Nebulous (Order of the Fallen Book 2)

by Jenna Wolfhart

  “They’re not going to stop hitting the boat until they’ve tipped us over. Or punched a hole so the entire thing sinks.” He ran a hand down his tired face. “We’re going to have to fight them.”

  “Sounds good to me, boss,” Az barked out, sliding his sword from the sheath he preferred to keep in a sling around his back.

  “That means going for a little swim.” Ramiel glanced my way. “Are you okay with that, Erela? It’s going to be unlike any fighting you’ve ever done.”

  “We know how to swim,” I said firmly.

  “But you’ve never fought underwater,” he argued.

  I arched an eyebrow. “And you have?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, we have,” Ramiel said. “And it’s a lot harder than you’d think.”

  “We’re not staying on this damn boat while you fight down there by yourselves.” Lizzie frowned as she took a step toward them.

  “You will if I give that order,” Ramiel said. “You’re one of us now. You’ve both officially been inducted into the Order of the Fallen. You know what that entails. You must listen to me when I give you a command.”

  “You’re right,” Lizzie countered. “Erela and I are part of the Order, which means we should be fighting by your side.”

  I gave her a silent cheer.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t so silent. I might have even clapped.

  The boat shifted sideways once again, creaking against the heavy blows from the water demons.

  Ramiel stiffened. “We don’t have time to argue about this anymore. Erela and Lizzie, you can come with us. But if I give you the order to leave the waters, you must swear to me that you’ll obey it.”

  I cast a quick glance at my best friend, and our eyes locked. We gave each other a nod, making our own vow, our own order. If one of us got hurt, we wouldn’t leave the other behind. It was a pact we’d made with each other so many times over the years, but it had usually been done as a game. It had never held as much weight as this night.

  “Ready your daggers!” Uriel shouted as we all approached the railing. And then, before I could even blink my eyes, he’d launched himself over the railing, plunging down into the deep waters below us. Sam and Ramiel went next. And then Az. Lizzie and I were last. We climbed the railing, clasped hands, and then dove.

  The water was icy. So icy that it sunk into my bones. Shivering, I gritted my teeth and peeled open my eyes, letting out a guttural scream when an ice blue fist slammed right into my face. Pain exploded between my eyes, and my body tumbled over itself, hurling me away from the explosion of movement underneath the boat.

  After what felt like years, my windmilling arms finally slowed my tumbling until I was able to right myself in the water. I held my breath, glancing around. Angels breathed in oxygen, but we could manage without it for far longer than humans could. And, the lack of it wouldn’t kill us. It would only knock us out.

  Of course, I didn’t really have any desire to be unconscious in these waters, especially since there appeared to be ten water demons whirling through the ocean with the speed and grace of an Archangel soaring through the Celestial skies.

  The demon who had attacked me had turned his attention onto Lizzie. They were a few meters away, her heavy sword clashing against the demon’s tail. Yes, tail. It was a water demon thing. They had long, skinny tails that turned into weapons as deadly as steel. The ice blue color matched their eyes and their skin, highlighting the greenish tint of their flowing hair.

  They looked just as they had in the painted portraits, and they were as terrifying as they were beautiful. Power rippled across their skin, their bodies clinging to far more magic than their land-based counterparts did. This was demonstrated by the blast of icy water that slammed into me as I tried to get my bearings. Once again, I was spinning in the water, far more annoyed than in pain. I’d come down here to fight, not engage in water aerobics.

  Gritting my teeth, I righted myself again and spread my arms through the icy waters. This time, I was ready when the demon launched an attack my way. He—or she, I couldn’t really tell—grabbed the base of his tail, and the entire length of it hardened into steel. He roared, the sound aquatic and deep. My daggers were a hell of a lot smaller than his tail sword, but I managed to spin out of his way while I grabbed them from my thigh sheaths.

  He roared again, realizing he’d missed his mark. But what he didn’t realize is that I’d also ducked low, crunching my body into a small ball. I shot out one hand, and my dagger pierced his skin. The blade dug in deep. So deep I had to grit my teeth to jerk it back toward me again.

  A bluish black blood filled the waters as the demon screamed. If I’d thought his previous roar was ear-splitting, it was nothing compared to this. Wincing, I swam backward and stared in horror at the creature. The blood had begun to surround him now, a cloud of blueish black so thick that I could no longer see anything other than a dark writhing form beneath it. Suddenly, the demon stilled, and the world went quiet around me. My lungs screamed, and my eyes burned.

  I needed to catch my breath or I was going to black out.

  Glancing around me, I took in the rest of the battle. Lizzie was still fighting her demon, and a swarm had surrounded the others. With a frustrated grunt, I pushed myself up toward the surface. My head broke free, and I sucked in deep breaths, my lungs still screaming for air. Man, this whole water fighting thing really was tougher than I’d thought. Ramiel was right, because of course he was. He would probably be smug about it when all of this was over.

  Because it would all be over soon. And we would win. We had to win. I couldn’t bear to imagine anything else would happen but that.

  “Well, well, well. What are you?”

  I jumped and screamed when I heard the slithering hiss from behind me. I twisted and turned but found nothing other than air. A moment later, a head popped up from below the surface. A water demon, her blue skin glowing beneath the light of the full moon. She flashed me a smile full of sharp, pointed teeth, the sides of her gill-like cheeks sucking at the air. And then she dove beneath the surface again.

  My heart pounded, and I took a deep breath to follow after, but she bobbed up before me once again, her sleek head parting the choppy waters.

  “You’re an angel but you’re not,” she whispered in a sing-song voice.

  “There’s no not about it,” I barked out. “I’m an angel, and you’re trying to sink our ship.”

  “That,” she said, jerking a webbed thumb at the boat that was drifting further and further away from us. “Is not a ship. Trust me, when you live in these waters, you quickly learn the difference.”

  “Fine. It’s not a ship, and I’m not not an angel. I’m glad we got that sorted. Now, why don’t we just fight and get it over with?”

  The demon hissed and lunged toward me, but no tail knives flashed my way, and her water powers didn’t shoot me halfway toward the boat. Instead, she leaned in close and sniffed. “You’re part demon.”

  Irritation flickered through me, along with frustration. How the hell could she tell? It wasn’t like I’d been using demon powers all my life, and it certainly wasn’t as though I reeked like some kind of demoness. Right? I mean, that was ridiculous. I was an angel, for fuck’s sake. I could barely even control my fire.

  “There have been so very few angel-demon hybrids over the years.” She cocked her head and studied me as if I were some kind of unique specimen she wanted to pick apart so that she could see what my insides looked like. I shivered and backed up in the water. “I bet you don’t even know about your wings.”

  Chapter Six

  Erela

  “Say that again?” I said flatly.

  Her grin widened. “So, then you don’t know. I’ll just let you figure that one out for yourself. If you survive.”

  The green haired demon dove beneath the surface, disappearing into the murky water beneath the boat. I waited for a moment, heart hammering, half-expecting her to pop her head above the waves and deposit another
shit-load of insanity on top of my head. For one, she’d been able to sniff me out. No other demon had been able to do that. So far. Did that mean I was becoming more and more demon with every day that passed? Or did it just mean that the water demons could sense things that the others couldn’t?

  On top of it all, there was that whole wing thing. What had she meant by that?

  Az’s face speared through the water, and rivulets of icy blue ran down his face. He smeared his hair away from his eyes before flicking them down the length of me. “What are you doing up here? Are you okay?”

  “I came to get air.” A pause. Should I tell him? Might as well. I’d decided that secret keeping should no longer be a thing between me and any of the other Fallen. “And then one of the demons started talking to me. She could smell me, Az. The demon part of me. And she said I have wings.”

  “She was just trying to get under your skin.” He waded closer, and his breath was hot on my lips. “We need you down there. Things are getting dicey. The water demons have the advantage. This is their territory. They thrive in water. We don’t.”

  Ominous words. Not that I was particularly surprised. Would water dwellers be able to beat us if we fought them in the skies? Unlikely.

  “What are we going to do, Az?” I asked in a whisper. It wasn’t as if we could give up. If we boarded the boat, the water demons would only proceed to attack. Again and again until the boat was too damaged to go on. The humans wouldn’t survive.

  “We fight.” He dropped a hot kiss on my lips, and then shot me a wicked grin. “Just one last taste of you just in case this is the thing that does us in.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should smile or run screaming in the other direction. In the end, we both dove back into the deep.

  As we swam toward the fighting, I could now see what Azazel meant. More water demons had joined the first crew, and there were now dozens of them surrounding our little circle of fallen angels. Lizzie was wailing against the same water demon as when I’d left her. Ramiel and Uriel were backed up against the remnants of a sunken ship, and Sam was fighting three water demons at once. Dozens more demons were just off in the distance, sizing up the fight, clearly making a plan on how best to attack.

  We were doomed. Fully, one-hundred percent doomed. As strong and powerful as we all were, particularly Ramiel and Az, there was no way in hell we could defeat this many at once. There was just no getting around it. And, for once, my own demon powers could do nothing for me. The anti of my powers? Water.

  The demons waiting in the wings began to move. Slowly at first, but then their speed ramped up. Heart beating wildly, I glanced at Ramiel and Uriel. They were stuck. There was no way they were getting out.

  I gave Az a look. One that reflected all the thoughts swirling inside my head. He nodded, his own face grave.

  A large, aquatic bellow rippled through the water, making every hair on my arms stand on end. What the shitoodles was that? The water around me began to almost shake, as if a deep, dark power rippled through these waters. I curled my hands into fists and whirled toward the sound, expecting to see a great white shark ease out of the darkness.

  In fact, it was much worse than that.

  So much worse.

  It was a freaking Hydra. I recognized it at once, its tentacles whipping through the waters like a dozen angry snakes. The body of the creature was so massive that it was almost breathtaking. Almost. I was far too freaked out to be in awe of the thing. A Hydra had once tried to eat me. I didn’t really like my odds in this scenario.

  Its massive body eased through the waters, a darkness enshrouding its features so that I couldn’t see much except the vague outline of its form. The tentacle suddenly shot through the water, latched onto one of the water demons, and ripped it away from the fight. The water demon tumbled through the sea, disappearing into darkness. And then the Hydra bellowed, that deep, dark sound washing over us like a command. This sea was his home. And we were invading upon it.

  Strangely enough, that did the trick. The water demons took one look at the bellowing Hydra and skedaddled right on out of there without so much as a goodbye. They all fled back into the depths in which they’d come. Good riddance. I kind of expected the Hydra to start bellowing at us to do the same, but it kind of just blinked at Sam and then at us before letting out a strange gurgling noise and disappearing after the water demons.

  When the humans realized that we’d defeated (if you could call it that) our enemies, they threw ropes down so that we could scale up the side of the yacht. Once all six of us had reached safety, our crew clapped us on the back, giving us firm nods of thanks and approval. The reaction took me by surprise. I’d expected them to lob fearful questions our way, demanding us to take them back to shore. But there was a new hint of friendliness on their faces. And, dare I say it, respect?

  After we’d all showered off the saltwater and changed into dry clothes, the Order gathered in the main cabin below decks. Uriel stared at Sam, and Sam stared at the floor. Lizzie, having no idea why there’d be tension in the room, frowned at the pair of them.

  “Alright, I’m obviously missing something here,” she finally said, throwing up her hands. “What’s the deal? Shouldn’t we all be happy that we survived those water demons? And the Hydra?”

  “The Hydra was never going to hurt us,” Sam said quietly. “In fact, she chased the water demons away in order to save us.”

  Uriel grunted. “You can’t honestly believe that, Sam.”

  “Did we experience two completely different things?” Sam arched a brow, his usual steady calmness replaced by irritation and frustration. “The Hydra looked right at me, and then turned tail to leave us alone.”

  Az crossed his arms over his barrel chest and leaned back into the seat. “You’re suggesting that she recognized you. You don’t think that was the same Hydra that Arkas—”

  “Now is not the time to talk about Arkas.” Ramiel shot a glance at me, and then at Lizzie.”

  So, clearly Ramiel still wasn’t ready to share the morbid details with me, even if Sam was.

  “Fine,” Sam said, his tone still clipped. “But yes, I do think she recognized me. From before.”

  Uriel shook his head and let out a harsh chuckle. “Like that would make a difference. Not after what happened to Arkas.”

  My ears perked up, and I leaned forward, despite commanding my body to stay nonchalant about the whole thing. Uriel was two seconds away from spilling more information about the whole Arkas thing, and I was starting to feel a little desperate to find out exactly what had gone down. It involved a Hydra, that much I knew. That Hydra, in particular? Had she killed Arkas? If so, why had she let us go?

  So many questions. And so few answers.

  “I agree. Let’s not talk about Arkas.” Az cut his eyes my way. “Erela has some much more interesting information to share with us. Don’t you?”

  “Huh?” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “The water demon. You said she mentioned something about your wings?”

  Oh, right. That. I’d almost forgotten amidst all the excitement. Taking a deep breath, I turned toward Ramiel. “A water demon cornered me while I was getting some air. She seemed to suggest there’s something up with my wings.”

  Ramiel arched a brow. “Something up with your wings. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she was talking about. Your wings are in your back. There’s not much that could be up about them.”

  “But maybe,” I said, plowing forward, “because of my fire demon…thing, there’s something different about them.”

  Ramiel gave a nod, then turned toward Sam. “What do you think? Has there been anything different about your wing situation?”

  “Nothing,” Sam said, shrugging. “Sorry, Erela. I think she was probably just trying to catch you off guard.”

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Another hope dashed. Another fight I’d sucked at. It would have been pretty nice if I’d had some special wing powers, but I wasn
’t that lucky. The only good thing in my life right now was the Order. And the members of the Order. And the way Sam was now looking at me, as if he wanted to carry me to my cabin and show me his scars.

  Luckily, after the meeting, he did just that.

  Chapter Seven

  Sam

  After I’d shown Erela just how much fighting ramped up my adrenaline (and my sex drive), I wandered into the galley to find some grub. Rolling around between the sheets always left me feeling more than a little famished. I found the boxes that contained our rations and began to rummage around for something that wasn’t specifically tailored to be soldier food. Something with a little flavor. Something that wasn’t pure mush.

  The door creaked open, and Ramiel stepped inside. I glanced up to see his fists rubbing deep circles around his eyes.

  “Can’t sleep?” I paused my rustling so I could hear his reply.

  “It’s been a rough week. I don’t think angels are meant to sail. Today’s fight didn’t do much to help.”

  “Yes, it wasn’t our finest hour.” With a grin, I turned back to the food box.

  “You seem pretty chipper for a male who just came face to face with the creature who changed all our lives,” Ramiel said quietly, after a moment of strained silence.

  So, Ramiel believed me about the Hydra then. At least I wasn’t the only one who could recognize the creature for what—and who—she was. Not that I wanted to get into it now. Far too hungry for that conversation.

  “Yes, well.” I couldn’t help but grin. “Erela…well, let’s just say that she knows how to make me feel better.”

  “You should be careful, Sam.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I stood and gave Ramiel a look. “Why? Do you think that just because you are too tightly wound to give in to your feelings for her that none of the rest of us should?”

  Of course not.” He blew out a long breath. “We all need to be careful about what we do with our hearts. The success of the Order is at stake. If something were to happen that would cause a split between the two of you, would the Order survive that? Would you be able to stand being around each other? How would we fight against the demons if we are too distracted by the drama of romance?”