He looked
back over his shoulder at the edge of the plateau and the burning
void beyond it, trying not to listen to what the Devil had to say
but unable to move away. Hot fingers of air drifted around him,
stroking over his arms and his chest, and then his back. They crept
under the back of his armour and then it felt as though they were
burrowing into his skin, setting him on fire.
The marks
on his back blazed white-hot and Marcus hit the dirt, jagged rocks
cutting into his bare knees. He curled forwards into a ball and
clutched the sides of his head as tremendous pain ripped through
him and every inch of him burned.
He yelled
out his agony and it echoed around the cavern, mocking him along
with the Devil’s voice.
Marcus
screwed his eyes shut and tried to close his mind to the words
drifting around him and close his heart to the pain. He couldn’t
shut either out.
His wings
faltered and disappeared and the burning intensified, until it
scorched his skin, dredging up memories of how his flesh had begun
to peel away during his battle with Apollyon. The Devil’s voice
grew louder and clearer, turning increasingly like Amelia’s, and
Marcus couldn’t bear it. He dug his nails into his scalp and
whimpered, his back on fire as fingers of air as hot as flames
danced over his skin.
The
Devil.
He wasn’t
strong enough to endure his voice let alone his caress. It would be
the end of him.
He
couldn’t take it.
“Marcus!”
Einar’s voice broke through the heavy haze of agony in his mind and
he clung to it, fiercely holding on and using it to push away from
the stronger voice of the Devil.
“Leave
him alone.” The command in Apollyon’s tone caused the rough ground
to tremble and black words rolled out of the pit again. “Ignore
him, Marcus. You are stronger than this.”
“Can’t.”
Marcus could barely breathe as fresh pain engulfed him, tearing at
his shoulders, and arched backwards and screamed at the ceiling of
the cavern.
“Bastard,” Apollyon spat and growled something dark in the
old language that caused the ground to shake again.
“Marcus,
listen to me,” Einar said and he tried to, wanted to focus on him
and ignore the voice in his mind, but he couldn’t. Whenever he came
close to shutting it out, it came again, stronger and even more
like Amelia.
He yelled
when his wings burst free, ripping out of his back so fast that it
caused him more pain and tore his armour away. He breathed hard,
battling the hurt and the Devil’s tempting words, struggling to
overcome both.
Amelia’s
voice whispered in his mind and he couldn’t block it
out.
Nasty little curse.
Marcus
sucked in sharp gulps of acrid air and swallowed them down,
fighting the pain. If he could lock that down he would be able to
move all of his focus to shunning the Devil.
Not like them to take things this far.
He
stopped breathing and stilled when the pain began to subside. It
wasn’t his doing. Not like who to take things this far?
His focus
shifted to the pit and he stared at it with blurry eyes, able to
sense the Devil watching him but unable to see his form. Hot
fingers of wind curled around his feathers and he lost focus, hazy
with the feel of them touching him. Einar spoke to him, his voice
so distant in Marcus’s ears that he didn’t hear what he
said.
Amelia’s
voice came to him again.
Inhibiting their own.
Marcus’s
eyes widened. He wouldn’t believe it. The Devil was lying to him,
using his doubts to sway him over to his side. It wasn’t
true.
Not true?
You do not remember?
The world
in front of him faded into darkness and another replaced it,
growing piece by piece from the ground upwards until the interior
of a dimly lit wooden building surrounded him. People dressed in
dirty meagre clothing bustled around him, crowding low wooden
tables and filling the room with loud laughter and rowdy
conversation. The scent of faeces and alcohol assaulted his senses.
Mead. Marcus stared down at the flagon in his hand and couldn’t
stop himself from lifting it to his lips.
He
laughed with the men around him, his fellow warriors, thrilled by
what they were doing and the stories of battles they
shared.
The
memories came flooding back. He had drunk with his kin, breaking
the law and seizing a moment of freedom that he had paid dearly
for. They had all broken the rules that night and had drunk until
they were unable to walk as far as their lodgings and had ended up
spending the night in a nearby barn.
Only now
that he was watching the moment all over again, he realised that
the events of that night were different to how he had remembered
it, and it wasn’t a lie fabricated by the Devil to sway him. He
recalled it clearly now. He could recollect everything that had
happened and his suspicions that his fellow angels had been
deceiving him. They had only pretended to drink. At the time, he
had convinced himself that they had no reason to deceive him when
it had been their idea to bend the rules and indulge in something
wicked for once in their lives.
The
vision in front of Marcus unravelled and Hell came back, and he
curled up on the black basalt. The sharp edges of the rocks beneath
him scraped at his sides but he didn’t care. His brethren had
deceived him. Why?
Amelia’s
voice came to him again, light and beautiful in his
mind.
Because they did this to you.
No. He
wouldn’t believe that. He didn’t want to, not even as he remembered
coming around in the barn in the dead of night and discovering them
doing something to his back. At the time, they had told him that
they were up because they had heard something and had come to check
on him. He had been in pain.
Marcus’s
shoulder blades burned again and his wings disappeared. The marks
there heated up until he couldn’t take the fiery inferno and
screamed. The ground trembled and the pain faded again, and so did
the voice in his mind. He felt the Devil’s grip on him slip and
opened his eyes.
Apollyon
stood with his back to him at the edge of the plateau, his black
wings spread and his curved golden blades in his hands. Dark words
rolled off his tongue, shaking the ground, and the Devil cursed
back at him. Apollyon was drawing his attention, giving Marcus a
chance to regain control of himself and find the strength to shut
out the Devil’s voice.
He was
weak from the pain, numb down to his core from the knowledge of
what his kind had done to him, but he wouldn’t submit to the Devil.
He pushed himself onto his knees and then strong hands gripped his
arms and helped him onto his feet. He stumbled with them away from
the edge of the pit, leaving Apollyon there to taunt the Devil, and
again wishing that he was as strong as his friend.
Einar and
Lukas guided him around the corner of the outcrop of rocks and then
set him against it. Marcus leaned there, breathing hard and not
caring that the air was like acid. He needed to breathe and focus
on it and steadying his heart in order to find the strength to
ignore the Devil.
His
heartbeat began to level out and the pain ebbed away, leaving him
trembling.
“What
happened?” Apollyon said and Marcus opened his eyes and looked
across at him. He stood on the other side of Lukas, closer to the
pit than the rest of them, his expression as black as the curses he
had hurled at the Devil.
Marcus
reached over his shoulder and touched his bare back, feeling the
lingering heat on his skin.
“Cursed,”
he spat the word out and anger rolled through him, stronger than
anything he had ever felt before.
The
ground trembled beneath his feet and he pushed away from the rocks
and walked past Apollyon, wearily dragging his feet. He stared at
the bright fire of the pit and felt the Devil watching him still,
although he made no attempt to speak to Marcus this time. Was he
satisfied with his work? He had driven Marcus beyond despair into
something wholly darker and more dangerous.
“They
cursed me.” Marcus closed his eyes and grasped the meaning behind
those three words. Everything he had trusted and believed in had
betrayed him and it cut him to the bone. His fists trembled at his
sides. They had done this to him. Why?
“The
demons?” Lukas’s tone was low and cautious, as though he had sensed
Marcus’s rising anger and was afraid that he would unleash it on
him.
“No.”
Marcus tilted his head right back and stared at the black ceiling
of the cavern, looking beyond it to the mortal realm and then
Heaven beyond that. “Not the demons.”
Veiron’s
voice echoed around the black cavern.
“The
angels.”
***
Chapter 23
Marcus’s
silver-blue gaze slowly shifted to Veiron.
He walked
across the blackened field of rock towards them, a vision of
darkness in his obsidian armour and with his leathery dragon-like
wings furled against his back, their clawed tips gleaming in the
fiery light.
“What do
you mean?” Einar said and held Lukas back when he materialised his
gold and white spear in his hand. “This is Veiron… the one who
foresaw Amelia’s death.”
Lukas and
Apollyon looked Veiron over and neither seemed impressed. Marcus
didn’t like it either, but they needed Veiron’s help and he was
starting to think that this man was more trustworthy than any in
angel in Heaven. Veiron had said plainly what would happen to
Amelia. He hadn’t lied to them as far as Marcus could tell, but
then he couldn’t call himself a good judge of character anymore. He
had been so easily deceived by those he had placed his trust
in.
“It is an
angelic curse,” Marcus said and all eyes were on him.
Apollyon
didn’t seem shocked and neither did Einar. After the conversations
that Marcus had shared with them, their response didn’t come as
much of a surprise to him. All three of them had their doubts about
Heaven and now those doubts had been proven sound.
Lukas
looked between Marcus and Veiron, his green eyes full of disbelief.
Marcus had heard Lukas’s story from Einar, about how another angel
had used Lukas and pinned the murder of hundreds of humans on him,
and the punishment he had endured because of it. It must have been
difficult for Lukas to bring himself to trust Heaven again and now
they had shaken his faith in it once more.
Marcus
could feel a sliver of his pain and confusion, and they were
feelings that he shared. His own belief lay in tatters and
everything he had fought for was gone, tainted by lies and deceit,
and he felt as though he had lost a part of himself because of it.
Or more than a part. He felt like a different person now. The once
dutiful and loyal soldier who had been happy obeying his orders and
had believed in everything he had been told was gone. Naïve.
Foolish. How had he been so blind to everything that had been
happening around him? How had he been so stupid as to cling to
belief and never question the things he was told to do? Even when
he had demanded answers, he had lacked conviction, easily swayed by
his superior into giving up his quest for the truth behind his
mission, trusting that they knew what they were doing and the path
they had chosen for him was the right one.
“Poor
little soul,” Veiron said in a sweet voice and Marcus curled his
fingers into tight fists and glared at him. “Only a powerful demon
can lift that curse or possibly the angel that gave you it, but
something tells me that you didn’t come down here to beg the Devil
to remove it now, did you? You didn’t know.”
Marcus
clenched his jaw and steeled himself, battling his rising desire to
grab Veiron by the throat and shake some answers out of him. No
good would come of it. The Hell’s angel had left when Taylor had
turned nasty towards him and he couldn’t risk driving the man away
now. As much as he hated it, he would endure the demon’s mocking
for Amelia’s sake.
“What
possible reason could they have for cursing you?” Veiron ran his
gaze over him. There was an edge to it that made Marcus feel as
though Veiron already knew the answer to that question. “You must
have done something very bad… or perhaps it was something they
didn’t like.”
Marcus
thought back to the night he had gotten drunk with his so-called
friends and had awoken with the curse. He had spoken to them about
something after their last mission, something that had been dear to
him at the time.
He had
talked about requesting a change in his duties and position so he
could become a soldier of Heaven, one of the many who protected it
against intruders and went to battle in times of war. That was his
dream. They had cursed him that night and he had ended up having to
watch over mortals instead, bound in Heaven with no ability to fly,
useless without his wings.
If the
curse hadn’t happened, he would have asked for that change in
duties and headed into a role that had nothing to do with mortals
or guarding them, an area of servitude where he would have had no
reason to meet Amelia.