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More? “No, thank you. I will eat on the morrow.” He never ate before battle, and he wasn’t quite done with his assignment. But he would have enjoyed watching her, he thought. Witnessing her delight, her passion and—what are you doing? “No one will disturb you.”
She gave no reply, was reaching for the ice cream.
He turned on his heel and stepped through the mist. When he turned back, that mist blocked her from his view—but as insubstantial as it seemed, it would hold her inside.
He held out his hand and commanded the seams of the door to seal. Only he would be able to unseal them. Only he would be able to enter—or leave. What’s more, Annabelle would hear nothing that happened outside her room.
That done, he stalked down the hall, the floor extending before him with every step. Past his bedroom, his private sanctuary, and into the holding bay, where the five most trusted warriors of his army awaited him. Trusted being a relative term, of course.
Thane, Bjorn and Xerxes stood off to the side, together as always and somehow separate from the others. Unlike most other angels, Xerxes lacked physical perfection. He had long white hair he kept pulled back in a jeweled torque. His skin was without color, as though death had settled beneath the surface, with tiny scars forming patterns of three. Three lines, gap, three lines, gap, three lines. Red eyes watched the world with an intelligence—and anger—matched by few.
Just then, those demonlike eyes were glaring at the minion even now bound by tendrils of cloud that clung to her gnarled wrists and ankles like ivy, holding her in place with no hope of escape.
Beside her stood the equally bound fallen angel Zacharel had brought here months ago. The male refused to behave, causing trouble for the new queen of the Titans, and so Zacharel, who had been told to curry her favor, had to restrain him.
Zacharel’s attention moved to the other angels. In the far corner, Koldo cleaned his hooked sword, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. He had sun-drenched skin and black eyes as deep and fathomless as a pit of despair. He also possessed a thick black beard and long black hair that hung down his back in multiple braids.
As a child, demons had ripped out his wings. And because of his young age, his regenerative powers had not yet taken hold, so those wings had never grown back and never would. Instead his shoulders, back and legs were tattooed with crimson feathers depicting the wings he must miss with every ounce of his being. Not that he ever complained. Koldo was a man of few words, and those he did utter were deep, hoarse and soul chilling.
Jamila paced in front of the demon. With her dark skin and the long black ringlets cascading down her back and eyes of the sweetest honey, she was one of the original joy-bringers, promoted to warrior only after she had ventured into hell, alone, to rescue one of her pet humans.
Weeks had passed before she’d emerged, and though she’d saved the human’s spirit, she had not saved herself. Something down there had changed her. No longer did she laugh easily or flitter through life without a care. No one looked over her shoulder more than Jamila, as if expecting evil to be waiting in every corner.
Until tonight’s battle, though, Zacharel hadn’t understood why she had been given to his care. Now he knew. Clearly, she had a problem following orders… not to mention the fact that she no longer prized human life.
She would have to be punished. She would probably cry.
I should have chosen Axel as my fifth. The male was irreverent, always laughing, obsessed with wreaking havoc, but he would not shed a single tear when Zacharel pronounced his sentence.
Xerxes noticed him first and straightened. The others followed suit.
“The human girl,” Thane said. “I would like to return for her.”
Still thinking of her, was he? “No need. She’s here with me,” he replied with an unexpected edge to his tone. “You may tell me what you learned about her once we finish with the demon.”
A satisfied gleam entered Thane’s eyes, and that, more than anything else that day, angered Zacharel. Did he hope to win her? “I’ve yet to learn anything. There hasn’t been time.”
Another order unheeded. “You will make time when you leave.”
Something in his tone must have gotten through to Thane. Rather than issuing one of his customary retorts, he nodded. “I will.”
“What human girl are we discussing?” Jamila asked.
Zacharel waved the question away. “The only human that should matter to you is the one you killed during the battle.”
“Yeah. So? So what if I killed one?” she shot back, and he heard the unspoken, So have you. So have they.
His eyes narrowed on her, lances of resolve. “How many times in the past three months have I told you that you are not to make a demon kill if it causes you to harm a human?” He could have pulled her aside, could have chastised her in private, but she had committed her sin in front of others and she would now deal with the consequences in front of others.
Red suffused her cheeks. She gazed at her peers before refocusing on Zacharel. “There are approximately thirty days in a month, and you have mentioned it at least once a day. So my guess is ninety.”
The number was not an exaggeration. “And yet you made the kill anyway.”
She raised her chin in haughty defiance, eyes nearly black in the shadows cast by her lashes. Eyes completely dry. “I did. He taunted me through the human.”
Too many females had raised their chins at him today. Actually, one was too many. Annabelle had been allowed because she was human and knew no better, and had no other way of expressing her displeasure with him. And he’d been oddly… charmed by her. That was not the case in this instance.
“A good soldier knows to ignore the insults hurled at him. Your rebellion has earned me another whipping. Not you. Me.” And perhaps that was the problem. Jamila gave no thoughts to reprisal. None of them did.
“I’m sorry,” she gritted out.
Exactly what he’d said to his Deity, but surely not in that same irritating manner. “You aren’t sorry for your actions, only that I found fault with you.” The moment his words registered inside his mind, he scowled.
Was his Deity laughing right now? He had said those very words to Zacharel.
What a turn of events. Zacharel had gone from rebellious to exemplary, simply to continue fighting the beings responsible for his brother’s torture. Well, his soldiers would find he’d do a lot worse to them than the Deity had done to him.
Jamila’s lips pressed into a mulish line, no response forthcoming.
“If this happens again, Jamila, I will make you suffer in ways you cannot yet imagine, for whatever punishment I am issued, I will return to you a hundredfold.” After this next whipping, he still might. As for now, an example had to be made. “Tonight you will visit every member of my army and apologize for your actions. You will beg for their forgiveness—for you are the reason they will spend tomorrow morning in human form—” their wings hidden from mortal eyes “—cleaning every alleyway and street in Moffat County, Colorado.” The scene of the crime.
Humiliating for her, infuriating for them. Everyone would learn.
She inclined her head, but she did not cry.
Good. “Anyone who refuses to obey this order will be held in my cloud, my prisoner until the end of the year. I will not tolerate your disrespect any longer.” He met each warrior’s gaze.
He received reluctant nods. Reluctant, yes, but a nod was a nod.
“Now, let us speak no more of this,” he said.
Xerxes jerked a thumb toward the fallen angel. “Who is he, and why is he here?” A pause. “If I may ask,” he added.
The change of subject was welcome. “His name is McCadden, and he is now your responsibility.” McCadden had committed crimes against his fellow angels, as well as humans, to be with a woman who had not even wanted him.
But why he had been deemed unfit for the heavens, stripped of his wings and kicked to the earth, while Zacharel and these five had not, was a mystery. On the surface, McCadden looked no different from any of Zacharel’s other men. He’d dyed his pale hair pink, had tattooed bloody teardrops under his eyes and added silver piercings to his brows. Underneath all that, he must be a cesspool of darkness.
“When we finish here, you will take him from my cloud and keep him locked in your home at all times,” Zacharel said. He didn’t want the former angel in the same location as Annabelle. “And now, I will not be blamed for any crimes he commits. You will.”
Xerxes gnashed his teeth, but offered no complaint.
Thane snickered, and Bjorn drilled his knuckles into Xerxes’ biceps. “Lucky.”
“Now, for the captured demon,” Zacharel said.
Relish glimmered from every angelic body, including his own. In unison, the six of them turned and faced the being in question. She writhed against her bonds, mist stretching over her forehead and inside her mouth, holding her still, keeping her silent. Mist also plugged her ears, blocking the sound of their voices.
She was a minion of Disease. Her skin sagged, was paper-thin and covered in sores. Her skeletal body lacked muscle and any hint of fat. What few teeth she had were yellow, as pitted as her skin, and as pointed and curling as her claws.
“Allow her to hear us,” Zacharel commanded the cloud. The plugs thinned, dissipated completely. “Allow her to speak.” Just as quickly the mist covering her mouth thinned and dissipated.
She hissed out a terrible curse.
“In case you are unaware of how this works,” he said, ignoring her insult for the ineffectual lash-out it was, “I will instruct you.”
“Not Zacharel,” she moaned. “Anyone but Zacharel.” A scent of rot wafted from her, evidence of her sudden burst of fear.
His penchant for torturing his enemy was well known. “You will die this day, minion. That outcome will not change. The method of your execution is the only variable you can control.” Demons, he knew, were more susceptible to the ring of truth than humans; this one flinched every time he finished a sentence. “I have questions for you, and you will answer each one honestly.”
“You know we will taste your lies,” Thane said.
“Taste and rebuke,” Bjorn added.
“Why did you remain outside the Moffat County Institution this night?” Details were more than important; they were necessary. Without quantifiers, demons could infer anything they wished and answer accordingly.
Her thin lips lifted at the corners. “For the same reasonsss the other demonsss did so, I ssswear it.”
Truth without enough context to be helpful. Cute.
“For what reason did the other demons remain outside the Moffat County Institution?” he asked. “You will not receive another chance to answer this question.”
“I’m happy to anssswer. They ssstayed outside for the sssame reassson I ssstayed outssside. That’sss the truth, you have my word.”
Zacharel reached into an air pocket and withdrew his vial of water from the River of Life. To even set foot near the river’s shoreline hidden inside the temple given to the Deity by the Most High, an angel had to sacrifice the skin off his back—literally. To capture a single vial of the precious, life-saving liquid? The angel had to sacrifice much, much more.
Zacharel had only a few drops left, but he considered a demon’s torment worth the loss.
“I find that your truth does not satisfy my curiosity, so I am forced to take my satisfaction another way. You will receive a castigation from each of us, as warned.” From his nod, his soldiers knew what he wanted them to do. They might have worked together only a short time, but in this instance, they desired the same thing.
Koldo moved behind the demon and pinned her head against his massive chest, his long, thick fingers applying pressure to her brow. Xerxes and Thane stepped forward, both summoning metal blades. In unison, they stabbed her in the gut. As black blood sprang from both wounds, she released an unholy scream of agony. The wounds wouldn’t be fatal, but they would hurt and weaken her.
While humans were to be protected, demons were never extended the same courtesy.
Bjorn and Jamila replaced Xerxes and Thane in front of her. After Bjorn pried open her mouth, Jamila produced a thin scalpel to remove all of the demon’s remaining teeth.
By the time the five were finished, the demon could only plead for mercy. Mercy she had never shown her own victims. Mercy Zacharel did not have. Minions of Disease purposely infected human bodies with sickness, feeding off their growing frailty and despair, their pain, their panic, and loving every moment of it.
He was the next to move in front of her. “I warned you,” he said.
“I didn’t lie, told only the truth,” the minion slurred, thanks to Jamila’s impromptu root canal.
“You played with the truth. With me.”
She stopped writhing, another eerie smile lifting the corners of her mouth, black blood dripping from her lips. “And you don’t like being played with, angel? I doubt that. You reek of human female right now. Did you play with her?” The words were even more garbled than before, but Zacharel was able to decipher her meaning.
He motioned to Thane.
The warrior returned his blade to her gut—and left it there.
A grunt. A gurgle of blood from her mouth. Through panting breaths, she said, “All right, all right. You don’t like to play. Perhapsss I can change your mind. Give me five minutes, and I will do thingsss to your body… thingsss you’ll dream about for yearssss.”
As she spoke, he upended the vial he held, allowing a single droplet of the water to catch on his fingertip. “Ah, but in five minutes I believe you will have more pressing matters on your mind. For the time has come for me to have my turn.” He reached out and shoved his finger into her mouth, forcing the droplet down her throat.
The shrill, broken scream that followed made a mockery of the one that had come before, the water attacking the disease she perpetually carried, spreading health and vitality. She bucked against Koldo with so much force, several of her bones snapped out of place.
When at last she quieted, tears sliding down her pitted cheeks, the putrid scent of her rot fading, Zacharel said calmly, “I have decided to be benevolent and give you one last chance. Why did you remain outside the institution this night?”
There was the barest of pauses before she offered faintly, “Wasssn’t… my time… to enter.” Her words were punctuated by gasps of residual pain.
“According to whom?”
A longer pause as she considered what more Zacharel could do to her. In the end, she decided an evasion was not worth it. “Burden.”
Burden. A demon who had once been second in command to the high lord of Greed, and widely regarded as one of hell’s fiercer warriors. Currently he was without a master.
Was he the one who had marked Annabelle? “Where is Burden right now?”
“Don’t… know.”
He detected no lie this time, either. “How did Burden contact you?”
“Disseassse too busssy… with humansss… I had to align myself… with sssomeone. Burden wasss… the mossst powerful… of my optionsss.”
“What were his orders?”
“What do you… think… they were?”
He nodded to Thane.
Thane twisted the knife.
The minion grunted through the renewed pain. “We were… to have fun… with a human female. The one currently… ssscenting your… robe.”
“Why?”
“Did… not ask. Did… not care.”
Truth. “You have earned your death, minion. She’s all yours,” he told his soldiers.
Thane removed the blade, and she sagged against her bonds. A second later, five fiery swords appeared, and in the next blink of time, the minion was missing her head and all her limbs. Demons liked fire, yes, and could withstand the flames. But the fires in hell were fires of damnation. The soldiers’ swords possessed the fire of justice, and that the demons could not withstand.
His warriors held the tips of their swords against each piece of the minion, until flesh and bone caught flame, charred to ash and swirled away in a sudden breeze.
Zacharel had the answers he’d sought. The question now was what to do with them.
CHAPTER FIVE
SO MUCH FOR ENJOYING her change of scenery, Annabelle thought.
