Free Hell's Angel by Jackie Kessler Page A

beneath her and her hands folded over her lap as she stared at the silver gates and despaired.
    “Little angel,” a deep voice said from behind her, “why do you sit outside of Paradise?”
    The angel froze, then forced herself to relax. Her brief time serving in Hell had taught her to be suspect of anyone, of anything. She needed to unlearn such paranoia when she was not serving demon kings or walking among the damned.
    Composing herself, the angel peered over her shoulder to see another angel smiling at her. He was large, and human in his appearance: dusky-skinned, clothed modestly, standing proudly on the wind as he loomed over her. He projected strength, from his well-formed arms and legs, from his broad shoulders. He wore an emerald toga, made of a material that looked both rough and smooth, unfinished and yet polished.
    For a moment, the angel found herself wondering if, beneath the toga, his torso was solid or soft. That thought made her cheeks burn with shame. Her time in Hell was certainly rubbing off on her, and not in a good way.
    The other angel’s smile broadened into something warmer. The wind tousled his dark curls, and his green eyes shone brightly. Yet there was a sadness to those eyes—they, like his toga, seemed fixed in contradiction: melancholy mirth, tempered joy. As she peered into his eyes, she saw glints of power deep within. That power both beckoned and repelled, and she swallowed, suddenly nervous. She wondered who—or what —he was. Clearly, he was no mere cherub, like herself. That power was greater than a simple creature like herself could ever know. Even the seraphim, with their halos and their names, didn’t ever dare to aspire to such greatness.
    An archangel, then, taking notice of her.
    With a gasp, she prostrated herself before him. All angels, cherubim and seraphim—whether or not they were banished—bowed before those who walked alongside the Almighty. How had she not sensed his power before now? Pressed against the cloud, she shivered.
    She heard a sound that might have been the wind, or perhaps it was the archangel sighing. “Please,” he said. “There is no need for that. Rise, angel. Let us speak as equals.”
    Equals ? “But, my lord,” she squeaked, “we are not equals! I am just a banished angel, and you are—”
    “Equally banished. Which makes us peers. And I am no one’s lord. Please rise.”
     
    Stunned, she lifted her head and looked at him. He was still smiling at her, and now he was extending a hand. She took it, and he lifted her up until she was hovering next to him, her wings materializing as soon as her feet had left the cloud. Her garment shifted at the same time so that there were slits along her shoulder blades, allowing for the new appendages while still covering her form. Feathered and white, her wings beat against the wind.
    He used no wings. He simply floated.
    He looks so…human . But then his words sunk in. He, too, claimed to be banished. But archangels couldn’t be thrown out of Heaven, not unless the Almighty did so directly. And there were only two times in all the history of Creation that the Almighty had directed such creatures to leave the rapture of Heaven permanently. One of those archangels sat now on the throne of Hell; the new King of the Underworld was pale and terrible, radiating both beauty and horror, and the nefarious of the Pit cowered whenever he summoned them to his castle.
    The other archangel was a legend.
    It cannot be . She took in his features, his stance, his smile. The only other archangel had been the Almighty’s adversary, known as Satan, the only entity to have ever stood at the left hand of God. Millennia ago, Satan had convinced God of the necessity of Hell, for reasons that were beyond the angel’s comprehension.
    The beautiful creature holding her hand now could not be Satan, who once was the King of Evil and ruler of the Pit.
    “Lord Lucifer?” she whispered, knowing it could not be true.
    “The