Fallen Angel 1: Ashes of Eden Read online

  Finding the man who commanded this raggedy group, Lucifer smiled. He flattened the last few men that stood between them with near-fatal blows. Then he was right in front of the leader, his punishing grip curled around the man’s throat. He hoisted him up with ease, leaving his legs to dangle.

  The mirroring of Michael’s assault was not lost on him, and being on the inflicting end made Lucifer’s smile broaden. “You attacked the wrong angel, you disgusting excuse for a human.” With his elbow bent, he lifted the dagger high and pointed the tip down at the man’s wide eyes.

  Spit sprayed from the peasant’s mouth. He was trying to speak. But the hold Lucifer cranked tighter around his neck refused to allow a word to escape.

  “And now you die.”

  “Lucifer, no!”

  Head craning at Gabriel’s sudden scream, Lucifer saw too late what he couldn’t stop.

  One of the other men he’d knocked down was back on his feet. A long spear was clutched in his dirty hands—right behind Gabriel. She wasn’t aware he was there. Her total focus was set on Lucifer, her face distraught at the sight of him about to murder the same man who had set out to burn her alive.

  Lucifer flung his intended kill and ran. The force of his wings propelled him forward while fractures threatened to become broken bones. “Gabriel, look—”

  The spear punched through her back—straight through her heart and clean out the other side.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lucifer heard Gabriel gasp and watched in numb shock as she stared down at the bloody spearhead protruding from her chest. And then she fell, her blackened legs giving out and her rolling eyes breaking him in two.

  Lucifer screamed, torment pouring out of him as he stormed forward. But he didn’t stop to swoop Gabriel up into his arms. Sight blinded by white-hot rage, he propelled up as stars claimed the sky. Then he changed course, diving for the attacking man who had delivered the fatal wound. Catching him in flight, he swooped him up off the ground and twisted his head sideways. He felt the crack right before the man went limp.

  Dropping his lifeless body like a stone, Lucifer didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

  One by one he swooped the field, driving the long dagger he held through their hearts and across their necks. Heads fell and spines were severed—until there was nothing but Lucifer’s ragged breath and the crackle of flames that edged closer to the ark.

  Noah was huddled inside, peering out through the ramped opening. Soon the fire that ate up the bodies he had silenced would reach him too.

  And Lucifer didn’t care. He couldn’t.

  Not when Gabriel…his Gabriel…

  He saw movement among the dead below. Except, there were no dead. It had all been a bloody fantasy in his mind, a desire to make every single man on this field pay for the life—the love—they had stolen from him. And that movement among the grass behind the fearful men who brandished their spears and crept closer…was Gabriel.

  Curled on her side, her once white rags barely covered any of her weeping flesh. Her singed wings lay skewed behind her. The spear still poked from her chest and silver flooded out like a dam that had broken its banks. Her mouth opened, and her eyes filled with tears as she stared at him.

  No words came out—only her silver blood did.

  This time Lucifer did scream, unfurling his wings as he pushed up with aching legs. Knocking down the men in a flurry of swiping wings and punishing fists, he fought to disable the barrier keeping him from her. Rendering each and every man unconscious, he didn’t stop. Sweat dampened his skin as grunts and cries and then thud after thud rang out. And then all fell quiet. The only sound remaining was his panting breaths and the crackle of grass fires that crept closer.

  Lucifer fell to the charred earth in front of her, his throbbing knees splashing in the silver pool that collected around her body. Angels were immortal, so long as they could heal. With the extent of her injuries, the fact that almost the entirety of her body was burnt black and red between weeping silver, and the spear that had obliterated her beating heart, she was hanging on by a thread. She couldn’t heal here.

  “This will hurt.” Lucifer steeled himself at what he had to do, wrapping both his hands around the wooden pole just below the sharpened stone that had speared straight through her back and out her chest. Controlling the tears that burned behind his eyes, he nodded as she started to gasp. “I will not let you die.” Lucifer tugged the spear, guiding the long length through the gaping hole in her chest. As it came free with her wheezing gasp, more silver blood poured out. Lucifer didn’t hesitate. With fire licking at one of his wings, he gathered her up as quickly and as gently as he could. Still she groaned, but he did not waste time apologizing.

  There was no time.

  Beating his wings that fanned the rising flames, Lucifer pushed up with all the force his fractured legs could muster, shooting up into the sky like a falling star in reverse. The wind whipped and clouds gathered, thick and cold, to slow his ascent. Lucifer continued on, wings batting harder with each passing moment that could be her last. After flying for what felt like an eternity, the sky opened up to rain down over the land and the fire they had left behind. Lucifer knew the rain was God’s doing, that his actions were known, but he forged on. He had to. He had made a promise that this time he could not break.

  He was running out of time. He could feel it in the deathly chill her body had taken on. “Hold on, Gabriel. Please. I cannot live without you.”

  With the power he possessed, Lucifer broke through the stars—“Almost there”—and blasted through the looking glass. Water and transparent shards exploded up with his reentry, already reformed since his unwarranted descent. Wings flinging out, he fell slowly, meeting the water as it washed back down into the pool in a splash of lapping waves. The glass beneath snapped back into its perfect concaved shape. Glowing warmth radiated all around, growing from the water that lapped at his torso and cascaded over Gabriel in his arms. He held her lower, his heart pounding with the fear that he hadn’t made it in time. She was so still. So quiet. The hole in her chest was unchanging, the silver of her blood along with the ash of her singed skin and feathers tainting what had once been crystal clear water.

  At once, he knew he was not alone. Michael was crouched behind him with his knees to his chest and his hands clasped as if in prayer. His eyes pooled with what almost resembled grief. Despite the company and any fear of repercussions, Lucifer spoke only to Gabriel. “Fight it. You have to. I need you.”

  Silence stretched on, only Lucifer’s and Michael’s anticipating breaths filling the bright space. He could not stand it: the sight of her damaged and burned raw, the dead weight of her quiet body. With a tear sliding free, Lucifer gritted his teeth as he glared up into the infinite light. “Damn this, save her. Heal her. Your messenger. One of the twelve. God, please. Give me her wounds, her suffering. Punish me for the rest of eternity. Do whatever you choose, but I beg you, please, please save her.”

  There was no change in the surrounding light. No response. No—

  Michael sucked in a breath, clasped hands separating with a sudden flare of light. The words from his mouth were no more than a strained whisper. “Your wish has been granted…this time.”

  And then he threw the light he held at Gabriel.

  In Lucifer’s arms, Gabriel tensed suddenly, every bone and muscle reacting to the blast. Then she fell limp once more. But Michael had not been lying. The hole through her heart began to change, internal flesh growing and striking out in sinewy tendrils as her heart reformed. A tremendous beat, the best sound Lucifer had ever heard, brought the vital organ back to life as the healing continued. Still holding her tight, her black and reddened flesh sizzled beneath the water, bubbling as it smoothed and paled. Her frazzled patchy hair cascaded back to its full and lustrous length. Then her eyes flung open with a rattled gasp.

  An unexpected clank forced Lucifer to look down as a glowing chain appeared beneath the water to trap his ankle. God’s vo
ice punched inside his head. Here you will remain…until my judgment is decided.

  And then Gabriel vanished from his arms in a burst of pure light.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The sight of Michael’s stony face, as he sauntered down the bright steps that appeared with each descending foot while disappearing behind him, stalled Lucifer’s heart. Straight from the arching stairway to Heaven, his hard stare and tight lips told Lucifer all he needed to know. “A decision has been made.”

  The day of his punishment—for endangering and then saving Gabriel’s life—had finally arrived.

  Dread of the unknown punched at Lucifer’s chest, startling his heart back to racing life. He shifted beside the looking glass, rattling his restraints as he stood tall, all the while feeling smaller with each powerful stride Michael took toward him. Would that cell Remiel had divulged become his new prison? Would he ever be granted the chance to see Gabriel again? The thought alone terrified him, making his blood rush like waves in his ears. “Tell me, Michael. Reveal my punishment.”

  When only a smirk graced his brother’s grim face, Lucifer’s worry of the unknown turned to panic.

  Noticing the way Lucifer’s eyes darted, Michael’s smirk became almost feral. “Do not push God’s hand, Lucifer. Your downfall is imminent, but your penance could always be made worse.”

  Penance. Downfall. Michael snatched hold of Lucifer’s bulging arm. His free hand sent a spark of light down at the glowing manacle trapping Lucifer’s ankle. A clank announced its release and then Lucifer made his move, upper-cutting Michael’s nose as he ripped his arm free.

  A crack and a spurt of silver blood had the angel commander’s feet lifting from the ground. The few seconds of Michael’s shock was all Lucifer needed. And then he was off, rushing from the looking glass as Michael landed and roared his name.

  Gabriel had survived. He knew that much. Yet he had not caught sight of her since. In the months that had passed, he had been chained to keep watch without even a moment of reprieve. Now the rains below had arrived, a torrential downpour that refused to ease as it drenched the Earth with fat drops and blasting wind. Events were coming to fruition. Things were changing. Yet there had been no break to record his findings or even the events he had acted out himself on Earth.

  There had been no repercussions, either. None except for Lucifer’s lockdown, and the separation between him and the other archangels who refused to speak or even glance his way…

  And the removal of his ability to transport at will, he realized as he tried and failed to dematerialize and reform at her special place. Feet pounding down the seemingly endless corridor of light, his ankle was raw from being trapped in the manacle, his muscles weak from being immobile for so long. He pushed on harder, forcing his heavy wings to propel him on faster. Michael’s words rang in his ears, a warning that was as much a taunt as it was a promise. “Your downfall is imminent.”

  The fear of what was to come left him only able to think of her. And the fact that, after what he had done, the punishment would have to be more severe than the last. Controlled separation would not be enough. Not anymore after his escape. He refused to consider the dire possibilities, focusing only on his actions right here and now. He had to see her—one last time.

  Rounding one long straight and then a bend, Lucifer saw behind his blinking eyes a flash of how she had looked. Lifeless in his arms, burned black, red, and coated in tacky silver. God, her body had been that of a dead weight. Her face had been—vacant. All due to him and his unsanctioned visit to Earth. He saw in his mind the moment that primitive spear struck her back and punched through her chest with a spurt of silver. Straight through her heart. Had Michael been right? Was he honestly to blame for her brush with death?

  He shook the image away, bringing forth the moment she had gasped in her first breath of life. The guilt that rode him threatened to make him stop. Threatened to make him turn around and stay away. But he wouldn’t let it. He had to see her. After disappearing from his shaking arms, he had to know that she was still alive. That she had fully healed.

  Lucifer slowed on the last stretch to reach the hidden door to her once magical garden. He considered the possibility that she may be disfigured, that her wounds may have left permanent scars. To think his actions had damaged her made him hate himself. Not because he cared how she looked. True, she was beautiful, the most beautiful being he had ever gazed upon, but what had captured his heart from the beginning, what had kept him coming back was who she was on a soul-deep level. Her honor, her integrity, her hope for those who truly did not deserve it—like him.

  Lucifer swallowed down his fear that she may bear the scars to remind him of his selfishness for the rest of all time. And his fear that she had finally reached her limit in her eternal hope for an unworthy soul like him. He had to see her, he had to say “sorry” before it was too late.

  Springing off the balls of his feet, wings flapping him onward, he sprinted for the seemingly dead end—and pulled up short as a formidable figure suddenly appeared in front of him.

  “You are not permitted to see her.” Michael shoved Lucifer, forcing him to stagger back. His top lip curled back from his white teeth. His hands were balled into tight fists, and Lucifer could bet the other angel wanted to crack him in the face. “Time for your judgment has come.”

  “I must see her.” Lucifer went to push past. Michael threw out an arm to knock him back by his neck, and Lucifer ducked, darting into the tingling light.

  Michael struck out like a rattlesnake, fingers like fangs catching and clawing into his wing to yank him back. “You will not injure her any more than you already have,” he snarled in Lucifer’s ear.

  Through the suffocating light that surrounded them, Lucifer could make out the fuzzy shapes of the garden. Still charred and black, dirty water plunged from the cliff down into the pond below. Lucifer gasped, finding the only thing he needed to see at the pond’s banks. Gabriel. With the distorted view from this distance, her skin looked healed of the black smears and open wounds, once again pale and perfect. Her wings that draped over her were intact, though charred edges still marked some of the outer lengths. With her legs folded beneath her, her hands covered her face.

  She was…crying.

  Because of him? Because of the rains?

  Lucifer’s heart broke. Desperation to go to her took over in him. It didn’t matter what depressed her. All he knew was that he needed to be at her side. He needed to comfort her and tell her everything would be better. That he would make it better.

  Lucifer twisted, trying to free his wing from Michael’s unrelenting grasp, ready to come to blows to get free—

  A shock of light blasted them both, rippling the ground beneath their feet and the air around them like an imploding pocket of energy. Lucifer’s gaze shot to Gabriel, but she didn’t seem to feel it, continuing to weep into her hands. He twisted again, fists ready to deliver—when something deathly sharp appeared before him.

  Holding a sapphire-jeweled hilt, Michael’s arm bulged with popping muscles. The weapon’s shiny silver length was primed for use, poised with the sharp tip pointed at the underside of Lucifer’s jaw. The angel sword, the only weapon able to snuff out an angel instantly. Permanently. With this weapon, there was no healing. There was no coming back. The body would cease to exist, as would the soul it encapsulated.

  Lucifer gave up his struggle, his need to get to Gabriel paling as shock rocked him like an earthquake. “God entrusted you with the angel sword?”

  Still right in his ear, Michael’s words lost some of their ferocity. “I am an obedient soldier. A warrior of God.”

  “A warrior who is willing to let one of his charges die to remain the almighty’s lap dog.”

  When Lucifer yanked, desperate to continue the fight to get to Gabriel, the tip bit into his skin. Warm silver blood leaked out, trailing from his jaw down the gleaming length. “How easy it is for you to shift the blame, when you, Lucifer, and your actions we
re the catalyst that delivered Gabriel into death’s hands.”

  Despite how much he had grown to detest Michael, his brother’s words held volumes of truth. Fists still clenched tight at the ready, too many thoughts inundated Lucifer. If this was the result, could he fight it? Should he? He thought of Gabriel and how she had almost died. Maybe she would be better off without him… “Then this is my punishment, brother? Eternal extinguishment…after I saved her?” It hardly seemed reasonable. He had never intended to alert the humans to the existence of angels on Earth. Yet the result had been dire. Gabriel had come so close to dying. In the tepid looking glass with her limp in his arms, he thought he’d lost her. Feeling the rage drain out of him, his fists uncurled and his hands came up, fingers extended and palms forward. “If that is God’s will, I will not fight it. Though you must do me one thing. Tell Gabriel…tell her I am sorry. I never intended—”

  “Your punishment is not death,” Michael interrupted, spinning Lucifer around to face him. Everything about his hardened expression said the angel wished the opposite, yet he stayed the angel sword, letting his arm fall to his side so the tip scraped the luminous ground. “It is a second chance. One you surely do not deserve.”

  A flash of light appeared—not ground shaking, but silent and gentle—and Remiel formed beside them both. He nodded his head, his small smile that of a widening straight line that held no emotion. “The time is now.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To prove yourself worthy as an archangel of God,” Remiel explained without giving Lucifer the answer he sought.

  Michael, on the other hand, grinned as he elaborated. “As you are so perturbed by the actions below and the way humans use their free will, you shall be granted the task of intervening, of stopping the violence and bloodshed, of securing the completion of the ark and its safe passage into rising waters. Without taking life which is not free for you to eradicate, lest you want the sentence you expected to actually become your reality.”