Chapter Seven #2
“So you’re left with a choice,”
Cipher mused. “Leave her be and see if he catches her and the fated timeline
fixes itself, or protect her to keep her out of his
hands in case she wasn’t meant to be a victim.”
“Exactly. And if he can track her, I’ll have to make sure I
keep her someplace where he can’t sense her or where he can’t access her even
if he does find her.” He could bring her here, he
supposed, just until he could figure out what to do next.
He’d just have to be sneaky about it, because no one besides
these four morons could know what was up. Not even Suzanne could know. He
trusted her, but he was her mentor, and he couldn’t hold the moral high ground
if she knew he’d buried himself six feet deep. He was in a definite do as I
say, not as I do moment.
He was so fucked.
“Sucks to be you,” Cipher said, his nose in the air as he
sniffed out the charcoal aroma of something being grilled nearby.
“Says the guy who got his wings cut off and his ass booted
out of Heaven.” Maddox dug a Sheoulin coin out of his pocket and flipped it
into the nearby fountain that had run with blood for thousands of years before
Lilliana tamed Azagoth’s inner demon. Two seconds later, the fangfish that
lived in the fountain spit the coin out.
“My punishment was totally unfair,” Cipher muttered as he
snatched the coin out of the air.
Hawkyn stared at his friend in disbelief. “You seduced my
Primori, which affected her status and left a big black mark on my record.”
“I didn’t know she was a Primori when I seduced her.”
“Bullshit. I told you.”
“Sure you did.” Cipher’s gaze
locked on a female Unfallen standing near the newly constructed stage that
would soon be the battle ground for a band competition, and later, for
wrestling matches—except these matches were fought with the mind. “After
I decided I wanted her.”
“It didn’t matter, you jackass. She was human. Angels are
forbidden from sleeping with humans.”
“Wrong. She was part angel.” If the heat in his gaze was any
indication, Cipher probably had that Unfallen across
the way half undressed in his head by now.
“Yeah, like from ten generations ago.”
“See? Part angel.”
“And did that argument work during your sentencing?”
“No,” he conceded, finally turning back to Hawk. “But
Archangels are assholes.”
Hawkyn wasn’t going to argue with that assessment. “Look, I
need help. I’m open to suggestions.”
“Bring her here for now. She’ll be safe. Then we can look at
ways to get you out of this mess.” Cipher could be an immature whack job at
times, but when shit hit the fan, he could always be counted on to help clean
it up.
“Okay—” He broke off as the ground beneath them rumbled, and
a charge in the air made Hawkyn’s hair stand up. “Uh-oh.”
“What is it?” Cipher asked.
“Azagoth.” Everyone had stopped what they were doing as a
blast of fury blew like a shockwave across the land. Glass shattered and
pillars tipped over, and oh, shit, this could be bad.
As a group, Hawkyn, Cipher, Journey, and Maddox ran toward
the epicenter of the rumbling—the portal to and from Sheoul-gra.
Hawkyn looked back over his shoulder at Rico, who was
staring down at the heraldis on his arm. He
flashed out, most likely to defend a Primori. Hawkyn sped up, beating the group
before skidding to a halt at the sight of Azagoth, his eyes glowing like hot
lava and his skin threaded with black, pulsing veins. In his clawed hand, he
held a ruby-winged angel by her throat.
“Don’t fuck with me, Ulnara,” he snarled. “I. Want. My.
Children!”
Ulnara? Hawkyn sucked in a harsh breath. Ulnara was his
mother’s name. The female struggling to escape Azagoth’s grip, the female with
Suzanne’s brown hair and eyes and Hawkyn’s nose was his mother.
She laughed, a raspy, choking sound that was no surprise
given that Azagoth had a death grip on her neck.
“As if you care about your children. This?” She waved her
arm in an encompassing gesture. “All of this is either a show or a means to an
end that will benefit only you. Do any of them actually
believe you love them? Are you even capable of love, you evil maggot?”
“I’m far more capable of it than you are,” he yelled,
slamming her against a nearby pillar. Feathers floated in the air around them
as her wings, pinned between the stone column and her body, flapped uselessly.
“You will convince the Council to give me what I want, and you’ll do it now.”
“Or what?”
Azagoth let out a roar of fury. Wet, ripping noises rent the
air as his body morphed into something bigger, with horns and scales and black,
leathery wings tipped with serrated bone hooks. He flung the angel away from
the pillar and snapped his massive jaws mere millimeters from her face.
“Father, no!” Hawkyn had never met his mother, hadn’t
thought he ever would. But that was her. He was sure of it. And he had to stop
Azagoth from killing her.
He charged, slamming full force into the Azagoth-demon and
knocking him sideways. Azagoth released Ulnara, and in a motion so seamless and
instantaneous that Hawkyn didn’t have a chance to avoid it, Azagoth popped Hawk
in the throat and power-slammed him into the ground.
The air whooshed from his lungs from both the impact and the
giant, clawed foot on his chest. Snarling, Azagoth looked down at him, drool
dripping from a mouthful of teeth a dragon would envy.
“Today is not the day to piss me off.” He spun around and
jabbed one long finger at Ulnara. “You can thank our son for saving you from
all the screaming you were about to do.” He flapped his wings and launched into
the air, where he hovered about thirty feet up. “Ulnara, you have one week.”
She scrambled onto the portal pad,
her hand poised over the hilt of the sword at her hip. An instinct and nothing
more, because she had to realize that no blade could so much as scratch
Azagoth. Not in his own realm, and certainly not while he was wearing his demon
suit.
“Not this time, Azagoth,” she said, her voice powerful and
confident, but she never took her nervous gaze off the demon in the air. “We’re
done appeasing you.”
“Don’t test my will, angel,” he warned, his voice dredging
the very pits of hell. “On this matter I will go to war.”
War? What the hell was going on?
Azagoth flicked his wrist, done with her. Literally. She
disappeared without ever activating the portal, returned either to Heaven, or
dumped somewhere that amused Azagoth. Like inside a sewer treatment holding
tank. Or a hot dog factory.
Without bothering to even glance at Hawkyn, Azagoth flapped
his great wings and shot skyward, vanishing into roiling clouds that hadn’t
been there a moment ago.
“Well,” Cipher drawled as he offered Hawkyn a hand, “at
least you’re consistent, always rescuing females from crazy males.”
“No matter how stupid it is,” Maddox added.
Journey shook his head. “I can’t believe you fucking did
that.”
Hawk couldn’t either. “The angel was my mother.”
Cipher cocked a blond eyebrow, and both Journey and Maddox
gasped out loud.
“Damn,” Journey said. “I’ve never met any Memitim dam, let
alone mine.”
“No one has,” Maddox said.
“Would you want to?” Cipher asked, and both Journey and
Maddox shook their heads.
After all, what did one say to the female who gave you up,
not for your own good, but because you were a means to an end, a pawn in a game
you were bred to play whether you wanted to or not?
“Hawkyn!” Lilliana jogged over, fingers playing with the
ends of the long braid draped over her shoulder. “I saw what happened. Are you
okay?” At his nod, she smiled and dropped her hands to her sides. “Good. Next
question. Are you completely stupid?”
He glanced at his friends, who were nodding vehemently.
“The consensus seems to be yes.” He glared at all the
onlookers, shaming them into heading back to whatever
they’d been doing before he tackled his father. “What did Azagoth mean by going
to war?” he asked Lilliana. “Over what? The children he was talking about?” And
what children?
“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms over her chest,
ruffling her silky blue blouse. “I have no idea what’s going on with Azagoth,
but you all need to tread softly around him for a while. I haven’t seen him
this volatile since I first arrived in Sheoul-gra. He loves you—all of you—but
I think he might have loved some of the people he turned into living statues,
too.”
“Does he?” Journey asked quietly. “Does he really?”
Lilliana frowned. “Does he what? Love some of the statues?”
“No. Love us.”
“Of course he does,” she said, but Hawkyn swore he heard a
note of doubt in her voice.
Maddox snorted. “He’s an angel wrapped in a demon wrapped in
an asshole. He doesn’t give a shit about anything but himself.”
In an instant Lilliana was in Maddox’s face, her eyes
glowing with anger, her wings, which Hawkyn had never seen, held high,
engulfing his brother in shadow. She was shorter than Maddox by at least six
inches, but somehow she seemed to tower over him.
“How dare you, you ungrateful
wretch,” she snapped, compelling Mad backward with the force of her anger.
Anger Hawk hadn’t known she was capable of. Lilliana
had always been so calm and sweet. “Do you not see what he’s done for you? For
all of you? Are you completely blind to what he’s built here for you? He didn’t
do it for show or personal or political gain, no matter what Ulnara said. I saw
his misery and felt his pain when your brother Methicore shut down Sheoul-gra
to Memitim access a while back. But your father called in about a million
favors to have the decision reversed—favors that cost him dearly.” She jammed
her finger into Maddox’s chest. “So if you can’t show
him a little respect, I will personally show you the door.”
Maddox held up his hands in surrender, but he was careful
not to spill the wine in one hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. “I apologize.”
For a long moment, Hawkyn wasn’t sure she was going to
accept his apology, but just as he was weighing ways to de-escalate the
situation, she stepped back with an irritated flap of wings.
“Good,” she said crisply. “Now, I’m going to go check on
him. You boys enjoy the party.”
Hawkyn assured her he would, but he didn’t plan to stay. He
needed to go over the notes he had about Drayger’s past, and then he had to
figure out what to do with Aurora.
He was about to wave off his buddies when his arm seized up and pain shot from his wrist to his shoulder. Hissing, he
looked down at the row of seven heraldis that extended from the heel
of his hand to the crook of his elbow. The one in the middle was pulsing, red,
angry.
One of his Primoris was in trouble.
“I got your back,” Journey said. “Let’s go.”
“I’m in,” Cipher said. “Let’s kick ass.”
Maddox downed his wine and threw the cup down on the ground
like a victory spike. “Kick ass!”
Hawkyn would sideline Maddox’s drunk butt if he needed to,
but for now he was just happy to have friends and family at his back.
On this matter, I will go to war.
Especially now.