damned to Purgatory. However, before the Arches carried out the sentence, Nicor ripped out his wings and fell to Hell,
taking his affinity for water with him.
Whether it had been the headache from the sudden rush of memories of my life beyond the veil or the abrupt surge of adrenaline combined with too many energy drinks and lack of sleep, I fainted.
“Wake up, Etta.” A soft voice said.
“I’m sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to frighten her.” a deep, gravelly voice added.
A gentle tapping on my cheek slowly brought me back to consciousness. Focusing my blurred vision, relief swept over me at the vision of my mother, Persephone, then horror when I saw Nicor standing over her.
“Mom, run!” I yelled as I scooted across the hardwood floor.
“It’s okay, honey. He’s not going to hurt us.” My mother said, helping me to my feet.
Nicor took a few steps back then leaned against the wall next to the window. He had been covering up the spot where Ra’s wings had torn into the sheetrock. I wanted to yell at him to get away from a spot I considered sacred, but his lifeless orange eyes, predominate stature, and reputation had been reason enough to keep my mouth shut.
“Etta, this is my husband, Nicor. Nicor, this is my daughter, Etta.” My mother nervously glanced between the two of us.
Simultaneously, Nicor and I nodded each other’s way, offering no other acknowledgement as my mother went over to him, looping her arms through his.
When my mother told me she settled down with another Demon I never thought to ask who. The thought of her aligning herself with this monster turned my stomach. More so, the fact that Ra’s warning about how my mother being a Demon meant anything she said or did couldn’t be trusted, may have been correct. If I had been unable to fully trust her then I would have to keep my guard up. With Nicor by her side, I wouldn’t stand a chance against an attack. A subtle fear of my mother rose within, but I would be unable to allow her to see my trust level in her dwindle. If she were conspiring against me, my best offense would be to keep her assuming I wasn’t on to her.
“You’re looking good, Mom. Did you change your hair?” I said, keeping up appearances. The truth was, she appeared the same as the last time I saw her. If the crypt keeper from ‘Tales from the Crypt’ had a sister, my mother would be it, just with fuller, jet black hair and neon pumpkin-colored eyes.
“Thank you, but we don’t have time for semantics. A serious problem has come up, and we need your help, Etta.”
And here had been their ruse. The only problem a Demon had ever been unable to handle was Arches. Asking me for help had been a lie so transparent you’d walk right through it.
“You remember me telling you about our children?” Persephone said, cupping my hand in hers.
Of course I had remembered her telling me I had three step siblings: Annahail, Botis, and Uphir. What they had to do with me didn’t quite click. But what my mother told me next would rock my world to the core. If a word of what she said was to be believed, Annahail, Botis and Uphir were my demon half-breed children, and they were in danger of being discovered.
Alastor first came into my life when I was ten. My father had released him from a prison in Iraq when he accidently shot a young girl during a gun fight with Al Qaeda insurgents. After the incident, my dad, John, carried enough guilt and shame to feed Alastor as he followed him to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
It hadn’t been long after when René started drinking heavily and my ‘schizophrenia’ came to a head. Despite being covered in deep purple bruises, my dad had been too distracted with my mental illness, René’s alcoholism, and his court martial, to believe I had a Demon coming into my room late at night and violently raping me.
The first time I found out I had been pregnant, I attempted to slit my wrists, but René found me in the bathtub before I had bled enough to end it all. The second pregnancy, I stole my dad’s car, hit him with his own car while he had been on his motorcycle then went head on into a concrete divider, resulting in the loss of my unborn child. I didn’t realize I had gotten pregnant the third time. I woke up one morning covered in blood. My third, and final, pregnancy terminated itself.
Before I had been able to shatter through the veil, I never put any thought as to what had happened to the souls I had carried in my body. I simply believed once a life ended, it vanished. Now I knew it carried on to one world or another.
It took a huge amount of consoling on my mother’s part when she told me about unborn children. I had been sure my actions damned them to Hell. Though I wouldn’t win any mother of the year awards, it hadn’t been my selfish actions that damned them but the fact that their sperm donor had been a Demon.
In my twin brother’s sick and twisted show of love, he named me his queen in the hopes one day I would sit by his side and share his bed when he created his underworld. Though I never sat on the throne, I had a claim on his domain, and any spawn from my bloodline would have the same rights as him or me to the throne. Of course, Lucifer never took into account I might conceive a child with anyone or anything other than him.
Posing a threat to the throne since their arrival in Hell, my mother raised Annahail, Botis, and Uphir to one day overthrow Lucifer. She had been successful at keeping the children off Lucifer’s radar. That is, until in an effort to keep his horns while he had been a Demon, Ra suggested to Lucifer he should look for mine and Alastor’s children. Since then, my brother had been relentlessly seeking them out with the intention of eradicating them.
With each passing moment, Lucifer and his bounty hunters would get closer and closer to discovering the children’s location. Running out of hiding places, Persephone had to reach out for help beyond Hell’s gates.
But with all of the information dumped on me at once, three huge questions remained: did anything my mother tell me hold any truth, and if so, how could I tell Ra, with who I had never been able to conceive with, that I had a seven, six and five year old, and how in the world would I possibly be able to help them avoid Lucifer’s wrath?
My mother and Nicor’s departure only left me with a few minutes to get ready for that night’s counseling session and zero time to think about what I needed to do.
Rushing to Ra’s apartment, I decided I would simply rip the Band-Aid off and tell him before our session with Saraqael. With any luck, he would see the situation for what it had been and not go into a flying rage about me having children outside of our marriage, but when I arrived at the apartment, the only one there had been Saraqael. Of all the times for Ra to ditch out on another counseling session, then had not been a good one.
Tapping my fingers on the arm of the couch, I waited, and waited, and waited for Ra to show up. It seemed as of late, I spent more time waiting for him than anything else. Worse still, each time he’d finally grace me with his presence he only brought new excuses, a new reason for another broken promise.
“It’s been an hour. I’m going to go home to get ready for the party.” I said to Saraqael as I grabbed my purse.
“Etta, wait, I am sure he will be here any minute.” Saraqael forced a smile.
His smile had been the straw that broke my emotional back.
“You know, I am tired of waiting. I waited a century for him to return home when everyone thought he had died. I waited five centuries to be released from Purgatory, and I waited a year for him to return to Earth for me. And what am I doing now? Waiting. All I do is wait, and for what? For him to show up for five minutes when he feels like it so we can argue? We’re in his apartment, and he’s not even here. I bet you I’ve spent more time in his living room than he has. I’m twenty-two. I should be out living life and having a blast, not waiting around as if I’m some seventy year old spinster.” Bursting into tears, I unloaded on Saraqael.
“The life of an Arch is a demanding one without the special circumstances you two find yourselves in. I know it’s easy to say, but you must be patient.” Saraqael nudged onto the couch, putting an arm around me as he tucked my head into the crook of his neck.
The loving gesture had the opposite intended affect. It simply remi
nded me, instead of my husband being the one telling me everything would be okay and wiping my tears, it had been someone else, again.
“I know all too well the life of an Arch. It’s no different from anyone else’s. You make a promise, you keep it. How difficult can it be? You just don’t give up on someone because things don’t go your way or because it doesn’t fit with your plans. You stand by them, no matter what.” I sobbed into Saraqael’s collar.
“Is this about Ra or something entirely different, Etta?” Saraqael lifted my chin, searching my eyes for the answer.
I wanted to tell Ra about what happened after he went to work, but without him here and the new revelations the day brought boiling to the brim, I had no other choice but to confide in Saraqael.
Well, there is something—”
“I’m here. I’m here.” a grease covered, sweaty Ra huffed as he burst into the room, interrupting my confession.
“Ra? Where have you been? What happened?” Wiping my tear streaked face, I ran to him.
“Car broke down on the other side of the base. I ran all the way here.”
“You ran? Why didn’t you just flash? I told you, you needed to get rid of that Yugo.” I said as Saraqael and I helped him to the couch.
“Too many people were out.” Ra huffed, attempting to catch his breath.
His broad chest heaved, exposing a few tendrils of chest hair. Pearls of sweat dripped off his jaw onto his already sweat soaked work shirt clinging to his body, extenuating his sculpted pecs. The pink hue that had flushed his cheeks had been reminiscent of the younger, more bashful, and incredibly sexy Ra I had married.
For the past three months, Ra and I had to limit our physical contact to strictly hugging, cuddling, and kissing. On occasion, light petting but seeing him in his current state, I wanted to break every rule ever made. As if sensing my sudden urge to rip his shirt off and take him where he stood, Ra popped his eyebrows as he flashed a cocky smirk, daring me to act on my urges despite the fact we weren’t alone.
The Angel Side Page 4
