The Spear of Destiny was designed to forgive two brothers.
Maybe I was here to bring them back together. And…that felt right. I had no idea what that had to do with the Daemons, but if love was such a powerful magic…
Maybe it was enough to get us the hell out of here.
“I love me, too,” Pride said, dreamily.
Michael sighed wistfully. “I love you, too, Callie Penrose, even though I want to strangle you half the time,” he admitted with a playful grin. “And I guess I love you too, Lucy,” he added. Then he pulled the flaming phoenix in and kissed her on the top of the head.
Lucifer burst out laughing. “I haven’t heard that in ages! I thought you’d forgotten! Hell, I love you, guys, too,” he said, hugging Bai. The tiger replied with a lick from her tongue that spanned from Pride’s cheek to his hair. “My hair!” he cried, horrified.
Before he ruined the moment, I opened myself up to the Spear of Destiny.
Almost instantly, it burst into pure light with a piercing scream, and I felt the Spear connecting me with the two brothers. And the image of the metal card abruptly popped into my mind, like an overlay of the scene before me. Michael on one side, Lucifer on the left—both mountains of power in their respective homes, Heaven and Hell.
And their rings! They glowed like haloes! The golden rings hovered over their heads—and over the superimposed mountain peaks. With only one or the other joining me today, one of those mountains wouldn’t have existed—we wouldn’t have survived this long—reminding me of the X I had seen above each mountain. It had been a warning—don’t focus on one over the other. Can’t have a bridge without two opposite ends.
But both together…
And here, right now, a Spear of light bridged the gap that had kept them apart for so long—bridged the two mountain peaks.
With a gleaming sword in the center. A sword just like Excalibur…
Me. I was the sword in the picture, helping bridge the gap between Heaven and Hell.
And, as we combined, I felt an overwhelming ocean of love from each of them, crashing into me at the same time. But that love didn’t just hit me.
It hit Zoe and Bai, too, making them glow like bioluminescent fish, restoring their bodies.
Bai let out a thunderous roar and a distant pillar of rock, hundreds of feet tall, exploded in on itself.
Zoe screamed loud enough for her cry to echo a million miles, and a section of ground abruptly gave way, obliterating a third of the oncoming army of soul-eaters.
A deep bell tolled in the distance, and it had to be the size of a skyscraper, because it made my teeth rattle. Power raged through us, and it was all I could do to hold onto the Spear as I felt the souls less than fifty feet away, seconds away from devouring us. The bell tolled again—louder and deeper and closer—and a shockwave exploded out from our huddle, bowling over the entire tide of starving souls.
Except for one that came out of nowhere, racing towards us from the distant sky like a meteor.
And it was a big giant of a soul, made of pure light. Michael and Lucifer’s rings blazed like the sun, as if calling it home at long last.
Before I could even acknowledge the fact that we’d survived certain death, that comet of a soul came directly at me and slammed into the Spear—somehow fitting into the small space between my two clenched fists. Their rings burned the air and I feared the three would destroy my Spear. My heart dropped into my stomach as a third bell tolled, and I realized that I somehow hadn’t been vaporized by the blast of light.
Michael and Lucifer were gasping and sobbing with laughter and sheer joy.
“Something is happening!” I croaked, not finding anything remotely funny about our situation as I held onto the vibrating Spear for dear life.
Zoe and Bai pressed close to me, making terrified sounds as the Neverwas grew too bright for even my supernaturally-protected eyes to see anything. I slammed my eyes shut, fearing the Spear was going to blind us before it saved us. Or destroy us. I couldn’t let go.
I tried. My hands felt fused to the haft and I felt Sanguina screaming my name.
Then the Neverwas exploded and I was flying backwards into nothingness.
52
I opened my eyes with a groan and stared up at the starry, purple sky, marveling at the streak of apocalyptic pink flower petals drifting through the air in a constant stream. I sucked in a breath of relief. We were back in the training fields where we’d opened the Gateway, but how had I escaped the Neverwas? I felt drained and hollow, utterly spent from whatever I had done with the Spear. But I no longer felt that gnawing, soul-deep hunger, at least.
I felt a warm presence to my left and turned to see Bai, the white tiger, sleeping soundly next to me. Finally, in full color, I stared in awe, transfixed by her black stripes and the faint metallic sheen to her fur. Long, silver claws curled out from her massive paws as she absently scraped the ground in her sleep.
Zoe was dozing on her feet, but crouched down between her sister’s throat and massive paws. Although the heat from her fiery red and white feathers made me squint, her sister’s striped fur didn’t burn. I reached out tentatively, and gasped as my fingers entered the flames to touch cool feathers beneath.
This didn’t make any sense. Had Michael and Lucifer carried us back? I stared up at where the Gateway had been, but it was gone. My katana was still buried in the earth in the center of a ring of black char and silver droplets. I sat up groggily, glancing left and right. Michael and Lucifer were gone. How long had I been asleep? Had they gone to the tree to get help from the others?
I turned to check and croaked out a cry of alarm to see a stranger sitting a few feet away between me and the tree. He was naked apart from a thick silver necklace that held two long feathers against his tanned chest—one black and one white. He was staring at his hands in fascination, twisting them back and forth, mesmerized. He wore a golden ring on each ring finger, and I felt my breath catch. He’d stolen Michael and Lucifer’s rings! He didn’t even seem to notice me. His long blonde hair shifted in the gentle breeze.
I sat up hurriedly, realizing that I still held the Spear in my hand and that it wasn’t damaged.
“Stay right where you are, stranger,” I rasped, weakly, pointing the Spear at him.
He looked up at me without a flicker of fear, grinning like a madman. “It’s us—” he cut off, his smile slipping. “No. It’s me,” he corrected, tasting the word with a bemused yet euphoric look on his face. He saw my confused expression and his smile fell back into place as he lifted his arms in introduction. “Lucifer and Michael,” he explained, “and…our Grace, I think. Or our soul.” He eyed my Spear pensively. “I feel like you and that oversized needle sewed us all together. Hastily.”
I stared at him, alarmed. He did look like a mix of the two brothers, leaning more towards Lucifer’s roguish good looks. “I…don’t understand,” I murmured, staring at the rings on his fingers. How was this possible? I’d barely accepted the fact that I’d been hanging out with freaking Lucifer in a Miata, and now I’d done this. He held them up, and I caught the two names etched into the metal. I flicked my gaze over his shoulder towards the tree where my other allies had been hiding. Why weren’t they rushing over?
“Neither do we—I,” he corrected himself again. “I feel so strange but so good at the same time. I feel more like Lucifer than Michael,” he murmured thoughtfully. He grinned at the sleeping Daemons. “You did it, Callie. You saved Zoe and Bai,” he whispered. He glanced down at the Spear again. “But how? And why did you do this to us?” he asked, indicating himself.
A single word from Wrath’s prophecy whispered in my mind. Anghellian.
Was that referring to…a hybrid angel and demon? An angel and a hellian? I stared at his necklace—the white and black feather hanging side-by-side. What have I done? I thought to myself, beginning to panic.
I shook my head, still holding the Spear nervously. What if this was someone else entirely? Where wer
e my friends? Xuanwu? Qinglong? Ryuu and Aala? Where was Sanguina? They should have come running the moment I returned. What if…this was not Michael or Lucifer at all? What if this man had killed everyone else already? “What do you remember?” I asked carefully, gauging his reaction and trying to blink away my grogginess.
“There was an explosion of power,” he whispered. “Nothing like I’ve ever felt before. You brought us together, and that combination of power threw us at the Gateway! I bet every angel and demon in the world felt it—”
Twin cracking sounds made me jump, feeling as if lightning bolts had struck within inches of me.
The stranger flinched to find two men looming before him, their faces hard. I only knew one of them.
“Wretched Daemons,” Wrath cursed. “I’ll roast that turtle alive and eat his heart,” he snarled. “How was he able to ward us out for so long?” He wore a crisp suit and he held a small bouquet of white roses in one hand. He slowly turned to look at me, and I watched as his face slowly morphed from hard to downright furious. As if the flowers were a reflection of his mood, they began to wilt and droop, blackening within seconds. Then he dropped the dead bouquet at his feet. The black feathers hanging from his chain stirred faintly in the ever-present breeze.
The other man was eerily tall and muscular with long, straight, white hair, resembling the guy from The Witcher. His irises flickered with golden light and his face seemed carved from granite. He was obviously friends with Wrath, but he didn’t give off any sort of obedient lackey vibe. Likewise, Wrath didn’t appear beholden to him, either, making me think they were equals. I frowned, noticing he wore a similar necklace to Wrath, except the two feathers were perfectly white. “It does not matter. Where are Michael and Lucifer? I felt their power exploding at a level of magnificence that only our Father could have achieved,” he snarled, hungrily. “It shook the Pillars of Heaven, and I know it rocked the Foundations of Hell,” he said, glaring at Wrath. “I thought you had this under control.”
Alarm bells began ringing in my ears, recognizing the man’s necklace as feathers from an archangel, not an archdemon. And he’d just quoted Wrath’s dark prophecy. The prophecy that Wrath had presumed to mean his impending marriage to me.
Looked like the bride had cold feet and an idling getaway car.
The prophecy had meant something entirely different—making an Anghellian between Lucifer, Michael, and their grace. Even though I didn’t understand the details, it was obvious.
Wrath had been wrong.
“You guys wear matching jewelry?” I asked, trying to hide my anxiety. “How…cute.”
The archangel turned to look at me and my heart skipped a beat as terror filled me. I’d never felt such an instinctive reaction from a mere look. Zoe and Bai had come awake, likely from the thunderous cracking sounds of the new arrivals. They let out frightened whimpers, pressing into me like terrified babes. I lifted the Spear in a shaking fist, already knowing that I was utterly spent and had no power to defend myself.
Not that it would have made a difference anyway.
Wrath’s friend pursed his lips and lifted his hand to point at me with a bone-chilling smile. “My jewelry is much better than gaudy rubies,” he growled. “You foolish, vapid human,” he snarled disgustedly. “To have to suffer through your wonton attempt at seducing me. You—a vile, daughter of Eve! Cloaked in sin, tried to seduce me, God’s chosen!” he growled.
Goosebumps raced up my arms and I almost dropped the Spear of Destiny. Rubies…
My eyes widened and I stared at him, only feeling more confused. As I looked closer at his face, I saw similarities to the valet who had brought me my towels—the one I had flaunted my robe and jewelry for in hopes of drawing out Envy.
But Envy hadn’t been the only mole in my castle. Wrath had been playing both sides against the middle, and I suddenly understood how Michael and Lucifer had been so swiftly set up and pinned for crimes they did not commit.
I had asked the valet if he preferred my sapphires to rubies. It hadn’t been Envy, though. It had been this man. This archangel I’d shamed and embarrassed. The only archangel I could think of was Michael’s boss.
I gasped, taking a stab in the dark. “Gabriel.”
Michael’s boss and Envy had both been in my castle, watching me, working with Wrath.
Gabriel nodded. “To the goddaughter of the world’s first whore, Lilith…good riddance—”
He snarled, suddenly jerking his hand back as blood spurted in the air. Wrath shouted out in alarm, crouching warily as his eyes darted back and forth, looking for the unseen assailant. Gabriel did the same, and the two smoothly shifted into a back-to-back position, slowly spinning in a circle.
“The Angel Killer!” Gabriel roared.
“Halo Breaker!” Wrathe bellowed with a vicious snarl.
I jumped as a smoke pellet exploded to my right, and then three more in rapid succession all around me. Wrath gasped, letting out a string of curses as he clutched his side, and Gabriel staggered, grabbing at his thigh. Blood flowed freely, and I found myself grinning toothily. Ryuu!
“Dance for me, darling,” Ryuu taunted, seeming to hop from one direction to the next, inhumanly fast. “Because no one steps on my rose garden, and no one dares pluck my rare lotus blossom from her mountain boulder. She. Is. Mine.”
My heart dropped into my stomach, recalling his story about Buddha. He…
Ryuu had been talking about me.
Gabriel and Wrath roared in outrage, hurling blasts of black and white fire at every source of sound, but they weren’t louder than Ryuu’s bitter, mocking laughter. Twice more, Gabriel and Wrath stumbled as Ryuu’s dark blade bit deep, drawing more blood from the archdemon and archangel.
Ryuu laughed again and Wrath raised his arm to throw something at him. A coil of translucent rope wrapped around his wrist, yanking it back so that he punched Gabriel in the head, bathing him in black fire. The archangel roared, swatting out the fire with one hand while hurling his own white fire at the source of the attacker with the rope—which obviously hadn’t been Ryuu.
I heard a grunt, and Aala materialized, clutching at her abdomen with bloody fingers. Gabriel flicked a hand and she flew a dozen feet, crashing into the ground near the white tree. Ryuu snarled as Wrath finally found him—probably distracted by Aala’s injury—and a dark, metaphysical fist punched the ninja so hard that he flew across the field and slammed into the glowing tree, causing a downpour of apocalyptic pink petals. He didn’t get back up.
I pointed the Spear at the two brothers, willing anything I had left into it, but nothing happened.
Gabriel and Wrath dismissed me and both focused on the Anghellian, who had climbed to his feet at some point and was glaring back at them with his fists clenched at his sides. For the first time, I noticed that the wind had ceased. Entirely. A hush fell over the field, and the Anghellian’s eyes flickered with silver light, reminding me of Sanguina. The feathers on his necklace smoldered around the edges, but they didn’t actually burn up—as if they were made of hot coals.
A distant part of me began to wonder how they had found us. How they had broken into Xuanwu’s protected sanctuary, but then I remembered what the Anghellian had said. About how every angel and demon had to have felt the surge of power I’d unleashed with the Spear. The surge of power strong enough to Frankenstein an archangel, an archdemon, and the supposed grace from purgatory. But…it was just too fucking crazy. How could two angels be the same person? Or be fused together like this? Wasn’t that pure blasphemy?
More words from Wrath’s prophecy came to mind, and I realized, with a faint grin, that it hadn’t meant what Wrath thought, at all. Her love will rock the pillars of Heaven and rattle the foundations of Hell, burning away all that once was in a purifying bridge of Anghellian fire.
The power from the Spear of Destiny had been stained with our love as we all volunteered to give up our lives rather than abandon Zoe and Bai. And that power had rocked and rattled Heaven a
nd Hell, bringing Wrath and Gabriel here, now. I really, really hoped my new pal knew how to call up some Anghellian fire, because I was all out of magic tricks. I hugged Zoe and Bai close, knowing they were too weakened to protect themselves, and I wasn’t about to abandon them when I’d only saved them halfway.
Wrath and Gabriel stared at the Anghellian, no longer looking as brave. And I didn’t blame them.
Not. One. Bit.
Because two terrifying, ephemeral apparitions abruptly loomed behind him like security guards. One was white, and one was black, and they were easily ten-feet-tall with muscles growing out of their muscles in a display that would have put the Incredible Hulk to shame. Their shoulders were bigger than my damned head. They wore hooded scarves, reminding me of Xylo’s crimson cowl, so I couldn’t see their faces. Just two sets of glowing blue eyes.
Although I had never seen them before, I was pretty sure I was staring at Michael and Lucifer’s arch-level forms. And despite being significantly smaller than Samael’s giant demon form…
These two were much, much scarier. My lips were trembling and I was too frightened to even blink. I hugged my new stuffed animals and prayed for the monsters to go away. Not the Anghellian. He was my friend…wasn’t he?
Gabriel and Wrath lifted their hands and each let loose a purplish supernova of power from their fists—enough to incinerate a building in two seconds flat.
The Anghellian didn’t even flinch, but his two apparitions abruptly bent over him and caught the attacks in their palms, absorbing the power as if blocking laser pointers. Gabriel and Michael released their beams and took an instinctive step backwards, their faces gaunt and incredulous.
“What have you done?” Gabriel whispered. “You are human. I can feel it!”
Wrath shot me a quick look, seeming to ask the same question with his big, terrified eyeballs.
The naked Anghellian smiled wryly. “I evolved, brothers.” Which sounded about as blasphemous as something Lucifer would have said. Then he flung his hands out and an unseen blast of power hit Gabriel and Michael in their chests, causing a burst of embers and sparks on contact, and the archdemon and archangel flew back, slamming into the earth like lawn darts.
Anghellic: Feathers and Fire Book 8 Page 31