18. Daniel
Daniel
God, the angel had found them already? Daniel wasn’t ready. He still barely knew how to use his powers. He couldn’t protect Chaol. He couldn’t protect anyone.
But he was damned well going to try.
Daniel pulled the hellblade from the aether, sparing a moment of surprise when Draego drew an identical one beside him. The scent of sulfur filled the air, and the blades crackled with heat. He tapped Daniel’s blade with his own.
“Let’s go kill an angel,” he said.
Daniel took a fortifying breath. He wasn’t alone here. Facing the angel would be easier with Draego and the others by his side. Together, they could handle this. He hoped.
The others converged around them, humans with swords and demons with various weapons of their own.
Shadows snapped out around Valac, on Chaol’s other side.
Beside Draego, Ashmedai uttered a raspy snarl, flexing his clawed fingers.
Daniel reached out with his free hand, tangling his fingers with Chaol’s.
Their eyes met as the color leached from Chaol’s skin and black overtook his eyes, but wings didn’t sprout from his back yet.
There wasn’t enough room in the Rink for him to fly anyway.
The leviathans stood behind them, getting into ready stances, while the halflings cocked handguns and took aim at the door.
“Are we really about to fight an angel?” a human in the crowd whispered.
They really were.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t the pale, golden-haired angel they’d fought in Hell.
Instead, a dark-skinned woman strode in.
Her spongy curls haloed her head like an afro, and she wore the same gauzy, white clothing and gold accents as the other angel.
Her eyes, too, were the same ethereal gold.
An angel, but not the one they were expecting.
No one moved. In the stillness, the two sides sized each other up. The angel seemed to assess each of them in turn, from the demons to the humans crowded on the training mats across the room.
“She’s beautiful,” someone whispered.
She radiated power and a sense of calm, and when she made no move to attack, Daniel hesitantly lowered his blade. The movement triggered the others around him to tentatively relax. Draego’s blade dipped, and the halflings’ guns sagged.
This felt different than the attack in Hell. Daniel didn’t feel threatened.
She raised one hand, gesturing to the crowd that faced her. Even her fingernails were gold. “You are the Sentinels.” Her voice was melodic, like ringing bells.
Daniel turned his head, not quite taking his eyes off her. “We are,” he said when no one else stepped forward.
She smiled. “Good. Lay down your weapons. I mean you no harm. My name is Menadel, and I need your help.”
Daniel forgot how to breathe. He was pretty sure he wasn’t alone.
“Why should we trust you?” Talon asked. Daniel could hear the false bravado in his stern tone. He was scared, and Daniel didn’t blame him. Angels were an unknown quantity.
Daniel added, “Yeah, the last angel we met tried to kill us.”
She tilted her chin up. “Yes, I’m aware. That is why I’ve come. His name is Ramiel. He is no ordinary angel. He has abandoned the Heavenly Host, because he wishes to destroy mankind.”
Shock tore through the group. A murmur rose through the crowd at Daniel’s back. He swallowed down his own outrage and confusion to ask the one thing they all probably wanted to know.
“Why?”
Menadel lifted her chin. “He hates humans. He believes they have squandered God’s gift of life, poisoning themselves with chemicals and drugs, ending their lives with recklessness and poor choices.
He thinks we should start again with a new race of beings.
Something more pliant, more easily controlled. He doesn’t understand the truth.”
“Which is?” Ira asked.
A small smile graced her heart-shaped face. “Freedom is the point. Humans are allowed to make their own choices, for better or worse. A more pliant race wouldn’t be as beautiful.”
That rang a familiar bell in Daniel’s mind.
It was one of the reasons he’d wanted to leave the guild.
Instead of focusing on fighting monsters, they’d begun targeting people who didn’t agree with them.
A pliant, easily controlled people weren’t a free people.
It was surprising that even an angel couldn’t see that.
“What does that have to do with gathering demonic Wrath?” Chaol asked. “We were told that’s what he was doing in Hell.”
“Yes. What he is doing is an abomination. He is ingesting it. Doing so enhances his own power.”
“What?” Alex barked. “He can do that?”
Menadel sighed, her gaze falling away. “It shouldn’t be possible.
Ramiel spent years perfecting a ritual that would allow him to absorb the Wrath of demons.
He called them ‘fodder’ for his own ends.
We tried to stop him when we learned what he was doing, but he escaped the Holy Host and went to Hell, where we could no longer track him without causing an uproar there. ”
“No more of an uproar than he already did by showing up and killing everybody,” Daniel said, mostly to Chaol, who nodded.
Menadel didn’t miss it, though, and inclined her head in agreement.
“I regret that he caused such distress in Hell, but angels can’t freely cross Hell’s gates.
We have rules of our own that must be abided, or else we risk going down the same corruptive path as Ramiel himself.
But now, you’ve brought him to Earth. That is very good.
Here, we can face him, although there is something you should know. ”
“What’s that?” Isaac drawled, like he was already dreading the answer.
“He has sought out the Paladin Guild.”
“Well, that’s just lovely,” Shadrach said.
“Why would he do that, if he hates humans?” Daniel asked.
Menadel’s golden eyes met his. “How do you think those holy warriors would react to an angel who tells them he wants to kill as many demons as he can get his hands on here on Earth?”
Daniel’s face fell.
“They’d be overjoyed,” Luke said with a groan.
“Exactly. He doesn’t have to tell them his plans for Earth. All he needs is their cooperation until he’s strong enough to raze the surface of mankind. They’ll think they’re doing God’s will, not knowing they’re aiding in the extinction of the human race.”
They would fall for it, too, Daniel knew.
He could just picture Ramiel appearing in all his holy, golden glory, telling Sloan that he’d been leading the guild down the right path all along.
Feeding him lies about how he’d been sent by Heaven to help their cause.
Of course they would target the Sentinels.
Sloan’s followers would go into a frenzy, thinking this proved all their most heinous thoughts about the Sentinels.
There would be no reasoning with them now, not with an actual angel in their ear.
Daniel was grateful that Talon had had the foresight to issue a warning to the guild about their plans to attack. It had fractured the guild, and they were weaker now than ever.
“Okay, so how exactly does one kill an angel?” Shadrach asked.
Menadel’s golden eyes searched the room, lingering on the demons at the front of the crowd. “Demons will be vulnerable to angels, even here on the surface. You were designed to be weaker than the Holy Host.”
“That’s some bullshit,” Malachi growled.
“What does that mean, then?” Talon asked. “The humans should take the lead on this one? I think I speak for all of us when I say we don’t like the idea of that.” He shot Alex a discomfited look.
“We have to be the ones to kill the angel?” Alex asked, sounding faint.
Daniel exchanged a look with Chaol. They were the only demons in the room who didn’t have a human partner to worry about. The transformation was more worth it every day.
“It means we will have to work together,” Menadel said kindly, glancing from face to face. “All the most powerful demons on Earth are in this room. I have no doubt that Ramiel will be coming for you, and we need to be prepared to face him when he does.”
Draego tilted his head, then turned to look at Daniel. “I suppose that means we should get started with your training. You’ll need to know how to control your new powers.”
Menadel’s gaze wandered the room. “I will ward this place against intrusion. Ramiel will not be able to enter without express invitation.”
“We’d appreciate that,” Talon said, looking nonplussed, like he couldn’t quite believe it was happening.
Draego looked at Daniel and tilted his head toward the door. “Come. Let’s get started.”
Daniel and Draego weren’t the only ones who stepped outside. Half the demons tagged along to watch, and some of the humans, too. They lined up near the metal siding of the building, the demons huddling near a standing ashtray and lighting cigarettes.
Chaol stood apart from them all, folding his arms with a pensive look on his face as Daniel and Draego faced off.
Daniel should’ve been paying attention to the harbinger who was about to attack him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from Chaol’s stiff form.
It didn’t sit right with him that Chaol was standing away from everyone else.
Instinct told him to go over there and wipe the frown from his face, maybe drag him over to where Nicolas and Ashmedai were watching with Julian and Valac.
Daniel had told Chaol he was family now, and the others had basically agreed.
But none of them were acting like it. Chaol held himself apart from the others.