From Heaven To Earth (The Faith of the Fallen) (19 page)

“Which principles?” Drean asked.

“Faith, selflessness, tolerance. Things like that.”

“So you believe in love then?”

“Love? I used to,” Riell said.

“What changed that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been through a lot.”

“Do you think you could believe again?”

“Maybe someday.”

Drean hoped that he could help her believe. If he could accomplish only
one good thing while on Earth; he would bring love back into Riell’s life.

Dejanto waited on the roof of The Horse. He sat cross-legged in the
middle, out of sight. There was no need for him to see his prey. He could sense
any non-human auras inside and around the bar’s perimeter. Clouds blotted out
any chance for natural light this night. He would use that to his advantage if
he felt threatened.

He knew that Drean and Riell would come looking for him. Leoran had
already shown him that. Still, impatience filled his mind.

Why am I so anxious? I’ve accomplished thousands of missions that
required hours of waiting: to penetrate enemy territory without being perceived
or for the perfect ambush. I’ve rushed into the heat of battle slaying foes
before they catch sight of me. The stakes have been high before. I’ve been
through so much. Through it all I’ve always been collected.
Keep shook his
arms out and took a deep breath.

“Keep!” Riell yelled out.

He smiled. He could hear worry in her voice.

She doesn’t matter right now. I have to find the angel before the plan
can be executed. Where is he? I know he’s here with her.

Footsteps below him caught Dejanto’s attention. He tried to reach out but
felt nothing.

It has to be him.

He concentrated on the shadows around him. Shadows embraced Dejanto and
covered him from head to toe. His physical form could no longer be seen. He
quietly crept to the edge of the roof and peered below.

The angel. Why couldn’t I sense him? Unless he is wary.
 
He’s masking his aura so no one will know
he’s here with Riell. He suspects me. I can’t comprehend why the Lord won’t let
me slay him where he stands. He’s the last hope of the old order. Without him
the light will crumble. He could very well ruin the Lord’s plan.

Dejanto made his decision.

Yes. He must be slain.

Dejanto dipped his sword arm into the shadows around him. They rippled at
his touch. When he removed his arm his hand gripped the hilt of his weapon: the
blackened great sword given to him by Leoran. He pulled at it and watched
Drean.

The hilt warmed at his touch and quickly turned hot. Though it constantly
stung him, he pulled it from its sheathe of shadow.

Dejanto thought the sword yearned for the blood of the angel, but then it
seared Dejanto’s palm. The sword fell back into the abyss from whence he pulled
it.

Drean looked straight up at Dejanto and squinted.

No, angel you can’t see me. You might feel my presence but I know your
eyes cannot see me.
Dejanto sighed inwardly.

My Lord isn’t ready for this angel to perish. I’ll follow His plan
accordingly.

He looked at his charred palm and concentrated. Sapping Drean and Riell
would give away his position, so instead he took life-energy from trees and
small animals in the vicinity. His body cooled as it absorbed the energy. He
directed it into his injury: it regenerated rapidly.

These powers; they’re different from when I was a...
Dejanto could
not complete his thought process.
Who am I to question the Lord? If life
must be taken to aid the grand design, so be it.

“Drean?” Riell tapped on the window of the bar door.

Drean walked to the door. “Yes?”

“I’m going to go search one more place for him. Go ahead and find Gerald
like we talked about. Shrazz and I will hone in on your position when it is
time. Just keep him distracted.”

“Alright, be careful.”

“I will,” Riell called back. Then she was gone.

She must be going to the cathedral,
Keep thought.
No matter.
I’ll have an explanation for her when the time comes.

Drean closed his eyes for a moment to feel for Gerald.

“There he is,” Drean muttered. He turned and walked down the street.

Dejanto leapt off the bar roof and landed in the middle of Drean’s
shadow. He fell straight into it as if it were a hole in the ground.

Drean whirled about.

Dejanto was already gone.

Dejanto would have smirked had he still had a mouth to do so.

* * *

I feel an oppressive aura hanging over the bar. It can’t be Keep can
it?
Riell thought as she struggled to find her way to the bathroom in the
dark.

“Ow! Goddamnit!” Riell rubbed her side.

“That’s the sixth time I’ve hit something...” she said under her breath.

I need to check the cathedral.

She rounded the corner to the hall that led to the bathroom door. A dim
light hung over it.

“Finally no more damn tables.”

Upon reaching the door Riell felt above it to acquire the enchanted
silver key.

Riell gripped the key and spoke the words that Keep had taught her and
the rest of the skia that had trained at the cathedral: “Though my wings are
dark the light of the sun carries me.”

The key brightened and the door swung open. The Hall of Darkness lay
before her.

She stepped past the doorway only after she replaced the key. She was
left in darkness when the door closed. Regardless she strode forward. She knew
that soon she would see the door’s welcoming glow. She could not see any light
however, and it unnerved her.

Riell tried to reassure herself that the light was close, but she knew it
had faded with Keep’s.

Riell collided with the heavy doors of the cathedral, and the bang
resounded throughout the hall.

She yelled, clutched her head and whispered curses at the door in several
different languages. A feeling of frigidity like none she had ever felt before
stabbed at her mind: the sharp pain pulsed constantly. It came from something
or someone inside the cathedral.

That aura isn’t Keep’s... I hope.

She put both hands on the door and heaved until she could no longer stand
the cold on her hands.

“Let me help you with that,” a hoarse voice from within the cathedral
said.

When the doors opened and slammed against the walls of the cathedral
their force knocked Riell to the ground. Large icicles fell from the ceiling
above the door and shattered.

Lei’s frozen corpse lay in front of her face. Obviously, their travels
through limbo had led them to the cathedral instead of her apartment.

Riell’s senses implored her to stay down and not explore the cathedral
any further. Subzero cold billowed all around her and chilled her. The stench
of death came with the cold and defiled her nostrils and mouth.

She stood and walked forward.

A weak pale light shone through the remaining stained glass windows. Most
of them had shattered.

Those were supposed to be impenetrable.

She noticed the frozen halves of Teddy.

I hope that he’s still on our side.

Her body trembled, and she found herself paralyzed by the probable truth
that Dejanto was not. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

Collected again, she stayed against the right wall and tried to not step
on any broken glass or icicles.

Riell looked at the new décor of the cathedral with fearful fascination.

Ice covered the ceiling. Thick stalactites had formed in some areas. Pale
light from the limbos shone on the frozen scene.

She could not help but feel afraid and awed.

It’s... coming from the altar.

Riell had not looked that far down into the cathedral yet. Its changes
had almost hypnotized her.

He was still some distance away, but Riell could make out a white robed
humanoid knelt before the altar.

It can’t be.

Nearly 500 hundred years ago, when Riell and Shrazz were mere pre-teen
fledglings, the man before her had persecuted her and hundreds of other
half-breed children. He forced humans and paladins to bring them to him
according to a decree he claimed was from the mouth of God Himself. He had used
their mystical energies to bolster his own soul. He was also supposed to be
dead.

Dejanto, Riell and Shrazz and the few paladins that had decided to go
against his church had seen to that. That was when Shrazz had inadvertently
sparked the Great Fire that consumed the cathedral and London.

Afterward Dejanto and the surviving paladins rebuilt it, used a complex
ritual to plane-shift it into upper limbo and set up an orphanage for the
half-breeds inside the cathedral. He honed the half-breeds abilities and
provided them food and shelter, so they could protect themselves if such a
catastrophe should happen again.

“Archbishop Erantu,” she muttered. Hatred filled her mind and tears
filled her eyes. They ran down her face and froze before they hit the ground.

How the hell is he alive? We banished him to the depths of limbo where
he would be imprisoned forever.

“So,” Erantu said as he stood from his genuflection, “you remember me.”

Riell’s face tightened at the sound of his voice. She drew her short
sword.

This time he’s not going to have the chance to return.

“How could I forget. You destroyed everything I loved when I was a child.
Everything.”

“If it wasn’t for me, my dear... you wouldn’t have grown into the fine
woman you are now,” he said. Riell could hear a smile in his voice.

Riell unfurled her black transparent wings. She hurled herself into the
air above the Archbishop and swooped down upon him. In her rage her wings
flooded the cathedral with their full brilliance. He didn’t even turn around at
the sound of her wings above him.

Riell decapitated the bishop where he stood. She landed in front of the
altar.

That was satisfying.

She picked up the head of Erantu by its scraggly gray hair.

Patches of charred rotting skin clung to his blackened skull of a face.
Erantu’s eye sockets glowed faintly.

His mouth opened wide, and he laughed.

Riell dropped the head in surprise.

“You cannot kill me, Riell.” Erantu’s head lifted into the air and
reattached itself to his body. He turned around and opened his arms so Riell
could see his disheveled robes and deteriorated body. It didn’t look any better
than his face.

“You’ve already accomplished that, as you can see.”

“I don’t understand.”

“But my queen resurrected me, and as to how I’m here...” He turned and
gestured at the crumpled altar.

Riell jumped high into the air and used her wings to keep herself aloft
so she could see what Erantu referred to. When she was above the altar she
almost fell from the air.

In the place where the altar had once stood a void of a tunnel had
formed. Riell could not see the bottom of it. Purple energy lanced within it,
reverberating like thunder and quaking the ground beneath her feet.

“...A gate to Lower Limbo,” Erantu said. “I don’t believe Dejanto even
knew about it.”

He couldn’t have,
Riell thought.
He would have sealed this
place for good if he did.

“I was thanking the newly crowned God as you arrived. It seems he has
unwittingly finished what I started centuries ago. My tunnel is complete.”

Drean was right.
Riell’s body went numb with fear.
I have to
seal this place. Who knows what else could come from that portal.
Riell intended
to escape and seal the door from the outside. She jumped and went into a dive
and approached the door rapidly.

“I think not.” Erantu willed the doors to close. They slammed before
Riell could exit and shook stalactites from the ceiling.

Riell spun herself away from them.

Erantu laughed.

“No, Riell, I think you should stay.”

She landed and faced Erantu.

“We’ll see.”

She jumped into the air, and kicked off of the door of the cathedral. She
gripped her sword with both hands, raised it and unleashed a vertical slash to
halve Erantu.

Her sword divided only air.

Wind caused by the blow split the large wooden cross and scarred the wall
of the cathedral behind it.

“You’ve grown powerful indeed.” Erantu was behind her.

Riell spun about.

He tried to make a grab for her, and she lashed out to ward him off. He
ducked and didn’t even flinch when her sword cleaved off his left arm. Riell
tried to jump away but could not escape the outstretched fingertips of the
archbishop’s skeletal right hand.

He gripped her arm and siphoned her Inner.

Riell’s body numbed. She tried to lift her sword to cut the other arm
from his body but couldn’t. Her sword slipped from her grasp and clanged to the
ground.

“Yes. You’re mine. Just relinquish yourself and make it easier.” Erantu’s
other arm lifted into the air and reconnected itself to his body with a pop.

Riell fought to maintain consciousness to summon an arrow in her sword hand.
When she felt the shaft of it she stabbed at Erantu and let it slip from her
hand right before it reached his body. Her arrow slid beneath the archbishop’s
legs and came to rest behind him. She feigned unconsciousness.

“Haha, she was going to try to finish me with an...”

Riell’s eyes flashed an emerald green beneath their lids. Her arrow
exploded, splayed pieces of his body about the cathedral and knocked Riell on
her back. She pulled the skeletal hand from her arm and picked her sword back
up.

“A skillful maneuver!” Erantu called out. Pieces of his body gathered
where the explosion had taken place.

I won’t let his speed get the best of me this time.

Riell held her short sword above her head with both hands. The demonic
sword responded to her needs: it liquefied, and wrapped itself around Riell’s
arms. Erantu’s legs and torso had reassembled themselves.

She held her arms straight out, separated them and the liquid metal that
encased them. Some of it splashed. As she ran at him, drops flew back into the
two blobs that covered Riell’s forearms and hands, defying gravity. Wrist
spikes jutted past Riell’s hands and the metal solidified.