The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Read online

  I still clenched the photo in my hand. I crinkled the picture as I grasped onto the photograph like a lifeline.

  My back collided with the wall at the end of the hallway. The angel stalked towards me. He wanted to exterminate me like a cockroach.

  You can make angels fall by touching them. Adriel’s words echoed in my head. I hurled myself at the angel, hands raised. With a scream, I clawed at his face. I wanted to tear his eyes out. The angel screamed too.

  He sidestepped me. I grabbed a handful of soft and downy feathers and fisted them in my hands as I fell to the floor.

  I felt heat, hotter than the fire before Dad’s car exploded. I backed away. The angel’s wings burst into flames. His eyes grew dark like ink spilled into them. His face paled to sheet white, and embers floated around him.

  I looked down at my hands. The photo! I searched the ground. Flames licked the edges of the photo. No! I stomped my foot down on the flames. I picked up the photo. The fire reduced the picture to half the original size. The faces of Mom and Dad were untouched, but the fire burned me out of the shot. I folded what was left of the picture and put it in my pocket.

  The angel’s shrieks stopped. The flames subsided, but they disintegrated the white feathers of his wings and left nothing but blackened bones like strokes of charcoal on paper. His black eyes stabbed me.

  I darted around him and rushed back to my bedroom. Posters covered a window against the back wall. I slammed the door shut and locked it. I tore the posters from the window.

  The door groaned. The wood splintered. I ducked behind my bed and got low to the floor.

  The angel walked into the room. Soon, he would find me. What was the point of making angels fall if they could still come after me?

  Light pierced my eyes. I stared across the room. A circle wavered in the center of the room. The circle was translucent like water. Another slant of light glowed from the edges of the wavering circle. Inside was a gray world like a circular painting except with more depth.

  A woman appeared from the tear. Her golden blonde hair was in tight spiraled curls, and her forest green eyes enchanted me. She was dressed in a tight outfit as if she were going to yoga class. But from the look on the creature’s face, she wasn’t going to perform downward dog or the child’s pose.

  The creature froze. “You.”

  A smile curled upon her lips. With a powerful kick, she struck him in the chest. He staggered back. His sword clamored to the floor. A dagger flashed in her hand. She lunged at him. The creature was so focused on her dagger, he missed when her foot curled around his ankle. She pulled back hard. He collided with the floor.

  The portal glowed behind her. Two men exited. One, light-skinned with charcoal black hair, and the other dark-skinned with a curved sword at his hip. The two men approached the creature. Each grabbed an arm and hauled him to his feet.

  The girl unhooked a set of manacles from her belt.

  “I hope you won’t make this difficult,” said the dark-haired man. His eyes were as black as coals. He wore a zippered midnight blue shirt and fingerless black gloves. A thick, leather belt fastened around his waist. A sword encased in a sheath strung along the belt. Black pants ended in obsidian boots.

  “Traitor,” the creature hissed through his teeth.

  The dark-skinned man wore black pants and a long-sleeve black shirt with padded leather shoulders. He withdrew his blade, and tucked its sharp edge under the creature’s chin. “I know you’re in a lot of pain.”

  “What do you know about it?” The creature ground out.

  “Nothing you’re not finding out right now,” said the black-eyed man.

  The girl folded her arms. The manacles dangled from her hand. “You have a choice,” she said. “You can walk on your own into this portal so we don’t have to drag you, or I can let Kiran slice your throat open and send you to the Pit.”

  The cramp in my leg worsened. I stretched my leg. A dull thud echoed behind me. I cursed under my breath. My foot hit my dresser.

  The girl looked around the room. “What was—”

  The creature let out a howl and lunged back out of Kiran and the dark-eyed man’s grasp. He staggered against the wall and flung himself onto the dark-eyed man.

  “Nash!” the girl cried.

  Nash and the angel rolled onto the ground. The angel was on top of him, his hands around Nash’s neck. A dagger gleamed in Nash’s hand. He drove the dagger into the angel’s side. Thick, black liquid bubbled from the angel’s mouth, and his hands loosened from around Nash’s neck.

  Nash rolled from under him and was behind him in one swift, graceful motion. Nash slashed the creature’s throat. His chest heaved, and his blade dripped with the dark substance.

  My hand flew to my mouth. Tears fell. My eyes ached.

  Nash sighed and wiped the dark blood from his blade onto his black jacket. After a considerable amount of brackish blood spilled onto the floor, the angel became more and more translucent. I blinked. He disappeared.

  Kiran knelt down and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a pinch of burned leaves, kissed them, and placed them where the angel’s body had been.

  “They’re always so damn strong right after they fall,” the girl said. “Tom should have warned us.”

  “He said it was a Cherub,” said Kiran.

  Nash shook his head. “He’s a Dominion.”

  “You knew him?” asked the girl.

  “No,” said Nash. He lifted the angel’s sword. “He mounted the orb of light to his sword.”

  “A traditionalist,” said Kiran.

  “Hardly,” said Nash. “If he hadn’t damned himself, I think we might have found him in the Pride Sector of the Angel District. Doesn’t look like we’ll need those.” Nash motioned to the manacles clenched in the girl’s hands.

  Chirping echoed around the room as if birds sang from the rafters. The three looked at their wrists at what looked like watches with large, flat square faces.

  “It’s Tom. There’s another one. Demon this time,” said Nash, “near us. It’s in a high school bathroom.”

  The girl disappeared into the portal followed by Kiran. Nash glanced around the room. His eyes fell on me. My breath caught. I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see, would he—?

  But he didn’t approach me, didn’t slash my throat like he did my attacker, he stepped through the portal and didn’t look back.

  FOUR

  “LI!” Jonah’s voice echoed down the hallway.

  My legs wavered like plucked guitar strings as I rose from the side of the bed. I couldn’t tell Jonah what I saw. He couldn’t do anything about it. He would only worry about me.

  Jonah’s tall body stood in the frame of my door. “What were you doing down there?”

  “Nothing.” I slung my guitar strap across my shoulders and zipped my backpack. My hands still shook.

  “I stepped outside,” said Jonah. “I thought I heard a crash.”

  “I dropped a frame.” I nodded toward the broken glass near the end of my bed. With my backpack in one hand and my guitar on my back, I approached the door.

  Jonah moved out into the hallway, and I joined him, but I couldn’t stay. I made my way to the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I won’t stay in a foster home.” I remembered what that was like. To be tossed from one foster family to the next because they couldn’t handle the night terrors or the constant proclamations that I saw things other people didn’t. The endless line of shrinks who told me the hallucinations were my way of dealing with trauma, what trauma, I couldn’t remember. They wanted to put me on medication. They did put me on medication. “Take care of Sim for me.”

  Jonah grabbed my arm. “I can’t let you leave. You’re staying in this house.”

  I yanked my arm away. “You’re not my dad.”

  Jonah’s eyes widened as if I bit him. He frowned.

  Hot tears erupted from my eyes as I tore down the steps. Three blocks a
way from the house, the sound of a motorcycle roared behind me.

  Adriel pulled alongside me. “You went back home?” His voice burned me like a scraped knee.

  “I needed to get my guitar.”

  “Is a guitar worth your life? You could have been attacked by one of Raphael’s followers.”

  “I was attacked.” My voice shook.

  The gold melted again.

  “An angel,” I said. “I know what you meant. I watched him burn.”

  The angel, the blue eyes, and those beautiful, white wings. I touched those wings. They felt smooth, soft, and very real. And when I touched them, they erupted into flames and turned to ash.

  “He had a sword. I think he wanted to kill me.” My voice sounded as if I tried to talk through wool.

  “But he didn’t.” Adriel patted the back of the motorcycle. “We have to go.”

  “People came to get him,” I continued. “They killed him, and he disappeared.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” said Adriel. “Raphael knows where you are. It won’t be long before he gathers a group of his followers to come after you, and they’ll be prepared.” He handed me the helmet.

  I gulped. He was right. Three streets from where I stood, an angel attacked me. I put the helmet on and got on the motorcycle. My guitar rested against my hip. I hugged my backpack between my chest and Adriel’s back. I put the straps over my shoulders and gripped the grab rail. My eyes met Adriel’s as he glanced over his shoulder. My body no longer shook.

  In thirty minutes, we were back at the motel. I hadn’t realized how close the sanctuary was to my house. My skin prickled. What if Adriel was wrong? What if I wasn’t safe here?

  I pushed the thought aside as we approached the motel room. I could taste the saltiness of my tears on my lips.

  Adriel’s hand touched the doorknob, and the handle glowed. The door popped open. He pulled me into the motel room and closed the door. He released me from his gloved hands.

  NOT pulling the covers back, I sat on the motel room bed. The mattress felt odd as if filled with nothing but springs and air.

  I flipped through the channels on the television. I settled on an infomercial that might put me to sleep. A dark-haired man with a grizzled beard spilled various liquids on a multitude of different surfaces and used one super absorbent rag to soak up the spills. The liquid was gone and, like magic, left no stain.

  I wished my messes were as easy to clean up. I had no place else to go for the night. Jonah was determined to call family services on me. I had no money and no friends.

  Jonah probably called the police and reported me as a runaway. They would look for me, and once they found me, I would be chucked into a foster home.

  Adriel was outside. He said he would stand guard. I assumed he meant to keep others out, but maybe he meant to keep me in.

  Adriel had wings and said he was an angel. He was real and so were the people who came to kill the angel I made fall. I had to believe it or admit I was crazy.

  My sane mind told me the stress made the hallucinations seem more real. But Adriel could touch me, albeit with gloved hands, and he could restrain me. That was weird. He couldn’t do that if he was a figment of my imagination, but maybe he wasn’t. Sure, the wings and the talk of Archangels could be all in my head, but maybe he did bring me to this motel. He was a real person, without wings of course. But how could I explain the people dressed in black?

  Adriel told me an Archangel was after me. Raphael. And I saw him crash onto my parents’ car. He was the reason they were dead.

  The whole thing was ludicrous to me, but on top of the free room, Adriel graced me with fast food, and I was hungry. I skipped lunch and spent the rest of the day with my eyes locked on the television screen. I couldn’t recall what was on mere seconds after having watched it.

  How did he get the fast food and the motel room? Angels weren’t supposed to steal food or break into motels. He had money, a lot of it, but how did he get it? I couldn’t imagine Adriel working a cash register at a grocery store or taking calls at a cubicle desk. Did he steal that money from someone? Angels were the good guys. They weren’t supposed to murder either.

  I scoffed down the entire meal in minutes and was glad Adriel wasn’t in the room to see me chow down. Why did I feel the need to be polite to him? He kidnapped me. I couldn’t believe everything he said. There had to be an explanation for all of this.

  For argument’s sake, let’s say I wasn’t crazy, and an Archangel was hell-bent on tracking me down. Still, Adriel was an angel too. Why would he have more of an alliance to me than to his own kind? If he was trying to save me, he could change his mind at any time. A layer of hate smoldered in his eyes. The hate was for me, for what I was. What was I?

  Was it possible to be evil without knowing it? Was I like Damien from The Omen? I shook my head. Here I was considering whether I was the anti-Christ. I needed sleep.

  I set the bedside alarm for 3 A.M. That’s when I would sneak out the bathroom window and decide my next move. Whenever he was around, I had this odd trust in Adriel, but when he was away I could think without that distraction.

  I was sixteen. I could get a job and maybe a fake I.D. But where would I sleep until my first paycheck?

  My mind darted so much I couldn’t sleep. I sat up and turned off the TV. I leaned my head against the headboard and closed my eyes.

  Bright light danced behind my eyelids like I fell asleep sunbathing. The bed glided as if on wheels.

  “Female, roughly fifteen, found at the scene of a crash. Right lateral bruising, could be internal bleeding. Possible concussion.”

  My eyes blinked open. People dressed in scrubs wheeled me on a bed down a bright, white hallway. I tried to turn my head. My neck was restrained. A woman’s voice spoke, “You’re with us, sweetheart. Hang in there. We’ll get you fixed up real soon.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, but the light still stung. Metal zinged. Were they going to cut me? My eyelids shot open.

  Darkness receded. A bright light hovered above me. Out of that light came Raphael. His bright blue eyes stabbed me in the heart as his staff came down.

  I jolted up from bed and stifled the scream with my hands. Darkness veiled me in its protection, and the only light came from the television that droned an infomercial about knives. My chest rose and fell in rapid breaths. I grabbed the remote from the bedside table and flicked off the TV. The room was bathed in silence. I put my head in my hands.

  Meow! I glanced around the room. A muffled tap, tap brought me to my feet. I followed the sound. Was I hearing things now? Could I trust anything I saw or heard?

  My bare feet swept across the nylon carpet to the bathroom where the sound was louder. My head darted in the direction of the sound. Above the toilet was a small window, the window I planned to sneak out of when I made my escape.

  A cat tapped the window with her paw.

  I slid the window open, and the cat jumped into my arms. I stroked her fur.

  “Sim?”

  I looked for any familiar features in the moonlight. She had dark gray fur and unique black markings.

  “How did you get here?”

  I hugged her to my chest and glanced out the window. On the pavement was a line of white. The line was broken and granules, like salt or sugar, streaked across the ground.

  I furrowed my brow and tried to see where the curved line ended. The line coiled around the side of the building.

  I brought Sim to the bed, settled down next to her, and pet down the length of her back.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” I said. “It’ll be hard enough to take care of myself.”

  I found Sim outside our house when she was a kitten. After I fed her for weeks, Mom allowed me to let her inside.

  I scratched behind her ear, and she purred.

  “We’ll have to leave soon,” I said. “It’s just you and me now.”

  THE alarm went off. I made sure to keep the volume low so Adriel coul
dn’t hear the noise from the outside.

  I turned off the alarm, sat up in bed, and rubbed my eyes.

  I stretched my arms over my head but stopped mid-stretch when my eyes caught an outline in the darkness.

  Someone sat, in the corner of the room, in the worn, motel armchair. I blinked and looked again. The whites of his eyes glowed in the dark. A slant of angled light streamed in front of him from the bathroom window. The dim glow graced the black fabric of his pants. He wore a black shirt and a black suit. His tie was a trail of crimson. The shadows veiled his face.

  “Quite a night we’re having,” he said with the shadow of contempt in his voice.

  I folded my legs up to my chest. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “You can call me Bob.” His body folded into the chair like a tarantula in a matchbox.

  I peered through the darkness. No semblance of wings.

  “Are you an angel too?” I said with an edge to my voice.

  “I’m no angel, sweetheart.” He leaned forward in his chair. His face entered the stream of light. His skin was orange like he had a bad experience with sunless tanning. His eyes were black. The pupils seemed too big. His thin lips were low on his face. His dark hair was slicked back. He looked forty, maybe forty-five.

  His hands were clasped in front of him like he was conducting a business meeting. “The difference between me and the angels is that I don’t want to kill you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. He said he didn’t want to kill me, but his tone made me feel like that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

  I raised my eyebrow. “Adriel brought me here to help me.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, but this man might know something, and I wanted to know what he knew.

  “Adriel? The young Seraph standing in the parking lot? You think he could stop Raphael?” He stared at me. “I judge by your lack of surprise that you know about Raphael. Even if that little angel could stand a chance against one of the oldest Archangels in existence, why would he? You know one angel is after you, maybe Adriel pulled you away from the rescue party. Maybe he plans to deliver you to Raphael himself and receive a reward. You don’t know anything about him.”