* * * *
Eden pushed the coffee table up against the couch. In the center of the floor, he knelt. He sat back on his heels and laid the blade in front of him, hilt out. He caressed the blade with one finger and then lowered his head to the floor so that his body —his heart— hovered over the handle of the divine dagger.
Forehead to the hardwood floor, Eden prayed. He focused on Bel and his love for the demon. He called out in the ancient tongue, seeking the demon's scent, summoning his human half in hopes of giving Bel a trail to follow home.
Chapter Five
"Andaras! Give me back what's mine!"
Beliaz stood at the base of his father's dais in full demon form. Scrawny horns the color of dead, dried autumn leaves stretched down his forehead towards his temples like the roots of a tree too close to the surface to gain purchase. His flesh had hardened, taking on a shade of spilled Chianti from his two-toed feet, to his double-jointed legs, to the smooth skull with thick, subtly pointed ears. His tail whipped around his legs in vicious arcs that scraped his skin but also scattered his father's smaller followers. Half-human by birth, he still knew how to fight like a demon; the tail, a valuable weapon.
Andaras lounged sideways on a black granite throne. He picked his teeth with the tip of his barbed tail. "What would that be, my son?"
"You know damn well what. Return the ring. You have no right—"
"Silence child!" Andaras sent a violent chill through the room with just his voice. His body still appeared as relaxed as a drunken football fan on the verge of passing out after a Super Bowl celebration. Bel knew better. He knew the power of the demon firsthand, and so he kept his distance, while keeping up the front of bravery and strength, else one of Andaras's minions might decide he'd make a good challenge.
"The ring is mine," he said evenly. "It was forged by my hand, with my magic."
"And created to claim the love of an angel."
A hushed whisper flowed and ebbed through the room. Beliaz narrowed his eyes and stretched and flexed his claws. "Ownership. I claim ownership of the angel. I wish the ring so that it will remain bound to me."
"It?" Andaras laughed. "You are slack in your deceit, son of mine. You say the words but you do not mean them. I saw the flinch in your lips. It pains you to refer to the angel as anything but lover."
Gasps and growls emanated from the shadows around the cavern.
"Show the ring," Bel shouted. He moved to the first step and waved his hand around the room. "Show them. It has the shadowfire of the binding ritual in it. That will prove my intent."
Andaras snorted. "It proves nothing."
"Everything. The ring is mine. The angel is mine. What do you want with some low ranked Fallen of His anyway? The beast has little magic left and no fight."
More murmurs and Bel felt confident they were in his favor. Everyone knew that Beliaz and Andaras had their differences. There were no familial relationships within the circles of Hell that didn't struggle for power. Andaras's lack of control over his own flesh had never sat right among the denizens of the underworld. To resort to childish stealing of possessions did not bode well for Andaras, unless he proved he had a purpose.
"You want it, then come take it."
There it was. Beliaz wavered on that first step. He couldn't best his father, a full-blood demon; no half breed could hope to challenge him successfully. Andaras waved his hand and a tall female strode forward from the darkness. She took the dozen stairs two at a time and landed at the top in a genuflection before Andaras.
"Come now, son of mine. Meet your half-sister. Kimi-Ari is another bastard child half-breed, but she's smart enough to know which side to stand on."
Kimi-Ari stood and turned to face Beliaz. Her double rows of fangs glistened with blood from her own torn lip. She grinned down at him with all the malice of their father, but it wasn't her expression that hardened Bel's resolve, for he had no reason to care about her. The ring he'd given to his cherished angel, hanging from a leather thong around her neck, inspired more violence than his father ever did.
He strode up the stairs and snarled at Kimi-Ari on the way past. In front of his father, Beliaz knelt, keeping his eyes cast to the floor. He focused on Eden, his love for the angel giving him the strength he would've previously drawn from the shadowfires of Hell. The night he met Eden, he'd turned his back on his demon heritage and embraced what he had left, his mother's humanity.
* * * *
The night he met Eden, Beliaz had been prowling across a city rooftop. He'd heard a rumor that a drunk slept up there. Easy prey. Fresh blood tainted with alcohol would give him a buzz and settle his hunger. He approached a lean-to crafted out of an old blue tarp strung between a corner of the roof and a couple of sturdy pipes. The makeshift home stunk of human loss and sickness, but nothing breathed within its confines. Beliaz backtracked towards the stairwell that would let him back down to the street for more risky, but bountiful hunting options.
A low whistling, almost but not quite like a breeze, darted overhead. Beliaz looked up just as three angels, flying low, passed within two feet of his head. Beliaz scrambled up an air conditioning exhaust vent. As two more angels flew by, Beliaz set his sights on the second. As they passed, he leapt, latching wicked claws into the beast's calves and dragged him out of the sky. The demon spread his wings to slow their fall but the squirming angel made it impossible to fly properly. They tumbled to the rooftop, the impact forcing Beliaz to lose his hold on it.
He rolled to his feet in a low crouch and looked around. He couldn't see the angel anywhere. He stood straight and sighed. The beast must've taken flight again. As he turned to head for the stairs, like a bullet, the force of the angel slammed into his chest, knocking him on his ass. His head bounced off of the cement. Sparks flew behind his eyes almost blocking his view of the dagger slicing down towards his heart. With a roar and a blast of shadowfire, he struck out, blocking the blade with his right forearm. It bit through his flesh with shocking speed, like a heated blade cutting through softened butter.
Howling in pain, he flung the angel away and the
n
clambered
after him, slamming the beast down on its back and pinning its wild and dangerous wings to the cement beneath its body. The dagger gleamed just out of its reach. Beliaz pinched its thin wrists together and leaned over the
beast, drool dripping from his fangs as he sniffed the beast
'
s hair.
So beautiful.
Where the hell
had
that come from?
The angel chanted something in the ancient language. Beliaz caught part of it, the words spoken too quickly to translate easily. He flinched back as the holy magic swelled in the beast's body and then exploded, throwing him away. White light blinded him and pain shot through his body. For the first time since he'd heard the angels flying above his head, Beliaz thought he should not have picked a fight with another supernatural creature.
* * * *
For a brief moment, Beliaz felt that same holy glow wrapped around his heart.
Eden
. He pushed thoughts of
his
angel to the back of his mind. He had to be the demon he hated to survive.
Beliaz stood and faced Kimi-Ari. "Give me the ring and I'll spare you," Bel growled.
Kimi-Ari laughed and lunged at him. Bel danced to the side. He kicked out at her as she stumbled past. She rolled with his kick. Correcting her exposure, she approached him slower on the second pass. Kimi-Ari charged with horned head down. Bel spun away, avoiding being gored. Her left horn skipped across his ribs. Bel hissed and tumbled away from her, buying some precious seconds with distance. As she came around, she circled to one side. To keep her in his sights, he turned slowly, following her movement.
Too late
. He recognized her tactic, but not soon enough. She
'
d backed him into a corner. The wall of the cavern blocked
him on
his right side. Steps descended into the pit on his left. She charged him. At the last moment, she veered, hooking him away from the wall. His reflexes were good, but he had nowhere to go. Bel stumbled down two of steps and tried to dance back up. His ankle twisted. He tumbled backwards feet over ass down the remaining steps. His landing, in a sloppy, unbalanced crouch, made the room spin. A clutch of two-foot tall imps with flames of Hell in their hair and the poison of the pits in their fangs and claws fanned out around him. Before they could circle him, Andaras ordered them back. Without hesitation, the imps clustered together and backed into the shadows.
With a roar bearable only to the denizens of Hell, Kimi-Ari launched herself from the top of the dais. Bel scrambled back, but she landed on him, knocking the air from his lungs. She drove her claws into his thighs, dragging him back, tugging him closer to her gnashing, sharp teeth and wicked barbed wings thrashing over her head, beating blindly against the air, reaching for his face. She had a short wingspan, but deadly, with poison oozing out of thorns sprouting from each joint of her leathery reach.
"Finish him," Andaras yelled. The cavern echoed with cheers for the order.
"No…" Beliaz writhed from the burn of shadowfire coursing through his body. Kimi-Ari's clawed grip poisoned him. His vision swam, and with the blurring of the cavern, he saw Eden. The angel stood in a haze of holy glow, bright, but not painful, wings spread like a defensive shield against Hell's pain. Eden reached for him and Beliaz stretched out a claw, wanting his angel close one more time—
—Eden gasped. His forehead left the floor as ancient words flowed from his lips. He didn't rise willingly. He clung to an image of Bel, sending out tendrils of himself, searching and calling to his lover, and sending him prayers of safe travel.
The heat intolerable, the sudden darkness blinding, Eden had no time to question surroundings he couldn't see. He sensed Bel nearby and knew his lover needed him. Without thought of consequences, he called out for the power of his God.
In a shock of white light, Eden fell from the air and landed on the living room floor. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees. His wings drooped around him though he hadn't released them. With a dull ache deep in his muscles, he gingerly stretched them and then folded the faintly glowing wings against his back. Horrified that he so easily grew tired, falling victim to hallucinations of heat and darkness borne on waves of exhaustion, Eden scrambled back to his knees, calling forth a fond memory of Bel and—
—Bel grasped in Eden's direction, but he wasn't there. He wanted to hold his angel one more time. He couldn't die in Hell because Eden would forever wonder and worry about him. When he reached for his angel, the cavern snapped back into view. With his claw outstretched towards the exit tunnel, he caught Kimi-Ari's movement from the corner of his eye.
As his adversary raised a hand and grinned up towards her audience, basking in her win before her final blow, Beliaz struck. For Eden, for Eden's love, and for Eden's safety, Beliaz pressed his fingers together and drove his claws, like an over-sized awl, into the underside of the demon's chin. As Kimi-Ari gurgled and struggled for air, Beliaz pulled back and struck again, this time seating his claws so deep in her throat that they extended out the far side of her neck.
Kimi-Ari lost her grip on Bel and stumbled to her feet. Beliaz leaped up and grabbed her head with both hands, pushing her to her knees. As she hit the floor, he roared and, drawing on the powers of Hell through the shadowfire coursing through his veins, Beliaz ripped her head from her neck and threw it at Andaras's feet. As her body fell, Bel snatched the ring from her neck and then turned to storm up the steps, glowering at the demon still sprawled, as if bored, upon his throne.
"The angel is mine," Beliaz said. "That will not change."
"Work for me again, son of mine."
Beliaz narrowed his eyes. Cold calculation returned to his mind as if it had been just yesterday he'd stepped from Hell to prowl the Earth for blood. "State what you want. Do not play games with me."
"You have your ring. The magic is yours to command." Bel nodded and waited. Andaras continued, "But you do not have access to a portal back to the surface."
"I'll take my chances." Bel spun on his heels and stomped to the edge of the dais.
"Good luck!" Andaras laughed. His minions joined in, their endless, evil mirth chasing at his heels like nasty little puppies without manners.
Chapter Six
It could've been hours. It could've been days. Hell had no time and time refused to be Hell's mistress. Beliaz trudged through knee high lava. The only thing protecting him, a full demon transformation. He hated that he had to rely on his father's blood to survive, but it was the demon skin that resisted the heat dying to burn his flesh. The temperature of the lava was nothing compared to the burn of an angel's divine weapon.
* * * *
Human blood would've sufficed that night so many months ago. The angels had been gliding by almost soundlessly, and definitely with little effort, as if they ruled the In Between, the Earth. They had been too much of a temptation. Beliaz blinked rapidly, chasing away blind spots on his eyes. Darkness crowded his vision and his chest ached. His limbs felt like rocks, heavy and beyond his control. He'd been warned that angels could be dangerous; now he believed it.
He rolled up, tucking his legs beneath him. He listened and watched as he rose into a low crouch. His wings unfurled.
"Will you run so soon?"
Beliaz looked up and blinked at a vision he'd never before had the chance to understand. The angel stood before him, his feet planted wide and his wings stretched long and high, feathers ruffling in agitation. His long hair, only a few shades lighter than the night sky, hung straight down over his shoulders caressing a thin chest that led to a narrow waist. While fragile in appearance, Bel now knew powerful muscles existed beneath the light, translucent cloth draped over his flesh. The beast might have been dangerous, even intimidating, but the sheer outfit that barely hid its form taunted something altogether different in Beliaz. He suddenly needed to see more of this beast. It was…