The images in the bright pool flickered past Apollyon’s eyes at lightning speed but he could see them all, could bring each into focus and pause there a moment to understand what was happening in the scene before discarding it and allowing the flow to resume. It was a distraction he used daily, his every hour devoted to watching over the mortals.
In the long centuries he had studied the human world, he had seen a million or more changes, from the smallest accidental discovery to the grandest scheme that had altered the future of the race.
He had witnessed the growth of the mortals.
He had watched them forget his kind.
No one believed in angels anymore.
And his master had not called him forth from the bottomless pit in Hell in all the time he had been assigned to the dark realm of smoke and fire, hundreds of years passed choking on the stench of sulphur and bearing the presence of demons, and the king of Hell’s vicious taunts that rang in his ears on a daily basis.
Yet Apollyon waited for the call to come, faithful and patient, committed to his duty even as others around him chose to live by their own commands. He had heard the tales from angels who had reason to enter Hell, whispers and rumours about how their fellow warriors had softened and fallen for mortal women, their devotion wavering and their commitment altering to their love.
He would do no such thing.
He had no interest in mortals.
His dark blue gaze darted around the silvery pool, following the history it was recording, stopping a moment on images that interested him.
Wars. Death. Bloodshed.
It was something that never changed. The one constant. Mortals seemed bent on destroying each other.
One day, his master would call him and Earth would know the true meaning of destruction.
The pool cast pale light on him and the jagged obsidian rocks that surrounded it, chasing back the bleak darkness of Hell.
He rolled his shoulders as he crouched near it with his elbows resting on his bare knees, his hands dangling in front of him. The intricate gold metalwork on the black greaves protecting his shins and the vambraces around his forearms caught the light and shone, reminding him of how it would reflect the sunlight when he flew.
A dull ache started behind his breastbone.
On a weary sigh, Apollyon stood and unfurled his black wings, unable to deny the need to feel air in his feathers.
The chest plate of his armour rode up his torso as he lifted his arms and stretched them too. He tilted his head back, another long sigh escaping him as he stared at the endless black ceiling of the cavern above him, a barrier that separated him from the sky he longed to fly in once again.
A sky he hadn’t seen in too long.
If it hadn’t been for the pool, he would have forgotten the blue of it, and the green of the grass and the trees, the bright colours of flowers. He would have forgotten the clear air and crystalline waters. He would no longer remember the breathtaking mountains and wide stretching plains.
He would only know the glowing gold of the fires that dotted the black cragged landscape that surrounded him, and the rivers of lava that snaked between onyx mountains and around the plateau he stood upon. He would only know the choking stench of the smoke that laced the air.
He would only know the darkness that swirled around him, as thick as oil in the air, a constant presence that he couldn’t shake—could only bear.
Apollyon closed his eyes, shutting out Hell as he built a picture in his mind, formed an image that stirred a memory.
One where he had been flying, breathing fresh air and feeling it beat against him as the sun warmed his wings.
He heaved another sigh as the ache in his chest worsened, birthing a desire to soar above the cities again, unseen and unknown, and to speak with the angels who walked on Earth and watched over the mortals.
He longed to be free of the choking fires of Hell.
He forced himself to open his eyes and see the home that was his now, a place he couldn’t escape without an order from his master.
A realm he despised.
He went to turn away from the torture of watching the world he couldn’t experience and paused as his blue gaze caught on an image as it rippled across the silvery liquid.
He frowned and crouched again, the long strands of his black hair falling forwards to brush the skin exposed between the slats of his hip armour and his knees as he leaned forwards and stared at the image he had stopped before him.
A lone female.
It wasn’t the first time he had seen her. Noticed her. The petite blonde liked to walk in the park alone these days and her expression was often troubled, as though she bore a heavy weight on her heart.
What was she thinking when she looked like that?
It was the first time he had wondered about a mortal, had found questions filling his mind as he watched and studied them rather than simply absorbing facts about the things he was seeing.
If he was feeling honest with himself, he would admit that the park wasn’t the only place he had spotted her.
He had seen her indirectly too, picking her out of a crowd or glimpsing her passing through an image that had interested him, and each time his gaze had followed her until she had disappeared from view.
Now, she stood staring up at the Eiffel Tower and the clear blue sky beyond it, her back to him and the gentle breeze catching her short red dress and tousling her long fair hair. He didn’t need to see her face to know that it was her.
No other mortal captivated him as she could.
Roses framed the view, obscuring much of her legs.
He cocked his head and ran his gaze over what he could see. He had never seen her dressed like this. She had always worn layers of clothing in the past, her legs covered and a thick black coat encasing her slender frame.
The seasons had passed so quickly and he hadn’t noticed that it was summer where she was in Europe.
The image changed, panning up the height of the Eiffel Tower, and he wanted it to go back to her until he saw the stretching blue sky above the top of the tower.
Apollyon reached out to the pool, desperate to touch that sky and feel the sun beating down on his wings as he flew.
The image drifted away, replaced with a succession of others that he had no interest in as one thought spun through his mind.
It was summer.
He stood and imagined flying in that blue sky and how exhilarating it would be. He pictured the whole of Paris stretched out below him, the elegant stone buildings bright in the sunlight that would warm their dull grey roofs and the tree-lined avenues filled with mortals coming and going, enjoying the weather.
He had never been there but he knew it well from the images he had seen, had witnessed it grow from small simple buildings into a grand bustling city.
What would it be like to see such a place?
To see such a female in the flesh?
He shook that thought away. He had no interest in mortal women.
If he didn’t, why did his heart stop whenever he saw her?
Apollyon looked back into the pool and then turned away from it. His duty was to his master. He had to remain here, guardian of the bottomless pit, suffering the acrid fires of Hell, until his master called him.
He chuckled mirthlessly at that.
No one was going to call him. He was going to spend the rest of eternity trapped in his own personal Hell.
A dark curse rolled off his tongue and a noise like thunder rumbled in the distance. A taunting voice echoed within it, attempting to fill his mind with poison. He shut the Devil out, refusing to succumb to the temptations he offered to all angels who entered his domain. He wasn’t weak, an angel easy to sway. He was strong, easily pushed back against the Devil because he had been made to fight him.
As the wretch’s voice faded, a sense that someone was speaking his name built inside him. He listened, trying to hear the voice of his master, sure that this time it wasn’t the Devil provoking him because the feeling it evoked in him was different.
Familiar.
But no matter what he did, no matter how fiercely he strained, he couldn’t discern where the call was coming from.
He could only feel it beating inside him, growing stronger by the second.
Tugging him upwards.
Apollyon grabbed his sword, buckled the sheath to his waist, and didn’t wait for the call to come again. This was his chance to escape Hell and he would take it. He was finally being called. He had a mission again at last.
He spread his black wings and with a single strong beat lifted into the thick air. The wind from them blew the dark smoke back so it swirled beneath him as they raised him higher and higher, carrying him towards the ceiling of his prison.
He stretched a hand up to it.
The black rock parted before him.
He beat his wings harder, flying faster now as a streak of blue formed above him. Hundreds of feet of rock passed him in a blur and he could hardly breathe, struggled to contain the feelings colliding inside him as he exploded into the fresh air on the other side. He grinned and shot upwards, his black wings beating furiously against the warm air, and didn’t stop until he reached the clouds.
Apollyon hovered there, casting his dark blue eyes over the world at his feet, the cooler air streaming through his long black hair.
It was as beautiful as he remembered, more so in fact.
The cities the mortals had built fascinated him, had him itching to see them with his own eyes at last, to experience what his fellow warriors could and see if everything lived up to the tales they had told him and the reports he had read.
But his mission came first.
Perhaps if he fulfilled it in a satisfactory manner, he would be allowed some freedom, could soak in the mortal world before he returned to his duties.
He swooped lower, searching for his mission and listening for his master’s call.
What did he desire him to do?
Whatever it was, he would carry it out. He always did. He had destroyed many cities in his name and cast many sinners into the bottomless pit. He had fought the Devil and defeated him, keeping him contained in Hell. Whatever challenge his master presented, he would complete it.
He frowned when he saw the city stretched below him.
Paris.
The desire to go to the Eiffel Tower and find the mortal female was strong but he resisted it and flew over the city, seeking the source of the call and his mission.
The call was quieter now though, weaker than it had been in Hell, and he struggled to locate the source of it as he flew along streets and above avenues, invisible to mortal eyes.
It burned within him though, relentless and driving him to search, even when he was beginning to wonder if he would be searching forever and if this was just a cruel joke because he had cursed.
The Devil would do such a despicable thing. He had a strong voice and could throw it well, could have easily feigned retreat, making Apollyon think he had shut him out, only to trick him into thinking the other voice he had heard was a different one—that of his master.
The bastard had promised Apollyon that he would pay for all the times he had cast him back into Hell after all.
Was it possible this was a lie? A trick? Was it possible he had been so desperate to leave Hell that he had fallen foul of the Devil?
Apollyon swooped lower, effortlessly cutting through the warmer air, using the feel of it tickling his black feathers and washing over his skin to distract him from his troubling thoughts. Fears that were unfounded.
It wasn’t the Devil who had lured him to Paris.
It wasn’t.
Turning, he dived down a side street, skimming low above the heads of the mortals, causing a wind to gust against them. He smiled when they shrieked and grabbed their clothes to keep them in place. It was wrong to take such childish pleasure from doing such things, but all angels had a tendency to misuse their invisibility and he was sure it wouldn’t be held against him by his superiors.
A strong beat of his wings and he was soaring upwards again, determined to find the source of the call that tugged at his chest.
He landed on the edge of the roof of an old pale stone building and looked across the city towards the Eiffel Tower. It speared the clear sky, surrounded by lush green at the base, a beacon that called to him as fiercely as the voice.
He pushed off in that direction and froze.
Someone was speaking his name again.
Apollyon focused, frowning as he scanned the city and tried to discern the direction it was coming from. His gaze shot back to the Eiffel Tower. There?
He ran to the far edge of the building and leaped off, waiting until he was close to the flagstones of the square below before he unfurled his wings and beat them, shooting straight across the square only a few feet above the ground. He ducked and weaved through the people and came out over a grassy bank. The river was ahead and beyond it the Eiffel Tower. He flew straight for it and then came to an abrupt halt in mid-air when he heard the call again.
It was behind him.
He scoured the people below. Was his master down there, amongst them, calling to him?
His master had several guises. Apollyon’s eyes darted over the mortals, stopping for barely a second on each face. None of them matched how he remembered his master.
The call came more clearly this time, beating deep in his heart.
His gaze shot in the direction it had come from.
His eyes widened.
Her?
A fair-haired mortal female stood beside one of the fountains below, her back to him and the warm breeze playing with the short skirt of her dark red dress. The jets of water from the fountains sprayed high, the droplets catching the wind to reveal a rainbow and settling on his skin when it blew towards him.
Apollyon frowned.
It had to be the Devil’s work.
He had been watching her, had cursed, and then she had called him.
It was ridiculous.
No mortal had the power to call an angel, and he had not had a different master since eternity began, although he didn’t remember those days, had forgotten it all the first time he had been reborn and had only the recorded history in Heaven to go on.
Cautiously, Apollyon swooped down, closer to her, hovering barely twenty metres above her head.
Had she called him?
He needed to know, and he would find out.
He was going to speak to her for the first time.
