Plague of Angels Read Online Free PDF

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    “I will make you my sword, Nyx. And then you and those that serve you will be in a Paradise that He cannot touch. Ascended, no longer Descended, and free from this spiteful God who casts aside His Angels at His whim.”
    Lightning erupted from the rift in the heavens, exploding again and again, shaking the ground and blinding all those who stood. The people cried out in fear, certain this was God’s retribution for the death of His son, not knowing God had in fact orchestrated it. Bolts of fire sought the earth, rending and tearing into it. Just meters away, a skull-shaped rock that had given this place the name “Golgotha” was struck by an angry spear of flame and exploded into pebbles and sand. The crowd screamed and fought to get away.
    Nyx stayed where she was, holding her hood tight over her face so the Angels above might not recognize her, and gazing up toward Heaven. She watched the Angels’ progress, rising together on their magnificent white wings. The one in the lead held a blade of white fire in parade position. The two behind carried with them the mirrored, translucent shape that was her lover’s soul. And the last two were singing His praises in a voice only she could hear. She watched until the two carrying His soul entered the hole in the sky, and then turned her eyes away.
    Her Tribunal was in Heaven. And it was the one place where she could never, ever follow. Her banishment from Heaven was permanent, everlasting, and irrevocable.
    She would be apart from Him forever, if God had His way.
    Nyx’s mortal stomach soured with venomous rage. She looked up again, and saw that two Angels still remained, floating before the black clouds. Their electric blue eyes were locked on her, and their faces filled with anger. They knew her for who she was.
    The storm vomited every ounce of its wrath on to the city below. Furious winds wailed from all directions, blowing sand and pellets of hail into the faces of those who remained. Nyx and those others on the hill were knocked to their knees by the force of the gale. People shrieked as they tried to flee toward the city, into the safe arms of its stone walls.
    “Save yourselves!” the Roman commander screamed before he turned and ran for the main gates of Jerusalem. And even the bravest of his soldiers dropped their weapons and followed.
    Nyx looked at the woman on the ground beside her. It was Mary, Tribunal’s earthly mother. The one God had forced to carry His child, to raise Him and to suffer the heartache of watching Him die. Nyx wrapped Mary in her strong arms and protected her from the storm’s wrath. They swayed there, rocked by the force of the wind and bruised by the power of the rain and the hail.
    They are doing this because of me, Nyx thought, risking a glance up to where the Angels still floated above, untouched by the storm that surrounded them. They are trying to hurt me.
    “We killed the Son of God!” a soldier screamed. “We are doomed!”
    Nyx watched the man throw down his sword and tear off his armor in his hysteria. He stood naked in the storm, apologizing to the dead man. The wind barraged the man wildly while he fought, determined to repent for his sins. He groveled on his knees at the base of the cross, praying to the corpse that now wilted like a soaked wildflower in the wind.
    Nyx was surprised to find she had tears left to shed. She knew her lover was not dead, knew He was safe in Heaven, but because of that she knew she would not see Him again, would not feel His flesh—mortal or angelic—mesh with hers. And so she cried beside Mary, who was wailing with the pain that only a mother who loses a child can know.
    The naked soldier was now reaching up to the sky, arms wide, howling prayers of repentance while the rain and wind left pockmarks on his wet, white body.
    Nyx watched as Tribunal’s mother’s hair whipped wildly, like vine tendrils choking an ancient tree. Mary had done nothing to deserve the wrath that was pounding