“I can’t be sure, but it probably had something to do with prayer or meditation,” Riell stated.
“But, Riell I already told you. God, he’s...” Drean’s face grew somber.
Riell almost choked on her food. She stood up and retrieved a glass from a cabinet in the kitchen and ran to the sink to fill it with water. She drank greedily and then set the empty glass on the counter.
“You’re right...” she breathed.
“Are you ok?” Drean asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just couldn’t breathe.”
“We have to find him,” Drean said.
“We will after I eat and rest for a bit. That battle drained me.”
“Battle? What exactly happened?”
“Dejanto and I were talking and Gerald showed up. Something’s different about him.”
“So he did this to you?”
“No, no. He was caught in it too. Not but ten minutes after he got to the bar a small army of half-breeds attacked us. They wanted information about you.”
“I’m really sorry I pulled you all into this.”
“No, don’t be. We handled it. Gerald became some kind of giant angel and turned the tide for us.”
“Giant?”
“Yeah, over one hundred feet tall. His skin looked like polished obsidian. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“I wonder if the new God has turned him as well.”
“I don’t think so, Drean. He fought with us, not against us.”
“He could have communed with God after the battle.”
“True. We’re going to need to be more careful. I didn’t expect Verill to have such numbers behind him. Even though most of the skia and exous were novices at best, the fact that he has darbas in his organization is unnerving.”
“Exous? Isn’t that the race your boss belongs to? I’ve heard of darbas but thankfully have never met one in combat.”
“Yes. He is an exous elite. But those exous were nothing. Dejanto handled them easily..." Her voice trailed off. Drean saw her apprehension and tried to take her mind off the situation.
“This is completely off topic,” Drean said. “But can I ask a question?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have a religion?”
She laughed.
“You have been reading.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve always believed that there are good and evil powers that shape us constantly, in this world and beyond it,” Riell said. “How many there are, what they stand for and if they were the ones who created us in the beginning or not, those are things I’m not sure of. Several humans have claimed to have known more than others: about the powers that lie beyond and their principles. There is really no way to know how close they were to those powers, but I can believe in some of their principles.”
“Which principles?” Drean asked.
“Faith, selflessness, tolerance. Things like that.”
“So you believe in love then?”
“Love? I used to,” Riell said.
“What changed that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been through a lot.”
“Do you think you could believe again?”
“Maybe someday.”
Drean hoped that he could help her believe. If he could accomplish only one good thing while on Earth; he would bring love back into Riell’s life.
Chapter 27
Dejanto waited on the roof of The Horse. He sat cross-legged in the middle, out of sight. There was no need for him to see his prey. He could sense any non-human auras inside and around the bar’s perimeter. Clouds blotted out any chance for natural light this night. He would use that to his advantage if he felt threatened.
He knew that Drean and Riell would come looking for him. Leoran had already shown him that. Still, impatience filled his mind.
Why am I so anxious? I’ve accomplished thousands of missions that required hours of waiting: to penetrate enemy territory without being perceived or for the perfect ambush. I’ve rushed into the heat of battle slaying foes before they catch sight of me. The stakes have been high before. I’ve been through so much. Through it all I’ve always been collected. Keep shook his arms out and took a deep breath.
“Keep!” Riell yelled out.
He smiled. He could hear worry in her voice.
She doesn’t matter right now. I have to find the angel before the plan can be executed. Where is he? I know he’s here with her.
Footsteps below him caught Dejanto’s attention. He tried to reach out but felt nothing.
It has to be him.
He concentrated on the shadows around him. Shadows embraced Dejanto and covered him from head to toe. His physical form could no longer be seen. He quietly crept to the edge of the roof and peered below.
The angel. Why couldn’t I sense him? Unless he is wary. He’s masking his aura so no one will know he’s here with Riell. He suspects me. I can’t comprehend why the Lord won’t let me slay him where he stands. He’s the last hope of the old order. Without him the light will crumble. He could very well ruin the Lord’s plan.
Dejanto made his decision.
Yes. He must be slain.
Dejanto dipped his sword arm into the shadows around him. They rippled at his touch. When he removed his arm his hand gripped the hilt of his weapon: the blackened great sword given to him by Leoran. He pulled at it and watched Drean.
The hilt warmed at his touch and quickly turned hot. Though it constantly stung him, he pulled it from its sheathe of shadow.
Dejanto thought the sword yearned for the blood of the angel, but then it seared Dejanto’s palm. The sword fell back into the abyss from whence he pulled it.
Drean looked straight up at Dejanto and squinted.
No, angel you can’t see me. You might feel my presence but I know your eyes cannot see me. Dejanto sighed inwardly.
My Lord isn’t ready for this angel to perish. I’ll follow His plan accordingly.
He looked at his charred palm and concentrated. Sapping Drean and Riell would give away his position, so instead he took life-energy from trees and small animals in the vicinity. His body cooled as it absorbed the energy. He directed it into his injury: it regenerated rapidly.
These powers; they’re different from when I was a... Dejanto could not complete his thought process. Who am I to question the Lord? If life must be taken to aid the grand design, so be it.
“Drean?” Riell tapped on the window of the bar door.
Drean walked to the door. “Yes?”
“I’m going to go search one more place for him. Go ahead and find Gerald like we talked about. Shrazz and I will hone in on your position when it is time. Just keep him distracted.”
“Alright, be careful.”
“I will,” Riell called back. Then she was gone.
She must be going to the cathedral, Keep thought. No matter. I’ll have an explanation for her when the time comes.
Drean closed his eyes for a moment to feel for Gerald.
“There he is,” Drean muttered. He turned and walked down the street.
Dejanto leapt off the bar roof and landed in the middle of Drean’s shadow. He fell straight into it as if it were a hole in the ground.
Drean whirled about.
Dejanto was already gone.
Dejanto would have smirked had he still had a mouth to do so.
* * *
I feel an oppressive aura hanging over the bar. It can’t be Keep can it? Riell thought as she struggled to find her way to the bathroom in the dark.
“Ow! Goddamnit!” Riell rubbed her side.
“That’s the sixth time I’ve hit something...” she said under her breath.
I need to check the cathedral.
She rounded the corner to the hall that led to the bathroom door. A dim light hung over it.
“Finally no more damn tables.”
Upon reaching the door Riell felt above it to acquire the enchanted silver key.
Riell gripp
ed the key and spoke the words that Keep had taught her and the rest of the skia that had trained at the cathedral: “Though my wings are dark the light of the sun carries me.”
The key brightened and the door swung open. The Hall of Darkness lay before her.
She stepped past the doorway only after she replaced the key. She was left in darkness when the door closed. Regardless she strode forward. She knew that soon she would see the door’s welcoming glow. She could not see any light however, and it unnerved her.
Riell tried to reassure herself that the light was close, but she knew it had faded with Keep’s.
Riell collided with the heavy doors of the cathedral, and the bang resounded throughout the hall.
She yelled, clutched her head and whispered curses at the door in several different languages. A feeling of frigidity like none she had ever felt before stabbed at her mind: the sharp pain pulsed constantly. It came from something or someone inside the cathedral.
That aura isn’t Keep’s... I hope.
She put both hands on the door and heaved until she could no longer stand the cold on her hands.
“Let me help you with that,” a hoarse voice from within the cathedral said.
When the doors opened and slammed against the walls of the cathedral their force knocked Riell to the ground. Large icicles fell from the ceiling above the door and shattered.
Lei’s frozen corpse lay in front of her face. Obviously, their travels through limbo had led them to the cathedral instead of her apartment.
Riell’s senses implored her to stay down and not explore the cathedral any further. Subzero cold billowed all around her and chilled her. The stench of death came with the cold and defiled her nostrils and mouth.
She stood and walked forward.
A weak pale light shone through the remaining stained glass windows. Most of them had shattered.
Those were supposed to be impenetrable.
She noticed the frozen halves of Teddy.
I hope that he’s still on our side.
Her body trembled, and she found herself paralyzed by the probable truth that Dejanto was not. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.
Collected again, she stayed against the right wall and tried to not step on any broken glass or icicles.
Riell looked at the new décor of the cathedral with fearful fascination.
Ice covered the ceiling. Thick stalactites had formed in some areas. Pale light from the limbos shone on the frozen scene.
She could not help but feel afraid and awed.
It’s... coming from the altar.
Riell had not looked that far down into the cathedral yet. Its changes had almost hypnotized her.
He was still some distance away, but Riell could make out a white robed humanoid knelt before the altar.
It can’t be.
Nearly 500 hundred years ago, when Riell and Shrazz were mere pre-teen fledglings, the man before her had persecuted her and hundreds of other half-breed children. He forced humans and paladins to bring them to him according to a decree he claimed was from the mouth of God Himself. He had used their mystical energies to bolster his own soul. He was also supposed to be dead.
Dejanto, Riell and Shrazz and the few paladins that had decided to go against his church had seen to that. That was when Shrazz had inadvertently sparked the Great Fire that consumed the cathedral and London.
Afterward Dejanto and the surviving paladins rebuilt it, used a complex ritual to plane-shift it into upper limbo and set up an orphanage for the half-breeds inside the cathedral. He honed the half-breeds abilities and provided them food and shelter, so they could protect themselves if such a catastrophe should happen again.
“Archbishop Erantu,” she muttered. Hatred filled her mind and tears filled her eyes. They ran down her face and froze before they hit the ground.
How the hell is he alive? We banished him to the depths of limbo where he would be imprisoned forever.
“So,” Erantu said as he stood from his genuflection, “you remember me.”
Riell’s face tightened at the sound of his voice. She drew her short sword.
This time he’s not going to have the chance to return.
“How could I forget. You destroyed everything I loved when I was a child. Everything.”
“If it wasn’t for me, my dear... you wouldn’t have grown into the fine woman you are now,” he said. Riell could hear a smile in his voice.
Riell unfurled her black transparent wings. She hurled herself into the air above the Archbishop and swooped down upon him. In her rage her wings flooded the cathedral with their full brilliance. He didn’t even turn around at the sound of her wings above him.
Riell decapitated the bishop where he stood. She landed in front of the altar.
That was satisfying.
She picked up the head of Erantu by its scraggly gray hair.
Patches of charred rotting skin clung to his blackened skull of a face. Erantu’s eye sockets glowed faintly.
His mouth opened wide, and he laughed.
Riell dropped the head in surprise.
“You cannot kill me, Riell.” Erantu’s head lifted into the air and reattached itself to his body. He turned around and opened his arms so Riell could see his disheveled robes and deteriorated body. It didn’t look any better than his face.
“You’ve already accomplished that, as you can see.”
“I don’t understand.”
“But my queen resurrected me, and as to how I’m here...” He turned and gestured at the crumpled altar.
Riell jumped high into the air and used her wings to keep herself aloft so she could see what Erantu referred to. When she was above the altar she almost fell from the air.
In the place where the altar had once stood a void of a tunnel had formed. Riell could not see the bottom of it. Purple energy lanced within it, reverberating like thunder and quaking the ground beneath her feet.
“...A gate to Lower Limbo,” Erantu said. “I don’t believe Dejanto even knew about it.”
He couldn’t have, Riell thought. He would have sealed this place for good if he did.
“I was thanking the newly crowned God as you arrived. It seems he has unwittingly finished what I started centuries ago. My tunnel is complete.”
Drean was right. Riell’s body went numb with fear. I have to seal this place. Who knows what else could come from that portal. Riell intended to escape and seal the door from the outside. She jumped and went into a dive and approached the door rapidly.
“I think not.” Erantu willed the doors to close. They slammed before Riell could exit and shook stalactites from the ceiling.
Riell spun herself away from them.
Erantu laughed.
“No, Riell, I think you should stay.”
She landed and faced Erantu.
“We’ll see.”
She jumped into the air, and kicked off of the door of the cathedral. She gripped her sword with both hands, raised it and unleashed a vertical slash to halve Erantu.
Her sword divided only air.
Wind caused by the blow split the large wooden cross and scarred the wall of the cathedral behind it.
“You’ve grown powerful indeed.” Erantu was behind her.
Riell spun about.
He tried to make a grab for her, and she lashed out to ward him off. He ducked and didn’t even flinch when her sword cleaved off his left arm. Riell tried to jump away but could not escape the outstretched fingertips of the archbishop’s skeletal right hand.
He gripped her arm and siphoned her Inner.
Riell’s body numbed. She tried to lift her sword to cut the other arm from his body but couldn’t. Her sword slipped from her grasp and clanged to the ground.
“Yes. You’re mine. Just relinquish yourself and make it easier.” Erantu’s other arm lifted into the air and reconnected itself to his body with a pop.
Riell fought to maintain consciousness to summon an arrow in her sword han
d. When she felt the shaft of it she stabbed at Erantu and let it slip from her hand right before it reached his body. Her arrow slid beneath the archbishop’s legs and came to rest behind him. She feigned unconsciousness.
“Haha, she was going to try to finish me with an...”
Riell’s eyes flashed an emerald green beneath their lids. Her arrow exploded, splayed pieces of his body about the cathedral and knocked Riell on her back. She pulled the skeletal hand from her arm and picked her sword back up.
“A skillful maneuver!” Erantu called out. Pieces of his body gathered where the explosion had taken place.
I won’t let his speed get the best of me this time.
Riell held her short sword above her head with both hands. The demonic sword responded to her needs: it liquefied, and wrapped itself around Riell’s arms. Erantu’s legs and torso had reassembled themselves.
She held her arms straight out, separated them and the liquid metal that encased them. Some of it splashed. As she ran at him, drops flew back into the two blobs that covered Riell’s forearms and hands, defying gravity. Wrist spikes jutted past Riell’s hands and the metal solidified.
“An impressive toy, but not enough,” Erantu said, as his head settled on top of his reformed body. He stood firm and awaited her.
She noticed Erantu had to put more effort into evading her attacks. They missed him by centimeters. His concentration blinded him to other threats and made it easy for the shadows of the pews around him to catch him off guard.
Four bands of shadow controlled by Riell rose from the pews around them. Erantu’s arms and legs were fettered. He struggled feebly. Intense anger and frustration flamed inside his eye sockets. Riell willed the shadows to swallow him.
Her wrist spikes formed back into a shortsword, which she sheathed.
Shadows moved up Erantu’s legs and down his arms.
He laughed.
“You may hold me here but it matters not! It had already begun."
Shadow covered his head and silenced him.
Riell felt a tingle beneath her forehead.
Shrazz, hang on a sec.
What’s wrong?
Don’t worry. I’ll tell you in a second.
Fine. Don’t be long.
She strode to the door of the cathedral and looked above the top of the door.
From Heaven To Earth (The Faith of the Fallen) Page 19
