Heaven and Hellsbane (7 page)

“Did it look like the sword was broken?” I asked.

“Aye. That’s it exactly,” he said, green eyes widening. “What’s that about?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But we need to figure this out fast, before anyone else is attacked.”

“I can tell ya this. The bloke was takin’ orders from the blasted demon like he’d been the one who’d given him his powers. If me gut hadn’t told me the big one was a demon, I might’ve thought they were magister and illorum.”

“Perhaps you’re closer to the truth than you think,” Eli said. “If the demon is as old as you say, he could have the power to seduce nephilim, corrupt their minds, and persuade them to do his bidding.”

Liam shook his head. “Naw. This bloke already had his power. No demon can trigger a nephilim’s angelic half, no matter how old he is. Only an illorum sword can do that.”

“But an angel can. Rifion figured it out. He’d triggered the power in hundreds of nephilim before I banished him,” I said. “Those people are still out there. They’ve got the same power as you and me, but no mark, no sword, no focus. What if this guy was one of them?”

“Possibly. We know this demon had been serving Rifion—working with him and the awakened nephilim,” Eli said. “Now he’s finishing the job on his own.”

“Naw, I don’t believe it,” Liam said.

“I agree with Liam,” Amon said. “That black sword came from somewhere. Like a twisted version of an illorum sword. Someone made it for him. And even an old demon can’t do that. There has to be a Fallen behind the scenes pulling the strings.”

Eli’s cold, blue eyes shifted to Amon. “You’re a demon. Your opinion is suspect by default and therefore meaningless. Fallen do not work in concert with each other; their egos won’t permit it. Rifion would not have shared his knowledge with another Fallen. It is unreasonable to believe any other Fallen would have risked being in the presence of an empowered nephilim long enough to discover that he had not been marked.”

“So who made their swords?” I asked.

Eli looked at me. “I can’t say for sure without inspecting the weapon itself. If this demon is as old as we suspect, he could have the power to seduce an illorum and turn him against his calling. In that case, maybe the blackened sword is an indication of corruption.”

“Have ya ever heard of such a thing?” Liam asked.

Eli shook his head. “No.”

I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. There’s a first time for everything. But something about it doesn’t feel right to me.”

“Then we should not assume anything,” Eli said. “You were born to battle the Fallen and their demon minions. Your instinct would not mislead you.”

“Glad
you’re
sure of that,” I said.

Eli smiled and my heart skipped a beat. “I am sure of you,” he said. “I will request an audience with the Council. If there’s any instance of a blackened illorum sword and corrupted mark, they will know of it.”

The Council was made up of seven archangels who interpreted the word and will of God and served as a kind of Supreme Court for all angelic matters. They rarely came to earth, using several self-important errand boys, like Fred, to keep them up to date on the dirty details.

“Good idea,” I said. “Let me know.”

“We’ll stay on the prick’s trail,” Liam said.

“And I’ll…go home. I’ve got a family thing tomorrow.” I wanted to do something, go after them, go with Eli to hear what the Council knew, but I’d promised my mom. And my sister Lacey would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t show up.

“I’ll keep you informed,” Eli said, as we all turned to leave.

“Elizal, wait,” Amon said. “Where is my daughter?”

My heart dropped. “You’re going to kill her? She’d still be just a baby.”

Amon’s violet eyes shifted to me. “No. I want to help raise her. We’re not all the selfish fiends you’ve been told. Some of us, many of us, love our children as any parent would. Even when they’ve been turned against us.”

Well, crap. That complicates things.

§

I used to think the danger I posed to my family from being an illorum was the risk that demons would target and kill them to hurt me.

I was wrong. It was way worse than that.

It didn’t take long to figure out that despite their supernatural strength and power, a demon’s most dangerous weapon against humans was his frightening ability to seduce. They’re master manipulators—corrupting human morals, asserting their influence little by little, convincing people to go against their principles, to hurt themselves or others, ruining lives.

They have eternity to work their destructive power and the more subtly they weave their dark influence, the less likely they are to be discovered. I had thought avoiding my family was the best way to keep them safe. But then I discovered a demon posing as my sister’s gynecologist.

He had no idea the woman whose life he was worming his way into—with plans to wreak havoc however she would carelessly allow—had an illorum for a kid sister.

I didn’t tell her I’d been the reason Dr. Kern suddenly gave up his practice and was rumored to have moved to Costa Rica. She also had no idea that he really hadn’t moved anywhere but had been banished to the abyss. No one did.

Staying away from my family didn’t keep them safe, but involving myself too deeply in their lives was still a senseless risk. Finally I’d decided to aim for a happy medium over the past year or so—visiting for a few moments here and there, trying to get a feel for any demonic influence. The annual family reunion was a perfect opportunity to get a read on the whole Hellsbane clan.

“There she is,” my mother said when I stepped into the shade of the pavilion in Mingo Park. “I told you she wouldn’t miss the family reunion.”

My sister, Lacey, rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say she wouldn’t make it. I said she’d be late.”

“Well, yeah. I’m a Hellsbane. It’s kind of our thing. How late were
you
?” I found an empty spot on the picnic table for my famous green Jell-O salad and looked across the outdoor room to my uncle Greg and his son Justin. I waved.

“Emma Jane Hellsbane,” Justin said in his typically annoying singsong voice.

“Towhead,” I said in my own annoying fashion. Most of my family is some shade of blond, and I’d heard my mom call my cousin, Justin, a towheaded blond when we were kids. It kind of stuck.

The rural county park was crawling with offshoots of the Hellsbane family tree—playing horseshoes, taking over the park’s playground, sending smoke signals from the complimentary park grills. Love and pride filled my heart, making me smile. And then I remembered…I wasn’t a Hellsbane. I was the bastard child of a Fallen angel. Even a year after learning the truth, it still hit me like a cold smack in the face. These people weren’t my family. Not really. Not the way they were family. There was a part of me that was different from all of them. And for a second I couldn’t breathe.

“We got here ten minutes ago,” Lacey said, pulling me out of the ice storm of thoughts attacking my brain. She popped a chip into her mouth. “But I have three kids and a husband who can’t walk away from the mirror until his hair is perfect. What’s your excuse?”

“Actually, it’s my fault,” Dan said, stepping into the pavilion behind me. “We stopped by my ex-wife’s to get the two little ones.”

“Dan!” my mother squealed, clapping her hands like a six-year-old in front of a candy store. “And look at those sweet little babies. I could just eat them up.”

To their credit, nine-year-old Kenny and six-year-old Abby didn’t run screaming from the strange woman making munching faces and wiggling her fingers at them. They just cuddled close to their father on either side, holding his hand like a lifeline. My mother ignored their cringing and leaned down to give them both lung-crushing hugs.

She straightened, beaming. “You certainly make adorable children, Officer Dan.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hellsbane.”

“Now, Dan, you know I told you to call me Carol, or Mom if you’d rather.” My mother winked at my momentarily terrified boyfriend. “I bet Kenny and Abby would love to have a new little brother or sister one day.”

“Mom,” I said in warning.

Kenny scrunched his face and shook his head. “Naa…Mom says she’s too old and Dad loves his job too much. That’s why she made him move out and started letting Captain Richard come over for dinner. He’s in the navy and he owns a boat.”

“She did?” Dan asked, clearly hearing the news for the first time.

“Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean your mother would give your dad a new little baby, I meant Emma—”

“Mom.”

“What?” She waved a hand at me. “Oh relax, dear. They know you’re their dad’s
special friend
.” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “You’re his Captain Richard. Besides if things work out, you’ll need to have this conversation with them eventually.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not there yet,” I said.

“We’re not?” Dan asked, with the same stunned expression he’d worn a second before. “I mean, we’re moving in that direction, though. Right?”

He looked at me with such confidence, sure what we had was what he wanted. It felt good to have something solid and sure in my life when everything else was so out of control. I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to lose him.

I wanted kids, wanted the whole house-and-home-and-soccer-mom gig. And every time I looked at Dan, I knew he could make it happen. But how could I have any of it with demons attacking at any moment and angels popping in and out of my life? Visiting with family for a few hours a week was one thing. But a family of my own—24/7? No matter how much I wanted it, the timing was all wrong.

“Let’s talk about this later,” I said. Lately things between us had been so up in the air—my supernatural duties getting in the way more and more. How could I promise him the future we both wanted when I didn’t even know if I’d live through the week? My uncertainty was causing problems, sending him vibes I couldn’t help. We hadn’t even slept together in weeks.

“A mother can dream. C’mon you two.” My mom held out her hands to Dan’s kids and Dan nodded for them to go with her. “Let’s see what the other kids are up to. Who knows, they might be your cousins one day. Might as well get to know them.”

“Seriously, Mother,” I started to say, but she just kept walking as though she hadn’t heard.

“Thanks, Mrs.— I mean, thanks, Carol,” Dan said, his smile bright. He turned to Lacey. “Hi, Lacey. It’s good to see you. I have to talk to Emma for a minute; you mind if we step away? We’ll be right back.”

Lacey smiled. “Sure. Glad you could make it.”

My stomach sank.
Crap
. I hoped we weren’t going to have
the talk
now. With the murders and sword thefts going on I had enough on my plate to keep my brain spinning. I couldn’t handle dancing around questions and seeing the pain my hesitation caused in his eyes. I loved Dan. But it was hard to make a man who can’t help wanting to protect me understand that my very existence was what caused the danger.

I let him slip a hand around my waist and lead us out of the shade of the pavilion. “What’s up?”

He pulled a twice-folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. “Sorry it took so long. You remember that photo of the guy who could be your father? I think I finally have a lead for you.”

I unfolded the photocopied picture I’d given him of my mother twenty-four years ago. It was taken at some political fund-raiser. My uncle said that the man passing behind the posed group of volunteers in the picture had been more than casually interested in my mother at the time.

Unfortunately, Uncle Greg seemed to be the only one who remembered the guy even existed. I asked my mother if she recognized the man, but she couldn’t even remember the picture being taken. I didn’t push it. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her she’d cheated on my dad with an angel, and I was the proof.

It didn’t count anyway. The Fallen had used his powers to seduce her. Then, like all Fallen do, he’d used his power to erase all memory of himself from her mind and the minds of anyone close enough who might remind my mother about the affair. Clearly my angelic father hadn’t realized my uncle Greg’s somewhat inappropriate interest in my mother and left him with a few memories—sketchy as they were.

Now, the name Gertrude Newberry was written in Dan’s handwriting at the bottom of the photo along with a phone number. “What’s this?”

“That’s who I talked to at the William Penn Hotel,” he said. “Took a while, but we finally got this computer program at the station to figure out that’s where the picture was taken. He might even have been a hotel employee at the time.”

I squinted at the picture and the tiny flash of color on the lanyard around his neck. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but my heart thrilled at the possibility of discovering my father’s identity. I exhaled a shaky, excited breath.

“Mrs. Newberry is the human-resources person at the hotel. If your biological father was hiding out as an employee there, she might have a record of him,” Dan said.

He was beaming like a kid who’d just aced his first exam, and with good reason. He’d just handed me the best lead I’d gotten on my angelic father’s identity in the past year.

It was almost over, all the craziness that had become my life. No more demon attacks. No more worrying that the people I love might be caught in the middle. No more seraphim watching me in creepy silence everywhere I went. And no more need for the illorum sword I’d grown used to feeling at the small of my back.

Once I found and banished my angelic father, my life would go back to normal.
I’d
be normal.

Normal
.

I should’ve been thrilled. So why did I feel like I’d just been kicked in the gut?

Chapter Seven

“Grandma Hellsbane said if you marry Emma, she’ll take us all to Disney World,” Dan’s son told him seriously.

“Yay!” his sister Abby said from her car seat, clapping her chubby hands. “Marry Emma. Wanna go to Disney World!”

Grandma Hellsbane?
In one day my mother had completely won over Dan’s kids. Granted, she’d bribed them to do it, but that just proved how determined she was. Wow, I missed them—my mom, my nieces and nephew, even my sister. I wish I could’ve spent more than a few hours at the picnic, but I just couldn’t risk it. It was bad enough I’d gone at all. I used to hate those things…now I just wanted to cry for missing it.

“You marry her, Daddy?” Abby asked.

“We’ll see,” Dan said.

I hid the goofy grin that suddenly took over my mouth. His answer sent a quick jolt of excitement through my belly, with an equally hard shock of dread. I wanted to get married…someday. But was Dan
the one
? And wasn’t the fact that I even asked that question a bad sign? I loved Dan. I did. But shouldn’t a woman just know when it’s right?

I didn’t know. Not even close. Besides, I wasn’t ready. I was too young—at least I
felt
too young—plus, with everything going on in my life, the timing was way off. So until I found and killed the Fallen who’d fathered me, my answer would have to be no. I pulled to the curb in front of his ex’s house.

“Let’s not mention this to Mom, though. Okay?” Dan said.

“Okay,” the kids agreed.

I shifted into neutral and set the hand brake while Dan got out and unstrapped the kids from the backseat of my Jeep Wrangler. The little rug rats loved riding with the top off. So did I. We got along great. Dan’s ex-wife and me…not so much.

It wasn’t like we fought the urge to scratch each other’s eyes out, but I could feel Janet’s jealousy making my chest tight, prickling over my nerves, and egging me to say something I’d regret every time she saw us together. They were her emotions, not mine…mostly. She didn’t want Dan back. She just didn’t like seeing him with anyone else. I figured there was no reason for either of us to endure the discomfort. So I waited in the car until Dan came back from handing the kids over.

He closed the Jeep’s door and strapped on his seat belt. “Janet says hi.”

“I bet.” I smiled but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about Gertrude Newberry and what she might know about my Fallen sperm donor. I had a real chance at discovering my angelic father’s identity.
This could all be over soon. Really over. And then Dan and I…oh crap…
I stopped thinking about it.

It seemed like only a few minutes later that I made the right onto Route 51 and Dan said, “You okay?”

I glanced at him and realized we’d been driving for nearly fifteen minutes without talking. “Yeah, I’m good. Fine.” Even I could hear that I’d said it a little too fast, a little too desperately.

“You’re thinking about having to confront your real father, aren’t you?” he asked.

Among other things.
But I shrugged and nodded.

“You worried everything’s going to move too fast after your life goes back to normal?” he asked.

I glanced at him again. That was it, in a nutshell. That’s why my stomach had been trying to come up my throat all day and my chest felt like it was caught in a vise. All the talk of marriage—of becoming a stepmother and having babies of my own—had totally screwed with my head.

“Yeah, maybe.” I swallowed hard and tried to smile. I didn’t pull it off very well.

Dan put a hand on my leg as he reached his other up to tuck my hair behind my ear. “So don’t think about it. Just…forget everything your mom and my kids said. When you’re ready—when
we’re
ready, we’ll talk about it, and not a second sooner.”

I glanced at him again and this time my smile was genuine. I exhaled and the pressure in my chest eased a little. “Thanks for digging up the info on that picture. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

He leaned close and kissed my cheek, his musky cologne drifting over me, the warm, familiar scent soothing my nerves.

“I just hope it pays off,” he said. “I can’t stand you being mixed up in all this angel-and-demon shit. It’s dangerous. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

Dan was a cop, trained to serve and protect. I knew it ate at his bones that there were bad guys out there after me and he couldn’t do anything about it. The fact that the power he needed to protect me lay dormant inside him made it even worse.

At the next stoplight I leaned over to kiss him, but paused a hairbreadth from his lips. “You’re a good guy, Dan Wysocki. But I can handle the angel-and-demon shit. I was born for it.”

I kissed him and he kissed me back, his tongue making a quick pass across my lips. My breath caught at the unexpected sensation, and Dan whispered against my mouth, “I was born for it, too. Remember?”

The car behind us honked and I jumped straight in my seat, realizing the light had turned green. We pulled out and made the left on to Cook Street and another left into my driveway. Dan’s black Charger was parked on the street but he followed me inside, closing the front door behind him as I tossed my keys on the small foyer table.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Emma,” Dan said and I turned to see him standing in front of the door, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You have those powers, and that sword. But it is dangerous. You’re risking your life dealing with these supernatural beings and all I can do is stand on the sideline and pray one of them doesn’t slice you to ribbons or hack off your head. Your friend was killed right in front of you. Two more have died in the last week. I want to tell you to stop. I want to tell you to put down that damn sword and walk away.”

“You know I can’t—”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, cutting me short. “I know you don’t have a choice. This is part of who you are, but it’s taking over your life, Em. It’s all you do now. There’s no room for anything else.”

I stepped toward him. “Dan…”

But he held up a hand. “No. Stop. ” He laughed to himself bitterly. “Jeezus, I sound like my ex-wife. Now I know how she felt all those years. And this isn’t me. I’m not some clingy, needy, insecure wuss. But…”

He shook his head and looked away, as if he were searching for the right words and not liking what he was coming up with. “I’m losing you, Em.
You’re
losing you. I can see it happening little by little. One way or another, that part of your life is going to take you away for good; I know it. And it’s driving me crazy that I can’t do anything about it. Not without joining you.”

I closed the distance between us and put my hands on his chest. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable. You’re more than capable. You’re exactly the kind of person the magisters hope for. But Kenny and Abby…they’d lose you.”

“They wouldn’t.” He took my hands in his. “I’m a cop. They’re used to their dad taking risks to catch criminals. And between me and Janet, we can keep the kids safe. It’s not like your family—I can tell her the truth. Tell her what to keep an eye out for. The demons won’t hurt the kids. They can’t if we just do our jobs as parents and pay attention.”

“But it’s not the same. I mean, there’s more to it.” I squeezed his hands. “You’re right, this thing, this illorum life, it does separate you from normal people. It pulls you away from everyday life and sucks you into a surreal world filled with angels and demons, life and death. Before you realize it,
that
world feels like your real life. And all this—going to work, going out with family and friends, just hanging around with normal people—all this is just what you do until your real life pulls you away again. You have kids, Dan. If you allow yourself to be marked, you
will
abandon them. Not on purpose and not right away, but eventually, a little at a time. They
will
lose you.”

He gathered me into his arms, his body hard and warm against mine. “So that’s it then. You
are
slipping away. Then what’s the point of this, of you and me? What am I supposed to do?”

Our eyes met and a quick stab of panic pierced my heart. I didn’t want to lose him. Despite all my doubts, I needed him. I needed the normalcy he brought into my life. But was that all he was to me, all I wanted from him? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t ready to give it up.

“You’re supposed to hold onto me. Be here. Remind me what’s waiting for me, what’s missing in that other life. Remind me why I want to finish all of this.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth, tracking my tongue when I licked my lips. “I can do that.”

He kissed me—his lips a soft, warm press against mine, his hands at the small of my back pulling me tight against him. My heart thrummed faster as his desire pressed a hard line against my belly, centering in my mind.

The hilt of my sword moved and I realized an instant too late that he’d pulled it from its sheath. I gasped, pushing back, my hand shooting lightning fast to catch his wrist.

“Holy shit, Emma,” he said, a half smile warring with the surprise on his face. “I was just getting it out of the way.”

“I…I know.” I took the hilt from his hand anyway and stepped back to set it on the small foyer table with my keys. It wouldn’t have marked him unless he’d picked it up to fight evil, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I started to turn back but Dan’s arms were already snaking around me, lifting me up to cradle against him. I laughed. “You really gonna do this?”

“What, sweep you off your feet?” he asked, as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Yes. Yes I am. Those angels ever do this for you?”

I held my smile, remembering a time when I’d been taken high above the earth, safe in Eli’s arms. “Never. Not like this,” I said, finding an element of truth in the technicality.

“Thought not,” he said. “Wait ’til we get upstairs. I’ll show you something else they won’t do.”

“Pay taxes?”

“Ooo, baby, you know me so well.”

Dan made me laugh, made me think about the future. He made me remember what it was to be human. I wanted it to be enough.

§

I awoke next to Dan, my instincts jolting through me in the dark bedroom. His arm lay draped over my waist, warm and heavy. His big body nestled against my back, flesh to flesh. The steady sounds of his breathing rumbled deep in his chest, vibrating through my back, his exhales warming over my shoulder. I took a steadying breath, trying to be still in his arms, trying to calm my panicked heart.

Dan’s musky cologne hung in the air, his skin scenting the pillows under my head. I breathed him in, snuggling closer. Whatever sixth sense had woken me was quickly fading, and sleep tugged at my eyelids.

“Emma Jane, ya daft bird,” an Irish-accented voice said in the darkness. “Don’t ya be goin’ back to sleep on me. Eli needs you.”

My eyes snapped open, and I jackknifed upright. Sheet to my naked chest, my gaze went to the silhouetted figure at the foot of my bed. “Liam?”

“Aye,” he said. “Get dressed. Time’s a’wastin’.”

“How’d you get in here? You can’t use your powers to cross a private threshold.” I’d found that out the hard way. The threshold of a home protects the owner from supernatural invasion, like an invisible fortress against angelic and demonic power. Nothing can enter without the owner’s permission.

“The door was unlocked,” he said.

“Oh.”

“What’s going on?” Dan’s groggy voice seemed to boom in contrast to Liam’s and my whispers. He rolled over and clicked on the bedside lamp.

Liam straightened, squinting against the harsh light, his longish, red hair frizzed straight out from his head at odd places. “We found them, the bastards who killed me magister and the others. Caught them in the act, we did. But there were two of the dirty traitors this time.”

“Is everyone all right? Did you stop them? Do you have them somewhere?” I scooted out of bed, dragging the sheet with me.

“Hey,” Dan said and I felt the sheet tug. I looked back to see him holding the last corner over his groin.

I looked at Liam. “Turn around.”

The small man sighed and propped his hands on his hips. “You remember I’m fond of the fellas, do ya not?”

“Turn,” I said, and he did. “Answer my question.”

“They had the poor magister bloke cornered by the time we got there. The demon prick had already sliced his illorum into pieces. ’Twas nothin’ to be done for him so we threw our swords in with the magister.”

“We?” I asked, shoving on my underwear and bra. I dug a T-shirt from the drawer and grabbed my jeans off the handlebar of my exercise bike.

“Aye. Me, Amon, and…Eli.”

The way he said Eli’s name made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I stiffened, staring at him. “What happened?”

Liam turned. “I took on the illorum traitor and Amon chased after the yellow-bellied demon. The prick tucked tail and ran when he saw it’d be a fair fight. I can’t tell you more about him than the color of his hair and that he was too fast for poor Amon.”

“What about Eli?” I asked, my throat closing.

“Fought like a true warrior of God, he did. Held back the half-human prick the demon brought. But there was somethin’ different about the git. He was stronger, faster.” Liam shook his head. “It’s not good, lassie. Eli’s feelin’ some true pain. Bad. That’s why I came ta fetch ya. He asked for ya.”

“Wait.” Dan sat straight in bed, his muscled chest and shoulders tight, bracing forward on his arm. “It’s the middle of the night, Emma, and these demons or whatever they are were strong enough to wound an angel.”

“I can’t let them get away.” Did he really think I would? “Besides, didn’t you hear him? Eli’s hurt. He needs help.”

“What I heard is an immortal angel got his ass handed to him. He’ll be fine. He’ll heal.” Dan looked at Liam. “He’ll heal, won’t he?”

Liam shrugged. “Aye. He will. But the man is sure to be in a bad way for a while. ’Tis the honest truth. And he asked for Emma Jane. In all my days I’ve never seen a seraph suffer as he does.”

Dan’s dark sapphire eyes turned to me, considering the risks.