The Angels' Pride Read online

  They had denied her, her birthright. So that they could have extra powers so that she could not contest them. Because of them, she had lived a life of isolation, and she had accepted it. They had been protecting her from her own vulnerability, a vulnerability that they had brought upon her. It was all their fault. How could they have done this to her? She hated them! They would pay.

  With a sudden scream that made Brigid jump, Sariel lunged forward, sparks and lightning flaring everywhere. For a moment Brigid thought she was planning to attack her, but she lunged for the golden chains. Sariel screamed in agony and frustration, her anger driving her forward as the two spells reacted, trying to drive them apart.

  Brigid started screaming as soon as Sariel clamped down on the chains, magic racing up and down both of them, burning them. The room was ablaze with pink and blue magic reacting violently. The chains flared intensely before they exploded. Everything disappeared in a blaze of bright light.

  Brigid’s eyes fluttered open. Her prison was dark, it was never dark. There was someone else in the room, she could hear their breathing. Without thinking, she called in a light, a reflex that hadn’t died despite centuries of imprisonment. She stared in surprise at the faint glow of her hands. It was faint, very faint, barely enough to see beyond herself but it was more magic that she had used in centuries. It also showed her a dark shape slumped against the door.

  Hesitantly and shakily she stood up, stretching out limbs long unused. For once she was thankful of the Angels’ conversion of her because she was a powerful Saint she had weathered much of her imprisonment. And now she could feel that magic returning to her and giving her strength to move. She still had her natural Mother Goddess powers, but they would be far slower in returning to her. But she had all her own knowledge.

  She staggered over to the door to discover that it was Sariel slumped against the door. Using her divine strength, she pulled Sariel aside and opened up the door. The air beyond was stale but fresher than what she had breathed in a long time.

  She was free. After all these years she was actually free.

  The corridor was darkened beyond her prison door. The glow she had remembered was gone. Had it been changed since her imprisonment?

  She started to close the door when her gaze fell back on Sariel. She should leave her here. She was after all not only an Elder but also an Arch Angel. But she had freed her of her own volition. And she had much to loath the other Angels for, most of all her own brother and sister-in-law. An Arch Angel, who had been imprisoned and stripped of her power, would certainly be dangerous to the other Arch Angels. She could be useful in freeing other Gods and Goddesses.

  Against her better judgement, Brigid laid her hands on her and gave her a light healing. It wasn’t much, with her powers so weakened, but it was enough. She hoisted the girl up, glad for her inhuman strength.

  At the very least Sariel would be free from the clutches of her family. She owed her that much for freeing her. If Sariel were found in Brigid’s prison, she would be imprisoned herself. She couldn’t leave the poor young girl to that.

  She ran through the darkened corridors, which quickly turned into the lit corridors she remembered. She ran through corridors she remembered from earlier days, not much had changed except some of the decorations. Thankfully she came across no one, carrying an unconscious Sariel would have been difficult to explain. Her own brown wings would have been impossible to explain.

  Within very little time she had jumped off a balcony and was soaring towards the Citadel, long before anyone even realised she or Sariel were gone.

  Michael knocked on his sister’s door fully expecting her to start screaming at him. They had done a horrible thing to her, and for what? He had been surprised at how well she had taken the Council’s edict, well really his and Gabriel’s. The Council was their fearful puppets. The Council did not have the power to rival Gabriel alone, let alone the full force of the Arch Angels. Unfortunately, for the Council, the Arch Angels tended to get along.

  It was a cruel predicament for Sariel, but they could hardly let her powers go to waste, it was for the greater good. They could use her powers effectively, she would take centuries to learn to control them. Especially considering she was surprisingly strong. In time once the Apocalypse had been released again it could be made to look like Sariel had suddenly broken some seal on herself. No one would be any wiser, least of all Sariel.

  The world would be back under their control, Humanity cleansed, and Sariel could get the life she craved and so rightly deserved.

  He entered her room when he heard no sound. Was she sleeping? Perhaps her day of excitement had exhausted her. Or perhaps she was too angry to bother responding. He would hate to find her crying into her pillow. She wasn’t in her receiving rooms, nor was she crying or sleeping in her bedroom. Confused he looked through all of her rooms, growing more and more uneasy. He checked in her closet, her bathroom, her balcony. The containment spell was shining lightly, it had not been broken.

  Finally, he started yelling for her, but there was no answer. Sariel wasn’t in her rooms.

  He contacted Gabriel with a thought, *Gabriel*

  *What is it?* she sounded irritable.

  *Sariel isn’t in her rooms. She’s missing.*

  *What?* her voice thundered in his head. She was going to be furious, no one would be safe from her anger tonight. *How is this possible? She has no magic to aid her, she can’t break the containment spells.*

  *The spells are still intact. But there is no trace of her.*

  *Inform the guards and the Council. We need to find her. I will join your search once I have dealt with this disturbance.*

  *Disturbance? What disturbance?*

  *Apparently the prison corridors are darker than usual. Apparently it is important enough to need my assistance.* He could imagine her rolling her eyes as she spoke. *I will join you soon*

  Brigid landed lightly in the shadows of the Divine Boulevard, thankfully the sky was darker than usual, heavy rain clouds hugging the Citadel and palace. It seemed the Fates were working in her favour, she wondered what had happened to them.

  She set Sariel down as she tried to get her bearings. It had been so long since she had been in the Citadel, and it looked very different in ruin. She had one chance to escape Heaven, but it all counted on her finding her.

  “Thank you for bringing me.”

  She turned around to see Sariel scrambling up.

  “I could hardly leave you after freeing me. I know Angel cruelty, you would not survive it Sariel. Surprisingly for a Divine you are innocent.”

  She started crying. Her life had fallen apart in the space of a day. She had been condemned by the Council to imprisonment, her uncle had told her to run, she had found out her own brother and his wife had stripped her of her power and to top it all off she had freed a Goddess. She could never return, she had committed high treason.

  Around them, thunder boomed, and the rain started to pour.

  Great just great Brigid thought to herself, she had a crying girl to deal with, and it had started to rain. Just her luck, it rarely rained in Heaven, but it least it was gloomy.

  “There, there Sariel we’ll get out of Heaven, and you’ll be free. You’ll finally get to see the Surface.” She awkwardly patted the girl on her shoulders. She had never seen an Angel cry, let alone felt the need to comfort one. They had been servants and then enemies. “Come Sariel, we need to keep moving otherwise we will be caught.”

  “Why are we in the Citadel? Shouldn’t we have just teleported to the Surface?”

  “Neither of us has the power to teleport at this time, and I presume you’ve never been shown how to teleport” She shook her head. “That leaves us with the use of the Portals, naturally we can’t use the one here in the Citadel, that leaves one of the others. Unfortunately, they have all fallen into disrepair, and the only person who can activate them is the Queen of Heaven. Fortunately, for us, she is imprisoned in her own house. But it has bee
n so long since I walked the Citadel that I can’t remember where her house is.”

  Sariel perked up, wiping away strands of hair plastering her face “are you talking about Hera?”

  Brigid’s head snapped around “Yes.”

  “Her house is two streets away.”

  Brigid jumped into the air, Sariel following and they very quickly located Hera’s house. As they landed on one of the balconies, Brigid whistled in approval. Hera was no fool, Zeus might have imprisoned her in her mansion, but she had turned it into a palace. The bigger her domain was, the more she could roam.

  They walked out of the storm into the silent halls of Hera’s palace. As Brigid had expected it was tastefully decorated, but no longer was it the soft pastels it had once been but now was at the darker end of the spectrum. She had heard it once said that it was to reflect her mood after her imprisonment. It was a hauntingly beautiful palace, the black was mixed in with indigo, violet, blue and green. The walls reminded them both of the iridescence of a raven’s wing. Ebony tables and stands decorated the sides of the halls, both decorated with white and black marble statues and sculptures. White rugs ran the length of the hallways, and there were occasional paintings framed in gold or silver.

  The palace was dead silent.

  Sariel followed Brigid as she walked through the hallways until they came out into a foyer. It was as tastefully decorated as the hallways. Brigid stopped and looked around, unsure where to go. She had only been in Hera’s palace a couple of times. Hera was the Queen of Heaven while she had been a Goddess from a forgettable set of islands. It was funny that those same islands had at one stage been the biggest and most powerful empire the world had seen to date. It killed her that she hadn’t been part of it. So much of Britain’s history she had been excluded from. How she wanted to see how it was faring. She was impatient to feel the land’s embrace once again, and to restart building her domain.

  “Hera” she called out, sending it out on a mental thread as well.

  There was a clinking noise that they both turned towards. They followed where the noise had come down the stairs of the foyer. She called again and once again the clinking noise responded. They followed the noise through long corridors and staircases, moving through many wings until they found an internal amphitheatre. It was made entirely of black marble, even the ceiling above. Flecks of metal and diamond set in the marble reflected the soft light. The high arches on the stage hid something from sight, but the soft glows showed something was down there.

  Brigid called out again putting her hand on Sariel’s shoulder as she started walking down the steps “We do not know what is down there.”

  “Whatever it is, is suffering. We need to help it.”

  Brigid fell in step behind Sariel as she descended the stairs, her senses alert for Scorpio or Argus. Both of them had scared her half to death, and they weren’t the only pets Hera had kept.

  Sariel walked slowly down the amphitheatre steps, her eyes casting about cautiously but always being drawn back to the glowing and slight noises coming from the stage. As she got closer, she noticed an unpleasant smell she had never come across before. “What is that awful smell?”

  “Decay” she replied with confusion.

  “Decay? But nothing rots in Heaven.”

  “No, it doesn’t” Things that died automatically broke apart into their base compounds unless they were preserved in the case of books or leather armour. To smell decay deeply troubled her, and she was worried about what they would find.

  The closer they got the stronger the smell got until they both wanted to gag. They jumped up onto the stage and what they saw made them want to vomit.

  A pale skinned woman lay chained to the floor, bound at her ankles, wrists, her major joints, and her neck. The metal was dug into angry red flesh blistering around sickly grey skin. She was an absolute mess, covered in dried blood, horrific scars, filth, and muck. She was covered in all manner of burns. Brands, crucibles and jars of sizzling acid a testament to how she had been burnt. Someone had hacked into her hip then poured boiling metal into it, the metallic clump clung to the festering mess. Someone had carved sigils and symbols of containment, malady and death into her skin, then rubbed them with filth. Their festering lines, dark and angry among otherwise pale and grey skin. To top it off she was attached to a strange machine neither of them had ever seen before by thin clear tubes. Large vials of fluid sat atop the machine and every time it beeped and whirled a small amount of the fluid trickled down the tubes into her veins.

  “This is horrible. This is beyond disgusting.” Sariel exclaimed as she fell onto her knees beside Hera. She gently started pulling out the tubes. She gave the metal clump a gentle tug, but it wouldn’t come out, either it was stuck in the flesh, or it had cooled onto the bone. She placed her hand above Hera’s heart and hoped for the best. She knew she had powers and could access them, she didn’t have a clue what she was doing but hoped Hera’s body would use the power.

  Her hands started glowing a soft green, then it started flowing from her hands into Hera’s body.

  Brigid stood horrified at the mess that was the Queen of Heaven. No wonder the Angels had the full run of Heaven, its Queen didn’t have a hope of controlling it. Who would do such a thing to another living person? She understood why it had been done. With Hera powerless, she could be drained, and her powers used to control Heaven. That explained why it was never dark since the Angels had seized control.

  But it was the sheer brutality of it that had shocked her, it was pure sadistic torture in its purest form. Whoever had done this had taken a perverse pride in their work. The sigils had been carved with delicate care, the diseases injected into her had been sourced from all over the world. Immortal beings might be immortal to disease and aging, but this amount of continuous torture took its toll. Even a strong Goddess could not withstand this abuse and remain healthy. She had never seen a sick Divine, not even the Angels or Nymphs had suffered from sickness.

  Hera was even more disadvantaged, with so few believers left she had nowhere near the power she had once enjoyed. But she was still frighteningly powerful.

  Brigid watched in fascination as Sariel healed her. What was most surprising was that it wasn’t some botched job. Without any prior experience, and only having been freed to use her powers about an hour ago, she was showing incredible aptitude.

  The green magic flowed through Hera’s body, first of all searing along the sigils, burning them out of existence. Sizzling and soft thunder filled the amphitheatre as her magic overwhelmed and broke the spells. Once the symbols were broken her magic flowed throughout Hera easily, flowing through her blood vessels, searing out the contamination. It pooled into the countless cuts and burns, healing the devastated skin and pushing out pus and filth. There was a metallic ring as the metal clump hit the floor. The green glow filled Hera, chasing away the grey tinge to her skin, her cuts and burns turning into faint silver scars that were quickly disappearing on their own accord.

  Her violet eyes flicked open, pinning Sariel with that legendary gaze, then slowly she raised her hand to cup Sariel’s face. Her eyes flicked to Brigid, and she was relieved to see the flicker of recognition.

  “Brigid it has been far too long.”

  “It has Hera, the Angels’ reign has not been kind to us.”

  Hera’s mouth twisted in disgust “except this one” her eyes flicked back to Sariel “this one is different. Unique.”

  “She has compassion. And she was also held prisoner by the Arch Angels and Council.”

  “But she is clearly a pure blooded Angel. Why would they do such a thing to one of their own?”

  “It was my brother and his wife. They did it to steal my powers from me so that they could use it for themselves. They kept me hidden away so that the spells couldn’t break. I was but a source of power to them.” A tear slid down her face as she realised that was all she had been to them.”

  “They did not wish for her to make her mark o
n the world, as she surely would have. I heard Uriel saying once that she could lead them to a new era if she were set free on the Surface. But Michael and Gabriel refused. Gabriel clearly saw the threat to her own power.”

  “Then it would be most fitting that we set her free to make her mark, with no Angelic control.” Hera’s smile was chillingly malicious. “I gather neither of you can teleport to the Surface and so need a portal.”

  “The Angels have changed the nature of Heaven too much, Sariel doesn’t know how and my powers are much too weak.”

  “I’m not strong enough to teleport, but I think I can activate a portal.” She stood up, her hair falling down in a shiny dark brown curtain. A simple dress grew across her skin and all the muck coating her flaked off. She once again looked like one of the living. She held out her hands to them both, the silver scars on them still fading away.

  As soon as they both took hold, everything disappeared in a blaze of golden light.

  Chapter 7

  Gabriel was in a foul temper as she stalked through the prison corridors. She was personally going to hunt down the fool that had set her on this wild goose chase, string them up then condemn them to clean the sewage system of every Human city that took her fancy.

  She shivered against her nature, there was magic lingering in the air. What moron had been practising magic down here?

  She was about to turn around in disgust when she passed a darkened corridor. Her shield sprang up automatically as she raised her glowing hand to flood the hallway with light.

  She walked slowly down the hallway, her senses alert for anything out of the ordinary. She was wondering if the light spells had just faded with age. It had happened before, few ever came down here and not regularly enough to notice when spells were fading. When the Gods had first been captured these halls had often been walked by the Elders, but with their dominance the need to drain the Gods to use their power disappeared. She and Ariel occasionally came down for experimental reasons, but few others were likely to.