Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
J ust barely dodging Rook’s cane nearly colliding with the back of my skull, I straightened and glared at him. “What the fuck?!”
He had pulled me into the formal dining room after I told Kinley of her house manager’s demise.
Rook jutted the end of the cane in my direction. “Bloody hell! You’re just gonna drop that sort of news like you’re announcing the winner of a beauty pageant?”
“Give me a damn break, Rook. You and I both know that it was only a matter of time before she did the job herself.” I shoved his cane away from me as I walked past him.
With a quick burst of speed, he put himself in front of me again. Fucker was fast when he wanted to be. I stopped short to avoid walking right into him. Drawing my shoulders back, I was ready to physically move him if it came down to it.
“Perhaps, but are you going to tell me you weren’t planning to break the news differently before you got here?” His hazel eyes cast their judgment on me.
I didn’t owe the demon any sort of response, what I had intended to say and what transpired moments ago were no concern of his.
“That’s what I thought,” Rook said knowingly. Deciding not to pick a physical fight, he backed away and turned to leave the dining room.
Once he was out of sight, I blew out the breath I had been holding. Recalling the way I pieced together the situation after seeing Atlas sitting there in his damn shorts and Kinley wearing the blanket that did little to conceal that she was lacking clothes underneath, it got the better of me.
I tried to justify my feelings that Atlas was going against his sworn duties by involving himself so intimately with Kinley. It had nothing to do with how I wished Kin and I hadn’t taken our separate paths, the way I would have given anything for her not to follow Lucifer’s lead and leave us—me—behind.
Deep down, I was frustrated with every aspect of the situation. I had just transported the soul belonging to Molly, otherwise dubbed as Christina by Kinley, and it hadn’t been pretty. The woman’s body had been abandoned on the train tracks that led out of Brixton, but that wasn’t the unsettling part of it all. Her soul had been severely traumatized, held captive inside her physical body. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a soul so battered and broken that I struggled to transport it. There were very few things in our universe that were capable of being so destructive to the spirit.
Leaving the dining room, I was determined to smooth things over. Atlas was just coming downstairs, shaking his head as he saw me. He walked by, not saying a word.
Not easily swayed off course, I followed him into the living room, where he began tidying up.
I tried to explain myself. “Atlas, you have to understand there are rules in place for a reason.”
“Fuck your rules, Sy. That had nothing to do with any goddamn rules and everything to do with your ego.” He pitched a decorative pillow back onto the sofa with more force than was necessary.
Nodding, I wasn’t sure what to say to something that was absolutely the truth. “How’s she taking it?”
Atlas uprighted a basket full of magazines before storing it back underneath the coffee table. He turned and sat on the edge of the table, looking over at me. There was a momentary pause as he reflected on the situation before responding. “She bitched about having to do job interviews for a replacement. All things considered? Kinley is taking it in stride. Rook is upstairs with her right now, insisting she eat something.”
That sounded promising. Well, it was more promising than her going on a mass murder spree. All things were relative when it came to Kin.
I shoved my hands into my pockets as I stood there and nodded. I was never very good at apologizing, making this all the more awkward as the silence lingered between us for much longer than it should have.
“Look,” I began. “I wasn’t in the right head space earlier.”
Standing from his seat on the coffee table, he immediately shook his head dismissively. “It’s not me you should be making an apology to, Sy,” he said with an even and honest tone, one that humbled me a bit. The new kid perhaps knew a thing or two when it came to showing a little grace.
Quietly, I released a sigh, knowing he was right. I looked back towards the stairs, knowing I should go up there and own that my words got away from me earlier. Yet, my own hardheadedness convinced me otherwise. Kin needed her space; she didn’t need me barging in there, admitting faults she already knew I had.
I gave one final look at Atlas, who stood there waiting for me to do the right thing. My eyes met his before I saw myself out, vanishing from Kinley’s house and back to my own space to allow my guilt to eat away at me.
It had been days of me convincing myself that Kin didn’t need me encroaching on her space. But during that time, I had been working diligently to find answers regarding Christina’s tortured spirit.
All across my desk, dusty scrolls of various sizes in a multitude of ancient texts lay scattered. Each one was written in the Old Language of our people, symbols long forgotten by most. Off to one side was an untouched nightcap, the lamp behind it casting a warm glow throughout the amber liquid.
I leaned back in my chair, prompting a squeak of protest from it. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I opened and shut my eyes several times. With the sheer amount of information I had been combing through, my blue hues were nearly glazed over like a frozen pond in winter. Exhaustion wore on me, and I knew that I should call it a night, but something deep in my very essence drove me to find more answers.
Dropping my arm back onto the armrest of my chair, I mustered together another rally to uncover any insight I could get my fingertips on in these scriptures. Several hours wore on, and I was ready to call it quits when something caught my eye.
Entropic Souls
Sitting up in my seat, I read further.
Souls in a state of rapid decay and disorder. Often a symptom of mass trauma to the spirit. Such upheaval to the soul’s stability is indicative of potential interference from the sophisticated and particularly cruel Saliranimum Demon. Entropic souls are unlikely to recover and may cease to exist even post-transfer to Ultimate Judgment and Salvation.
Saliranimum Demons, while inordinately rare, are not easily traced due to their ability to cohabitate with mortal souls in a living vessel. This breed of demon is considered among the most volatile, with its ability to leap from one vessel to the next, leaving the mortal host deceased and the soul in an irreparable and chaotic state. Due to its rarity, the full extent of its abilities and weaknesses are unknown.
Well, fuck. That wasn’t very reassuring. I drummed my fingers against the top of the desk as I let the words sink in. In all my years of existence, I had never crossed anything like this, a true testament to the scarceness of this brand of demon. However, everything pointed to this saliranimum demon as the thing responsible for the horrific state of Christina’s soul. I was certain that if we had one of these fuckers on our hands, it wasn’t good news for anybody.
I pushed away the scroll in front of me and reached for my glass of bourbon that had sat untouched for the past several hours. Immediately, I slung it back, swallowing down the smooth burn of the alcohol.
I had never encountered this demon breed before, let alone the type of damaged souls they left behind. This discovery was a whole new can of worms in which a part of me wished that I hadn’t stumbled upon.
My hand ran down over my face as I tried to come to terms with what this meant on a larger scale.How many more bodies would be left in the demon’s wake? Why had the demon selected Christina? What was the bastard’s motivation?
When I placed the now-empty glass back down on the desk, I inadvertently knocked a scroll over and watched as it rolled off the desk and onto the floor with a soft plunk.
“Motherfucker,” I grumbled with irritation. Standing, I walked over to where it stopped rolling and snatched it up. When I did, there was a curious illustration on the parchment. I tilted my head, trying to make sense of the symbols. It wasn’t just any set of markings that were laid out there; they were the same markings that I had inscribed into the Divinity Sword I had created for Kinley. Exactly the same.
“What the…” My voice trailed off in the emptiness of my room.
In one fell swoop, I cleared the top of my desk of all the other parchments to make room for this new scroll. I rolled it out so I could see the section in its entirety. My eyes scanned every marking drawn there. Each curve, every sharp angle, and all the intricate placement of details lined up with my memory of the day I had forged the sword for Kin.
It was the first time I had ever seen the markings anywhere else. It didn’t make sense for the image before me to exist outside of my memory and on the Divinity Sword I had created. It sent my mind reeling, my body tense as I tried to make sense of it all.
Scouring the rest of the text surrounding the image, I became even less at ease. This was goddamn doomsday type of shit being described. My eyes couldn’t read fast enough, each word propelling me further down a spiral I hadn’t expected to find myself in.
Hovering over my desk, my hands pinned down the edges of the paper as though it might try to escape from me before I finished digesting the information. All the muscles in my body could feel the tension and weight of the grave story laid out in front of me.
It spoke of a Fallen One, an angel far from grace and of an unsound mind who pledged allegiance to the very first Fallen Angel—Lucifer. This particular Fallen One would deteriorate into a state of madness beyond the pale.
The prophecy made clear that neither the crow, the stone, nor the shield could salvage the wreckage of the Fallen One’s mind. I shook my head as I read it several more times, trying to make sense of it. For all the times I read that damn line, the less sense I could make of it.
Pushing on in hopes of clarity, the divination outlined a series of events that represented highs and lows. There was a common theme surrounding the events: death and darkness. Events representing a peak of light were drawn down into a valley cloaked in despair. There appeared to be very little in between at the middle ground.
I huffed out a sigh. All my thoughts led to Kinley. No matter how much I tried to explain away each piece of the foretelling before me, I couldn’t deny the possibility that she could be linked to this damning document.
You know what they say: all roads lead to Rome. In that case, all roads led to Kinley, and I desperately looked for all the detours, roadblocks, and faulty bridges.
Casting my gaze to the very bottom of the scroll, my eyes narrowed as I read the final words.
When the last of the light fades, blackness taking over, the shield will be the undoing. Cold steel will end the dark angel’s descent, and the Fallen One will fall one final time. Only then will peace be found.