The Shadows and Sorcery Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “She’s a bitch, that one. Not afraid to get her claws dirty. Did I know him?” Angels—ex-angels, like me—were few and far between in Kremlin Circle. I thought I knew them all.

  Raphael shook his head. “You did not know him.”

  “So…what? You want me to take on Belias?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “Of course it is. If my life had a warning label, that would be the disclaimer embroidered in bold letters.”

  Raphael stared me down as if we were about to go to war. I couldn’t tell whether he simply wanted to look serious, or if he was so far gone from humanity that he didn’t know what to do with his face. “Do you want a chance at redemption?”

  I clenched my fists, anger flooding me. “I did nothing wrong. I don’t want redemption. I just want to be left alone.”

  “Being left alone won’t bring them back.”

  “And neither would redemption,” I snapped.

  In the silence following my outburst, the distant echo of the wind outside sounded like music.

  “You could come back,” Raphael said, voice so soft it blended with the howling wind. “If you succeed, He will restore your wings and bring you home.”

  Raphael’s pretty words were tempting. I’d never be happy again; not without Catie and our daughter. But would it be easier to be unhappy in heaven? Rather than remaining here in this godforsaken ice-hell?

  “What’s the catch?” I asked.

  The Seraph eyed me as if he could look past my face into the inner workings of my mind. He likely could; I’d never advanced as far as Seraphim, but people—angels—talk.

  “Life here has changed you,” Raphael mused. “I don’t recall you being so contrary and pessimistic.”

  “Wanna trade places and see how long your good mood holds out when you’re wingless and cursed?”

  Raphael blinked once. “Do this thing, Gadreel. Save the Circle. Come home.”

  “The catch?” I prompted. When a thing sounds too good to be true, it usually is. When it sounds too good to be true from the proclamation of God himself, there must be a catch.

  Raphael looked away, his gaze on nothing I could see. When he spoke, the words fell into the space between us with the weight of broken dreams. “If you’re unsuccessful, you will be cursed to walk the earth forever.”

  2

  Cursed to walk the earth forever. So just another normal day for me.

  I turned away from him, fighting disappointment. I was the idiot who had allowed himself to hope the Seraph’s presence here had meant something good for me. But he had nothing to offer me that I wanted or needed.

  “At least consider it,” Raphael continued from his perch on the stool.

  I gently plucked two yellowing leaves from a catnip plant. I’d added the seeds to my repertoire when Lacy showed up on my doorstep—a loud-mouthed kitten with the longest white fur I’d ever seen—and made herself at home. Catnip became one tiny concession to sharing my solitude with another living thing.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, though I kept my gaze on the plant. I didn’t want Raphael to look through me, to know how much hope I’d lost.

  He didn’t say anything more. I didn’t either.

  And when I next turned around, he was gone.

  I couldn’t go back to the solitude of my cabin.

  Not like this, with my mind fixated on my nightmares and Raphael’s bullshit request. This kind of turmoil locked away and unchecked would never end well.

  I tugged up the fur-lined hood of my coat to hide my face and keep my ears warm, then set off on the familiar street that led to the Circle’s center.

  Sometimes, I thought I was going mad beneath the weight of living in Kremlin Circle, as if this half existence between past and present, angel and human, was too much to bear. On the worst days, violence boiled beneath my skin, reminding me of the human predisposition to rage. I’d ease the feeling by firing arrows into the wilds on the edge of the Circle, or punching holes in the walls.

  Today felt like a bad day. A holes-in-walls and arrows-into-the-void kinda day.

  Foot traffic grew the closer I got to Kremlin Square. The ambient cloud-covered disc we called the sun had made its arrival during my interlude with Raphael, and the city’s residents had awakened to set about on their business. Most business, such as it was in Kremlin Circle, was done in the Square.

  The road I walked spilled into the Square with a magnificent view of the old cathedral. St. Basil’s looked a little worse for wear. Its colors had faded to dull shades of gray, but the cathedral still stood against the wind and snow, testament to a time before Belias. Religion hadn’t passed through those ornate doors in a couple hundred years—before Belias, the government had taken it for their own and ripped all semblance of God from the city. St. Basil’s was once a great power of divinity, but now it seemed to barely hold itself together.

  Despite the pall of sadness over St. Basil’s, Kremlin Square was the hearth and heartbeat of our frozen city. The massive market took place daily, where people could buy and barter for items they needed. A sea of red and white tents popped up every morning, a shock of color on the gray landscape. Weddings and celebrations always took place here, too, under the watchful eye of the Citadel.

  Unfortunately, the Square wasn’t all fun and games. Belias made sure of that. She staged her executions in the Square—publicly, either as an example to keep the people behaved or because she was a blood-thirsty bitch who didn’t want anyone to have nice things.

  I veered into the first row of tents. Neo saw me coming and had a steaming mug of mead waiting when I arrived.

  “You’re out early,” Neo greeted me. He was an old friend, tall and thin with dark eyes that missed nothing and a sharp mind that knew everything.

  I accepted the warm mug gratefully and took a sip of his home-brewed mead. It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but it had a knack for easing the chill in a man’s bones.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I told him. “Then I had an unexpected visitor.”

  Neo lifted a brow as he stirred his cauldron of brew. “Oh yeah?”

  I edged closer to the table and glanced around. Other than the nearby marketers organizing their wares for the morning rush, we were alone.

  “Raphael,” I muttered.

  “No shit.” Neo hooked the ladle over the edge of the cauldron, and then circled the table with his own mug. He hunched beside me, his shrewd gaze on the tents around us. “Can’t recall the last time one of the Seraphim came to Kremlin Circle. What did he want?”

  “Followed me into the greenhouse this morning. Said God had sent an angel to fight Belias, only he lost. And they need a new man.”

  Neo gestured with his mug. “Let me guess. You’re just the guy for it because you’ve got nothing to live for.”

  “Way to boost my self-esteem.”

  “Don’t be an ass. I know you better than most. What’d you tell him?”

  “Short of ‘fuck off’? Not much. We left it open-ended.”

  “You’re not seriously considering it?” Neo laughed, a deep-throated, belly laugh that left little room for interpretation on how he thought a battle between me and the demon queen would end. “Belias would rip you asshole to eyeballs and feed your entrails to her nymphs.”

  I stared at him, fighting a laugh at my own expense. “You have such a way with words.”

  “I get it from you.”

  “Your vote of confidence is as inspiring as your foul mouth.” I sipped my mead, thankful for the sharp bite of alcohol dulling my tortured mind. “I want Belias dead as much as the next loser angel in this city, but how do you fight that kind of firepower? Her nymphs would rip me to shreds before I even reached her chamber.”

  “That is an accurate assessment.” Neo swirled his mug, squinting at the empty street. “Just tell him no. You aren’t the only ‘loser angel’ in Kremlin Circle.”

  “I’m the only one without earthly ties,” I murmured. My br
eath made a thick, white fog on the air.

  “Just because you’re…alone doesn’t mean you have no earthly ties.” Neo had dipped into his slow tone, the one he used with the ice demons when they harassed him for fun.

  “My wife was dismembered in front of me,” I reminded him.

  “What about me? Aren’t I your pal?”

  “Don’t use that word. It makes me think you’re going to give me a doll and ask me to show you where the bad man hurt me.”

  Neo shook his head and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “We have got to get your imagination under control.”

  Before I could respond, we were interrupted by a high, girlish voice. “Neo, darling!”

  Neo’s face erupted into a grin that could rival the sun—or the sun as I remembered it, prior to Belias turning our city into an ice-hell.

  He swept his wife into an embrace as she skipped up to us. “Yes, my love?”

  Amira had a pixie face and a kind heart. She reached for me with both hands and planted a kiss on my cheek. Her wild blonde curls jutted from beneath her woolen cap, tickling my skin. “Hello, Gadreel! It’s always a pleasure.”

  “And you’re more beautiful every time I see you,” I said, returning her smile with my closest interpretation.

  Neo snatched her back against him and eyed me with mock distrust. “Dourest man in the Circle until my wife comes around, then he’s a regular charmer.”

  “Only to make you wild with jealousy.” I winked at Amira, earning a giggle.

  The two had a quick conversation about their eldest child’s upcoming birthday. I drank my mead, enjoying the combination of the bracing morning cold and the warm liquid, and avoiding thoughts of my jealousy like the plague.

  Hard to do, when another fallen angel flaunted his perfect marriage in front of me.

  And when their goodbye kiss stretched into minutes, the envy curse hit me.

  I gritted my teeth against the pain, surprised it had come on so strong and so fast. Fucking Belias. I couldn’t even be around my friends without the curse eating me inside out.

  Neo finally kissed his wife farewell and rejoined me. “Need another?”

  I jolted. It took me a few seconds to realize he was referencing the mead—not a wife. “Uh, no. I’m going to go.”

  Neo’s brow crinkled with concern, but he didn’t press. “Sure. Keep me posted on the Raphael situation?”

  “You know it.” I set my empty mug on the table and left the tent.

  I went back up the main aisle, massaging the pain in my chest with two fingers. I didn’t begrudge Neo and Amira their perfect marriage or perfect family. I wasn’t that heartless.

  But I envied them, because they lived a life I had once known—and in Kremlin Circle, that was a one-way ticket to the envy curse.

  Belias was the embodiment of envy. She destroyed anything that could be considered more beautiful than her, and that curse plagued us all. Even a brief moment of true, pure jealousy was enough to bring the curse inside you.

  It wasn’t my first time and certainly wouldn’t be my last. It wouldn’t kill me.

  This time.

  I crossed the Square, aiming for somewhere I could sit and catch my breath.

  Belias’s Citadel stood dark and ominous, a shadow looming over the Square. The foreboding palace covered an entire city block, and it also happened to be Kremlin Circle’s namesake. One of the only aspects of the old world to bleed into the new.

  The old world didn’t have the tithe, however.

  Belias’s nymphs were setting up the tithing booth by the main gate to the Citadel. I found an empty seat on a bench as far from the Kremlin as I could, and quietly set about watching the nymphs work, still attempting to rub away the pain in my chest.

  Once human, and now a weird amalgamation of ice and stone, Belias’s nymphs moved with preternatural quickness. She handpicked her legion of women for their grace, strength, and beauty—then carved off their faces and turned them to monsters. Where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been, only a blank canvas remained. Though their bodies stayed slender and curvaceous, they were just as blank as their faces.

  The nymphs seemed to operate by touch and sound alone; they would have been incredible to behold if they weren’t so fucking dangerous.

  As the ache finally eased in my chest, the first of the tithes arrived with a thick, muscular escort at her elbow. Covered head to toe in black robes, the tither was completely invisible, though I could tell she was female by the way her escort dwarfed her small, delicate frame.

  The blood tithe was borne from the demon queen’s insanity. Each family in Kremlin had to give tithe to Belias once a week, with the stipulation the blood must be virgin blood from the most beautiful woman or man in each family. The catch, however, was that beautiful people weren’t allowed to exist in Belias’s world. Beauty meant death at the hands of the envious demon. So the beautiful became their family’s only hope of surviving the curse, and to do so meant living their lives tucked away and untouched.

  What a terrible, lonely waste. To be beautiful, yet shuttered away from the world. Allowed out only to be sliced open and bled for the demon queen, who required their blood for her own use, but hated them for their beauty.

  And all of it because of the curse. The sin of envy cloaked Kremlin Circle like a funereal cloth.

  When I could no longer feel my ears, and the flakes drifting from the gunpowder sky grew too large to ignore, I left the Square behind.

  The tithing queue was twenty-five people deep as I walked away.

  I might as well have been living in hell.

  Far from the bustle of the Square, this time of morning tended toward silence, especially when the snow fell thick and muffled the world’s sharp edges.

  I took the long way home, passing abandoned warehouses and small businesses barely hanging on to life. They looked as broken and empty as my soul felt.

  The frigid air burned my hands, and I cursed myself for being so caught up in Raphael that I had forgotten my leather gloves. But I kept my hands swinging at my sides, my bow within reach. Being unprepared for attack was a death wish, regardless that I rarely found myself up against the demons. Stay quiet and stay hidden—that was my motto.

  A commotion of sound caught my attention seconds before a small form flashed by me. I froze, caught off guard by the sudden appearance of a running kid, her boots crunching furiously against the snow.

  Then the air around me grew colder, and the snowflakes were displaced by something altogether unnatural. Five hulking forms made of ice pounded past me in pursuit of the child.

  Ice demons.

  Belias’s nymphs may have been her elite, but the ice demons were her expendable thugs. They roamed the city, thirsty for death and destruction, just waiting for someone to step out of line. Justice had become a myth; the ice demons reveled in destroying for the fun of it.

  Even a kid.

  A long blonde braid trailed behind the girl as she whipped around a corner, all lanky limbs and impressive speed. She carried a canvas sack in one hand. I caught sight of two brilliant blue eyes, not so much scared as they were determined, before she disappeared down the alley.

  The demons didn’t even give me a second look as they charged past. An angel stripped of his power and privilege didn’t ping their radar—I was one more human, or slightly-more-than-human ex-angel, in a city rotten with them. Nobody was dumb enough to stand up against the demons, not for themselves, and definitely not for anybody else. That was one clear way to death. Eyes down, mouth shut, and you might live till forty.

  But I gave my last fuck years ago when it came to blatant injustice. Five ice demons against one little girl were odds I couldn’t ignore.

  I drew an arrow from the sheath and aimed. The quiver twanged with a satisfying thrum against my fingers as I let the arrow loose.

  The weapon sang true and skewered the demon at the back of the pack. He fell without a sound, feathers quivering from his throat.

  Ice
demons had only one Achilles’ heel—their soft, fleshy necks. Arms and legs of ice sharp as glass, torsos rock solid and nearly transparent, but bare, vulnerable skin on their throats. I loved the absolute lunacy of it. If they were dumb enough to go without armor, they were dumb enough to die, in my opinion.

  As the rest of the group turned down the alley after the kid, I took off in pursuit. I jumped over the dead demon, using his body as a launching pad to aim at the next ice beast. Though my timing was impeccable, physics denied me, and instead of the demon falling backwards and clearing me to continue pursuit, he fell forward. Into his buddies.

  The remaining three demons halted, stepping aside as the dead one fell past them. They stared dumbly at his corpse, the arrow quivering happily in his neck, then as one, three thick skulls rotated and took notice of me.

  Shit.

  When all three demons began to stalk toward me, I assumed they’d promptly forgotten the kid. Which was great, I guess. Picking them off unaware and one by one would have been my preferred method, but if all else failed, I could draw the attention away from the kid.

  Not the best change of plans, but I could roll with it.

  “Five of you? For a kid?” I remarked, shaking my head. “Ice demons are getting soft nowadays. Can’t even catch a kid without a small army.”

  I loosed another arrow and took out one more demon before the last two pounced.

  An avalanche might as well have crawled over me, for as useful as my limbs became under the unnatural weight of the beasts. I struggled to free my arm and bow. A sickening crack echoed off the buildings around us. Not my bones, thankfully.

  My bow.

  So…good. Weaponless and buried beneath a metric ton of ice demon. This couldn’t possibly go wrong. At least the kid could get away.

  One rock-hard arm lined by vicious shards of blue ice drew back in preparation to punch.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight back. And when that chunk of ice railroaded my face, it would probably kill me.

  3