Winged Passion, page 10
part #3 of Heaven's Heart Series
Reaching for the list provided by Sylvester and Laird, Seraphina read, “Lucifer has three residences in the Human Realm.”
“Then we will have to search all three.”
Chapter 20
Trick shoved a handful of spells into a backpack, moved his garrote to a better position, added a few throwing stars, and then slid a slim electronic tablet into its designated pocket. They had three houses to search, to start with, and four days left to do it. The first one was in Miami, the second in Iceland, and the third, New Zealand, near Hobbiton.
Go figure.
He’d never taken Lucifer for a Tolkien fan, but who knew?
“The book says that the collection was reviewed in his Miami residence,” Seraphina said. She was dressed head to toe in black tactical gear and bristled with weapons. She was already wearing a small backpack chock-full of spells.
“Yes, which makes me think it won’t be there anymore.” He doubted Lucifer would have kept the entire collection in one place—especially if humans had catalogued it.
“But you think Iceland is the next likely option?” Her voice betrayed her skepticism.
“His residence is near Dimmuborgir.”
“I am unfamiliar with this place, is it dangerous?”
Trick stared at her. “You’re an angel and you don’t know? In Icelandic tradition, it is said to be the place where Satan landed after he fell from Heaven. But we all know Satan has never stepped foot in Heaven—so it’s referring to Lucifer and his fall.”
“It is but one human tradition.”
“In this case, they’re right.” Lucifer was the first angel to be cast from Heaven—his wings gone, his pride bloated, and his power immense. He’d crash-landed in a volcano and had lived. Dimmuborgir had formed as a result. Human scientists had dated the lava flow to only be a little over two thousand years old, but the original formation was much older than that.
“If he chose Iceland because of its relevance to his fall, why Miami and New Zealand?” Seraphina asked.
“I’ve no idea. Maybe the summer climate of Miami reminds him of Hell? As for the New Zealand location, maybe he liked the Lord of the Rings?” That trilogy he had read. Sylvester had tried to force him to watch the movies, but they were way lengthy, and he struggled to sit still for more than an hour at a time. Trick had to stay busy. Forget that. As the ruler of a mercenary guild, he was busy.
Besides, when you actually knew how to fight with a sword, watching actors do it was almost painful.
“Who is this Lord of the Rings?” Seraphina asked, putting her hands on her hips. The fallen angel appeared ready to tackle this new menace bare-handed if need be.
I’d love to see her do it.
“Tolkien.”
“I’ve never heard of him. Is he a powerful sorcerer?”
“He was actually a linguist.”
“Really. Huh.” Seraphina looked impressed.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was all fictional. Maybe later, when she isn’t wearing quite so many weapons.
How about when she isn’t wearing anything at all?
Gritting his teeth, he chose to ignore that thought and accompanying blood rush to his groin. He wasn’t a teenager anymore—hadn’t been for millennia. He should be able to control his baser urges.
But why would you want to?
Normally, he’d have agreed with that idea wholeheartedly, but it was foolish to do so this time. Angels are not to be messed with. This one would rather slit my throat than fuck me.
The reminder only served to enflame his libido more.
He sighed.
Why do I have a thing for powerful women?
“How are we going to get into Lucifer’s residence?” Seraphina demanded.
“That’s where Sylvester comes in. He’ll get us in, but we only have an hour or two to look around. We’ll have to be fast.”
“This place is a labyrinth.” She indicated the still-glowing 3D image. “Two hours won’t be long enough.”
He tied a GoPro to the shoulder strap on his backpack. He should put it on his head, but he hated the feel of the band. “It’s all we have. We’ll have to be quick.”
*
“It’s cold,” Seraphina murmured shortly after Trick teleported them to Dimmuborgir. Snow dusted almost every surface, with a few hints of greenery visible against the stark whiteness. Large protruding crags of solidified lava were visible across the snowscape, and the taste of ancient magic was thick in the air.
They were in the right location.
“Put your hood on.” Trick glanced at her as she rubbed her cheeks with gloved hands. “I thought angels weren’t meant to feel the cold.”
Grumbling, she tucked her face inside the fur-lined hood. “I’ve never liked the cold.”
“It’s chilly when you’re flying at altitude.”
She shot him a sharp glance, then focused on the bleak landscape before them. “I learned how to block the pain out. But I still don’t like it.”
Sylvester appeared next to them. He was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and black cargo pants, the pockets filled to the brim with goodies. The cambion gave a low whistle as the dying sun bled red and pink across the sky. “I don’t see any house. You said there’d be a house.”
“It’s cloaked by magic,” Trick said. “I can feel it.”
“This should help then.” The cambion tugged a locket from under his shirt.
“Is that a Clear Sight spell?” Trick asked, staring at the engraving of a wide-open eye on the face of the locket.
“Sure is.” Then he muttered, “At least you get it. Dru gave me shit for it when she saw it.”
Trick barely felt a pang of regret at the mention of Dru.
How fickle you are.
Maybe he really did have a thing for unobtainable women. Seraphina was about as unobtainable as you could get.
Sylvester opened the clasp of the locket, revealing what looked like dark eyeshadow inside. The cambion delicately ran a finger through the powder, then rubbed it on each eyelid. It was a smoky color—all it served to do was make Sylvester’s baby-blue eyes even bluer.
“We’re putting on makeup?” Seraphina asked, dubious. But she reached over anyway, dabbed a finger in the magical eyeshadow, and applied it as Sylvester had.
Trick did the same. His eyelids stung for a moment, making him blink rapidly. Once the irritation had faded, though, his eyesight was better than it had ever been.
And a great hulking monolith of a house had appeared, perched between stony outcrops.
It was barely three hundred yards away. Thousands of tourists would travel past it each year without being any wiser as to its existence.
It is rather brilliant.
He didn’t like giving Lucifer any credit, but this was some powerful magic at play. He noticed some of the glyphs and symbols used in the spell work—apparent now he wore the eyeshadow—were not angelic in origin.
He’d hired sorcerers.
And from the hieroglyphics involved, Set was one of them.
So why had Set lived in Satan’s realm—Inferno—and not in Sheol with Lucifer?
Something to be pondered at a later date.
“Impressive,” Sylvester said, eyeing the architecture.
Seraphina snorted. “It’s ostentatious.”
“Ostentatious? I would have said it was a Brutalist nightmare.” It was large, blocky, and had huge soaring windows punctuated by concrete pillars.
“This would have been built before Brutalism was even a thing,” Sylvester said.
“Maybe it was the inspiration?”
“Yeah, except nobody can see it.”
“But people can see us.” Seraphina snapped.
“Do your thing.” Trick waved a hand at her.
“Do what thing?”
“Angels can make themselves and others invisible with a blood spell. Get cracking.”
Surprise gave her pause, then she nodded, and grabbed a knife. She ran it down her forearm and watched the blood seep for a moment. It was dark red against the ebony of her skin. “Come here.”
Both Sylvester and Trick stepped forward. With her blood, she drew a glyph in ancient angelic on both of their chests, before doing the same to herself. Nothing happened.
“I can still see us all,” Sylvester muttered.
“That is because we’re wearing the Clear Sight spell.” Trick rolled his eyes.
“Oh yeah.”
Checking the time, Seraphina asked, “Okay, is everyone ready?”
“Yep.” Sylvester nodded.
“We have two hours before the invisibility spell will fade.”
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 21
Seraphina stood to the side as Trick and Sylvester worked the locks on the rear door of Lucifer’s Icelandic mansion. The two demons worked efficiently, like they had done this a hundred times before. The door was glass and aluminum, but it blazed with numerous spells, many written in angelic, many in other strange texts. I should have brought Raze. The locks themselves were almost blinding in their intensity.
“Done.” Sylvester backed away from the door and wiped his gloved hands on his pants. “I’m out of here. I can’t be caught near Lucifer’s place, or he will tie it back to Laird.”
Seraphina put her phone away in a pocket. She’d had it to hand in case she needed to call Raze for a translation, but Sylvester hadn’t needed any help.
“Even you call him that?” Trick asked, putting a pair of sunglasses away in his backpack.
“It’s his preferred one,” Sylvester replied, leaving his Aviators on.
“He should just use his real one.”
Sylvester raised an auburn eyebrow. “So should you.”
“Who says Trick isn’t my real name?”
“What’s your first name, then?”
“It’s a mononym. You know, like Cher, Prince, Pink.”
“Pink?”
“What? I like her music. She’s got a sense of humor.”
This was wasting time.
“I have no idea who you are talking about,” Seraphina hissed, “but can you save the banter for later, when we’re done?”
“Sure thing, angel lady.” Sylvester saluted her, then vanished.
She spun to face Trick. “He can teleport?”
“Clearly.”
She ground her teeth. She thought he’d used a spell when he’d arrived in Iceland, but the thief could come and go as he pleased. It would be nice to know the full potential of my colleagues, so I know how to use them to their best advantage.
She’d talk to Trick about getting proper run-downs on her fellow guild members. For now, she had a house to infiltrate.
“We do this just like we planned. Together, and fast.” Trick stared, as if daring her to argue.
She glanced around, but they were still alone. And there wasn’t a security camera in sight. Was Lucifer that confident?
“I still think splitting up would be better.”
“Can you teleport?”
“No.”
“Then we stick together.”
Rolling her eyes behind his back, she fell into place.
“I saw that,” he muttered.
They entered Lucifer’s house.
In the mud room, they dried their boots off, and stashed the towels in their packs. The floors were made of a shiny pale timber, and the walls a brilliant white. Quickly, they made their way through the entrance, then up a staircase. According to the plan she’d memorized, the lower levels of the house were reserved for garaging, the kitchen, a sauna, and a laundry room. The upper floors housed the living areas, formal meeting areas, and bedrooms.
It was all very...plain, really.
It wasn’t until they hurried into a long gallery that things got interesting. Paintings lined one wall, while the other was a sheet of floor-to-ceiling glass that saturated the area with sunlight. Glass and chrome cabinets lined the center of the room, each housing an artifact. More spells glowed on the display cases, and near the paintings.
“It’s like it’s a museum,” she said quietly.
“He doesn’t live here, so it probably is treated as one. A memorial—or testament—to his fall from grace.”
“Be careful. This place has modern security, as well as magic.”
“But no cameras.”
“None we can see. But we’re invisible, so it doesn’t matter.”
They split up, one walking each side of the cabinets. Wonder filled her at the rare pieces within. The Veil of Isis. Járngreipr. The Ring of Dispel. The magical items covered a cross-section of religions, legends, and beliefs. But there was no spear.
She reached the end of the gallery, disappointment weighing heavy in her stomach. “It’s not here.”
“There’s another gallery on this floor.”
They turned right at the end of the long room and moved silently toward the second gallery. This, too, was bright and airy, but because the ceiling was crafted from glass, rather than the walls. Both sides of the space had long display cases, the natural light illuminating the treasures within.
“I’ll take the left one,” Trick said.
She hurried to the right-hand side of the hall, her eyes sweeping the artifacts and their labels with quick precision. Fragment of Draconite, Marseille, France, 7th Century BCE. Then a large pendant, housing nine different gemstones, labelled Navaratna, 18th Century CE. The next item was a piece of metal, shaped like a lightning bolt. The sign read: One of the hundred bolts sent by Zeus, the Greek God, when he killed Typhon. Zeus was killed in stage two of the Great Culling. 2nd Century CE.
There were so many wonders here.
I can see why Rowan Broome thinks a museum should house them.
But the humans would never believe these were real—they would call them replicas or fakes, with no material worth. Their lack of provenance was due to their magical nature; when objects were created through powerful sorcery, or battles that had taken place in the skies, under the earth, in the sea...there were no names for such locations.
She reached the end of the gallery, with no sign of the spear.
Frustration welled within her. They were already at day three. They had but four more days to find and retrieve this spear.
Trick joined her. “No luck for me.”
“None for me, either.”
“Let’s try the next floor.” Trick turned to go back the way he came.
The third gallery had a glass ceiling as well as transparent walls. It was so bright, she squinted against the illumination, her eyesight barely able to register the glow from the protection spells. There were only seven cabinets here, and each housed only a single item.
“This seems more likely.”
Excitement urged her to hurry, but they had to be careful. Even though they were invisible, she couldn’t risk setting off any spells accidentally. The last thing they needed was Lucifer’s attention.
“How much longer until our invisibility spell wears off?” Trick asked.
She checked her watch. “Forty minutes.”
“Plenty of time.”
Green light glimmered at the edge of her vision, but this hall was so bright, it was difficult to see if there was a spell near the cabinet or not. As Trick walked toward the first display case, his shadow cast over the shiny wooden floor. She lunged toward the demon, trying to pull him back, but it was too late.
As her hand met his backpack, Trick vanished, and a millisecond later, so did she.
*
Seraphina hit the ground hard, the wind momentarily knocked out of her. She lay on her back, trying to convince her lungs it was okay to breathe. When she next opened her eyes, there was nothing but inky darkness. Panic gripped her, until she realized her lack of vision was because they were someplace dark, not because the spell had sent her blind. Her eyesight soon adjusted to the gloom.
Rough stone walls soared around and above them, while iron bars punched from the floor to the roof, trapping them inside.
Her stomach sank. They were in a cell. The scent of sulfur was thick in the air, the rotten-egg odor nauseating. It wasn’t this strong in the guild.
“This isn’t good,” Trick mumbled. He was lying on his side, arm cradled to his chest.
“Are you hurt?” She sat up, reaching a hand out to him.
He pulled himself up with a grunt, ignoring her proffered help. “Broken arm. It will heal soon.”
“We’re in a cell.”
“No, we’re underground, back in Hell. It’s a dungeon. Probably in the Tower of Tortures.”
“Can you be sure?” Her eyes swept over him, but aside from dirt smudged on his cheek and his injured arm, he appeared well enough. Still handsome as sin.
“No.”
“Then we might be able to escape.”
“Sure, and Uriel might come down here, kiss our feet, and give you your wings back.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He leaned his head against the wall behind him, exposing the long stretch of his throat. “I mean we’re screwed.”
Chapter 22
Trick’s arm hurt like…well, Hell.
But it would mend. Broken bones always did. And courtesy of his ties to the guild and the power they granted, it would only take a few hours, rather than the two days it would have normally taken someone like him. The guild. Great. With no one to manage them, they’d probably descend into chaos by the end of the week. Managing so many diverse demon species required a firm hand and delicate balance. Without him around to control things...
Don’t worry about it yet. You’ll get out.
Sure, and the sky is pink in the Human Realm.
First things first.
Trick tried to teleport, but nothing happened. Damnit. The cell had spells to counteract teleportation. Lucifer would be foolish to have otherwise. Trick had the same magical wards on his own cells.
“Surely we can escape from here.” Seraphina stood and walked to the cell’s bars, gripping them with her hands. He opened his mouth to issue a warning, but too late. She hissed and sprung back, staring at her palms as if they had betrayed her. “That hurt.”
