The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1)

by L. M. Peralta

  Books By L. M. Peralta

  THE ARCADIAN STEEL SERIES

  The Wings of Heaven and Hell

  The Seven Archangels of Heaven

  The Seven Princes of Hell

  THE ELEMENTALS TRILOGY

  The Elementals

  The Council

  The Creator

  United Trace

  Don’t Get Too Close to The Darkness Inside…

  My name is Lia Hebert and I know something that might shock most people: Angels are not always the good guys. I learned that after one of them killed my parents.

  Since then, my life has been a rollercoaster. In a matter of days since the angel attacked I was taken to Hell, commissioned by the fallen angel Lucifer, and given my own demon guardians. I know what you’re thinking: that’s so, rock and roll. But the reason the angels are after me and the reason Lucifer wants me is because I can do something terrible—I can make angels fall.

  THE WINGS OF HEAVEN AND HELL is the alluring first installment in The Arcadian Steel Sequence. A Young Adult horror romance full of dark atmosphere, gloomy intrigue, and supernatural exploits that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It is among the Young Adult books to read this Fall.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by L. M. Peralta

  All rights reserved.

  Summary: After the Archangel Raphael murders her parents, Lia discovers she can make angels fall from grace by touching them. With nowhere to turn, Lia is asked by the fallen angel, Lucifer, to make Raphael and his followers fall in exchange for her soul.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-9888448-9-6

  Contents

  Title Page

  Books by L. M. Peralta

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Call It a Loan

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Redeemer

  Part Three

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Seven Archangels of Heaven

  ONE

  THE arch of his wings rose above his head. The tips stretched out to the corners of the sky. His soft, blond hair contrasted against the hardened features of his face. He cast his golden eyes down to his staff, deep in the belly of a beast with many eyes and teeth like the pointed studs on a black, leather jacket. Flames erupted around the two figures still in the canvas and yet alive.

  The acrid, bitter taste of turpentine, and the smell of linseed oil permeated the room. Heat came off the standing work light which forced the shadows into the corners. Deflated paint tubes littered the floor. Stacks of unused canvases leaned against each other on the wall. For Whom the Bell Tolls played over the old stereo covered in paint.

  A ladder was propped up alongside the finished painting. The top of the ladder reached the tips of the angel’s wings. The angel’s eyes unnerved me. They seemed to twitch and vibrate like fire in the breeze. The image seemed so…real.

  “You like it?” Dad swished a paintbrush in the water of a gallon jug with the top cut off.

  His shoulder length, ruddy brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, but a few strands escaped, matted to the sheen of sweat on his brow. He wore a golden cross, wrapped in silver thorns, around his neck.

  I nodded. “Who’s it going to?”

  “A little gallery on Bienville.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “A little gallery?”

  “Diavolo.” He smirked.

  “Marcus Diavolo! Dad, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I gave his secretary my portfolio last week. I wanted to know for sure first before I said anything to you and your mom. Didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “You wouldn’t have disappointed me. I don’t care what the world thinks.”

  He smiled at me while he dried the paintbrush with a worn rag.

  “You need to tell Mom,” I said. “She’s going to die when she finds out.”

  “No, no, no,” he said. “We have something much more important to celebrate tonight. It’s your sweet sixteen. You won’t get away that easily.”

  I groaned. “I’m a little too old for birthday parties.” I was sixteen. At least, that’s how old I supposed I was.

  No one knew my birthday. I know weird, right? I didn’t have a birth certificate. So, my parents made November 11th my honorary birthday. The 11th of November, ten years ago, was the day they adopted me, the day my whole life changed for the better.

  Micah and Alexandria Hebert were the only parents I’d ever known. I was found alone in an abandoned house when I was too small for kindergarten. The house was on the market for ages, and the owners lived in Tennessee. They had no idea who I was.

  “Li, you know how your mom feels about this. You’re the only little girl she’ll ever have.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “You can celebrate teenage-style with your friends this weekend.”

  My friends. Yeah, if I had any. I used to have a lot of friends before high school. Felicia Drake and I were friends since first grade. That was until she made it her personal mission to make my life hell. I didn’t ask for Mike Breyers to look at me. I wasn’t interested in him. He was on the football team, and Felicia had a known crush on him which made him off limits to anyone else. When he asked me to the Spring Dance, she all but lost it.

  All throughout freshman year, I would find gum stuck to my locker and get tripped in the hallway by Felicia or one of her new friends. Felicia spread rumors about me and made passive aggressive comments every chance she got. By my sophomore year, the whole school thought I was adopted because my bio-mom went to jail for prostitution, and my birth father was her pimp. So, no, I didn’t have any friends. Unless I could count my dad.

  “Come on, what do you say?” He squeezed my shoulder.

  I laughed. “Dad, you’ll get paint on me.” I shrugged away from him. “Alright, we can celebrate, but I’ll secretly be celebrating this.” I motioned to the painting. “Diavolo. Wow.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.” He looked at the backs of his hands and at his palms, covered in paint. Several more splotches stained his white t-shirt. “Can you get the radio? I’m going to jump in the shower.” He worked all night. Dad said the muses came for him in the dark. “After school, when your mom gets home, we’ll have cake, presents, and we’ll drive into the city for dinner.”

  “Okay.” I lifted my backpack from the concrete floor. “I don’t want to go anyplace fancy.”

  Dad winked. “I would never do that to you.”

  I rolled my eyes and smirked.

  “I gotta go.” I shouldered my backpack.

  “Don’t let school ruin your education,” he said. He echoed the words of Mark Twain. Although, I’m not sure Dad knew Twain said that first.

  I laughed. “I would never do that to you.” If not for the history exam in fourth period, I would have skipped school. I bet Dad wouldn’t mi
nd if I stayed in my room all day on my guitar. But I didn’t do so well in history. I crinkled my nose.

  I left the music of Dad’s studio behind. I arrived at the corner right as the bus pulled up. The doors screeched open, cutting through the silence of the morning. I took a seat in the back and put my headphones on. Fear of the Dark blared in my ears as the bus took off.

  The houses blurred through the windows until the bus entered the city and stopped at a light. A man stood at the corner. He wore baggy clothes and a faded baseball cap. Something twitched at the base of his jacket. I turned my attention to the upholstery of the seat in front of me. I didn’t want to look back and see its eyes. The eyes were always what got me.

  The bus stopped outside St. Andrews, and I walked to class. In third period, I stared at my history test like it was written in Latin. My pen was in my mouth more than it scribbled along the page. The lunch bell rang before I could answer the last question.

  At lunch, I sat alone. Friendships were difficult to maintain with a malicious sixteen-year-old spreading lies about me.

  “Nice t-shirt,” said Felicia. She stood at my table with her gaggle of giggling girls who dressed like her and acted like her. They wore monochromatic colors and heels that I might die in. Felicia’s hand reached the side of her lunch tray. Before I could react, her hand with long, polished onyx black nails gripped the plastic fork and catapulted a forkful of coleslaw at me. The coleslaw plummeted onto my t-shirt and covered my left shoulder in mayo, cabbage, and vinegar hell.

  “Oops.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Heat rose at my temples. Felicia was the only one in school who knew today was my birthday. I didn’t get into fights, and I wouldn’t let Felicia Drake ruin my birthday with a trip to the principal’s office.

  Felicia’s heels clicked along the laminate cafeteria room floor. She laughed with the other girls. Her heels were at least three inches high, not that she needed the extra height.

  Fall, fall, fall.

  She didn’t.

  I grabbed a handful of napkins and scooped up the mess from my shoulder. The vinegar stung my nose. I tossed the napkins in my tray and threw the rest of my lunch in the garbage. The food didn’t taste that good anyway. Soon, I would get ice cream and cake courtesy of my mom.

  I went to the bathroom to get the rest of the coleslaw off my shirt, hoping to get the smell out. Armed with a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, I wet them in the sink and leaned in to peer into the mirror and see where the stain was. A sizable white smear was on my black t-shirt, and bits of cabbage hung from my shoulder. I wiped at the stain with the towels. I made progress, but the smell lingered.

  One fluorescent light blinked on and off. Coldness crept onto my skin. My sweater’s arms were tied securely around my waist. I should have put the sweater on before the cold turned my fingernails purplish-blue.

  A dark form blurred at the edge of my vision. I tried not to look. I didn’t see them more than two or three times a week, and when I did, I tried to ignore them. But this time I couldn’t ignore the dark shape reflected in the mirror. The thing crouched in the corner of the bathroom. The creature was thin with skin the color of charcoal and a bald, bulbous head. It faced away from me toward the wall. It shook and whimpered.

  Before my parents adopted me, family services took me to a string of psychologists. I saw them. Horrible monsters. They said my hallucinations were a result of what I went through, being abandoned by my bio-mom. That they weren’t there.

  “Not there. Not there. Not there,” I chanted and closed my eyes.

  Thud! Tap. Tap. My fingertips squeezed the ceramic surface of the sink. Did it move? But I didn’t dare open my eyes. I continued to chant.

  “What are you doing?” Felicia’s voice bounced off the walls.

  My eyes shot open.

  “Not there. Not there,” she mocked. “No matter how many times you wish that wasn’t the face staring back at you, your reflection will always be the same. So, you can give up.”

  I glared at her. “You got coleslaw all over my shirt. I smell like vinegar and mayonnaise. Today’s my birthday. I know you know that. Did you have to come in here and—”

  I broke off. Crimson eyes, wide and round like headlights stained red after a hit-and-run, stared at me through the glass.

  My breath trapped in my lungs. I turned away from the mirror.

  “You can cry if you want to,” said Felicia.

  I pushed past her and into the hallway.

  The rest of the day, I wore my sweater in class to smother the smell of vinegar. I couldn’t get the stain out, and even the thick cotton of my sweater didn’t work hard enough to mask the smell. I hoped only I could smell the harsh aroma since the fumes were on me.

  I should have taken off my shirt in the bathroom and just worn my sweater, but I wasn’t going into another school bathroom, not for a long time. My skin prickled. Was the creature still huddled in the corner? What did it want?

  The bell rang. I folded my pen into my notebook and pinned the notebook to my chest. The teacher fought to finish her sentence over the flutter of paper, chatter, and the shuffle of feet. I picked up my backpack and slung one strap onto my shoulder as I headed out the classroom. With my head down, I marched down the hallway. The sun hit my face as I made for the entrance of the school, and I ducked my head lower. My hair veiled the sides of my face. I collided into someone. Michael Breyers.

  His gray-blue eyes anchored me. “Lia.”

  I turned to look over my shoulder. Felicia and her troop passed through the doors of the school. She would hate it if she saw me talking to Mike. So, that’s what I did. She was over him, but a little light conversation would remind her of my betrayal.

  “Hi, Mike,” I said. I didn’t flirt. I talked about the history mid-term, but I knew that was enough.

  Felicia glared at me as she passed.

  Mike was on the football team so he turned the conversation to the big game. I ignored him as he droned on.

  A man stood across the street from the school. His eyes were on me. His hair was black, but his skin was pale as if never touched by sunlight. I knew that was wrong though. He had been touched by something brighter than the sun. He wore a white t-shirt with a leather jacket and jeans. On his hands were black gloves. Something white arched above his shoulders on either side.

  “Lia, did you hear me?”

  My eyes were again tethered to Mike’s. “Yeah. I have to go.” I ripped my gaze away.

  I walked home. In a little less than an hour, I was inside. I dropped my backpack at the door. Mom would be home from work any minute.

  The bracelets on my wrists knocked against each other as I gripped the bannister and jogged up the stairs.

  I opened the door to my bedroom. Posters made the walls invisible. AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and R.E.M. held up the ceiling. The floor was a bed of unwashed clothes. My Firebird leaned against the wall next to the amp. One of the strings popped the last time I played. Beside my desk was a waste basket full of the crumpled remains of several failed drafts of an essay I worked on for class.

  The essay was on Colonialism in early America. The essay wasn’t my greatest venture. Studying history was as dull as listening to music through earmuffs. The paper was due next Friday. I sighed.

  Sim wandered into my room. She stretched her long feline body and sauntered over to me. I reached down to stroke her fur. “There you are, girl,” I said. She meowed.

  Sim disappeared in the house. She went missing for hours. Dad thought the house harbored a crawlspace we didn’t know about and that Sim wandered into the hole from time to time. The house was old. Dad inherited the home from his mother. I never met her. Both my parents’ parents died before they adopted me.

  I took off my Kiss shirt. It still held the faint scent of vinegar. I picked up a black t-shirt from the floor and pressed my nose into the fabric. I shrugged, pulled the shirt on over my tank top, and took a quick glance in the sta
nding mirror in the corner of my room. My fingers combed through my long hair, light brown and dyed reddish-pink at the ends. My blood red nail polish looked like tiny misshaped hearts in the center of each fingernail. My nose ring looped over the edge of one nostril.

  I flashed a smile and headed out the bedroom door. The front door squealed open as I took the stairs two at a time.

  Mom walked in, juggling her purse and a white cake box. She wore flats because heels made her too tall. Slim with hair the color of charcoal that flowed down her back like ink, she wore a patterned dress and a dark blazer.

  People who didn’t know I was adopted said I looked like my dad. Maybe that was because I was so different from my mom. She was a tall, raven beauty, while I was short, right under five two with light brown hair and almond shaped eyes. Mom’s skin was light as cream, and mine was tannish and darkened easily in the sun.

  “Hey, Mom, can I help you with that?” I grabbed the box from her.

  “Thanks, honey. Can you put that on the counter for me?” she asked.

  “Sure thing.”

  She walked down the hall and turned. “Oh, and Happy Birthday!”

  “You told me twice this morning, Ma.”

  She smiled. “I know, baby, and I’ll probably say it twice more before the day is out.”

  I smiled back, shook my head, and rolled my eyes. I set the cake on the counter. A knock sounded at the front door.

  Uncle Jonah stood on the porch. His eyes were bloodshot. “Happy Birthday, Li!” He grinned and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Hey,” I said. “Cake’s on the table. Just waiting on Mom and Dad.”

  Jonah wrung his hands as he walked in. His eyes darted as if afraid someone might jump him.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Sure, sure. I gotta use the bathroom.” He wandered down the hall and into the guest bathroom.

  Meanwhile, Dad came down the stairs. He wore jeans and a t-shirt. His hair was loose and stringy around his face.