Excerpt from Falling

Falling from Grace.

How does one describe the sensation? How does an angel process the horror of being cast out, thrown from the gates of Paradise to plummet through the heavens? How can a fragile body survive the horrific, bone-shattering cold, the agony of fire, burning and reaving the flesh from bone?

Kokabiel, the Star of God, was now a fallen star, blazing through the heavens, his soundless screams ripping through the fabric of the universe. Through the void of time and space, his cries echoed by the screams of others who were as unfortunate as he.

He did not know the nature of his crime, only that he’d been cruelly betrayed, abandoned by those he loved and trusted. He had been powerful in the celestial realm, but was now helpless here in the thin, frigid air of the blue planet below.

He hurtled and tumbled, his magnificent wings unable to gain purchase in the insubstantial atmosphere. He blazed with a glorious white light as he streaked through the sky. Again he screamed in agony of the body, anguish of the soul and deathly fear of his fate. Then he slammed into the Earth in an explosion of fire and steam and soil, his skin and flesh seared away, every bone in his body ground to powder.

* * * *

Kokabiel lay deep under the surface of the Earth, where he remained for hours and days and years until one morning he emerged, whole in body, but damaged and tainted in mind and soul. He burrowed his way through the mud and ice of the Earth’s crust, emerging from the rich black soil in an unwitting parody of birth.

Naked and filthy, he sprawled on the new spring grass, chest heaving, bewildered by the colors and shapes he saw, confused by sounds that filtered past the mud in his ears. Strange animals surrounded Kokabiel, ignoring him as they grazed in the field. Creatures wheeled through the sky overhead, borne on feathered wings, much like his…

He twisted, eyes wide in horror. They were gone. Burned away. Only charred stumps remained where his wings belonged. Panic gripped his heart and he lurched to unsteady feet, once again searching for the wings that he felt, yet were not to be seen. He opened his mouth to cry out, but only a coarse sound emerged from his throat, bursting past his mud-coated tongue.

Kokabiel started to flee in panic, but clumsy legs betrayed him, spilling him to the muddy ground where he lay panting, the crippling fear too much to fight.

“They’re still there, lad. The wings’ll grow back soon enough, now that you’re back in the light.”

Kokabiel rolled over and located the voice. He scrambled on his backside, trying to distance himself from the threat. The creature looked familiar—two legs, two arms, a good-natured face under a mop of dirt-brown curls that glistened with silver. He couldn’t understand the words the man spoke, but the meaning registered in his brain.

“Ah… It’s all right. You laddies are always near daft once you wake up. Don’t know if it’s the fall”—he glanced at the heavens, then looked down at the soil—”or if it’s the landing. Either way, you angels got it rough. Took you longer than most. You must have fallen farther.” He grinned, exposing a roguish smile. “I’m Reux. That means headache.” He chuckled at his own words. “Needless to say, I don’t use it often. You can call me Rex. That means king. Better name, if you ask me. Now, what do I call you?”

He moved a little closer, and Kokabiel eyed the creature nervously, for this was no human nor was it an angel. Rex looked like a man, but through eyes blurred with fatigue, Kokabiel saw something else entirely. Something manlike and charming. Something magical. Surely this was no demon?

Rex moved closer, squatting down on his haunches, resting his arms on his knees, long, slender hands hanging loose. His legs were clad in worn fabric breeches. A woven cloth shirt hung loose to his mid-thigh. Scuffed leather boots rose to his knees. The creature’s eyes were no color Kokabiel had ever seen, brown mixed with green and gold, harmonizing with his richly colored curls and warm brown skin. The forest green of his eyes echoed the rich green of his shirt.

An ornate amulet dangled from a worn leather cord around his neck. Magic resonated from the object.

“You’re a pretty one, aren’t you? That’s going to be a problem right quick. I’ll have to keep you hidden from the lassies till you’re on your feet. Can you tell me your name?”

Rex’s voice was mesmerizing, lyrical. Kokabiel felt his heart settle, his fear beginning to recede. Panic rose once more with the realization that knowledge was flooding into his brain. Colors had names. Words had meaning.

Excerpt from Burn

Who knew that ice could burn like fire?

Miles beneath the surface of the Earth, she lay, slowly waking. Panic came hard and fast, her eyes were glazed and frozen. Ice invaded every orifice of her body—nostrils and ears and mouth—preventing her from seeing, hearing…screaming. Hell wasn’t fire. No. Hell was ice.

She burned. Demon fire licked her skin even as the ice held her captive in its grip.

Her frozen body convulsed and long-stored energy exploded from her innermost being. Above her, the slowly thawing permafrost buckled and groaned, the landscape altered and shifted. Trees fell, lakes drained and animals fled for safety.

An old woman stood. She was heavily cloaked in skins and furs. Her bright brown eyes gleamed like polished obsidian in her deeply creased face. As though she was much younger, the woman rode out the Earth’s pains, waiting patiently as water began to bubble from a sheet of ice. As soon as it touched the frigid air, the water froze into elaborate formations that were the expression of nature’s finest art.

The agonized shift of ice sounded like a scream in the old woman’s ears. Pain and fear resonated through the air. Before the imprisoned creature came forth from the grip of the glacier, her energy burst from within, swirling in a red, turbulent cloud. She was desperate…starving.

Before the woman’s eyes, the creature’s spirit vanished, seeking a path to the energy it needed to live and survive this torturous rebirth. Ahnah looked across the great chasm in the ice and faced the demon who stood leering at her. He also waited for the rebirth of the ice-bound creature. He’d been the one to send demon fire down to awaken her.

She supposed he looked pleasant to most people. Even handsome. But Ahnah gazed at him with knowing eyes and saw only twisted malevolence. He was a parasite who delighted in the taking of others. And he waited for the powerful female locked in the ice beneath their feet.

“She’s not for a cannibal such as you, Kelet.”

The demon grinned and waited. His human façade melted until he crouched on his haunches, clawed fingers scratching impatiently at the surface of the ice.

For endless hours they faced each other there in the frigid, whirling winds. It was a long walk home, and would be longer since the cold was creeping steadily into her bones. But Ahnah knew her responsibility to the Fallen. She’d long heard stories of the star-colored woman who’d crashed into the ice, fleeing the great monster who pursued her. It hadn’t been Kelet, but another. One who’d tortured and twisted the angel into an unwilling mockery of herself.

She’d fled to save others. That’s what Ahnah had heard. She’d fled to escape the dark ones who wished to use her, to consume her soul. The wise woman reached into the folds of her clothing and drew out an amulet on a leather cord. It was her most powerful medicine, whalebone carved by the skilled hands of her grandmother’s grandmother. It carried the power and magic of every woman who’d owned it. She smiled inwardly when the demon’s power wavered slightly in the presence of the sacred object.

He frowned and looked down in bewilderment, shaking his clawed hands, which slowly became the same colors as the gray and white landscape. For the first time, fear showed in his eyes.

Ahnah had no mercy for the demon and watched without pity as the ice grew up to trap his feet in place. “You should not have come to this place, Kelet.” The demon wasn’t a stranger to her, normally she’d accept him as part of Nature’s balance and allow him to live. But now, today, the stakes were too high. She showed no mercy as ice slowly claimed his body.

Time stretched out meaninglessly and Ahnah waited without becoming weary or afraid. In time, the Fallen’s spirit would return to her body, well-fed and healthy. And so the old woman waited, her back hunched to the wind, her careful gaze on the broken, crumbled crater in the ice.

Excerpt from Heaven

In the darkness, the true measure of a man or woman can be weighed.

Noemi Gastineau lay on her side, curled tightly into a fetal position, allowing the other presence in her mind to run rampant, to succumb to blind panic. She refused to give Anahita a voice, though. The succubus could indulge in her fear, but not a sound left her throat. After seemingly endless hours spent buried in the darkness of an unknown cave, Noemi calmly, assertively took over, forcing the other half of her psyche to submit to her control.

She took a deep breath, then another.

“Okay, girls. This isn’t a new situation for us—for me.” She slowly relaxed her muscles, stretching out and sitting up. “In fact, compared to waking up in a glacier, this is a picnic.” She opened her eyes wide, hoping to catch some vestige of light, something that would reassure her that she really, truly wasn’t buried alive, sealed in a cave deep under the ground. The stygian blackness of the cave was unrelieved and Noemi shivered, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I guess all the years trapped in that glacier would explain why I hate getting cold.”

Anahita didn’t answer, and why should she? Noemi was Anahita. In a sense, they were three—the doctor, the succubus and the whole woman.

That knowledge brought a slightly hysterical laugh to Noemi, and she fought the urge to curl up again like a baby in the womb. But Noemi was strong. Noemi hunted and fought demons.

Noemi hadn’t known what lived within her all this time.

“No, Anahita, you don’t have a voice. We are the same person. I accept that, just as I accept your memories as my own.”

With that admission, Noemi’s mind skipped through the recent and distant past. She vividly recalled the many times she’d honed in on Rex’s bright, vivid life-light, returning to feed from him again and again. She also recalled Rion’s fearful reaction to her presence. The confusion and guilt and near despair she’d felt at his rejection.

But he came back to me. Even though he doesn’t remember, in his heart he knows who I am.

“Yes, Anahita, he knows. I’m sure of it.”

Satisfaction pulsed through the succubus. Her relief was nearly painful to experience. Anahita’s love for the men carried the sharp edge of desperate fear. She had pursued them relentlessly, yet sacrificed all to their well-being. Her greatest fear was losing them, yet she’d set Orion Hunter free when his fear of the succubus grew overwhelming. When he’d taken Rex to China, Anahita had stayed behind, knowing her kind were feared and loathed within Chinese culture.

Sacrifice. In an abstract sense, Noemi had always believed love was meaningless without the ability to be selfless. Basic and primal as she was, Anahita never thought twice about the sacrifices she made for Rion and Rex.

As she evaluated the shadow existence she’d lived in the hours while Anahita controlled her life, Noemi felt some degree of pride. The succubus was anything but evil. She had evolved into a strong, ethical person, even when freed from Noemi’s conscious control.

“And why shouldn’t Anahita be a good person? She… I sacrificed myself all those years ago. I Fell a second time to avoid hurting anyone.” And she allowed herself to remember the slow advance of the darkness that had crept into her soul. The hatred and anger and fear wound together in a corruption of who she’d been. Noemi remembered the day when Anahita had looked at her reflection in a shallow puddle of water and seen the inception of evil. In that moment of clarity, she knew she would soon become truly evil. She would be dangerous to all around her.

Dyffyd had been long gone, away at war, so her wings had grown back. The white feathers were laced with greasy-looking gaps of black membrane. She’d been corrupted in both body and soul. Though she’d been crippled by starvation, weak with her fear, Anahita had climbed into the heavens then plunged downward into icy, fiery pain. As horrible as it had been, she’d never found the oblivion she’d sought.

Deep in the grip of memory, Noemi barely noticed when the darkness began to soften around her. Golden light tinged with red glowed within the chamber, allowing her to see her prison.

In confusion, she looked around for the source of the illumination, only to discover that it came from her body.

“Damnation,” she whispered.

She deliberately relaxed, letting the light swell. Her long, straight hair suddenly seemed heavier and more luxuriant. Her dark skin had a distinctly golden gleam.

A convulsive gasp pulled through her chest and pain blossomed deep in her back.

Wings, she thought, and they came forth. Great, black-feathered wings, edged with molten light. Noemi slowly stood and flexed those massive wings, a smile lighting her face as power and strength radiated through her body. Anahita was triumphant.

It’s been so very long since I was whole.