Fallen Angel

2. Kirael

2

Kirael

Ten Days Later

“You won’t find it here,” came a sultry voice.

Kirael opened his eyes, wincing as he turned. He’d knelt on this ice-cold stone altar for hours, genuflecting, and the sudden movement sent a sharp wave of sensation back into his legs.

“Who’s there?” he called.

His voice rang through the crumbling stone monastery, empty except for the vines slowly pushing their way in through the cracks splitting the ceiling and the mice scurrying here and there.

He rose to his feet, squinting through the near-darkness. A single shaft of light spilled from a crack at the far end of the room. The monks who’d carved this temple into the mountainside had lived in complete darkness nearly all their lives.

Those monks were long gone though, so when a woman stepped out of the darkness and into the beam of light, Kirael tensed.

“You should not be here,” he said.

“Nor you,” the woman said, tilting her head to the side. She wore a tall white head scarf, the ivory contrasting with her coffee-colored skin. Her flowing robes rustled as she moved toward Kirael.

She held out a hand, palm up, and conjured a ball of light. The whole room brightened, enough even that Kirael could see the gentle crow’s feet and laugh lines on her face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Mere Marie. I work for Le Medcin,” she said.

Le Medcin was sort of an intermediary between Heaven and Hell. To hear his name brought up in this context was… unexpected, to say the least.

Kirael blinked. “You know who I am, then.”

“Of course. It wasn’t easy to track you down, but here we are.”

“I want you to leave. This is a place of worship,” he said.

Mere Marie’s lips twitched. “I think, at the moment, it’s just a place for you to hide.”

Kirael’s jaw tensed. “I’m trying to commune with my God.”

“And he’s not listening,” she said. “He’s not interested, Kirael.”

“And what concern is it of yours?”

“You are not the only Fallen angel to leave Hell.”

Kirael froze, her words shocking him to stillness.

“No?” he asked after a moment.

“Ezra, Lucan!” she cried, her voice thunderous in the small chamber.

Kirael’s jaw dropped as two familiar faces appeared on either side of Mere Marie. Two Fallen he’d thought never to see again, certainly never under anything less than dire circumstances.

Is this a trick? he had to wonder. A trap, perhaps?

“Lucan?” he asked.

The former head of Lucifer’s army gave Kirael a stiff nod, his blond hair shorn short, his clothes oddly modern.

“It’s no trickery,” Ezra said. Kirael glanced over at the dark-haired man, once a close personal friend of Lucifer.

“No?” Kirael asked.

“No. We all Fell as one, with heads full of pretty promises,” Lucan said, his expression dark as a thunderclap. “Ezra and I defected together, after many years of dissatisfaction.”

“Mere Marie has recruited us,” Ezra said.

Kirael was silent for a beat. “For what?”

“To keep the peace,” Mere Marie said. “To keep balance in the human world. Enacting Le Medcin’s orders, for the most part.”

“And in exchange?” Kirael asked.

“We are protected, after a fashion. And offered chances to assist Heaven, at times,” Lucan said. “Though it’s been less than a year since Ezra and I came to earth, I feel as though we’ve done a lot of good already.”

Kirael wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

“And what, you want to recruit me now?” he asked.

“You won’t last, out here on your own,” Mere Marie said. “If I could find you, Lucifer will find you. And unless there’s something I don’t know about, he’s probably going to be trying to kill you.”

Kirael smirked. “We didn’t leave things on good terms, no.”

“Come with us, at least for now,” Ezra said. “There’s no special penitence here that couldn’t be found in New Orleans.”

Kirael’s brows knit. “In America?”

“Better than… where are again?” Lucan asked, looking around.

Before Kirael could answer, Mere Marie cut in.

“What have you got to lose, Kirael?”

His stomach lurched as her words sunk in.

“Honestly?” he said. “Nothing. I have nothing left to lose.”

“You’ll fit in perfectly, then,” she said. “Now, then. Someone fly me out of here, I don’t like the damp.”

In that moment, Kirael’s life shifted with the breeze, heading in a new direction…