Angelic Sight (5 page)

Erik was passed out on the couch, his head in Keer’s lap as the angel watched some modeling show on Bravo. Marius watched the two of them from his place in the doorway, and the protectiveness he normally felt toward his two nephilim extended to Keer as well. In the kitchen, he could hear the others putting away the groceries and taking the decorations out of the wrappings so that they could plan where to put it all. Levi was upstairs doing Creator knew what.

After checking up on Erik, he’d disappeared up the stairs. It wasn’t like him to want to be alone under any circumstances, but he hadn’t been gone long and Marius tried to tell himself over and over again that it wasn’t a good idea to fret over him so much. They were in a safe place, and if anyone needed his attention, it was Erik. Levi’s powers had been there ever since he’d met the two nephilim and were a contemplation for another day.

“How’s he doing?” Marius asked Keer as Keer’s program went on commercial.

Keer turned his head and met Marius’s gaze. “Exhausted. He worked himself hard today. I’m proud of him even if he did overdo it.  How’s Axis’s arm?”

“Healed.” He didn’t want to explain all about Levi’s strange  contribution to the healing. He figured they’d discuss it when they  had a house meeting tonight. Marius had never been part of a group  quite like this before. Being an Elite was a definite experience.  Hunters had worked in units, but they’d all just been taking orders  from the designated leader, who took orders from Azrael. The Elites  had genuine debates and discussions, compromises. It was nice. His  thoughts returned to Levi.
 
Why didn’t he tell me
?

“What are you thinking about?” Keer asked, studying him.

“Nephilim, life, love. All the good and bad of it all,” Marius  answered vaguely. What else was there to say?

Maybe Levi didn’t feel comfortable telling a former hunter about  his powers. Erik knew the whole story, but neither nephilim had given  Marius anything but sparse details about the event that had changed  Levi from seemingly normal eighteen-year-old male to fully  awakened nephilim before his time. He knew the hunters had gotten  ahold of him and given him the horrific scars on his back but none of  the details that accompanied the story.

“When dealing with nephilim, it’s never black and white, Marius.  Don’t worry so much over them. They’re slow to trust, and they all  deal with the trauma of their existence a little differently,” Keer said,  stroking Erik’s head with a look of absolute affection on his face.  “Some of them have to reclaim independence before they feel secure  again.” He was obviously talking about Erik. “Others turn their  attentions inward and keep secrets to feel in control. It’s just a  different way to cope. It’ll be all right.”

Marius saw the wisdom in Keer’s words. Others had said as much

to him before, but his natural state with his two lovers was worried.

However, it was good that he had the other men in his life to help him carry the burden of worry. They cared as much as he did, and that alone made it all right for Marius to breathe for the first time since becoming theirs.

Keer inclined his head toward the other end of the sectional.

“Why don’t you come chill out with us while we wait on Levi?”

Marius nodded and took his seat. Keer was right. Time would heal  all wounds. He had enough faith in that at least. The fact that he was  redeemed settled into his pores then, making him aware of the angel  binding that decorated his body. These men were his no matter what  they had to deal with.

“Pass the remote, Keer. I’m not watching your runway shows,”  Marius demanded, extending his hand for the remote.

Keer snorted. “Like hell. You are not interrupting my good taste  for whatever bad crime drama you want to watch.”

“You can always walk the catwalk down the hallway upstairs.  You don’t need to watch other people do it on TV. I can only act out  my shows if I murder one of you, and the longer you make me wait  for the remote, the more likely that possibility becomes,” Marius  threatened in his best growling voice. Keer laughed and tossed the  remote. Considerably lighter, Marius started channel surfing.

* * * *

Levi clutched the sheets as his world swam. The colors were

blinding, and he couldn’t sift through it all as the “knowing”  demanded his attention. He’d been putting it off since he’d washed  away Axis’s pain and, with it, brought about a new future.
 
Shit. Shit.  Shit
. He wanted to get off this roller-coaster ride. His stomach rolled  as the twisting colors spun faster. Past, present, and future blurred and  twisted until he didn’t know what was up and down.

He’d gone upstairs to get into his pajamas and to grab his Kindle  because he’d figured he’d be getting sick from the shifting colors, but  this was much more than he’d seen before. He felt like he was being  torn apart and reordered. He opened his mouth to cry out, to beg his  lovers to touch him. When his powers started fluxing, their touch  usually grounded him. His hungers were always sharper after the pain

had passed, like he could somehow drink down their energy as he  joined with them.

His vision blurred, and he saw himself standing on a hilltop  looking out over a field he was pretty sure he’d never seen before.  Someone spoke to him in a language he’d never heard, and he  watched the landscape as the colors and energies morphed into  something else. Times were changing, becoming volatile. He didn’t  know how he knew it, he just did.

“
Special
,” someone said. “
This one is special
.” He didn’t know if

they were talking aloud or in his head, and he wasn’t sure if it was

one person or many.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Where do we put him,

Lord?”

“
Hide him. The hunters will come. Hide him
,” the first voice

ordered.
 
Hide me where
? Was he even seeing through his eyes

anymore?

“Where?”

“
Nephilim. The nephilim will hide his vision

.
 
They will also

enhance it
.”

“In plain sight. You’re right. The perfect place.”

Levi turned his head but saw no one, though he could feel them  readily enough. He reached out and ran his fingers through coarse  grass. Where was he?

“
Yes. The worst they could do is kill him, but they won’t. Angels

cannot harm the holy any more than they can harm the innocent.
”

“He will be safe.”

“
Perhaps
.”

Levi blinked and was back in their bedroom, writhing on the  sheets. How long he’d been there, he wasn’t sure. He reached up as  the pulse of the house throbbed hard enough to rock its foundation.  He heard his lovers’ shouts of confusion from below as it rolled like

the deck of a ship. Their footsteps pounded on the stairs.

Across the world, he saw the hunter who had hurt him turn his

head as if listening to something far away. The hunter stretched his  wings, turning his head. He seemed to look right at Levi, who shrank  back in sheer terror.

It’s not real. It’s not real
. The internal chant did nothing to stop his trembling or the house’s rocking. The hunter faded away to nothing.

Then his aura stretched out and connected with the house. It

immediately stilled as if it were holding its breath. Down his aura  stretched, through every crevice, connecting with the earth below it.  Levi screamed as he became instantly aware of every life in Urun. He  could feel all of them, the good, the bad, the hurting, the joyous. He  couldn’t take it, couldn’t think anymore. He was going to shake apart.

“Levi!” Marius’s voice thundered. Was it real? He couldn’t tell

anymore. “
Levi
!”
 
Such a burden. I’m such a burden. It weighs so  heavily on them. They worry so much
. He screamed again as he  encountered the golden cord that connected all seven of them. It was  so beautiful, and he was so ugly. Without thinking, he grabbed ahold  of it like a buoy in a rolling ocean. He had to break it, had to make it  so they could be happy, happier without him, happier without his  madness…He could drift, then, away, far away where nothing was  alive and everything was peaceful.

Arms wrapped around him, a dozen of them, all connected to him,  holding him tight. “Little one, come back to us,” Axis rumbled. “We  need you. Stay with us.”

Levi listened to that voice, following the energy back to its source.  He saw Axis’s past, his present, his future, in rapid succession. He  knew where he had begun and where he would end. Calm filled him.  Levi was there. Levi was there until his end. He was their beloved

until they chose to leave this world for the next, until he returned to

the source and gave up his visions to another.

“He’s not seizing anymore,” Jade said, his voice shaking.

“Levi?” Marius sounded broken.

He leaned further into Marius’s arms, tucking his head under his chin. “Here I am,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh, it’s all right. You didn’t do anything,” Marius soothed, his shoulders quaking as silent sobs racked him. “I thought I lost you.  Don’t do that to me again.”

“I didn’t want to see it all. I waited too long,” Levi explained, knowing it wouldn’t make any sense. He was so tired, so very tired of being. He wanted to sleep. Someone kissed his neck. He felt the energy. Brax, his sweet and awkward Brax. He was always the odd one. They related on that level. A vision flickered, another gentle reminder. “They’re coming.”

The entire room froze. “Who are coming?”

“The five horsemen and the ones who gave me my scars.” Did that make sense? He wasn’t sure.

“The four horsemen?” Keer asked.

“Yes. Plus one.”

“Impossible,” Keer said, fear lacing every syllable.

Levi’s eyes slid shut. “Not against us. They’re running, running  from the ones who gave me my scars. Old nephilim. So very old. The  first. The oldest. They lived somewhere safe, but now they have to  run. Azrael’s hunters drove them out. They felt me when I felt the  world.”

“The four horsemen are supposed to be angels,” Brax whispered.  It was an old legend that was pretty commonly told in angelic circles,  at least that was what Marius had said when he’d spoken of them.

“Not the end. The beginning of battle,” Axis said. “No one said  they were angels or demons for that matter. Victory, War, Famine,  and Death were just harbingers of great change in our ancient texts.  They rode whenever great injustices ravaged the world. They  cleansed it.”

“Angels,” Keer said stubbornly.

“And Hope,” Levi whispered, beginning the descent into

unconsciousness. “The fifth is Hope.” He stopped fighting the

darkness then. He’d told them what he needed to say. He had to sleep.

With that he descended into dreamland.

* * * *

Marius had not wanted to leave Levi while he slept, not even to call Scepta for answers. Axis had thought it was understandable given the circumstances. He’d tucked Levi and Erik on either side of the

former fallen and had gone downstairs to make a phone call. Jade and  Brax had followed him, but Keer had lingered near their lovers’  bedside, so Axis had ordered him to watch over the three while they  slept.

“So what can you tell us about the four or five horsemen, man?”  Axis asked. Scepta was on speakerphone in the study. It had taken  forever to track down the guy since he was making his rounds in  town, but Axis had finally gotten his cell phone number after twenty  minutes of hunting.

“One was forgotten because he didn’t bring pain. They’re so old  they don’t have names, so the seraphim gave them names based on  their accomplishments or powers. According to the text I’m looking  at, they’re the sons of the five Thrones, our Elders, raised in Eden  after the sons of man left. Their mothers gave them to their fathers,  and they were schooled in our ways before our ways were even  passed to the first angelic child.

“Victory took back all the cities from nephilim and angels alike  who enslaved man. Another translation of his name is ‘Conquest.’  War acted as a great leader of armies. He strategized battles like no  other before him. The ‘art of war’ was named after him. Famine was