Fire, Fury, Faith Read online

  Pain for pain. Tribal justice.

  “He’s on the run,” Nathaniel continued. His thick, dark brows drew together. Issa recognized the slight facial adjustment for what it actually was—the elder’s effort to stay his anger. “We believe he tried to escape to Noelani. A border guard reported confronting a man who resembled the image of the rogue demon we sent out on Angelic Watch a few hours ago.”

  If not for Serwa’s heroic efforts, there would’ve been no one left alive to provide a description of the human terrorists or the demon mastermind. Not even the brainwashed fools the demon used. No, those worthless bastards were found in their getaway van ten miles north of the crime scene, flames spitting and snarling from the vehicle stalled on the side of the road. Four trapped men crying and confessing, begging for help, wanting to be rescued from their fiery hell.

  Karma.

  Nathaniel huffed. “A good idea, actually. I would’ve never thought to look in Noelani. No matter, we’ll catch the rogue.”

  Noelani. Mists of Heaven. It figured the rogue demon would run to that realm, a place where he could hide among fallen angels. Angels cast out of Araceli, Altar of the Sky, for disobeying God. A punishment for sure, but one tempered with love, with grace.

  Noelani was very much like the human realm. Cities and suburban areas mapped the rolling and flat landscape, the size closer to that of the island nation of Haiti but the unchanging temperature more reminiscent of Russia in late winter. A realm where a fallen angel could pray and meditate on his or her choices, repent, and eventually find deliverance, forgiveness.

  And why wouldn’t the demon go there? Fallen Angels created his kind. Not the ones in current residence of course. Those angels were far too young. Demons could trace their lineage back to the Sons of God. The two hundred renegade angels, led by Shemhazai, who descended to earth on a “righteous mission” to help humankind through the sharing of prohibited angelic knowledge, such as weaponry, sorcery, and the like. But the angels shared more than forbidden knowledge. Over the course of two centuries, they wed and mated with the daughters of earth, the unholy unions bringing forth a hybrid race known as Nephilim.

  Nephilim were giant, ravenous creatures who preyed on humans, their strength and propensity toward violence unparalleled. God, in her grief and fury, instructed Gabriel to incite a civil war among the hybrids. They killed each other, purging the earth of their vile existence. In the end, their fathers were de-winged and banished to Inpu, the Hell realm.

  Unfortunately, the war did not eradicate all of the Fallen Angels’ foul offspring. Apparently, during those two centuries, the Sons of God managed to refine and perfect the mating process. The result: the birth of human-looking children.

  The offspring, though more human in appearance and demeanor than their psychotic Nephilim predecessors, were no less dangerous, no less vile. While the centuries between then and now, and the infusion of more human DNA into their tainted gene pool, had mellowed much of the unharnessed rage and need to destroy that was once so much the Nephilim hallmark, the hybrids, or present-day demons, were equally likely to be as benign as a sugar pill or as deadly as arsenic.

  “I’ll find him. I’ll get the demon who used my wife as sport, setting an innocent Healer ablaze as if she was nothing more important than kindling in his tortuous hearth.”

  Nathaniel eyed Issa carefully, those brows of his knitting together even tighter. “It’s not your job. You’re not a Hunter. I am. Let me handle this.”

  Not a Hunter? How wrong you are.

  Issa stared at Nathaniel, the elder who looked anything but geriatric, and searched his face for a shred of humanity. Even a slither would do. But there was nothing. Only the rich, golden eyes of a man who appeared no older than thirty-five peered back at Issa, his thirty-one years of human existence extinguished in a cruel, mocking flame of bitter inhumanity.

  “Heaven-born,” Issa said, not as an accusation but a once unfathomable truth. “You and the other Heaven-born angels don’t understand me, Serwa, or others like us who were chosen not born into this reality.”

  A flicker of some emotion crossed Nathaniel’s face—fleeting, unnamable. Then it was gone. “It’s been over four centuries, Issa. You’re no longer human. You and Serwa are of the angelic realm now. Chosen, like you said.”

  Issa’s eyes traveled to his wife, hands red and swollen from her desperate effort to vanquish an invisible fire that consumed her body as thoroughly as her love for him had long ago. So long ago.

  He could still hear her cries for help, her charred larynx calling out to him when the demon attacked, the gut-wrenching sound traveling on silhouetted mating bonds, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and exploding in his mind, his heart. Yet he had been a continent away, close enough to feel her anguish, but too far away to save her.

  “My humanity is what guides me. My human heart, human mind, human soul, it’s what makes me…makes us”— he nodded to Serwa— “who we are. For you, it’s only duty. Protecting humans, mortals, is your responsibility, a mere compulsory pursuit, the reason for your very existence. You care because you are supposed to care. I care because I can’t fathom doing otherwise. My revived beating heart compels me and my mind rallies, an intricate scaffold supporting all that I am and will ever be. Yes, my friend, God chose me, but I also chose Her, this life.”

  Silence descended between them and Issa wondered if a Heaven-born angel, even one as liberal in this thinking as Nathaniel, could truly comprehend what it meant to minister to souls out of want and need instead of duty and obligation. Could a being who’d never experienced a father’s proud praise, a mother’s soothing song, a child’s spirited laugh, or a wife’s tender embrace, understand sorrow, rage, and guilt that were marrow-deep and eternally wide?

  Nathaniel’s blank face said he did not. But it revealed more than that, perhaps a desire to know, to feel, to experience. Or maybe Issa was reading too much into an all too familiar face, seeing his old friend through exhausted eyes.

  “That’s why the two of you were chosen,” Nathaniel said, his face growing soft every time he looked upon Serwa’s depressed form, as he was now, her breathing deathly slow.

  Sighing, Nathaniel walked away from Serwa and joined Issa by the window, Nathaniel’s Sword of Judgment sharp, long, and sheathed to his side like a third leg. For what he had in mind, Issa would need one of those swords, preferably one with a kissaki point for easy grinding.

  “You are a Guardian Angel,” Nathaniel stated in a slow, soothing drawl. The same tone of voice he’d used with him when Issa awoke in Araceli four centuries ago. But Issa was no longer a helpless, questioning, sophomoric angel. Nor was he so easily handled by the very same angel assigned as his mentor.

  “I know what I am. I don’t need you to remind me.” Issa’s control began to wane. Large hands balled into two unforgiving fists, the ones itching to find and beat the holy hell out of the rogue demon. “But what good am I if I fail to protect the one person in all the realms that means the most to me? What kind of Guardian Angel am I if I can’t keep my own wife from harm?”

  Images of Issa’s razed village flashed through his mind, morbid pictures blinding him with their full-color accuracy. If he concentrated just so, Issa would be able to hear the bellows of his tribesmen and the garbled voices of a foreign tongue, see pale men in strange clothing and naked, dark warriors fleeing and fighting. Yet when the nightmares were especially vicious, coming for him in his most tortured moments, he could smell sweat, fear, and gunpowder, even taste greed and villainy on his bitter tongue.

  It was on the laborious journey to the coast as a victim of an unprovoked raid that Issa managed to escape from the slave coffle, freeing those he could, killing those who dared to deny his people their freedom, who infiltrated his home, seeking ill-gotten gains. As village chieftain, his duty was to guide and dictate, but also to serve and protect. In this respect, Issa reasoned, he wasn’t so different from Nathaniel.

  The elderly Seer had foreseen the Span
iards’ arrival, understood a united front to be the best defense. It had been for ten years, the two tribes forging a reticent but lasting pact, the marriage of Serwa and Issa the litmus test. Yet the Seer wasn’t all-knowing or his visions entirely prophetic.

  Details, Issa recalled. It always boiled down to details. Two once-warring tribes setting aside old hostilities in order to work together had inadvertently fostered new enemies. Nearby tribes feared the seemingly omnipotent tribes with their bold, young chieftain-in-the-making and his powerful shaman of a bride.

  Scared enemies were the worst of them all. Selfish, short-sided deals with an unknown, more powerful foe were never a wise course of action, but so it was, guns, fabric, and baubles the price for one’s honor, one’s false sense of security. The business of selling one’s enemy a profitable but an ultimately flawed strategy, for the captives invariably became the captured, minnows in a sea of bloodthirsty sharks.

  In the end, however, Issa couldn’t save them all, not his wife, nor their twins, mere toddlers left behind in an empty, burning village of death and destruction. When Serwa had taken her last breaths of life, a gun wound to the stomach she’d taken when she’d thrown herself between a conquistador and a fleeing ten-year-old boy, it was Issa who’d watched her suffer…die. Her weakened eyes but indomitable spirit had focused on him, growing dim and overflowing with silent tears, taking their fill of his machete-damaged body. Then he’d curled next to her, covering his wife’s face with kisses and tears, taking the scent and taste of her into death. He’d believed it to be the end but found a new beginning instead.

  “I’ll find the demon for you,” Nathaniel said, drawing Issa’s mind back to the present. “On my sword of honor, I vow.”

  Those were powerful words from the elder angel. But this was Issa’s mission, his cross to bear. Twice he’d failed his Serwa. He wouldn’t fail her again. Not ever.

  “The rogue demon is mine.” Issa stood tall, shoulders straight, spine and gaze unwavering.

  Nathaniel, who towered over Issa by six inches, silently appraised him. His golden-brown eyes searched, drilling into Issa’s mind, soul, and heart. Finally, Nathaniel nodded. “He’s yours. This is your mission, Issa. And so it will be done.” Last words before the metal hospital door closed behind the elder Heaven-born angel.

  Issa returned to the chair beside his wife’s bed, took her left hand into his. Careful not to squeeze, he simply held it, feeling the warmth of her, the slow beating of her pulse.

  Faint but there.

  A feather as dark as onyx fell from Serwa’s damaged wing. The color of Healer’s wings, not simply the black from a fire demon’s attack. Picking the feather up, Issa could hold his fury and sadness in no longer. A roar of primal anguish burst through his soul and out his mouth, an earthquake on an open fault line. Guardian Angel magic reverberated off the walls and ceiling, cracking the solitary window into a spider’s web of flawed and furious lines. Going from the center and extending outward in a maze of pain and rage. With effort, Issa calmed, harnessed, and corralled his magic until it settled around his wife in a halo of eternal love and protection.

  Then Issa made a promise—low and with deadly intention. “I’ll slaughter the bastard who did this to you. Make him regret the day he put you in his monstrous sights. I’m the Hunter now, and the trespass against you, my sweet Serwa, will not go unavenged.”

  My promise. My vow. My hunt.

  April 2012

  Downtown Richmond, Virginia

  The rogue demon was an unconscionable bastard.

  Issa ducked. The fireball whizzed inches from his head. But he couldn’t retaliate. Not now, not unless he was willing to kill the pretty prostitute the demon held in a chokehold in front of him.

  Ethan O’Leary belonged exactly where Issa had tracked him, in an alley with rats that crapped on anything in their path. But the girl didn’t fit. She should’ve been at a high school dance, the movies with girlfriends, or trying to convince her overprotective parents that the pimply-faced boy waiting in their living room would have her back by a decent hour.

  But, no, the girl, who Issa guessed to be no older than eighteen, was on Richmond’s cold, uncaring streets. In a struggling part of the city no one truly gave a shit about unless they wanted to score some ass or get high. In the girl’s case, she didn’t look high but she did look worn, exhausted, lost.

  Ten minutes ago, Ethan O’Leary had guided her too-thin frame into a dark, empty alley that was wedged between a pizza carryout and a hair-and-nail salon. By the time Issa ripped off his shirt, released his wings, and stepped into the alley, the girl was on her bare knees, miniskirt shy of her ass, mouth working O’Leary’s staff. Pink polished fingers gripped his jean-covered ass, taking O’Leary deep without gagging.

  Like a Goddamn pro.

  “My Ethan would never harm anyone. He’s a good boy, just a chemistry professor at the local community college. You angels think just because we have some bad angel blood in us that we’re all bad seeds. Crazies waitin’ to snap is what you think of us. Well, my Ethan is no rogue demon, and I won’t help you hurt him. Now leave my house!”

  Evlin O’Leary’s mouth had lied, but her eyes, well, her eyes had betrayed her. She knew. Yes, mothers always knew, even when the truth pained them. Not that Evlin O’Leary seemed the least bit pained by the news that her son had attacked and almost killed an angel.

  Richmond was O’Leary’s home, his stomping grounds but not his killing ground. He took his demonic madness and terrorism to other states, other countries, preying on the weak and vulnerable. Fucking with people’s lives. The same way he was fucking the poor girl’s mouth—hard, quick, and without remorse. Damn him.

  The forty-year-old demon opened his eyes in depraved ecstasy, twisted his pale hand in the girl’s shoulder length, pink-streaked blonde hair and demanded more of her until she did gag. But the demon didn’t stop. His narrow hips charged forward, plundering her mouth as deep as he could go, spilling himself in the girl’s mouth.

  Done with the deflating rod, the girl released the demon and turned her head to the right. A red blush of…shame…? crept into her cheeks.

  Gasping for air, clearly satisfied with the late night rut, the rogue demon zipped up, took a pleased breath, and turned his head to the left. Their eyes met, and O’Leary gave a slow predator’s smile, all white teeth and malicious satiation. “Like to watch, do ya? Well, the show’s over, perv.” The demon roughly handled the girl. He yanked her to her feet. The six-inch heels she wore placed her at O’Leary’s chin. “I’m done with her, so if you have some money to spend, I’m sure she’ll be glad to—”

  Issa extended his wings, holding them at a ready angle as he stepped farther into the alley, the dull illumination from the singular streetlight a mockery of public safety.

  “Angel,” O’Leary hissed. He dragged the girl back to him, one of her heels breaking with the force of the demon’s tug.

  Her eyes widened. “I’ve never seen one of you up close before. God, you’re beautiful,” the girl whispered. Then she began to weep. Shiny tears flowed heavy and hard down her makeup-caked face, reminding Issa of a cracked porcelain doll. Deep wails followed her tears, the sound of lost dreams shattering into a thousand points of neglected light. “Are you here to save me? To take me home? Please, I want to go home.”

  If Issa were there as a Guardian Angel, he would’ve ended his pursuit and escorted the young mortal home. But he was a Hunter Angel whose prey was right before him. No way would he let Ethan O’Leary get away. Not even for the awestruck girl with eyes the color of a rare violet sapphire. No way in hell.

  “Shut your stupid mouth, Lisa. Just shut the hell up, or I’ll send you back to your parents in itsy bitsy chunks of burned flesh.”

  The girl cried harder but quieter.

  O’Leary’s long arm encircled her neck, holding her firmly against his chest.

  “How did you find me, Angel?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”


  O’Leary’s laugh grated. “You’re right, it doesn’t.” The demon attacked, eyes shifting from human gray to demon green. Balls of fire shot from an outstretched hand.

  Issa vaulted upward. Wings worked quick and hard to escape the fires of Hell. But they followed, heat-seeking missiles bent on finding a home in Issa’s body.

  He flew in a zigzag pattern, up, down, left, right, but never straight. No, a straight line would end one way—with him charred and dead.

  He used his speed, outpacing the fireballs while circling back, never leaving the airspace above the alley. Issa refused to allow O’Leary to slip away under the protection of his fire.

  “Damn you.” Four more fireballs were lobbed Issa’s way, the demon’s anger growing with each missed attack. “Keep your ass in one spot.”

  Issa flew even higher, forcing the demon to crane his head upward even more. Bolts of fire followed O’Leary’s baleful gaze, blinding Issa. Too many. There were too many of them, a shower of fire all around him, closing in, forcing Issa to move even faster.

  He did, twisting and twirling, avoiding the stream of red blaze propelled into the quiet night sky. Until he didn’t. Slam. His leg took a direct hit. Fire melted and burned both pant leg and skin. Issa swallowed a cry of pain. Flesh curled and gave way to bone and tendons.

  Another hit. Lower right wing. O’Leary’s aim was improving. The sting was greater, like dipping a butterfly in battery acid. He grunted, cursing himself and the unrelenting hurt.

  Issa knew he had to do something. Hovering over the alley, dodging flames of death wasn’t doing anything but leaving him as a target. But damn, the bastard still cowered behind the girl. Lisa, the girl prostitute who probably wanted nothing more than to go home, fall asleep in her own bed, and forget the ravages done to her mind, soul, and body.

  This had to end. Issa blocked the next incoming wave of flames, his angelic mists darkening and thickening around him, finally coming to his aid. Then he struck out, the gray mists attacking the flames, surrounding them, cutting off the oxygen, corralling the crackling heat before swallowing them whole.