Authors: L. A. Banks
Tears rose to Celeste’s eyes and then slowly burned away when she thought about all that Azrael had given her. He’d claimed that she’d saved him; but what she could never explain was that it was the other way around.
Before him, there was only fear and self-destruction. No one understood her gift, except her dear late auntie.
Only her aunt knew that Celeste could see way down deep into people’s souls and feel what they felt. Only Aunt Niecey had borne witness to how the dark side had murdered her parents and thrust her into a world of poverty and addiction and madness that seemed to have no cure. Until Azrael had shown up, the only thing she’d known to do to stop the pain of seeing demons and so much frighteningly horrible weirdness was to drown it all in a bottle. Her so-called gift was so debilitating back then that it left her weak and vulnerable, unable to work, and with a psychiatric file as thick as a phone book. The ravages of poverty had taken their toll on her health and self-esteem. All along she’d thought it was her own fault, until Azrael came to show her that she’d been targeted for suffering by the dark side because of the coming work she was about to do.
Sudden joy filled her heart now as she watched him bend and turn, the cabled sinews stretching along his thick biceps and forearms … her gaze going to his massive but graceful hands that could caress ever so gently and heal, but that she’d also seen wield blades of death to behead demons. Surreal.
Oddly, that made her feel safe, after all she’d seen in her life. Yet, the warrior angels who’d been trapped on earth since their first big battle with the fallen, some twenty-six thousand years ago, had been waiting for her … waiting for her prayer and her willingness to sacrifice herself for them so that they could return to the Light, even if they’d violated divine edict and lain with the daughters of man while here.
And after twenty-six thousand years, all it took was the
right combination of her prayer as a member of the Remnant—a half-human, half-angel Light Nephilim with twelve strands of DNA hiding in her genetic code, to fuse with the Angel of Death’s intention to liberate his trapped and suffering brethren from this density. Profound. She’d sent up the heartfelt request; Azrael had opened the portal to the Light. But there was only one taker, Jamaerah, a gentle spirit who could no longer endure his entrapment in the flesh. Once liberated back to the Light, he demonstrated to her how angels and positive spirits still helped from the etheric realm. The rest of the battle-hardened, Jack Daniel’s–drinking, partying crew, who had thought all was lost and previously lamented not being able to return, had stayed when given the choice, deciding to ride or die with her and Azrael to the end.
That was the thing they’d taught her, too—just knowing one could leave if one wanted evaporated the illusion of being trapped. That paradigm shift was the freedom that the angels with dirty wings, her guys now, needed. She’d given them that and they loved her for it, calling her
the key
, since she’d unlocked their minds and commuted their sentences for violating the divine law not to lie with human women while on earth. In return, they’d given her unparalleled protection and knowledge. Many a night and well into the dawn they’d all sat up with her and her Remnant sisters debating the merits of the lessons learned by having everything angelic except immortality stripped from their beings.
To hear Bath Kol tell it, hellfire would have been easier. But they’d each agreed that, by being made manifest, by temporarily losing their wings and being plunged into
the temptations of the flesh, they’d gained an empathy for humanity that just couldn’t be fully perceived while in etheric form.
To experience heartbreak, suffering, physical pain, desire, rage, jealousy, lack, need—all of that had given them serious respect for the human condition. Now when they fought for humankind, they fought with a whole different level of regard for the beings that endured here even with demon oppression besetting their existence. After twenty-six thousand years here in the flesh, this special dirty-angel corps knew that humans weren’t just weak cattle. They’d been outgunned and outmanned by evil, immortal forces way stronger than humans could ever hope to be. Yet many people still endured, held the line, helped their neighbors, sacrificed their lives for others, were honorable and loved and reached out to those less fortunate, despite the tidal wave of negative forces.
That
was courage under fire, to be sure.
And her angels said
that
had been what the Almighty had known and seen in the divine creation. It was also why to not serve humans was such a defiant act. To be righteous and perfect when one is all-powerful is not difficult; to do so when mortal and weak and hungry and afraid is heroic. Azrael told her that the Source of All That Is saw that striking quality in its creation and demanded the angels respect that. Most did, but some did not—hence the war that has raged on since the planets last aligned to open the veil between worlds.
For all that Azrael and the others gave her, the one thing none of them could bestow upon her was peace of mind as the date of the next alignment approached.
Celeste quietly sighed. The soft sweep of Azrael’s wings and the gentle pat of his bare feet against the floor were soothing. Had his dance not been so profoundly beautiful, she would have closed her eyes and allowed the constant metronome-like rhythm to lull her back to sleep.
But there was no way to close her eyes on that splendor, just as there was no way to unknow all that she’d come to see and learn since he’d entered her life. Never in a million years could anyone have told her she’d be living with a battalion of angels in a retrofitted warehouse with the future of the planet hinging on one date: 12/21/12.
B
ody glistening with a
thin sheen of sweat from his exertion, Azrael opened his eyes and offered her a lazy smile. “Good morning.”
“Back atcha,” she replied, loving the easy rumble of his voice.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Ohhh, just about long enough to thoroughly enjoy the floor show,” she murmured as he came to the side of the bed and sat near her.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He leaned down and brushed her mouth with a light kiss, then pulled back to look at her.
“You didn’t, and I wouldn’t have minded if you had.” She reached up and traced the line of his square jaw with the cup of her hand. Warmth from his body radiated out in a palpable blanket as he leaned in for another, deeper kiss.
No matter what he’d eaten, his kiss always tasted sweet like ambrosia. That lacquer always coated and masked everything else he’d consumed, even the insides of her mouth. By now she’d learned to judge his mood by the concentration of that wondrous flavor. This morning it was mild and delicate, telling her that he was thoroughly contented and relaxed. When he pulled back again, this time he found stray wisps of her hair to push behind her ear.
“Would you like some breakfast?”
She raised an eyebrow as her smile broadened. “I was just about to ask you that.”
Her comment made him laugh. “Celeste … you are my ruination, you know that, right?”
“Yeah.”
They both laughed as he pounced on her, but the play came to an abrupt halt the moment Bath Kol’s angry voice shattered the calm. It was impossible to hear exactly what he was yelling about, but it was definitely a mood killer.
“I need to go check on my brother,” Azrael said with a resigned sigh.
“Yeah, it was time to get up anyway,” she replied, trying to shake off the disappointment.
Azrael slowly peeled his body away from hers, gave her a wistful glance, then got up. “Could be nothing, then again …”
“Could be everything,” she said with a shrug, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She yanked her hair up into a messy ponytail, found a scrunchie on the night-stand, and stood.
Azrael looked so forlorn as he crossed the room and hesitated by the door that it made her swallow a smile.
“I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna wash my face and brush my teeth, then rustle us up some grub. What do you want to eat?”
“It’s not in the kitchen,” he said, then let out a breath of frustration as another bellicose outburst drew his attention toward the door.
Celeste just shook her head and chuckled quietly as he exited, then searched in earnest for her pajama pants and slippers, as well as a sweater. In bed, she’d been nice and cozy. But the huge warehouse was drafty as all get-out in November. This place wasn’t like the one Bath Kol had retrofitted in New York. There, before the dark side had ambushed them around the corner from his South Bronx club, Bath Kol and his Sentinels had been able to stay in that massive warehouse long enough to rig it with heat and electricity and collect all sorts of furniture and creature comforts from eras gone by.
However, now that their collective date with destiny was so close, and they now had the added complication of humans within the angel roost to protect, they had to stay on the move. Heat was provided by whichever angel body was in the room, pure energy wafting off him. Once he left, the bitter cold set in.
Celeste boxed her arms as she headed to the makeshift bathroom. Sure, it had been well cleaned and used the old plumbing system from when the factory warehouse had been opened years ago, but one had to conserve the water that was provided by a series of huge, leveraged drums, which also needed to be regularly replaced.
Plus, the abandoned building had no formal electricity
either. It wasn’t as if she could just walk into a room and flip on a light or blow-dry her hair after a shower. If alone, she and the other humans in the building had to get as much done as one could during the daylight hours and use the ambient light coming in through the endless banks of windows.
But that didn’t stop them from having illumination or cooking altogether, as long as one of the brothers with a little celestial juice was in the room. It was still inconvenient as hell, but not as inconvenient as being discovered by nervous humans or being ambushed by demon forces.
Therefore, she could live with the preferred option of survival, even if that meant taking over dilapidated industrial structures that were far enough away from dense human populations to avoid heavy collateral damage if a firefight broke out. And ever since the battle on the Delaware, the brothers had decided that they liked having a water source at their back door.
Every day one of them would go to the river and anoint it with a prayer, and instantly it became a blue-white death trap of holy water should demon forces try an incursion by sea. Their airspace was fiercely guarded by brothers taking shifts on the roof. No doubt they loved the old factories and warehouses that dotted the East Coast waterways because those structures gave them room to stretch their wings like giant birds of prey, and with a little angelic cloaking they could keep themselves occupied with all manner of sports while on the expansive roofs.
By land, they had the perimeter lit up with hallowedground
prayer barriers. The unused floors beneath the couple upper floors they took over at the tops of the buildings for bedrooms and the common areas were well fortified, too. Massive elevators were perfect for their fleet of Harleys and crotch-rocket motorcycles. Table-tennis boards, foosball stands, and basketball hoops took up a large section of the common area, and they
loved
the Wii—literally playing all their games acrobatically on the fly. Wii video games and the realistic interactive games on the Xbox 360 blew their minds and brought them endless delight as they fought demons, bet on who was a better sharpshooter, better guitar player, talked trash, drank beer, and played cards.
That common room stayed lit night and day, as did the multiple refrigerators it contained, which nobody seemed to forget to lend their juice to—not because it kept the food edible for their human charges, but more likely because it kept the beers cold. But after twenty-six thousand years of battle on earth as Sentinels and Guardians, who could begrudge the guys a little fun?
However, the one thing they could not do was kill a human just because he or she discovered the whereabouts of their battalion’s roost. If humans showed up, such as cops or building inspectors, the brothers had to deal with that intrusion fairly, humanely, even if the hassles that those people caused were enormous.
If a demon wanted in or wanted them out, the easiest thing to do would be to mind-stun some poor human law enforcement officer to investigate squatters and have them legally ousted. The angels’ cloaking themselves to minimize that possibility was one thing,
but changing a person’s mind or simply expunging it for their own convenience violated the edict of allowing humans free will.
Yeah, they were going to have to move again soon. She could feel it in her bones. That was probably what had Bath Kol raising hell in the common area first thing in the morning. She could hear him and Isda at the center of a heated debate. It sounded as if the other brothers were taking neutral positions and simply watching.
Celeste splashed cold water on her face, wishing for a moment that Azrael were there to heat it up, then banished the thought. They all had more important things to do than to worry about water temps and creature comforts.
Quickly finishing her morning routine, she spit out her toothpaste and swished a gulp of clean water around in her mouth, spit again, then dashed down the football-field-length hall toward the common area.
The closer Celeste got to it, the louder the debate raged. As she entered the large, open area, Melissa was sitting across the room at the double-long picnic-style table with her head in her hands and her profusion of dark-blond curls hiding her almond-hued face. Tension riddled the Remnant sister’s tight posture. Arguing and dissension jacked with Melissa’s nervous system. Badly. Celeste frowned. Everybody knew that. Like all of them, Melissa had been through a lot, shuttled from her native Aborigine mother’s outback hideaway to her Danish father’s people in Demark. In between, the dark side had claimed much of Melissa’s innocence and peace; the same way Magdalena’s life had been no day at the beach, running from Ecuador to Colombia and subsequently
falling into the wrong hands before Gavreel found her. But the way each woman processed stress was different. Melissa would allow it to implode within her and come off analytical and as though it didn’t bother her, whereas Magdalena would blow a fuse. If the brothers didn’t stop this crap, they were gonna make Celeste want to start smoking again.