When I came to, the world was fuzzy and blurred, as if I have a thin sheet of cotton hanging in front of my eyes, and I was somehow viewing the world from between the stitches in the fabric. Lifting my arms to rub my temples, I sat up with a groan. I was still in the ice cavern, with Alkaia snoring softly in the corner, her chest rising softly with each breath. Charles and Avery were no where in sight, and worry kicked through my body at the thought of them being alone together. I counted Alkaia’s slow breaths, trying to regain to mental footing on what happened early.
The Prince of Lust is shadowed by danger,
nestled between the souls of God and Demon.
Look to the descendant of Light and Dark,
and she will lead you to the path of a stranger.
My dragon’s words echoed through my skull. What could they mean? Between God and Demon? There was/are no between. All demons are driven by their own deepest desires, their secrets. God, on the other hand… He was so pure, so full of life. There were no words to describe Him. I hadn’t met the man either, so that didn’t help. If it wasn’t for the pounding in my skull, I would have laughed out loud at the thought of Light and Dark merging together.
Cold from the floor was leaking into my armor, making me feel as if I was sealed inside a chilled metal cocoon. The cold froze me to my very core, and I shivered so violently my very bones shook. My teeth chattered loudly, causing Alkaia to stir slightly, her eyelids opening into a small slit.
“You are cold,” she said. It was then that I realized her breath didn’t cause puffs of steam to roll out of her snout, but the air seemed to crystallize into small diamonds of fractured ice.
I snorted despite my quaking body, “Is it that obvious?”
The corner of her mouth twitched marginally. “Indeed it is. And before you ask, I sent your toys into the hallway. They were bickering too much, and it annoyed me.”
This time, it was my mouth that twitched into a smile. Planting my palms firmly on the frozen ground, I used my weight to push myself upward. My dark leather boots slipped, causing me to crash onto the ground on my tail, sending waves of pain of my spine. I glowered. I tried again, and this time I was successful.
My bones barked a protest of my movements, and it surprised me. Cracking bones normally means a sign of age, of weakness within - something that doesn’t occur in my family. My bones were as hard as steel. “How long was I out?” My voice was rough, raw in my throat.
Alkaia must’ve closed her eyes to sleep again, because they opened lazily, slightly glaring at me for waking her again. “You were unconscious for three days.”
My mind spins. “Three days?”
She snorted a small flurry of snow from her nostrils, her slitted pupils rolling in her head to glare at me. “Is that not what I just said?”
Fighting to keep my footing, I slip and slide my way to the open doorway. Reaching the threshold, I poke my head through.
The corridor is dark now - the torches’ wicks must have burnt out. I growl in annoyance. How do magical torches run out of wick? “Charles,” I whisper harshly. No answer. “Avery?” I try again. Something stirs in the darkness, causing the small hairs on the back of my skin to rise. What if it’s the Archangel?
My imagination gets the better of me, and I close my eyes, visualizing a slender and lean silhouette, stalking me through the darkness; its dagger’s blade trained for my rapidly beating heart. Images of white hair and silver eyes flash behind my eyelids and I gasp, my hands coming up to cradle my temples. It’s her. The woman from the the weeping painting, her hands outstretched towards me but something wrong - somethings different.
The cement walls of the hallway melts away, revealing a dark and gloomy room with thin, tin walls and broken windows. Junk and debris litter the floor, some metal, some soft plastics. A single fluorescent light flickers on and off from the low ceiling, making the woman's skin glow a pale green. She’s standing in the middle of the room, her arm still reaching for me. Her eyes are shadowed from the light above, but I can still make out the high cheek bones and the shape of almond eyes. Her lips mirror my own; a large bottom with a slender top to match. My pulse jumpstarts in my chest.
“Mara,” she breathes, her velvety soft voice flowing through the empty space between us, wrapping around me. She takes one step forward, and it’s then that I realize she’s wearing a white cloak of satin that billows around her, a white pool of liquid hugging her feet. My attention moves up her body, and the way her skin seems to sparkle under the harsh lighting. When I meet her eyes, I freeze, knots forming in my throat. I choke on a whimper as blazing silver eyes stare into my golden ones. Her pale hair blows around her shoulders, but I don’t feel a breeze. She’s not an Archangel.
The ground seems to shake, sending pebbles and debris moving like crawling bugs on the floor. The ground quakes harder, causing me to bite my tongue from being jolted. I glance at the woman with my round eyes, but she doesn’t seem fazed by the quaking floor, or the cracks in the ceiling that threaten to squish us. Intact, she seems like she’s causing it, her blazing eyes of silver fire hard and intense.
“Who are you?” I scream over the sound of cracking stone and groaning wood. The building we’re in sways slightly, as if not sure of it’s footing. It’s going to come down any second. I’m not normally scared of death, but one look at her and dread laces my insides; like she could do anything to me that she wanted, anything she desired to me. I’m about to shout the question again, determined to know who my killer would be, but the ground suddenly becomes still. The groaning building stops shaking, causing the scream to lodge in my throat.
It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. The woman’s eye’s still hold mine, and her mouth curls into a smile. “Find me,” she whispers, so quietly I thought I’d imagined it.
* * * * * * * * * *
I’m on my knees, cold sweat drenching my body. My palms are braced on the floor, and my hair hangs around me in midnight snares. Gasping for air, I try to stand. My knees quiver, and it’s such an odd sensation - being so weak and helpless - that I growl in frustration.
A mirroring growl echos from in front of me, and despite my aching joints, my neck snaps up, only to come nose to snout with a pissed off white wolf.
Fillin’s lips are pulled back in a spiteful snarl, his eyes a icy silver. They’re glazed over, as if he can’t see me. A slight line of drool dribbles from one of his incisors and drips to the floor, creaking a sticky puddle at my fingertips.
I gulp.
“Fillin, boy. It’s okay.” His hackles bristle even furthermore on his back, and he barks a warning in my face, making my eardrums ring. My eyes flickered to his sharp teeth, inches from my throat. I feel somewhat nauseated at Fillin’s betrayal, on his sudden turn of heart. I’m tempted to bolt back into the safety of Alkaia’s presence, to see if Fillin really will attack. Fearing the worst if he did.
“Hey,” I say softly, a small tremor in my voice, “Fillin. It’s okay… I’m not going to hurt you.” My words fall on deaf ears. He continues to glare at me with glazed silver eyes, anger and hatred rumbling in his chest. Claws clicking on the cement, he lifts his paws to take a few steps forward, causing me scrambled backward, backing hitting the brick wall. His muzzle might as well be the Archangel’s blade pressed against my jugular; which is now pounding in my throat.
His movements are short and twitchy, as if he’s a robot and his motherboard is malfunctioning. What in the world is wrong with him? His eyes bolt between my face and my hands, which are plastered to my sides.
He herds me then, making me stand and creep my way back up the nine hundred feet that I just descended three days ago. His cold, wet nose rails into my lower back, pushing me up-up-up until we’re on the stairs platform. Fillin steers me through the twisting halls until we’re standing in front of the throne room.
I glance back at his spiteful snarl, and he gives a sharp, short bark. A hidden command to open the doors, I presumed. Heeding his warning, I placed my hand on the cool metal of the doorknob, gruning with force to while pushing on the wood. The doors gives way with a loud whine.
Sitting on the throne, is my father, anger seeming to seep from his pores. It seems as if a dark bubble of energy surrounds him, straining and pulsing as if it were a living thing. I shiver.
The throne room seems empty though, as if something’s missing. It’s then that I realize that my mother’s throne is gone; no where to be seem. My heart jumps to my throat, threatening to suffocate me.
Fillin’s steady growl is still humming through the air as I make my way towards my father’s throne of bones, knees wobbling. My father’s eyes seem to pierce through the dark haze surrounding him, making him that much more frightening. I scan the area, searching for Avery and Charles. The damned fools bailed!
Terrible images of the two cowardly horsemen fleeing when I collapsed cooked in my skull, making my anger boil hotter than my fear. I bit my tongue so hard, the sharp metallic tang of blood filled my mouth.
“Mara,” my father seethed through gritted teeth. His jaw twitched, and that was a sign that he was pissed. The only other time I’d saw my father this mad was when my mother had said I didn’t even know my true family tree, after we’d gotten into a monstrous fight over the menu contents for that night. And that was only a fraction on how mad he looks now.
Anger pours off him in waves, so strong that I’m terrified I’ll be caught within the currents; being pulled farther and farther out to sea formed by my father depthless rage.
“Father,” I say softly. Fillin’s growls stop abruptly, and out of the corner of my eyes, I watch as the bright blue of his irises returns, flooding back as if some mystical dam had been broken within his mind. Catching my gaze, Fillin’s tail begins to wag and he yaps, sending a playful bark my way.
“Do you know why I brought you hear, Daughter?” my father’s stern voice slaps my attention back into place, and I shake my head. He’s willing to claim me as his daughter again?
“Out of all my subjects, you were the last that I would even consider a traitor. Does family mean nothing to you?”
I’m so surprised by his words, I just stand there and gape.
His glare deepened at my reaction. “Close your mouth, or you’ll catch flies.”
My mouth snaps shut. He continues to glare at me, the corners of his mouth turned down into a nasty sneer. I don’t know what he wants me to say. Is he talking about Pandora’s box? How would he know about that?
And then it clicks, and I mutter a curse. Fillin! I’d always know him and my father were close, but I guess it never registered that they had a psychic bond. It all made sense. Why Fillin’s eyes would randomly change color, or why he acted so aggressive towards me down by Alkaia’s ice cave. If I wasn’t so pissed, I probably would have thought that was the coolest thing ever.
“Even after I asked you to stay below ground, you choose to disobey me. Making plans to go after this - this Pandora’s box? What were you thinking?”
My hearts hammering so hard, that I have to speak around the pulse in my throat. “I wasn’t thinking. I was trying to save my mother.”
At the mention of my mother, Father’s eyes grow incredibly dark, pain and anger swimming in his eyes. Panic floods through my veins. “What?” I ask. “What is it?”
Lucifer’s jaw clenches and unclenches, at loss of words, and it takes all I have to swallow the rising panic in my throat. It tastes like bile. “What is it?” My voice is high and strained.
“Your mother is dead, Mara. The blade’s poison stopped her heart two days ago.”
While you were unconscious, a voice whispers, deep in the back of my skull. “No,” I murmur.
Yes, my mother was nothing but a bitch to me ever since I could remember, but she was still my mother. Deep down, I guess I thought if I possessed Pandora’s box, capturing the Archangel within and then forcing it to heal my mother… she would somehow find it in her cruel heart to love me. All chances of that future are gone now.
My father’s eyes are hard and cool as they watch me, never wavering. He doesn’t even break my gaze when he shouts, “Bring out the traitors!”
My pulse throbs at those words, and I spin on my heel when I hear the giant double doors opening. I gasp.
Six Incubi stalked into the room, three in front of their prisoners and three tailing, the eerie light from the chandeliers above shining off the silver mail. Two men shuffle in between them, hands bound in metal chains that slink on the floor like metal snakes. I recognize them immediately.
Charles limps in front of Avery, his golden hair ruffled and golden shirt completely gone. Ripped jeans hug his waist and his bare feet make soft padding sounds as he makes his way across the hard floor. His eyes are red and bloodshot, with large bruises swelling under his bottom lids. His top lip is split, and it makes his lush lips even bigger.
Giant gashes snake across his chest and over his shoulders. I’m surprised they’re not healed. Given his status, they should be gone. Bright red splatters that are still dripping on the Incubus’s armos says it all. They’re fresh. I swallow a growl.
Avery’s had better days as well, but it seems as if his face got more attention than Charles’s. If it wasn’t for the dark curls - that were now plastered to his forehead due to sweat and blood - I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell it was him. His left cheek was like a rainbow of puky colors. Dry blood was caked in his curls and on his shirt, creating a small section of the dark fabric to stick to his stomach. He seems to drag his left leg behind him, wincing with every step.
I can’t contain myself any longer. “What the hell, Dad?!”
My father’s eyes harder, turning to steel. I bite my tongue. “I want you to do something for me. But you will be doing it as I say. Do you understand?”
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of answering, so I shoot him daggers from under my lashes. At that moment, I wish I’d somehow inherited laser vision. If I’d did, my father would be nothing but a puddle sticking to the bottom of my boots.
“Good. Now, for what I’ve heard, you were all planning on locating Asmodeus and obtaining Pandora’s box.” His eyes sweep over us. “Please correct me if I’m wrong.”
“No, My Lord. You are correct.” Charles voice is surprisingly crisp and deep, not shaking at all. A small bubble of pride blossom’s in my chest.
My father genuinely smiles. “Ah, good. And I’m assuming your pet lizard told you a prophecy on how to find my brother, correct?”
Hearing my father refer to Alkaia as a lizard makes my anger and demon alike roar to life. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “Yes sir.”
“Good. I revoke my last decree. I will allow you on the surface under one condition.”
“What is it?” I growl.
A wicked smile dances on my father lips. “Ah, Mara; a beautiful evil,” he murmurs. And then amplified for me to hear: “I want you to track down Pandora's box and seize it. As you know, I had asked my brother to keep it safe until I needed it.” He paused. “I need it.”
Why would he need the box if my mother was already dead? It’s not like the Archangel can bring a demon back to life. Nor would he want to. “Why do you need the box?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.
My father’s mood suddenly turned dark and furious again, and the black energy clung to him like new born calf clings to it’s mother; swirling around him in a cyclone of emotion. “I need you to obtain this box for me as protection. Our patrols have been breached. The Horsemen of Death has been abducted.”