When an Avenging Angel falls for a Reaper there's more than hell to pay – there's war. When an Avenging Angel falls for a Reaper there's more than hell to pay – there's war. To bring her Reaper lover back from the dead, Evie Grace sacrificed a wing and her heavenly Grace to a Fallen Angel known as the Baron. Her choice set in motion a chain of events that could ignite war between heaven and earth. Evie is pulled into a plot by angels out of legend and a traitorous Fae Queen to stop the Baron from opening an ancient vault hidden in the Los Angeles hills. The prize, a Portal Key to free rebels imprisoned for defying heaven. The rebels have not forgiven, nor forgotten. Rogue Nephilim and impending war are not the lovers only problems. Trick, crippled by guilt over Evie's loss of Grace, is fighting the return of his dark Reaper nature. A battle the Baron says he cannot win. The lines between good and evil blur as Evie and Trick try to puzzle out plots and counterplots where no one is what they seem. Too late, Evie realizes one earthbound angel is no match for the machinations of Heaven. One wrong step and she could lose Trick – and her soul – forever. Adult themes and language. Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA |
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Perilous Grace
Avenging Angel Series Book 2
by Eden Crowne
Copyright 2015. All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Evie
Evie sighed as she brought up her flaming sword and steadied herself against the she-devil's next move. Being an angel is not the floaty, feathery, fluffy sort of afterlife most people envision. There is a lot more sweating, bleeding, fighting, and swearing involved. In fact, she thought as she parried a thrust from a jagged, curved knife, life after death is much more difficult than being alive.
The creature or demon or devil was like nothing Evie had encountered before. She looked like she'd flown out of the epic Indian tale, the Mahabharata. Bright blue, with four arms, eagle-claw feet, and magnificent black hair to her waist. Her wings were as iridescent green and blue as a peacock's and her skin so white she glowed. Really glowed. Like a 500 watt bulb lighting up the night. She had scarlet lips and was Bollywood beautiful. Which made it odd that she was dressed only in a few gray rags stretched thinly overher voluptuous bod. She was also trailing a thick chain several feet long from one ankle.
A little earlier that day, three silent spirits had shown up in her tiny apartment at St. Jude's Church in Torrance on the south side of Los Angeles. Actually shown up at a rather inconvenient moment during an afternoon interlude with her and Trick doing their best to pull all four corners of a fitted sheet off the bed. Her wing had flipped out in surprise, as it often did, and thrown them both off the bed, as often happened.
The three spirits stared solemnly at them and pointed back the way they'd come. Spirits showing up in her bedroom was not as odd as it might sound.
Evie was an avenging angel, at least until a few weeks ago. In life she'd been a vice detective in Atlanta. A good one. She worked hard and partied hard. She'd died hard, too. A death that haunted her still. After her transition to an earthbound avenging angel, her mandate wasn't that different from being a cop: avenge the blood of innocents.
She'd met Trick, a Reaper, with his thick brown hair and sea green eyes in a West Hollywood bar over a dirty martini with extra olives. Interesting fact: she'd fallen for him at first sight. Awkward fact: she was supposed to kill him. Life after death. Complicated.
Her Celestial bosses sent a Death Mark to the bar singling Trick out as her quarry. The person supposedly responsible for the death of three innocents guarding a fearsome relic. That relic held the unholy ability to kill an angel. Not just dispatch an angel, but bring the true death – oblivion. Her mission was clear, draw her golden sword and execute him. She did her best, on several occasions. Dodging sword blows, he kept professing his innocence, for those particular murders at least.
What she didn't know at the time was that Trick's master had ordered him to kill her. A deal had been struck between his Demon Lord, the master of his soul, and a Fallen Angel known as the Baron for an angel's wing. Evie's. A fallen Celestial had one wing stripped from them as punishment – as if banishment to earth was not punishment enough. The Baron wished to be whole again. There were only two ways to get such a thing. Either the Angel surrendered it willingly or you took it from their dead body. The relic gave Trick the power to carry out the latter choice.
Trying to kill him several times and coming damn close, she finally followed him along the Los Angeles coastline to an isolated beach near Palos Verde. There, to Evie's complete surprise, he surrendered himself to death at her hands. His own master had murdered the innocents in the theft of the deadly relic, he explained. Not him. The fact that Trick and his master shared blood to seal their bargain had led Evie's superiors to sense Trick's blood and send her after him.
The dagger could only be used once, after that it became nothing but a decorative letter opener. But that one time, it could kill anything. Anything.
Against all the odds of heaven and earth, he'd fallen for her just as hard and just as fast as she had for him. He could not kill her. Not even to free himself from his devilish bargain and a century and half of servitude.
Evie and Trick surrendered to each other on that rocky, deserted beach. Making love in the sand, revealing themselves heart and soul. Sealing their fate. When an Angel falls for a Reaper, there's going to be hell to pay.
By morning, the Baron tracked them down, trapping them in a magic circle and demanding Trick kill Evie and bring him the wing. When Trick's master showed up as well, it looked like he'd be forced to do exactly that. The demon was the master of Trick's soul and could not be disobeyed. Luckily for them, Trick's master was a duplicitous bastard and planned on betraying the Baron. Why give away one wing when he could have two of his own and reach heaven itself?
Much to their mutual surprise, the Baron and Evie ended up fighting side by side against an army of demons raised by Trick's master. During the battle, to save Evie, Trick stabbed himself with the relic. She'd held him in his arms and looked into his sea green eyes as the light went out of them. Evie had gone mad with anger, her desire for vengeance blotting out everything else. Burning Trick's master and his minions to ashes.
A Celestial has the power to bring back the dead. The Baron was a true Fallen Angel. A being of unfathomable power. Evie bargained her wing for Trick's life, not thinking of the consequences.
The price had been high. Far beyond just the ability to fly. The Heavenly Host took her angelic Grace, telling Evie she must earn her way back to that higher state. Now, technically, she was a fallen as well. Though as an earthbound angel, that meant fallen with a lowercase 'f'.
All was not lost, since they trusted her with reforming the Reaper, saying she held his contract – though she never actually saw it -- and technically making her his boss. They left much of her strength, angelic abilities and power to heal from any injury, plus her beautiful, shining sword. Her mandate to avenge the innocent had also remained, though now the spirits found her. Like tonight.
Evie and Trick hastily dressed and followed the three spirits outside. Pulling a glamour around themselves, they'd alternated trance jumping and truck surfing – as they called hitching unseen rides on the top of speeding vehicles – following the spirits.
The sun was just sinking below the horizon when the spirits led her and Trick to this narrow, rocky beach north of Malibu. The smell of fresh blood unmistakable.
Near the cliffs, three women lay arranged head-to-toe around a fire burning with black flames. Bloody rivulets led from their wrists and thighs to the fire pit, the blood feeding the magic.
All spells requires sacrifice. The darker the spell, the bigger the bite it took of your or someone else's spirit. Some of the dark mages with acolytes to spare got them to sacrifice their bodies to enact particularly difficult and powerful spells. Promising, no doubt, that their spirit would be reborn. Yeah. Right. Like that was going to happen.
The sorcerer who enacted this particular spell probably promised the three young women something equally enticing. The shades stood around the circle, their eyes black and empty, pointing at the still bodies.
When Evie and Trick arrived, the she-devil was already on the beach, near the black fire. She seemed oblivious to the ghosts, all her concentration focused on a handful of crystals spread out in the sand. As they watched, she tossed some powder onto the bodies, then flicked flint until it sparked. The powder caught and the bodies burned with flames that gradually shaded from red to the same uncanny black as in the fire in the pit.
Trick and Evie decided they had enough proof of wrongful death and pounced. Evie vaporated onto the beach in a burst of white smoke. Reappearing almost instantaneously, she kicked the crystals to break whatever spell the thing was weaving. As soon as she touched the crystals, she wished she hadn't. A shooting pain set the nerves in her leg vibrating incontrollobly from the toe of her boot right up into her pelvis. Her leg buckled and she went down in the sand.
After that, things hadn't gone so well.
Trick leaped in to cover her as she rolled to her feet, his short sword blocking a thrust from a jagged curved blade the she-devil held in one hand. With her lower set of arms, she grabbed Trick by his shoulders and threw him out to sea, a good three-hundred foot toss.
Evie attacked. Her sword aflame, she lunged forward in a series of compound attacks. Feinting high and low and thrusting in what she knew was a blur of speed and strength. The she-devil blocked her blow for blow using nothing but a set of intricately wrought metal arm guards studded with rough cut jewels as brightly colored as her wings.. Which should not have been possible. Even in her slightly weakened form, Evie's sword could slice through virtually anything. It couldn't touch those cuffs, though. Sparks flew, yet her blade did not even scratch them.
Having four arms gave the she-devil the advantage of both taking the offense and defense at the same time. With the dagger in her lower right hand, her ripostes came so fast she pulled in too close for Evie to effectively use her long blade. Changing her grip, Evie vaporated through and behind the she-devil and struck her a solid blow on the back of the head with the hilt. The blow didn't even seem to phase the thing. She turned her head and gave Evie a “is that all you've got” sort of look.
Her wings bent inward and slapped Evie backwards. Evie vaporated again, spinning in mid-air to land in front of the she-devil, gambling the creature would be looking behind.
She gambled wrong.
The she-devil was already waiting on one knee. Coming in under Evie's guard, she scored a long cut across Evie's ribs with the dagger.
Swallowing down the pain, Eviehit high and low with a combination of blows trying to keep some distance between them. A whirlwind of sand spun up from the beach and Evie was fighting nothing but air. The creature had spread her wings and rose high above the beach. Evie trance jumped, but the she-devil easily maneuvered out of reach.
Trick, Evie saw, was manfully stroking back to shore and was almost to the beach.
'That's it,” Evie thought watching the she-devil.” She's going to just flip them off and fly out to sea.”
Instead, she swooped and dove at Evie, trying to drive her away from the fire, toward the cliff face. Evie's foot touched something and a shooting pain numbed her toes. The crystals. The she-devil must not want to leave them.
Throwing himself into a series of trance jumps, Trick leaped out of the waves and across the beach. "Evie, catch!" He threw an amulet of glowing stones at her.
Evie let go of her sword with one hand to grab the shining bracelet as it flew. Trick was a Reaper of many amulets. He used and understood magic in a way Evie probably never could. The Reaper's magic was dark in origin, the polar opposite of angelic power. With no idea what to do next.
“Oh for god's sake, put it around your sword handle!” Trick shouted, a glowing green sigil already taking shape in his hands.
Throwing herself into a high roundhouse kick that actually connected solidly with the she-devil's stomach, Evie did as Trick said. At the same time, Trick threw the sigil. The spell hit Evie's sword with a bone-jarring shock, powering up the amulet.
A string of bright letters spun from the amulet around the sword's blade and out the tip. Evie swung the sword around and around her head and flung the spell straight at the she-devil. A line of black letters snaked out to knot over the claws of her feet. Evie yanked, jerking both of the thing's legs together.
The spell rope must have burned like fire. The demon pulled wildly, trying to shake it loose before, with a scream worthy of a banshee, she dived at Evie, claws on one set of hands outstretched, the other swinging her blade.
Dived and got pulled up short.
A golden rope wrapped itself over and around one of her wings. Trick threw his spellcast lariat, one of his favorite weapons and very appropriate for a former cowboy from Arizona. Digging in his feet, he took several turns of the rope around his shoulder and pulled.
Evie did the same, her one wing flapping to create a downdraft, each of them pulling in different directions, trying to drag the creature back to earth.
The she-devil had different idea. With a massive effort, she swept her wings down and pulled both Evie and Trick into the air to dangle below her. Evie hung desperately onto her sword with both hands as her feet left the ground. The spell from the amulet was tight and firm. Not so Trick's lariat. He swung wildly as he struggled for a better grip.
“Both wings would have been better, Trick!” Evie shouted as he swung by.
“Next time you try lassoing a flying devil!” he replied as he swung back.
The she-devil twisted and turned and the two of them flew in wide arcs. They looked like a Vegas circus act. Trick was a tenacious fighter. He began shimmying up the rope probably, Evie thought, to grab hold of the other wing and unbalance them. The she-devil was not going to let him get away with that.
Trick barely had enough time to shout, 'Ohhh fuuu...” before she slammed him against the cliff face.
Spinning, she hit him again and again, starting a small landslide of dirt and boulders that tumbled onto the beach far below.
Finally with a noise that sounded more like an exasperated sigh of an adult confronting misbehaving children, she grabbed the rope with one set of hands, swung it around and snapped. Trick went flying off into the cold waters of the Pacific – again. The she-devil scrabbled at the rope trying to remove it. The thing had knotted tightly and it took some crafty flying on the she-devil's part to get it off. Evie mostly held on, hanging about ten feet below and not really knowing what the hell to do next. Maybe Trick's amulet had other bells and whistles, but without the Reaper, Evie had no idea how to access the magic. Her one wing beat uselessly, trying to pull her back down to earth. In her diminished state, Evie was no match against this extraordinary creature. If she released the spell, the thing would fly off. If she didn't release the spell, the thing would still fly off dragging her along like a kite tail.
The she-devil came up with a third solution.
As Trick's spell rope snaked by her on it's way down, the she-devil went into a full backward spin, wings pumping. Evie flew with her and suddenly found herself face-to-face with the creature. The demon pulled her close with her upper arms. Evie brought her legs up and around the lower arm holding the dagger. With a quick turn of her hips, she twisted the weapon out of the thing's hand before kicking the she-devil viciously in the stomach.
The impact was enough for Evie to bring her sword up between them. It flared brightly, the power of the blade surging through her aching muscles. Evie wrapped her legs around the thing's waist and pushed the point of the blade up under the chin of the she-devil. It would take only a little more pressure to drive it through the soft skin and into her skull.
The she-devil reached up with her upper set of hands and took hold of the sword handle. This was almost more frightening than being dragged into the stratosphere by a flying half-eagle she-demon. Only an angel should be able to touch Evie's weapon without being paralyzed. Not since the Baron had Evie faced so formidable an opponent.
As they struggled, the blade opened a cut in her throat. A thick line of blood the color of lapis lazuli ran onto the she-devil's bare chest. Their eyes met and locked.
Time slowed as Evie instinctively looked deeper. What she saw there was far beyond the usual demonic jumble of rage and appetite for blood and flesh. There was a wall. Solid, impenetrable even to Evie's still powerful angelic vision. What she did see was unintelligible, almost alien in nature. There was a fuzzy image of a long, smooth tunnel and chains and time blinked back into motion.
They were high now. A thousand feet? Two thousand?
The she-devil, back-winging violently, came to a sudden stop and hovered. She whipped her head left and right, staring wide-eyed. Evie heard a sharp intake of breath and there was no mistaking the look that transformed the creature's beautiful face. She was afraid.
The demon folded her wings tightly, throwing them into a diving spin. Grabbing the hilt with two hands, she twisted Evie's wrist, angling the blade down and bringing her feet up. She used the power of the sword itself to slice right through the amulet's rune spell tying them together. With the lower set of hands she managed to pry Evie's legs from around her waist. Snapping her great wings out, the she-devil pulled out of the dive.
Evie just had time to think, “Oh, crap!” when the thing let go and she was falling.
Above her, the she-devil sped away out to sea.
“Well, damn,” Evie thought as she plummeted earthwards, “that didn't go very well.”
Chapter 2
Evie
The sensation of plummeting stopped so quickly the shock knocked th wind out of her. 'Had she landed?' she thought blearily. There should be more pain if she landed.
She only had enough time to register she was floating a hundred feet off the ground before something grabbed hold of her in an iron grip, pinioning her arms to her sides. She flew sideways through the air in an eye-blurring burst of speed. In and out of the low clouds and then, with a sickening swoop, straight down. This did not look like it was going to end well. She saw the ground rushing at her. Just as abruptly, the acceleration came to an abrupt stop. Snapping her upper body forward and back. The grip released her and she touched down lightly.
Her eyes were watering from the speed and cold air. Brushing away the tears with the sleeve of her sweat shirt, she blinked her vision back into focus even as she brought up her sword and crouched into a fighting stance. The first thing she saw were feathers. Brown feathers swirling around and around her. The air smelled of lavender, sage, and roses. Heady, intoxicating. She knew that scent.
Very slowly and very carefully, she lowered her sword and straightened up.
Light flared brightly and she had to shield her eyes. It was a moment before she could make out the three figures in front of her. Three angels perched on a waist-high retaining wall, the lights of Los Angeles rolling towards the sea behind them far below. She glanced around her, instantly recognizing the iconic building. They were at the Getty Museum of Art, high up in the hills above the 405 highway. More than twenty miles from the isolated beach and the burned corpses.
The angels idly fanned their enormous brown-feathered wings back and forth. One swung an ornate silver short sword, its gold hand grip made of embraced angels, in an out of figure eights, leaving silver light trails in the blade's wake.
The wind shifted, enveloping her again in the angelic scent of sage and lavender. Except for variations in their skin color and hair, all three looked very much alike in beauty. Eyes as silver as their armor. Red lips, and narrow, fine cut faces. In the armor, it was difficult to tell their gender. Celestials can be rather androgynous looking at the best of times. Two women and one man, Evie thought.
Watchers.
Once Celestial, the favorites of Heaven. Now, earthbound.
Some people said the Watchers were wiped out for giving mankind both practical and magical knowledge enabling humans to create the shining, terrible civilizations of the mortal world.
Others said the Watchers had been destroyed after falling in love with human men and women. Punished for bringing forth the fey, hybrid human angels, the Nephilim.
People say a lot of things about angels that aren't true.
A gust of cold wind swept across the terrace, tossing Evie's hair into her face and tugging at the feathers on her one wing. The smell of magic was so thick, it made Evie sneeze.
“God bless you,” said the dark one with the sword.
Evie's eyes flashed to his. “I certainly hope so.”
As one, the Watchers cocked their heads to one side and considered Evie in silence. Evie stared back, no clue why these rare beings of legend had appeared to her.
“We are Sariel,” said a fair man with shining black hair.
“Baraqel.” said his companion, the dark one with the sword.
“Shamsiel.” said the last. A woman, apparently. Olive skin, and dark brown hair that fell in waves down her back, parting over the high bones of her wings.
As they spoke, each in turn, their names appeared in shining silver to hover above them.
Protocol for the different ranks of angels was rather complicated. Watchers, though presently earthbound, were far above an ex-avenging angel in the Celestial chain of command. They could probably turn her to ash where she stood if they wanted. Though that didn't mean she wouldn't come back – eventually. Evie's true death was not theirs to give.
Evie considered her options. Repeating a name after you heard it was considered polite form to begin introductions with Celestials.
Settling on that, she respectfully spoke their names aloud, bowing slightly in acknowledgment. They were searingly strong, those names, burning her tongue and lips as she said them.
“We'd like to speak with you,” said the woman, Shamsiel.
“About the seventy-two demons trapped within the Imp's Bottle,” said Sariel, sheathing his sword.
“And the Fallen One's plan to free them,” finished Baraqel.
Evie stared blankly at the Watchers. Waiting for them to continue. They stared back, unblinking. Maybe they thought she already knew what they were talking about?
“Not getting it,” she said at last. “Demons, Fallen, bottle. Which Fallen?”
“You know him as the Baron.” They said as one.
“Oh, that Fallen.” Damn it. She knew him very well indeed. The starkly beautiful gray-haired, gray-eyed Fallen angel who was currently soaring through the skies around the mortal world thanks to the gift of her other wing.
She'd told Trick not to worry, that the Baron was not going to bring on an apocalypse just because he could fly again. Maybe she'd spoken too soon.
“The Seventy-Two Demons are not demons at all. They are Daemon. Powerful beings not of this world. Messengers between heaven and earth.”
“Not angels?” Evie asked. She'd never heard of a 'daemon'.
The three Watchers adopted the same serious expression and shook their heads.
“Long ago, in one of the earlier ages,” Sariel spoke, one hand fingering the hilt of his sword , “believing they knew best, the Daemon sought to bring knowledge to the sons and daughters of man.”
Shamsiel nodded. “Knowledge they were not ready to receive.”
“Wait,” Evie stepped back to look from one to the other of them. “I thought that was you.”
Baraqel raised a censorious eyebrow and Evie felt the ripple of anger from him.
“I mean, you Watchers.” She said more politely. Diplomacy was not her strong suit. She liked to speak bluntly and for others to do the same. A very un-Southern trait. Her mother had admonished her many times that she 'had the manners of a Yankee. “Isn't that why...” she waved her hands in the air to encompass their earthly state. “You were...” she paused searching for something other than 'kicked out'. “Um, barred from heaven?”
Shamsiel spoke. “We chose to remain here.”
“Chose,” agreed Sariel solemnly.
'Of course you did,' Evie thought sarcastically to herself.
Baraqel frowned as though he could hear the tone of her thoughts. “You dare to judge us? You have have lost your Grace?” He took an aggressive step forward.
Evie didn't retreat, though he probably expected her to. He was pissing her off. There was a difference between the natural arrogance of Celestials and being a bully. Evie did not like bullies. She squared her shoulders and stood her ground.
Shamsiel held up her hand.“Peace, Baraqel. Peace. She knows nothing of this, or us.”
“Respect,” he hissed.
“Must be earned. Mistakes were made, lessons learned,” Shamsiel continued. “Our story was long ago. Far longer than this one. Many civilizations have risen and fallen unknown to the current race of man. That is why, when the Daemon overstepped their bounds a few thousand years ago and began to school the people of that age, we knew we must step in.”
“We bound all the Daemon involved.” Baraqel growled.
Shamsiel's glance flicked to her companion. “With help.”
“Bound them to a twilight sleep,” said Sariel. “In a land on the other side of a Portal gate bound to an object. That object, the Imp's Bottle is both the key and entryway to that gate.”
“A door and key to a prison all in one?”
All three nodded.
“The bottle's size had nothing to do with its capabilities,” Shamsiel explained. “All Portals to the Shadowlands must take some physical form in this world.”
“Kind of like Aladdin's magic lamp?” Evie asked, picturing a genie.
They stared at her blankly.
“Never mind.” She waved one hand in the air as if to brush the confusing image away for them. “I think I know what you mean. What does that have to do with the bodies on the beach and the flying blue babe?” She glanced at Baraqel, who glowered back. “I mean, blue woman?”
Sariel spoke. “She is a Daemon. One of their leaders. As punishment she was not allowed to join the rebels in their exile. Bound not within the Imp's bottle, but near it. The bottle is secreted withhin a vault. The location unknown even to us. Someone has freed her. Which means our adversary knows the location of the Imp's Bottle. There is no reason to take the bottle except to free the Daemon within.”
“Why would someone, anyone, want to free them?”
“We do not know,” said Sariel.
Baraqel gave his companions a sharp glance. “But we suspect.”
“Suspect,” agree Shamsiel.
“You mean the Baron, right?” Evie said.
They remained silent but in a very meaningful way.
Had to be the Baron. “You guys are way more powerful than me,” Evie couldn't help pointing out. “Why don't you just go deal with it? Watchers, from what I understand, can smite like nobody's business.”
There was some hesitation as if they were deciding what they should reveal.
Shamsiel took the initiative. “Celestials cannot find the vault. Neither can they open the bottle, or close it if the seals have been breached. Deep protective magic was woven around the vessel...”
“In case someone was tempted,” Sariel finished.
By someone, they meant another angel. Evie thought fast. That was a scary scenario. The threat to free the Daemon such a potential temptation, these sort of steps had to be taken to lock them away not only from magical intervention but angelic as well. Politics were looking a little more complicated with the Heavenly Host than Evie had ever bothered to consider. Potential threats from the different orders of angels, Celestial and Earthbound? Crap. She'd been a happy little avenging cog in the holy machine since her transition. Happy and apparently oblivious. She had better start paying more attention before it was tool ate. Maybe it already was.
“Yes, but I'm still an angel, at least as far as magic is concerned,” she felt it necessary to point out. “Grace or not. What can I do?”
Sariel began to cut silver figure eights in the air again with his sword.
Shamsiel's massive brown wings flexed slowly in and out. A sign of agitation Evie remembered only too well. “You are bound to this,” she said almost reluctantly it seemed.
“To the magical bottle and rebel Daemon? Bound how?”
“Think.” Baraqel growled.
Of course even as she said it, Evie realized the answer.
Her wing.
The Baron.
They were saying she'd helped to enable this. A terrible thought struck her. “Did he murder them? Those three spirits that came to find me, to ask for justice.”
Sariel considered her question and the other two waited for him to answer, “They gave themselves willingly, those humans. They had the Baron's mark inked on their breast. Worshipping at the altar of chaos and discord. Took their own lives.”
“But they came to me,” she protested.
Sariel glanced up through his long lashes to Evie's eyes. “Because of the manner of their death, they are ours to command now.”
The three of them chuckled in a way that sent a shiver through Evie right to her toes.
“We sent them,” said Shamsiel.“for you to follow. So that you could see and learn.”
Evie rolled her eyes, every muscle aching from the battle on and over the beach. “You couldn't just come and knock on the door?”
“We needed you to see the Daemon, said Sariel.”
“Her power and majesty,” said Shansiel
“You will help us. ” Baraqel said with finality.
Evie started to speak; Sariel held up his hand. “You must help us.”
“Why?” Evie said for what felt like the fourth or fifth time so far.
“Because war is coming.”
Before she could open her mouth, she was flying backwards through the air at a phenomenal rate, her heart racing, her hair in her face.
The Watchers dropped her, for lack of a better word, exactly back on the beach where she'd started. Thankfully much closer to the ground. Evie landed on the sand in an awkward sprawl the Watchers words still burning in her brain. “War is coming.”
Chapter 3
Evie
“Ow,” Evie moaned.
“Welcome back, darlin'.” Trick sat on the beach a few feet away, wiping blood from his lip and a deep cut next to one eye His wet jeans and shirt were heavily encrusted with sand. “My manhood is severely diminished.”
“Four-arms came back?” she asked, crawling over next to him, trailing her sword.
He nodded.
“She kicked your butt?” Evie asked, brushing sand out of his thick brown hair.
“She did not so much kick it as hand it to me. I think I will buy an apron and take up baking.”
Evie laughed. The sand around him was churned up into steep hills and valleys. “You fought her again?”
“Yes. I saw her flying away then she screeched to a stop, aeronautically speaking. You poofed out and I figure she time-flipped you or something. Then she came back for the crystals and we wresteled a bit.”
“Hold still.” Taking the sleeve of her sweatshirt she cleaned out the sand from the cut on his head. It would heal very quickly and he didn't want bits of scratch sand under the skin. “Four arms gave her a distinct advantage I'm guessing.”
He nodded, “Ain't tht the truth! She had me on the ground and she did that soul-searching look you do. The one that burns right into your brain?” He gave a his shoulders a shake. “Sort of creepy. Then she grabbed the crystals and flew away. I think she sneered at me,” he added.
Evie laughed again.
“I won't say I was starting to worry because you can take care of yourself. Still, you were gone a fair amount of time. Where did she send you?”
“Not her. Something worse.”
Evie carefully described her encounter with the Watcher's and their dire predictions. Trick's face grew progressively grimmer as she spoke. He asked her to repeat everything the Watchers said about the Daemon and the Imp's Bottle.
“I have never heard of a Daemon before tonight. Have you?”
Trick quirked one eyebrow. “What? No introductions in Angel 101 after your transition?”
Evie shook her head.
“They don't give you a lot of prep before they send you into action, do they? Okay, this is what I know. The Daemon were messengers between heaven and earth. Almost on level with the angels. They loved and cared for humans even though they are far older than mankind and not even from our world.”
“Whoa,” Evie put out both hands. “What do you mean not from our world? I'm assuming your including the spiritual and demon realms connected with our own Terra Firma.”
He gave an exaggerated shoulder roll. “People say they're from Fae. Or some place like it. It's a big multiverse out there. Daemon believe they have a direct mandate from God to care for man.”
Evie blinked. “Do they?”
“That's their story and they are sticking to it.”He gave her his crooked smile then winced as the grin pulled at his torn lip. “They are a mixed bunch physically. Sort of human bodies but with wings, claws, and sometimes animal or birds heads. Even four-arms like our blue-skinned she-devil.”
“The stuff of legends.”
“Yep. I think the closest representations are creatures in those Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs.”
Evie stared at him.
“You don't know what i'm talking about, do you?” Trick said.
“Art history was never one of my strong points.”
Trick dug out his cell phone and tapped at the screen, eventually brining up a link to the British Museum. He scrolled through a series of pictures of giant winged bulls and anthropomorphic beasts.
“Well, crap,” Evie sighed. “That does not look like a good thing.”
“They're not evil. Daemon, I mean. Despite their form. All the legends say they love and protect humans.”
“A little too much?” Evie asked.
“That's what your Watcher pals said.”
“Ugh, they are so not my pals. From what they said, I think the women killed themselves to summon something. Most probably the four-armed thing.”
Trick stood and pulled her to her feet, leading her to the remains of the black fire and piles of human ash. Reading the magic, I think it was more of a 'request' than a summons. The crystals were either used in the spell or as an enticement.”
“Not hers.”
“No.
“What is it the Watchers want you to do? I mean specifically.”
Evie ran her hands through her tangled hair in exasperation. “Angels be specific? Please. I guess because now I am sort of freelancing, they feel they can ask me to help them.”
“With the Baron. Isn't that it?”
Evie hesitated. The Baron was a very touchy subject for Trick. She couldn't deny he might play an important part in this and she nodded.
“You lost your Grace because of him...” He looked down at the sand. “Because of me. Maybe they figure you owe the Host.”
“Maybe I do,” she sighed.
“And you're very trustworthy and honorable.”
“Am I?” she asked more lightly than she felt.
He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “Very. That probably figures into it. Not someone who would snatch the bottle thing for herself even if she had the chance.”
The wind was picking up as the morning overcast moved in from off shore. The three spirits of the sacrifices had not returned. A salty breeze scattered the dark ashes from the women's bodies across the beach. Evie shivered as a few of them brushed against her. The scene reminded her far too much of Trick's death and her vengeance on his master. She had burned him and his demon solders to piles of ash, very much like these.
When she was a vice detective, she'd been given cases, solved crimes, and sometimes prevented worse ones. As an Avenging Angel, her work was not that different. She was notified by a Celestial of a new mission. She had to use her skills to find the murderer. When she had closed in physically on her quarry, a Death Mark appeared over the guilty. That was the final order to dispatch him, her, or it. The orders came from above, the cases not hers to choose. She'd never understood why some innocents were worthy to be avenged and others not. Nevertheless, she'd accepted the system until she met Trick. Now, things were different. She had the freedom – or burden depending on how you looked at it – of choosing who to avenge.
The Watchers had not given her a choice. They expected her to help them. Was she supposed to do this? Would it put her back in the plus instead of the minus column with her bosses? Or was she acting on hubris once again? An inflated sense of self worth.
Trick took her hand. “This place is giving me the creeps. Lets get out of here.”
Together they trance-jumped far and fast, climbing back to Highway One. Evie watched for a truck they could use going south in the direction of the beach cities. They could change transport again once they got to Torrance Boulevard. That was the easiest route back home to St Jude's Church.
St. Jude's had been home since her transition from human to angel. The grounds of the rundown building took up nearly half a block behind the sprawling Del Almo Mall. Though it had long ago stopped holding regular services, Father James was always ready to offer counsel to those who walked, crawled or flew through the tall arched wooden doors. St. Jude was the patron saint of lost causes – a not so subtle lesson for the Avenging Angel from her bosses. Evie had trouble following the chain of command as a homicide detective when she was alive. That attitude hadn't changed significantly in the afterlife and was probably why she found herself in limbo now.
Instead of going south, Trick jumped easily onto a truck heading north, pulling Evie with him.
Trick motioned for her to sit down. “I want to show you someplace before we head back to real life.”
“Such as it is.” Evie said, settling next to him, feeling the warmth radiating off his body as he summoned a little of his power to dry his clothes.
“Such as it is,” he agreed, putting one arm around her waist and pulling her even closer.
They left the truck on a windy stretch of road away from the lights of the town or even any houses.
He led her to to another rocky beach, stopping before they reached the sand at an outcropping with a natural platform about twenty feet above the sea. The gray cloud bank hung back here, the sky still that indefinable color between black and blue, the sea a lighter reflection of the sky.
Evie knew Trick liked to swim at night and stare up at the stars – when they weren't hidden by coastal fog as they were so often. He loved the sea and told her he never tired of watching it.
The water along the California coast, contrary to tourists' expectations, is always freezing. Trick's enhanced powers enabled him to keep warm despite the chill. Soon after they met, when she was still hunting him, he led her to a beach and swam alone, staring at the constellations. He'd thought it would be his last swim, that he was giving himself up to death at her hands. That was the fateful night they'd declared their feelings for each other. The night everything changed for both of them.
Instead of going further down the rocks, right onto the beach as Evie expected, Trick moved to a small, deep opening in the cliff face behind them. From there, he pulled out several thick blankets.
Evie raised her eyebrows and gave Trick a significant look to the blankets and back.
“It's not what you think,” he said, shaking off the dust and dirt and spreading them on the ground. “This is not my secret love nest. I come here alone. We can't go closer than this.”
“Closer to what?”
Trick pulled off his boots, removed the lariat the she-devil had dropped, several knives, a set of wicked looking brass knuckles, a small derringer Evie didn't even know he had, and settled with a sigh onto the blankets.
“I come here to watch the selkies. Sometimes mermaids join them on a full moon.” He pointed to an outcropping of rocks barely above the breaking waves. “Just out there. It's almost a full moon. We might get lucky if the clouds hold off.”
Evie quickly unbuckled her scabbard, kicked off her short boots and dropped down on the blanket to stare out at the sea “Mermaids are real?”
Scooting a little closer, Trick kissed her above each eye. “Darlin', for a supernatural, you sure don't know much about the magical world.”
Avenging Angel Series Book 2
by Eden Crowne
Copyright 2015. All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Evie
Evie sighed as she brought up her flaming sword and steadied herself against the she-devil's next move. Being an angel is not the floaty, feathery, fluffy sort of afterlife most people envision. There is a lot more sweating, bleeding, fighting, and swearing involved. In fact, she thought as she parried a thrust from a jagged, curved knife, life after death is much more difficult than being alive.
The creature or demon or devil was like nothing Evie had encountered before. She looked like she'd flown out of the epic Indian tale, the Mahabharata. Bright blue, with four arms, eagle-claw feet, and magnificent black hair to her waist. Her wings were as iridescent green and blue as a peacock's and her skin so white she glowed. Really glowed. Like a 500 watt bulb lighting up the night. She had scarlet lips and was Bollywood beautiful. Which made it odd that she was dressed only in a few gray rags stretched thinly overher voluptuous bod. She was also trailing a thick chain several feet long from one ankle.
A little earlier that day, three silent spirits had shown up in her tiny apartment at St. Jude's Church in Torrance on the south side of Los Angeles. Actually shown up at a rather inconvenient moment during an afternoon interlude with her and Trick doing their best to pull all four corners of a fitted sheet off the bed. Her wing had flipped out in surprise, as it often did, and thrown them both off the bed, as often happened.
The three spirits stared solemnly at them and pointed back the way they'd come. Spirits showing up in her bedroom was not as odd as it might sound.
Evie was an avenging angel, at least until a few weeks ago. In life she'd been a vice detective in Atlanta. A good one. She worked hard and partied hard. She'd died hard, too. A death that haunted her still. After her transition to an earthbound avenging angel, her mandate wasn't that different from being a cop: avenge the blood of innocents.
She'd met Trick, a Reaper, with his thick brown hair and sea green eyes in a West Hollywood bar over a dirty martini with extra olives. Interesting fact: she'd fallen for him at first sight. Awkward fact: she was supposed to kill him. Life after death. Complicated.
Her Celestial bosses sent a Death Mark to the bar singling Trick out as her quarry. The person supposedly responsible for the death of three innocents guarding a fearsome relic. That relic held the unholy ability to kill an angel. Not just dispatch an angel, but bring the true death – oblivion. Her mission was clear, draw her golden sword and execute him. She did her best, on several occasions. Dodging sword blows, he kept professing his innocence, for those particular murders at least.
What she didn't know at the time was that Trick's master had ordered him to kill her. A deal had been struck between his Demon Lord, the master of his soul, and a Fallen Angel known as the Baron for an angel's wing. Evie's. A fallen Celestial had one wing stripped from them as punishment – as if banishment to earth was not punishment enough. The Baron wished to be whole again. There were only two ways to get such a thing. Either the Angel surrendered it willingly or you took it from their dead body. The relic gave Trick the power to carry out the latter choice.
Trying to kill him several times and coming damn close, she finally followed him along the Los Angeles coastline to an isolated beach near Palos Verde. There, to Evie's complete surprise, he surrendered himself to death at her hands. His own master had murdered the innocents in the theft of the deadly relic, he explained. Not him. The fact that Trick and his master shared blood to seal their bargain had led Evie's superiors to sense Trick's blood and send her after him.
The dagger could only be used once, after that it became nothing but a decorative letter opener. But that one time, it could kill anything. Anything.
Against all the odds of heaven and earth, he'd fallen for her just as hard and just as fast as she had for him. He could not kill her. Not even to free himself from his devilish bargain and a century and half of servitude.
Evie and Trick surrendered to each other on that rocky, deserted beach. Making love in the sand, revealing themselves heart and soul. Sealing their fate. When an Angel falls for a Reaper, there's going to be hell to pay.
By morning, the Baron tracked them down, trapping them in a magic circle and demanding Trick kill Evie and bring him the wing. When Trick's master showed up as well, it looked like he'd be forced to do exactly that. The demon was the master of Trick's soul and could not be disobeyed. Luckily for them, Trick's master was a duplicitous bastard and planned on betraying the Baron. Why give away one wing when he could have two of his own and reach heaven itself?
Much to their mutual surprise, the Baron and Evie ended up fighting side by side against an army of demons raised by Trick's master. During the battle, to save Evie, Trick stabbed himself with the relic. She'd held him in his arms and looked into his sea green eyes as the light went out of them. Evie had gone mad with anger, her desire for vengeance blotting out everything else. Burning Trick's master and his minions to ashes.
A Celestial has the power to bring back the dead. The Baron was a true Fallen Angel. A being of unfathomable power. Evie bargained her wing for Trick's life, not thinking of the consequences.
The price had been high. Far beyond just the ability to fly. The Heavenly Host took her angelic Grace, telling Evie she must earn her way back to that higher state. Now, technically, she was a fallen as well. Though as an earthbound angel, that meant fallen with a lowercase 'f'.
All was not lost, since they trusted her with reforming the Reaper, saying she held his contract – though she never actually saw it -- and technically making her his boss. They left much of her strength, angelic abilities and power to heal from any injury, plus her beautiful, shining sword. Her mandate to avenge the innocent had also remained, though now the spirits found her. Like tonight.
Evie and Trick hastily dressed and followed the three spirits outside. Pulling a glamour around themselves, they'd alternated trance jumping and truck surfing – as they called hitching unseen rides on the top of speeding vehicles – following the spirits.
The sun was just sinking below the horizon when the spirits led her and Trick to this narrow, rocky beach north of Malibu. The smell of fresh blood unmistakable.
Near the cliffs, three women lay arranged head-to-toe around a fire burning with black flames. Bloody rivulets led from their wrists and thighs to the fire pit, the blood feeding the magic.
All spells requires sacrifice. The darker the spell, the bigger the bite it took of your or someone else's spirit. Some of the dark mages with acolytes to spare got them to sacrifice their bodies to enact particularly difficult and powerful spells. Promising, no doubt, that their spirit would be reborn. Yeah. Right. Like that was going to happen.
The sorcerer who enacted this particular spell probably promised the three young women something equally enticing. The shades stood around the circle, their eyes black and empty, pointing at the still bodies.
When Evie and Trick arrived, the she-devil was already on the beach, near the black fire. She seemed oblivious to the ghosts, all her concentration focused on a handful of crystals spread out in the sand. As they watched, she tossed some powder onto the bodies, then flicked flint until it sparked. The powder caught and the bodies burned with flames that gradually shaded from red to the same uncanny black as in the fire in the pit.
Trick and Evie decided they had enough proof of wrongful death and pounced. Evie vaporated onto the beach in a burst of white smoke. Reappearing almost instantaneously, she kicked the crystals to break whatever spell the thing was weaving. As soon as she touched the crystals, she wished she hadn't. A shooting pain set the nerves in her leg vibrating incontrollobly from the toe of her boot right up into her pelvis. Her leg buckled and she went down in the sand.
After that, things hadn't gone so well.
Trick leaped in to cover her as she rolled to her feet, his short sword blocking a thrust from a jagged curved blade the she-devil held in one hand. With her lower set of arms, she grabbed Trick by his shoulders and threw him out to sea, a good three-hundred foot toss.
Evie attacked. Her sword aflame, she lunged forward in a series of compound attacks. Feinting high and low and thrusting in what she knew was a blur of speed and strength. The she-devil blocked her blow for blow using nothing but a set of intricately wrought metal arm guards studded with rough cut jewels as brightly colored as her wings.. Which should not have been possible. Even in her slightly weakened form, Evie's sword could slice through virtually anything. It couldn't touch those cuffs, though. Sparks flew, yet her blade did not even scratch them.
Having four arms gave the she-devil the advantage of both taking the offense and defense at the same time. With the dagger in her lower right hand, her ripostes came so fast she pulled in too close for Evie to effectively use her long blade. Changing her grip, Evie vaporated through and behind the she-devil and struck her a solid blow on the back of the head with the hilt. The blow didn't even seem to phase the thing. She turned her head and gave Evie a “is that all you've got” sort of look.
Her wings bent inward and slapped Evie backwards. Evie vaporated again, spinning in mid-air to land in front of the she-devil, gambling the creature would be looking behind.
She gambled wrong.
The she-devil was already waiting on one knee. Coming in under Evie's guard, she scored a long cut across Evie's ribs with the dagger.
Swallowing down the pain, Eviehit high and low with a combination of blows trying to keep some distance between them. A whirlwind of sand spun up from the beach and Evie was fighting nothing but air. The creature had spread her wings and rose high above the beach. Evie trance jumped, but the she-devil easily maneuvered out of reach.
Trick, Evie saw, was manfully stroking back to shore and was almost to the beach.
'That's it,” Evie thought watching the she-devil.” She's going to just flip them off and fly out to sea.”
Instead, she swooped and dove at Evie, trying to drive her away from the fire, toward the cliff face. Evie's foot touched something and a shooting pain numbed her toes. The crystals. The she-devil must not want to leave them.
Throwing himself into a series of trance jumps, Trick leaped out of the waves and across the beach. "Evie, catch!" He threw an amulet of glowing stones at her.
Evie let go of her sword with one hand to grab the shining bracelet as it flew. Trick was a Reaper of many amulets. He used and understood magic in a way Evie probably never could. The Reaper's magic was dark in origin, the polar opposite of angelic power. With no idea what to do next.
“Oh for god's sake, put it around your sword handle!” Trick shouted, a glowing green sigil already taking shape in his hands.
Throwing herself into a high roundhouse kick that actually connected solidly with the she-devil's stomach, Evie did as Trick said. At the same time, Trick threw the sigil. The spell hit Evie's sword with a bone-jarring shock, powering up the amulet.
A string of bright letters spun from the amulet around the sword's blade and out the tip. Evie swung the sword around and around her head and flung the spell straight at the she-devil. A line of black letters snaked out to knot over the claws of her feet. Evie yanked, jerking both of the thing's legs together.
The spell rope must have burned like fire. The demon pulled wildly, trying to shake it loose before, with a scream worthy of a banshee, she dived at Evie, claws on one set of hands outstretched, the other swinging her blade.
Dived and got pulled up short.
A golden rope wrapped itself over and around one of her wings. Trick threw his spellcast lariat, one of his favorite weapons and very appropriate for a former cowboy from Arizona. Digging in his feet, he took several turns of the rope around his shoulder and pulled.
Evie did the same, her one wing flapping to create a downdraft, each of them pulling in different directions, trying to drag the creature back to earth.
The she-devil had different idea. With a massive effort, she swept her wings down and pulled both Evie and Trick into the air to dangle below her. Evie hung desperately onto her sword with both hands as her feet left the ground. The spell from the amulet was tight and firm. Not so Trick's lariat. He swung wildly as he struggled for a better grip.
“Both wings would have been better, Trick!” Evie shouted as he swung by.
“Next time you try lassoing a flying devil!” he replied as he swung back.
The she-devil twisted and turned and the two of them flew in wide arcs. They looked like a Vegas circus act. Trick was a tenacious fighter. He began shimmying up the rope probably, Evie thought, to grab hold of the other wing and unbalance them. The she-devil was not going to let him get away with that.
Trick barely had enough time to shout, 'Ohhh fuuu...” before she slammed him against the cliff face.
Spinning, she hit him again and again, starting a small landslide of dirt and boulders that tumbled onto the beach far below.
Finally with a noise that sounded more like an exasperated sigh of an adult confronting misbehaving children, she grabbed the rope with one set of hands, swung it around and snapped. Trick went flying off into the cold waters of the Pacific – again. The she-devil scrabbled at the rope trying to remove it. The thing had knotted tightly and it took some crafty flying on the she-devil's part to get it off. Evie mostly held on, hanging about ten feet below and not really knowing what the hell to do next. Maybe Trick's amulet had other bells and whistles, but without the Reaper, Evie had no idea how to access the magic. Her one wing beat uselessly, trying to pull her back down to earth. In her diminished state, Evie was no match against this extraordinary creature. If she released the spell, the thing would fly off. If she didn't release the spell, the thing would still fly off dragging her along like a kite tail.
The she-devil came up with a third solution.
As Trick's spell rope snaked by her on it's way down, the she-devil went into a full backward spin, wings pumping. Evie flew with her and suddenly found herself face-to-face with the creature. The demon pulled her close with her upper arms. Evie brought her legs up and around the lower arm holding the dagger. With a quick turn of her hips, she twisted the weapon out of the thing's hand before kicking the she-devil viciously in the stomach.
The impact was enough for Evie to bring her sword up between them. It flared brightly, the power of the blade surging through her aching muscles. Evie wrapped her legs around the thing's waist and pushed the point of the blade up under the chin of the she-devil. It would take only a little more pressure to drive it through the soft skin and into her skull.
The she-devil reached up with her upper set of hands and took hold of the sword handle. This was almost more frightening than being dragged into the stratosphere by a flying half-eagle she-demon. Only an angel should be able to touch Evie's weapon without being paralyzed. Not since the Baron had Evie faced so formidable an opponent.
As they struggled, the blade opened a cut in her throat. A thick line of blood the color of lapis lazuli ran onto the she-devil's bare chest. Their eyes met and locked.
Time slowed as Evie instinctively looked deeper. What she saw there was far beyond the usual demonic jumble of rage and appetite for blood and flesh. There was a wall. Solid, impenetrable even to Evie's still powerful angelic vision. What she did see was unintelligible, almost alien in nature. There was a fuzzy image of a long, smooth tunnel and chains and time blinked back into motion.
They were high now. A thousand feet? Two thousand?
The she-devil, back-winging violently, came to a sudden stop and hovered. She whipped her head left and right, staring wide-eyed. Evie heard a sharp intake of breath and there was no mistaking the look that transformed the creature's beautiful face. She was afraid.
The demon folded her wings tightly, throwing them into a diving spin. Grabbing the hilt with two hands, she twisted Evie's wrist, angling the blade down and bringing her feet up. She used the power of the sword itself to slice right through the amulet's rune spell tying them together. With the lower set of hands she managed to pry Evie's legs from around her waist. Snapping her great wings out, the she-devil pulled out of the dive.
Evie just had time to think, “Oh, crap!” when the thing let go and she was falling.
Above her, the she-devil sped away out to sea.
“Well, damn,” Evie thought as she plummeted earthwards, “that didn't go very well.”
Chapter 2
Evie
The sensation of plummeting stopped so quickly the shock knocked th wind out of her. 'Had she landed?' she thought blearily. There should be more pain if she landed.
She only had enough time to register she was floating a hundred feet off the ground before something grabbed hold of her in an iron grip, pinioning her arms to her sides. She flew sideways through the air in an eye-blurring burst of speed. In and out of the low clouds and then, with a sickening swoop, straight down. This did not look like it was going to end well. She saw the ground rushing at her. Just as abruptly, the acceleration came to an abrupt stop. Snapping her upper body forward and back. The grip released her and she touched down lightly.
Her eyes were watering from the speed and cold air. Brushing away the tears with the sleeve of her sweat shirt, she blinked her vision back into focus even as she brought up her sword and crouched into a fighting stance. The first thing she saw were feathers. Brown feathers swirling around and around her. The air smelled of lavender, sage, and roses. Heady, intoxicating. She knew that scent.
Very slowly and very carefully, she lowered her sword and straightened up.
Light flared brightly and she had to shield her eyes. It was a moment before she could make out the three figures in front of her. Three angels perched on a waist-high retaining wall, the lights of Los Angeles rolling towards the sea behind them far below. She glanced around her, instantly recognizing the iconic building. They were at the Getty Museum of Art, high up in the hills above the 405 highway. More than twenty miles from the isolated beach and the burned corpses.
The angels idly fanned their enormous brown-feathered wings back and forth. One swung an ornate silver short sword, its gold hand grip made of embraced angels, in an out of figure eights, leaving silver light trails in the blade's wake.
The wind shifted, enveloping her again in the angelic scent of sage and lavender. Except for variations in their skin color and hair, all three looked very much alike in beauty. Eyes as silver as their armor. Red lips, and narrow, fine cut faces. In the armor, it was difficult to tell their gender. Celestials can be rather androgynous looking at the best of times. Two women and one man, Evie thought.
Watchers.
Once Celestial, the favorites of Heaven. Now, earthbound.
Some people said the Watchers were wiped out for giving mankind both practical and magical knowledge enabling humans to create the shining, terrible civilizations of the mortal world.
Others said the Watchers had been destroyed after falling in love with human men and women. Punished for bringing forth the fey, hybrid human angels, the Nephilim.
People say a lot of things about angels that aren't true.
A gust of cold wind swept across the terrace, tossing Evie's hair into her face and tugging at the feathers on her one wing. The smell of magic was so thick, it made Evie sneeze.
“God bless you,” said the dark one with the sword.
Evie's eyes flashed to his. “I certainly hope so.”
As one, the Watchers cocked their heads to one side and considered Evie in silence. Evie stared back, no clue why these rare beings of legend had appeared to her.
“We are Sariel,” said a fair man with shining black hair.
“Baraqel.” said his companion, the dark one with the sword.
“Shamsiel.” said the last. A woman, apparently. Olive skin, and dark brown hair that fell in waves down her back, parting over the high bones of her wings.
As they spoke, each in turn, their names appeared in shining silver to hover above them.
Protocol for the different ranks of angels was rather complicated. Watchers, though presently earthbound, were far above an ex-avenging angel in the Celestial chain of command. They could probably turn her to ash where she stood if they wanted. Though that didn't mean she wouldn't come back – eventually. Evie's true death was not theirs to give.
Evie considered her options. Repeating a name after you heard it was considered polite form to begin introductions with Celestials.
Settling on that, she respectfully spoke their names aloud, bowing slightly in acknowledgment. They were searingly strong, those names, burning her tongue and lips as she said them.
“We'd like to speak with you,” said the woman, Shamsiel.
“About the seventy-two demons trapped within the Imp's Bottle,” said Sariel, sheathing his sword.
“And the Fallen One's plan to free them,” finished Baraqel.
Evie stared blankly at the Watchers. Waiting for them to continue. They stared back, unblinking. Maybe they thought she already knew what they were talking about?
“Not getting it,” she said at last. “Demons, Fallen, bottle. Which Fallen?”
“You know him as the Baron.” They said as one.
“Oh, that Fallen.” Damn it. She knew him very well indeed. The starkly beautiful gray-haired, gray-eyed Fallen angel who was currently soaring through the skies around the mortal world thanks to the gift of her other wing.
She'd told Trick not to worry, that the Baron was not going to bring on an apocalypse just because he could fly again. Maybe she'd spoken too soon.
“The Seventy-Two Demons are not demons at all. They are Daemon. Powerful beings not of this world. Messengers between heaven and earth.”
“Not angels?” Evie asked. She'd never heard of a 'daemon'.
The three Watchers adopted the same serious expression and shook their heads.
“Long ago, in one of the earlier ages,” Sariel spoke, one hand fingering the hilt of his sword , “believing they knew best, the Daemon sought to bring knowledge to the sons and daughters of man.”
Shamsiel nodded. “Knowledge they were not ready to receive.”
“Wait,” Evie stepped back to look from one to the other of them. “I thought that was you.”
Baraqel raised a censorious eyebrow and Evie felt the ripple of anger from him.
“I mean, you Watchers.” She said more politely. Diplomacy was not her strong suit. She liked to speak bluntly and for others to do the same. A very un-Southern trait. Her mother had admonished her many times that she 'had the manners of a Yankee. “Isn't that why...” she waved her hands in the air to encompass their earthly state. “You were...” she paused searching for something other than 'kicked out'. “Um, barred from heaven?”
Shamsiel spoke. “We chose to remain here.”
“Chose,” agreed Sariel solemnly.
'Of course you did,' Evie thought sarcastically to herself.
Baraqel frowned as though he could hear the tone of her thoughts. “You dare to judge us? You have have lost your Grace?” He took an aggressive step forward.
Evie didn't retreat, though he probably expected her to. He was pissing her off. There was a difference between the natural arrogance of Celestials and being a bully. Evie did not like bullies. She squared her shoulders and stood her ground.
Shamsiel held up her hand.“Peace, Baraqel. Peace. She knows nothing of this, or us.”
“Respect,” he hissed.
“Must be earned. Mistakes were made, lessons learned,” Shamsiel continued. “Our story was long ago. Far longer than this one. Many civilizations have risen and fallen unknown to the current race of man. That is why, when the Daemon overstepped their bounds a few thousand years ago and began to school the people of that age, we knew we must step in.”
“We bound all the Daemon involved.” Baraqel growled.
Shamsiel's glance flicked to her companion. “With help.”
“Bound them to a twilight sleep,” said Sariel. “In a land on the other side of a Portal gate bound to an object. That object, the Imp's Bottle is both the key and entryway to that gate.”
“A door and key to a prison all in one?”
All three nodded.
“The bottle's size had nothing to do with its capabilities,” Shamsiel explained. “All Portals to the Shadowlands must take some physical form in this world.”
“Kind of like Aladdin's magic lamp?” Evie asked, picturing a genie.
They stared at her blankly.
“Never mind.” She waved one hand in the air as if to brush the confusing image away for them. “I think I know what you mean. What does that have to do with the bodies on the beach and the flying blue babe?” She glanced at Baraqel, who glowered back. “I mean, blue woman?”
Sariel spoke. “She is a Daemon. One of their leaders. As punishment she was not allowed to join the rebels in their exile. Bound not within the Imp's bottle, but near it. The bottle is secreted withhin a vault. The location unknown even to us. Someone has freed her. Which means our adversary knows the location of the Imp's Bottle. There is no reason to take the bottle except to free the Daemon within.”
“Why would someone, anyone, want to free them?”
“We do not know,” said Sariel.
Baraqel gave his companions a sharp glance. “But we suspect.”
“Suspect,” agree Shamsiel.
“You mean the Baron, right?” Evie said.
They remained silent but in a very meaningful way.
Had to be the Baron. “You guys are way more powerful than me,” Evie couldn't help pointing out. “Why don't you just go deal with it? Watchers, from what I understand, can smite like nobody's business.”
There was some hesitation as if they were deciding what they should reveal.
Shamsiel took the initiative. “Celestials cannot find the vault. Neither can they open the bottle, or close it if the seals have been breached. Deep protective magic was woven around the vessel...”
“In case someone was tempted,” Sariel finished.
By someone, they meant another angel. Evie thought fast. That was a scary scenario. The threat to free the Daemon such a potential temptation, these sort of steps had to be taken to lock them away not only from magical intervention but angelic as well. Politics were looking a little more complicated with the Heavenly Host than Evie had ever bothered to consider. Potential threats from the different orders of angels, Celestial and Earthbound? Crap. She'd been a happy little avenging cog in the holy machine since her transition. Happy and apparently oblivious. She had better start paying more attention before it was tool ate. Maybe it already was.
“Yes, but I'm still an angel, at least as far as magic is concerned,” she felt it necessary to point out. “Grace or not. What can I do?”
Sariel began to cut silver figure eights in the air again with his sword.
Shamsiel's massive brown wings flexed slowly in and out. A sign of agitation Evie remembered only too well. “You are bound to this,” she said almost reluctantly it seemed.
“To the magical bottle and rebel Daemon? Bound how?”
“Think.” Baraqel growled.
Of course even as she said it, Evie realized the answer.
Her wing.
The Baron.
They were saying she'd helped to enable this. A terrible thought struck her. “Did he murder them? Those three spirits that came to find me, to ask for justice.”
Sariel considered her question and the other two waited for him to answer, “They gave themselves willingly, those humans. They had the Baron's mark inked on their breast. Worshipping at the altar of chaos and discord. Took their own lives.”
“But they came to me,” she protested.
Sariel glanced up through his long lashes to Evie's eyes. “Because of the manner of their death, they are ours to command now.”
The three of them chuckled in a way that sent a shiver through Evie right to her toes.
“We sent them,” said Shamsiel.“for you to follow. So that you could see and learn.”
Evie rolled her eyes, every muscle aching from the battle on and over the beach. “You couldn't just come and knock on the door?”
“We needed you to see the Daemon, said Sariel.”
“Her power and majesty,” said Shansiel
“You will help us. ” Baraqel said with finality.
Evie started to speak; Sariel held up his hand. “You must help us.”
“Why?” Evie said for what felt like the fourth or fifth time so far.
“Because war is coming.”
Before she could open her mouth, she was flying backwards through the air at a phenomenal rate, her heart racing, her hair in her face.
The Watchers dropped her, for lack of a better word, exactly back on the beach where she'd started. Thankfully much closer to the ground. Evie landed on the sand in an awkward sprawl the Watchers words still burning in her brain. “War is coming.”
Chapter 3
Evie
“Ow,” Evie moaned.
“Welcome back, darlin'.” Trick sat on the beach a few feet away, wiping blood from his lip and a deep cut next to one eye His wet jeans and shirt were heavily encrusted with sand. “My manhood is severely diminished.”
“Four-arms came back?” she asked, crawling over next to him, trailing her sword.
He nodded.
“She kicked your butt?” Evie asked, brushing sand out of his thick brown hair.
“She did not so much kick it as hand it to me. I think I will buy an apron and take up baking.”
Evie laughed. The sand around him was churned up into steep hills and valleys. “You fought her again?”
“Yes. I saw her flying away then she screeched to a stop, aeronautically speaking. You poofed out and I figure she time-flipped you or something. Then she came back for the crystals and we wresteled a bit.”
“Hold still.” Taking the sleeve of her sweatshirt she cleaned out the sand from the cut on his head. It would heal very quickly and he didn't want bits of scratch sand under the skin. “Four arms gave her a distinct advantage I'm guessing.”
He nodded, “Ain't tht the truth! She had me on the ground and she did that soul-searching look you do. The one that burns right into your brain?” He gave a his shoulders a shake. “Sort of creepy. Then she grabbed the crystals and flew away. I think she sneered at me,” he added.
Evie laughed again.
“I won't say I was starting to worry because you can take care of yourself. Still, you were gone a fair amount of time. Where did she send you?”
“Not her. Something worse.”
Evie carefully described her encounter with the Watcher's and their dire predictions. Trick's face grew progressively grimmer as she spoke. He asked her to repeat everything the Watchers said about the Daemon and the Imp's Bottle.
“I have never heard of a Daemon before tonight. Have you?”
Trick quirked one eyebrow. “What? No introductions in Angel 101 after your transition?”
Evie shook her head.
“They don't give you a lot of prep before they send you into action, do they? Okay, this is what I know. The Daemon were messengers between heaven and earth. Almost on level with the angels. They loved and cared for humans even though they are far older than mankind and not even from our world.”
“Whoa,” Evie put out both hands. “What do you mean not from our world? I'm assuming your including the spiritual and demon realms connected with our own Terra Firma.”
He gave an exaggerated shoulder roll. “People say they're from Fae. Or some place like it. It's a big multiverse out there. Daemon believe they have a direct mandate from God to care for man.”
Evie blinked. “Do they?”
“That's their story and they are sticking to it.”He gave her his crooked smile then winced as the grin pulled at his torn lip. “They are a mixed bunch physically. Sort of human bodies but with wings, claws, and sometimes animal or birds heads. Even four-arms like our blue-skinned she-devil.”
“The stuff of legends.”
“Yep. I think the closest representations are creatures in those Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs.”
Evie stared at him.
“You don't know what i'm talking about, do you?” Trick said.
“Art history was never one of my strong points.”
Trick dug out his cell phone and tapped at the screen, eventually brining up a link to the British Museum. He scrolled through a series of pictures of giant winged bulls and anthropomorphic beasts.
“Well, crap,” Evie sighed. “That does not look like a good thing.”
“They're not evil. Daemon, I mean. Despite their form. All the legends say they love and protect humans.”
“A little too much?” Evie asked.
“That's what your Watcher pals said.”
“Ugh, they are so not my pals. From what they said, I think the women killed themselves to summon something. Most probably the four-armed thing.”
Trick stood and pulled her to her feet, leading her to the remains of the black fire and piles of human ash. Reading the magic, I think it was more of a 'request' than a summons. The crystals were either used in the spell or as an enticement.”
“Not hers.”
“No.
“What is it the Watchers want you to do? I mean specifically.”
Evie ran her hands through her tangled hair in exasperation. “Angels be specific? Please. I guess because now I am sort of freelancing, they feel they can ask me to help them.”
“With the Baron. Isn't that it?”
Evie hesitated. The Baron was a very touchy subject for Trick. She couldn't deny he might play an important part in this and she nodded.
“You lost your Grace because of him...” He looked down at the sand. “Because of me. Maybe they figure you owe the Host.”
“Maybe I do,” she sighed.
“And you're very trustworthy and honorable.”
“Am I?” she asked more lightly than she felt.
He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “Very. That probably figures into it. Not someone who would snatch the bottle thing for herself even if she had the chance.”
The wind was picking up as the morning overcast moved in from off shore. The three spirits of the sacrifices had not returned. A salty breeze scattered the dark ashes from the women's bodies across the beach. Evie shivered as a few of them brushed against her. The scene reminded her far too much of Trick's death and her vengeance on his master. She had burned him and his demon solders to piles of ash, very much like these.
When she was a vice detective, she'd been given cases, solved crimes, and sometimes prevented worse ones. As an Avenging Angel, her work was not that different. She was notified by a Celestial of a new mission. She had to use her skills to find the murderer. When she had closed in physically on her quarry, a Death Mark appeared over the guilty. That was the final order to dispatch him, her, or it. The orders came from above, the cases not hers to choose. She'd never understood why some innocents were worthy to be avenged and others not. Nevertheless, she'd accepted the system until she met Trick. Now, things were different. She had the freedom – or burden depending on how you looked at it – of choosing who to avenge.
The Watchers had not given her a choice. They expected her to help them. Was she supposed to do this? Would it put her back in the plus instead of the minus column with her bosses? Or was she acting on hubris once again? An inflated sense of self worth.
Trick took her hand. “This place is giving me the creeps. Lets get out of here.”
Together they trance-jumped far and fast, climbing back to Highway One. Evie watched for a truck they could use going south in the direction of the beach cities. They could change transport again once they got to Torrance Boulevard. That was the easiest route back home to St Jude's Church.
St. Jude's had been home since her transition from human to angel. The grounds of the rundown building took up nearly half a block behind the sprawling Del Almo Mall. Though it had long ago stopped holding regular services, Father James was always ready to offer counsel to those who walked, crawled or flew through the tall arched wooden doors. St. Jude was the patron saint of lost causes – a not so subtle lesson for the Avenging Angel from her bosses. Evie had trouble following the chain of command as a homicide detective when she was alive. That attitude hadn't changed significantly in the afterlife and was probably why she found herself in limbo now.
Instead of going south, Trick jumped easily onto a truck heading north, pulling Evie with him.
Trick motioned for her to sit down. “I want to show you someplace before we head back to real life.”
“Such as it is.” Evie said, settling next to him, feeling the warmth radiating off his body as he summoned a little of his power to dry his clothes.
“Such as it is,” he agreed, putting one arm around her waist and pulling her even closer.
They left the truck on a windy stretch of road away from the lights of the town or even any houses.
He led her to to another rocky beach, stopping before they reached the sand at an outcropping with a natural platform about twenty feet above the sea. The gray cloud bank hung back here, the sky still that indefinable color between black and blue, the sea a lighter reflection of the sky.
Evie knew Trick liked to swim at night and stare up at the stars – when they weren't hidden by coastal fog as they were so often. He loved the sea and told her he never tired of watching it.
The water along the California coast, contrary to tourists' expectations, is always freezing. Trick's enhanced powers enabled him to keep warm despite the chill. Soon after they met, when she was still hunting him, he led her to a beach and swam alone, staring at the constellations. He'd thought it would be his last swim, that he was giving himself up to death at her hands. That was the fateful night they'd declared their feelings for each other. The night everything changed for both of them.
Instead of going further down the rocks, right onto the beach as Evie expected, Trick moved to a small, deep opening in the cliff face behind them. From there, he pulled out several thick blankets.
Evie raised her eyebrows and gave Trick a significant look to the blankets and back.
“It's not what you think,” he said, shaking off the dust and dirt and spreading them on the ground. “This is not my secret love nest. I come here alone. We can't go closer than this.”
“Closer to what?”
Trick pulled off his boots, removed the lariat the she-devil had dropped, several knives, a set of wicked looking brass knuckles, a small derringer Evie didn't even know he had, and settled with a sigh onto the blankets.
“I come here to watch the selkies. Sometimes mermaids join them on a full moon.” He pointed to an outcropping of rocks barely above the breaking waves. “Just out there. It's almost a full moon. We might get lucky if the clouds hold off.”
Evie quickly unbuckled her scabbard, kicked off her short boots and dropped down on the blanket to stare out at the sea “Mermaids are real?”
Scooting a little closer, Trick kissed her above each eye. “Darlin', for a supernatural, you sure don't know much about the magical world.”