by Hanna Peach
Dark Angel Books 1-6
Angelfire, Angelstone, Angelsong, Angelblood, Angeldust, Afterlife
Hanna Peach
Table of Contents
Angelfire (#1)
Angelstone (#2)
Angelsong (#3)
Angelblood (#4)
Angeldust (#5)
Afterlife (#6)
Dark Angel Books 1-6: Angelfire, Angelstone, Angelsong, Angelblood, Angeldust, Afterlife / by Hanna Peach.
First Digital Edition: November 2012
Published by Gypsy Publishing
Copyright 2016 Hanna Peach
Cover art copyright 2019 German Creative. All Rights Reserved Hanna Peach. Stock images: shutterstock
Editing & proofreading services by Proof Positive: http://proofpositivepro.com.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Angelfire (Dark Angel #1)
Hanna Peach
Forget everything you know about angels…
To Bryce Courtenay (R.I.P.) – for teaching me about writing and for believing in me when I didn’t.
To Dad – for everything else.
Chapter 1
Occupational hazards. For most people this meant things like paper cuts or drinking too much at the Christmas party and making a spectacle out of yourself. Alyxandria’s occupational hazards were a bit more…peculiar. Like getting the sharp end of a blade stuck in her face.
“Pretty lightwarrior,” the Darkened hissed at Alyx, making her cringe.
Apparently death by bad breath was another thing she had to worry about.
Their weapons shook with the strain of pressing against each other, his blade inching closer and closer.
Her flock leader, Symon, was nearest to her, fighting off his own pair of Darkened, humans possessed by demons. Elysia and Xavier, two of her best friends as well as lightwarriors in her flock, were fighting back-to-back on the other side of the basement of this abandoned building. The air in here was musty with the distinct odor of sweat and urine. Maybe somebody ate the cleaner.
The Darkened growled and his red eyes, showing from beneath his mortal façade, narrowed. “You’d make a good supper, I think.”
“Your back, Alyx!” Symon yelled. Alyx heard the unnerving sing of a blade being unsheathed behind her.
Getting her head chopped off. That was another thing she liked to avoid.
“Sorry,” Alyx said, kicking the first Darkened off her. “I don’t cook.” She ducked, spun under the sword that swiped at her from behind, and lashed back at the second Darkened, her sword finding its home in his heart. He dropped to the ground with all the grace of a ton of rocks.
Alyx landed in a crouch, her eyes scanning the area. She whipped out a dagger from her boot and sent it hurling towards Symon’s head. It missed him and hit the Darkened behind him, who was about to strike. The Darkened and his sword dropped to the concrete floor with a clatter. Symon nodded briefly to her in thanks.
Now, where did that first Darkened go? She spotted him running up the creaky wooden stairs two at a time. She launched herself across the room and landed in front of him. “You’re not thinking of leaving now, are you? We’re just getting acquainted.”
The Darkened growled and swiped low, trying to take out her feet. She jumped into the air somersaulting over him, her sword whistling as she swiped at his throat. A line of red appeared. He made a gurgling noise, then dropped. She tsked. “Amateur.”
Alyx sheathed her weapons and surveyed the scene. Elysia and Xavier had taken care of their Darkened and Symon was just pulling his blade out of his last one. There were a lot of bodies littering the ground. An uneasy feeling settled in her stomach. The Darkened didn’t usually hunt in groups as large as this one.
The rest of the bodies were mortals, already dead. Life drained completely from them.
“We have a live one,” Xavier called from the other side of the basement.
Alyx tucked her sword into her back sheath and flew down to Xavier’s side. Xavier was standing over a young man, maybe twenty-five winters, lying curled on a urine-soaked mattress. Thus, the source of that lovely smell. There was life left in him but only barely, his chest moving only ever so slightly.
“Move aside,” said Symon. He bent down and placed his palms on the man’s head. With MemorySong magic, Symon destroyed the memory of this mortal’s last twenty-four hours. The mortal would wake the next day with a throbbing headache but with no memory of the night before. Alcohol or drugs would inevitably be blamed. The thin memory strands that did remain may filter out into his consciousness, but only as an occasional nightmare or the rare flash of panic that somehow his life was fading before his eyes. The mortal would never connect these things to what happened to him tonight.
Alyx and the others walked around setting the dead bodies alight with FireTwirler magic drawn from the bloodink tattoos that marked their arms like badges. They worked in silence destroying the evidence of the supernatural activity that had occurred here, the Darkened bodies disintegrating to ashes within seconds, the mortal bodies taking longer.
When they were done Alyx and her flock of warriors slipped from the building into the balmy night. If any mortal saw them they would pass the Seraphim off as human; they looked mortal, representing all races, and were wingless. Only the warriors’ uniforms, variations of black leather and metal, made most mortals do a double take before giving them a wide berth. Underneath their blacks each warrior was armed to the teeth.
Alyx favored the soris, a sword with a blade like a long thin flame; the kris, a wavy knife that tapered to an unforgiving point; and the dijis, a simple but effective boot dagger. Her blades were all custom-made, a luxury for a mere lightwarrior. The metals of each blade had been blended by Ferrum, Michaelea’s best steelforger, a Castus gifted with the Alchemist. Each blade was weighted exactly for Alyx, fitted perfectly into her hand like an extension of her arm and was suited to her fighting style. Each one was a work of art. None of her friends knew how she really earned the gold to pay for her blades and she would never tell.
Alyx’s skin prickled at the feeling of life leaking out into the night air. More Darkened were nearby and more mortals were dying. This would be a long night but that didn’t bother her. Killing Darkened was what she was born to do.
She followed the others down a small alley where they would regroup with the other four members of their flock. She didn’t make it two more steps before she felt it coming, rising up from somewhere deep inside her. Oh God. Not again. Her sight closed over with darkness and she felt the sensation of falling.
The demon-girl held her sword awkwardly away from her thin body as she faced him. Her demon face flickered under mortal skin − burning red eyes, lime skin, horns protruding from her forehead and cheekbones.
Rage ignited like a fire in him, curling through his blood, licking across his skin and crying for revenge. He attacked, swinging his steel at her.
His hungry blade sliced across her pale skin. In his mouth he tasted the satisfaction of drawing first blood. The demon-girl cried out in pain. It sounded high and girlish but he could hear the angry roar of the demon voice underneath it, separate but seamless like two notes of a twisted melody. The rancid blood oozing down her arm smel
led like burning rubber. He ignored the bile that rose in his throat when the stench met his nose. He slashed out again and again. She tried to fight back but she wasn’t as skilled as he was. Too bad for her.
Her sword dropped as the last of her wretched life left her eyes. She fell. He kicked her over onto her back. She would do as the canvas for his message. He knelt down beside her and began to cut.
Alyx inhaled audibly, like she had been drowning, as the scene of crimson blood receded from her sight and the world around her began to return.
“Alyx?” Symon was holding her up, peering at her with concern on his face. “What the hell was that?”
Dammit.
“I…er, nothing.” She glanced around, seeing the curious eyes of her flock mates gathered in a tight circle. She couldn’t tell them she had started seeing things. They would think she was going crazy. “I just got dizzy. I don’t think I ate enough at Last Meal.”
Symon’s mouth whitened at he pressed his lips together. Damn. He didn’t believe her. Of course he wouldn’t. Symon was her flock leader and the closest thing Alyx had to a father. After her parents abandoned her, Alyx was thrust into the care of foster parents. She had been quickly passed on to the next unlucky couple every time she became uncontrollable. Symon had been the only one who hadn’t given up on her. He had spotted her beating up a foster brother twice her size and had seen the potential in her. He took her in, raised her, and trained her. Eventually she grew to trust him, to a point. If anyone could tell that she was lying, Symon could.
“Everybody go on ahead,” Symon said, not taking his eyes off her. “Alyx and I will catch up.”
Nobody moved.
Only then did Symon look around, a glare marring his handsome face. “Didn’t I just give you an order? Everyone move. Now!”
One by one they peeled away and melted into the night. Elysia squeezed Alyx’s shoulder before she, too, flew off.
Symon turned back to Alyx. His grip on her hadn’t loosened. If anything it had tightened. “I ask you again. What the hell was that?”
* * *
Saint Joseph was a mortal city afflicted by its memories, cobbled stones worn smooth by yesterday’s armies, buildings scarred by fire and spitting metal. Marking the sky with their pointed spires were the city’s twenty-three cathedrals, all now standing in various forms of disrepair. The citizens jokingly called them “demon’s teeth”. The religious culture here now blurred with superstition; few streets had a number 13, black kittens were bundled into unmarked sacks, mothers snatched their children away from deformed street wretches while marking crosses in the air with their fingers and hissing, “Devil, devil.”
If only they knew that the devils wore prettier faces.
Cloaked by night, Alyx led Symon over Remembrance Park. Taking up four blocks of Saint Joseph, it was outlined by an iron fence that had sections missing, edges of metal curling away like dried leaves. The air here always smelled like the ghost of smoke. The few lamps that still worked gave off a sickly light. This late at night it was empty of mortals. At least, any mortals that were still alive.
“There,” Alyx pointed at the body of a girl below, crumpled on the grass. A girl that she had just witnessed being murdered. After making sure they wouldn’t be spotted by any mortals, they began their descent.
She was barely more than a girl. She had seen sixteen winters at most, only two winters less than Alyx had survived herself. She might have been lying asleep among the wildflowers, if it hadn’t been for her eyes, frosty and pallid like fish bellies, and the unnatural way she had collapsed on her right leg.
Oh, and all that blood.
As Alyx touched down, she felt a pang of pity for her. Symon landed on the ground beside Alyx. He made a small noise deep in his throat. “Just as you said.”
“You need to see what he did to her stomach.”
Symon frowned before maneuvering his feet closer to the girl, careful not to disturb the blood drops that had collected on the blades of grass like fallen rubies. Alyx scanned the area around them and the glint of something in the moonlight caught her eye. A quick glance at Symon showed him crouching over the girl, his back to Alyx.
Under Symon’s patient guidance, Alyx had learned how to move without sound. Her face was like polished marble, all cool lips and guarded cheekbones, framed on either side by two long, midnight blades of otherwise short, choppy hair. But her eyes still betrayed her spirit, green like a wild sea.
Two silent steps and Alyx was picking up the object. A ring. On a chain, now broken. It was plain gold except for five engraved words in cursive script: Ani Ledodi Ve Dodi Li.
It meant, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.
This was a token of love. She had read about love in illegal mortal books, but she had never seen it, at least not among the Seraphim. The Elders always said: “Love is an unreliable way to choose a partner. The Seraphim have no use for love if we are to survive.”
Alyx tried to remember, had the girl been wearing this? No, it wasn’t hers. It belonged to him. The killer. The man whose eyes she saw through. Who was he? Who loved him? Did he love them back?
Her eyes darted again to Symon, now pulling at the girl’s shirt, sticky with drying blood. She should tell him about the ring. She opened her mouth to get Symon’s attention but…
I want it back, his voice whispered in her mind.
Where the hell did that come from? I’m hearing things. I’m overtired. Maybe I’ve somehow become high from sniffing basement fumes. Alyx closed her fingers around the ring before slipping it into a pocket of her jacket. She could always tell Symon later. It would get her in trouble with him but she was used to it.
Symon swore when he saw the girl’s stomach.
“He did it after he killed her,” Alyx said as she moved back to Symon’s side.
“Adere?” said Symon, reading the scarlet letters.
“It means burn in the original language.”
“‘Burn’? Why would he write ‘burn’ across her stomach?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll report the body to our Elders. They’ll cross-check with our two brother cities but...” His voice trailed off.
He wouldn’t say it, but Alyx knew what they were both thinking. This slaughter would not be claimed by either of their brother cities. No lightwarrior would be this messy in their execution of the Darkened nor would they have left the body out in the open like this for a mortal to discover. Especially not in the middle of a mortal city. It was against the Code.
That meant someone who lived outside the Society had done this. A Rogue had done this. The killer was a Rogue.
“Are you going to report…me?” Alyx asked.
“You know I have to.”
Alyx grimaced. Her secret would finally come out. These visions that had begun to plague her would be public knowledge. Great, just another reason to stand out. For all the wrong reasons.
Minutes later, the two lightwarriors flew from Remembrance Park. They disappeared into the night, leaving behind a girl’s body consumed by white flames. She collapsed into blue dust and was blown apart by the wind.
Chapter 2
The Seraphim city of Michaelea was hidden in the forests of a mountain range, some hundred kilometers as the angel flew from the nearest mortal settlement of Saint Joseph. Alyx once learned that it took six MirageWeavers to maintain the wards over Michaelea. With the wards activated, it didn’t exist to the outside world. Anyone approaching would be repelled from entering the space by what seemed like a deep instinct. Unless you knew it was there, you would miss it completely.
Alyx felt the familiar urge to turn away grow stronger as she and her flock flew closer to the ward’s magical skin. Her ears popped as she broke through the mirage and the city appeared. Below her, the larger buildings looked squat among the sloping forests like giant wooden hippos. The smaller housing pods hung off trees like strange growths. Over time the trees and vines of this forest absorbed the city
into their fabric.
Once they had landed and checked in, Symon dismissed them with instructions to “rest”.
Rest. What a waste of time. But Alyx did as she was told.
Her pod was clustered along with the other lightwarrior pods on the lowest rank of the mountain, green growths shimmering and glossy with insect life. On the inside of her pod two vines competed for dominance, one with thick succulent leaves and the other with frosty spike-like ferns. The royal blues and burnt oranges of butterflies and ladybirds flickered through the air.
On three shelves fixed against the wall that abutted the trunk, Alyx kept her clothes, mostly warrior blacks and training gear, folded in stacks, along with a few rolled up Threads: the Lightwarrior’s Protocol, A History of Seraphim Before, and the Code. But her real treasures lay hidden.
Between the bottom two shelves, behind a false wall panel, was a secret compartment, a hollow cut into the tree. Her night-race winnings, pouches full of gold, were stashed here as were mortal trinkets that she’d found abandoned on her nightly patroles, a watch that still kept time, a small silver holder filled with old cigarettes and newspaper clippings showing unexplainable miracles and mortal rescues, evidence to Alyx of the Rogues that had survived the last culling. Sometimes she allowed herself to wonder if her parents were still alive among them.
The hollow also held her most coveted thing of all…mortal books.
One could assimilate the entire contents of a Seraphim Thread by running your hands over it, the thoughts from within the Thread drawing into your mind in an instant. Not like books, where stories had to be drawn out one word after another. The Seraphim had no use for made-up stories, no use for the written word, especially not ones written by mortals. This was why every item in her compartment had been smuggled in.
