Divine Uprising (Divine Uprising #1)
Rachel Van Dyken
Chapter One
Athena
My whole life I’ve been taught to be good.
I’ve been good.
I remind myself of that every time the job gets to me. On days like today, when I look at what I’ve done — repentance comes to mind.
I took in the complete and utter mess around me. By the looks of it, I clearly had a lot more in store at the end of my life than normal people.
Normal.
The word itself mocked me.
My feet touched the cold slate of the floor. Blood pooled around the spike of my leather heels, instantly making me feel irritated that I’d have to clean them.
It had been too easy this time. We were supposed to be looking at the apartment across the way. Adonis convinced the real estate agent that I needed my space, so we boarded the elevator alone, and when we reached the fifth floor, headed to the room where the human was waiting.
It was over before she could even pull the trigger on her .45 Auto, not that it would have done much damage.
But after we found out she was trying to trap us for the Phantoms, her only remaining option was death — not that it was an option to begin with. Death rarely was.
I rolled my eyes and knelt down by her body. I was literally standing in a mess of my own creation. The form was pale and lifeless. Its entire source of energy… gone.
The Phantoms started this war. Now it was up to those who remained in His favor to end it.
It’s what Seekers did. They sought out the evil in the world that threatened to destroy everything pure and good.
All I knew was that until the Phantoms were burning in Hell, my entire existence was spent saving the weak human race from being destroyed by their own stupidity.
After taking a deep breath, I realized I only had two options: call for reinforcements or clean up the mess myself. I decided against the latter. I didn’t feel the need to get dirty. After all, a girl hates to get messy, and I was dressed in all white, the typical uniform of the Seeker.
I whistled to bring my partner Adonis around the corner, where he was most likely basking in the glow of our victory. Not that he was any help. Well, I mean he had his uses. Each of the Seekers did. Mine was to fight, his was to… entice. And I mean that in the literal sense of the word. He could get anyone to do anything. Case in point: the young woman whose corpse I was stepping over had been so entranced by Adonis’s face she didn’t even feel the sting of my knife in her back. One twist and she was done for.
He blew her a parting kiss, his way of keeping it classy. And voila, case closed, mission complete. His job was easy; mine was hard. Adonis never got his hands dirty, or his clothes for that matter.
His dark, curly hair and crystal blue eyes almost made a person uncomfortable, not that I would ever admit that to him. It would make living with him absolute torture. Being his partner was hard enough without having to live with a man whose ego was larger than that of the entire cast of Jersey Shore. “So we cleaning this up, or are you calling in Headquarters?”
I rolled my eyes in disgust at his mention of Headquarters. Too much red tape. “Don’t do this, Athena, don’t do that…”
I could tell Adonis thought I was about to do my usual “I hate everything about the rules in our society” speech. He took out our card and made the decision for me. The card immediately melted into the body, leaving a giant gold S in the middle of the corpse.
“I’ve sent the signal. Let’s go.” He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me in close to his body. All six feet five inches of him was covered with thick corded muscles that made any ultimate fighter look like a pansy.
I sighed into his shoulder, thankful that at least I’m one of the few Seekers whose partner was still living, and followed his lead into the elevator.
“It’s getting harder for you, Thena.” Adonis pushed the illuminated lobby button and ran his fingers through his hair. “I never thought I’d say this, but you’re losing your touch.”
I bit my lip to keep from causing him physical harm. “Me? I’m losing my touch?”
He shrugged in a totally Adonis way, which infuriated me even more. “I just killed her. I took her down in less than five seconds. How on earth am I losing my touch?”
“It used to be less than three seconds.” He sighed.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He stopped the elevator and pulled me closer. “You’ve been doing this too long. Maybe my concern for you gets in the way, maybe…”
The words were left unspoken, but I knew they were there. Behind the cool mask of indifference and cockiness was a heart. He didn’t want me to become like so many other Seekers who ended up losing their minds and being sent back to Headquarters. They were sentenced to live a life being hand-fed bottles of medicine that made them forget all the horrible things they’d done in the name of saving a few measly human lives.