14. Daniel #2
Stunned silence followed again. They exchanged looks between themselves, and finally, Julian slashed a hand through the air. The twinkling light of the disco ball reflected in his golden hair.
“Wait, hang on,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”
Daniel pursed his lips, scowling. He could try, but the only thing he remembered clearly about Hell was Chaol. Chaol, and walking, and Chaol, and pain, and Lucifer, and fighting off the angel as he and Chaol tumbled through the gate.
“Uh,” Malachi said slowly, stroking his chin, “like Storm said, halflings don’t typically remember things all that well right after we get out of Hell.
Things are hazy for a while even after we return to the surface.
I mean, I barely remember those first few years.
Granted, it’s been a few hundred, but still.
There’s a good chance Danny won’t be able to go into a lot of detail right now. ”
“I remember the angel,” Daniel said grimly. “He was attacking demons in Hell. Sucking some kind of red essence from them. Lucifer called it their Wrath. It’s like a demon’s soul.”
“This is news to me,” Shadrach said, pressing a hand to the tie on his chest. “I assumed we didn’t have souls—at least those of us born in Hell didn’t.”
“It’s obviously not news to Lucifer,” Talon said.
“They don’t exactly teach us things like that in the underworld,” Valac said.
“There’s a library there,” Daniel said in confusion. “A city. How do you not know about it?”
“Many demons can’t read,” Talon said.
“I could not,” Ashmedai agreed. “Not before coming here. Nic-las has been teaching me.”
Nicolas shot him a besotted smile, and the ache in Daniel’s chest sharpened. He wanted that. He’d had a taste of it. Where the hell was Chaol?
“We have a city,” Draego said, “and a library, yes. But there are only a handful of scholars there who protect and maintain the books.”
“What does he want this Wrath for?” Isaac asked, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against Shadrach’s extended arm, which laid across the back of his chair.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Lucifer…” He rubbed his forehead, searching his foggy memory. “Lucifer told us that we could kill him here on the surface, but not while he was in Hell. That was why we had to lure him with us through the gate.”
“So he’s here on Earth now,” Nicolas said. “And hunting demons.” He shot a worried look around the group, lingering on Ashmedai and Daniel.
“Is that a bad thing?” someone from the crowd of ex-paladins called.
The demons and their partners turned toward the speaker, and Nicolas was the first to find a response.
“Yes, if he tries to come after our demons. We aren’t hurting anyone.”
“But you are planning to hurt the paladins,” someone else said. “Maybe the angels… don’t want you to do that.”
Daniel frowned. He could see how they’d make that connection, but… “If that was the case, they would have come straight here. This was one angel in Hell. Why go there if any of this was about protecting the guild?”
The crowd exchanged doubtful looks amongst themselves, swayed by his words, so Daniel pressed the point further.
“Killing demons in Hell doesn’t protect the guild. No, this is about something else.”
Storm said, “I’m stuck on the part where angels are real.”
Looking forlorn, Nathan added, “I’m stuck on the part where angels are bad.”
“Let’s see the symbol,” Wolf said abruptly.
Daniel blinked at him. “What?”
“The one you said appeared on your chest after you came out of the pool. None of the rest of us have symbols on us. Let’s see it. It’s probably important.”
Daniel hesitated, but at Nicolas’s encouraging nod, he sighed and lifted the front of his shirt to reveal the black sigil in the center of his chest.
Draego hummed, tilting his head thoughtfully, and Talon said to him, “I take it you don’t have one of those.”
Draego shook his head. “No. I’ve never seen that symbol before.”
Ira stood slowly, staring at it with wide eyes. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Daniel repeated. “Oh what? You know what that symbol means?”
“I do. Every prophet does.” He glanced over his shoulder and gestured to a young woman standing beside Xyra, a halfling woman with long, midnight blue hair. “Lexi, do you remember the prophecy that goes with this symbol?”
Daniel didn’t know Lexi, although he dimly recalled seeing her around the guild.
She was a prophet like Ira, with warm brown skin and curly hair tied back with a silk scarf.
She glanced at Xyra, who gave her an encouraging nod, then replied, “Yeah. ‘The harbinger shall come, and with his symbol, holy will be made demonic. The dead shall rise, and the mighty shall fall, the holy guild torn asunder.’”
Julian shook his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
Ira explained, “We study certain prophecies as part of our training. Ancient ones, some as old as the guild itself, recorded by some of the first guild prophets. This one…” He shook his head.
“We were taught it heralded the downfall of the guild. If we ever saw that symbol in any of our visions, we were to report it right away.”
Silence followed. Daniel rubbed the symbol under his shirt.
Ira licked his lips, looking discomfited. “The guild always thought it meant an army of the dead. But now…”
“It meant Daniel,” Wolf said. “Holy made demonic. He’s a holy man who turned into a demon.”
“Yes,” Ira said. “I believe so.”
“So the part about the guild being torn asunder…” Luke trailed off.
Daniel frowned as he dredged up foggy memories of the moments right after his transformation.
“Lucifer told us my powers would help us in our earthly endeavors. We’re about to go to war with the guild.
He gave me these powers and put this symbol on me because it fulfills the prophecy that the guild will fall. ”
Talon barked out a laugh. “That sounds like something he’d do, yeah.”
Alex looked at Ira. “Do you think that’s true?”
“It certainly sounds right,” Ira said. “Anyone who’s studied that prophecy will recognize that symbol and know what it means. I’m sure everyone on the council, including Sloan, would recognize it.”
“Does that even count?” Daniel asked plaintively. “Lucifer did this on purpose so I would fulfill this prophecy. It wasn’t organic.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Ira said. “If I had a vision of you eating pizza and mentioned that it would happen, which caused you to start craving pizza, did I influence you, or would you have gotten pizza anyway?”
Daniel didn’t know how to answer that.
“Either way, the prophecy is fulfilled when you get pizza, whether I influenced you or not. Lucifer knew about the prophecy and knew we were going to war with the guild. Making you into a harbinger and giving you the symbol was already in the cards. Just because he knew it doesn’t mean it wasn’t always going to happen. ”
Ashmedai rasped out a rusty laugh, sliding an arm around Nicolas’s shoulders. “We’re going to win.”
“I don’t think we ever had any doubt about that,” Talon said.