Peace (4 page)

“No. The Judge doesn’t care if you love him or not.” Lam paused for a second then continued, “There are legends that say there was a god at one time. He was the one who created all beings in heaven, on Earth, and even those who resided in the hellish realm. No one is entirely sure what happened. Maybe he never existed. Maybe he chose to fade away once he created us. The Judge has been around as far back as our oldest angel can remember, yet he doesn’t have the power to create life.”

Baqir narrowed his eyes as he studied Lam. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be telling me this.”

Lam looked toward the window again. “The angels have held Earth in bondage, so we aren’t supposed to tell mortals anything. The archangels are the ones who make the rules and impose harsh punishments if humans break them. Heck, they even punish their own kind for not conforming. I’m no longer an angel. They’ve done the worst they could to me, short of killing me.”

“Don’t you think they could come back and do that?” Baqir jumped to his feet then paced. “Aren’t you afraid of that?”

“No.” Lam’s blunt response caused Baqir to whirl and glare at him.

“Why not?”

Lam debated for a moment if he should tell Baqir or not, but he’d already divulged the biggest secret of all. What could spilling a few more cost him?

“Creatures of the heavenly and hellish realms can’t be unmade. We can’t be killed—or destroyed—by other angels. That’s why Day still exists. It wasn’t so he could tempt humans and help them turn to God. It was simply because the angels couldn’t kill him. Only the Judge can do that.”

“You do realize you’re destroying all my beliefs here, don’t you?” Baqir informed him.

“Sorry.”

“No. You aren’t sorry. Don’t even pretend to be.” Baqir shook his head. “You need to tell the others. Were you banished because you wanted to tell all these secrets or was it because of hanging around with Daystar?”

He grimaced as he thought. “Probably both. My superiors never liked the idea of how much I interfered in your lives while you were Horsemen. Once I realized how you could return to a mortal life, I was determined to give you all a chance to do so. Being forced to do something like what the Horsemen do isn’t right. I believe in free will and giving every creature a choice.”

Baqir chuckled. “Something tells me you were a bit of a radical in the heavenly realm.”

“Probably, and it’s what got me banished. They took my wings and power for spite. There was no justice in what they did. Heck, I didn’t even get a chance to go before the Judge and explain. The Quadrant of archangels abused their powers by convicting me on their own.” Anger rose in him at the injustice.

“If you and Daystar were so close, why isn’t he here?” Baqir’s phone rang and he excused himself before Lam could answer him.

Lam watched as he strolled from the room then focused on Baqir’s question. He’d been right to ask. Lam didn’t know why Day wasn’t there. They had always been able to find each other on Earth or in the hellish realm. If Day knew what had happened to him, his lover would be there to help him. No matter what the Quadrant said about Day, he wasn’t selfish. At least he never had been with Lam.

“Where are you, love?” Lam closed his eyes and sent out a plea to the universe around him. His prayers would no longer be answered, but he did believe in the energy of the earthly world. If he could figure out how to manipulate it, it would be a force that could help him.

* * * *

“Where is Lam?” Day shook the angel hard enough, he swore he heard the creature’s teeth rattle in his head.

“I don’t know.” The angel lifted his hands. “Honest, Daystar. One day he was there. The next, the Quadrant announced we weren’t to speak of him anymore. They said he’d fallen and they’d punished him as they saw fit.”

“Fuck.” He shoved the angel away. “Get out of here.”

There wasn’t any point in keeping the sniveling creature around. The angel had told him all he knew. The Quadrant wasn’t about to tell the truth to their subordinates, not when they were more than likely in the wrong.

Once the creature disappeared, Day stalked along Bourdon Street, ignoring the muted noise of partiers. A small part of him was amazed that people were still out drinking and dancing in the torrential rains swamping the city.

There was one bright spot though. Lam had fallen, which meant he was in the earthly plane. The Quad would’ve stripped him of his power—he would be as mortal as the pathetic souls swirling around Day. That would explain why Day couldn’t sense him.

The very essence of mortals was decay. They were dying the moment they were born and it muddled Day’s power to track them. Not that he spent much time searching out humans. As he’d told the Pale Horseman, he had people begging to join him in the hellish realm—he didn’t need to hunt them down.

A sudden idea hit him and he stopped in his tracks. The Horsemen. Lam had always seemed rather attached to the last crop. Hell, he’d even had Day help Death with a mortal. Day snorted.
That’s probably what brought Lam to the attention of the Quad. I warned him that disobeying orders would get him in trouble at some point. Not that I was a shining example of doing what I was told.

Maybe they would know where Lam was. He thought of his home and in a blink, he stood on the balcony. Rain pelted him while the wind battered him. The water of the lake crashed against the shore as Superior conveyed his displeasure to the world.

After stepping into his room, he shook the liquid from his hair before undressing. He tossed his wet clothes toward the hamper. Day turned in the direction of the bathroom then paused.

“Pick up after yourself,” he muttered, almost hearing Lam’s voice nag him. “You sent all your employees off on vacations. There’s no one here to do it. Besides, it’s not like you have to actually wash them or anything.”

With a wave of his hand, the clothes were dry and hanging in his closet. There were moments when he enjoyed being as powerful as he was. Lam had asked him once why he even had people working for him. Being able to do things with merely a thought made it seem a little silly to have others do it for him.

He’d tried to explain it away as wanting to give them something to do. All of his employees had been lost and wandering the Earth, searching for a purpose. Day gave them one when he hired them. Lam hadn’t been convinced that was the entire reason, but Day wouldn’t budge. Day wasn’t about to admit that he’d been lonely before he’d met Lam. Having humans around, even if he didn’t particularly like them, kept him from getting depressed.

So many millennia spent alone in the different realms he could visit had taken a toll on Day. At first he had refused to lower himself to spend any time with mortals. Fragile and ignorant of the truth, they got on his nerves from the moment they opened their mouths. As the years went on, he’d learned to ignore their thoughts and dreams. He’d begun to tolerate them enough to be able to have them around. Finally, it had been either deal with mortals or go crazy from loneliness. Day wasn’t about to give the Quad the satisfaction of being right in banishing him.

“How do I find former Horsemen who are now mortal?” he muttered as he wandered into the bathroom. “I can’t really find them like I could before. They have no heavenly mark anymore, so that’s out.”

Day turned on the shower, testing the temperature. It might have seemed strange that he chose to wash up in a very mortal way when he could just wave his hand and he would be clean but he’d discovered he liked performing human rituals. Taking the time to indulge in these rituals helped him organize his thoughts. It was another thing he did that amused Lam.

“I know I went to Death in Paris. Maybe I should search there first.” He’d gotten into the habit of talking to himself when he was alone. “I never asked Lam what happened to any of them once they stopped being Horsemen.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Day swung around, crouching at the sudden appearance of the head of the messenger angels. “What the hell are you doing here, Gabriel? I thought your kind would die before you left the heavenly realm?”

Gabriel sneered as he trailed his gaze over Day’s naked body. “I see you’ve embraced the hedonistic ways of mortals.”

He straightened to his full height, not willing to allow Gabriel to make him feel ashamed. “The Judge stripped me of my angelic form. What was I supposed to? Exist in any realm as a mere spirit? That wasn’t about to happen. There were no restrictions put on me about what I could—or couldn’t do—while banished.”

The archangel growled at what he probably saw as Day’s insubordination.

“I no longer report to you or any of the other members of the Quadrant. Remember that here on Earth and in Hell, I am your equal. Treat me with respect or you can leave.” Day turned, dismissing Gabriel like he’d never been able to do while an angel.

“Stay away from the Horsemen, Daystar. And don’t go looking for Lam. It’s because of you that we were forced to banish him. He’s suffered enough. If you continue looking, the consequences will be far worse than simply losing his powers.”

Day shoved into Gabriel’s space, wishing he could punch the angel, but Gabriel hadn’t taken on an entirely human shape. He was more like a ghost than a truly solid body. “Don’t threaten me, Gabriel. I’m angry already. Push me any further and it won’t only be Earth that gets destroyed. Don’t forget the war I waged before I was banished. I’m capable of much worse now.”

Gabriel drifted away from him. “You’ve received the only warning we’ll give. Don’t approach any of the Horsemen. Don’t go looking for Lam. Let this be the end of whatever foolishness you two were wrapped up in. Don’t make us get the Judge involved.”

Day shouted, rage exploding in him. He leaped for Gabriel, but the angel vanished before he could get to him. Somewhere in the Midwest, a large tornado touched down, ravaging four miles of homes. Day grabbed a hold of his anger, getting it back under control and the tornado disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“You didn’t let the Judge determine his punishment, Gabriel. Is that what you’re saying? You and your fellow archangels chose to banish Lam without a trial.” Day threw a punch into the mirror over his sink. It shattered, but didn’t fall apart. He stared at his fractured image. His black eyes glowed with a hint of red around the edges of his irises.

It was one thing for the Judge to punish an angel or mortal. He was impartial in all ways, having no concern for emotions. He looked inside a creature and read the intent of its soul. The Judge couldn’t be swayed in any way. Once his decision had been reached, there was no turning back. He was an entity outside of the universe, untouched by all the realms he ruled over.

Day had never thought to fight his banishment. He’d been trained to accept whatever the Judge ruled as law. Also, he deserved his sentence, since he wasn’t sorry for the trouble he’d caused, if only because he’d wanted to shake up the complacence of the Quadrant. Day had never wanted to be one of the ruling archangels. Being as powerful as they were didn’t mean he—or they—was suited to running the heavenly realm. He knew it, but the others thought he wanted to overthrow them and take their places.

“You made a tactical error, Gabriel. Threatening me won’t stop me from finding Lam. All it does is put you and the rest of the Quad on my radar. You’ll regret that.”

Waving his hand, Day replaced the broken mirror then climbed into the shower. He would clean up and get dressed before he went to Paris. It was time to find his lover and make sure he was okay. As he thought of Lam, a sense of peace washed over him, like he used to feel when Lam stood next to him. Yes, Lam was alive and somewhere out there.

“I’ll find you, Lam. Then we’ll spend every second together. I refuse to worry about what those idiots will do to us. We’ll prove to them that they were wrong to throw us away like trash.”

A wave of purpose spilled through him. This one didn’t feel like Lam. It felt like destiny, and Day wasn’t sure what that meant. The first time he’d felt something like that, he’d ended up falling to rule Earth and Hell.

If he was captured and dragged before the Judge again, what would his sentence be this time? Would the Judge finally do the one thing he’d never done before? Would he unmake a creature? Day didn’t think he wanted to learn how it would end, yet he couldn’t allow Lam’s treatment go unanswered. The Quad needed to learn that they didn’t get the final say.

Chapter Five

“If this weather keeps up, we’re going to have to consider going to live on a boat,” Kibwe muttered as he stared out of the large windows of Gatian’s penthouse apartment.

It had been raining for days and there didn’t seem to be a possibility of it ending any time soon. The weathermen were baffled by the entire storm system, which covered a great deal of the continent.

“Even places like the Gobi desert are being inundated with water,” Aldo said as he glanced up from where he sat, reading one of the newspapers Gatian had delivered. “No one has any idea what’s causing it.”

“It’s as though the heavens themselves are crying,” Kibwe said, pressing his hand to the cool glass. “Maybe they are mourning Lam’s banishment.”

He saw Baqir’s reflection in the window and the man shook his head.

“This is not a mournful rain. These are thunderstorms filled with rage and pain. If they could be created by a person, then he is violently angry about something.” Baqir shifted on the couch where he sat. “Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that the storms started the very night Lam appeared on Gatian’s balcony?”

“Is someone missing him?” Kibwe turned to face his friends. “Could Daystar be causing this?”

Aldo shrugged. “It’s possible, though I’ve never known him to care about anyone enough to cause this much chaos.”