Dominion

Dominion

Melody Manful

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Find the author on twitter @melodymanful and Goodreads.

For more information, glossary, original music and contact, visit the author’s website.

www.melodymanful.com

Illustrations by Daniel Kordek (front cover and medallion) and Andrey Kaliuzhny (back cover
print edition
: rose)

Copyright © 2012 – 2013 Melody Manful

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 0615739458

ISBN-13: 978-0-615-73945-8

PROLOGUE

I
should have called the police the moment I woke up, but what was I going to say? “Hello? 911? Help! I think I’m going to die because I had a dream that I died.” Yeah, even in my head I sounded ridiculous.

What happened to me was horrifying, but no one read about it in the newspapers because it never happened.

“
It was only a dream.” That was what everyone kept telling me. But everyone was wrong. I died that night. I was murdered in a firestorm.

One single, white lie wasn’t supposed to bring with it a lifetime of obstacles. I lied. I said
yes
when I was supposed to say
no
.

I committed a crime. I should have been handcuffed, sentenced to life in prison, executed even. Anything would have been better than the punishment I served because of that little white lie.

“
You’re such a terrible liar, Abigail.” This was what everyone I knew said whenever I tried to tell a lie, but then again, everyone I knew then knew nothing. I wasn’t crazy. No, honestly, before I found myself in wacko-land, I was a walking ray of sunshine. Everything in my over-idolized life was perfect.

Until he came.

First, I thought,
Finally, someone to chase away the monsters underneath my bed
. But as it turned out, he didn’t come to chase them away. He
was
the monster.

He was also my guardian angel.

BETTER THAN A HALLELUJAH

*Gideon*

“
You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear

in your hand and showing it to them.”

Amy Tan –The Kitchen God’s Wife.

š›

“
...
S
houldn’t have been the—” A woman on the phone rushed by without noticing me because she quite literally couldn’t see me.

I stood, invisible, beside a traffic light somewhere in New York City, staring at the cars passing by and at the people running for shelter because of the heavy rain pummeling the city.

A Lumenian guardian angel stood beside me with his énas, a seven-year-old boy named Paul. The boy and his mother had been shopping for a new school bag, and his guardian angel was stuck following them around. Paul was like the puppeteer, the guardian the puppet, so wherever the boy pulled his strings, the angel followed.

Times like this made me realize my happiness in being a different kind of guardian angel—the kind who did everything but guard.

“
Gi-Gideon,” the angel stuttered the moment his eyes met mine. He knew what was coming. As a Grandinian angel, it was my job to try and hurt the human being guarded, and it was the Lumenian angel’s job to try and save the human.

I never missed a target, so whenever the guardian angels sensed my presence, they knew that their end was near.

Paul and his mother, a young woman in her early thirties, stood in front of me among a crowd who waited for the walk sign to change. Paul was circling his mother and singing a childish song. She pulled his yellow raincoat’s hood over his ball cap.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout.

Dammit, I had the boy’s stupid song stuck in my head.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

What was the next line again? Oh yeah…

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

Typical human nature for the sun to show up and dry up the rain.

And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

That’s one stupid spider.

Ahead on a busy road, a Ferrari braked at a red light, rock music rattling its closed windows. Two punk teenagers sat in the car bobbing their heads to the song.

Looking at the young boy and at the sports car, I snapped my fingers. Instantly, the walk sign changed to the white silhouette of a person walking. Without looking or waiting for his mother, the little boy pushed through the crowd at the curb and sped his way toward the street.

“
Paul!” the boy’s mother shouted, running after him, but the boy was too far ahead. She forced her way through the crowd, hurrying to reach him.

I looked at the boy and snapped my fingers once more. Instantaneously, the Ferrari surged forward with force toward the boy. His guardian angel appeared beside him. I could hear him whispering, “Turn and go to your mother, Paul,” but the boy was young and stupid, not listening to the voice in his head that was supposed to be his instinct.

The driver tried to brake, but the car fishtailed through the intersection, with the teenagers yelling in panic.

The boy’s guardian angel tried to stop the car, but it all transpired too quickly. The driver blared his horn as Paul froze in shock upon seeing the car. The Ferrari accelerated and veered right, the driver still blowing his horn. His mother screeched for him to get out of the way. But in a fraction of a second, the gap between the little boy and the car closed.

There was a loud
thwack
as the car collided with the boy. His body flew into the air, and with a harsh
thunk
, he hit the ground. The car’s horn continued to blare.

The humans around me started screaming in shock as Paul’s mother reached her son. Her eyes were fixed on the boy, who lay in a pool of his own bright blood.

“
Paul!” his mother sobbed. People on the sidewalk crowded the scene. Everyone who saw him grew tearful. I, on the other hand, stood invisible, analyzing everything.

Humans! I never understood why they automatically felt sad for people they didn’t even know.

The boy’s guardian angel stood now, staring at me with fear. I was sure he knew what was coming; I knew he’d heard about me. All angels had.

“
Gideon, please…” Those were the angel’s last words before the ball of fire I threw burned him to ashes.

I didn’t take a second look at the boy or the ashes of his guardian angel as I flew into the air. I could hear the sirens wailing, drawing closer to the scene of the accident, but I didn’t wait around to find out what would happen next. At full speed, I flew away from Earth and made my way home.

Home. I’d heard that it’s where the heart is, but since I didn’t have a heart, it became where my family was.

It didn’t take me long to reach my home planet Grands. Grands was located at the mid-point between Hell and Earth. The planet was a realm covered in darkness. The surrounding cities in the kingdom looked dead, clinging to it like forsaken slums. The kingdom was filled with smoke and dust. Everything was in ruins. The atmosphere was always foggy, and awful howls and screams were often heard.

Grands was ruled by a monarchy: King Daligo, his wife, Queen Lailah, and their daughter, Princess-something–I didn’t remember. We Grandinians were a race of dark angels who brought trouble and harm to the humans on Earth.

I
was on my way home when I heard noises coming from below me, so I took a detour toward the noise.

Upon arriving, I saw four Grandinian angels, hovering in the air. I could see they weren’t a day older than thirteen.

“
No, from what I saw, they had two teams. I think they called them Barcelona and Real Madrid,” one of the boys said.

“
Where I was, the children had a football.” The moment the angel said this, a football appeared in his hands.

“
And I saw one of them watching others play on his computer, and the players were in a stadium. It looked like this.” At the snap of his fingers, one of the children manifested a football stadium. Now they hovered in the middle of the stadium.

“
So, how do we become this Barcelona and Real Madrid?” another one asked, looking around the stadium.

“
I can teach you—I know a lot about human football,” I said, approaching the boys.

The moment their eyes met mine, fear flashed on their faces, and they started shaking. Angels’ fear of my presence was old news. A huge picture of me hung in our town square to warn angels about me. I eventually got tired of burning every twelve-foot-tall version of myself that I saw, so I’d decided to let it hang there.

“
Gi-Gideon,” one of them stuttered, moving backward. They were so frightened that I was sure they forgot they had wings and could fly away.

“
Hey.” I walked over to the angel who said my name. “First day on Earth?” I asked, but no one answered me. They were too busy trembling. I walked over to the one who held the football. “I could teach you guys how to play.” I took the ball gently from his hands.

“
We…we just…please don’t hurt us.” The angel I took the ball from was brave enough to speak. His friends remained frozen.

I smiled at his innocence. “English football—soccer—isn’t painful. American football, on the other hand, is quite painful.” I turned to his friends and said, “Come closer. I’ll show you how it’s played.” The angels didn’t budge.

“
You know, football has coaches, and coaches hate repeating themselves.” Still the angels didn’t move. I was sure they had also forgotten how to walk. This didn’t come as a surprise, because, most angels seized up when they saw me. Only a few were ever brave enough to try and fly away.

“
I don’t bite.” Although my voice sounded annoyed, I wasn’t. “Look,” I said, and then made myself appear in the middle of the field. “It’s simple. You make teams and then—”

I was faster than the angel who flew into the sky. I was already in front of him before he could get away. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”

I shoved him. He plummeted toward the field. I hated when they tried to get away from me.

“
Anyone else want to run for it?” I asked the remaining three. I smiled as they quickly shook their heads.

“
Come closer then.” I flew to the angel on the ground, and this time, the three angels walked over to their friend. Their bodies quivered and tears filled their eyes. I started spinning the ball on one finger.

“
Do you guys want to see a really cool trick?” I made the spinning ball leave my finger so that it spun in the air above us. “Don’t take your eyes off the ball.”

The angels slowly lifted their eyes. This time, I heard their hearts racing. I backed away from them, feeling their pain made me strong. With my eyes still on the spinning ball, I made it descend slowly between them. When it reached the position I wanted, a smile tugged my lips, and without a word, I hurled fire toward the ball. There was no time to scream. The moment the fire hit the ball, it exploded everything in the vicinity, leaving nothing but ashes.

“
That was a nice game,” I said to myself as I took once more to the sky.

When I reached my house, I didn’t enter immediately, simply because I didn’t want to see my little sister, Valoel. My family and I lived in the Forbidden Forest. Well, it was more like I built a house in the forest, and because everyone was scared of me, they automatically called it the Forbidden Forest.

My family tagged along because of the saying, “Blood is blood.” I didn’t know what that meant, but through the years, I had learned to accept that it meant, “Gideon, we are going to annoy the hell out of you.”

I turned and looked around me. The place was quiet. Grands wasn’t a silent kingdom, there was always some sort of noise disturbing the peace. However, I assumed the Forbidden Forest was quiet because of me. Creatures were afraid to come to the forest because I lived there.

I breathed deeply before pushing open the door of our house.

Valoel hovered in midair, reading a teen magazine from Earth. To her, humans were the most fascinating creatures alive.

My little sister was a know-it-all smarty-pants whose purpose in life seemed to be annoying me to Hell. For some reason, she always seemed to know what I was about to do and what I was thinking. And to make matters worse, she had somehow turned my room into her private hallway; she passed through whenever she wanted.

I cursed the day she was born as I walked into the main room. My father, Eson, sat beside a flickering fire, and my mother, Gradla, sat on a chair beneath Valoel, who was hovering in the air. My family knew the only thing I did when they were home was ignore them, so they did the same whenever I was home.

“
Son.” My mother stood.