Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (8 page)

Dro and Max skidded to a stop behind me. I shoved them back, making sure they were trapped in the doorway and not in a clear shot for Michael.

Somehow I wasn’t sure my willingness to be a meat-shield and tendency to mouth off was going to be much help to them. The more I could make this my problem, the safer they might be.

Keep telling yourself that, Constance. Maybe Michael will find you amusing enough not to blow you into a million different pieces.

One hard look at the archangel told me otherwise.

“How did you find us?” I asked. There was no point in asking them to let Warrick and Sephiel go. Anyone who’d ever dealt with serious hostage situations knew that never worked right off the bat.

“I have learned to shield myself from prophets much stronger than yours,” Michael said. He had a beautiful voice, just like Lucifer did. Strong, encompassing, and confident. The kind of voice that would make people do anything just to hear it again.

Most people, anyway.

Max knew when to pick his battles when it came to his pride. I was glad he chose to remain silent and lose this one.

“Following the abomination was perhaps simpler,” Michael went on.

“So you listened real hard and got lucky. Give yourself a pat on the back, Mike. You earned it.”

I don’t know why I found it easier to backtalk to angels than demons. Maybe it had something to do with a subconscious hope that they had tiny shreds of morals and decency in them, and wouldn’t be so willing to crush me for being so flippant.

When the pain first hit, I thought a boulder had broken a vase into my head. My skull seemed to harden into glass, then begin cracking until the shards were pushing outward to break through my scalp. It hurt so bad that I grabbed my head, dropped to my knees, and screamed.

It wasn’t what I wanted to do, something I shouldn’t have done, but the pain was blinding and relentless. I couldn’t focus on anything else. Whenever I tried to, it only got worse.

There were angry shouts and yelps of pain. I couldn’t tell what was going on. I felt heat and thought I heard my name once or twice, but it was a hopeless guess beyond the throbbing, stabbing pain threatening to turn my head into a crushed melon.

One shout was louder than the others. It was Dro’s. I would know her voice anywhere, even if I couldn’t make out the words she was saying. Her tone, though... That I didn’t recognize. It was powerful, demanding, implacable.

It was the exact tone she had once used when she promised to erase Lucifer from the earth after he nearly burned me alive.

The heat remained, but as soon as her voice disappeared, so did the pain. The glass shards were yanked out of my head so fast that I gasped and collapsed onto my side. My head thrummed with remnants of pain, and I couldn’t stop shaking. There was a wetness on either side of my ears. I tasted blood on my upper lip, and wondered how long I had been bleeding.

Dro’s familiar, delicate hand placed itself on the back of my head. I jumped when her pins-and-needles healing sank into my skull and erased the damage he had done.

“Last time I ever piss off an angel,” I muttered.

Dro leaned closer to my ear, but it wasn’t just her I felt looming over me.

“I hope you remember that,” Dro whispered. A second shadow reached down to grab my arms just as she finished saying, “Because we’re going with them.”

Chapter 7

It was strange to be willingly kidnapped. While we’d been transported wearing blindfolds in the back of a van, I’d managed to get the gist of what happened before one of our angel captors silenced us.

Warrick and Sephiel had been caught by surprise when Michael tracked Dro and teleported a squad of angels to our location. Warrick and Sephiel had been subdued, and it was inevitable that I would stumble out. While Michael was torturing me, Dro let go of some of her hellfire to warn them. She didn’t attack them, but said she would turn them all into ash if they didn’t stop. Michael only agreed to do so if we came with them. This was the point where I’d started bleeding out of my ears, so Dro felt no choice but to comply.

Three hours later, the five of us were trapped in a wooden cellar that smelled like sour wine, bound to chairs and stripped of our weapons. Dro and I got special treatment. We were seated across from the guys, with two angels pressing swords to the back of our necks. The theory was that if Dro tried to use her powers to escape, I would be killed in front of her. If I tried to unbind myself, she would be killed in front of me. If the guys tried anything, they would watch us both die.

Their theory seemed pretty sound, and none of us were willing to test it.

We sat there in silence for what seemed like an eternity. We all seemed to come to the same conclusion that talking would lead to throat cutting, so we just stared at the floor like good little hostages. It was infuriating for me because I knew I could get out of the knots. They were rope and loose around my wrists. This time I would have been able to get free and fight easily, since no one was trying to electrocute me in a metal tub.

Yeah, it would be a cakewalk. If it weren’t for that damn sword poking into my spinal column.

We might not be allowed to talk, but we were allowed to look. Very carefully, I turned my head toward Dro. She caught me looking at her and tilted her head to meet my stare. Her braid was gone, long, wavy strands of pale hair spilling down her shoulders and half concealing her face. I understood the look in her eyes well enough, though.

I tried.

Try she had, and for now it seemed as though she’d done the best she could. I didn’t think Michael would want to sit down for tea and biscuits when he came back, but different circumstances didn’t always mean better ones. We were still alive, and that was the most important thing.

Though it seemed like that was going to change when the heavy door creaked open and Michael stomped down the stairs.

I couldn’t see him clearly yet, but I knew it was him. The way people stamp their feet is more distinctive than they realize. Michael’s footfalls were all about power, certainty, and demanding respect.

If that weren’t enough to make people cower in front of him, the heavy silver broadsword he carried at his side would probably do the trick.

It almost looked like Sephiel’s short swords, but longer than both of them combined. The hilt was white leather wrapped in gold, the blade looking sharp enough to cut through a tree trunk with a single swing.

Michael took his time marching toward us. The closer he got, the more I could feel his power. He was
strong.
Not as strong as Lucifer, thanks to me and my sister, but as the most formidable archangel, it would only make sense that he would retain some of his gifts even after the Heaven Gate was shut. I didn’t drown in his power the way I did with Lucifer, though it was enough to make me think twice about what I said to him. As he eagerly proved earlier, he wasn’t above torturing anyone he thought was below him.

I was guessing that was a long list.

Michael stood between us, almost completely blocking the guys from my view thanks to his enormous body structure and the overcompensating sword. I barely caught Max’s nervous eyes twitching toward the sword, Sephiel’s hanging head, or Warrick’s angry, desperate expression as he looked for a way to help us.

I was just about to lift my own head when the tip of a sword kissed my chin. I didn’t flinch, but the rest of my body froze in place. Even with this lightest touch, I knew that sword was wickedly sharp. One clean swipe, and my throat would be split in half. My eyes were the only part of me that moved, rising slowly to meet Michael’s.

His clear azure eyes were cold and calculating, like he was a vengeful murderer deciding on how he wanted to take apart his enemy.

It seemed like forever before he decided to speak.

“Your allies have been the cause of great trouble for Heaven and Hell.” He narrowed his eyes. “Though I presume you are the key orchestrator of it.”

I grinned, unable to help myself. “What can I say? I never liked walking a straight line.”

Michael, of course, wasn’t amused. He pushed the tip of the sword just a little higher, put on just a little more pressure. I felt it bite into my skin just under the bone. I set my jaw but didn’t blink or turn away from Michael. He stared at me with no visible emotion, studying my face and ignoring the trail of blood dripping down the front of my throat.

“Why are you here?” he asked, finished with the pleasantries. If he considered holding a broadsword to a woman’s throat “pleasant.” I clearly didn’t know enough about archangels. Maybe this was happy hour for him.

“We’re trying to find the Hell Gate,” Dro answered for me. Her voice was a little rushed, and since she was closest to me, she could see how the sword was inches from the tender spot of my throat, right where it connected to my head. One push, and I was dead.

“What purpose does the Hell Gate serve the daughter of Lucifer?” Michael asked bitterly. He might have been talking to Dro, might have wanted her dead, but he was completely focused on me. This was probably his way of making sure he had all the answers he wanted before he got bored and started taking literal heads.

I wished it wasn’t working so well for the bastard.

“We want to close it,” Dro answered. “The same as you.”

“Do not presume to know what Heaven desires, half-breed,” he spat. Keeping the sword on my neck, he turned his head toward Dro. “It is because of you we are Fallen. It is because of you we shall never see our home again. It is because of you that we shall die.”

Dro looked like she was going to apologize, then thought better of it. Saying sorry to the most powerful angel ever known after stripping him of most of that power would add insult to injury. Considering he might be barely containing his anger, the injuries would be of the fatal variety.

“Closing the Hell Gate is not a matter that concerns you. It is the responsibility of Heaven to destroy Lucifer’s attempts at corrupting all of mankind. Had you become my vessel, you would have been able to save humanity. We would have purged the unworthy from Hell and created a new prison for the sinful. One that was just and true to its namesake.” Michael paused, never moving his eyes from my sister.

“But you chose to abandon faith and rationality. You presumed we were the enemy, and you claimed a responsibility that did not belong to you. You mutilated those with the power to stop the Archfiend. I am now forced to scour this wretched place, recover my broken brothers and sisters in the hope of forming a suitable resistance to combat the minions of Hell and their King. You have not saved the human race, daughter of Lucifer. You have ensured its demise.”

The air was so silent it threatened to strangle us. Dro held up her head, trying to show confidence, to defend her actions and reason with Michael.

But she couldn’t do it. Like me, she had felt the pain and heartache of burning the Heaven Gate. Like me, she had lain awake and night, asking herself over and over and over if she’d made the right choice. Like me, she had mourned for angels who would never see their home again.

Unlike me, she kept her mouth shut.

“You’re so full of shit,” I hissed.

Michael looked at me again, pushing the tip of the sword until my head was tilted all the way back. His sword cut me anew, and this time I could feel the blade at the back of my neck poking deeper into my spine.

All of that should have silenced me. None of it actually did.

“You’re no fucking innocent, Michael,” I forged on. Across from me, I could make out the pleading stares of Warrick, Sephiel, and Max, begging me to stop talking before my mouth got me killed.

I ignored them too.

“Don’t pretend you wanted her to live,” I continued. “Yeah, you wanted a vessel when you
thought
you knew what she was. But you wanted to kill her the moment you learned she had Lucifer’s blood in her. You didn’t take the time to consider her offer to fucking
help you.
That maybe she doesn’t want to be around Lucifer any more than you do. You and your damn angels refused to give her a chance, which makes Lucifer smarter than you.”

For a second, I was sure he was going to kill me. There was so much rage flowing through him that I was nearly positive he was going to cut my smart mouth off my face so it wouldn’t offend him anymore.

My head remained on my body when he lowered his sword. I wondered if it was a trick, if he was going to stab me in the chest instead, but he shocked me even further by returning the sword to his side. I stayed tense, knowing how fast angels could be and if he were going to change his mind, nothing would stop him from hacking me in two.

“It would please me to kill you for your disrespect, but I shall allow you to keep your life, as you have provided me with a solution to my current predicament.”

Oh, shit.
“Good to know we can both be generous,” I snarked.

Michael didn’t smile or even pretend to be amused. God must have left that piece out when he was creating Heaven’s Holiest Hard-Ass.

“It is clear Lucifer currently holds the upper hand, and he is in search of his spawn.” I bristled at what he called Dro, but of course he didn’t care. “Her powers of manipulation must be greater than I imagined. She has gathered a human,” he looked over his shoulder at the guys, “a demon slayer, a prophet, and an angel who was ready to Fall.”

I couldn’t imagine the look on Sephiel’s face right then. He’d never forgiven Michael for refusing to help in the search for his true love, Everiel. The stupid archangel should have listened. If he had, they might have found Everiel before Lucifer impregnated her. This whole disaster would have been avoided.

But then Dro would never have been born.

Would I really want to go back, knowing everything that happened and knowing more horror was on its way? Would I have wished she had never been born to spare myself and those I cared about pain?

No.

Because then I would never have met Manny, Max, or Sephiel. I would never have given myself another chance at being in a relationship with someone like Warrick. I would never have had a sister.

Michael brought me back to the present when he turned and faced Dro directly. “I shall keep your friends alive, provided you do as I ask.”

All my senses went on red alert. A supernatural creature asking for a favor was never good.

“What do you want?” she asked hesitantly. Her head was raised again, so there was no missing the shine to her cheeks. Michael saw her tears, and didn’t comment on them. I wondered if he found them pitiful, or disgusting. How he saw her right now might determine how much longer she would live.

When Michael gave his request, I had my answer.

“I want you to bring Lucifer to me.”

The edge of the sword at the back of my neck scraped through my skin when I jerked in my chair. The angel holding me in place gripped my hair and gave my head a hard yank. It didn’t keep me from continuing to lose my shit.

“No!” I shouted. “No fucking way!”

“You are under the assumption that you have a say in the matter,” Michael told me without breaking eye contact from Dro. “Or that I would heed you even if you were.”