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  A Mystery of Light

  Ash Angels Book 3

  BOOK 3 of 3

  Brian K. Fuller

  [email protected]

  It is better to light a candle

  Than to curse the darkness.

  —Eleanor Roosevelt

  Copyright 2019 © by Brian K. Fuller

  All Rights Reserved

  In gratitude for the inescapable gravity of Grace

  Prologue

  Avadan

  Not even Rapture freed him.

  He’d been trapped in a prison with no walls, standing alone on the dilapidated floor of an abandoned stage. With the dawn, enough light slipped through a crack in the ceiling that his eyes could register the theater’s dusty, busted seats stretching into a gloomy abyss he couldn’t make out day or night. Did Avadan know that he knew this place?

  Archus Ramis. That name had meant something once. Efficiency. Capability. Results. Once the Ash Angel Organization discovered the depth of his failure, his reputation would sink into the same disrepair as the building in which he now stood, a mute actor waiting to deliver lines to an invisible audience.

  He tried to step forward and couldn’t so much as lift a toe to feel the top of his boot. He opened his mouth to scream and couldn’t pry his lips even a millimeter apart. He tried to resist the pendant’s power but hadn’t found anything the Bone of First Avarice couldn’t control. From the moment he had slung it over his neck in the reliquarium, he couldn’t so much as blink without its say-so.

  Why had he been such a fool? Half of him hadn’t believed the pendant could do what Helo and Aclima said it could. Half of him hoped it could. But from the time Aclima confirmed Helo’s speculation about the pendant, an idea had wormed its way into Ramis’s mind. If Cain had used the pendant to control the Dreads, could anyone who wore it do the same? Could the endless war with the Dreads end with a single thought, a forceful command to every Dread to burn their own hearts? It would be so efficient, so quick.

  He had toyed with the idea over and over. He had dismissed the idea over and over. He had engaged in heated conversations with himself about the idea’s merits and risks. Time and time again he found himself in the reliquarium in the bowels of Deep 7 gazing at Abel’s extracted rib sitting innocently on the shelf surrounded by a red glow.

  Now that same glow burned just below his line of sight from where it hung by the thong around his neck. The moment it had slipped over his head so many months ago, he’d learned the awful truth: the pendant wouldn’t allow him to control a single Dread. It wouldn’t even let him control himself. A disembodied voice whose identity he tried not to think about whispered commands to him.

  The familiar whine and bang of a door split the silence; Avadan again, no doubt, coming in from a noisy door somewhere backstage. What could the mad Loremaster possibly want? Ramis’s stomach clenched. Avadan knew everything about the AAO now, thanks to him.

  He knew the location of Deep 7. He knew the location of as many of the Gabriel deep-cover operatives Ramis could personally remember, and that was most of them. He knew every manufacturing, training, command, and operations facility. There was nothing left to divulge. Avadan had drained him. The mad Loremaster often came alone, sometimes with a Sheid, and was eagerly attentive to every secret that fell from his captive’s lips.

  And here he was again. Why had the pendant led him to Avadan instead of Cain? The Loremaster approached from the left, a flickering, warm glow growing stronger with each footstep across the squeaking stage. Ramis tried to grit his teeth but couldn’t.

  And then Avadan minced into view holding a candle, wax dripping over and crusting on his hands. The only variety to Ramis’s drab days was conjecturing about what maniacal costume the Dread Loremaster would wear when he came. Today was as mismatched as ever—but more disturbing. Who wore four-inch red heels, a hockey uniform—complete with goalie mask—and a velvet top hat? An evil, insane Loremaster, that was who. Ramis wanted to burn him so badly he could almost taste it.

  Avadan approached and stuck the candle in Ramis’s face, the Loremaster’s dark eyes roving around in the eye holes of the mask. “Good morning, Archus Ramis. I see the audiences aren’t getting any bigger. You must work on your stage presence. And your voice, well, it is a bit pitchy for a lead in a musical production. Should I have you sing for me today? No? You look so drab. Smile for me, please?”

  Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Ramis dumped every ounce of will into resisting, but the voice of the pendant was his master now. Smile. A confident voice. A voice used to obedience. A voice that couldn’t be denied. A full-toothed smile bloomed on his face.

  “Much better,” Avadan said. “I promise you that our interrogations are nearly at an end. Soon I will be ready for the pendant myself and I will set you free . . . after a fashion, of course. So, this is the very last question. Where is the Pit?”

  Answer him, said the pendant.

  Ramis couldn’t lie. He’d tried so many times. Only two people were supposed to know the location where the Ash Angels stored the evil spirits that had been trapped in objects by those with the Exorcism Bestowal. But he knew. He knew because he had dug for it when he wasn’t supposed to. So he told Avadan, shuddering at what the Loremaster could do if he found the place.

  Avadan ripped the hockey mask off his face, eyes wide. “At last! This is wonderful. So is the Legion Stone really there?”

  Horror filled Ramis’s breast, but not even that emotion could lock his lips. “Yes.”

  “And who else knows the location?”

  Oh, how he wished he could cut his own tongue out. Why was the pendant’s control so total? “Archus Simeon and his underling, Archon Anvil, both of the Sanctus.”

  “And where might they be?” Avadan pressed.

  “Deep 7, if they aren’t out in the field,” Ramis answered. Deep 7 was where he should have been, where he would be if he hadn’t donned the accursed pendant.

  “I suspected as much,” Avadan said. He turned and strutted back and forth across the stage, the thunk of his heels echoing across the empty theater. “Excuse me while I think for a moment. You’ve been so very helpful, but I must consider if there is anything else I need from you before I reward you for your service.”

  This was it, then. Ramis had no doubt his “reward” was an end to his afterlife. A shameful end. Would the Ash Angel Organization even know it was him who had failed them? Would they even find the pile of ash Avadan would leave behind? Ramis willed his feet to move, willed a finger to flinch. Nothing. There had to be an escape! His only paltry redemption would be to get away from this madman and at least let the Ash Angel Organization know how deeply they had been compromised. Maybe redemption was the wrong word. There was no redemption from what he had done. Warning the AAO was just what had to be done.

  Avadan paced a bit more and then donned the hockey mask again, leveling his creepy stare at him. “One last question comes to mind. If Helo were to, say, leave the Ash Angel Organization and hide, where would he go?”

  Helo. The Ash Angel who had stolen Cassandra from him. His beautiful Cassandra. Ramis was glad Avadan hadn’t thought to ask if he knew the place where he stood prisoner. This was the very theater where he had awakened Cassandra. If it weren’t for Helo, she would still live. Her sacrificial death to save Helo from Cain’s clutches was a waste. It should have been the other way around, but Helo was only good at aggrandizing himself, at doing what he wanted at the expense of protocol and good sense. Cassandra was ten times more valuable to the AAO and to the world than Helo was, and now she was nothing more than scattered ash on Lake Michigan.

  Answer him.

  “The last time Helo left, he went to a place called the Redemption Mot
orcycle Club in Arizona. If he’s not there, I don’t know where he is. If I knew where to find him, believe me, I would tell you.”

  Avadan cocked his head so far to the side his top hat should have tumbled to the dusty floor. But it stayed perched on his head. Were those staples circling the brim?

  Avadan brought the candle up to eye level. “An interesting answer! You are personally acquainted with Helo, then? Trace Daniel Evans, correct?”

  “Yes,” Ramis answered.

  “And you dislike him?”

  “Yes.”

  Avadan nodded. “More than dislike, I think. After all my studies, it is quite apparent that one doesn’t need a passenger jet to cover the emotional distance between Ash Angels and Dreads. A sustained walk after breakfast would bridge the gap. It is certainly no surprise to me that Ash Angels can hate. Would it surprise you that Dreads can love? More Dreads than you might think could be tipped across the line. And more Ash Angels than you know have tipped. You hate him, yes?”

  “Yes,” Ramis said. That he would have admitted without the pendant.

  “Wonderful,” Avadan said. The Loremaster reached down to the waistband of his hockey pants and pulled out a pair of orange-handled pruners. “And yourself. You hate yourself for what you’ve done?”

  “Yes,” Ramis said.

  Avadan nodded. “Good. This will be much easier than I thought.”

  Ramis eyed the pruners, or, rather, the pendant let him eye them. What did Avadan think would be easier? He’d already ruined the Ash Angel Organization. What was left to be done?

  He was worthless.

  The thought came unbidden, the smothering, cankering invitation to self-loathing already drowning him. Avadan’s Sheid was approaching. It had stood idly by during some of Avadan’s previous interrogations, and the thing was so powerful Ramis could feel it coming a long way off. It came now, but something told him the Sheid wouldn’t be a mute visitor this time.

  Avadan raised the pruners, and they snapped open. “Stick out your tongue, please.”

  Chapter 1

  Good Deeds

  The man barged through the door of the women’s shelter like he’d been thrown at it. Judging by the odor of sour whiskey that invaded the foyer with him, Helo guessed he’d spent the afternoon nursing a bottle and an attitude. The half-smoked cigarette pinched between his lips dripped a little ash as he glanced around, eyes settling on Aclima behind the front desk. Aclima’s eyes narrowed, and Helo grimaced. This was not going to go well. Not at all.

  It had taken a mountain of persuasion to get the Angels of Mercy—an Ash Angel aid group not affiliated with the Ash Angel Organization—to give Aclima a shot. When speaking with them, Helo had conveniently left out that Aclima had been a Dread Loremaster. The Angels of Mercy had finally agreed to help them, and he and Aclima had volunteered at the women’s shelter for two weeks.

  By the set of Aclima’s jaw, he could tell that today they would have to pack up and move on to find another way for the Dread Loremaster-turned-Ash-Angel-turned-Dread-Loremaster to get her Ash Angelhood back.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” Aclima said flatly. The name tag pinned to her white blouse said Stacy. She’d been acting as a receptionist, and it had gone fairly well so far. The women at the shelter liked her. But all of Aclima’s good service to the abused and addicted women of Bozeman, Montana, hadn’t erased her red aura. Six months of good deeds hadn’t done it. How long would it take?

  “I’ll smoke where I want!” the man growled. “Where’s that bitch, Daley? I know she’s here.”

  Helo leaned the broom he’d been sweeping the gray tile floor with against the wall. Daley Pickering had come in two weeks ago running from this guy and a meth habit. She had been a strung-out mess then and wasn’t much better now.

  “I’m sorry,” Aclima said evenly. “We are going to have to ask you to leave.” She was really doing a bang-up job of keeping a lid on her anger. Maybe she was getting better. No. That light was in her eye. Not the good kind of light. It was the pilot-light-in-a-room-full-of-natural-gas kind of light.

  The man blew out a long puff of smoke. “Her name’s Daley Pickering. Look it up! She stole from me!”

  Aclima smiled. It was tight, the varnish peeling off her friendly demeanor. Helo angled toward her. This guy was going to be too much. The location of the women’s shelter was confidential, and if this guy had gone to the work of tracking it down, he was a jackass and then some. He was so far gone he hadn’t even given Aclima the once-over like every guy gave her the once-over.

  “Listen here,” the man said, thrusting his cigarette at her. “You drag her out here right now and tell her to give back the $300 she stole from me.”

  Aclima didn’t flinch. “If you have a criminal complaint, please contact the police. I’ll call them right now if you don’t leave the premises immediately.”

  The man glowered, his dark eyes shining from beneath a worn blue ball cap. For a moment, Helo thought he might come to his senses and actually leave, that they wouldn’t have to pack up and head somewhere else. Aclima stared the guy down, unbending and unintimidated. If the abusive jerk had only known what he was dealing with, he would have run out of there like the building was on fire.

  “She’s back there, isn’t she?” he said, pointing down the hallway to Aclima’s left. Then he bolted toward it. “Daley! Get out here!”

  Aclima shot from her chair and hockey-checked the guy into the wall. The drywall got a good dent, the cigarette a trip to the floor, and the man a stumbling dance to keep his balance. He rounded on Aclima, eyes alight with fury.

  “So that’s how you want to play it?” he growled, circling Aclima like a punk kid ready to bump chests with a rival in the street.

  Helo snaked his arm around his neck from behind and put him in a sleeper hold.

  “Night, night,” Aclima said, then kicked the defenseless man square in the groin. He didn’t suffer too long before his body went slack.

  Helo flared his Strength and hoisted the drunkard over his shoulder.

  “Had to destroy the groin?” he said

  “He deserved it.”

  Hard to argue with that, but he didn’t think roughing up a drunken, abusive idiot would earn her any points toward becoming an Ash Angel again. Or maybe it would. He really had no idea what the rules for converting a Dread to an Ash Angel were. He knew the Sanctus had run a program to do it for a year with little success.

  Aclima followed him outside, down the walk, and over to the driveway. A worn, sky-blue Mazda with a missing bumper idled in the weak light of a November afternoon. The car looked about right for an addict—as pitted and rough as the man himself. Aclima pulled open the squealing driver’s side door, a fast-food napkin stained with fry sauce fluttering out. Helo dumped the man in the seat. After shutting the car off, he yanked the keys out of the ignition. No way was he going to let this guy drive anywhere.

  “I’m sorry, Helo,” Aclima said, tone sad. “We’re going to have to move, aren’t we?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Linda wasn’t keen on letting you do this in the first place, so . . .”

  Aclima put her hands on her hips and exhaled. “I really don’t feel like I did anything wrong.”

  “You didn’t,” Helo said. “But Linda won’t see it that way. Why don’t you go talk to her, and I’ll handle this guy.”

  Aclima nodded and headed back inside. Helo lightly smacked the man’s face until his eyes fluttered open. He didn’t look so good. His crotch apparently didn’t feel great, either, his hands immediately searching out the fork in his legs. Helo wanted to bash him in the face. Wanted to shout at him to leave Daley alone. But Dolorem’s training took over. This was one of God’s children, Dolorem would have said. A very lost one.

  “What do you want?” the man said, face pinched.

  Helo grabbed his shoulder, letting his Inspire gift flow into him. “You can do better than this,” he said. “Leave Daley alone. Get some help. Forget the m
oney. It’s not important. Getting your life back together is.”

  “Can I go?” he said. Helo doubted he had done any good and ended the Inspire.

  “I’m calling you a cab.” Helo stepped back and shut the door, wondering if he should call the cops. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t seem the type to just let things go. Helo would tell Linda, and she could decide. She had experience with these things.

  He walked back to the shelter. The Haven of Angels. Aptly named. It was a big brick home that had been converted by the Angels of Mercy. Goliath had known about the group and suggested it. That reminded him that he had to call her to tell her to pack up their stuff and make good with their landlord.

  Where would they go next? They had worked soup kitchens until a Dread had wandered by and tried to get friendly with Aclima. She’d broken him down in front of a crowd of hungry, stunned onlookers. They’d helped muck out homes after a flood in Missouri. That had gone really well until two looters arrived at the house where they were working. Aclima had put them both in the hospital. Neither one would walk right again.

  Then there was the animal shelter. Working with cute, fluffy animals had seemed a nice change from troublesome humans. But when someone dropped off a cat some kids had intentionally burned with fireworks, Aclima didn’t rest until she found the punk teenagers who had done it, and it was all Helo could do to keep her from burning their houses down.

  Anger. That’s what it always came down to. Cain had bred it into her, and purging it seemed more impossible with every passing month. Something inside Aclima clung to her hatred and resentment like they were the last bullets in a gun she wanted to fire at Cain. But Cain was dead. Helo had no idea what to do to heal her, but he was going to try. He would try until his ascendancy in six months.

  He slipped inside the darkly stained oak door. Two women with white auras spoke with Aclima, her red aura all the redder for the contrast. One of the Ash Angel women was Linda, a slender Hispanic with a hard face but compassionate eyes. She was no-nonsense. And attacking a client’s jerk ex-boyfriend was nonsense, even if it was well deserved nonsense. The other was Korina, one of the crisis-center counselors.