Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (35 page)

     I turned slowly.  Halo stood
behind me, smirking, and in her arms, as limp as a broken doll, lay Isabel’s
father.  The bruises under his closed eyes were livid.  It did not
take a Reaper to know that his time was almost at an end.  Fate walked
between us, a frayed, purple thread pulled tight between her hands. 
Isabel made a strangled sound in the back of her throat as she lunged for
Fate. 

     I caught her before she reached her
target.  I began to understand what was going on, and I did not blame
Isabel for her rage.  “You must not. Be calm.”  She trembled in my
arms as I tried to soothe her.

     Fate smiled as she pulled the
Thread of Life through her fingers. “You have a harvest to make,
Ashrael.”   I felt the pull, as old as time itself; that feeling of a
soul in want of collection.  The Summons that called me here was for Isabel’s
father.  This was what she meant by my test.

     Isabel turned wide, terrified eyes
to mine.  Her hands clutched at me in desperation.  “Please don’t do
this.  It isn’t his time.  She’s just using him.”  Her voice was
strained to the breaking point, and angry tears stood in her eyes.

     I have never questioned Fate
before.  There has never been a reason to.  Now, however, I found
that I must.  “Clotho, there seems to be some confusion.  The girl is
right; he is not ready to move on.  Would you care to explain what is
happening, here?”  I remained calm.  There was still a way out of this, I
was sure. 

    Isabel’s father landed onto the cold,
hard ground with a soft thump.  Halo’s eyes glittered like gems, hard and
cold, and a look of infinite satisfaction crossed her sharp features. 
“Your little monkey is screwed, Ashrael, and there’s not a damned thing that
you can do about it.”

     Fate circled her, and stopped with
her hand draped lightly upon her shoulder.  “That’s an awfully crude way
to put it, darling, but it’s accurate.”  She squeezed Halo’s arm in a
half-hearted hug. “Thank you for bringing him to me. You have done
beautifully.”

     Halo turned on her, anger and
disappointment written clearly across her face. “You said that I could have
him.  You promised.”

     “I have something better in mind,
now do stop pouting.  I owe you nothing. Be a good girl and I will let you
watch and bear witness.”  The dismissal stung Halo’s pride, but there was
nothing she could do.  One does not cross Fate without paying a hefty
price. Halo stepped back, reluctantly.

     Isabel struggled against me,
desperate to reach her father.  She was not as easy to hold as she once
was; she held the strength of a Reaper now.  “Let him go! He’s got nothing
to do with this.”

     “Well, that depends on you, now
doesn’t it?”  Fate smiled the smile of a child on Christmas morning. 
“I’ve waited an eternity for this.  I cannot tell you how much I am
enjoying it.”  She closed her hands on the thread she held, concealing
it.  “Ashrael, do get on with it.  I refuse to wait any longer.”

     Isabel’s father lay on the ground
between us, unmoving and still as a corpse, already.  The pull was almost
unbearable.  His body was dying; his soul about to be shed.

     “Ashrael?”  Fate watched me,
her eyes as sharp as a predator, gloating in her victory.  She displayed
the purple thread, pinched between the finger and thumb of both hands,
stretched taut, to the breaking point.  It was so ragged in spots from
where she had played with it, there was a good chance that it would fray
completely apart before she had the chance to snap it.

     I had trouble focusing on her. This
was not right.  I knew the signs of a ripe soul, and Isabel’s father was
not ready to transition.  If he were taken too soon, he ran the risk of
being lost. This was the trap I had fallen into, and it was beautiful in its
simplicity.  I had to take him, or see him wander as another lost Sorrow,
but if I did, I would destroy the girl I held in my arms.  Either way,
Isabel lost her father.

     Isabel whimpered in my arms. 
Too late, I realized that I had been crushing her.  I released her, and
immediately regretted it.  She ran across the clearing to throw herself
across her father’s motionless body.  Recklessly, she placed herself
within reach of both Halo and Fate.

     “Do your job, Reaper.  I
shouldn’t have to tell you twice.”  The pull became a sharp, constant
pain.  I started forward, unable to resist the call of the soul about to
slip away.

     “Asher!”  It was Grim, calling
to me, stalling me, trying to give me something to hold onto.  My head
jerked in his direction.  His dark eyes warned me, held me. He was still
my Brother.  It was something, but not enough to resist the Summons.

     Beside him stood Gwen, her teeth
bared in a mute howl of rage.  Grim held her across the waist in a firm,
yet gentle grasp.  She fought to get to Isabel, with surprising strength,
given her recent injuries. I was grateful that she could not.  I admired her
loyalty to her friend, but this way meant death for her.  There was still
some small hope that Grim might get her away.  Isabel need not lose both
her father and her friend on the same night.

     “Take the girl, Grim. 
Now.”  The words came out low, and harsh.  It cost me much to utter
them. 

     Under normal circumstances, Grim
would argue with me, urge me to fight, but he had the girl to worry about.
 She would surely die, if he stayed.  He nodded once, resigned to follow
my orders. He disappeared with the girl, kicking and screaming though she
was.  It was only a reprieve for them.  Once she finished here, Fate
would waste no time finding both Grim and the girl.  Heavens help them
both.

     Fate’s almond-shaped eyes were
bright with barely concealed madness. “Well, Ashrael, we are waiting.”

     “I cannot do what you want.”
 It was a struggle just to get the words out.  There was something
wrong with me.  Incredible amounts of pain spread through every part of
me. 
What
was happening to me?  I had to get to Isabel. 
Had to
, but I could
barely catch my next breath, much less reach her in time to save her.  The
pain was in every part of me, demanding my attention.

      I barely registered it when
Clotho came up behind Izzy to breathe her poison into her ear.  “You
should know, that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a soul.” 
Isabel did not cringe away from her, just glared at her dry-eyed.  “The
final injury, of course, is when a reaping goes horribly wrong, and a soul is
left to wander.  I’ve heard it’s a Hell of a different sort.”

     Isabel covered her father as best
she could.  Her eyes met mine across the small distance, and they were
terrified.  She feared me. She looked at me like I was a monster.  I
might have been a monster, but I loved her, and would never purposely hurt
her.  I could not take her father from her.

     “I will not do it,” I had to bite
the words out.

     “Of course, you can, and you
will.  You are the Angel of Death.  That,” she pointed towards Isabel
and her father, “is a dying mortal. Harvest his soul.  It’s as natural as
breathing to you.  Do what you are meant to do, Reaper.  Let her see
the monster you really are.”

     The pain reached its pinnacle,
burned through me, and a scream tore from my throat as I collapsed onto my
hands and knees.  For a moment, my vision went black and I heard Fate’s
clear, ringing laughter.  “Delightful,” she murmured.

     I blinked hard, fought for
consciousness.  Did I hallucinate?  Isabel had abandoned her father
to come to me.  She was on her knees in front of me, holding me up. 
“Asher, what’s wrong with you?  Look at me.  What is it?”  Her
voice was raw, panicked.  She was at her breaking point.

     “Free will, child.  His lack
of it, is what ails him.  He cannot refuse to take your father.”

     “He just did, you crazy
bitch.”  Small hands clutched at me, her fingers were against my skin,
feverish and urgent, holding me up, trying to give me strength.  “You have
to fight through this.  Do you hear me?  You
have
to.  I can’t
do this by myself.”

     Fate stood over us, gloating. 
“Do you know what happens to an angel who refuses his true nature? He becomes
Fallen. That is what’s happening here. His refusal is tearing him apart. 
And why would he do that," she purred, "but for love of a
human.  The mighty Ashrael has Fallen.” She rubbed her hands together,
gloating.  "Oh, I knew that I would enjoy this. I’ve waited so long,
but this is too marvelous for words."

     It was agony that consumed
me.  It twisted and destroyed everything inside of me.  My wings tore
through the flesh of my back without being called, and some of the feathers
drifted around me and fell uselessly to the ground.  The need to harvest
was nearly unbearable, yet still I resisted.  I could not take Isabel’s father
from her.  She would despise me for it.  Instead, I kneeled upon the
ground and bit my lip to stop the screams from rising.  I might not have
free will, but I would never give that vicious bitch the satisfaction of
begging for her release.

     “Asher, hang onto me.  Can you
hear me?”  I nodded, though speech was beyond me at that point. 
Isabel’s lips were against my ear, her breath hot, and insistent.  “Take
my energy.  Use it.  Fight her.”

     It was useless.  I might be
able to fight Fate, but I could not fight my own nature.  Isabel’s small
hands clasped mine and I felt the surge of her Will as it flooded me.  Too
much.  That small body held too much power, and it exploded through her
palms and into mine.  It washed through me and cooled the fire eating me
alive.  How she did it, I have no idea, but she did it.

     The monster inside me sighed and
stretched, reached for its mate, and its match. The energy flowed between us, a
living thing unto itself, and it healed me.  

     It worked.  Isabel stopped my
transformation, but at what cost to her?  She lay across my lap, fragile
and pale.  I was still weak, but no longer suffering the tortures of the
damned.  Miraculously, the pull of the Summons had faded to almost
nothing, just an echo of an ugly memory.  It was still there, but I could
control it, now.

     It was Isabel who worried me. 
Her lips were white, and her eyes were hooded as she watched me.  “Are you
alright,” she asked, softly.  Her heartbeat was weak and sluggish. 
She had given almost everything she had, to save me.

     I nodded.  “I am. 
Because of you.”  Some of her hair had come out of the braid, and I
brushed it away from her face. Her skin was cool to the touch.

     “Get my dad out of here,
okay?”  There was goodbye in her eyes.

    I shook my head. “Not without you.”

     Isabel shook her head.  “I’m
not going anywhere.  I’m sorry.”  That note of finality in her voice
scared me more than words can say.

     “Well, isn’t this touching?” 
Fate watched with a viper’s glare.  “I do love a happy ending.  It’s
almost a pity that you two won’t be getting one.”

     I shifted my gaze to Fate. 
“Why are you doing this?”  I had known for centuries that she was petty
and possibly insane, but even for her this was over the top.

     “She didn’t tell you, did
she?”  Her slow smile lit up her face with terrible joy.  “How
awfully bittersweet.  To lose the one you love, almost as soon as you’ve
found her; that must be excruciating for you, Ashrael.  Do tell us all about
it.”  She still held the thread, played with it absently, coiled it over
and over around her fingers.

     “What are you talking about? 
What was she supposed to tell me?” 

     Isabel stirred against my
side.  She looked towards her father’s body, then back to me.  Her
shoulders drooped.  “It was a set-up, from the beginning,” she said, as
she slowly sat up on her own.  “It was a trap for you, and I was the
bait.”

     I no longer cared that Fate was
watching over us, gloating.  “I do not understand.”  And I did
not.  Fate had nothing to do with us.

     She motioned towards Fate, and
avoided looking at me. “You pissed her off at some time, back in the day. 
My best guess is that you turned her down.”

     I nodded, remembering back,
literally thousands of years before.  Fate had made her preference for me
known, both to me and everyone else.  My denial of her had been an
embarrassment, surely, but to wait so long for revenge, and for something so
trivial… it was inconceivable.

     “To get even with you,” Isabel
continued, “she created me.  She bred me like a science experiment, and
molded my personality into something that you would want.  For what it’s
worth, I only found out about it once you took me to the Aerie.”  Finally,
her eyes lifted to mine.  “So, you see, whatever you thought you felt for
me wasn’t real.”

     “It does not matter.”  I
reached for her, but she snatched her hand back.

     “It matters, Asher.  It wasn’t
real.  None of it was real.  She freaking designed me to hurt
you.  She wanted me to break your heart, but I can’t do it; not even to
save my dad.”

     Fate watched her with all the pity
a child might show a butterfly pinned to an exhibit.  “Oh, my darling, I
said that you would break his miserable heart, and so you shall.  Your
cooperation was never required.” 

     She moved like a striking snake,
reached out and grabbed a handful of Isabel’s braided hair, pulling her away
from me, none too gently.  Isabel bit her lip to keep from
screaming.  “Your death will be just the thing, I think.  This is your
final incarnation, little Reaper.  When you die this time, it’s for keeps.
You won’t be back.”

     I was on my feet, still weak, but
no longer helpless.  “Let her go, Clotho, your quarrel is with me, not
her.”