Celestial Shadows, page 13
part #4 of Celestial Marked Series
“Back,” I said slowly. “I’m going out of my mind trying to figure out where they came from. They know Haven City. And I swear one of them looked familiar, but he wasn’t one of the Grade Fours from last time. It’s been too long since I spent any substantial amount of time in the guild…” I trailed off.
I knew where I’d seen him before. Harvey had been assigned to one of the missions I’d taken with Rory as a Grade Three. Just a week before he’d died.
Did he ascend to Grade Four in that time? “Er, Clover, do you know someone named Harvey? Grade Three?”
“You know I stopped learning everyone’s names after I retired.”
“Look, you’re an angel. And besides, weren’t you supervising the Grade Four ceremonies two years ago?”
“Occasionally. What about this Harvey person?”
I took in a deep breath. “He’s Grade Four. But the last time I knew him, two years ago, he wasn’t. Did he ascend here in Haven City in the last two years?”
“No,” she said. “There haven’t been any ascensions in a while—certainly not since the stunt you pulled in Purgatory.”
I went still. “Oh shit.”
“What is it?”
“They… I think they stole my idea.”
They weren’t originally Grade Fours. Not at first. And they’d never ascended under the guild’s orders. Somehow they’d gone behind their backs and upgraded themselves, like I had, and succeeded.
This wasn’t good. At all.
She hissed out a breath. “Are you certain?”
“Why the hell are you asking me? Can’t you get into Purgatory? What even are the rules on angels?” I hadn’t meant to yell at her, but that explained why they’d looked so familiar. Grade Threes rarely settled in one place, but I’d met at least some of them on missions at one time or another. And Grade Three was one step below the highest rank. If you were chosen.
Unless you were audacious enough to break the rules.
Purgatory’s fallen angels, for whatever reason, had caved into these rogues’ demands. Now they were gods in their own right without the discipline to back it up, and outnumbered the number of their genuine counterparts left in the region.
Never mind hell. Heaven had a real problem on its hands.
“No, I can’t get into the heavenly realms at all,” she said. “As for Purgatory, it’s different for every initiate. And it’s a very serious accusation, too.”
I gripped my phone tightly. “What, you don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. I don’t think the guild would, however, unless they sent their people in person, and there aren’t even any Grade Threes in the city who aren’t retired or injured.”
I swore. “This is ridiculous. I can’t watch Purgatory on top of two demon wastelands and the bloody warlocks.”
“The angels living in Purgatory are hand-picked representatives of heaven’s own, hired by the guild to gain a chance of re-entering heaven.”
“Wait, the guild has the authority to do that?” I asked, momentarily disarmed. Since when did the guild affect which angels ascended to heaven or otherwise? Earth had no angels of its own, except the one I was speaking to.
“Helping the guild, and the war, counts in the eyes of heaven. Whoever helped those celestials either didn’t care about continuing to fall…”
“Or heaven wants a new independent army populated by people with no leadership experience and a habit of kidnapping and coercion?”
“What are you yelling about?” Javos elbowed the door open.
“Nothing,” I growled. “I’m going to talk to the celestials.”
“I hope that means you’re considering telling me where you’ve been,” Javos said. “Without me having to do anything unpleasant to my prisoner.”
“Javos,” I said, through clenched teeth. “Leave her alone. This is bigger than all of us.”
I did not have the mental space to deal with any more unwelcome revelations. And I’d accidentally hung up on Clover. Not that she’d been particularly reassuring this time. I marched past Javos to where Nikolas stood near the lab, in conversation with Rachel.
“Nikolas,” I said. “Can you tell me anything that’s going on in the netherworld which might impact a visit to Purgatory?”
“No,” he said. “You’re going there now?”
“Yes. I think I’ll have to.” I waited until we were outside to explain what I’d concluded. “Heaven knows where the rogues’ heavenly allies came from, but it wasn’t whoever usually runs things in Purgatory. Unless the guy who gave me powers against the rules has decided to go all-out now. But creating a whole army of rogues against heaven seems to be the sort of thing that’d get you exiled to hell.”
Not that I knew the behind-the-scenes rules which dictated who got to stay in heaven or not. But someone had kept the celestial guild running for years on faith alone. Had that fallen angel I’d defeated been responsible for the new wave of rogue Grade Fours—or was someone else working against heaven and hell alike?
I left a message on the guild’s answering machine saying I’d be back to talk to them later and went to Nikolas’s house to set up the pentagram into Purgatory.
“Will Zadok sense it?” I asked him.
“Possibly,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Nikolas himself hadn’t been there last time I’d taken a potentially fatal journey into Purgatory. He’d been held captive in another dimension by a demon determined to keep him out of the fight. If I left now, anything might happen in my absence. But I needed answers.
“I’m ready,” I said, and used my celestial light to burn a pentagram into the floor. Then I spoke the heavenly words, and stepped into the light.
13
The flickering light that greeted me was a mirage above the barren, empty ground. Nothing was real here, not even the wasteland beneath my feet and the blank red-tinged sky. Purgatory was a between-realm, a place of nothingness between heaven and hell. The place where the best celestials were put through trials to see if they were good enough to ascend to heaven’s battlefield.
I looked around. No angels, fallen or otherwise. I could see through disguises now, but the wasteland seemed as empty as any demon realm. Blank, burned sky. Lifeless ground, devoid of any plant or animal life.
“Hey!” I called. “Is anyone out there?”
I took a few steps forwards across the rough stone ground, reluctant to wander further and lose sight of the pentagram. I might be able to use demonglass to get around, but I’d never tried to do it from here before, and however much this realm might look like the netherworld, it wasn’t. For all I knew, demonglass didn’t work the same way as it did on earth and in the hellish dimensions
I squinted at the wasteland ahead, frowning. The flickering outline of a person appeared, someone shrouded in too much darkness to make out their features. I called out again, and my voice echoed back. The stranger had heard. They were human-shaped, without the wings of an angel—fallen or otherwise.
This was Purgatory. It stood to reason that some humans might end up here after death, and yet…
“Hey!” I called out again. “Who are you? Is there an angel I can speak to?”
The person walked towards me. Fast. Definitely human. Curly dark hair, lightly tanned skin…
I stopped dead.
Her face was mine.
I stared at her. Reached out a hand as though I could cross the metres between us to touch her face and see if she was real.
She raised her right hand, celestial mark blazing. She was my reflection: celestial mark on her right hand, demon mark on the left.
Revulsion clawed up my throat. The celestial mark could only exist on one side. Nobody knew how it worked. It just was. I struggled to quash my revulsion, which made no rational sense. Maybe the guild had left a deeper impact on me than I’d thought.
She was the inverse of me—yet she was also as solid as I was.
“What are you?” I whispered.
“I’m the other side of your soul, Devi,” she said, in my voice.
Dread gripped me. “You’re what?”
“The other side of your soul.”
My magic bound me somewhere between heaven and hell—so Purgatory was the logical place for me to go after death. Better than hell, obviously, but I was far from death’s door. “I’m not dead yet. My soul is my own. Nice demon disguise, but I’m not falling for any of your crap, whatever you are.”
But my magic should be able to see through disguises…
“Maybe it’s you who isn’t real in this realm.”
I glared at her. “Yeah, sure I’m not. Whatever you are, I’m here to speak to a representative of heaven.”
She studied me, a smile flickering on her face. “You’re here because your soul is drawn to your other side.”
“Cut the crap,” I snapped. “Are you the one turning Grade Three celestials into Fours without the guild’s say-so?” No… even as a Grade Four, I didn’t have the power to upgrade someone else’s magic. Only the angels themselves could do that.
“I can burn the demon right out of you, Devi. Your soul will be on the side of heaven once more…”
“That’s not happening.”
“I never said you had a choice.”
The thing that looked like me walked closer, and celestial light flared from her right hand, forming a sword… shimmering white, a mirror of my own.
“I am a new creation of heaven, Devi. And you will be ours.”
Her blade flashed down in a blur, and light blazed, searing its way up my arm, through my very soul.
Shadowy power poured out of my own right hand, and I slammed it into her. The arch-demon’s power flared from my palm and spread across the earth, the antithesis of heaven’s light. The thing that looked like me stepped back, her expression calm in a way I was sure mine had never been, not in recent years, anyway.
Then she was gone.
I dropped to my knees, my body trembling. Celestial light blazed up my right arm—the wrong arm. I crawled in the direction of the pentagram, my vision blurring. The light she’d hit me with was still inside me. An alien substance, burning at the demon half of me.
No. If I pass out here, I’m dead no matter how much demon magic I have in me.
My right fist clenched on the demonglass in my pocket. I let it pull me in, images of spired towers and temples shimmering before my eyes. Earth. I need to get to earth. Now.
Celestial light flared inside me, cold and merciless. A different light burned behind my eyes… the light of death.
The promise that I’d come here or go somewhere worse afterwards.
The demonglass pulled me in, and I fell into a heap on Nikolas’s floor, screaming as the pain intensified. I hadn’t left the relentless celestial power behind, but it’d come with me, determined to finish its job.
“Help!” I shouted. “Someone—get it out.”
“Devi!” Nikolas ran to me, his expression the closest to panicking I’d ever seen him. “What is it?”
I raised my head and gasped. “Heaven has some new… thing. It tried to burn the demon part of my soul right out of me. It’s… like poison.”
My body glowed with light. I shouted a warning, knowing what that light would do to a demon, but Nikolas disappeared into shadows, evading it. He appeared again, closer, and grabbed my right hand.
I drew his magic into me like a lifeline. He gasped, eyes widening at the sudden drain. His power flooded me, dark lightning pushing against the celestial flame. I drank it in, greedily, desperately. The colour drained from his face and he dropped to his knees beside me.
He’d given everything to me. And I was killing him.
The door exploded from its hinges and a second winged figure walked in, close enough to the light that surely he should have burned.
“He will die,” said Zadok. “Or you will. Whoever breaks first.”
My demon mark latched onto his magic without conscious thought, drawing his power in. The celestial flame faded, but it was still there, searing my soul. Yes. Kill him instead.
He laughed. “Your mind’s made up, then.”
I shook my head, desperately trying to break the connection. The mark wouldn’t be satiated. It’d take everything.
“Devi, dearest, when will you accept that you need me? I saved your life once before… let me save it again.”
Zadok’s magic pumped into my arm, and my body trembled with it.
“You’re not supposed to have any power left,” I croaked at him. “Stop…”
The burning sensation in my veins faded out as his shadowy magic pulsed through my demon mark, into my soul.
Despite the tremors, my body was too limp to get to my feet when he stalked past me, towards the hall.
No. He can’t get out on earth…
The door slammed. Zadok was gone.
There was a long pause. Then Fiona ran into the room. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “He trapped me. Locked me in my room… Devi. Are you okay? Please… speak to me.”
“He pretended… to be weak…” My vision was fading. “Nikolas. Please. Is he alive?”
I breathed out when I heard her say yes, and blackness rushed in.
Light streamed across my vision. Sunlight. I rolled over and buried my head in Nikolas’s chest. He murmured my name and drew an arm around me. Warm and sleepy, I wrapped myself in him. I was so tired. Like I’d crashed after one hell of a day… wait, why were we both fully clothed?
Oh hell.
I jerked upright and grabbed Nikolas’s arm. He was breathing, his heartbeat was steady, and though he looked a little paler than usual, he was alive.
My eyes welled with tears and I collapsed onto the bed, shuddering. That alien power inside me… pain beyond reason… had nearly caused me to do something irreversible.
Until Zadok stopped me.
My body stiffened when Nikolas moved, his eyes opening a fraction. “Devi? What…?”
“Don’t move,” I said quickly.
He didn’t look as bad as Zadok had when his power had been gone, but he hadn’t walked headlong into his own weakness either. Instead I’d nearly killed him, thanks to whoever that assassin had been.
He blinked sleepily. “Are you okay?”
“Am I… I nearly killed you.” My voice cracked. “Tell me you remember. I didn’t cause you brain damage, did I?”
He rolled onto his back, his body shaking with laughter.
“Nikolas Castor, what’s so bloody funny?”
“You might as well be concerned about throwing a rock at an arch-demon.”
“I’m really glad your ego is in one piece, then.”
“Devi, I’m fine,” he said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me into him. I yanked my arm away indignantly, but he was warm and smelled of brimstone and heat. It was such a relief to see him alert that I couldn’t stay angry with him. I shuffled closer and let his warm arms blanket me from behind.
“Celestial fire is poison to you,” I mumbled into the pillow. “Hell, it’s poison to me as well, apparently. And it nearly killed both of us.”
“I apologise for making light of the situation.” He kissed me on the side of my jaw, his strong arms as steady as ever. “I don’t blame you. At all.”
“Zadok is free. On earth.” I groaned. “Or on Babylon.”
“Babylon, most likely.” He released me and got to his feet. “I don’t blame you, Devi, but this is possibly the worst crisis the warlocks have ever been in since I moved to this city. I’m going to have to be extremely careful when I explain this to Javos.”
“We could just not tell him. Otherwise, we might not need Babylon to unleash the apocalypse.” My words were half-hearted. After all, I’d possibly unleashed worse on my own power.
I climbed out of bed, aching like I’d run a marathon. Apparently nearly dying expended more energy than I thought. “Ugh. I feel like crap.” I deserved it. Nikolas might not blame me, but it was hard to imagine screwing up any worse. “Are you sure you’re—”
“Yes.” He opened the wardrobe, reminding me that I still wore my rumpled clothes from yesterday, and they were covered in Purgatory’s dirt.
I opened the drawer I kept my clothes in. “You didn’t let me finish my sentence.”
“I need to recharge my power, but that’s an easy fix.”
“Except if it involves Babylon.” Clothes in hand, I walked into the en-suite bathroom. “Do you think Zadok’s there? For definite? Even after last time?”
He’d been hiding his power. How much else had he done while pretending to be a helpless prisoner?
“I do,” Nikolas said. “You know… I always thought he’d wreak total destruction on earth, but he’s a lot more subtle than I gave him credit for.”
You’re telling me.
Once we’d both showered and dressed, we found Rachel in the kitchen.
“Hi,” she said. “You probably don’t remember last night, but you freaked out Fiona. I found the two of you totally passed out in the living room.”
“So how’d we end up in bed?” I asked.
“I shapeshifted into Javos’s form to carry you. Speaking of Javos, he’s been hassling me all night. I told him you were dealing with Babylon. Anyway, I just sent Fiona home. She nearly burnt herself out using her power, and nobody needs to watch Zadok anymore. But she left you some food.”
“Huh.” I grabbed a plate and piled it high with bacon and eggs—courtesy of Fiona, who always did the cooking when everyone else was charging around dealing with demons. “I’d count Zadok not being here as good news,” I said, around a mouthful of bacon. “But it probably means he’s off stirring up trouble.”
Despite Nikolas’s assertion that he was likely in Babylon, it didn’t seem characteristic of Zadok to walk back to the place he’d nearly died, to the home of his enemy, without a plan. But anything that took just one enemy off my list was an advantage. I’d abandoned Lydia to the wolves, and I never did speak to the guild yesterday about their wayward outcasts.
