Forsaken
Cursed Angel Watchtower 12
L.B. Gilbert
Copyright
Forsaken: The Cursed Angel Collection – Watchtower 12 © 2017 L.B. Gilbert
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Description
Years ago, he left her to die in the wastelands. Now his fate rests in her hands.
Cast out of Heaven thousands of years ago, Ash is given a chance to redeem himself. If he defeats the demon king and delivers the city from the curse plaguing it, his long exile will end. But raising an army and killing the king is only the beginning. Now, in the ruins of post-apocalyptic Paris, this fallen angel is struggling to keep Bastille afloat amidst a never-ending series of disasters. His only hope in stopping the relentless cycle of destruction rests in Kara, a woman he’d betrayed years before and leader of a mysterious band of scavengers who have somehow escaped the curse’s influence. Ash needs to learn her secret if he has any chance of success, but is Kara their salvation or his downfall?
Forsaken is a standalone contribution to the Charmed Legacy Cursed Angel collection. Stories can be read in any order. To learn more, visit CharmedLegacy.com
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Also by L.B. Gilbert
About the Author
Prologue
Ash dumped the body in the pit, heaving it effortlessly. He listened for the satisfying thud as it hit the bottom before tossing the head in after it.
“Aren’t you tired of this yet, Azazel?”
He pivoted on his heel, masking his surprise to see Raphael sitting on the burned-out wreck of an automobile.
Ash spared a moment to mourn the car, an old Mustang. Once upon a time, he had driven such a vehicle.
“Why are you here?” He was surprised to find his voice hoarse. It had been a long while since he’d spoken to anyone.
Raphael’s lip curled into a familiar grin. Ash had always hated his former commander’s air of perpetual amusement.
“That should be obvious,” Raphael said, hopping off the hood of the car with feigned nonchalance.
He walked to Ash’s side, sliding forward with that gliding gait that looked more like floating. It was a way of moving that he had always associated with angels who rarely left Heaven, and Seraphim in particular. The will to move like a human was there, but they just couldn’t get the details right.
Ash continued to ignore Raphael as he went inside the dilapidated warehouse for the second body. The Seraph sighed impatiently, letting Ash know he was waiting.
“If you want to speed this along, you could help,” he couldn’t resist pointing out as he dropped the second corpse over the pit’s edge.
Raphael’s horrified expression almost made Ash smile. The Seraph sniffed, averting his gaze from the body covered in grime and blood as he absently patted the fold of his robe. Ash knew that was where the angel kept his jar of oil, which he carried like a child did a security blanket—back when children could afford such luxuries.
“I suppose this sort of thing was easier when cars worked,” Raphael observed, seemingly unaware of the wound he was inflicting.
Ash, known to history as the angel Azazel, had been a thorn in the side of the Heavenly Host long before Lucifer had rebelled. Azazel hadn’t understood why humans were denied the fruits of knowledge like agriculture or weapons to defend themselves. As far as he was concerned, they had a right to it—else what had been the point of expelling them from Eden for eating from the forbidden tree? Why then was some information denied to them?
Humans were no longer the cosseted innocents living in the protected shelter of the garden. They had spread across the world, eking a living out of the land as best they could, burying their children along the way.
Azazel had taken to visiting the humans, masking his angelic identity to move among them freely. He had admired the fortitude of the nomadic tribes, and the people living in the small holdings at the edge of the steppes. But his heart had broken every time one was wiped out. Their rapacious enemies would leave their bodies to rot in the open air with no sacrament.
How many times had he buried children with his bare hands? It had been too much for him. After the last massacre, he had flown back to Heaven to argue on their behalf. Humans should be given the means to defend themselves. As one of Heaven’s swordsmith’s, he could easily show them how to fashion weapons. How else could they survive in the wildness of terra firma?
His arguments had fallen on deaf ears. No matter what he did, how many examples he cited, the Heavenly Host was unmoved.
Most of his brethren were indifferent to humans. Some outright hated them. The latter had secretly been pleased when Adam and Eve had been expelled from the garden.
As his favorites kept dying, Azazel grew more and more discontented. That was when he’d taken it upon himself to do something. When another favored village had fallen under threat, he went down and taught them metallurgy. Together, they’d fashioned knives, swords, and shields, enough to repel marauders from the east.
The village had prospered. He’d watched with pride as they adapted the techniques he’d taught them to make ornamentation for their homes and even their bodies. He even taught them to make symbols of their faith as a show of gratitude to God, the source of all knowledge.
Azazel had gone home, confident the Lord would be pleased with his act. He’d been wrong.
The devil is in the details. He’d learned that phrase in the last century, but it immediately resonated with him.
The people he’d sought to protect had changed, evolving so quickly even he’d been taken aback. They used the craft he’d taught them to make bigger and more effective weapons, and they began to war for the resources of others in times of need. The strong rose, oppressing the weak or duping those less savvy than themselves.
Human society stratified because of his sin, growing alternately tyrannical and decadent. In mo
st cases, the lower castes were no more noble than the upper class. Avarice and greed led to theft, graft, and murder in all levels of society.
Needless to say, the Creator did not approve. As punishment, the archangel Raphael had bound him hand and foot. He’d hurled Azazel deep under the vast desert, where only the fiercest Berber tribes dared traverse.
It had taken him days to dig himself out. That was when he’d adopted his new name. All his effort, his good intentions, were like ash in his mouth.
Cast out from Heaven, Ash turned his back on everything. He hadn’t joined Lucifer’s band of rebels. Instead, he’d shunned both sides when they came around to win his allegiance or gloat. He wasn’t about to change the habit of a millennium for the jerk in front of him now.
“Azazel, we need you,” Raphael said soberly.
“That’s not my name anymore.”
The Seraph’s lips pursed. “It’s the name God gave you.”
Ash snorted. Wiping his hands, he put one foot on the carcass. He gave it a hard kick, sending it rolling down the steep hillside. Raphael waited until the corpse landed near its mate before speaking.
“Executing minor demons and their murderous human acolytes is a waste of time as long as King Amducious’ curse grips this land.”
“The curse isn’t my problem,” Ash said, tossing the dead imp’s hat after him.
“Then why bother with all this?” Raphael scowled, waving at the bodies in the pit.
Ash ignored him, pretending to look around for more body parts.
“They killed a human you were fond of, didn’t they?”
He bit his tongue. The Seraph knew him well enough to guess the truth by now. Why confirm what he already knew?
“This will keep happening as long as the king rules from over there,” Raphael said, gesturing to the dark tower in the distance.
Despite his intention not to look, Ash’s eyes gravitated to the demon king’s stronghold before he forced them away.
But Raphael’s presence stirred too many emotions. Unbidden memories of the time before the Collision played in his mind.
Though it had been difficult at first, he’d eventually achieved a sense of peace—or at least resignation—with his fall sometime during the enlightenment. From there, things had steadily improved.
As humans colonized the globe, they faced unimaginable hardships and challenges. To his surprise, they had risen to the occasion, inventing and growing in unexpected and truly brilliant ways.
Ash had a front-row seat for the invention of the wheel. Soon after that, it had been the internal combustion engine. He’d stood in awe when they left the earth and took to the skies in hot-air balloons, and then airplanes. Ash hadn’t thought it could get better than that…and then the computer age had arrived. Once the exclusive property of the rich, the technology grew inexpensive enough for the average individual to carry the knowledge of the world in their pocket.
Many other immortals didn’t respond well to those innovations. He’d seen angels and demons alike hold smartphones in their hands, puzzled as to how such a thing could connect them to another being, let alone the world. He’d mocked more than one of the Heavenly Host for shouting orders at the little rectangular marvels. They didn’t realize they needed to use the buttons or screens to make it function.
All of that had been wiped away in one fell swoop. The walls separating this world and the Hell dimensions had collapsed when a demon possessed a powerful witch. Under his control, she cast a spell to let the demons cross the barrier, to end this world. But not everything had gone according to plan. The violence of the spell had overrun the demon’s intentions. Instead of having free reign over the earth, the dimensional collision had split it into thirteen parts, each continent separated from one another by an impenetrable layer of magic.
Impenetrable to the residents of earth at least.
“I really thought the end of the world meant I wouldn’t have to see you again.”
“No such luck.” The Seraph picked up a stone and skimmed it across the air as if it were water. The flat round rock bounced at least half a dozen times before sinking, falling into the pit, and landing on top of the bodies.
Show-off.
“And the world hasn’t ended, not really,” Raphael nitpicked. “His children still walk the earth…and they’re suffering.”
Ash didn’t answer.
“You don’t really expect me to believe that you’re happy like this?” the archangel asked, turning to inspect the pile of rubble that had once been the Sacre Coeur Basilica.
Once one of the highest points in the city, the hill neighborhood of Montmartre was dwarfed by the watchtower Amducious, the demon king, built.
You’re the only one who still calls this area by that old name. Once the demon tower was built and its infamy grew, the name of this once-vibrant neighborhood was perverted and appropriated. Now it was forgotten to everyone but him.
Montmartre was dead. Long live Montmeurtre.
Did it matter? This blasted hill was no longer the bohemian and eclectic home of writers and artists that Ash remembered. Now it was a sparsely populated ghetto called Eighteen, the name taken from the ancient arrondissements that had divided and organized the city before the Collision.
Paris had been his home when the Collision spell was cast. By then, it was no longer the cosmopolitan center of the civilized world. Like other leading cities, its importance had waned. But it still had a certain flavor, a zest for life that was reflected in its love of food and culture. Paris had been a bit arrogant at times, like an aging grand dame, but it had the best style.
Now it was his own little corner of Hell on earth.
“They’re painting the tower again—Montmeurtre.”
“Don’t call it that,” Ash snapped, rising to the bait. It was bad enough that his neighborhood and adopted home had been wrecked, but the usurpation of its very name completely got under his skin—and Raphael knew it.
“Why not?” The Seraph widened his eyes in mock innocence before humming contemplatively. “What does the name mean anyway?”
Ash rolled his eyes. “You know what it means.”
“Only literally.” Raphael raised his hands and dropped his bell-like voice to a grating imitation of human fear. “The Tower of Death. It’s effective, isn’t it? A bit ham-fisted, of course, but Amducious has always opted for the atmospheric, hasn’t he?”
Ash ignored the reference to the demon king. “It’s not the Tower of Death. Montmeurtre means Murder Hill,” he corrected, turning to face the fortress.
Built from the ruins of the famous Tour d’Eiffel, Montmeurtre started with a wide foundation of twisted steel and stone that narrowed progressively as it went up. The tower itself stretched over nine hundred meters in height, taller than any pre-Collision manmade structure.
But what would have been an engineering marvel was a perversion in every sense.
Every stone in the tower came from Parisian churches, all of which had been razed to the ground. The rubble had been ritually desecrated and twisted with the melted-down iron of the city’s most famous landmark.
Raphael squinted at the demon stronghold, its red-black stones climbing the dirty brown sky. “That’s splitting hairs a bit,” he said after a pause.
“It’s not when you consider why they call it that,” Ash said, his jaw tight.
“And that is…?”
Ash sighed, conceding defeat in the face of Raphael’s superior acting skills. “Because of the paint. It’s a mix of mud and blood—human blood. Lots of it.”
Raphael’s beatific features screwed up in an almost-human expression of disgust and pain. “I’d hoped that was a rumor.”
The last thread of Ash’s patience snapped. “Stop pretending you didn’t know! You can see everything from up there. He knows all,” he yelled, slashing at the sky with an angry gesture.
The Seraph’s lips firmed. “I wasn’t certain. The Collision has affected us up there, too. Things tha
t were clear are hazy now.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I shouldn’t be admitting this…but I don’t believe His sight is infallible anymore.”
Ash’s head jerked in the direction of the other angel. He took a shaky breath, a bit of his internal foundation breaking and rearranging.
If God was no longer omniscient, then was he God?
Raphael narrowed his eyes. “Bastille has been afflicted by Amducious’ curse for nearly sixty years. His children have suffered enough. We need your help to set things right. Bring down the tower, kill the king. You need to end the curse and free the people.”
This was almost amusing. “Is it not enough that you were the one to toss me out of Heaven? Do you still want to get rid of me that badly?”
“I was under orders.”
“A familiar song,” Ash sneered before going for his shovel. “So how many angels have you sent to their final reward trying to take down Amducious? Three, four?”
He began to scoop dirt over the edge of the pit. Visitors were rare in these parts, but he needed to make a cursory effort to cover the bodies lest he give himself away. Few humans could have killed those two. Without food and clean water, they were too weak. There was no need to tip the demon horde to his presence. That was the last thing he needed.
“You will succeed where the others have failed,” Raphael proclaimed in his ‘heed this prophecy, lowly underling’ voice.
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