HELLBREAKER:::: PROLOGUE::: Book of Saints and Hell
Those expressions were priceless—these people who claimed to be the remaining justice for the living and the dead. Clustered about them the relics that were the three gates dividing plains of existence identified in tales as old as the blood in her veins. She could have laughed at how ridiculous these so-called “guardians” truly were to think these actions against her would appease whatever sentiments of their laws she’d disrupted.
“Aquaerrisa of the Sixth.”
A broad leer split her blood touched lips. Hers was the name that truly made the air of this “holy” space chill. Lifting her lowered eyes from the white marble of the platform upon which she’d been placed, she cast her amber attention upon the fool who’d addressed her.
A zealot of the Order. Only their emerald robes of almost poetic fashions and silver bands about the forearm identified the forms that stood about her and spoke her title idly. They called themselves “Supreme Justices” as though the balance of all God and Hell rested in their palms. This fool was female, tendrils of spiraled black hair escaping the deep hood of her robe.
“Helba,” she purred in greeting.
A shudder cast absolute quiet to the room.
All the better to keep their bitter jabber uninterrupted by the mass audience standing forgotten on the side. “Aquaerrisa of the Sixth, you are charged with the supreme crimes of breaking the pact and theft of a Relic. These charges are set law for the absolute damnation of your soul without promise or right of redemption.”
The petty rulings of an inadequate judge. She shifted and only took more amusement in the trigger happy startle of the twenty-seven armed guards posted about her platform. As though the encrypted chains and tens of seals about her platform were not enough to retain her. These upstarts had such faith in their power over those they condemned!
“And so your decision,” she began quietly, “ is to lock me away for all time as though I am the Melpomene to your great plan.” Without waiting for a response she continued quickly, toying with the ruthless binds of encrypted steel cutting into her ankles and wrists, throat and hips. “Dear, dear Helba,” she chided softly, “Your silly pact won’t keep him from doing as he pleases.”
An uneasy spread of murmurs though the vast chamber bounced tin echoes off the looming cavern of a ceiling over their heads. The mere mention of him was a deadly taboo. She licked her lips and tasted the bitter vitality of the dead and living alike. Oh, yes, she’d made sure to leave an impact before the Order had caught her.
Helba was still. In the natural daylight streaming down from the rafters, the bands of polished chrome about her arms glittered a tainted hue of black and red. The air heated in a shifting whirl of aura about her until it seemed as though an illusion of steam swayed her solid form. Those of the covenant who knew what was to come made haste putting distance between themselves and their leader with any follower who was less knowledgeable shifting with their masses.
Her smile grew.
Rings of crimson spread about the Supreme Justice’s lithe form, furrowing her long robes with a strangely heated gasp of air. Through the atmosphere a single, pristine note like the peel of a bell screamed. Before the masses the summon took place and a shower of red feathers materialized in the air to dance about a woman who claimed able to conspire peace between the three relics. Abruptly the rain of scarlet turned violent, spiraling about their summoner and for an instant, the chamber became so arid every individual visibly flinched from its epicenter.
Then just as quickly as it had altered, the temperature regressed and stabilized. Recovering as a whole every eye in audience to the trial turned upon Helba and the towering creature then at her back, cloaking her in the blood red furrow of its massive wings.
The archangel soul of Requiem itself.
How lovely the two looked as one. Emerald hood pushed back no doubt from the force of the summon’s arrival at her bid, Helba was just as strikingly beautiful as remembered. The flawless curl of her ebon hair framed a face of soft and elegant features turned stern with resolve as their gazes locked. Those endlessly passionate hazel eyes demanded respect she would not offer. And the lush red of the other woman’s full lips looked touched with unshed blood just beneath the soft surface of ivory skin.
But for all its master’s beauty, nothing could distract from the sheer majesty of the divine beast she’d conjured from relic and magic. It stood only a head taller than its master, crimson eyes cast down upon the dark head of its summoner without permission to look elsewhere. Male in form it was built with a dancer’s lithe body and lean muscle. A face stolen from Adonis created a warrior’s image—powerful, brutal, sensual. Despite having nothing to shield the untainted flesh of its upper body, there was no mistake the creature whore the obsidian armor of one of Heaven’s elite warriors.
The Archangel Leifiel.
Face caressed by her defender’s red wings Helba tilted her chin up proudly. “As decreed by the Order and the covenant it represents,” she boomed, tones layered with newly exposed power, “your immortal soul shall be petrified and stunted in power and form. Your existence must hereby be retained by the life of another and done so through the binds of a contract or pact.” Moving suddenly she reached up to pluck a single feather form the fray of silken wings that cloaked her, sketching runes in the air before it. With an elegant flick of her wrist she cast the feather airborne and under an unheard breath muttered a single word.
Midair the light object sprouted a cocoon of crystal and landed in a shatter of obsidian shards at the feet of the condemned. She stared down at what remained and for the first time felt unsettled.
Helba’s eyes studied her. “From this point forward, Aquaerrisa,” she called mockingly, “you will live on borrowed time. The hours you’ve stolen from the lives you’ve reaped; you will return them—this is your punishment.”
At her shackled feet amid a broken spray of black crystal, a diamond shaped pendant—an hourglass no larger than the nail of her thumb bled the scarlet liquid of life so slowly it might not have been moving at all. But….
She snapped her head up, staring at the woman and her beast. “You and your kind are the snakes of your own Eden! You will not survive what is to come!”
Hazel eyes smiled politely at her. “Neither will you. Your time is set.” Without spoken command, Leifiel was abruptly in motion, the massive arc of its wings opening as the damnation sentence was about to be set into action.
Unflinching she regarded Helba and the others of the covenant. Who still remained audience to her suffering. “One day soon you will need me, snake!”
“If it does indeed come to that, what do you propose, Sinner?”
The chains about her throat seared and writhed as the archangel’s magic opened Hell to seal her soul. Struggling against the downward gravitation, she leered at the chance to strike one final deal. “Release me and I’ll serve the Order as your personal Gabriel on the condition you give me time.”
The chamber broke out into horrified mutterings and she fought the nip and leech of oblivion, straining for her answer. The Supreme Justices were idle.
“You will need me, Helba!”
The platform upon which she stood became a snaking pit of white motion, blurring into some weird consistency that began to suck in and consume the heavy chains that held her ankles and connected to the collar about her throat. Arching backwards as she was drawn down into her prison, Aquaerrisa held the woman’s gaze.
“Helba!”
Without a response, the Supreme Justice turned away, gesturing for the gate to be sealed as, at last, the fiend was consumed whole below the platform. She said nothing to her comrades who rejoined in her wake as she made a few quick motions and dismissed her looming summons in a scatter of red feathers and a wave of heat.
Behind her members of the Order began chaotic mutterings and loud gossip.
A voice broke out from the dense forest of concern and distrust. “Helorum is still too much for the Order.”
A loud roar of agreement birthed new sources of deafening noise.
Behind her the other Justices couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably.
She looked up at those loyal to the covenant and silence followed in the kindle of her searching eyes. Faces upon faces that had been present in the chamber when called since childhood. Individuals she’d seen grow and prosper to give birth to multiple generations of devoted followers of the Order. And yet each now left idle, powerless against a growing threat.
The last murmurs faded and she raised her voice to the faithful. “We are the Guardians of the dead and the defenders of the living; this has been our place since time’s first breath, and we will continue to exorcize the threats made by the Lucids and Helorum.” But this threat was even more powerful than times before. “The Condemned such as Aquaerrisa and the Sixth Ring can be suppressed!” A New Breed of Hell had been dripped onto the world. The pact which had been formed between the living and the dead had promised peace between the two. But something had broken it. The covenant that had kept the living separate form the dead had shattered.
And though relief touched each face with the reassurance of her words, Helba knew it was only a temporary cure. She knew what was coming. It would take months—years possibly, but she knew well.
You will not survive what is to come!
She closed her eyes and became deaf to the renewed morale of her followers; exorcists and truly talented hunters, white necromancers and Life Sprites. All had devoted skill and much more to the Order’s will and her command to maintain the pact.
A light hand fell upon her shoulder with familiar comfort. “We face a war, Helba,” a voice from centuries of support whispered to her ear, husky from abuse and deep with natural masculinity.
She knew the character so well there was no need to turn and see him. Instead she took a breath and waved dismissal to the others, watching them disperse back into a world she could no longer trust to treat them gently.
“We do not face it,” she sighed so only he could hear. “It is already upon us.”
“And the relics?”
Another breath. The relics were keys to open gates. Some took human forms others were crystals given to the Order—Heaven, Hell, Earth, Life, Death. About her throat hung Heaven and Earth. Upon her finger, the obsidian crest of death was safe in is band of silver. Life was a human child and in the protection of one of the Order’s finest Sprites. Clutching the duo hanging from their chains upon her neck then, she felt helpless.
There was no choice. “Shatter them and scatter the pieces. With any luck, the scavenger hunt will at least deter the New Breed from trying to unlock the other plains.”
“And the final?”
Hell. Rumors surfaced every so often. Rumors suggesting the relic of Hell must be a living creature in order to be function. It had been the first rule set by the Order to ensure they remained hidden and locked away. Of course, she was the fourteenth generation of her kind and was not sure of her ancestor’s original regards.
Still, the possibility was unnerving.
“If we cannot find it, there is an exceedingly slim chance Helorum will.” She withdrew from the comfort of friend and left without looking back, oblivious to his quiet response.
“Still,” he’d whispered, “There is a chance.”
Those expressions were priceless—these people who claimed to be the remaining justice for the living and the dead. Clustered about them the relics that were the three gates dividing plains of existence identified in tales as old as the blood in her veins. She could have laughed at how ridiculous these so-called “guardians” truly were to think these actions against her would appease whatever sentiments of their laws she’d disrupted.
“Aquaerrisa of the Sixth.”
A broad leer split her blood touched lips. Hers was the name that truly made the air of this “holy” space chill. Lifting her lowered eyes from the white marble of the platform upon which she’d been placed, she cast her amber attention upon the fool who’d addressed her.
A zealot of the Order. Only their emerald robes of almost poetic fashions and silver bands about the forearm identified the forms that stood about her and spoke her title idly. They called themselves “Supreme Justices” as though the balance of all God and Hell rested in their palms. This fool was female, tendrils of spiraled black hair escaping the deep hood of her robe.
“Helba,” she purred in greeting.
A shudder cast absolute quiet to the room.
All the better to keep their bitter jabber uninterrupted by the mass audience standing forgotten on the side. “Aquaerrisa of the Sixth, you are charged with the supreme crimes of breaking the pact and theft of a Relic. These charges are set law for the absolute damnation of your soul without promise or right of redemption.”
The petty rulings of an inadequate judge. She shifted and only took more amusement in the trigger happy startle of the twenty-seven armed guards posted about her platform. As though the encrypted chains and tens of seals about her platform were not enough to retain her. These upstarts had such faith in their power over those they condemned!
“And so your decision,” she began quietly, “ is to lock me away for all time as though I am the Melpomene to your great plan.” Without waiting for a response she continued quickly, toying with the ruthless binds of encrypted steel cutting into her ankles and wrists, throat and hips. “Dear, dear Helba,” she chided softly, “Your silly pact won’t keep him from doing as he pleases.”
An uneasy spread of murmurs though the vast chamber bounced tin echoes off the looming cavern of a ceiling over their heads. The mere mention of him was a deadly taboo. She licked her lips and tasted the bitter vitality of the dead and living alike. Oh, yes, she’d made sure to leave an impact before the Order had caught her.
Helba was still. In the natural daylight streaming down from the rafters, the bands of polished chrome about her arms glittered a tainted hue of black and red. The air heated in a shifting whirl of aura about her until it seemed as though an illusion of steam swayed her solid form. Those of the covenant who knew what was to come made haste putting distance between themselves and their leader with any follower who was less knowledgeable shifting with their masses.
Her smile grew.
Rings of crimson spread about the Supreme Justice’s lithe form, furrowing her long robes with a strangely heated gasp of air. Through the atmosphere a single, pristine note like the peel of a bell screamed. Before the masses the summon took place and a shower of red feathers materialized in the air to dance about a woman who claimed able to conspire peace between the three relics. Abruptly the rain of scarlet turned violent, spiraling about their summoner and for an instant, the chamber became so arid every individual visibly flinched from its epicenter.
Then just as quickly as it had altered, the temperature regressed and stabilized. Recovering as a whole every eye in audience to the trial turned upon Helba and the towering creature then at her back, cloaking her in the blood red furrow of its massive wings.
The archangel soul of Requiem itself.
How lovely the two looked as one. Emerald hood pushed back no doubt from the force of the summon’s arrival at her bid, Helba was just as strikingly beautiful as remembered. The flawless curl of her ebon hair framed a face of soft and elegant features turned stern with resolve as their gazes locked. Those endlessly passionate hazel eyes demanded respect she would not offer. And the lush red of the other woman’s full lips looked touched with unshed blood just beneath the soft surface of ivory skin.
But for all its master’s beauty, nothing could distract from the sheer majesty of the divine beast she’d conjured from relic and magic. It stood only a head taller than its master, crimson eyes cast down upon the dark head of its summoner without permission to look elsewhere. Male in form it was built with a dancer’s lithe body and lean muscle. A face stolen from Adonis created a warrior’s image—powerful, brutal, sensual. Despite having nothing to shield the untainted flesh of its upper body, there was no mistake the creature whore the obsidian armor of one of Heaven’s elite warriors.
The Archangel Leifiel.
Face caressed by her defender’s red wings Helba tilted her chin up proudly. “As decreed by the Order and the covenant it represents,” she boomed, tones layered with newly exposed power, “your immortal soul shall be petrified and stunted in power and form. Your existence must hereby be retained by the life of another and done so through the binds of a contract or pact.” Moving suddenly she reached up to pluck a single feather form the fray of silken wings that cloaked her, sketching runes in the air before it. With an elegant flick of her wrist she cast the feather airborne and under an unheard breath muttered a single word.
Midair the light object sprouted a cocoon of crystal and landed in a shatter of obsidian shards at the feet of the condemned. She stared down at what remained and for the first time felt unsettled.
Helba’s eyes studied her. “From this point forward, Aquaerrisa,” she called mockingly, “you will live on borrowed time. The hours you’ve stolen from the lives you’ve reaped; you will return them—this is your punishment.”
At her shackled feet amid a broken spray of black crystal, a diamond shaped pendant—an hourglass no larger than the nail of her thumb bled the scarlet liquid of life so slowly it might not have been moving at all. But….
She snapped her head up, staring at the woman and her beast. “You and your kind are the snakes of your own Eden! You will not survive what is to come!”
Hazel eyes smiled politely at her. “Neither will you. Your time is set.” Without spoken command, Leifiel was abruptly in motion, the massive arc of its wings opening as the damnation sentence was about to be set into action.
Unflinching she regarded Helba and the others of the covenant. Who still remained audience to her suffering. “One day soon you will need me, snake!”
“If it does indeed come to that, what do you propose, Sinner?”
The chains about her throat seared and writhed as the archangel’s magic opened Hell to seal her soul. Struggling against the downward gravitation, she leered at the chance to strike one final deal. “Release me and I’ll serve the Order as your personal Gabriel on the condition you give me time.”
The chamber broke out into horrified mutterings and she fought the nip and leech of oblivion, straining for her answer. The Supreme Justices were idle.
“You will need me, Helba!”
The platform upon which she stood became a snaking pit of white motion, blurring into some weird consistency that began to suck in and consume the heavy chains that held her ankles and connected to the collar about her throat. Arching backwards as she was drawn down into her prison, Aquaerrisa held the woman’s gaze.
“Helba!”
Without a response, the Supreme Justice turned away, gesturing for the gate to be sealed as, at last, the fiend was consumed whole below the platform. She said nothing to her comrades who rejoined in her wake as she made a few quick motions and dismissed her looming summons in a scatter of red feathers and a wave of heat.
Behind her members of the Order began chaotic mutterings and loud gossip.
A voice broke out from the dense forest of concern and distrust. “Helorum is still too much for the Order.”
A loud roar of agreement birthed new sources of deafening noise.
Behind her the other Justices couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably.
She looked up at those loyal to the covenant and silence followed in the kindle of her searching eyes. Faces upon faces that had been present in the chamber when called since childhood. Individuals she’d seen grow and prosper to give birth to multiple generations of devoted followers of the Order. And yet each now left idle, powerless against a growing threat.
The last murmurs faded and she raised her voice to the faithful. “We are the Guardians of the dead and the defenders of the living; this has been our place since time’s first breath, and we will continue to exorcize the threats made by the Lucids and Helorum.” But this threat was even more powerful than times before. “The Condemned such as Aquaerrisa and the Sixth Ring can be suppressed!” A New Breed of Hell had been dripped onto the world. The pact which had been formed between the living and the dead had promised peace between the two. But something had broken it. The covenant that had kept the living separate form the dead had shattered.
And though relief touched each face with the reassurance of her words, Helba knew it was only a temporary cure. She knew what was coming. It would take months—years possibly, but she knew well.
You will not survive what is to come!
She closed her eyes and became deaf to the renewed morale of her followers; exorcists and truly talented hunters, white necromancers and Life Sprites. All had devoted skill and much more to the Order’s will and her command to maintain the pact.
A light hand fell upon her shoulder with familiar comfort. “We face a war, Helba,” a voice from centuries of support whispered to her ear, husky from abuse and deep with natural masculinity.
She knew the character so well there was no need to turn and see him. Instead she took a breath and waved dismissal to the others, watching them disperse back into a world she could no longer trust to treat them gently.
“We do not face it,” she sighed so only he could hear. “It is already upon us.”
“And the relics?”
Another breath. The relics were keys to open gates. Some took human forms others were crystals given to the Order—Heaven, Hell, Earth, Life, Death. About her throat hung Heaven and Earth. Upon her finger, the obsidian crest of death was safe in is band of silver. Life was a human child and in the protection of one of the Order’s finest Sprites. Clutching the duo hanging from their chains upon her neck then, she felt helpless.
There was no choice. “Shatter them and scatter the pieces. With any luck, the scavenger hunt will at least deter the New Breed from trying to unlock the other plains.”
“And the final?”
Hell. Rumors surfaced every so often. Rumors suggesting the relic of Hell must be a living creature in order to be function. It had been the first rule set by the Order to ensure they remained hidden and locked away. Of course, she was the fourteenth generation of her kind and was not sure of her ancestor’s original regards.
Still, the possibility was unnerving.
“If we cannot find it, there is an exceedingly slim chance Helorum will.” She withdrew from the comfort of friend and left without looking back, oblivious to his quiet response.
“Still,” he’d whispered, “There is a chance.”
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