Forsaken Angel Read online

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  WAR ETERNAL

  BOOK III

  Forsaken Angel

  CHAPTER 1

  The four vampires came to a stop behind the last line of trees in the forest. Shrouded by the darkness of night and the oaks’ foliage, they studied their point of entry. In front of them stretched a thirty-three-yard strip of arid ground. Beyond it loomed a high, thick stone wall that surrounded the large, privately owned expanse inside which stood the castle of the Guardians. On top of the wall, barbed wire hindered access to the stronghold and state-of-the-art cameras installed on tall metal bases picked up the slightest motion.

  We must move quickly and carefully, thought Vincent. The elders didn’t want open conflict with the Guardians, or any importance placed on what was to happen. As a result, they had only given him three other creatures to help him in his mission.

  “You know what you have to do,” he told his accomplices. “Fail, and you’ll answer to the elders.”

  One of the vampires nodded nervously. The other two pursed their lips and their frightening pupilless eyes glittered in the dark. The expression on their pale faces betrayed their unhappiness at the difficult mission they’d been assigned. All four of them were strong vampires, but, although they’d been instructed to move as fast as possible and avoid conflict, not knowing what they would be facing inside the Guardian castle troubled them.

  “Let’s go,” Vincent ordered softly.

  Using their supernatural powers, the creatures blew out of the forest with unnatural speed and leaped over the high wall, their long black cloaks streaming behind them. Not pausing for even a moment once they had landed inside the enclosure, in the blink of an eye they crossed the wide sparsely treed expanse surrounding the castle, reached the library and hid on either side of one of the balcony doors along the age-old castle’s façade.

  The Guardian manning the security camera monitors inside the castle’s control room saw the movement as a momentary blur on the screen and didn’t give it a second thought. There had been no Cursed attacks on their fortress for centuries, and the likelihood didn’t even cross his mind.

  The vampires peered into the library. The vast room, its walls filled with packed bookshelves, was mostly dark—so much so that the last shelves close to the high ceiling couldn’t be seen at all. A casually dressed Guardian around thirty years of age was sitting in an eighteenth-century armchair and reading in the light of a same-period lamp that stood on a little round wooden table next to him. Some feet away, to the right of the oblong room, a young woman in a sweater and jeans was searching the leather-bound tomes, aided by the eerie light issuing from her left palm.

  Vincent used his elbow to break the door’s glass pane and the Cursed surged inside, surprising the two Guardians. The man leaped from his chair, but before he could make a single move one of the creatures pounced on him, propelling him backwards. The man hit his head on the bookshelves and lost consciousness.

  Before the other two intruders could approach the woman, she extended her luminescent hand toward them.

  “Deval roal,” she commanded loudly and a small hyperdimensional portal with bluish energy spiraling inside it appeared in front of her palm at once.

  Blue flames leapt out of the portal, striking the two vampires like bolts of lightning. The creatures barely had the chance to cry out in pain before their bodies turned to ashes that fluttered down to the wooden floor.

  But Vincent was already behind her. Lightning fast, he grabbed her with his right arm around her neck and plunged a blade he had fitted onto his left stump into her back. The icy steel passed straight through the woman’s body, emerging out of her abdomen. Breathless, she blinked in astonishment and sagged against her executioner’s cold body. The bloodthirsty creature, demonstrating the utter brutality of his nature, pushed the blade upwards, shredding her innards. The Guardian’s legs buckled and she would have collapsed on the ground but for her murderer’s arm around her neck and the blade stuck between her ribs. Slowly, the ethereal portal receded into the dimension it had come from and the unearthly light on the theurgist’s palm went out. Her last breath came out as a sigh, as her soul left the plane of manifest forms.

  “Get the book,” Vincent ordered his remaining accomplice.

  Unable to resist the scent of blood flowing out of his victim’s warm body, he gripped her hair and tugged her head to the side. Baring his long canines, he pierced her neck and started drinking the theurgist’s high-vibration blood, which would heighten his abilities and make him stronger.

  Knowing exactly where to find the book the elders needed, the other vampire scrambled spider-like up to a high shelf, grabbed it and quickly descended.

  The sound of footsteps running down the castle’s wooden staircase forced Vincent to interrupt his macabre meal. He greedily sucked a bit more blood and, unhappy about the interruption, slid the blade out of the Guardian’s body and let it collapse onto the floor. He rushed to his accomplice, grabbed the book from his hand and the two intruders left the castle as quickly as they had come.

  Fares Coleman, the Guardians’ second-in-command, threw the large double door open and barreled into the library. The sound of shattering glass had caused the barrel-chested African-American to leap out of bed and he was only wearing his pants. Behind him followed two more Guardians, also half-dressed.

  “See if Chaz is alive and search the shelves for gaps. We must find out what they took,” he said with a frown and, unaffected by the sight before him, he kneeled down next to the dead woman.

  One of the men stepped behind one leaf of the wide-open door and switched the lights on. The huge hall was lit up by five bronze chandeliers and he began to search the rows of books on the shelves. The other man rushed to the unconscious Guardian and checked his neck for a pulse.

  “He’s alive,” he shouted and heaved a sigh of relief.

  Eiael White hurried into the hall, dressed in a long white gown which, without a belt, fell straight like a priest’s robe. Like her subordinates, she had also rushed out of bed and her curly brown hair wasn’t arranged in her usual chignon; it tumbled freely on her shoulders and around her dusky face. Her experienced gray eyes scanned the room, immediately picking up all the clues to what had happened. But, despite what she saw, her expression didn’t change. In her four centuries of life, the head of the theurgist warriors had seen death many times, some of those times face to face.

  “What happened?” she asked Fares.

  Without a word, he gripped the chin of the theurgist lying dead on the floor and, turning her head to the other side to reveal her neck, he lifted his eyes to look at Eiael.

  Unshaken, yet not indifferent, the Guardian leader observed the deathly rigidity in the woman’s eyes and then saw the marks on her neck.

  “Vampires, here?” she said, bewildered.

  Fares stood up.

  “They took them by surprise. Alene managed to take out two of them,” he said, pointing to the vampire ashes on the floor, “but there were obviously more
of them. Chaz is alive.”

  “This was unexpected. What could they have wanted?” Eiael asked, as if talking to herself.

  The answer came from the Guardian searching the shelves.

  “Sir, the Adeptikon of Demon Banishment is missing,” he shouted to be heard on the other side of the hall.

  “Strange,” said Fares pensively.

  “No, it isn’t strange,” Eiael replied. “There is a meaning behind every action and they are all linked. We just have to figure out how … before it’s too late.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Abaddon entered the walk-in closet with a towel wrapped around his waist and paused to admire his wife. She was at the other end of the room in front of the metal-framed full-length mirror near the window. Even after eight months of living together, his eyes still hadn’t had their fill of her unreal beauty, which was proof that there existed another world where forms could be perfect.

  Aranes placed her hand below her breasts and, while looking in the mirror, she traced the curve of her belly over her silk nightie. The material stretched over her swollen belly and she studied its size, her expression hinting at serious thoughts.

  Abaddon watched her with a smile. His blue eyes, with their silver lines undulating softly in his irises, zeroed in on his partner’s belly and his vision penetrated her body. He saw the fetus sleeping calmly, protected inside its amniotic sac. He heard the unborn child’s heartbeat and checked all its biological functions. The sacred and perilous blood of its mother flowed inside its Lilliputian blue arteries and its lungs were functioning normally. His son was healthy.

  Aranes turned and looked at him, having realized why he was focusing on her belly.

  “You’re really impatient,” she scolded him tenderly.

  Abaddon lifted his gaze to her eyes.

  “I’m no expert, but I think that your belly doesn’t look like a normal belly when you’re in your eighth month of pregnancy and I thought I’d check if everything was alright,” he explained himself with a smile.

  Aranes let her hands fall to her sides.

  “Even if I have a human body right now, my origins are supernatural, just like yours. It stands to reason that there will be differences in my pregnancy, whether visible or not, at least to human eyes,” she said.

  The reminder of their true nature made the incarnated Dark Angel frown. He went to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “And that’s precisely what worries me,” he said soberly. “The last few months have been too quiet. I’ve got a feeling that our problems are about to start. That’s why I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”

  After Lucifer’s attempt to capture the Superior and Abaddon’s restoration to his true nature, the couple hadn’t been attacked even once. The Demons had been numbed by the events: first, the incarnation of the commander of the Defenders, which went against the ethereal world’s Rules, and then the revelation of the Superior’s secret name, which was rumored to give its possessor legendary powers. Everyone was on tenterhooks, waiting for the first bold soul to go against Abaddon so that they could see what powers he held.

  “If I’m threatened, you’ll be the first to sense it,” Aranes reassured him. “Besides, you have important work to do.”

  Abaddon looked into her strange silvery-blue eyes. The Superior of the Angels had been incarnated, sacrificing her powers and risking her existence to save his soul from Lucifer. Some, even Celestials, believed that she had done it because of her love for him. He, however, knew that she had sacrificed herself to save the Angel who would make the prophecy come true rather than the man inside whom the transcendental entity mysteriously resided. She had never put her personal feelings above her duty to humanity.

  “Your nature forbids you to think of yourself,” he said, his tone admiring.

  “That would go against everything I represent,” she confirmed.

  “But I think of myself. What do I represent, then?” Abaddon asked, distaste coloring his voice.

  Aranes caressed his cheek.

  “The same thing I do, even though you don’t remember it. Besides, even as a human, you always cared a great deal about others.”

  Abaddon pushed back one of her locks and gently caressed her back.

  “Strangely enough, ever since I became an Angel, I’ve only cared about you. Whatever pleases you makes me happy.”

  “That’s why you’re working to maintain the balance, which is my priority,” she added. “Stop feeling guilty about your emotions. They’re the natural feelings of a man in love; you must accept them.”

  “My feelings are natural, it’s me who isn’t,” Abaddon remarked sullenly.

  “Yet you’re handling what you are well,” Aranes encouraged him. She slid her hands up his naked shoulders and cupped his face in her palms. “My love, I know you’re finding it hard to deal with your dual nature without your memory of being a Celestial. Be patient for just a little while longer. I’m sure it will come back to you.”

  Abaddon didn’t ask the question burning in his mind: When would his memory come back? His partner and mentor didn’t have the answer. She didn’t know either why the Source was keeping him in the dark. He nodded in agreement and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. If the kiss were to last any longer, he would battle to end it and step away. But even that brief moment had been enough to make him struggle. He released her lips reluctantly and turned away before he changed his mind.

  “I’ve got to go. It’s the charity’s opening in a few days’ time and there’s a lot to do,” he said, more to convince himself to leave the house than to inform Aranes.

  As he passed by the table that stood in the middle of the room, he tugged off the towel and dropped it on the glass top, laying his muscled body bare. Naked and barefoot, he walked to one of the glass sliding doors surrounding the entire walk-in closet—except where there was a large window—and slid it open. In this part of the wardrobe there was a long rod with shirts hanging in a row, arranged by color and shade, below which were underwear drawers. Abaddon opened one of them, grabbed a pair of black boxer briefs and socks and, after putting them on, slid a light blue shirt off its hanger. From the adjoining door, he got a light-blue-gray suit, a gray silk tie with embossed patterns the same shade as his shirt, and a pair of shoes.

  If he had wanted to, he could have created any type of clothing on him, from armor to swimwear. But he preferred to maintain some of his human habits. It was easier this way for him to handle his dual nature and his inability to understand in which world he truly belonged. If, together with his powers, he had regained his angelic memory, it might have been easier for him to adjust to the freakish reality he was living in, but for some reason the Supreme Authority was keeping him trapped in a state of amnesia that could prove fatal.

  He walked to the mirror to stand next to Aranes, who had been watching him wordlessly as he got dressed, and straightened the knot in his tie and the collar of his shirt. Before moving away, he gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “What are you going to be doing?” he asked and opened another door in the wardrobe.

  Aranes smiled at him.

  “I’m going to get the baby’s room ready.”

  Abaddon grabbed a coat from a hanger, not because he needed it, but because the staff at both his mansion and his company would find his immunity to the biting November cold odd.

  “Alright then, I’ll see you in the evening,” he said and left the room.

  “Although I don’t think I’ll need to,” Aranes added with a strange look on her face once she was alone.

  Abaddon hurried down the left flight of the double staircase with its ornate iron railings, passing by the large square frames lined with ecru silk wallpaper that were fitted into the white wall. In the mansion’s large entrance hall, near the round wrought iron table with a crystal vase filled with red and white belladonna lilies, stood the housekeeper. The middle-aged woman, dressed in a classic black suit and a white button-down shirt, h
ad her hands clasped in front of her and was waiting for him with a smile.

  “Good morning, sir. Won’t you be having any breakfast?” she asked, seeing him in a hurry.

  Abaddon paused for a moment.

  “No, I don’t have the time. But please have a hearty breakfast taken up to my wife.”

  Mrs. Cole’s pleasant countenance grew worried. She had a soft spot for Aranes and had been looking after her as if she were her own child during her pregnancy. At times, her concern was barely kept within the bounds of her duties.

  “I take breakfast up to Mrs. Meyers every day. But my position doesn’t permit me to pressure her. Perhaps, if you asked her doctor, he could give her something to increase her appetite,” she suggested cautiously.

  If she had a doctor, I would do it, Abaddon thought to himself.

  From the outset, Aranes had made it clear that the two of them were enough to monitor the pregnancy’s progress—any tests, especially blood tests, would reveal things that shouldn’t be. Her excellent knowledge of medicine—which stood to reason for a transcendental entity—and his ethereal vision, which was more reliable than any ultrasound and surpassed even state-of-the-art three-dimensional imaging, gave them the advantage of having the most comprehensive picture of how her pregnancy was progressing. So all the tests had been done in their bedroom. He would scan the parts of her or the fetus’s body that she had indicated, give her the information, and the all-knowing Superior of the Angels would draw the conclusions—and for the time being everything was fine. But if her lack of appetite persisted, that might change.

  “I’ll speak to her doctor,” he lied to the housekeeper and walked away, so that his face wouldn’t betray how bad he felt about having to deceive a person who had nothing but sincere concern for him and his partner.

  Abaddon opened the wide wooden front door, crossed the covered entrance, went down the three semi-circular steps and got into his dark silver Aston Martin V12 Zagato that was parked at the mansion’s entrance. He could appear anywhere he wanted in split seconds. But he still had to drive at least forty minutes every day to get to Long Beach, Manhattan, and Meyers Enterprises, the company he had founded when still only human. After his transformation, he had changed none of his activities or habits. He had to appear normal, so that nobody would realize that the well-known businessman was in fact an entity from a parallel reality.