Fell the Angels, Joslinne Morgan [free novel 24 .TXT] 📗

Prologue: Blood of Angels

The small, frightened angel crouched in the middle of the floor, anticipating the absolute worst. She shivered like a tiny frightened bird with her bloodied white wings pulled protectively around her frail body. On either side of her stood Mephistopheles and Alastor. Mephistopheles – the tempter of Faust, the closest thing to a companion that she had ever possessed in this desolate place. Alastor – the heartless executioner of hell. Both waited in passionless silence for the judgment that they knew would inevitably come.
They waited for what must have been at least fifty years in mortal time. Amy bit her shell pink lip until beads of bright blue blood appeared and began to drip down her pearl white chin. She tried not to keep track of the passing of time, like the minute hand of a clock, mortals were born and mortals died. And every few seconds, thousands of more souls were ferried across the river styx to meet their eternal torment. And still he did not come.
Their surroundings were changing, hell was constantly shifting. One moment they were standing in a dry desert, for which all three knew there was no relief. Mortals wandered the wilderness, moaning and crying, screaming for water, dropping left and right. Heat blisters and sore had opened on their skin and were oozing blood and pus. Every now and then, a few of the prince’s personal slaves would prompt and often force the tormented souls to pick themselves up again and continue their endless wandering. The slaves didn’t even turn to look at the three angels. The next moment, they were standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm, which dropped into nothing but suffocating darkness. Angels of lesser rank and more of the prince’s slaves pushed tormented souls over the edge. Torturing them, taunting them, some even pretending to try and lift the poor souls up. They listened to the cries, the endless pleas, the wretched screams that came wrenched from every bleeding dry throat.
And still he did not come.
Fifty more mortal years fell away. Their surroundings shifted again. This time, the world was not one constant setting, but several, one giving way to another every few seconds. The ground rocked beneath their feet, swerving, like a nightmare where one is falling, except there is no hope of waking. Souls screamed as their tender bodies were crushed underneath huge piles of debris that rose up from the ground only to vanish again as soon as they hit the ground again, dragging the souls into the depths with them. Amy closed her eyes and a single crystal tear slid down her cheek. She hated it here – she hated it! Why was she here? Why did he not come?
A soft hand, much too delicate for comfort, and cold as death touched her shoulder. Amy cringed and recoiled underneath the touch, and she heard the familiar voice slither its way off the tongue. A voice that belonged neither to a male nor a female, a genderless creature, untouched by time. The most beautiful of all God’s creations, the greatest tragedy to ever exist – the original fallen angel.
“Amy, Amy,” the voice spoke chidingly. The prince of darkness – the lord of hell – had come.
As soon as she heard his voice, felt his touch, Amy felt like weeping. She curled up into as tight a ball as she could manage with her arms folded over her head and her wings wrapped around her like a cocoon.
Mephistopheles was the next to speak. He bowed low, dropping down to one knee and bowing his head so low that his long blonde hair nearly scraped the churning ground. “Your Majesty,” he said in a voice that was so deep, so masculine, so frightening. Amy could remember when she had found a degree of comfort in that same voice. “Forgive my disturbance to your lordship’s peace-“
It was tactless, it was wrong. The prince’s beautiful face contorted into something ugly and unrecognizable as he flew at his minion, one hand raised, fingers bent like claws as if he meant to strike and rend the angel to pieces then and there.
“PEACE!” the prince screeched angrily. “I have no peace! I am Abaddon, I am Satan, I am the father of lies, the fallen prince of heaven! The original tempter! Yet I have no peace! I have no power! I am as tormented as every soul here, for I cannot leave this desolation, I cannot have real power! I can never, ever have real power!”

Amy burst into tears, beautiful angel tears, which is a heart-breaking sight to behold. She began to shake and mutter, begging for it all to be over. Oh, just sentence her already-
Mephistopheles fell back, keeping his head bowed, and not meeting the prince’s gaze. It would pass, just let him rage, it would pass.
The prince’s hand went to his face, nails digging into his flesh so that blood welled to the service. He screamed such a high piercing scream that were mortals to hear it, the sound would strike them dead on the spot. He rent at the tattered black burial shroud that served as his current garment of choice. He raged for an entire mortal hour, which is the equivalent of mere seconds in angel time, and within a second instant he was calm once more. Cool, collected, a terrifying passionless god.
“What has our pretty Amy done?” he asked, his voice was back to what it had been when he had first graced his angels with his dark presence.
It was all a game. He knew just as well as – or perhaps better than – Mephistopheles. He knew what she had done.
“She tried to get back into Heaven, my lord.” Mephistopheles spoke quietly, and without much feeling in his voice at all. Alastor had thus far not spoken a word.
The prince’s features became angry once more, but this was a different kind of angry. The twin dark pupils which rested in equally similar dark azure eyes flashed red as they turned to glare at the fallen angel. His beauty really was a travesty. Amy wondered not for the first time if God had wept when he was forced to banish the beautiful Lucifer from heaven.
Lucifer. They didn’t know him by that name, here. Lucifer was a title reserved for legends. Here, he was the prince.
“Is that true, my pretty little Amy?” his gentle voice was now full of scathing anger. “You are worse than a mortal.”
The disdain in his voice was physically sickening. Amy felt suddenly ashamed. Worse than a mortal, that was the worst insult he could have inflicted upon her. Mortals were nothing, wisps of life to be taken at a moment’s notice. Playing pieces in a greater game between God and the prince, as they battled with each other for the right to reign over all of mankind. Angels were playing pieces, too, the only difference was that they knew this. Mortals were foolish enough to believe that they had some sort of a choice in the matter.
“But I don’t want to be here!” she screamed, her frail voice lost in the great vastness of her surroundings. “I hate it here! I hate it! I want to go back, you know I do, you tricked me into coming here, you tricked me…” she dissolved into further tears.
“Do you think He wants you, little angel who hates so much?” the prince laughed harshly. “Oh, I know he’s so forgiving,” his voice was dripping with sarcasm and bitter, bitter mockery. “But you cannot serve two masters.”
It was a challenge. Did she dare rebel against his authority? Amy dared look up at him and meet his gaze. Instantly, she regretted doing so.
His gaze seized her instantly, dragging her into the depths of his madness. A strangled cry of surprise came wrenched from her throat and she tried to withdraw, but it was impossible. His gaze dragged her forward, deeper, until she felt she would drown in those deep blue pools.
He was no longer a beautiful dark angel standing before her. He was something else altogether. Magnificent, crowned in flame, taller than two full grown mortal men. He sported thirteen wings, black as a raven’s eye, that were all at least six feet in length. In his hands he clutched a sword, the blade white with heat, only his burning blue eyes remained the same.
“Do you see me?” he hissed, his voice climbing the angrier he became. “Do you see me as I once was, as I wish to be - AS I WILL BE AGAIN?” instantly, this image vanished. In its place was a wretched creature that was bound in chains, struggling vainly to break free from them, or at least rid himself a few and make his burden lighter. The creature was human in resemblance, completely pale and naked. Long curly black hair and hands slick with blood, lips ripped open and bleeding, teeth stained with the sticky red substance. It tore at its chains with everything it had in it, snarling, all the desperation of a rabid animal.
“Do you see, darling Amy?” the creature cackled harshly. “Do you see now what it is to be mad?”
Amy cried out and shrank away, shutting her eyes and covering them with her delicate white hands. The world instantly went quiet, no more howling, no more snarling. No more laughter.
The deathly touch reached her again, this time yanking her back by her golden blonde hair and forcing her to look up once more at the prince. This time, not meeting his gaze.
“You have been very bad, little angel.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, please, please-“
Oblivious to her pleas, the prince released his hold on her hair. As if having received some signal, Alastor, who had still not spoken a word, produced in one hand a long vicious knife with many jagged teeth and a blade that gleamed even in the darkness.
Amy’s eyes widened, and her head swiveled to glance desperately at Mephistopheles. He was looking straight at her, his eyes vacant and empty. Was she the only one who retained any sort of FEELING in this God-forsaken place?
“Don’t!” she screamed, even as Alastor seized the tip of her feathery wings and placed the knife at the very base. They very place that connected her wings to her body. “Don’t do it, Alastor! Mephisto! Don’t let him do this to me!”
Mephistopheles didn’t move. He didn’t look away.
Alastor made the first cut.
Agony ripped through her body. Had she been human, she would have passed out instantly from the pain. As it was, she was content with screaming. He cut again, deeper, and blue blood spurted from the wound. It ran down her side in abundance, pooling at her feet, coating her hands, her pearl white skin. Blood the color of sapphires. The blood of a fallen angel.
He cut again, and again, vigorously. Blood gushed forth in gallons and made everything slick. The sickeningly sweet smell of angel blood permeated the air, to the point where you could choke on it. Amy screamed, she begged in Hebrew, she pleaded further in Arabic. She tried a different plea in every tongue that had ever been known to grace humankind, and even went so far as to beg in the sacred language of angels.
None of it made a difference.
When the first wing