Book of Angels

Published by Evernight Teen ® at Smashwords

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2016 K.H. Mezek

ISBN: 978-1-77233-929-1

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Melissa Hosack

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For Janna, my immortal sister who led me through the fairies' glen and helped me stand fearless before the witch's cave.

BOOK OF ANGELS

Night Angels Chronicles, 2

K.H. Mezek

Copyright © 2016

Aspiring to be gods, angels fell; Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

—Alexander Pope

Chapter One

I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. I should stop drinking.

Rather…

Drink myself to death.

Whether I did or didn’t, I was dead anyway.

It had started with my dad’s death. And now it was mine.

And then, Peter had saved me, and everything had suddenly been wonderful. His blood had entered my body, my mind, my spirit, all of me, and I drank and drank. The taste and the flow and the burn were exquisite. Peter and Strejan, Marek and Marianne, and even Blanca, had submitted to my need.

I was immersed in the blood of the Night Angels. The taste was in my mouth, and I would never be rid of it, never stop desiring it.

It was beyond pain and pleasure. It was infinite ecstasy.

But…

Why do nightmares invade sweet dreams?

The ecstasy was ripped away. I tried to chase after it, but I was sinking and panic rose in a volcanic rush.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was submerged in blood, surrounded by lifeless bodies, thousands upon thousands of them. Some were bloated, flesh eaten away by slimy creatures that slithered along their torsos, in and out of holes. Many had limbs missing. Some had open lifeless eyes, expressions of horror, and gaping mouths. On some the eyes were gone. They were slack-jawed. Others grinned with protruding swollen tongues that were greedily being feasted on.

Maggots, snakes, sucking fish. Viciously feeding. But there was never an end to the bodies.

This was the road to Hell. The River Styx. And it was pulling me down. I had to swim against that current. But how, when the bodies pressed so hard and my lungs were bursting with the effort?

I heard a whisper.

Peter, the Night Angel, whom I loved.

Listen to me!

I couldn’t. I didn’t trust him.

Do not follow the visions. Let them go, like clouds…

I wanted to cry, to give up. It all seemed so hopeless. He would never love me.

But even if he didn’t, he still wanted me to live again. He wanted the key.

And I didn’t want to drown here.

I stopped fighting, and gave in to the trust in my heart. Against all reason, I took a breath. And another. I was able to breathe. I swam upward, ignoring the skeletal arms that reached for me, the slithering creatures that tried to burrow into my skin.

I didn’t have to be a part of this madness. I could turn my back on the road to hell, propel myself above the darkness.

A glimmer of light. The surface!

I had almost reached it when a face floated in front of mine and I stifled a scream. Salem, my brother. Much of his flesh was eaten away, his nose no longer existed, but I knew those blue eyes, and they were begging me to save him. He was still alive. I could take him with me. I could!

I felt the panic rising and again, I couldn’t breathe.

Peter, what should I do? I had to save my brother. I couldn’t leave him here.

A hand gripped my wrist. It was Salem’s and his grip grew tighter and tighter, until I thought my wrist would snap. I had a sudden image of my own brother devouring me, starting with my hand.

The face was an inch from mine. The mouth opened. Sharp teeth protruded.

Visions!

I closed my eyes and stilled my heart and took a breath. When I opened them, Salem was gone. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. The pain of loss was unbearable.

Was it my fault? Could I have saved him?

Save yourself.

I swam upward and broke to the surface. A hand reached down and, this time, I held onto it and allowed the person to pull me up. He did, as if I were nothing more than a twig floating on the water. The man who saved me was tall and strong and blacker than anyone I had ever seen. He wore nothing but a schenti, or a simple white linen cloth, tied around his waist and hanging to his knees.

Somehow, I knew he was there to serve me and do my bidding. He led me to a golden throne and bowed until his head touched the ground as I sat. I settled onto soft furs in a brightly painted boat, floating on a wide river.

The River Nile, in Egypt. It was a rich, dark red color. Once a year, the river ran red from the silt and minerals that poured into it after the rains.

Gone was the nightmare that had engulfed me. I felt happy and at peace, strong and noble. I was wearing the Dior dress from the Spring Fever Dance, pure and white, no stains of blood or dirt. Encircling my head was a coiled and jeweled cobra. In my left hand I held an ankh, a scepter symbolizing the giving and taking of life. The ankh could only be held by kings and queens.

This did not surprise me in the least. I was a queen. I was The Queen, above all others.

On a chain around my neck hung the Key of Mystery, left to me by my father after his death. Its power radiated from the center of my chest. Its power and mine were one.

I didn’t know how I came to be Queen, but it felt natural, as if I had served this purpose forever.

Along the banks, adoring crowds waved palm branches and jumped up and down, laughing and pointing toward me. Beside the shore, pale green rushes swayed in rhythm with a gentle breeze. Clusters of mud huts rose above the rushes, shaded by date palms. Beyond the lush green of the banks, low hills could be seen, washed in the most delicate shades of yellow.

Covering the scene like the inside of a gigantic bowl was the azure sky and at its center the fiery hanging orb of the sun.

A shadow fell across me. I looked up to see a towering creature with the head of a lioness and the body of a woman. Around her waist she wore a belt of severed hands. A necklace of shrunken heads, their gruesome expressions frozen at the time of death, dripped fresh blood down her white linen tunic.

The creature pointed an accusing finger at me, growling in anger. How dare you sit upon my throne? I am Queen Ahhotep I, Sekhmet, goddess of fire and water.

Before I could absorb what was happening, she had picked me up and thrown me across the river and onto the muddy bank.

Pulling myself up, I expected to see the celebrating crowds. Instead, I found myself in the midst of a battlefield filled with clashing soldiers as far as the eye could see. It was a brutal, chaotic scene, the ringing of swords, the screams of the dying, and the ground beneath my bare feet slippery with blood.

Blood, always more blood.

Before me, I saw the five Night Angels. Incredibly, fighting with them as if he was their brother in arms was Fabian Gore.

At first, I couldn’t understand how this was possible. He wasn’t only my enemy; he was the enemy of the Night Angels. But then, I reminded myself that what I was seeing must have happened long ago, when Gore and the Night Angels had been allies.

With the Night Angels was their cruel leader, Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He rode on a chestnut steed, wearing plated armor and a helmet of burnished silver. A brilliant red cape flowed behind him. The Sultan’s skin was dark, his eyes an unsettling yellow, his nose wide, and his lips full and sensual. He laughed with pleasure as he cut down his enemies with a scimitar.

I knew instinctively that this was the battle of 1476 that had ended the life of Vlad Tepes III, Prince of Wallachia, also known as the Impaler and the inspiration for Count Dracula.

I watched, fascinated, as the Sultan’s soldiers pierced the hearts and sliced the heads from the opposing army, swords glinting in the cold winter light. The Night Angels were magnificent in their beauty and fighting skills. They wore short tunics, high leather boots, and fine mesh armor on their chests, their powerful arms exposed, skin streaked with grime.

Unlike the other warriors, they wore no helmets and no body armor, only the mesh breast guards. All of them had long hair, even Blanca, braided and intertwined with leather strips and feathers, matted with blood. Marianne’s face was painted with slashing lines of blue and gold, her pale skin and red hair and the whiteness of Gore’s face and hair, contrasting with the slightly darker Peter, Strejan, and Blanca, and the blackness of Marek. All of their eyes blazed with exaltation, as if they loved nothing more than to fight and to kill. Their mouths were barred, revealing sharp incisors. I saw that the Sultan, too, had vampire teeth.

Every so often, one of the Night Angels paused and grabbed an opponent by the head and bit into his neck, sucking the blood from the jugular vein and then tossing the lifeless body away like a rag. I watched in awe and loathing as Peter did this time and time again, raising his sword to the heavens in jubilation and roaring like a primeval animal.

Once, a spear passed through his side and I screamed in terror, but he pulled it out as if it was nothing. He turned to the one who had dared to challenge him and plunged the man’s own weapon into his heart with such swift force that the spear drove far into the ground, pinning the man like a bug on paper. For a moment, the man’s arms and legs flailed pitifully, and then, no more.

Fear spread through the opposing army as the Sultan and his six vampire warriors cut a path straight through them, supported by Mehmet’s army of thousands. It seemed the battle wouldn’t last much longer.

But then, the earth shook with the pounding of a horse’s hooves and out of the dust, mist, and sprays of blood and sweat, came a princely warrior on a black stallion that was bigger than any I had ever seen. This was Vlad III, the Impaler. Count Dracula. My eyes could not stay off of him. I could see the breath from his nostrils on the freezing air and, somehow, that sight made everything real to me. I gasped and stumbled back, almost falling.

He was dressed all in black, his cape billowing behind him like the cloud of an explosion. His helmet framed a dark face with an aquiline nose, a thin, cruel mouth, and fierce blue eyes. In his right hand, he gripped a heavy sword. It was raised in front of him and prepared to strike.

I lifted my hands in fear as Vlad thundered toward me, but he passed by as if I wasn’t there. He was intent on the Sultan, who was engaged in fighting, his back to the prince. I watched in stunned fascination, knowing there was nothing I could do. This had all happened long ago. Just as Vlad reached his quarry and prepared to strike off the Sultan’s head, Gore flew upward, turned swiftly in midair, and decapitated the prince in one sure movement.

Mesmerized, I saw the head fly across the battlefield, as if in slow motion, the eyes still alive and staring at me with each turn. The head was caught by one of the soldiers, like a football, and cries of victory rose across the field as it was tossed up and down, high into the air.

The battle was over. Mehmet II, with the loyal aid of his vampire warriors, had won. Vlad Tepes was dead.

As Vlad’s head was taken away, the parade walked right past me. Those blue eyes stared into my soul, and I felt the desire to follow them. The head was still alive, calling to me. I started to move and then remembered Peter’s words. This, too, was a vision. I should not become a part of this story or I would be trapped here forever. With great effort, I stood my ground as the head was led on and disappeared into the jubilant throng.

The battlefield faded, replaced by a long, cobbled path, hemmed in on either side by thousands upon thousands of bodies impaled on stakes. Near to the path, the bodies were close to one another, while beyond, they spread out in ever widening circles, as far as I could see. Men, women, children, and even babies, were speared through, the babies on their mothers’ chests. Many were still alive and their cries of suffering rose to the bleak sky. I covered my ears, but it was impossible to block out the horrific sounds.

Vlad Tepes, this most legendary of mass murderers, who it is said far outdid all the most bloodthirsty leaders down through history, including Nero, Stalin, and Hitler, took great pride in his creative methods of inflicting terror and pain.

It was a personal pleasure of his to impale, skin, roast, boil, and feed people the flesh of their family and friends, cutting off arms and legs and watching with a smile as his orders were obeyed.

He insisted he had a sense of humor because he nailed visiting dignitary’s hats to their heads when he felt they were being rude by not removing the hats in his presence.

Just ahead of me, to the left of the path, I saw a clearing with a dinner table, magnificently laid with a sumptuous feast. Vlad sat at the table. He did not touch the food, but raised a silver goblet to his mouth and drank deeply. Putting it down, he daintily dabbed away a spot of blood at the corner of his mouth with a crisp white cloth. He gazed with benevolence on a pair of lovely young ladies who were forced to eat amidst the howling, writhing mass. Their eyes were vacant and hollow, and they ate mechanically although one retched a little and then forced it down.

From one moment to the next, with swift precision, Vlad was at the throat of one of the women, biting her neck and draining her. The other one did not cry out. I thought I saw a momentary gleam of relief in her eyes as Vlad turned and finished her off as well. Both women he tossed to the ground like used up rags.

More than anything that I had seen so far, I wanted to escape this grotesque feast. I started to move away, but Vlad’s eyes turned to me. His thin lips curled upward and he gestured for me to join him. He took the goblet and pierced the neck of a nearby man on a stake who was not yet dead. Blood poured down, filling it to the brim.

Without knowing how it happened, I now stood on the opposite side of the table to Vlad. The smell of blood filled my nostrils, sweet and thick and rich. I was a goddess. Vlad and I were the same. I could take what I wanted. It was my right.

Drink, said Vlad.

He was, I thought, a most exquisitely seductive man, the lines of his face sharply defined and perfectly symmetric. He was all-powerful, and he was offering me a place beside him.

With all my strength, I closed my eyes against the temptation and with my eyes closed, the sounds of the suffering grew louder until they resounded painfully in my eardrums. How was it that I could so easily be led astray? That I would even think of joining this devil at his table!

Yes, I was the same. And that made me a monster, too. Sobbing, I turned my back on Vlad and started climbing the cobbled path, up and up. To where, I did not know.

The path grew narrower, the bodies closer and closer together. Instead of expanding, my options were diminishing. It was claustrophobic. Over and over, it seemed I returned to that place of death and despair. That place where I couldn’t breathe.

This was where all roads led. All the laughing, pot-bellied Buddhas, all the Zen gardens, all the prayers to whoever your god may be, or if you preferred, all the parties and pretty clothes and fancy cars and rare delicacies. None of it could make up for the fact that every human being was going to die.

No one wanted it.

No one deserved it.

Certainly, the people on these stakes didn’t!

The babies!

The world was horrible. It was unjust. It was without logic or purpose.

Why did I keep climbing?

Because I had nowhere else to go.

The path became obscured, there were so many impaled bodies. I pushed and clawed and tore at whatever stood in my way. I couldn’t think about the fact that it was flesh and blood. I couldn’t save anyone. Maybe I couldn’t even save myself. But I had to try. I had to keep moving.

I had the chance of immortality, while all these weak humans did not. If I could just attain my goal, then perhaps I could save them, too.

I told myself this, but still I heard their cries. I felt that if they didn’t stop, if I didn’t break out of there, I would lose my mind.

Madness. I felt it breathing down my neck, itching my skin.

Let it pass like clouds in the sky.

I fell on my knees and screamed to the heavens.

How?

How could I let this pass without it taking me with it?

I just had to. That was all. I just had to.

And so, as I had done before, as I was learning to do with each step along the way, I breathed in deeply. I moved forward, ignoring the surrounding nightmare.

I now saw a break in the forest of bodies ahead. And as I walked, the view widened until I could see a lone tower standing at the top of a craggy cliff, like a long black fingernail piercing the sky.

Massive thunderclouds gathered overhead, and a jagged strip of lightening pierced the darkness, followed by a boom of thunder. Clouds rolled over my head, like waves in the sea, unleashing rain that pelleted me like sharp needles.

And still, I climbed, reaching the heavy wooden door of the tower at last.

It was bolted shut, an ancient lock keeping me from entering. I had the key, of course. Around my neck. I, alone, had the key to unlock the door.

I reached up to take the key in my hand and as I did, a woman and two men stepped in front of me, blocking access to the door. They were the most beautiful, awe-inspiring creatures I had ever seen, all three dressed in pure white linen robes that didn’t hide the shapes of their perfectly formed bodies, shimmering with an inner light.

I wondered if they were angels or gods, so noble and pure did they appear to be.

I realized almost immediately that the woman was Queen Ahhotep I, although when I had seen her in the boat, she had appeared as the goddess Sekhmet. Her face was exquisite, with a straight, noble nose and a mouth full and dark red, her eyes the color and shape of large almonds with thick black lashes and black arched brows.

The man on her left was Mehmet II, his startlingly yellow eyes shining intently in his dark face. The man on her right was Vlad Tepes III, his blue eyes as bright as his brother’s.

All three wore expressions as solemn and unblinking as cats. Mehmet’s skin was darker, while Ahhotep and Vlad’s skin were the color of caramel. Each of their torsos was long and lean, their arms and legs like pillars of gold. Their sheer black hair hung in heavy waves down their backs. Their beauty was all the more splendorous because it was unhindered by baubles. Any jewelry, no matter how pure or exquisite, would have looked fake and lackluster when placed on their perfect bodies.

Vlad and the Sultan didn’t speak, just stared at me. With a chill, I noticed that Vlad had a thin, almost imperceptible red line running around his neck where Gore had cut his head from his body. Somehow, I could not imagine how, it had been reattached and he lived again.

I struggled to understand the meaning of what I was seeing. These three, who were they to me? I felt an overpowering kinship and yet, even as I was drawn to them, my skin crawled with revulsion. They were evil. They lived and breathed violence and destruction, chaos and death.

So why did I want to open my arms and embrace them?

The woman reached out her hand and said in a sweet, gentle voice, Give me the key. She smiled, yet her smile made me cold.

I shook my head. No. It’s mine.

Even as I spoke, I realized my mistake. It was as if everything became realer, as if I had stepped halfway through an open door and I had a slightly better view of what lay beyond. I should not speak! I should not engage in any interaction. She was a vision and I was giving her substance. I told myself this over and over. But she was talking again and it was hard to keep my head clear of her words.

I am Queen Ahhotep, your Mother. The Mother of our entire vampire race. She gestured left and right. These are your Elder Brothers. Obey your Mother and your Elder Brothers. Give me the key.

She spoke reasonably, and I found that I was now standing right in front of her. I could smell the cinnamon and saffron mixed with sweet sticky blood. It was intoxicating. I looked closer. The smile remained fixed on her lips. There were no laugh lines around her eyes or her mouth, no expression in her eyes. She was wearing some sort of façade and whatever was behind it was dark and nefarious. As hard as she tried to hide it, I could smell the hate and greed, a dead breath that came from her mouth, in equal balance with the heady perfumes on her body.

You’re not my Mother, I said.

The words had barely left my mouth when I wished to take them back. But she was my Mother!

I was filled with horror at the thought that I was now related to this monster. Just as suddenly, the horror was replaced with love and a desire to embrace her. And then, that feeling of extreme revulsion. Then the love again, so overwhelming as to be almost irresistible. A war waged inside of me, and I didn’t know which side was right and which was wrong. Would I give in to the love or would I