Hector patted his shoulder. “Patience, my young friend.”
A shift in the female’s tone stole their attention. Her song changed into a soft chant, the primeval tongue unfamiliar, existing before his time. It grew in volume and power, and the atmosphere trembled as her skin glowed pure and white. Love and loss, sorrow and hope, they blew through the air like a maelstrom as her chant became a war cry.
When she raised her face to the heavens, the air shimmered and blurred with energy. Subtle arcs of electricity sparked along her skin as a smoldering orb appeared in her hands. The roar of rushing wind accompanied the cyclone of her power, whipping at their clothes. The glow in her palms stretched to engulf her entire form until nothing existed but radiant light. And she wept.
“Hec?” Devlin stumbled under the weight of her might, and Hector shielded his eyes with his hand, his knees knocking.
What was this? She shouldn’t have this power, not after the suffering she had endured. This, whatever it was, did not bode well for him or his master.
With one last ear-splitting scream from the broken angel on the floor, the light exploded like an atom bomb. The shockwave shook the ground and crashed over the demons in the room. They flew backward like paper dolls. A blinding flash flared. Wind roared like a freight train. Then, all at once, it stopped. The overwhelming noise instantly stilled, and the light blinked out. The room returned to its former shadowy state.
Feeling like he’d been trampled by a stampede of hellhounds, Hector lifted his torso off the ground. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the sudden semi-darkness. Dev staggered to his feet and aided Hector in standing as the last buzz of power zipped through the air and winked out.
What in the names of the seven princes was that?
Brushing off his clothes, Hector took in the destruction lying around him. A hurricane had swept through the room, laying waste to everything in its path. But the total devastation hardly compared to the crippling realization that the angel had disappeared. In her place was a black-scorched circle, the center power-washed clean without a speck or stain to be found.
She was gone, and with her, their best chance of finding the boy, the child who could destroy everything.
Depths of Sheol, Hector had failed in his assignment. The ramifications would be costly indeed. Maker have mercy on his cursed soul.
Chapter One
Was it possible to die of embarrassment? If so, I was going to drop dead in three, two, one…
“Shepard!” my professor roared in outrage as the screen—which was supposed to portray my report on the fall of the Mayan Empire—filled with the sudden onslaught of skin, skin, and more skin.
Obnoxious moaning blasted from the speakers mounted on the wall, and the awkward grunting coming from the two men on the screen was enough to turn my stomach. Humiliation heated my face as I gawked at the horrifying display and then at my flash drive inserted in the projector. Except it couldn’t be my flash drive because never, in my entire nineteen years of life, had I seen anything like this, let alone downloaded it onto a USB.
As the pornography played, the entire lecture hall erupted with laughter. Mortified tears burned my eyes as I scrambled to remove the USB stick that clearly wasn’t mine. It had to belong to my roommate; he must have switched our flash drives.
Brian hated me and had been playing pranks on me since the beginning of the semester. Usually, he settled for simple name calling; throwing a red sock into my white laundry to turn everything pink; or dumping water on me in the middle of the night because I, once again, woke him with one of my nightmares. But he had never messed with my homework before. He’d never gone this far.
It had to be him. Who else would have done this?
As I yanked the USB from the projector, the screen froze at the worst possible moment. I choked and looked away from the image of where the men were… joined. I knew it was possible for two men to have sex, but I never thought too hard on the logistics. I, now, had no further questions on that front.
“Mr. Grant, I’m so s-sorry!” I covered my blistering cheeks, blinking through my tears as my professor glowered at me. “This isn’t mine… I-I don’t understand how… I didn’t…”
“Shepard! Shepard! Shepard!” My classmates chanted my name, cheering and laughing as I internally begged the floor to open and swallow me whole.
“Quiet!” Mr. Grant barked, his mustache trembling in rage. “Quiet all of you, or else I’m failing each and every one of you for this assignment!”
That got their attention, and thankfully, the room fell silent. Mr. Grant flicked off the power to the projector. The pornographic image blinked out like it had never existed. “Mr. Shepard, my office after class.”
“Yes, sir.” Shrinking in on myself, I nodded before hurrying back to my seat at the back of the room.
How could Brian do this to me? I thought I was a good roommate. What did I ever do to make him loathe me this much?
I was quiet, kept my side of our dorm tidy, and even cleaned the bathroom for him when he was on rotation. When he got drunk and vomited everywhere, I washed his bedding, and I never complained when he kicked me out of our room to have alone time with a girl. To be honest, he wasn’t the easiest roommate given his penchant for rude speech and loud music, but I took it all in stride.
By the time class finished, my blush hadn’t faded and my eyes stung with tears I refused to shed. As the lecture hall emptied, numerous students either complimented me on my prank, ignoring my stammered denials, or sneered viciously. I heard “kinky freak” and “faggot” thrown my way, and my throat ached as I swiped at my watery eyes.
My head hung in shame as I clomped down the steps to Mr. Grant’s desk, grateful no one had stuck around to witness this moment. I was going to be expelled for sure, and then what would I do? Go back to Ms. Janet? I shuddered at the thought.
Ms. Janet, my foster mother of six years, was unorthodox to say the least, and the last thing I wanted to do was move back in with her. I was a terrible son to think such unkind thoughts; she was, for all intents and purposes, my mother. The only mother I ever had. She put up with me longer than any other foster family had, and I should be more than grateful. Yet the mere idea of returning to her home left me trembling in a cold sweat.
“Let’s take this to my office.” Mr. Grant’s mustache twitched as he rose from his desk, and I followed him meekly, banishing the dark thoughts. This was no time to dwell on my failings as a son. I needed to grovel. Thankfully, I had lots of practice to call upon due to Ms. Janet and her numerous strict rules.
After apologizing profusely, I left Mr. Grant’s office ten minutes later with a rescheduled slot for my presentation, a six-hundred-word disciplinary essay, and his thin trust in me that I hadn’t defiled his classroom on purpose. I fled the building, holding back my barrage of tears by sheer power of will as I raced across campus to my dorm. I refused to cry out in the open.
Caught inside my tormented head, I didn’t notice the telltale noises coming from my dorm room as I slid my key home. I opened the door only to recoil at the image of my roommate sitting at the edge of his bed with a girl’s head in his naked lap. Seriously?
Even though this was college and I had tried to mentally brace myself for being confronted with sexual promiscuity, there could be no preparation for this.