MIDNIGHT DIVINE (The Helio Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

“Huh?” he
grunts
without looking at me.

“Can we stop with the
charade? What do you want with me?”

He faces me with confusion,
“What do you mean?”

“I mean, let’s stop playing
games. I know you know what I am—or what I might be, because I’m not even sure.
And I know who you are… What you are… What do you want from me? Why bring me
all the way out here?”

He lets out a heavy sigh,
“I’ve never liked being who I am, but there are consequences for disobedience.
I’m going to tell you what’s going on, but please don’t freak out… I was given
a duty to find you and keep tabs on you until someone could come take you to
Beleth. Only recently, did I find out why Beleth wanted you so badly. I just
thought you were another fledgling
—a being coming into their abilities
. Beleth's always on the lookout for new recruits, but
you became a different case.” The pieces begin to fall together. Only, I can’t
understand why he would want to tell me all of this.

“The King
of Sheol
plans to dispatch executioners on your behalf, so
your essence will serve him in the underworld. You’ll be his weapon against the
Light. Beleth says this is your destiny. But they only have a limited amount of
time, because once you've fully transformed
,
you'll have the
ability to choose between Light and Dark. He doesn’t want you to be able to
have that choice.”

“What! I’m going to be
executed? What do you mean a weapon?” I
jump
to my feet and back
away from Trey.

He stands up to join me.
“Ivy. Please believe me. Even though I was sent for you, ever since
Jack's race you bet on… The plan was to get into your head on our date that
night. Jack
warned
me to leave, so I did. I'm no match for him.
Then you kissed my cheek at the race, and I felt you. It’s hard to explain. I
just know. Your spirit's like no other I’ve ever encountered. You have a
delicate elegance and beauty inside of you. I couldn’t go through with it. The
night of the party, I felt drawn to that beauty. I wanted to know you on a deeper
level. To get inside and relish in a beauty that's been withheld from me my
entire existence. My greed overwhelmed me, and I went too far. I have no
excuse. I feel horrible. Since then, I've made it my mission to make it up to
you. I feel a responsibility to protect you from Beleth. I’ve never felt that
before. It’s very new to me. I've vowed to myself to protect you anyway I can.
Beleth said—”

“Trey!” I scream as a dark
angel flies down and thrusts a sword through Trey’s back and through his chest.
Trey cries out with a shriek that pierces my ears. I don’t think as I charge
forward to help him. The dark angel lifts Trey into the air on his sword, out
of my reach. “Trey!”

The dark angel lets Trey
drop back down to the cliff. I try to run to him, but I'm being lifted from the
ground and carried over the edge. I look down.
Shit, Shit, Shit!
I want
to fight back, but I'm afraid of falling the thousands of feet into the valley
below. “Put me down! Let me go!” The angel’s cold chest makes me want to pull
away more.
I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die!
I can’t concentrate on where
he's taking me. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to vomit. I sense him slow
and begin to descend. When I open my eyes, we're at the mouth of a cave. He
flies into the darkness, and I know this is my chance to fight back. I kick and
scratch and pull, but his muscles are hard as stone. He doesn’t even flinch.
The cave is pitch black. I can’t see my surroundings. Fear runs through me. A
light starts to glow brighter the further we fly into the cave, my toes dragging
the ground every few feet.
Are we leaving the cave again?
The light
grows, and I realize it isn’t the mouth of the cave. It's a hidden pool of
still green water. Steam rises from its surface. I'm dropped on my stomach next
to the eerie, glowing water.

“Stay,” the angel’s voice
is so deep it's a lion's roar.

“Fuck you!” I jump to my
feet. The angel smirks with glowing fire in his eyes.
Uh oh! Wrong answer.
The
back of his hand meets my face with unfathomable force. My whole body twists. I
begin to fall, and my world goes black.

Pain. My head's throbbing,
and my leg's bleeding. I can’t see straight. Memory comes back to me with a
vengeance.
Trey. Oh
,
God! He’s dead.
Where am I? Where's the angel that brought me here?
I roll over onto my back. Searing pain shoots through my whole body.
He’s
gone. How do I get back? Jack.
I dig my phone from my pocket.
Shit! No
service. I’m fucked.
I try to call Jack anyways. The only thing I hear is a
beep, beep, beep
of disconnection. “Damn it!”

I try to get to my knees,
and they falter beneath me. I pull myself forward to the edge of the pool of
water. Clouded green liquid lights my face, but I can’t see my own reflection.
I contemplate crawling in the other direction to the mouth of the cave, then I
think maybe I should let my body heal itself first. At the rate I seem to be
healing these days, it should only be a few hours before I can stand again. I
twist to rest on my back and take in my surroundings. The air is dank and makes
it hard to breathe through my agony. I'm in an open area surrounded by columns
and draperies of stalactites and stalagmites. Their damp surfaces glisten, and
I can taste the minerals in the air.
It’s so hot!
My breathing picks up,
and my heart's pounding so hard in my chest it rocks my body with convulsions.
I feel faint and turn my head to the glow beside me. I want to drink from the
water, but I can’t move my body. The heat and pain becomes overwhelming, and I
lose consciousness again.

I awake off and on, losing
track of time. My fever is worse, and I start to hallucinate. Beetles skitter
in my direction, and I still can’t move. “Jack,” my voice is an infinitesimal
rasp as I try to call out to him for help. I know he can’t hear me. It’s
hopeless
,
but
I feel a relief of peacefulness at his name on
my lips. Darkness takes over my vision again.

“Ivy.” Someone's tapping my
face. “Come on, Ivy. Wake up. Come back to me.”

“Jack?” I croak.

“I’ll take you to him.”

I feel the cold touch of
arms being wrapped around my body and lifting me to a bare chest. My stomach
drops at the pull of gravity, and I cry out in pain with the movement. I feel
myself floating, but I can’t force my eyes open. Emotions surge through me;
such sorrow and regret, love and loyalty. “Jack?”

“It’s Trey, Ivy. I’m taking
you to him. Stay with me. I’m going as fast as I can.” A thousand wasps sting
my cheeks as an icy gust sweeps my face. I fight to stay lucid, but it becomes
too much for my body to handle.

A soft and raspy voice
calls to me, “Can you hear me, Ivy?”

Someone's holding my hand.
My eyes flutter, and I witness Evelyn compressing my forehead with a cold wet
rag before they shut of their own volition again. “Evelyn?” I vaguely hear
myself speak. Sound travels to my ears with mumbled undertones similar to
hearing someone speak underwater.

“We’re all here, dear.” I
groan with dizziness in response. “Jack, help me get her to the tub. We need to
bring her temperature down.”

I'm lifted up again. My
mind tries to comprehend what's happening. Arctic water creeps up my body at a grueling
pace, and I gasp with a harsh intake of breath.

“You’re ok, Sunshine. We
just have to get your body temperature down,” Jack’s voice floats to me from a
distance.

Alice’s voice touches my
ears, “I’ve never seen a transition this harsh. She’s not supposed to be this
hot. Something’s wrong.”

There’s a sadness in Trey’s soft spoken words,
“It’s because the Light of her
essence
is fighting the
D
arkness inside her.”
I can’t open my eyes, but I hear whispers all around me.

“What are you talking
about? What
D
arkness?” Jack orders.

“Her heritage,”
Trey replies.

“She’s an Arch! There is no
Darkness!” Jack shouts at Trey.

“Yes, but not entirely.”
There's a pause of silence. “She's Lilim, Jack,” Trey’s voice is despondent. No
one speaks. I drift under the water and fully submerge myself.

Red eyes come into my line
of sight. I stare at ‘the darkness’, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Yet,
it doesn’t. I realize I'm not frozen in fear.
It’s never happened this way before.
My voice is surprisingly sturdy
when I speak, “Who are you? What do you want from me?” The angel steps from the
shadows into the light of the moon shining in the field around us. I recognize
him as the Fallen angel that abduct
e
d me. His languid, black wings are tucked behind him. He's a stunning
sight to behold. Complimenting his
black
locks, he’s wearing a dark
suit
—
impeccably tailored. I observe his features of intense beauty as he
tilts his head to the side and gazes without speaking.

I start to get irritated.
“Well?”

“Curious. Are you not
afraid of me anymore, young Lilim?”

“Honestly, you’re just
pissing me off! What do you want?”

His posture stiffens. “I do
not want. I was sent to collect an asset.”

“Who’s asset.”

“The King of Sheol,” his
eyes flare.

I know exactly who he's
referring to
—
Lucifer. “Why would I be an
asset to him?”

“You do not know?” His
condescending tone reaches the rebel within me. I'm a child being reprimanded,
and I refuse to reply. If I answer his question, he'll gain an emotional upper
hand. I never appreciated being treated like a fool, but I won't let my countenance
reveal that either. His mouth widens in devious amusement, yet his lips never
part. “Your mother created you to spite him, and through Divine intervention
they let you live with the strategy you would become
their weapon
against us. The King will not allow this.
You will be his weapon against the Sons of The Creator. This is your true
destiny.”

“Who's my mother?”

He regards me with
irritation. “Your mother is the Queen of the Damned.”

My vision begins to spin.
Damned. Weapon. He’s telling me it's my destiny to
become a weapon for the Devil, against good angels, just as Trey told me. And
my mother's a queen… of the damned. Does that make her the wife of Lucifer?
“Why are you not collecting?” I taunt.

“Don’t worry, young Lilim.
I will see you again soon enough. There is nowhere your friends can hide you
that I will not find you.”

Torn from my vision, I pull
myself out of the water with ferocious violence and an audible gasp to fill my
lungs. Water sprays to the ceiling high above me. It's a volcanic eruption of
boiling liquid which seems to freeze at its apex before drenching everything
within a fifteen foot radius. My mind's clear now. I remember everything.

Jack charges towards me and
slides on his knees to the bathtub I've been placed in. His hands clutch the
sides of my face. “Ivy!” I look in his eyes. His beautiful
,
glistening emeralds are brighter than I remember.
“Ivy! Speak!”

“Jack,” I whisper. Jack
pulls me into a tight embrace, my face clutched to his chest. A torrent of
emotions flood over me—
Relief, love,
hope, worry, need
. He releases me from his embrace to examine me again. I
can see everyone in the room now. Jack, Evelyn, Alice, Eric… and Trey. “Trey!”
I pull away from Jack. “You’re alive! I thought you were dead!”

“I’m a demon. A sword
through the chest hurts like a bitch, but it won’t kill me.” He shrugs his
shoulders and plasters fake amusement on his face.

Evelyn shrouds me with a
towel. “Come on, dear. Let’s get you cleaned up.” I step out of the tub,
dripping on the pristine tile floor. “Everybody get out so Ivy can change.”
Everyone obeys with reluctance. Jack kisses me on the cheek—
Relief. Love. Worry
.—and shuts the door
behind him as he leaves.

Alice brings clothes into
the bathroom and sets them on the counter. “Are you ok, honey?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Evelyn dries my hair with
another towel. I catch her reflection in the mirror. Her face is ashen, and her
hair has lost its normal shine. She looks more ill than the last time I’d seen
her. I spin around and hug her tight. She's stunned at first, but holds me with
her weak arms. A rush of emotions tear through me again.
Sadness, weakness, worry, fatigue.
I realize these feelings are not
my own—they’re Evelyn’s. My heart swells with intense love for her. I don’t
want her to die. I wish I could help her. My eyes shoot open, and my vision is
blinded with pure white light. I can’t pull away from her. My body is
magnetized with hers. There's a jolt of electricity between us, and I'm fused
to her body like metal being welded together.

Evelyn cries out in pain,
and Alice’s screams are muffled from the constant humming in my head. I can’t
break the tether between us. All at once, Jack, Eric, and Trey burst into the
bathroom. My vision clears, and Evelyn collapses in my arms. I'm shaken with
fear and lower her to the ground, surprised I can control her weight in my
arms. She feels so light and fragile. Jack rushes to her body on the floor, and
I step back in horror.
What did I do? What happened? Oh
,
God! She’s dead!

“Mother! Mother!” Jack
cries out. Evelyn’s eyes quiver open wide. She appears stunned to still be
alive. Jack helps her to her feet. “What happened?” he yells at me.

“I don’t know!”

Evelyn touches his arm to
get his attention, “Jack, I’m fine.” Tears run down my face. “Truly. I’m more
than fine.” The color in her face
has
return
ed
, and her hair appears to soften before my eyes, shining
with its angelic splendor. Jack inspects his mother, trying to figure out
what's going on. “She healed me, Jack. The Qeres is out of my body! I felt her
pull it out of me. I don’t know how, but she did it, Jack! She did it!” she
cries with blissful joy.

Jack twists to face me, his
eyebrows raised high in surprise, “How?”

“I don’t know! I don’t even
know what Qeres is!”

“It’s a poison that eats a
Divine angel’s essence,” Eric provides.

“From a spider?” I look to
Jack for an answer.

“No. It’s a perfume. There
was an attack a few months ago. One of the Fallen had dipped his knife in it
before he sliced her back.”

“I don’t understand how I
healed her. Does it have something to do with what Trey called me? Lilim?
What's that? I had a vision before I came out of the water. A Fallen… the one
who kidnapped me on the cliffs… he called me the same thing. At first, I
thought he was confusing my name and calling me
‘
Lilly
’
instead of
‘
Ivy
’
. But then, I remembered Trey’s words before I went
under the water. What
i
s that? What am I?” I regard each of them and
notice the fall of their faces.

Trey speaks up first,
“Lilim… is the name given to the direct offspring of the Queen.”

“The Queen of the Damned.
He said that too. In my vision. Who is she?”

“She goes by many names and
many titles, but the name she most goes by is Lilith.”

Lilith.
I remember mythical
stories of her from high school Literature.

“I don’t understand. I
thought Lilith was a demon. My mother's supposed to be an Archangel.”

Eric speaks next, “Lilith
was
an Archangel. She was given to the first man, Adam, with the understanding she
would be his wife. But she refused to submit to Adam. She didn’t love him. She
felt being an angel made her superior to man, because we were created first.
She ran away from Adam. The Creator sent three angels to retrieve her. When she
refused to return, she was cursed as punishment. Her heart turned wicked, and
she became a demon.”

“Wow. Everything I know
about the world is a lie. Eve wasn’t Adam’s
first
wife, my mother's a demon, and I’m a direct descendent of
the Angel of Death himself!”

“Not just a descendent,
Ivy. Azrael
is
your father,” Trey emphasizes.

I whirl on Trey, “Excuse
me?”

“I’m sorry Ivy. I was
trying to tell you before.”

“So what the Fallen angel
in my vision told me is true? Just as you said? I’m destined to be evil? Some
kind of weapon against the Angels of Light?”

“No. As long as your
essence stays uncorrupted, you'll be given a choice. And from what I can tell,
that choice is to align with Light.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. A
weapon?” Jack echoes.

“I don’t know how I would
be a weapon. My only abilities have been the visions, and now we can add
healer, I guess.”

“I’m not sure exactly what,
but I’m positive you'll develop more abilities as you
evolve
into full angel,” Trey grins with his words.

Great. Just. Great.
A stillness settles in the air around us.
“Can you guys give me a minute? I want to get
out of these wet clothes.”

Everyone obliges my request
and leaves me to my own devices. I support myself with my hands over the sink,
leaning into the mirror to look at myself. With the new clarity of my thoughts,
I begin to see subtle differences in my appearance. My eyes are brighter, my
skin's smoother, and my physique is leaner. I feel stronger, mentally as well
as physically. The revelation of who I'm becoming, who I am, is sinking in.
I
won’t let myself be used for the Darkness. I have to do everything possible to
defend myself, and I can’t go on trying to ignore my fate.
A sense of
determination comes over me.

I peel my damp clothes off,
put on the dry garments Alice brought me, and plait my long black hair into a
high tress. I grip the knob of the bathroom door, taking a moment to center
myself and walk into my bedroom. It's empty. Then, I have an epiphany.
Trey
confided in me the truth about why he was sent to me and how he didn’t want to.
If he had the missing angel in his grasp, he would have let him go… If he was
telling the truth. But I believed his sincerity. I don’t think he has the
missing warrior. Maybe he knows who does though.

Voices drift into my room,
and I walk into the hall to find where they’re coming from. I hear Jack. He's
angry and threatening Trey. I have to make Jack understand Trey isn’t a threat.
I run down the stairs taking two steps at a time. I'm standing in the foyer
before I know it.

Whoa. When Jack told me I
would be faster, I didn’t think it would be that fast! And my hearing is a lot
better too! There’s no way I could have heard them from my bedroom on the third
floor! I thought my transition was supposed to come in stages, and the fever
was only my metabolism changing? I think this is happening faster than they
expected.

I round the corner into the
kitchen to see Jack at the most ferocious I've ever seen him. He has Trey by
his shirt, pushed up against the far wall. Trey’s feet dangle off of the floor,
but there's no fear in his eyes. Jack’s magnificent wings arc behind him, and his
jaw is set tight as he growls at Trey with
a
deep and menacing
reverberation.

“Jack!” I bellow in the
sternest voice I can muster. Everyone turns to me in surprise at my tone. Jack
keeps Trey in the air despite my interruption. I speak low and deliberate,
“Put. Him. Down.” There's
a
connotative growl
beneath my words which surprise me, but I keep my intense gaze upon Jack
without falter.