Feathermore

  * * *

  That night, I waited until everyone had gone to sleep. When I was sure no one was lying awake, I disappeared through the back door and onto the patio, seeing visions of my parents in happier days. I had done enough damage, and it was time to end it. I walked through the dark woods, the eerie fog churning about my ankles and hiding my feet.

  It was time to face Lilith and finish this.

  I wanted to get her as far away from the house as I could, so I had to rely on my mortal skills for now—my own two feet. Once I reached the cliff I let my wings come out. I was about to take the plunge when an unexpected rustling in the air behind me caught my attention. I turned around slowly. Usually, the impression of someone behind me was something I felt in my head. Not this time.

  Lilith.

  She stood tall, with her head held high as if she were some kind of royalty. Her hair billowed up like a blazing fire behind her, even though there was no wind. Her eyes had darkened, but the old sly smile was there as always. I saw a dark figure move behind her, but she didn’t move. It wasn’t just one but two figures. Now at her sides, flanking her in a low crouch, were Amy and . . .

  “What are you doing, Avan!” I yelled. “Run! Go home!”

  Obviously, I was having a dream—a really nasty nightmare that I needed to wake up from in a hurry. I closed my eyes as tight as I could and reopened them, only to find myself in the same spot with the same unlikely company. Had he betrayed me? Had he been with her all this time and just used me to bring me to this?

  “What have you done to him?” I spat the words.

  “Me? Barely anything, child. It was your sweet friend here who did most of the work. I just helped with the transformation.”

  Her smile rankled me, making me want to run to her and end her evil forever. But it wasn’t that easy. Nate and Claire had taught me about her, and I knew she was a powerful demon whom almost nothing could kill. They never did get around to telling me what would do the job, but this wasn’t time to go asking. I needed solutions. I had to think on my feet, and I needed to keep her busy while I thought of something

  “What transformation?” I asked, genuinely intrigued. Did she mean the possession?

  “Well, he has now become one of us, the undead.” She ran her fingers through his hair, and he moaned at her touch.

  “Get your hands off of him, you witch!” I bellowed. I wanted nothing so much as to rip her head off. “And what the hell do you mean, ‘the undead’?”

  She shook her head and took a few steps forward. “Haven’t those cherubim taught you anything, child?”

  I didn’t respond. She wasn’t interested in how much I knew. “He is a gourd now.” She shot him a look filled with lust, and he looked back at her with longing, as if he was actually in love with her. I felt revolted.

  “A what?” I asked, feeling stupid. My two great friends and guardians had neglected to mention all this.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t tell you about it. You saw what happened to her mate. I can sense you have been there. His death was what created the gourds, and I have him to thank for that. Your little friend did not take it as well.”

  What the hell was she talking about? What was a gourd? I gave her a blank stare, and she continued. “You see, when those weak angels fell into this realm looking for human women to mate with, the women didn’t last. Their mortal bodies were no match for an angel, especially a fallen one. A witch doctor told Abaddon, one of the most powerful angels, of a way to create immortal beings so that he would never have to lose one of his mates again. But it was imperative that he get a pure angel, and the pure angel would have to sacrifice himself. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work. Abaddon captured Shemer and mutilated his wings. A feather would have sufficed, but he had already been going mad. He hacked them off Shemer’s body with Shemer’s own sword and took them away to a deep, dark place within the earth. A pure angel’s blood and its feather are needed for the ritual. This contained pure heavenly divinity—an essence that all fallen angels had lost.

  She moved behind Avan and slid her hands around his shoulders, teasing me. “Abaddon infused himself with the liquid. He thought he would somehow regain his lost divinity, and so he consumed it all. Little did he know that the pure essence was too great, and the unnatural mixture of divinity with damnation produced an unexpected result.”

  She shook her head and stared me dead in the eyes. I felt my surroundings swirl into pure darkness. All of a sudden, I was in some kind of underground tunnel. Its walls, ceiling, and floor were of rough-hewn stone. A man was kneeling with his back to me, pounding the floor with a stone the size of his big hands. Even from behind, I could tell by the way his body moved and by the strength he used to hit whatever he was hitting, that he had gone mad. As he lifted the stone above his head before letting it drop again, I saw it: a white feather, stuck to the stone by a smear of blood.

  It was Abaddon.

  He lifted a silver goblet and stood up. He turned toward me, and I froze. Would he be able to see me? He walked right past me, never lifting his gaze from the yellow liquid in the goblet. I looked back at where he had been, and there on top of a boulder, smashed to a pulp, were the remnants of Shemer’s wings. White feathers lay scattered about, and some had even gotten caught on the stone walls. The brutality of what he had done was beyond my comprehension. How could anyone expect to get his divinity back by doing something so awful?

  I saw the shiny cup move. His grip tightened around it, and he with a deranged smile, he gulped it all down. The transformation was instant. I had no idea what to expect, but then, I was pretty sure he didn’t, either. He had mutated from an angelic (albeit fallen) form into a huge, scabrous, mutated, boil-ridden monster. He was no longer a fallen angel. He had become something altogether more horrifying.

  The mixed power of divinity mixed with irrevocable damnation was unnatural and corrupting. It appeared that the crime of forcibly stealing divinity from heaven had grave consequences.

  There was a flicker of movement just past him, although he couldn’t notice. He was too busy in his own suffering, wrenching and writhing back and forth, screaming out his agony. He twisted unnaturally, and the distant figures grew larger and clearer. Eight men were approaching him. As they came closer, and before allowing Abaddon to transform fully into the Leviathan (the greatest, most condemned form of darkness), they attacked him. The men’s dark wings erupted as they attempted to rip Abaddon apart so that they might infuse themselves with his stolen divinity. Somehow, it must not have occurred to them that what was happening to Abaddon had nothing to do with divinity.

  Some of the dark angels gnawed on his limbs, and some tore his wings off. I tore my gaze away from the gruesome scene unfolding in front of me. The blood flew all around, and I moved back against the wall. I was afraid to be touched by anything that came from the corrupted creature. Eventually, their grunts and their victim’s howling ceased, and I looked up. Abaddon’s body had been torn into ten pieces.

  The fallen angels whose bodies had been spattered and smeared by Abaddon’s blood began to writhe in horrible pain. Where blood had splashed their wings, the wings burned away. Where the blood had splashed their faces and skin, gruesome melting and scarring turned them into hideous devils.

  The most unfortunate, though, were the fallen ones who had bitten Abaddon, for they shared in a part of his fate. They became disfigured and horrible but also huge and powerful. Their disfiguration reminded me of the creature that had lurked outside the diner that night after the first day of school.

  “These fallen angels were what became the first true demons—and the most powerful of them,” said Lilith’s voice.

  I looked around, but I was still alone with the mutating creatures. I was glad they couldn’t see me!

  “Eventually, Abaddon’s disembodied wings and limbs mutated and transformed on the very spot where they now lie,” she continued. “His pieces continued to grow and change, and eventually each piece
reached the size of several great cities. His broken, mutated body became the ten circles of hell.”

  “I don’t want to see this . . . please,” I said softly. The smell was nauseating.

  “In due time, child, in due time. You see, with time, other dark and fallen angels who had learned about the distillation of the pure white feather, or pure divinity, went through the ten circles in search of it. They were attacked by the great demons, and tortured and mutilated until they became the lesser demons. A hierarchy formed of greater demons enslaving lesser demons, and all existed in the great domain of the ten circles.”

  “Why are you telling me this? What does all this have to do with me?” I screamed at her. I was now curling against the damp, cold stone with my eyes closed. I didn’t want to witness any more. The pain the creatures were feeling carried in the air, and I could feel it in the very depths of my soul.

  “Lucifer, the greatest of all angels, was more powerful than any other, and so his role was the greatest in conquering the fallen angels. He knew of the destruction of Shemer and of the transformation of Abaddon because he had seen it from afar. Over time, he learned the structure of the ten circles and learned of the enslavement of the demons.

  “Lucifer conquered the great demons. It was really no fight for him, and his powers took control over all the lesser entities. He resisted being turned into a mutilated demon, because his divinity remained intact. So the ten circles became his domain.

  “Abaddon paid the greatest price for his sins, and this was to become the closest thing to a nonentity. As a transformed being turned to an infernal realm, Abaddon had lost his mind utterly. The domain—what his fragments had become—was a world of viciousness though not of consciousness. Lucifer was allowed this domain to carry out his ordained task. He was to look over, dominate, and contain the fallen angels. As a consequence of this, after the creation of man, any condemned human souls were to be given into his care as well. The lives of humans were strange in that their free will allow them to be banned from heaven. Until the creation of the ten circles, there had merely been a dark underworld where the souls of condemned men might wallow in darkness.”

  She paused, and I felt the air around me stir and grow colder. I pulled my head up from where it had been resting on my knees, and saw the setting change.

  We were now inside a small, ramshackle wooden house. A single candle on a small table barely lit the room. The air was cold, and from the small window on the wall I saw that it was snowing outside. There was a fireplace, cold and flameless, which I thought strange. A man in loose-fitting rags lay on the bed, asleep.

  “This is Lahash, one of the original fallen angels,” Lilith’s voice continued. “He had been near the place of darkness when Abaddon was ripped asunder, though he was not involved in that foul business. During the chaos, a dark feather from Abaddon’s wing fluttered to where he was hiding. The single feather was the only piece of the body that did not mutate, since it had not been attached to Abaddon’s wing when the final transformation occurred.

  “Lahash kept the feather secret and stole away to protect himself from the growing mutation that became Leviathan. He was inside this small house for over a year, wandering the streets at night looking for food and for women to terrorize. A typical man.” She laughed softly. “Much later, after the conquering of the realm by Lucifer, Lahash returned to be a ward of the domain. He bargained with Lucifer to have a high position in the realm, and Lucifer allowed him to be protector of the unknown and forbidden territories.

  “Lucifer had taken a full account of all aspects of the ten circles and had forbidden any creature to go to the places where Abaddon’s essence was accessible. One such place was a spring, a pulsating geyser that emptied as a river of blood. This blood contained the transformative power, however diluted, that made a dark angel into a demon. Betraying Lucifer, Lahash filled a gourd with that blood and escaped with it to the earth above.”

  My surroundings changed again, this time to what looked like the inside of a barn. Hay covered the floor, and bales of it were stacked neatly in one corner. In the stalls were horses and cows, and against the end stall was a chicken coop. A man was inside the coop, and I recognized him as Lahash. He simply sat there as the chickens milled and pecked all around him, some even getting close enough for him to pet them.

  “Lahash had seen firsthand the consequences of drinking that blood or being exposed to it. For a fallen angel, the outcome was grim. In order for the tainted divinity to be carried in the form of a sentient creature, Lahash surmised that the creature had to be neither heavenly nor damned, and the perfect candidates, therefore, were terrestrial creatures—but, more specifically, man.

  He had done a few trial experiments, which he conducted with various animals. He fed about an ounce of the gourd blood to them, and the results were promising. With creatures of the earth, the mixture of divinity and darkness yielded the fabled creatures of myth: unicorns from horses, the phoenix from birds, wolflike beasts that were more monster than dog, the kraken from sea creatures. The creatures were each imbued with a kind of divinity, though some were pure and others horrendous.

  “When the first mortal man was forced to drink the gourd blood, its power was too potent, and the man burned to cinders. Apparently, men were closer to divine beings than Lahash had thought. He had not expected that reaction in a human. After more experimenting, it was discovered that a very small amount of gourd blood—less than a drop—was all he needed.

  “To dilute it further, Lahash made a calculated decision: he drank the single drop of gourd blood to diminish its potency. He was counting on not transforming too grotesquely and on not losing his mind. And the experiment worked, in a way. His form was ravaged. Days went by in agony, and almost all his angelic features, including his wings, hair, and much of his voice, were lost. His skin was blackened, and blood seeped out from within, turning his face a dark red. He had just enough left of his former self to resemble a human on all fours, though his neck was bent and his head cocked to one side.”

  Yes, this was it! Exactly what I had witnessed back home. I wondered if it had been Lahash that Nate banished from existence that night.

  Once again the scenery changed, this time to an open field. Tall grass was everywhere, and a single majestic tree shaded a spot where two men and a woman stood. One of the men was short and dwarfish.

  Lilith’s voice grew softer and took on a note of sorrow. “Lahash collected blood from his skin and forced a man who lived with his family on the outskirts of a town to drink it. It was done in the middle of a field, and Lahash had to struggle mightily, for his arms and legs were bent like a four-footed animal’s.”

  The man’s family consisted of a red-haired woman, who was his wife, and their children. I walked closer to the tree and realized that the short man was the monster, Lahash. The woman stood between them, pleading to him, and when she turned to face her husband, I gasped, for it was Lilith! Their little boys were running around the tree, oblivious of what was taking place. Was Lilith showing me this so I would understand what had happened to her?

  I wasn’t sure, but it worked in part, because I definitely saw her through different eyes now. Lilith’s voice had ceased, and I listened in on the conversation taking place. Apparently, Lilith had been abused and raped by a drunk man in town, and when Mathias had found out, he killed the man. Lahash was now using Mathias’s guilt as leverage to make him drink the liquid and thereby get another chance.

  Mathias agreed. Lilith was there to witness everything. She had seen the demon, covered in blood, hold her husband down as he transformed. This was the end of her husband’s mortal life. The minute the transformation was over, they both dissolved in the air, and Lilith was left crying. Her little boys now surrounded her, hugging her and caressing her face.

  Lilith’s voice came again. “Mathias had been successfully turned into a creature unlike any other.” She spoke with pride. “He was neither heavenly nor damned, and he had been
a terrestrial animal but was now something greater. Lahash looked in wonder as the features of the man were subtly changed but not distorted into evil. The effects of the gourd blood had been much like the effects on the purer creatures. This was precisely what Lahash had been betting on. Now there was a piece of divinity stored in a living, sentient vessel, one that manifested the qualities lost to the fallen angels.

  “Mathias became known in legend as a gourd, named for the method by which the blood was stolen from hell. But the word had developed a new meaning, since the new creature was the carrier, the bottle, the sole new possessor of the essence of the gourd. Ironically, all was not over, and the very stealth and care that Lahash had taken in acting out his plans condemned him to incur the eternal wrath of Lucifer.” The images changed yet again, each time showing me bits and pieces of what had happened.

  “Mathias had apparently taken in, though the drop was small, an unimaginable amount of power. It sent ripples throughout the underworld, and almost all demons and fallen angels were alerted. Lahash felt it, too, and fled once again, leaving Mathias abandoned and out of control. During the time it took for Lahash to explain to Mathias what had happened with the gourd blood and to set out to search for it, much was lost.

  Another fallen angel had already captured Mathias and quickly went into hiding. Mathias lived a short life because this fallen angel immediately drained him of his blood. In his haste, the dark angel had simply drunk the blood directly from him, knowing what the consequences would be. For ages, this demon roamed with the power of the gourd’s blood. Because it was drunk from the human, the blood contained a new quality, as if each creature had imbued it with some of his own powers. In the blood was felt the torment of Abaddon. Then there was the hint of the betrayal by Lahash. The fear and simplicity of Mathias’s blood were overshadowed by the taste and somehow less-tainted divinity. The demon knew this, and he waited until the time came to make a new living gourd.

  I was now back in my own time, standing next to the cliff and Lilith, with Amy and Avan still in front of me. I looked at Avan and understood now what he was. His eyes searched mine and gave me the slightest blink. Their electricity was returning. Could it be that he wasn’t completely gone? I felt the urge to throw my arms around him, but I knew I was meant to play along, and hoped he would be on my side when the time came to fight.

  “I’m sorry Lilith,” I said to her, meaning it. After all, she hadn’t asked for what had happened to her, and her husband had only avenged her. “But how did you become what you are?”

  “When that demon turned Mathias…” She looked at Avan with longing. Did she see a trace of her husband in him—his blood still alive in another body? “…I caught sight of a pristine black feather that had fallen when they disappeared, and so I kept it. I wasn’t sure whose it was, but it was the last reminder of my husband. Over time, I slowly transformed into what they call a demigourd. Eventually, I learned all the memories of Abaddon, of Shemer, and of the gourd blood made from his wings. I eventually felt the gourd’s essence and searched for it. In it, I detected the essence of my husband. The rage in me took over, and I then banished the demon who was controlling the new gourd.”

  She looked behind me to the distant stars. “I kept the gourd for myself, sensing its greater purity. I eventually learned how the gourd was made, and decided to do an experiment. I drained some blood from my own wrist and added blood from the gourd. The mixture was fed to another human. The newest gourd was created perfectly and was mine to command, since my blood was an added component. The old gourd was still under the influence of the demon, so I destroyed it. I had powers unnatural for a human, and I used them to my advantage in tearing the old gourd apart and throwing it in the ocean.”

  Her eyes came back to me, and she smiled as she spoke of her first gourd. “He was unusually attractive once he had matured. I felt a longing for the essence this gourd carried within. However, I had become imbued with the essence of a fallen angel, and as a consequence, I yearned for what was lacking. The gourd was mine to keep forever, as long as stealth and secrecy were maintained—until your pitiful cherub friend stole it from me. I still don’t know how it happened, but she destroyed my gourd. I found a piece of a disembodied limb and used it to create a new one, which lived in a dungeon for two years until you came along. So you see how surprised I was to find you in this realm—pure angels of your caliber are impossible to find.”

  I finally knew what she wanted me for exactly: to make new gourds. “I am not the only pure angel, though,” I said, trying to buy time. Though I wasn’t sure it would work, every fiber of me called out for Claire and Nate.

  “It would have been rather poetic for me to use the woman cherub, given that her mate died at Abaddon’s hands to become the one thing she has been pursuing for centuries: gourds. And so she had killed mine. You know, she has exterminated nearly every single one in revenge for her mate’s death. Wherever there is a gourd, she will destroy it in hopes that no one will be able to create another one. But I hold the way how, and as long as I am alive I will keep creating them.”

  I stared at Avan. That was what Claire had meant when she said that if I ever shared my divinity with him, it would end badly for both of us. She knew she would have to destroy him.

  I felt suddenly weak.

  Avan’s eyes grew wide as he, too, understood the consequences—understood that once Claire found out, he would be done. I spoke to him in my mind, hoping he would be able to hear me.

  “Avan. We need to get out of here.” I stared at him, trying to gauge any change. “Can you hear me?” I asked again.

  “I can. Claire is going to kill me, Jade.” His eyes grew glossy.

  “I won’t let her. But we have to get you out of here. I’ll distract Lilith and Amy. Do you know what kind of powers you have?”

  “No.” His voice was a silent whimper. Before we had even tried, I heard it in his voice: he had given up.

  “Okay, when I distract them, you just run to me and we’ll be gone.”

  I used my sonic scream, and a flock of eagles, bats, crows, and ravens hovered above me. And before I could even give the signal, Claire and Nate were by my side, crouched and ready for the fight.

  25. THE BATTLE