Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (21 page)

Determined that he would
not make me feel helpless, I glanced around for anything, anything at all that
I could use as a weapon, settling for an old wooden broom.  I turned it around
and wielded it in front of me like a pike.

“That’s no way to greet a
friend,” Lucas purred with his oily voice, obviously amused, and a wave of
revulsion rippled through my body.  “I just hope that you can be more gracious
with my colleagues.”

The shadows, which had
retreated to the back of the basement, stirred again.  I strained my eyes and
then, one by one, I began to pick out the hulking figures.  Some I recognized
as Lucas’ regular posse of high school friends.  Others had eyes that had
haunted me in my dreams – my nightmares that now, I could see, had been but
premonitions of what was to come.

“What have you done with
Maria?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Maria?” He sneered. 
“Who knows what happened to your precious Maria?  She was just a useful tool in
our little game.”

“Game?” I echoed, confused.

Lucas chuckled.  “Don’t
tell me you don’t understand what this is all about?”  He clucked maternally,
mocking me.  “Poor Hope. Left in the dark, so innocent.  Well, let me be the
one to enlighten you.  It’s not Maria we want.  It’s you.”

My mind reeled.

“But Maria,” I protested,
weakly, the pit of dread growing larger in my stomach.  “She called me.  She
said she needed help.”

Lucas’ face contorted
with disgust.  “You humans, your minds are so weak. You fail to recognize the
truth, even when it is standing before you!  Here’s your Maria,” he spat.

His body quivered and
melted, his features twisting and his body shrinking to that of a tiny,
terrified Mexican girl.

“Hope, I need your help,”
she whimpered in Maria’s voice, sounding exactly like the voice on the phone.

“No,” I protested weakly
in denial.  “No!”

The fear was too much for
me.  I sank forward on my knees once more, my stomach heaving.  Wave after wave
of nausea swept through me.  I struggled to catch my breath, only to gag on my
bile until finally, there was nothing left.  I shivered in the dark, filthy
from dirt and vomit, waiting.

I stared into the dirt
and noticed, for the first time, the carpet of black feathers scattered all
about me.  How could I have been so blind? I cursed my naïveté, my refusal to
see the signs.  My mind raced, trying to find a way out.  I was here, by
myself, with no one aware that I was even missing.  My mother wasn’t due home
for days.  I was surrounded.  Trapped.  And not just by thugs – by Fallen
Ones.  By the time anyone missed me, it would be too late.

Michael!
  I clung to the idea of him like a
life raft, but no sooner had it entered my mind when I rejected it.  He didn’t
know where I was, either, and as much as he felt obligated to protect me, his
powers did not extend to knowing where I was.

No, I was going to have
to get myself out of this one on my own.

I braced my body and
struggled to my feet. Lucas had morphed back into his own body, only now a
majestic pair of jet-colored wings stretched out behind his bare torso.  Even
in the half-light of the abandoned building, I could see the edge of each
feather, sharply etched as if chiseled into stone or steel.  His muscles
rippled and the wings seemed to pulse with threatening energy.   A gust of air,
stirred by their great expanse, wafted toward me and on it I smelt the
tell-tale scent of sulfur.

I dragged my sleeve
across my face, wiping the last of the vomit from my chin.  I swallowed hard,
my throat raw.  The pain sharpened my focus.  I drew my breath and spoke, my
chin raising defiantly as I glowered at Lucas.

“So.  You’ve been
following me this whole time.”

Lucas shrugged, his wings
beating once more.  “It was entertaining enough, taunting Michael that way.”

He eyed me with amusement
as he began to circle.  Behind his wings, I noticed his mob had seemed to
vanish.

He continued talking as
he paced.  “Michael didn’t tell you about us, did he?  Didn’t tell you we were
Fallen Ones?  But he knew we were stalking you.  Isn’t that odd, Hope? That he
would keep that little detail to himself?”

I didn’t answer, but he
saw something in my eyes, something that prompted him to continue.

“Did he tell you he might
be endangering you, paying you all that attention?  Did you mention to him that
birds had attacked you? Did you show him the feather you found, Hope, or tell
him about the funny smell of the lightning that night on the mountain?”

He was enjoying himself
now, enjoying the drama of the moment, enjoying the fact that I had no choice
but to give him the audience he craved.  I willed myself to be still, willed my
ears to close to the poison he was spewing.  But still he came, winding closer
and closer, until I could feel his hot breath on my face.

“You did, didn’t you,
Hope?  But Michael never told you the truth, did he?  Does it hurt, Hope,
knowing that the one you trusted was willing to put you at such risk?” He
stopped circling then, inches from my face.  His black wings blotted out
everything else as he raised them up as if to shelter us.  His eyes were greedy
as he reached out with one, hot hand, dragging his fingertips across my cheek
in a mockery of a caress.

“Get your hands off of
her.”

The voice boomed and
echoed in the dark, bouncing off the abandoned machines and lonely walls,
magnifying its rage.

“Ah, Michael.”  Lucas’s
face broke into a radiant smile, and the dark shadows surrounding us seemed to
pulse with energy.  Lucas released my face with a flourish, spinning away to
face the voice.  “Are your ears burning? We were just talking about you.”

Michael stepped from the
shadows.  His wings were unfurled, great, shimmering white things that looked
invitingly soft until, giving full expression to Michael’s fury, they seemed to
stretch to an even greater expanse.  With a forceful pulse, they sliced the
air.  An inferno of wind whipped around me.

I let my eyes roam over
the rest of him.  His naked torso seemed to glow with a light that emanated
from within.  Every muscle seemed chiseled out of stone, taut and ready for a
fight.  I dragged my eyes from his broad shoulders, which showed no strain from
the burden of wings, to the spot where his carved abdomen disappeared inside
low-slung jeans. 

Weak-kneed, I dragged my
eyes away to meet his gaze.  There, the rage I saw for Lucas melted into a look
of fear and concern.

Lucas continued on, as if
Michael’s interruption was nothing more than an intermission to his carefully
planned show.  “The whole situation seemed….strange to me, I must say.  Was
Michael, the vaunted Michael, Leader of the Host, falling for this…mousey thing?” 
He gestured to me halfheartedly.

“You go too far, Lucas,”
Michael threatened, taking one step closer.

Lucas ignored him,
circling once more so that I found myself trapped between the two angels.

“You always were a lover
of humanity,” Lucas taunted, spitting the word ‘humanity’ as if it were a vile
curse.  “First to bow before Adam.  The only one of us who clung to him after
he was exiled from Paradise.  Instead of despising it, you embraced God’s
mistake, set it on a pedestal, and worshipped it!”

Michael’s voice was cold
as stone.  “I save my worship for God.”

Lucas’s eyes rolled with
rage as he squared off to face Michael.  He stretched his wings, the dark veins
in his arms and chest surging and straining with his movement.

“Even when mankind turned
upon itself, even when Cain took the life of his own brother, you begged for
them, and hid them away to shield them from the Lord’s rage!  No, your love for
humanity has been sickening to watch.  So it didn’t surprise me that you might
finally stumble, finally fall for one of your beloved creatures.” Foam flecked
his lips and his hands clenched, opening and closing with impotent fury as he
continued to spew his venom.  “I should have known you had a darker motive.”

Michael’s forehead
crumpled in confusion.

“The girl has nothing to
do with this quarrel between us, Lucas.  Let her be,” Michael said, a note of
uncertainty creeping into his voice.

“Nothing to do with us!”
Lucas sputtered, clearing the distance between us in two quick strides. 
“Nothing to do with us!” he repeated, disbelief mingling with his anger.  “Deny
it, then, deny it!”

He grabbed my hair and
brusquely twisted my neck, baring it to Michael’s gaze as he dragged me toward
his enemy.

“Deny you knew she bears
the Mark,” he challenged as he threw me to the ground at Michael’s feet.

An uneasy quiet
surrounded me.  I could feel their gaze, burning as they stared at the
unwelcome stain that had tattooed itself onto my skin so many years ago.

I waited, breath held,
body poised for flight, for Michael to speak.

Michael drew one deep,
ragged breath.  “Pick her up,” he ordered, a frightening coldness in his voice.

I felt myself pulled
roughly upright and pushed away.  I stumbled about, trying to steady myself
before looking up to meet Michael’s gaze.  His eyes were hard.  No
understanding or comfort there – just rejection.  The shock was like a slap in
the face, but I refused to be cowed, refused to break his gaze.

“You cannot have her,”
Michael stated flatly, as if I wasn’t even there.

“You cannot subvert prophecy,
Michael,” Lucas spoke into the night, a mournful note touching his speech. 
“She is the one spoken of in the Book of Enoch.”

“You don’t know that for
sure,” Michael said without emotion, holding my gaze.

Lucas snorted
derisively.  “If we bar-coded her, it couldn’t be more obvious.  Look at it. 
She is the Key, Michael.”

When Michael didn’t
answer Lucas turned his attention to me, catching my eye with a powerful thrust
of his wings. 

“Confused, sweetheart? 
Let me break it down for you.”

“A long time ago, God
swept the patriarch Enoch into heaven and for whatever reasons he had, turned
him into an Angel.  Once there, Enoch took it upon himself to document the
world of Angels for mankind. He inscribed his book with the 7 domains of the 7
governing angels, their 49 Princes, and the entirety of the Host.  Even the
names of the Fallen Ones.”

“I know about the Book of
Enoch,” I replied calmly, waiting for Michael to give some sign, waiting for
Lucas to get to his point so I could somehow, finally, find a way out of here.

“Ah, but you don’t, my
dear.  You know
of
the Book, you do not know
about
the Book, for
it has been lost to mankind.  Spirited back to the Angels, where their secrets
belong.  Many of your kind have tried to recover it – some even claim to have
seen it – but no one knows, truly, what it contains.”

“But I know,” he
whispered in my ear, making me jump.  He had managed to sneak right behind me
and was breathing his tale quietly for effect.  He folded me in his arms. 
Instinctively, I tried to pull away from the heat and stench of him, but his
arms tightened around me like bands, restraining me.  Unable to move away, I
closed my eyes, trying to imagine myself anywhere else but here.  But I
couldn’t escape the relentless progress of his words.

“And Michael knows.  We
know that Enoch was not just a patriarch, he was a prophet.” His whisper was
tantalizing, seductive, almost soothing as he spun the tale like Scheherazade.

“We know one day, the
Fallen will rise up.  Their army will overpower the Host of Heaven and finally,
they will reclaim what once was theirs.  Enoch foretold it, and we have seen it
inscribed in his Book.  It will happen.  It is inevitable.  Nothing can stop
it. Nothing.

“For millennia we have
waited, watching and yearning for our chance.”  His muscles were taut like
bowstrings, and I could feel him quivering with anticipation.  He tightened his
grip upon me with one arm.  I felt him reach up and part my hair reverently,
breathing in its fragrance as he buried his head in it.

“All we needed, Hope, was
the Key to open Heaven’s Gate, which had been so cruelly shut upon our faces.”

His hand slid down my
neck, and I felt the hot trail of his fingertip as it traced the design etched
into my skin.

“All we needed, all this
time, was you.”

Shock and despair rippled
through me and I felt my knees weaken, but there was no where to go, nowhere to
fall, trapped as I was by his steely arm.

I looked up, searching
desperately for Michael’s eyes.

“Is it true?” I
whispered, my heart begging him to deny it.

He hung his head, his
golden hair hiding his eyes from mine.  As Michael’s wings sagged uselessly at
his side, Lucas dumped me on the floor before him, and I wept.

Chapter 9 – Angel Flight

A train whistle sounded its lonely cry, snapping me out of my
grief and back to the dank cellar.  I lifted my eyes and squinted through the
cratered ceiling into the sky, trying to find a glimpse of light, but dawn was
too far off to break the darkness.