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

by L. M. Peralta

  After the angels attacked, Bob warded Hell against intruders for three years. He explained that no angel, unless fallen, could get in, not even through a portal.

  “He couldn’t ward all of Sheol,” Kiran said. “If Michael goes through the Circles, he could get in. The Circles are harder to ward because no one, not even Lucifer, wants to go down there.”

  Lucifer wouldn’t go into the Circles? How could she control what went on down there if she never visited? That would be like a manager who never checked up on his employees.

  “But someone should,” I said. “What are the odds that Michael will try to get in through the Circles?”

  “It depends on how much of a threat he thinks you are, Angel Killer,” Chandra said.

  ANGEL Killer.

  Chandra was right. That’s what I am.

  My head leaned against the headboard of my bed. My guitar cradled in my arms, I strummed a few notes. The notes warmed me like the sun in winter.

  I hadn’t seen Adriel since the battle a few weeks ago. There was so much I wanted to say to him. But I knew that Nash wouldn’t want me to see him. I wasn’t sure why Nash didn’t like Adriel. Maybe the two of them crossed paths before?

  Whatever the reason, the last thing Nash had to know right now was that I wanted to find Adriel. But maybe he didn’t have to know.

  I knew someone who could help. And I knew right where to find him. I unhooked the amp and placed my guitar in its case.

  Tom sat in the armchair in the library and read. He looked up from his book when I entered.

  “You hear me every time,” I said.

  “I’m used to the quiet,” he said. “I notice when it’s disturbed.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No problem.” He closed the book. “I have an eternity. I’m afraid I’ll run out of books.”

  I tried to imagine myself in Tom’s shoes. He loved reading. What would he do if the world stopped making books?

  “I have a favor to ask,” I said.

  “Ask away, but I can’t promise I’ll oblige.” He smiled.

  “I want to see Adriel. Where can I find him?”

  My question hung in the air for a while, long enough that I felt awkward for asking. I wasn’t ashamed of the question per se, but the silence was unsettling.

  Tom leaned forward in his chair. “There’s a special place in Hell for fallen angels.”

  “Will you bring me there?”

  Tom smirked. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nash won’t…”

  “I’m not Nash’s prisoner. He doesn’t make decisions for me.”

  “Clearly,” Tom said. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I? If I don’t take you, you’ll try to find it on your own, and that would be a disaster.”

  “So, you’ll take me.”

  “If, and only if, you don’t say anything to Nash,” he said.

  “I can’t see why I would.”

  “Okay, but we have to be quick. You’re hunting a demon tonight, a Balban. Tough suckers.”

  “Have you told Nash yet? I don’t think he’ll want to go. He wants to dedicate every spare minute to training to fight Michael.”

  “He knows Lucifer won’t let him ignore demons while he hunts angels. Hope you don’t mind walking. I hate to drive.”

  “That’s fine.” I didn’t think my stomach could handle anymore race car driving.

  The walk was therapeutic. Frustration, fear, and guilt flooded my mind, but the walk brought me some ease. I always walked home from school when I had a bad day. It calmed me.

  It was a short moment of sanctuary among chaos. Tom let me have that moment. He didn’t say anything as he walked with his hands in his pockets.

  He probably had his own stuff to think about. I wasn’t immune to the fact that what happened to me would affect others as well, including him. I hoped Lucifer wouldn’t banish my friends to the Circles, or worse the Pit, if we failed.

  Tom and I stood before a tall, iron gate. Beyond the gate was a city. The clouds above the city were darker than those surrounding it. Neon lights glowed from the buildings, which huddled close together.

  Two men stood guard. Giants would be a better description than men. They each stood over seven and a half feet tall by my rough estimate. Their foreheads jutted out above their narrow eyes. They looked like twin brothers with the exact same bulbous nose, high cheek bones, and large lips except one had a swollen eye that made it look like he was eternally winking.

  “What’s your business?” Winks asked.

  “Not business,” Tom said. “Pleasure.”

  The way he said pleasure in a deep cadence made me uneasy. Had Tom been here before? Even from a distance the area looked seedy like the kind of place where murders happen in detective movies.

  Each twin wrapped a massive hand around the bars of the heavy, iron gates and pulled them open.

  I followed Tom past the gates and into the city.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “The Angel District.”

  Neon lights glowed in the gloom. Buildings stacked on top each other. Loud music assaulted my ears.

  There was nothing angelic about this place. It was dark, grimy, and smelled like a mixture of vomit and alcohol.

  The people, or the demons, wore a range of clothing from suits and dresses to leather jackets and crop tops. The only similarities were the smiles on their faces, the laughter, and the jeers.

  But there were also people in chains, not people, angels. Their wings no longer had full white feathers, but were now bones, hanging useless from their backs. Large chains collared their necks, and more chains bound their hands and feet.

  A few demons chose not to look like people. Some had red faces with pointed horns. Their eyes glowed yellow in the dark. Others had patchy skin that wrinkled in odd places like across the cheeks and scalp. They had muscled bodies and wielded whips and hammers.

  One demon pulled a fallen angel around on his hands and knees like a dog. He barked orders, and the angel was obedient. The angel was once a beautiful winged warrior with white blond hair and soft feathered wings. Was he one of the angels that I touched? He ate food off the ground as a horned demon screamed in his ear.

  Tears wet my cheeks, and I thought I might begin to sob.

  Tom grasped my arms. “Lia,” he said. “Stay close to me, and don’t look at anybody. There are things down here you shouldn’t see.”

  “I did this to them,” I said.

  Tom shook his head. “Lucifer did this to them. You think this is bad? Think of how bad the Circles must be, how bad the Pit must be. It’s because of her that this is here. Not you. Don’t look at anything, and don’t meet eyes with anyone. Do you understand me?”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  I kept my head down and watched Tom’s back as he moved through the crowd. The place was packed, and filled back in once Tom pushed through.

  “Don’t look away!” Someone grabbed my arm and turned me around.

  “Don’t look away!” the red-eyed demon bellowed as he pulled the chain connected to the angel’s throat. Two demons, a man and woman from their figures, pawed each other over their clothes. His hands traveled to her tailbone. She twisted his shirt in her fists and crushed her lips against his. The angel tried again to divert his eyes, but the red-eyed demon grabbed his chin and forced his face forward.

  The two demons undressed. I turned my eyes away.

  “Look at this,” a slurred voice said. “New blood.”

  A man in a leather jacket stood in front of me with a bottle of beer in his hand. He sounded like he had had a few beers before that one. He was tall and muscular and had the scent of alcohol on his breath.

  He took a swig of beer as a woman put her hand on his chest.

  “Who do we have here, Sam?” she asked. She wore a tight-fitting knee length dress, like she had come to the bar straight from an office job. Her dark, red lipstick was stark
against her pale skin.

  “New comer,” Sam said. “Look, Delilah, I think she might be scared.”

  The woman turned her gaze to me. Her eyes widened. She looked up at Sam. “Sam, she’s human.”

  Sam crooked his head back to take another swallow of beer, but when he heard that, he stopped. His bottle tilted away from his lips. “Is she now?” He smashed the bottle on the ground behind him. “What would a human be doing in Sheol?”

  “Are you taking a spirit walk or something?” Delilah asked.

  I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. She had a slight glint to her voice. She sounded too drunk to be sure.

  “How did you know so soon, babe?” Sam asked.

  “Look at her eyes. I could tell right off.”

  My eyes? Something in my eyes showed I was human. But what? Most demons looked like people. Often, I couldn’t see any flaw in the disguise. Could demons lift the Veil on each other?

  I turned around.

  Oh, no, Tom!

  I had no idea where he was.

  “Hey, hey, wait a minute.” Sam grabbed my arm as I tried to leave.

  I pulled away from him. I doubt it would have been as easy if he hadn’t been drunk.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I pushed through the crowd. In the middle of the street people gathered shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow. It was difficult to push through.

  Despite what Tom had told me and the disgusting things I had seen, my curiosity got the better of me. I could see between the bodies of a few people in front of me.

  A tall, black demon with red eyes and curved black horns whipped an angel who stood with his arms spread.

  Demons whipped the backs of angels. The people in the crowd threw golden coins at them.

  The currency was unfamiliar. The coins looked ancient. I guessed on Earth the money had fallen out of use.

  The demon swung the whip. Lashes bit into the angel’s back, and black blood oozed onto the concrete. The whip must have been laced in Arcadian Steel. The demon forced the angel’s head low to the ground. “Pick them up,” he bellowed.

  The angel scrambled to pick up the glittering coins from the ground while the others around her did as well.

  I searched the crowd for Tom. I dared not yell out his name. I didn’t want the attention of the demons on me.

  “Lia!”

  Far above me, in a window, a pair of darkened eyes gazed down at me.

  Adriel.

  Pushing through the crowd with more vigor than before, I hurried to the building and tore open the door. I found the steps. Which room was it?

  A cockroach scurried down the hallway. The wallpaper peeled in curls down the walls. Graffiti marked either side of the hall. My feet pounded against the uneven laminate tiles that lifted from the floor.

  Some of the doors were shut with numerous bolts and latches. Others had been torn off their hinges.

  Cries echoed down the hall.

  I opened a door. This had to be the one. The room was bare except for a twin-size bed in the corner. No sheets or blankets covered the dirty mattress. The walls were yellowed and brown in the corners where they met the ceiling and floor.

  An iron collar hung around Adriel’s neck. A chain went from the collar to a bolt in the floor.

  He turned his head. His face was pale. His once-shiny, black hair had turned ashy and dull. His golden irises had darkened to black. Thick, black bones grew from his shoulder blades and thinner bones branched from thicker ones.

  I destroyed something that was once so beautiful.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I rushed into his arms. He enveloped me, but his embrace no longer held that intense feeling of warmth. That touch of bliss was gone. It felt no different than if I had been hugged by anyone.

  “This place is so terrible,” I whispered into his arm.

  “I would have come to you, but I couldn’t,” he said. “I carried my headstone. Then, I had to come here.”

  “I’m so sorry for doing this to you.”

  He cradled my face in his hands. “Lia, you saved me.”

  My breath caught.

  “There you are.” Tom exhaled. He bent double with his hands on his knees. He looked up at me. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  I turned away from Adriel and back to Tom. “I lost you in the crowd.”

  “You should have stayed where you were. Luckily, I heard him yell your name. Come on, we have to go back to Nash’s place.”

  “I’m not leaving without Adriel,” I said.

  “What? We can’t take him with us. The guards won’t let him past the gate.”

  I wouldn’t let Adriel stay another minute in this place, not after all he had done for me. He was my guardian angel for heaven’s sake.

  “Go,” Adriel said. “I’m grateful you came, but don’t come back. I can’t bare for you to see me in this place.”

  I turned to him. “But Adriel.”

  “He’s right,” Adriel said. “Even if I could get pass the guards, they’ll know I’m gone.”

  “What will they do to you?” I looked from Adriel back to Tom, challenging them with the question.

  Tom grabbed my arm. “They’ll hunt him down and throw him into the Pit.”

  FOUR

  THE air smelled of burnt leaves. We left the darkness that gathered around the Angel District behind us. Tom strolled silently beside me. The place burned me more than him.

  I wanted to slap away Tom’s stillness. He didn’t care about Adriel the way I did, but no one could be bankrupt of pity after seeing Adriel in that place.

  Nash’s car sat in the driveway. The car had no license plate upon its sleek body.

  Tom and I walked through the front door as Nash came down the stairs.

  “Oh, great,” Tom whispered in my ear. “Let me do the talking.” He shut the door behind us.

  I didn’t care if Nash knew where I had gone. He knew where they had taken Adriel, and he didn’t do anything about it. He hated him, but that place was sick.

  “Where were you two?” Nash asked.

  “We went to the Angel District,” I said.

  Tom, looking betrayed, glared at me and ducked into the living room.

  “You what?”

  “I saw Adriel,” I said. “I don’t want him there.”

  “Lia, what were you thinking?”

  “He’s living in squalor. Worse than squalor. I don’t know what to call it. How could you not tell me? I want Lucifer to let him out.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Make it happen.”

  “I don’t understand why you have this sense of loyalty to him.”

  “He saved us. Have you forgotten? He fought with us, and you would let him live an eternity like that?” My voice trembled, and my fingernails bit into my palms.

  “No one knows whose side Adriel is on,” Nash said. “Before he fell, he might have wanted to hand you over to Raphael.”

  “He saved your life, Nash. He’s protected me for more than half mine. He fought with us against the angels that came to Sheol. What more does he have to do to prove to you that he is on our side? Why would you think he would give me over to Raphael?”

  “Perhaps he planned to hand you over to Michael. Michael would have killed you. He still might.”

  I pressed my lips together. “Adriel had plenty of opportunities to hand me over to anyone he wished, but instead he watched and protected me. Don’t you think we might need him to defend ourselves against Michael? Angels can’t be harmed by anything but Arcadian Steel.”

  Nash shook his head. “Fallen angels are different. They are more resistant to weapons than humans or demons, but they can still bleed.”

  I folded my arms. “We’re talking about Michael. If he’s really the badass you all say he is, we need as many weapon-resistant fallen angels on our side as we can get.”

  “It’s not up to me. It’s up to Lucifer.”

  I marched up the stairs and stop
ped on the step next to him. “You could help him if you wanted to. You hate him, and that’s fine, but he saved us, and he suffered for it in the worse way imaginable.”

  I continued up the stairs, down the hall, and shut the door to my room.

  If Nash wasn’t going to help me, I had to find another way.

  Adriel was chained to the center of that little room. He should have been able to break those chains. Maybe being fallen made him weaker.

  Or maybe he thought it would be useless to run. Tom said they would find him. Could there be some way he could leave Sheol?

  Only a few days ago, I made him fall. So, he hadn’t been in the Angel District for long. Soon, they would take him down with the others to be tortured and ridiculed.

  I rubbed my eyes.

  Lucifer was a fallen angel. How could she do that to her own kind?

  I needed time to think. I couldn’t walk in unarmed and expect to walk out with an angel. I needed a plan, but that would take too much time. As soon as I came up with something, Adriel would have spent days, maybe weeks in that place.

  My sheathed sword leaned in the corner of the wall. A dagger rested in my bedside drawer. I could awaken both weapons and tear down anyone who got in my way of taking Adriel out of the Angel District.

  But what then?

  They’ll hunt him down and throw him into the Pit.

  THE road twisted through the trees. Time faded the yellow lines that bisected the street. Naked branches reached over the highway on either side as if the trees tried to embrace.

  Light glowed through the fog and caused shadows to stretch onto the road. Crows cawed, and leaves crunched in the distance.

  “Tom said we’re looking for a Balban.” I stood in the middle of the street, which seemed like the safest place to be. Darkness draped the dense trees, but standing water reflected moonlight on the road. “What does one look like?”

  “They don’t often show their true form,” Nash said. “Be careful. A Balban is a demon of delusion. It will try to trick you.”

  “But I’ll be able to see through that,” I said.

  “Your sight isn’t perfect,” Nash said.

  He was right. I could see demons. Sometimes I saw their full forms, other times I could only see the horns, the tail, or the eyes. I couldn’t completely see through the guises Tom, Adrianna, Kiran, and Chandra wore. Maybe I didn’t want to.