Malach caught me eyeing it suspiciously as it flew past me towards the kitchen for another bottle of champagne. “You have less reason to fear them than you do the nuntius,” he said to me reproachfully. “The nuntius are generally mischievous little rascals. The katadonis are, for the most part, faithful servants. They are pure of spirit and selfless of heart.”
“Some of them are just downright little bastards,” Alex muttered, glaring at Malach.
The great archangel didn’t entirely notice. He was still confused. He stood in the corner of the lounge room, refusing to sit, his arms crossed over his enormous chest, glowering at everyone else.
Nimue and Zel were masking their shock by downing glasses of champagne. I sat between Alex and Nate on the couch.
“I would normally have to spend weeks with a soul like that,” Malach said in his deep voice. “I can help them only from the moment they become lucid. It's only then that I can assist them in channeling the flow of energy as it comes smashing back into them. Your friend Hannah processed all her karma within a few short moments.” He cocked his head. “How did that happen?”
Everyone turned to look at me. I felt a little uncomfortable.
“I told you before, I don’t know,” I said. “And she’s not my friend. I just felt like I had to call her. I felt horribly guilty about her death. Alex, you said that this had never happened before… maybe it was just a case of you don’t know until you try?”
“Not entirely,” Nimue drawled from where she had draped herself elegantly on a chaise lounge. “Throughout history, family members and loved ones have attempted to call their departed loved ones. Sometimes, it even worked, and their soul came through. The soul, however, would invariably escape and cause terrible damage. They also ended up killing their family in the process.” She paused, and took a sip of her champagne. “Inevitably they end up feeling even more pain, because they just killed their darling, even if by accident.” Nimue's sharp brows furrowed for a moment. “This is the first time we’ve ever contained a soul, spoken to it, and helped it rationalize the pain it was feeling.”
“So…” I let the words hang heavy in the air. “Could we do this again? Could this be the answer to your overflowing Hell?”
The silence in the room was loaded, as everyone thought about it. A tiny seed of hope lodged itself in my chest and started to grow.
“We don’t know all the factors,” Nate finally said. “We don’t know what it is about you, or what exactly happened in that clearing that made the difference.”
Zel drained his champagne, and held out his glass for the passing cherub to fill. “Hannah seemed to become rational the second she recognized you,” he said, smoothing his bright blue hair back. “Thank Hell for that.” He shuddered dramatically. “I couldn’t take any more of those screams.”
I remembered what Zel had looked like while he was holding the barrier in place. The strain on his face was obvious. He was a lot more fragile than he let on.
It made me nervous. Alex had once told me about the rogue demons he and his father had hunted - demons driven insane by the constant screams of the dead. The rogue demons lost the will to block out the negative energy around them, and it seeped inside them, tainting their souls. They became evil incarnate; addicted to the pain that they once loathed. They stalked the lands of the living, reveling in the darkest sins; torture, murder.
That didn’t last long. Both angel and demon alike would hunt them down. The rogue demons were soon neutralized, their corporeal bodies destroyed, cut down with flaming swords, and they were reabsorbed back into the great matrix of the universe.
Looking at Zel now, I wondered if he would ever be tipped over the edge. At least he had friends on his side.
I could feel Malach’s heavy stare, so I turned to face him. “You got her to recognize you,” he said to me. “How?”
I swallowed again. “Uh, I called her, like you told me to,” I said hesitantly. “I thought of a memory of her behaving like an absolute bitch, something she might be ashamed of. And she came through. She didn’t know me at first. It wasn’t until I thought about her dad that she really turned and focused on me.”
Malach narrowed his eyes. “Her father?”
I nodded, feeling my stomach churn. “Bentleigh Savage abused her. He’s the reason she turned out like she did.”
Next to me, Nate stirred. “Your father abused you too,” he said, hatred making his voice uncharacteristically harsh. “You didn’t become like her.”
“I had help. I had Margot.”
His dark eyes softened. “And you make excellent choices.”
I smiled at him. “Most of the time.”
Alex rocked forward, shifting slightly closer to me. “So Hannah was confronted by the architect of her sins?” His voice was loud; it took me by surprise. I still wasn’t quite recovered from the overly loud shrieks and screams from Hannah. I wiggled my finger in my ear. “Was that the key to her ascension, then?” Alex went on.
“I doubt it,” Malach said bluntly. “Many souls feel the sting of their greatest enemy, over and over again. It’s nothing new.”
Nimue sighed and let her head loll back gracefully, giving every indication that she was terminally bored. “I think we may need to accept that it wasn’t one particular factor at play,” she said. “It might have been a combination of things. The location, for example. The convergence of ley lines around here makes for a spectacular energy funnel. The barrier we created was supercharged. Hannah, being confronted by the reason for all her pain, all at once, in a supercharged circle, could have made all the difference. And finally...” Nimue trailed off, and paused for a second. Her eyes flickered involuntarily to Malach - barechested, sculpted, and rippling with muscle under his glistening dark skin - before sharply returning back to face me. “The presence of an archangel who is competent in managing the flow of mortal sins would have helped too,” she finished in a rush.
“Competent,” Malach rumbled. His tone made goosebumps rise on my flesh. “I am unparallelled, Nimue. There is none as good as me. You know this.”
She waved his comment away arrogantly. But not before I saw a flash of naked, unbridled lust in her eyes. I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling.
“Whatever,” she said airily. “The point is, it might be a lot of factors.”
“And it might just be Eve,” Alex said.
Again, everyone stopped to look at me. I squirmed under all the assessing stares.
“I doubt it,” I mumbled.
No one spoke for a moment. The cherub floated by, making little whomp-whomp noises as he fluttered his tiny wings.
“It makes sense,” Alex said again, and he put his arm around me. I leaned into him, feeling the hardness of his muscles under his skin. “You have the Omega energy within you,” he said to me. “Your very essence signifies the end of the world as we know it. To be confronted with that in spirit form, well, it might jolt them out of their misery for a second, so they can see the bigger picture.”
“It’s a little cruel,” Zel said. “For her to be able to help the souls ascend, only to go ahead and give birth to the destruction of the planet.” He shrugged. “But what is God, if not cruel?”
A deep growl came from Malach’s chest. “God is nothing but love.” His amber eyes shot daggers into the demon on the sofa.
Zel ignored him. “So I doubt that it has anything to do with Eve.”
“Thanks, Zel. I’m a little sick of things being all about me.”
“At the same time, we should probably try that again with a different soul.”
“No,” Alex said firmly. “That’s not happening again. She barely missed being smashed to pieces by a giant log. If Hannah had not stopped just in time, she would have been ripped apart by her winds.” He shook his head emphatically.
So much for Alex not being possessive.
“I wouldn’t know who to call, anyway. I don’t have much of a connection to any other dead people.” I sighed, sudden
ly overwhelmingly tired again. I leaned into Alex’s chest, breathing in his heady, seductive scent. “So we’re nowhere closer to finding out who is creating the circles around the resort,” I muttered, trying to think clearly. “I was hoping that calling Hannah in a circle would give me some clue about that little mystery. I need to know if someone is trying to use the circles to call something to kill me.”
I sighed again. “That was the one thing I was hoping for. That Hannah would be able to help me figure out what mystery person was trying to call what mystery entity, and for what mystery purpose.”
Malach stared at me reproachfully. “You assisted a tortured soul in ascending to a higher plane,” he said slowly. “I think you can chalk that up as a win.”
“We’re still not any closer to finding out if this can help us in the long term, even if I do manage to do it again,” I muttered, ignoring him.
“You’ve done something astounding,” Zel said encouragingly. “And it’s all good information. Information, like energy, is neither good nor bad. It just is.”
“Yes, we just need to figure out what we can do with it,” Nate murmured softly.
A lightbulb went off in my head. “I’ll tell you what we can do with this information,” I said. “Let’s tell the Quarters.”
“What?”
“It would be nice to have one less cartel out there trying to kill me,” I said, trying to be chirpy but falling short into faintly optimistic. “Let’s go to Bentleigh Savage. Some of the Quarters are coming here anyway; they’ll be here in a few days. They’re coming to make sure that Mr. Savage isn’t going to bring down their empires." I sat up straighter. "Let’s go meet with them and make a deal. We’re going to try and stop the apocalypse by seeing if I can help these souls. We’ll tell them that we just have to get the combo right; circles, energy, et cetera.” I waved my hand around airily, warming up to my idea.
“Uh, Eve…” Nate eyed me quizzically. “There are trillions of souls in Hell. It would take us years to clear out even a fraction of that. It won’t make a difference.”
“Maybe not,” I said. They don’t need to know that though. The Quarters main currency is information - if we give them some, and it helps me stay alive, well, I’m going to do it.”
“It’s a great plan!” Zel boomed. He rose from the sofa and stretched out. “Let’s do that. Now, we need to wrap this up.”
“What? Wrap what up?”
“This meeting,” he told me. “Nimue and I have to go.”
Just then, there was a loud knock on the bungalow door. Metatron, tucking his dishcloth into his apron, rushed to open it.
I raised my eyebrow at Zel. He gazed back at me innocently. “What?”
“What are you up to, Zel?”
“I have a date.”
“With who?”
There was a flash of golden light, and the cherub vanished. The champagne bottle he had been holding hurtled to the floor. Nimue disappeared from next to me and reappeared on the other side of the room, catching the bottle before it smashed. “No point wasting a good vintage,” she said idly. She saluted the two giant imps in the kitchen with it before taking a swig straight from the bottle. “Off you go, fellas. You’re dismissed.” They disapparated with a couple of loud pops. Nimue turned to me and smiled.
A new voice drifted into the lounge room. “Hi, Bruce! Are you ready to get your butt whipped?”
It took me a second to realize it was Dale at the door.
“Nim!” I heard Clover call out. “Are you coming? I got Toby to make us a carafe of frozen rosé for brunch. Frosé.”
“Oh, Lord have mercy,” I muttered. “What have you guys done to my friends?”
Nimue smiled at me slyly. “Can’t a girl have a little fun while she’s here?”
I huffed out a breath. Dale and Clover bounded into the lounge room, both dressed in tennis whites.
“Hi, Eve!” Clover grinned at me and whirled her tennis racket around expertly in the air. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”
“Why would you even think you’d find me here?” I was genuinely curious. “This is Zel- I mean Bruce’s bungalow.”
I was slightly uneasy that the demons were pulling my very-human friends into my crazy world.
Clover shrugged. “Nim mentioned that she and Bruce are old friends. You weren’t at Alex’s suite, or in the staff quarters. I thought you might be here. We’re taking on Bruce and Nim in a tennis match before we head off to bed for the day. Do you guys want to come?”
Dale lounged comfortably beside her, looking unusually preppy and quite confident in his white shorts and a polo shirt. The whiteness of his clothes made his golden skin glow.
“You guys are in for a hiding,” he announced, grinning his banana-split smile. “I’m a direct relation of Evonne Goolagong. Our people have been playing tennis for almost sixty thousand years.”
“Uh, I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” I said dryly.
Dale glowered at me. “I’m trying to psyche them out.”
I glanced behind him, where Zel was staring wide-eyed at Dale's white tennis shorts and biting his knuckles. “I don’t think you need to flex, Dale," I said. "Something tells me that Bruce suddenly isn’t great at tennis.”
“I’m ready to go if you are, darlings,” Nimue rose from the sofa. I wasn’t surprised to see that the slinky, glittery black gown she had been wearing moments ago had suddenly turned into a form-fitting Nike tennis dress with daring cut-outs in the waist. Zel, too, had morphed his loincloth into tennis shorts. He was still shirtless, showing off his pecs and bulging six-pack, silently daring Dale to notice him.
Dale, however, was a consummate professional, and kept his eyes up top. Nudity was nothing new at Revelations. As if the guests weren't bad enough, even the staff members had trouble keeping their clothes on.
Speaking of bare-chested supernatural creatures…
I surreptitiously peeked at Malach in the corner. He was as still as a statue, still glowering silently around the room. By the way that Dale and Clover’s gaze slid over him as if he weren't there, I gathered he wasn’t allowing himself to be seen.
Dale turned to me. “Are you coming, Eve? We could do a knock-out tournament, if Alex and Nate want to join in?”
I shook my head. “I’m exhausted.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized how true they were. I felt as though tiredness had settled into my bones, right into the fiber of my being, along with weird, ever-present nausea. “I’m off to bed,” I announced.
Dale nodded. “What about you, Alex, and Nate?”
Alex shook his head. “I’m going to take Eve back to our suite.”
“I’m headed back to the suite too,” Nate said. “I also need to speak to my father, so I’ll have to give the tournament a miss, sorry guys.”
Malach narrowed his eyes slightly, suspecting a lie being told. I gathered Nate’s reasons for staying with me had nothing to do with needing to speak to his father.
“I’ll be your ballboy!” Met reappeared by the door, dressed in sports gear, a lime-green headband squashing down his fuzzy white mane of hair.
“Good,” Dale grinned at him. “I’m not letting you near a racket. I heard what you did to those CEO's in squash yesterday. One of them has booked out the resort physiotherapist, and the other two are monopolizing the masseurs.”
“Let’s hit the court,” Met squeaked.
One by one, they shuffled out of the lounge room, until only Malach, Nate, Alex and I remained.
The silence in the room was deafening, and slightly awkward. Trying to diffuse the tension, I got to my feet and took a huge breath, yawning dramatically. “Sorry to bail on you like this, Malach, but I have to hit the hay.”
Malach’s eyes narrowed, and he pursed his bee-stung lips at me. “Young Chalice,” he boomed. “I too must go. Whatever you wanted to discuss with me will have to wait, son.”
Nate nodded. “It was not important, Father. It can wait.”
I looked at Nate carefully. There was something in his eyes; an apprehension, a secret of some sort. He turned away to bid his father farewell, and Malach disappeared in a tunnel of light.
When Nate turned back to us, his dark eyes were clear and as comforting as usual.
“Okay, let’s go. I’m completely fried. I need sleep.” I smiled up at Alex.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at Nate, his head cocked slightly. A weird tension was blooming in the room. My head swung from Nate, and back to Alex, watching them carefully. My stomach squirmed; it wasn’t unpleasant, but it was tumultuous, as if a premonition had shot through me.
I wasn't sure what it was, but what I did know with every fiber of my being, was now wasn’t the time to discuss it.
Chapter Nine
The walk back to the bungalow was slow. My legs felt heavy after the trek up to the clearing earlier. Dealing with Hannah’s spirit had also drained so much of my energy, I felt I was almost depleted. I would have let Alex carry me, if that wasn’t completely pathetic. I walked slowly, Alex slightly in front of me, Nate slightly behind, I smiled to myself when I realized that they had silently coordinated themselves to cover my twelve and six.
I was still in danger. But now at least we had a plan to get one of my enemies off my back.
“Do you think the Quarters will go for it?” I asked idly. We turned on the path to head towards the boys’ bungalow.
Alex opened the door for me. “From what I know about them, it’s hard to tell which way they will go. They fancy themselves as not only the most powerful club on the planet, but also the most knowledgeable.”
“Aren't they?”
“They know everything to do with the human realm. Yet they know almost nothing of otherworldly things. To be clear, they’re not unbelievers. They believe everything, and take necessary precautions. That's why they’re taking the Black Chalice stuff seriously.”
Revelations: The Fallen Page 14
