Fallen by Suzanne Wright

CHAPTER SEVEN

Responding to Hector’s telepathic warning, Maddox appeared in the shadowed area behind the rear of the monastery. Five halo-bearers were several feet away, attempting to light up the building with holy fire. Those attempts weren’t working so well, but the angels didn’t seem deterred, too confident in the potency of the power they were wielding.

They had every right to be confident in it. Holy fire could easily destroy buildings. Usually. Fortunately, the angels here hadn’t accounted for the many ways in which having archangelic blood made Maddox different—mostly because he kept those “ways” as secret as possible.

Even now, as the halo-bearers hurled balls of holy fire at the monastery, it hadn’t occurred to them that their efforts were pointless; that the flames would continue to simply lick at the bricks and then disintegrate. They’d probably sensed that magickal wards protected the building and had no doubt arrogantly assumed that the holy fire would eventually burn them away.

How wrong they were.

Hector’s mind touched his. Do we attack?

Conscious that the sentinel and several members of the lair’s Force stood in the shadows, waiting for direction, Maddox replied, If we charge at them as a group, they’ll simply waver out of here. I’ll deal with them alone for now. Keep watch for more of them.

Maddox stepped into the light. “Normally, I’d ask what would bring five halo-bearers to my home.”

The angels whirled around and tensed.

“But you’ve made your reason quite apparent,” Maddox added. “It might have been better if your friends had come here with you instead of going after my anchor, or they’d be alive right now.”

The angels instantly began blasting him with holy fire. So very predictable. His demon sniffed, unimpressed by their display of power.

Maddox didn’t retaliate. Didn’t ask them to stop. Didn’t try to counteract the holy fire—he didn’t need to. Each fiery orb stopped mere inches from his body, not even singeing his clothes.

Finally realizing that the orbs were having no effect, the halo-bearers ceased attacking. They gaped at him; some frowning, some wide-eyed.

“Impossible,” one breathed. He hurled another orb of holy fire.

Maddox sighed, bored. “It won’t harm me any more than it would harm an archangel.”

“You’re not an archangel,” he spat.

“Obviously,” said Maddox, drawing out the word. “But I have the blood of one, so holy fire isn’t going to touch me, let alone wound me. It would have destroyed the wards … if I hadn’t bolstered them with my blood, making them as immune to the effects of holy fire as I am.” He shrugged. “I had to ensure my lair was protected against your kind, just in case you ever came here. Why did you?”

“Your kind are abominations,” he accused, all superiority. “You have no right to exist. No right to possess holy blood when you are the epitome of darkness.”

Maddox pointed a finger at him. “You’re chatty. Good. That makes you useful.” Hector, grab him before he can escape, said Maddox as he glanced at the other angels, subtly conjuring an orb of red, arctic energy in his palm. “The rest of you I don’t need.” He hurled the orb their way, watching as it split into large splinters that sank into the skin, muscle, and bone of each angel.

They cried out and tried frantically to find and remove the splinters, but they were embedded too deep. Maddox’s demon watched with a feral grin as the halo-bearers jerked, flinched, shivered, and sucked in pained breaths.

Some of their forms shimmered as they tried to waver to safety—it was no use. Not when they were dying so rapidly. The cold energy was spreading inside them, icing their blood, fragmenting their bones, rupturing their organs, killing them from the inside out.

It wasn’t long before they were sprawled on the ground. Mere moments after their hearts ceased beating, their halos disappeared into thin air.

Secure in Hector’s hold, the chatty halo-bearer gawked down at his friends, too deep in shock to struggle or panic.

“Compel him to sleep and take him to the cathedral’s cellar,” Maddox told the sentinel, who promptly obeyed the order. Maddox tossed balls of hellfire at each corpse and then glanced at the members of his Force. “Patrol the land. Make sure we don’t have any additional visitors.”

They nodded and quickly dispersed.

Soon enough, Hector teleported to Maddox’s side and said, “The halo-bearer’s secure. He won’t wake until I lift the compulsion.”

Maddox nodded in satisfaction, watching as the hellfire consumed the bodies.

“I need to check on Carmen,” Hector went on. “She assured me that she’s okay now, but … ”

“What happened to Carmen?” asked a new voice as several lair members came striding out of the rear door.

“Halo-bearers,” said Maddox. “She’s fine.” Feeding on their blood had helped her overcome the after-effects of the psychic blow. She’d been able to then telepath him, but she’d been too weak to teleport to Raini’s side. Now, though, Carmen was fully recovered after having consumed more angelic blood. “Some went to Raini’s house. They meant to use her to lure me to them.”

“They knew you’d take several of us with you to defend her; they thought we’d all be easier to take out if we were divided,” Hector said to Maddox, who nodded.

“And she let them use her as bait?” asked Euan. He blanched at the hard look Maddox gave him.

“No, she didn’t,” replied Maddox, somewhat pissed about it, just as his demon was. “Which is why she and I need to talk.” He looked at Hector. “You go to Carmen. I’ll be with Raini.”

Honing on her psychic tag, Maddox teleported straight to her. She was in a living area he didn’t recognize, but he was guessing by the number of imps in the room that the house belonged to one of her lair members. Many of the framed pictures featured Jolene, so it could quite possibly be her home.

Raini rose from the sofa and looked him up and down. Checking for injuries, perhaps? He wasn’t sure. Her shoulders relaxed, and she gave him a weak smile.

“Ah, you’re here,” said Jolene before he had a chance to speak. “I’ll make the introductions, and then you can tell me why halo-bearers tainted my lair’s air. You already know Harper, Devon, Khloë, and their mates. Over there is my anchor, Beck, and my grandson, Ciaran. Beside them are Raini’s uncles and her sister, Demi. The couple standing near Raini are her parents, Evangeline and Lachlan.”

“I’d thank you for healing my daughter,” said Lachlan, his voice as hard as his expression. “But I strongly suspect that no angels would have showed up at her house if it hadn’t been for her association with you. It’s a loose association at best, of course, despite that she’s your—”

“Dad, you promised,” said Raini.

Lachlan’s brows lifted. “Am I not being civil?”

“Are you not holding a knife in your hand?” she shot back.

He gave her an exasperated look. “It’s not like I’m going to throw it or anything.”

“Then why did you conjure it?”

“Sometimes a man likes to feel the weight of a blade in his hand.”

“And sometimes he thinks he can bullshit his daughter. Would you please get rid of it?”

Lachlan rolled his eyes, and the knife disappeared from his hand. He turned back to Maddox, and his face went hard once again. “Did you know that angels were looking to wipe out your kind?”

“We were warned that that was the case,” replied Maddox.

Lachlan’s jaw went tight. “And still you left Raini vulnerable.”

“I didn’t believe they would target her,” said Maddox. “She isn’t a descendant or part of my lair. She also isn’t bonded to me, so her death wouldn’t psychically weaken me. Plus, it didn’t seem a wise move on their part to drag others into it. Especially a lair that mostly consists of imps.” Which was why Maddox was beginning to question his beliefs about the angels’ motivations. “You’re quite big on vengeance.”

“They came for me to distract you, didn’t they?” Raini guessed more than asked.

Maddox nodded. “They tried the whole divide-and-conquer strategy.”

She bit her lip. “Were there any fatalities?”

“Not on my lair’s side. I didn’t expect them to target you, or I would have taken precautions.”

“Could it be that this isn’t the first time they struck at Raini?” asked Beck. “Maybe the dagger didn’t hit her by accident after all.”

Maddox pondered that for a moment. “No, I don’t believe the incident is related to this. If they wanted to strip someone of power, they would surely have targeted me, not Raini. It is I they want dead, not her. But I doubt they would have made such a move in any case. They generally don’t recruit others to do their dirty work—they’re too arrogant to think they need help.”

Tanner let out a grunt of agreement. “It was that arrogance that brought them here.”

Raini nodded. “They must have thought they could leave without anyone knowing that the people responsible for the damage were angels—after all, no one would have suspected they’d do something so stupid and out of character. They told me they didn’t want to hurt me, but I don’t believe that. They wouldn’t have left witnesses who could point the finger at them.”

“Why would they try to eradicate your kind, Maddox?” asked Jolene, folding her arms. “They consider you abominations, I know. But I doubt they’re acting on hate alone.”

“Probably not,” said Maddox. “I’ll know for sure after I’ve spoken with the angel I’m keeping as my … guest.”

“I wouldn’t have thought the upper realm would give an order to wipe out an entire breed,” said Devon, rubbing her arm. “I mean, they’re risking starting a war.”

“No, they’re not,” said Knox. “If they were to attack succubae or hellcats or another kind of demon then, yes, there’d be a chance of war because all other breeds would unite to fight. But descendants aren’t a well-accepted breed.”

“It’s true that most demons don’t consider us anything other than mutts,” said Maddox, not particularly bothered by it. It benefited his kind that other breeds didn’t get too close. “They wouldn’t side with us.”

“We will,” declared Jolene. “Those bastards attacked both Raini and Khloë. They dragged us into this, and they’ll damn well face the consequences.”

Raini studied Maddox’s face. Nothing there gave away whether he did or didn’t believe that Khloë helped her fight the halo-bearers earlier. He had a tip-top bullshit meter, but both Jolene and Khloë were tip-top bullshitters, so there was no knowing what was going through his head.

“It’s not necessary for you to involve yourselves,” Maddox told them.

Lachlan frowned. “Of course it isn’t. But we still will. In the name of the sanctity of retaliation—”

“Oh, God,” Raini groaned.

“—we will ensure those bastards pay for bringing this fight to my daughter’s doorstep.”

Bram sidled over to his brother and gave him a supportive back-slap. “She’s okay, Lachlan.”

“I know, I know. But how can I not want to scorch the fucking Earth when they went after one of my girls, Bram?” Lachlan looked at Maddox. “Usually, I’m a pretty laidback man—”

“Really?” Raini cut in. “Seriously? You’re gonna go there again?”

“I don’t know why you insist on arguing that point,” Lachlan said to her.

“You know what the definition of ‘laidback’ is, right?”

“Yes. Me.”

Evangeline smiled at her. “You walked into that one, sweetheart.” Her smile dimmed as she slid her gaze to Maddox. “Do you think more angels will be sent after your lair?”

“Yes, which is why I’ll be increasing the security around Raini,” said Maddox.

“What security?” Demi snarked, a tremor in her voice that said she wasn’t quite as confident challenging Maddox as she’d like others to think. “You had one woman watching my sister’s home tonight. One. And hey, I get why. There’s no sense in wasting resources guarding someone you don’t give two fucks about. But why bother with the pretense? Why not just admit that you don’t want to be in Raini’s life and then walk on right out of it? Because if you had, those angels would never have come for her.”

“Demi,” Jolene drawled.

“You know I’m right,” Demi said to the Prime. “They only went after Raini because he gave them the mistaken impression that he cared what happened to her.”

“It isn’t an impression, it’s a fact,” countered Maddox, a hint of frost in his voice. “And the one woman you mentioned is my sentinel. She killed seven halo-bearers single-handedly. Almost died in her attempts to keep Raini safe. She’d do it again.”

Demi’s eyelids flickered, and she squirmed under the weight of that vacant stare. “Raini could have died, too,” she said, her voice quieter, much shakier. “It would have been your fault. If it really is a ‘fact’ that you care, walk away now before you bring any more danger to her life.” With that, Demi stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind her.

Evangeline sighed. “She’s just shaken from what happened tonight. She doesn’t want to lose her sister.”

“She won’t,” said Maddox. “The angels won’t get near Raini again. Which brings me neatly to what I was about to say before.” He turned to Raini. “I want to move you to a safer location until all this is over.”

“Actually, we’ve been talking about that,” said Raini. On the one hand, she didn’t want to be chased out of her home. On the other hand, she didn’t want any of her lair members being collateral damage if the halo-bearers returned for her. “When Khloë was dealing with the Enoch business, she moved to the Underground for a while. Harper and Knox have a penthouse suite right across the road from Urban Ink; they said they’ll let me use it. It has excellent preternatural security—no halo-bearers could angel-port into there.”

Maddox’s demon balked at the thought of Raini relocating to the Underground. It wanted her close; wanted her where it could see her. So did Maddox, which was why he was sorely tempted to have her temporarily stay with him at the monastery. But she’d never go for it—like him, she had her secrets; she wouldn’t want Maddox getting close enough to sense what they were. That worked both ways, because Euan was right; she’d look at Maddox with disgust if she ever discovered the truth.

Maddox cut his gaze to Knox and Harper. “I will only be able to teleport to her at the penthouse suite if you both agree to allow me entrance.” Their blessing alone would be enough for the shield to permit him to pass. He could probably circumvent their preternatural security measures, but it was better that the pair wasn’t aware of that.

“We’ll allow it,” said Knox. “We want Raini safe.”

“It might be better if you two have your monthly meetings at the penthouse until all this blows over,” Harper told Maddox. “I think even you’d agree that your club isn’t a safe place for Raini right now.”

On the contrary … “It’s one of the safest places she could be.” No angel could get to her there, because it had the same magickal wards as the monastery.

Harper frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re not the only people with exceptional security measures.” Maddox turned to Raini. “You and I need to talk. In private.”

Nobody moved until Raini gave a slow nod.

Once the two of them were alone, Maddox crossed to her. “As I said, I’ll be stepping up the security around you. I’d imagine your lair will do the same. Nonetheless, if danger gets close to you again, you call me, like you should have called me earlier.”

Raini frowned. “I wasn’t going to lure you into a trap, and I won’t apologize for the fact that I didn’t.”

Agitation flared to life in his belly, and his demon locked its back teeth. “Failing to telepath me when you’re in danger stops me from aiding you, which obstructs my attempts to keep you safe—you swore you wouldn’t do the latter.”

“Honestly, I really didn’t think of it that way, but you’re right, I kind of violated our agreement—I’ll own that. I’d be lying if I said I was sorry, though.”

“I’m not asking for an apology. I want you to assure me that this won’t happen again.”

“Would you lure me into a trap?”

He pushed into her personal space. “This isn’t about what I would or wouldn’t do. You and I have an agreement. You swore you would stick to it. I believed you. Was I wrong to do so?”

Okay, Raini’s demon did not like his tone at all. It charged to the surface and said, “Back away. You are testing my patience.”

Maddox’s nostrils flared. “I get that you’re pissed at me, because I know her safety’s imperative to you. It’s just as imperative to me, so maybe you could work with me on this.”

It flicked up a brow. “Why would I do that? She does not need you to protect her.”

“Maybe so, but that isn’t the point.”

“Then, pray tell, what is?”

“I’m supposed to protect her. She’s my anchor.”

“Something you only acknowledge when it suits you. That means she does not need to acknowledge it when it does not suit her.”

Maddox’s eyes bled to black as his own entity surfaced. “I do not like that he holds back from the bond,” it began, “but I do understand his reasons. Whatever you may think, she is important to him.”

Raini’s demon sniffed. “I will believe that when he shows it. And now I am done with you both.” It subsided, leaving Raini once more in control. But Maddox’s entity didn’t retreat. It watched her with those black eyes that were like huge voids of nothing.

“Your demon has attitude,” it said.

“So do you,” Raini pointed out.

It hummed and then pulled back. Maddox’s Prussian blue gaze then locked with hers, no longer as hard and cold as it was mere minutes ago.

“I don’t think we should let them communicate often just in case they end up at each other’s throats,” she said.

Maddox was silent for a long moment. “Your demon is wrong if it truly believes I only acknowledge you’re my anchor when it suits me. Perhaps my actions don’t reflect that, so I don’t suppose I can blame the entity for thinking otherwise. But you know better.”

After the conversation they’d had during their last monthly meet, yes, Raini did know better. She might not be as important to him as she should rightly be, but she mattered to him about as much as he’d ever let anyone matter.

“I know you’re not weak, Raini. But you wouldn’t survive a fatal hit of holy fire. I’d say it’s unlikely that angels will return for you. But I also would have said they would never target you in the first place, so I refuse to take chances here. I don’t see any reason why you’d want to take them either. You’re smarter than that.”

“Which is why I’m going to stay at Harper and Knox’s penthouse for a while.”

“If halo-bearers are determined to get to you, they’ll find a way. Probably by flushing you out to lead you into a trap. So I need your assurance that you won’t again break your word.”

She could take on any halo-bearers who came for her, because they wouldn’t take her off-guard a second time; she wouldn’t hesitate to act as she’d done earlier. But each time she used psychic hellfire, she risked others finding out about it. So if Maddox wanted to take on the angels, she’d be good with that. As such, she saluted him and said, “Whatever you say.”

He narrowed his eyes, suspicious. She wondered if he’d yet worked out that she wasn’t anywhere near as cooperative and subdued as she allowed him to believe.

Finally, he gave a satisfied nod. “It’s lucky Khloë was with you tonight,” he said, a skeptical note in his tone.

“Totally,” agreed Raini. “I’m thinking I should send her a thank you card and a fruit basket.”

“I’d prefer a box of donuts, if anyone’s taking notes,” Khloë called out.

Raini sighed and rolled her eyes. The girl was such an eavesdropper.

“Do you need help moving your things to the Underground?” asked Maddox.

Raini shook her head. “But thank you for asking.”

He gave another nod. “I have an angel to speak with. I’ll check in with you later.” With that, he teleported away.

People began to trickle back into the room.

Evangeline blew out a breath. “He’s … intense.”

Raini hummed in agreement.

“Whatever Demi or anyone else might think, you do matter to him,” her mother claimed. “I don’t think he really knows how to handle it yet. He’ll learn.”

“He’d better,” added Harper. “Well, Raini, you up for moving to the penthouse tonight?”

“Now’s as good a time as any, I guess,” said Raini.

Harper nodded. “Then let’s go pack your stuff.”

Maddox’s inner demon smiled with a twisted sense of satisfaction as the sleeping halo-bearer shivered within the arctic energy forcefield. Maddox had erected it around the angel, sure it would contain him. No one had ever broken out of it before—not demon, not fey, not vampire. He doubted an angel would be an exception.

Maddox looked at Hector and said, “Wake him.”

Moments later, the angel’s eyelids fluttered, and he squirmed restlessly. The fog of sleep finally seemed to clear, because he opened his eyes. And, of course, he tried wavering away, but his form did no more than wink like a faulty lightbulb. Then he sprung to life and battered the forcefield with holy fire.

Maddox sighed. “I wouldn’t bother wasting energy trying to escape. There’s no way to take it down or waver out of it.”

But the angel continued to fight, refusing to admit defeat. He would eventually, though. And then he could clear up a few things for Maddox.

In ordinary circumstances, Maddox would pluck the information he needed from his captive’s mind—few mental shields could keep him out. But it was agonizingly painful for a demon to delve into the psyche of an angel, and vice versa. Maddox might have archangelic blood, but he was still a demon. It would also lead to psychic burnout, and Maddox couldn’t afford to be weak—not as a Prime responsible for his lair, and not as a person who was currently marked for death.

There were ways of extracting information from people that didn’t include invading minds, though. Ways which his demon found much more enjoyable, since they involved dishing out pain.

Finally, the halo-bearer gave up. He stood still, breathing hard, each exhale fogging the chilly air within the forcefield. “You killed them.”

Rolling up one sleeve of his shirt, Maddox said, “Oh, you mean your friends. Yes, I did. They would have killed me and mine. And that’s because we’re abominations, right?”

“Nothing dark should possess holy blood.”

“Why not?” Maddox began to roll up the other sleeve. “Why should only celestial beings be entitled to anything holy?”

The angel’s chin lifted, but the defiant gesture was ruined by the shiver that ran down the length of his body. “None outside of the upper realm are worthy.”

Maddox’s demon rolled its eyes. “You people really do think you’re superior to everyone and everything else, don’t you? Why? Because you can wield holy fire? It’s not much different from hellfire. Just stems from a different source of power.”

Another shiver racked the angel from head to toe, and he pulled his limbs closer to his body. “Holy blood is only for the pure.”

“Is it? What’s pure about executing people who’ve done you no harm? What’s pure about stationing an angel on Earth and forcing them to earn their way back home? The latter can take eons, from what I’ve heard. You lot are no better or worse than us. You’re just different. And more narcissistic.”

“Think what you like. The fact is, you should not exist.”

“Says who?”

“Angels. Demons. Everyone.”

“I don’t say it.” Maddox looked at Hector. “Do you?”

The sentinel shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”

Maddox slid his gaze back to the angel. “It can’t be that great up above if some choose to fall.”

“Only the weak fall,” the angel sneered.

“Are the infamous Seven archangels weak? I’ve heard not. I also heard that one of them fell recently.”

The halo-bearer tried not to react, but he betrayed his surprise by the flicker of his eyelids.

“You hadn’t expected that we’d hear of such things, I see. I’ll bet the archangel’s fall caused a stir. A major one, in fact. There must be people clamoring to take his place. But to become the new seventh archangel, they would have to prove themselves, wouldn’t they? They might even choose to do something big to make them stand out from the others who seek the position. Even something as big as eradicate the descendants.”

Shivering again, the halo-bearer swallowed.

“Archangels generally don’t care what occurs on Earth. But everyone upstairs cares that a breed of demon possesses holy blood. That just rankles all of you, doesn’t it?”

Hector snickered, clearly enjoying the idea.

Maddox slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “At first, I thought that an order was given from someone much higher up to wipe us all out. But then your friends went after my anchor, thereby bringing her lair into this mess. That was sloppy. Ill-thought out. Definitely not something the upper realm would sanction unless they wanted a war, and I don’t believe they do. There’d be no winner. There would only be death and destruction on both sides—neither wants that. Plus, there are much simpler ways to begin a war, if that was really what someone wanted.

“My guess is that an archangel recruited you, your friends, and a bunch of other halo-bearers to do his bidding. He believes that ridding the Earth of my kind will grant him a place among the infamous Seven. I would like his name.”

The angel gave him a stubborn look.

“It really isn’t wise for you to shut down now. You’ve lived this long in my company because you like to talk. So talk.”

“I will die before I betray him,” he said, his teeth chattering so hard he’d be lucky if he didn’t bite his tongue.

“You realize that if an angel dies in this realm their soul doesn’t return to heaven, yes?”

“Yes. But I will die knowing I played a part in the ascension of—” He cut himself off.

“Don’t stop now.” Maddox wasn’t entirely surprised that the angel stayed silent. His demon wasn’t disappointed, because there were ways to make him reconsider being so uncooperative … and the entity would enjoy seeing him suffer, given that he’d happily been part of a plot that involved hurting its anchor. “What is your worst memory?”

The angel frowned. “My what?”

“The most painful moment of your life. What is it?” Maddox tipped his head to the side. “Let’s find out, shall we?” He held up his hand, conjured the cold red energy that hummed constantly beneath his skin, and sent out a call he couldn’t quite put into words. Just as angels could call on a person’s happiest memory— something they usually brought to the surface of someone’s mind to help them peacefully pass on to the next life—Maddox could call on their worst.

“What are you doing?” demanded the angel, his eyes wide.

“Ah, there it is,” said Maddox as a memory played through his mind like a fast-forward video clip. “You love her, but they won’t let you have her, will they? The moment she publicly bound herself to another angel broke something inside you. Not just because she’d never be yours, but because she looked happy. You hate her for that. Still, you don’t hate her more than you love her. You wish you did, but you don’t.”

Pain flashed in the angel’s eyes. “Stop,” he bit out.

“Have you ever heard of time loops? It’s when a person has to continuously re-experience a certain period of time. And me, well, I can place a person in a psychic time loop, forcing them to relive something in their mind over and over again for as long as I please. They know they’re caught up in it. They know it can be stopped. But they cannot stop it. Only I can free them from it. I think you see where I’m going with this.”

The blood drained from the angel’s face.

“You can choose to be a martyr if you want, of course. But I won’t kill you for keeping the archangel’s name from me. I will simply torture you. I will force you to relive that moment where you had to officially accept that you’d lost her for good; that she’d never really loved you, not if she was happy without you.”

Pausing, Maddox took a step toward him. “If you think it was agonizing the first time, ask yourself how it will feel when you’ve re-experienced it for the fiftieth. And no, you won’t get used to it. Because you’ll also relive the pain, not just the moment itself. Whoever the archangel is … he’s not worth it. And if he’s truly so great, he’ll get where he’s meant to be without your help, so you’d only be suffering unnecessarily. Now … what is his name?”