Celestial Shadows, page 19
part #4 of Celestial Marked Series
Shouts and roars exploded through the silence as the nearby wild demons reacted to the celestials’ presence—and the arch-demon moved in the castle below. I felt him, his aura shifting in the direction of the noise.
Now was my shot.
I leapt through the demonglass, materialising directly behind the fallen through the powdered glass I’d scattered, and burned five pentagram points into the ground. The first three fallen disappeared into my hastily-created portal instantly. I grabbed two more, moving as fast as my celestial power would carry me. That’s half your army gone, Casthus.
The ruckus from in front of the castle continued. I’d ordered several of the fallen to stage a fight with the warlocks, others to provoke wild demons into attacking, and yet more to create a light display to distract and dazzle anyone who went in front of the castle. Meanwhile, one at a time, the fallen disappeared to safety. Two more down. One—
A large winged shadow descended overhead. Crap.
I tackled the nearest fallen as shadows stabbed down, narrowly missing my body. We fell into a heap, and another fallen kicked me viciously from behind, his clawed foot tearing open a jagged wound on my leg. Ow. Not good. He gave the orders to kill.
My leg twinged as the regenerative power I’d borrowed from Nikolas kicked in. Light blazed from my hands, no longer withheld, and I drew on the shadow demon’s own power. Let’s destroy that demonglass before he can use it.
Shadows flickered through my hands, and smashed into the dark lightning that struck inches from my feet. Pieces of shattered demonglass flew into the air, and my hair stood on end with static.
“YOU CANNOT STEAL FROM ME, DEVI.”
“I already did.” So much for the distraction. I should have guessed he’d be smarter than that. Two fallen remained, one of them staring blankly at me with my blood dripping from his clawed hand. “You don’t need the fallen. I claim them. They’re mine.”
My demon mark glowed. So did the demonglass at my feet.
“SO IT IS YOU.” Despite his echoing voice, I still couldn’t actually see him, but every nerve ending in my body told me he was close. Watching me.
“What?” I said. “What does that mean?”
The arch-demon appeared, etched against the full moon, his eyes such pitch black pits that I could hardly look into them.
“Didn’t catch a word of that.” Another inch, and I’d be able to get the last fallen out—if I conjured the fastest pentagram ever.
The demon’s shadows lashed at my celestial hand, and I dragged the power into me. As he raised a hand to retaliate, I unleashed every ounce of power I’d taken from him.
Right at the demonglass.
The glass shattered in an explosion of noise. The arch-demon roared in anger, the earth shaking with the force of his rage, and I yanked my left hand free of his magic.
Lights shot from my hand, piercing the earth around the fallen. “Checkmate,” I said, the lights flaring up, and the last of the fallen vanishing into its midst. “You lose.”
I held my breath as the arch-demon descended, his wings spread wide. “Then take the fallen, and let you all be damned together.”
His mocking laughter rang in my ears as the lights flared around the pentagram one last time, carrying me back to earth.
A moment later, I stood in Nikolas’s very crowded living room, other fallen sprawled on the floor all around me. “Holy shit,” I breathed. “That was too close.”
And too easy. Sure, I’d made mincemeat of his plan, but I’d expected retaliation at the very least. Maybe it was the celestials’ presence—or maybe the bridge wasn’t all that important to him after all.
I should feel the thrill of victory, but the blank expressions on the fallen’s faces, and their odd silence, made me uneasy. None spoke. None attacked, either. But the symbols remained the same as ever.
This isn’t over.
I shoved the thought out of mind. Time to go and rescue the rogue celestials. They’d probably had enough of fighting Babylon’s monsters.
It was midnight by the time we all returned home, having moved the fallen to the guest room upstairs and transported the celestials back to their own hideout. I was practically swaying with exhaustion, and even our small victory couldn’t raise my spirits.
“He caved too easily,” I muttered to Nikolas, as we reappeared in the living room for what was hopefully the final time. “That, or I’ve developed some new power even I don’t know about.”
“Possibly.” He leaned over and stroked my demon mark, and I sighed as his magic restored my strength.
“You should stop doing that,” I said shakily. “You’re draining your own power.”
“Being with you only makes me stronger, Devi. What you did tonight—I don’t think I’ve ever seen Casthus bow down to anyone else’s word.”
“You stood up to him before. It’s not like I’m a revolutionary. Also, I think I accidentally became the leader of a cult of absolute lunatics. I’ll have to deal with the consequences of that soon.” I looked around the dark living room, at the lab in the corner, the stains on the floor from my experiments. Nikolas’s house had become mine, and I’d moulded myself to the space so thoroughly that I hardly recalled it ever being otherwise.
“I couldn’t be more proud of you.”
I poked him in the chest. “You’re absurd. Whatever happened to the guy who told me to leave the celestials behind and implied that I was a fool for believing a word they say?”
“I was mistaken. The demons aren’t better. The celestials aren’t either. This war has never been black and white, and I was naïve to believe it would never reach my own doorstep.”
I blinked. Wow. Nikolas wasn’t generally the type to bare his soul, and most of the time, neither was I. This vulnerability was new. It warmed my heart that he trusted me so much.
“If you were naive, then what does that make me?” I teased. “I’m going to bed before I pass out on the floor.”
“I could carry you.”
“If you could fly upstairs, I’d be tempted to take you up on that offer, but nope.”
We walked instead. My legs felt like lead weights, and I collapsed onto the bed with relief. He sat down alongside me. At first his brimstone scent had been unusual to me. Now it felt familiar. Comforting.
He wrapped his arms around my back. “You don’t know what you’ve done to me.” His voice was a low, throaty growl. “Devi…”
“Huh?” I looked up at him.
“My name is Caul. My true name.”
“I…” I stared at him, lost for words. “Aren’t you worried I’ll use it against you?”
“You already have everything I could possibly offer you.”
His gaze was simmering gold. I kissed him slowly, then faster, our passion rapid and heated and necessary. He returned my kisses with equal fervour, his hands roaming over my skin, tracing familiar paths to pleasure—and eventually, rapture. I was bared to him, I wanted him, and my fire burned all the brighter for each touch.
He slid inside me, slowly enough for me to feel him fill me, inch by inch. We moved against one another, fire and darkness, celestial and demon. We knew each other inside and out, and we were one.
19
“Rise and shine,” said Rachel, rapping on the bedroom door. “I’ve got a present for you.”
I yawned, half awake. “Give me a minute.”
“I’ll be waiting downstairs,” she said, in a singsong voice.
I blinked sleep from my eyes. That the demons hadn’t attacked earth overnight was a good enough present for me. I went looking for some clothes, while Nikolas remained lying on the bed with his eyes half open.
“I know you’re awake,” I told him. “And checking me out.”
“Just admiring the view.” He grinned lazily at me. “It’s not every day that I get to wake up next to a woman who defied my arch-demon father and escaped his realm unscathed.”
I grabbed my clothes. “You don’t think it was too easy? That we’ll look away and find he’s sacrificed a bunch of nuns to the ritual instead?”
“I highly doubt it. You destroyed his demonglass, remember?”
“Demons do not give in easily.” I kicked the bathroom door open. “This is my life now. I’ll have to rewrite my schedule to include ruling over the fallen and a group of rogue celestials. If anything, I think they gave in too easily, too, but they really believed I was acting on the orders of heaven.”
The crucial question this time: which part of heaven?
I showered and dressed quickly, and made my way downstairs to find Rachel while Nikolas was in the shower.
“Surprise,” said Rachel, handing me a brand new mobile phone. “Courtesy of Javos.”
I took it from her. “What’s this, a peace offering? Or compensation for Nikolas not strangling him?”
“Probably both,” she admitted.
“Worth a try.” I switched it on, finding someone had already put all my contacts into it. “Who’s been snooping on my contacts? Javos?”
“Fiona,” said Rachel. “You gave her the emergency numbers, remember?”
“Oh. Of course.” Relief flooded me. I hadn’t lost Clover’s number after all. Whether she’d actually be able to help at all remained to be seen. I rescued a group of fallen who aren’t exactly acclimatised to living with humans was a hell of a bombshell to drop on someone, even a former angel. Along with I have a bunch of deranged worshippers, I was well on my way to starting a guild of my own.
I threw some bread into the toaster. “I owe you one, Rachel.”
“Think of it as a thank you for staving off the apocalypse.”
“I can count on one hand the number of people who’ve thanked me for it, so I’m not complaining there. Where’s Fiona?”
“Job hunting,” said Rachel. “She went back to her own flat. Something about not being paid enough for this crap.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said. “And now I get to spend today taking the fallen to their new home. They stayed where they were overnight, at least.”
“Yep. I expect double pay for watching them,” Rachel said.
“I can handle that,” Nikolas said, entering the room.
“Technically, I’m their boss,” I said. “I need to get those shadow marks off them. If it’s possible. And what if Casthus decides to take them back?”
“He won’t,” he said. “If the fallen were really essential to his plans, he’d have claimed them long ago. But he also respects the rules. You bested him and took them from under his nose. He knows not to underestimate you now.”
“I don’t get demon logic,” I muttered. “Are you sure he hasn’t booby trapped those marks?”
“It’s not possible,” Nikolas said. “They’re ritual marks. And I’d have sensed if any of his magic followed you here.”
Good. Once I got the fallen out of here, I’d go through Nikolas’s entire collection of demon tomes until I found out how to remove them.
“So the ritual… it doesn’t specifically say ‘fallen’.” I retrieved my toast and set about buttering it. “He could use something else.” Or someone else.
“Not on Babylon. You destroyed his demonglass source.”
I shook my head. “He’s plotting something else, I’m sure. His servant was skulking around Pandemonium. There’s an awful lot of lives there he could use as sacrifices.”
“No,” he said. “The ritual specifically needs so-called pure souls. Not demons. The reason very little is known about it is because most celestials died off in the demon realms.”
“There aren’t enough of them left to sacrifice.” I nodded. “Are you absolutely certain that he can’t snatch the fallen?”
“He could, but he won’t come here in person, and there are very few demons who can break the protections I put on the fallen’s accommodation. It doesn’t hurt that he lost one of his best servants yesterday.”
“I’m more concerned with where his fiery friend went, to be honest. I didn’t see him on Pandemonium.”
Unease trickled through me. Pandemonium isn’t your responsibility. You stopped the ritual. But Abyss remained a target, and her war strategy didn’t sound like it allowed for brutally aggressive shadow demons. Unless she’d aligned with Zadok, but the two had been bitter enemies, and whatever Zadok was doing on that realm, he stood no chance against his father, either. Which left it up to me to keep the fallen out of his hands.
On top of stopping a killer. Thwarting hell wasn’t enough. I needed to figure out heaven, too, and whatever monstrosity they had roaming around Purgatory. Oh, and the rogue celestials probably expected me to give them a definite answer today. They’d helped me: I owed them.
I looked at the contacts on my new phone. “How am I supposed to break it to the guild that I accidentally signed up to run a band of outcasts?”
“Good question,” said Rachel. “Don’t tell them.”
“Because that’s always worked out well.” I turned to Nikolas. “You still haven’t said it was a bad idea me promising to help them.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “I seem to remember endorsing it enthusiastically.”
“You have a warped memory, Nikolas. The inspector is going to flip a lid.” I took a bite of toast. I’d already told the inspector that there was a band of outcasts. He’d just chosen not to pursue my information. And what the hell, maybe one of them was the killer, but the way they’d accepted my orders last night made me more and more certain that if the orders came from anywhere at all, they came from heaven.
Time to face the music. I’d put off the call for long enough, helping to reset the wards on the fallen’s room and retrieving the demonglass I’d scattered all over the landing when I’d brought the celestials here.
While Nikolas skimmed through yet another book on demonic rituals, I dialled the guild’s number.
The phone rang, over and over. Then someone picked up. “Hey,” I said. “It’s Devi. Is the inspector in?”
“No—Devi.” The voice sounded young. A novice. “He’s missing.”
My heart sank. “Missing how? Did he run off?”
“No, he… I don’t know. There are rumours, and only the senior staff know the truth. Something about… about the heavens.”
Oh shit. He’d said he couldn’t get into Purgatory… that nobody could. “Can you put Mrs Barrow on the line, please? Tell her I have important information for her.”
A long minute passed. Then: “Devi Lawson,” said Mrs Barrow. “You’d better have a good explanation.”
“Er… you’re going to have to be a bit more specific. What am I supposed to have done now?”
“Purgatory,” she hissed into the phone. “The inspector insisted on going there himself, after speaking with you. And he hasn’t come back.”
Oh no. Not that he was any real loss, but it sounded like the guild had started to pick up on the rumours all the same. And if that Devi clone came through—
“I tried to warn him,” I said. “There’s some kind of creature over in Purgatory claiming to be a creation of heaven, and I think it’s murdering warlocks. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I don’t know why Purgatory let him in this time, but it can’t be good.”
Her voice buzzed with static. “Why did you go to Purgatory.”
“To talk to the angels. They didn’t want to speak. That creature—it nearly killed me. The inspector shouldn’t have gone there alone. I thought he was locked out.”
“For your information, none of us have been able to follow him, so whatever tactics you’re using to get into Purgatory, it would be extremely helpful if you shared them with us.”
“There’s nothing to share,” I said. “I got in the usual way. And seriously, that thing nearly killed me and I’m Grade Four.”
But it nearly killed me because I’m part demon.
And the inspector? The thing that had replaced him was gone. His soul was as squeaky clean as ever, despite his dickish personality. But then—why had whoever was running Purgatory these days let him in? To recruit him?
“The novices are panicking, and frankly, this isn’t a level of disruption we’re prepared to deal with—”
“So you thought you’d dump it on me? Get in line,” I snapped. “I’m not getting paid for this, you know. I have no idea how to kill that creature. Whatever in all the seven hells the inspector is doing there, he’s probably dead. And may I reiterate: there is an assassin who looks like me walking around Purgatory, a creation of heaven’s, who wants us all dead.”
I hung up the phone, anger blazing through my chest. My fist clenched, and it took everything I had not to hurl the new phone at the wall.
“Devi?” said Rachel. “What is it?”
“Our genius of an inspector has gone and got himself stranded on Purgatory.” I slipped my phone into my pocket. “That’s one rescue mission I’m not taking part in. Where’s Nikolas?”
Footsteps on the stairs answered my question, and he ran into the room. “Two of the fallen have disappeared.”
My heart sank. “What? They broke out? We just redid the wards, not an hour ago.”
“The pentagrams weren’t broken,” he said.
I followed him upstairs. What now? We’d know if someone broke in. The wards would have reacted. Right?
The door to the fallen’s guest room lay open. Though all signs of Zadok’s presence had been removed, there were still faint burn marks on the walls, the residue of brimstone. The fallen sat on an assortment of cushions—it hadn’t been worth procuring sleeping bags when they were supposed to be moved today anyway—and when I did a head count, there were indeed two missing.
“Someone broke in solely to take two fallen, and leave the others behind?” I stepped forwards into the room, confusion momentarily overshadowing my anger. “Er, did anyone else come into the room last night?” I asked the nearest fallen.
“Only you, Devi.”
Dread flooded me. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Nikolas asked.
I pressed a hand to my forehead. “I’m an idiot. There’s a freaking clone of me walking around this realm murdering warlocks. And she’s celestial. A creation of heaven’s. She won’t have tripped the wards.”
