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Halo of Light - Cin and Gui (Book 1): Delta Underground Operatives, page 1
HALO OF LIGHT: CIN & GUI - BOOK ONE
DELTA UNDERGROUND OPERATIVES
N.A. GROTEPAS
Halo of Light
Cin & Gui: Book 1
Delta Underground Operatives
Copyright © 2023 by N.A Grotepas
v.5.15.23
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Cover: JoY Design Studio
Format: Crimson Sun Graphics
CONTENTS
The Authors of DUO
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
More DUO Titles
Acknowledgments
For Melanie Ann
THE AUTHORS OF DUO
Sarah Noffke
Jamie Davis
Kimbra Swain
N. A. Grotepas
Kat Healy
Scott Walker
Jenn Mitchell
S. W. Clarke
Mel Todd
Ben Zackheim
INTRODUCTION
The agents of Delta Underground Operatives have one critical mission: Keep magic secret. Humans are not ready to know that the creatures from their dreams are real. They’re even less prepared to fight the monsters from their nightmares.
When the gods were killed, Alder Shaw — the sole surviving demigod — established DUO to protect the status quo, solve the mystery of the gods’ fates, and safeguard the Puddle, the last reservoir of divine magic. Aided by twin witches Maven and Moxie, Shaw paired up beings of magic who resonated with each other. In tandem with the Puddle, these individuals now enjoy access to a second set of abilities, making them tough to beat.
These beings are the agents of DUO.
Following are the case files of DUO agents:
ACCESS RESTRICTED
File Codename: Halo of Light
Agents: Cin & Gui
All information is for Your Eyes Only
CHAPTER ONE
GUI
I let a single pair of my wings down, removing the glamour that hid them from humans with the wave of my hand. Her eyes brightened.
“You’re an angel,” she breathed. Her voice was a whisper.
“Yes.” I crouched beside her where she lay on her back, looking up between the trees at the night sky. I pulled a white feather from my right wing. On Earth, the feathers glimmered like they were made from threads of crystal and spun white stone but they were soft as though made from clouds. If a human touched one, it sent cascades of joy through them, like ecstasy. They could forget their pain.
I held the feather out to her. “For you, Alexis.”
“You know my name.” She took the feather. Her eyes fluttered closed and she drew a shuddering breath.
“It’s you that I’m here for.”
Alexis’s large dog lay a few feet from me. His dark fur glistened where blood seeped from gashes on his back. His sides moved in shallow motions. I stretched my hand out and touched him. The wounds healed and the creature shivered, then hobbled to his feet. He looked around before walking toward us on shaky legs.
“Oskar,” she said, opening her eyes. “You’re OK.”
He’d nearly died, but she wasn’t fully aware of that. I’d chosen to bring the animal back from the brink of death to comfort her, so that she wasn’t alone in these last moments.
Death was part of life for humans. She would pass from this existence into the next soon, but to get there, she had to experience the destruction of her flesh first, the separation of her spirit from the grip of mortality. Earth did not give up its little pets easily.
The Bernese mountain dog nuzzled his nose against her cheek and whimpered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, wrapping her arm around his neck.
The dog whined again, then raised his head and glanced toward Alexis’ legs… at least where her legs should have been.
Both of them were gone, torn away at mid-thigh. Her flowing blood soaked into the cool, yellowing grass and dirt. Oskar knew something wasn’t right. Of all the creatures that mortals had chosen for companions, dogs were special. They understood mysterious things and responded to them in meaningful ways. They’d been gifted with extra senses that complemented humans.
Alexis didn’t see that her legs were gone. Whatever she’d endured left the kind of damage associated with a train wreck or a plane crash—both things I’d seen in my calling as an angel of comfort and healing.
But this… this one was wrong. There was no train accident nearby. No downed passenger jet in the vicinity. We were in Central Park in a secluded area, far from the safe paths, hidden in a wooded portion where she’d been out for an evening run with her dog. The city roared in the distance. Voices and car horns floated across the icy air toward us. For now, I’d placed a deterrent spell that would redirect any passersby so they didn’t accidentally stumble upon us.
Something with immense power had done this. My senses told me that it was a terrifying something, a dark and twisted something. The echoes of violence reverberated. Reality hummed with the repercussions. It didn’t take a Sherlock to arrive at those conclusions, of course, but it was more than that—this was otherworldly. Evil.
I couldn’t look deeper into it at the moment, however. Alexis was my priority.
“Oskar, it’s OK,” she said, continuing to comfort her pet. She pushed her fingers through his fur and massaged his skull. Oskar was upset, it was true. But the comfort she gave him was meant for herself.
I wanted to take the pain away from her entirely. But it would be the pain that pushed her spirit from her body. There was no way she could get where she was going if I prevented that. Although what waited on the other side of the journey unfolding before her was highly desirable and beautiful, this part was never easy for me to watch. I was made to comfort, but I was also made to heal when it was allowed to me. Her struggle penetrated me. I wanted to fix her pain, alleviate her suffering.
But… I couldn’t heal her. I could only comfort.
Oskar settled in the grass and dirt beside her and rested his chin on her stomach. She laid her hand on his shoulders and closed her eyes, sighing. The breeze ruffled through the feather in her other hand as the night wind picked up. She gripped it tight.
“The wind,” she said, hazily, and choked out a laugh. The gentle breeze stirred through the branches overhead and sent a shower of golden and red leaves down around us. If not for the shadow that remained from what had happened to her, the scene would have been beautiful. Poetic, even.
I saw the sorrow in Oskar’s little heart. I saw the confusion in hers, the struggle to grasp what was happening to her. She was in shock. She would likely never fully grasp what events had transpired and though I wondered how much she remembered of what had happened, I wouldn’t ask.
“Alexis, is it all right if I touch you?” I asked softly.
“Please,” she said.
I placed my hand on her forehead and smoothed the hair back from her face. Her skin was cold, though sweat gathered across her hairline. Alexis was beautiful in human terms. Even by the reckoning of angels, she was beautiful. Curly red hair. Fair skin. A constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks.
“I’m dying, right?” Her bright green eyes caught mine, but there was already a distance in them like she was seeing past me, staring into time.
The question always felt like a harpoon in my heart. I knew from previous experience that my face showed the ache the question prompted. Humans did not want their lives to end. Before I could answer, she drifted into a memory.
“I remember my grandmother’s home. Upstate New York. So many old trees. Towering trees. And a long rope swing that we launched ourselves from into the lake. Her root cellar was cold. Full of crockeries that she pickled things in. Canned peaches. Canned pears. Canned anything. The smell,” she inhaled deeply. A faint smile touched her mouth. She closed her eyes. “Dirt. Vinegar. Life.” The last word was a whisper and a breath all at once.
“What comes next is also beautiful, Alexis.”
“Will I see her? My grandmother?”
“I believe you might. If not as a spirit, then you’ll find her among the living.”
The girl’s brow furrowed. “She died years ago.”
I leaned close to her and whispered in her ear, “Reincarnation.”
“Then my religion was wrong.” Her voice was hushed.
“All of them were wrong. All of them were right.”
“I want to stay here…” her gaze was far away. Lost in time. “In the sunlight braiding through the leaves of the maples. The creaking floorboards of her front porch and the Adirondack chairs. The glimmer on the surface of the water. I don’t want to go.”
Little known fact, angels can weep. Especially an angel designed to comfort mortals, like me. Often humans found their most cherished memory, and that was the one that let them sail across the uncharted waters of the river Styx.
It was necessary, Raphael told me, that my heart feel so that I could offer comfort to humans. I’d learned that it was a flaw. Other angels didn’t experience the same range of emotions and empathy that this angel did. Me, Guiel. You are my broken angel, Raphael was fond of saying lately with a chuckle, to take the edge off.
He was probably right.
Alexis didn’t have long now. The essence of her spirit was beginning to gather in the air above her body. To my eyes it looked like smoke or vapor. It was very fine, lighter than any element that existed in the mortal realm. That would allow it to enter the realm of Heaven, which was found between the sheets of vibrating particles that made up the mortal realm. Once there, Alexis’s spirit would coalesce back into a copy of the form she’d left behind. Then she would be able to choose how she appeared, but for now she had to release it and let go of everything except the memory of the life she’d lived.
Oskar lifted his head and whimpered. His dark eyes watched as the feather slipped from Alexis’ fingers and drifted to the bed of dried leaves that had gathered around her.
The essence that had pooled above her blew away as though on wind as it rose toward heaven.
“Safe travels, Alexis,” I said.
The dog whimpered and rose to his feet. He circled in an agitated manner and then settled beside her again and nuzzled against her hand.
“Guard her,” I said, rising.
I took a few steps into the deeper shadows, scanned the area, and then lifted my hands.
The command of my raised hands transformed me into a form that a human might consider terrible. A monster from another world, a frightening entity from the nightmares of children.
I’d never seen myself that way. For me and for other angels, it just was.
In the shape I’d taken, I could see everywhere all at once. I could see into the future a few minutes. I could see up to an entire day into the past and capture the events that had taken place in that space, and the events that would soon unfold.
I stared back in time, searching for what had ripped Alexis’s legs from her body. From where I hovered, I saw her ghost-like form come jogging around the bend in the path with Oskar loping along beside her. Alexis’ brow was furrowed like she was deep in concentration, but a lightness filled her. The woman was clearly buoyant, joyful, almost innocent.
What beast of Hell would want to harm her?
They’d barely gone ten paces before a large dark shadow swept toward her. It tossed the Bernese aside and grabbed a hold of Alexis, enveloping her in shadow before discarding her. Her legs were gone by then.
Oskar lifted his head. I didn’t have the ability to hear noises or voices in the past. I could only use my many eyes, which pulled the fading visual signal from the ether, to see events that had already transpired. Still, I knew that the dog whimpered in agony, trying to reach Alexis. I could fill that one in on my own, having heard it already many times that night.
I did not want to bear it. I didn’t want to carry it—the heart-hollowing ache of emotional suffering.
But it was my calling.
It was what I’d been created to do.
“I can’t look after a dog, Gui,” Ichabod said, frowning. The vampire-priest scowled at me, ran one hand through his hair, and then undid the top few buttons of his white shirt. He refused to give up the collar. I hadn’t seen him in perhaps five years, but I could always find him, no matter where he tried to hide.
“I can’t either. I didn’t know where else to go. I need to hurry, and I sensed that you were here.” The Bernese ambled over to Ichabod and stared up at him with troubled eyes.
They looked troubled to me. He hadn’t wanted to leave his master, but I couldn’t abandon him there. I didn’t know if what had killed Alexis would return to finish the dog off. Oskar whimpered and looked around the room as though confused.
“Take it to a shelter.” Ichabod shook his head and glared at me again.
“A shelter? No. I can’t do that. Oskar was part of someone’s life. She was brutally murdered. And now he’s alone.”
“Oskar? You know its name?” He raised a disapproving eyebrow at me.
“The dog was loved. He had a warm home, but that’s gone now. He’s in shock—that means I can’t just drop him off in a shelter. That would be cold. Heartless.”
The vampire-priest sighed. “Aren’t you sick of comforting the dying? You ever think they should maybe leave life alone? Some people like to be alone, you know.”
I shrugged, a gesture I’d picked up fifty Earth years or so ago. “Aren’t you sick of not dying?”
His laugh was bitter. “More sick of not living.”
He was my oldest friend. One of the few, although I’d been branching out. We’d met over a hundred Earth years ago when he’d been transformed into a vampire—he fed occasionally on pieces of flesh from my palm, which was a substitute for human blood. Ichabod never tried to sugar coat things. His medicine was seeing into the heart of a matter and giving it to me straight. He did that regularly every twenty to thirty years.
Time was passing. Time that I didn’t have—at least, time that other victims would not have if whatever abomination that had killed Alexis went unchecked.
“Do you know a human—a good one—who might like a dog?”
“That’s not what I do, knowing humans. Besides, you’re aware of how many humans I fraternize with.” Ichabod hesitated, and I knew then that an idea had occurred to him.
“What is it?” I prodded. “Tell me. I have something big on my hands, but I owed it to this creature to look after it.” I explained that Oskar had been dying, but I saved him so that he could be there as his master died. Now my responsibility was to give him a home.
An angel rehoming pets. It was a new one for me.
“Dammit, angel hair.” Ichabod shook his head. “There is someone. Maybe they could use a dog, yeah. No promises, Gui, but I can put you in contact with him. Then he can tell you no. And I don’t have to carry the weight of turning away a dog.”
I smiled. “Whatever you must do to keep that conscience of yours spotless, Ichabod.”
“It’s how I stay young, eternal, and damned, angel hair.” Ichabod’s shoulders and jaws relaxed as he leaned over to scratch behind Oskar’s ears. The dog bared its fangs. A growl formed in its throat.
Ichabod pulled his hand back. A shadow flickered across his face.
“He just doesn’t know you,” I offered, sensing the vampire’s discomfort, but not the way I would a human’s suffering. Ichabod was cut off to me in the traditional ways that allowed me to give comfort. But because of my flesh he fed on in place of human blood, there was a thread between us and I saw his sadness as the dog rejected him.
“I think he knows me just fine, angel hair.”
CHAPTER TWO
