“I just got a really fucking strange request for an appearance at Halja and I’d rather not go in completely blind. I’m not a fan of torture, so if he’s pissed at me and you can find out, a heads up would be great. Maybe he’s got something else up his sleeve; I just don’t know what to make of this.” Luc slid the bloody, folded parchment across the table to Baal who unfolded and skimmed through it.
“Definitely outside of the norm.” Baal re-folded the message and slid it back to Luc, keeping his eyes trained on the table. “The only weird rumor that comes to mind is something I heard from a succubus I was…friendly with recently.” Luc and Sam raised their eyebrows at each other. B was “friendly” with a lot of women. Pillow talk was his best form of intelligence gathering. “She has some contacts inside the castle. Her brother’s being held there and she’s trying to find a way to get him out. Anyhow, I guess she was doing one of her brother’s guards to get intel and he let slip something about a Chimera.”
The three of them sat in silence mulling it over. Sam frowned and shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get it. Chimera don’t exist anymore. The last one was killed centuries ago. Even if they did still exist, what the hell would Satan want with one of them?”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t think much of it — figured it was bullshit.” B shrugged. Sam drummed his fingers on the table and looked at his friends. “Ok, suppose this is true. What do we know about the Chimera?”
Luc’s eyes widened and he paled visibly. Sam and B both looked at him, concern etched on their faces. “What?” They asked simultaneously.
“Oh, fuck no!” Luc said vehemently. “The Chimera were mosaics. They were able to absorb the powers and abilities of both demons and angels into their own bodies. They weren’t tied to the light or the dark, but they could bind their souls to another, giving them access to their power. That’s not the worst of it. They could travel to any realm without repercussions at will. That’s why they were terminated centuries ago — neither side of the equation wanted to leave that door open.”
B and Sam’s jaws dropped in unison.
“So, what you’re saying is…”
Luc cut Sam off. “If Satan has found a living Chimera, he can bind himself to it and start a war…on earth and in Heofon. The balance would be destroyed.”
“Good thing you paid attention in history class.” Baal said, horror stamped on his usually sunny face.
They may be fallen angels; they may be working for Satan, but that didn’t mean they wanted to see the world around them or their former home in the heavens destroyed. It would be a disaster of epic proportions. The human world would be decimated — Satan would turn it into hell on earth. Luc shoved his chair back and leapt to his feet, tossing some Sheolic ducats on the table in payment for the beer. “I’ve got to head out. We need to find out if he’s just blowing smoke up his minions’ asses or if he’s actually found a Chimera.”
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” Sam shouted as Luc marched purposefully away from the table.
Turning back toward his friends, he gave a tight smile. “Someone owes me a favor.”
Chapter Two
Standing in the wings of the Metropolitan Concert Hall, Katia took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. Pre-concert nerves always hit just before the lights dimmed. It didn’t matter how many shows she had performed over the many years she’d been a concert violinist the butterflies before show time always made their appearance. She listened to the chatter of the audience taking their seats and shuffling programs.
One last peek in the mirror, then it was time to grab her violin and take her place center stage beside the piano. Katia walked over to the full-length mirror a few feet behind her. She took a deep breath and looked herself in the eye. Her reflection stared back at her. Pale skin, full, pink lips, delicately-arched brows, defined cheekbones and jawline. Her waist-length fall of thick, jet-black hair had been lightly curled and pinned away from her face at the temples, the remainder fell in waves down her back. Everyone always said she looked like a perfect porcelain doll until they noticed her eyes — ice blue on the left and a light emerald green on the right. Heterochromia. Her doctor had told her that one of her parents must have had the same genetic anomaly.
Not that Katia would ever really know for sure; she’d been adopted as a baby and raised by a wonderful and loving set of parents who passed away shortly before her twenty-fifth birthday. A decade later she still missed them with all her heart. In many ways it felt as though she had been frozen in time on the day of her parents’ accident. Katia still didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Friends and acquaintances always said it was good genes, but Katia had always felt there was something else to it. Like her eyes, it was another sign that she just wasn’t ‘normal.’ Though her family had been wonderful, she’d just never
