---Nathaniel’s POV---
Gabriel tapped away on the computer before he brushed his blond hair out of his face and sighed. “No trace of Caitlin in this world, although we felt her energy here but just barely.”
Michael nodded his head slowly while he stood in front of the large floor to ceiling windows and stared down at the streets several floors below us. “I’m guessing she touched the outer layers of this world before she shot by.” His wings twitched slightly as he crossed his arms behind his back.
My own wings were ruffled, constantly flexing as the anger in me was brewing closer and closer to the surface. I didn’t need to know where Caitlin wasn’t, I needed to know where she was. A hand skimmed over one of my outer feathers and I spun in a tight circle to come face to face with Ezekiel, the Angel representative in the human world.
“Calm down lad. Your anger won’t do you any good if you stall the progress of finding and helping Caitlin. Yes, I know that she can’t get back to our world but you can make sure she’s safe and sound.” He patted my shoulder with a sad smile and went to the desk, halting for a moment. “At least you know she’s alive.”
I winched at that as the anger dissipated almost instantly and sadness sank in my stomach. Ezekiel had found his mate eons ago, long before the humans even existed. When the Divines had an outfall with some of their brethren, they cast them out and cursed them as Fallen angels, their wings singed to show their sins and forced to live in the outer circles of Hell.
Ezekiel’s soulmate had become a casualty in a fight between the demons of the deepest circles, who wanted nothing to do with any kind of angels, and the Fallen, who just wanted to be left alone. All I knew was that Ezekiel arrived in heaven with his mate in his arms, her wings ripped out her back and a hole in her chest.
The Divines accused the Fallen but Ezekiel had seen for himself that it was in fact the demons who did it; he had captured one for trial. Turned out that those deemed fallen weren’t evil angels, they never committed any crimes as the other Divines thought. Instead, the Devil himself had managed to sneak into Heaven and corrupted one of the elders, who in turn accused the angels who were later, deemed Fallen.
My eyes shot wide open as I realized something. “Shit! It can’t be!” I snarled, shocking all the present angels with my foul mouth but I didn’t pay any attention to it as I spun around to face Ezekiel and Michael, who were both staring at me.
“Why didn’t we see it? It’s all happening again!” I cursed, pacing rapidly as my wings fully extended, the tips brushing over the ground as they were completely pushed out of my body, my muscles coiling and tensing as the truth started to sink in.
“Nathaniel, speak up! What has gotten into you?” Michael snapped when I kept mumbling to myself and tapped my fingers as if to cross out anything I could have missed. I turned around and fixed them with a hard glare before raising my hand and summed everything up.
“The fake trial. Caitlin’s banishment. Marcus’ weird and foul behavior. The whole lower Sphere in an uproar. Does this ring any bells to you?”
Michael staggered back, his whole expression pale as Ezekiel and Gabriel both gawked at me with their mouths open. Zadkiël, who had remained silent the whole time let out an angry roar as his wings spread out and filled the room.
“Satan.” He spat with an expression of utmost disgust and rage. “He’s toying with us, again! And we walked right into his trap like a group of blind toddlers!” He pushed himself of the floor and flew up the two store bookcases, searching for something until he found what he was looking for and came back with a large, dusty old book.
The title was worn and the papers cracked when Zadkiël gingerly flipped them. Halfway the book, he stopped and placed his finger on the text. “And there, Satan laughed in the face of the Father and sneered before stating that one day, he would return by the Father’s side, wetter or not he’d accept his brother.” He read aloud before flipping the pages again as I realized that Satan would never quit, not until he and his brother would amend their former bond.
“Look at this image.” Zadkiël said before dropping the book on the desk, all the angels gathering around to see what he had pointed to. The left page was filled with Latin scribbles but the right one held a sketch of the elder that accused the angels at the Fall. He looked pretty normal on the first look but if you watched closely, you could see what Zadkiël meant.
The man’s veins weren’t blue; they were black. Even the immaculate small veins in his eye had lost their red tint and changed it for a darker tone. I gulped and thought back to the trial, trying to see what I had overlooked that day. The whole process flashed in front of my eyes until it stopped at the exact moment I had glanced at Marcus.
He had smirked when Caitlin was brought into the courtroom before brushing his silver hair out of his face, revealing a black line on his temple. I didn’t think anything of it then, probably thinking it was just some of his hairs stuck to his face but when I look back at it, I know now that it was in fact a vein. A black blood vein.
Michael gasped and dropped to the floor, his whole face shocked before he turned back to us. “I know in which domain Caitlin is and I think I know why Satan is meddling in our affairs.” He ran to the desk and jammed his fist on a button, which activated a large section of the wall. It turned away, revealing a large map of the universe, divided into the sections as the Angels saw it.
Paradiso was our homeland, our realm and was the realm with its own sun. Apparently, Paradiso was Latin for paradise, a word that humans used to talk about my homeland. This was true in real life but I had heard of the humans giving our realm a nickname; Heaven. They thought that living by the Bible would allow them in our world but they were mistaken; their souls would have to go through several processes and lives before they could enter our domain.
Purgatorio was located in the middle, holding all other realms except for two; Our homeland and the other one…Was Inferno. Better known as Hell. Gabriel followed Michael when he stepped towards the map and flew up, studying the planets that slowly spun around in real life before he tapped something on the panel next to the map.
A low buzz resounded through the room before the lights went out and the map was projected in 3D; all the planets were floating around the room, spinning around their invisible axis and followed their never-ending journey around the sun.
I stood there for a moment, frozen to the floor in amazement as the planets, moons and stars passed by before I realized what Michael had said. I flew up to meet him, along with Zadkiël and a few other angels before we hovered in mid-air.
Michael flew towards a small planet before he lifted it out of the hologram and showed it to us. “This is Earth, the planet we’re momentarily are and home to the humans. We know Caitlin passed this planet just barely, so we need to find her on the realm closest to this one. Which is…” he stopped talking and raised his hands, allowing the small planet made of light flow back in place.
It stopped close to another planet, almost eight times its size and four moons twirling around it. When Gabriel touched the planet, it highlighted, showing off its blue/purple hue as it spun around, slightly faster than the Earth planet.
“This is Dayomir, home to werewolves, vampires and demons.” Gabriel said, his eyes shooting towards Ezekiel at the mention of demons before he added, “The demons that live here are the ones on the most outer circles of Hell. The only ones closer to the surface are the Fallen.” Ezekiel’s face was rock-hard, his lips squeezed to a fine line.
“And that’s what worries me.” Michael confessed in a sigh as he looked at the planet with piercing blue eyes. “You see, pure Angels like us and Caitlin are sought after by the inner circles of Hell. We have abilities that none of the Fallen have anymore, plus, our abilities are similar to those of the demons.”
Ezekiel hissed in anger while he snorted something like “Satan.”. He probably referred to the fact that our Father had created us, Angels and since he and Satan were brothers, Satan had the same powers of creation and had created his own creatures; Demons.
I shared a worried look with Zadkiël before looking at the others. ”We need to find Caitlin, make sure she’s safe and warn her. And fast.” I added, looking black at the large purple-blue clouded planet.
---Caitlin’s POV---
My back aching was the first thing that came through my sleepy haze, followed by the fact that I was sleeping on a cloud. Well, not an actual cloud, I thought while opening my eyes and looking at the soft, silky fabric that I was lying on.
As I lifted my head of the pillows, my back coiled up even more and I hissed slightly. My wings were fully healed but because they had been broken, they were cramped up in a completely wrong way. I needed to let them out.
My muscles tensed even more and I froze, afraid that I might overstrain myself. It was a real unpleasant sensation. Compare it to having slept on your arm until the point that its gone completely numb and you can’t move it. The pain you feel when you get off it and the blood flows through it? That was the pain I was feeling right now, and it wouldn’t stop until I had my wings out.
I glanced at the door, wondering if I could risk it to just let them out for a second but shook my head. Vampires were quick and had excellent senses; they would hear it if they were close and I wouldn’t be fast enough to prevent them from catching a glimpse.
But maybe… I smiled when I found the solution. Every angel had to be able to cloak their wings, which was necessary when we had to follow humans. They couldn’t know about our existence but we needed them to trust us. Hence, the human appearance and cloaked wings so we wouldn’t run up the walls in pain.
Closing my eyes, I laid down on my stomach and focused on cloaking my wings. As soon as I felt that they were invisible for anyone else but my kind, I took a deep breath and slowly let it out as my wings cracked and popped whilst slowly slipping out of my back.
I let them stretch all the way out until the feathers on the tips of my wings gently brushed against the ceiling. I had larger wings then an angel of Virtue, like my mom but they were significantly smaller then the wings of a Seraphim, like my father.
Glancing over my shoulder, I stared up at my pure white wings. Yeah, they were purely white but if I moved them, they seemed to glisten with a blue hue. A memory floated through my head as I moved my wings from side to side, stretching and testing the regenerated muscles.
“Daddy, why are my feathers all white?” My 10 year old self asked curiously as I flapped with my wings, trying to get me off the floor. Dad smiled down at me while he held my hands to help me with my flying lesson.
“Honey, they aren’t just white, they have a small layer of blue. It’s only visible if you walk or move with your wings.” One of my feathers twirled down to the floor and he picked it up and showed it to me before tilting it back and forth. “See?”
Indeed, the fluffy white feather gained a blue-ish coat, depending on how the light fell on it. I giggled happily and flapped my wings again as daddy let his own huge wings come out of his back.
“Now let’s try and see if you can fly my sweet.” He laughed before throwing me up in the air and flying after me with a laugh.
I smiled at the memory before I pushed myself of the bed and pulled my wings back in my back. My eyes searched the room as a soft breeze flew through it, moving the heavy curtains slightly from the window to reveal a beam of sunlight creeping in. A slow creaking sound made me turn around and created a smile on my lips.
Lilith pushed the door open and stepped in, showing that she held a fluffy and worn doll to her chest before she shyly waved at me. I chuckled and got out of bed, saying, “Morning Miss Lilith. Can I help you?” She frowned slightly and tilted her head. “Please, just Lilith. I don’t need any fancy title.”
Nodding once, showing her I understood, I watched her walk towards the closet on the other side of my room. I smiled slightly before overlooking the room.
It was painted in soft creamy colors, which contrasted against the warm honey color of the hard wooden floor. I was still sitting on the overly large bed in the middle of the room, with the windows to my left and the door in which Lilith came through on my right. A small divider wall next to the closet separated the bathroom from the bedroom.
Lilith rummaged through the clothes in the closet before she tried to reach up towards some of them. “Need some help Lilith?” She smiled sweetly at me but shook her head and instead stared intently at the clothes. A shiver went through the cloth before it slowly floated of the rack and soared through the room before landing my ankles in a heap.
When I shot an amused and slightly shocked look at Lilith, she giggled slightly. The sound was like a bright ray of sunlight on a clouded, stormy day; something you didn’t expect but still longed for. It sounded full of life, and joy for life.
“Telekinesis?” I asked with amusement clear in my voice. Lilith nodded proudly before she looked at me with something I would describe as curiosity mixed with a need to understand every little aspect of life. “You’re….not scared of me?” She asked hesitantly, as if afraid that I would abandon her.
I stood up and crouched down in front of her, slowly shaking my head. “No sweetie, I’m not scared of you. As long as you use your powers for something good, I’m all right with it. But don’t tire yourself out okay?”
She nodded once, showing she understood before she pushed the clothes in my hand. “I’d like to go out on a walk on the grounds please.” I smiled and rushed to get ready before we left my room, hand in hand. It was heartwarming to see that Lilith was trying to open up towards me but I could see that it was hard to trust others.
When she walked past Master Ethan’s room, she stopped and laid her ear against the door to listen before she smiled slightly and shook her head. I could hear some light snores coming from the room so I figured he was still asleep.
Lilith guided me through the hallways, weaving from left to right. Her only reaction towards others we encounters was a faded smile. But it left them stunned in their boots.
A few minutes later and we walked through ankle high grass, the green sparking bright and lush in the sunlight before waving slightly in the wind. Lilith glanced around with a content smile on her lips. “This way.” She said in a high-pitched tone before tugging me towards a lake.
The view was astonishing; the large, mirror-like lake reflected the vast blue sky from above, which made you think a piece of the sky had fallen down on the earth. We slowly walked around the lake before I felt the urge to let my wings out again. As every other angel, I was accustomed to have my wings out almost 24/7; to not be able to do that was slowly unnerving me.
I glanced at Lilith before I focused on cloaking my wings. When I was sure that Lilith wasn’t looking and the cloak worked, I squeezed my wings through the sleeves and sighed slightly. Lilith leaned against me and I smiled before ruffling her hair slightly.
She glanced up at me and smiled slightly. “Thank you for trusting me Caitlin.” I blinked a few times, which she answered by reaching out and gingerly tracing the shoulder-joint of my wing.
“I always knew what you were, what you are. I can tell truth from lies.” She smiled as I stared at her in shock. This girl literally blew my mind away and rendered me speechless. She knew the truth about me. And although I should be afraid that she might spill my secret, I knew in my heart that she would never betray me.
As if to confirm my thoughts, Lilith stood up and hugged me, her fingers brushing over the outer fluff on my wings. “I’ll help you keep your secret Caitlin. I can’t see your wings this way but I can see the lie that covers them from our eyes. You’re something good for our lives. Thank you.” She murmured, hugging me closer.
I smiled and laid my chin on her head, overlooking the lake in all its wonder. And that’s how Ethan and Leo found us.
Hey guys ^-^
Hope you enjoy the new chapter ;) Think little Lilith shocked you guys huh? And what do you think about Nathaniel's revelations?
Picture to the side is Gabriel ^-^ and the clips shows how the hologram of the planets looks like, in a way ;)
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