by Elicia Hyder
He laughed, saliva dripping from his teeth.
Cassiel stumbled again, this time collapsing onto her hip a few feet away. “They’re here for Iliana.”
“No shit. Why now?”
“They needed the passphrase.” She slumped sideways and tried to claw her way across the grass toward me. Tears streamed down her red face.
Realization hit me like an atomic bomb. An image flashed through my mind.
My bed in Chicago.
She was on top.
I was inside her…
She’d been inside my head.
Zaphkael started laughing, his face red from oxygen deprivation. The color deepened to a dark crimson, and spit spewed from his mouth when he tried to yell. “Moloch, now!”
I snapped his neck, and he went limp in my grasp. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would hopefully buy me some time to figure out what the hell was going on.
Thunder erupted all around us as countless demons breached the spirit line. They hit the parking lot lights first, shattering the glass bulbs across the asphalt and sending electric sparks into the darkening sky. Then the spirits swooped toward the building in a uniformed assault. The guardians flew up to fight them off.
The sky lit up like a war zone in Baghdad.
A collision with the building triggered the big siren. It wailed and waned, and the spotlights flashed on. Gunfire rattled through the air as SF-12 shot wildly into the sky. Demons flew into the lights on the roof blowing them apart in showers of sparks.
Something caught my eye at the top of the fake tree—the communication tower. It was the silhouette of what looked like a tiny demon perched on the peak.
Samael and Gabriel soared into the air to join the fight.
Cassiel pushed herself up again and fell toward me, grabbing my arm. “I didn’t know.”
“Sure you did.” I pushed her off me. “Don’t act like you weren’t tagging along with me on their orders. Is that why you slept with me too?”
I didn’t give her a chance to answer. Anger pulsing through my veins, I stormed over Zaphkael toward the middle of the action. “Reuel!”
He looked at me.
“Instruct your guardians to seize the Council members!”
Reuel nodded and bellowed, “Barachiel! Sagen!” Then he barked orders they immediately followed. They’d probably unwittingly been brought along to storm Echo-5 on behalf of the Council. Good thing their boss was on my side.
Saleos, the sorceress with a flair for theatrics, turned toward me. Her long black hair defied gravity, swirling around her head. She raised her hands. In them, flames danced. Her eyes glowed green, daring me to attack.
Without breaking my stride, I hurled a ball of energy at her and knocked her a hundred feet back into the tree line.
Two demons dive-bombed toward me, but Reuel sailed like an airborne bowling ball headfirst at them. The three angels collided with the force of an atomic blast. The air rippled around us, and Ionis and several SF-12 operators were knocked to the ground.
Nathan was one of them. I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. “You all right?”
He gave a quick nod before jerking the barrel of his gun up over my shoulder and firing. The sound nearly ruptured my eardrum. I flinched to the side in time to see the demon Uko fall to his knees.
Nathan had put a bullet right between his eyes.
“Yes!” Ionis screamed, raising both fists in the air.
Uko face-planted at my boots, dropping the sword he’d probably been aiming at my head. I bent and picked it up, then gave Nathan’s shoulder a grateful squeeze.
I grabbed the sword with both hands, squared my feet in front of Uko’s twitching head, and drove the tip straight through the back of his neck. The blade severed the spine with a piercing screech. Light fractured through Uko’s body, splintering his spirit. It detonated with a violent quake that shook the earth beneath our feet.
Startled, I stumbled back a step.
Most of the warring angels were startled as well. The fighting in the sky and on the ground came to a stop. Ionis’s mouth was gaping.
Reuel gasped. “What the coitus?”
We all looked at him and burst out laughing.
Azrael grabbed my arm. “What did you do?”
“Beats the shit outta me.” I laughed and looked at the sword.
The fighting around us resumed.
“You’d better keep that close,” Azrael said.
I swung the heavy blade up into striking position. “Oh, I plan on it.”
Azrael grabbed Nathan’s sleeve and pulled him back. A spirit-form demon plunged toward me, and I swung the sword like a baseball bat. It sliced through the spirit with a shrill metal-on-metal screech. Then light splintered through the demon and boom!
I laughed. And swore with delight.
Behind me was another explosion. Saleos had set the woods on fire. Shit. The last thing we needed was the fire department showing up.
My wings spread and launched me into the air. I landed in the tree line where Saleos was hurling fireballs into the pines. “Saleos!” I raised my new sword.
She froze and turned toward me with an evil smile. “Fighting dirty, are we?”
“All is fair in war, right?” I charged toward her, then spiraled through the air like a torpedo. A sword-swinging torpedo.
Fire shot from her hand like a blowtorch, but I intercepted it with my blade, deflecting it right back at her. Her dress caught fire and blazed around her.
I swung.
She ducked.
Then I somersaulted, landing hard on my feet. My boots tore up the forest foliage as I slid to a stop, and a wall of dirt sprayed over the flames in front of me. With a quick turn, I raced back to Saleos, swinging my sword like a feral gladiator.
Her hands aimed. Fire burst from her palms. I swung the sword again, slicing off her arms.
With a deafening shriek, Saleos fell to her knees. Her glowing green eyes turned black. Then I buried the sword up to the hilt in the center of her chest. Light discharged through her and exploded into sparks and dust around the blade.
I held the sword up in front of my face. “I could get used to this.” Then I flew back to the building and landed near my friends on the ground.
As soon as my feet touched down, a bright light seared through the sky with the pitchy squeal of a falling missile. It collided with the fake-tree tower in an explosion of sizzling electricity.
“What the hell was that?” Nathan shouted over the fighting.
“That would be Moloch,” Ionis answered. He was using his $700 jacket as a shield over his head.
I looked back at the building. “If Moloch gets into the mainframe, he has my passphrase!”
Azrael shook his head. His face was covered with mud and sweat. “No, he doesn’t.”
I’d started to launch into the sky again, but I jerked to a stop. “What?”
“We knew, with you being so close to Cassiel, you couldn’t be trusted.”
I wanted to argue, but he had a solid point. “Who’s we?”
“Chimera and myself.”
“Chimera’s making calls for security clearance now?”
“You’ll understand someday.” Azrael was watching the sky as he sidestepped toward us. “There’s too many of them. Too few of us.”
“Not for long.” I pressed a finger to my ear. The static rustle in my head was almost drowning out the war. “Now,” I said to whoever was listening.
Above us, the sky peeled back. Inside the breach were the Angels of Death. Thousands of them. They rolled through the purple-and-pink Asheville sky like an airborne militia.
Azrael squeezed my shoulder. “Well done.”
I smiled.
Then something slammed into him from behind, throwing him forward into me as a bullet pierced the left side of my chest. My left arm closed around Azrael’s torso before we both went down. Behind his back, I pulled my fingers up and found them covered in blood.
He’d shot Azrael in the back.
I looked around. Nybria, the Goddess of Confusion was laughing nearby. She aimed her hands toward Enzo and Cruz. They immediately turned toward each other, weapons aimed and ready to kill.
“No!” a woman screamed.
Cassiel.
She broke free from Sagen’s grasp and blasted Nybria off her feet in my direction. Nybria’s spell on Enzo and Cruz broke, and they both dropped their weapons.
My eyes locked with Ionis’s. “Please, help me!”
He hesitated, making a gagging face.
“Ionis, please!”
He dropped his jacket and grabbed Azrael from behind. The small angel went down under Azrael’s weight, but Nathan stepped in to help him. As soon as I was free, I sprinted toward Nybria, my sword ready to swing.
Before she recovered her footing, the sword cut sideways, slicing right through her throat. Her head toppled off her neck, but before it hit the ground, cracks of light spiderwebbed through her, blowing her spirit apart. The body—head and all—turned to dust.
Cassiel caught my eye across the yard.
But I broke our gaze to return to my father.
Azrael was laying across Ionis’s lap on the ground in front of Echo-5. Nathan was holding pressure on Azrael’s chest—with Ionis’s jacket—but blood was sputtering out of Azrael’s mouth, all over his face.
“The bullet tore through his lung,” Nathan said.
I looked down at my bloody shirt. “I know. It went into my chest. It’s working its way back out now.”
Ionis gagged again.
A buzzing sound above caught my ear. It was the tiny demon on top of the tower. It vibrated with energy, and it seemed to be rattling. “What is that thing?”
Azrael could barely breathe, but that didn’t stop him from chuckling and spraying more blood from his mouth. “It’s Moloch.”
“What?”
Enzo pointed to it. “Chimera figured out that Moloch accessed the mainframe last time by coming through the datalink between Claymore headquarters and the tower. She set up a loop to trap him if he tried it again.”
“Is that a gargoyle?” I asked.
Azrael tried to laugh again. “Yeah.”
“And a demon’s trapped inside it?”
Nodding, he laughed harder. So did the others around us. Then Azrael began gasping for air. His face turned a deeper shade of red, and the veins bulged in his neck.
I searched the sky for an Angel of Life. There wasn’t one. I swore. “Ionis, go to Eden and get help. Enzo, call Doc and 911!”
“Already done, sir. Doc’s on his way.”
“And Gabriel went to the Throne Room,” Ionis added.
There wasn’t any more I could do for Azrael, except get away from him. I backed away and inventoried our surroundings.
The angels fighting in the sky were vanishing—the evil ones fleeing, and the Angels of Death hopefully in their pursuit. Still, the hum in the atmosphere seemed to be growing, not dwindling as the depleting numbers would suggest.
“This isn’t over,” I said, searching the area for an explanation.
Samael landed beside me. “What happened to Azrael?”
“Nybria cursed one of the operators. Azrael was shot.”
Samael shook his head, his eyes still fixed on Az. “He doesn’t have much time.”
“I know.”
Headlights flashed down the road. It was a Claymore SUV. Hopefully Doc.
I looked over at Samael. “Do you feel that?”
“I do. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. There were four demons in human form last time. The only one I haven’t seen yet is Elek, the weather demon.”
Samael looked up. “Whatever I’m sensing, it’s far more powerful than Elek.”
The Claymore vehicle veered off the paved road and onto the grass toward us. Doc was out of the passenger’s side, running with his first-aid bag, before the SUV stopped rolling.
“It’s weird that Azrael is mortal now,” Samael said, almost to himself.
“Lay him down!” Doc shouted as he ran.
Nathan helped Ionis ease Azrael onto the ground, then they both moved out of Doc’s way. Doc immediately started to work. Nathan walked toward us, but Ionis stayed close to Azrael. His fancy clothes were now covered in blood.
I searched the sky again, certain something else—something powerful—was headed our way.
Nathan bent to pick up the leather scabbard where Uko’s body had dissipated. He walked over and handed it to me. “If you’re gonna carry a sword, you need one of these.”
“Thanks.” I loosened the strap and put it over my shoulder, tightening it across my chest. Reaching back, I put the sword into it…or tried, twice.
Nathan grinned. “Need help?”
“Please.” I handed him the sword.
Turning it sideways, he balanced it between his hands. “Too heavy for steel. What do you think it is?”
“I have no idea, but it can destroy angels.” I looked at Samael. “Have you ever seen anything that can do that?”
“Only your daughter.”
I turned so Nathan could put the sword in the scabbard and saw Cassiel on her knees across the yard. Barachiel still had hold of Zaphkael behind her.
Cassiel’s eyes were pleading.
The full weight of the sword pulled on the scabbard’s strap, and Nathan slapped my back.
“Thank you,” I said.
There was commotion around Azrael. Enzo got up and ran with Kane to the SUV. “What’s going on?” I asked.
The SUV spun around and left the way it had come.
“Cooper and I passed some old guy walking up the road,” Doc said over his shoulder as he cut open Azrael’s shirt. “They’re going to check it out.”
“Old guy.” My head turned toward the road. “Metatron?”
“Warren, please.” Cassiel’s voice twisted all my nerves.
Nathan glanced back at her. “You’d better go deal with that.”
I groaned and turned on my heel.
Zaphkael struggled hopelessly against Barachiel’s grip as I approached. “Let him go.”
Barachiel flung the Angel of Knowledge onto the ground, and he landed on his hands and knees beside Cassiel.
I walked slowly toward them. “You know, Zaphkael, I find it humorous that you recently tried to accuse me of blasphemy. And all the while, you were plotting with the fallen to what end? To destroy the spirit line?”
Breathless, he sat back and looked up at me. “No. To protect the spirit line. From you.”
“Come again?”
“Had we forced the Father’s hand and dealt with you the first time, none of this would have happened. And such desperation would not have been required.”
“The first time?” I turned to Samael who was a few feet behind him. “There was a plot to kill me once upon a time, wasn’t there?”
Samael looked at the ground.
“They sent me to do it.” Reuel’s voice turned my head. “To kill you.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
Samael stepped forward. “You were a few months old and still with your first foster family when the Council ordered your death. Reuel was their chosen henchman because none of the Angels of Death would move against Azrael. I tipped him off, and he intercepted Reuel in the house while the family slept.”
“You were going to do it?” I looked at Reuel, afraid of the answer.
Reuel’s face fell. “I was. Azrael stopped me. Threw himself across your crib to protect you.”
I looked past them to where Doc was still working on Azrael.
“In the end, I couldn’t do it.”
Samael put a hand on Reuel’s shoulder. “He risked everything for not doing it.”
“Which is why Azrael
has always trusted you,” I said.
Reuel nodded.
I shook my head in disbelief as I turned back to Cassiel. “That’s what Azrael meant about them doing this again. You really meant it. You think I should never have been born.”
“No, Warren. I don’t think that,” she cried.
“Is it true? Did the Council vote to kill me when I was born?”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Just a quiet, whiny, tearful squeak.
I nodded, crossing my arms. “And now you’ve gone so far as to conspire with the fallen to steal my daughter?”
She pulled herself up on her knees. “I swear I didn’t know Zaphkael was plotting with Moloch and the other demons.”
I ignored her. Whether she knew or not didn’t matter. I walked over and stood kicking-distance away from Zaphkael’s face. “Why release the souls from Nulterra?”
“A real angel wouldn’t need to ask such a question.” The bastard spat at my boots.
I gritted my teeth. Then I reached back behind my shoulder blades and grabbed the hilt of my sword. Slowly, I drew it from its scabbard. (I’d always wanted to do that.)
Lowering the sword, I knelt in front of him. Then I pointed the tip of the blade straight at his Adam’s apple. “Feel free to use small words.”
He visibly swallowed but shook his head. “Go ahead and destroy me. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Maybe not, but you’d have to tell her.” I pointed the sword at Cassiel. “Cassiel, you’re good at getting inside people’s heads. How about doing something useful with that gift?”
Her lower lip trembled, but she fought back her tears and grabbed Zaphkael’s head. “Tell us why you released the souls from Nulterra.”
Zaphkael tried not to speak but failed. “The power of the final death is not without consequence. It’s forbidden to be performed outside Reclusion as a matter of safety, not because we enjoy making rules for the sake of having them.”
“Safety?” I asked.
“The final death consumes its intended target, but the excess energy must attach itself to something. Reclusion was created to be that something.”
A death sponge. No wonder Reclusion was so depressing.
“Doing the deed here should have been detrimental to you,” he said.
“You were trying to kill me?” I asked, pushing the blade farther.