The one thing worse than being hated was to be replaced.
I could never replace one of my family: I loved each of them in their separate ways — needed them differently.
They’d never be disposable.
Suddenly, I knew that no matter the god-like powers surging through me, I couldn’t become Jahael. I swelled on my family’s love; sugar and blood coated the back of my throat in honeyed sweetness. I quested through my bond with Rebel, drawing on his strength, whilst plucking the gentle threads of my connection to Firebird. Taut, I was ready to spring against either brother…but only when Gabriel gave the signal.
I saw it now as clearly as the arcing rainbow after the Noah’s flood that Jahael wished to bring sweeping across worlds: Gabriel had the true power. Mine was borrowed in his service. And this was his family that we’d be slaying.
I had to give him the choice.
Blaze wound his tail around Gabriel, steadying him.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed at Ariel. “What fun assassination attempts they’ll be, when Rachiel discovers your double-cross. The temple shan’t be able to stay in a single place for longer than a day.”
“You’re still worrying for my safety, eh? You’ll be dead by then. And the Damned were never more than a tool.” Ariel pointed at Gabriel. “Like you.”
Gabriel’s wings crackled. “You were never protecting my mother or me, were you?”
“And you were never the smartest lad.”
Jahael nudged Ariel, slyly. “Well, you can’t blame me for that, he is your bastard.”
My breath hitched. Hell, no…not like this. Please don’t let it be true…
But even as I glanced between the brothers, I could tell that it was.
Ariel had slept with Jahael’s Empress, and Jahael had covered it up to raise the kid as his own. Gabriel was a bastard, just the same as Mischief.
Gabriel panted raggedly. His gaze was desperate and broken. “You…you and my mother?”
Ariel laughed. “Why did you think I was in her chambers? Your little brat self was always interrupting—”
“Lies…” Gabriel wept.
“When the jackasses became too…cruel with their indiscretions,” Jahael untangled himself from his brother and waved his hand, but I didn’t miss the way that it shook, “I exiled them.”
“Exiled?” Gabriel’s sudden hope broke through his tears. “Please, by my feathers, tell me: does my mother live?”
“Well, that’s the bitter pill inside the sugary sweetness.” Jahael twirled a strand of hair between his fingers as he lounged to his feet. “She did: as the fiercest dragon.” I stumbled to the side, only caught by Rebel’s cool arms, which banded around me. His eyes were sad and understanding. “I killed her because your Violet-darling wanted the most badass weapon of them all.”
Gabriel twisted out of Blaze’s hold to stare at me…and Godmaker who’d cost his mum’s life.
I shook, whilst Godmaker roared.
Yet even as Jahael chuckled, waiting for Gabriel’s rampage at me, Gabriel’s tears stilled, and his eyes swirled silver. He stepped closer to Jahael. “You always were a terrible father; I’m glad to discover that you’re not mine.”
“He’s your son,” Jahael snarled to Ariel, “what shall we do with the wayward boy?”
Rebel edged back, unsheathing Eclipse.
Rip — Ariel lunged up, grabbing Gabriel by the robe, hard enough to tear it, as he hauled him to the side.
The fox brothers and Mischief slunk after them.
“What do I need with a soft son?” Ariel’s tone was as glacial as his eyes. “He’s a threat to the throne. And you may have enough love to allow him to live, brother, but I don’t.”
Ariel’s beard frosted glittering ice, whilst his hands glowed blue. His hair stiffened and froze, and even his eyelashes sparkled with ice. Gabriel clenched his jaw against the cold that shocked through him.
Jahael chuckled. “I always knew that you were the Big Bad brother.”
“Father…” Gabriel murmured.
Ariel shook him. “A bastard is not my son.”
Silver disks spun out in rage between Mischief’s hands.
Gabriel hung in agony between the torturing freeze of Ariel’s hands, before turning to meet my gaze. “Trust me.”
I grinned at Gabriel’s code words that freed me at last. Time to unleash the bastards, toys, Addicts, vampires, whores, and monsters on the Seraphim gods.
I swung Godmaker. A howling arc of violet lightning blasted towards Jahael, catching his wings. Shrieking, he tumbled backwards.
Mischief released his silver, lassoing Ariel and hauling him away from Gabriel. Blaze caught Gabriel, whilst Spark pinned Ariel, savaging his calf with his fangs, until Ariel booted him in the head. Ariel crawled away, snapping Mischief’s silver like it was a guitar string.
Jahael bellowed, swishing to his feet in towering outrage. When he blasted magic towards me, I pulled Firebird spinning like a shield; Firebird’s golden wings deflected the bolts back towards Jahael, who dodged them at breath-taking speed, before swapping to silver fire in his attack, before I could pull Firebird away.
In a blur of midnight blue and violet feathers, Drake soared up, clutching Firebird around the middle and turning him away from the flames: saving him.
The fire raked across Drake’s back instead, and he screamed. Firebird held onto him tightly, gentling their fall. When they crashed to the floor in a tumble of feathers and seared skin, Rebel met my gaze with a concern and fury that matched my own.
“If you’d only worshiped me, I wouldn’t have had to break your toys.” Jahael paced closer.
“If you’d only… Actually, I’d always have broken you.” I raised Godmaker, and fire sizzled across my skin.
Jahael’s wings unfurled. “Perhaps, darling, we’ve already broken each other.”
Then he sprang.
Rebel dived in front of me, swinging Eclipse. Jahael batted him away; his wings were as hard as steel. I thrilled as, like a dance, Rebel and I fought back-to-back, whilst Jahael slashed at us with his wings.
When Jahael sliced down my side, I staggered, clutching at the gash. The blood gushed sticky between my fingers. I grasped at Rebel’s shoulder to keep standing.
Through my blurred vision, I could see Gabriel and Mischief’s battle with Ariel, who couldn’t stand after his savaging. The floor was iced like a rink, as my family slid between the sharp shards that shot from the tips of Ariel’s wings. The fox Halflings snapped at Ariel, whenever they could get close enough, and Gabriel tore whirlwinds around him, which Ariel put out like snuffing a candle.
Ariel was as powerful as Jahael.
Then an ice shard caught Mischief’s shoulder, and Mischief dropped to his knees.
My heart pounded; tremors ran through me. Why wasn’t he getting up?
Ariel raised his hand to hurl another ice shard.
Get up, get up, get bastard up…
Still Mischief hunched over with his head hanging low.
Even though I was struggling myself to stand, I lurched towards Mischief, only for Jahael to shake his head at me as he prowled closer, blocking my path.
Rebel held up Eclipse, glaring at Jahael. “Not a chance. Move or my sword will make you.”
Jahael smirked. “Such dirty talk out of such a sweet mouth; it’s giving me tingles.”
“Hmmm, then tell me if this tingles too much…” Lucifer rose up on flaring wings, whilst a blinding light shot out of his palms in a winding tendril.
Thud — the light caught Jahael in the chest, smashing him against the far wall.
I flinched, expecting Jahael to disintegrate into ash, but he only thrashed, whilst his wailing rose steadily in pitches of agony.
“Too many tingles yet?” Lucifer growled.
When Jahael smashed his fist against the wall, the building shook. The light wavered, crashing against the floor; I tumbled to my knees at the shock wave, gasping at the pain to my gashed side.
> When I looked up, my gaze locked with Mischief’s, as he too knelt, wounded.
In the midst of the battle, tiles fell and smashed from the domed roof, The Burning Temple itself tumbled down, and I was steeped in my own blood.
Jahael and Ariel were both gods and monsters and they’d either kill us, or bury us alive.
31
Vampires? Angels?
I once thought that they were bastards. And I hunted, ruled, and torched bastards.
Yet now I called them fam, they bled for me, and they sacrificed their lives to spark my Seraphim divinity.
At the dawn of both the Apocalypse and New Age, I was Violet Lazarus: birth and death, the Beginning and End, savior and destroyer.
The Fallen God.
Did that make me merely a player in the game of Crowns? The princess who slew the dragon? Or the true monster at the center of the maze?
Silver scaled tiles crashed around me — slam, slam, slam — like Rebel’s candy sweetness, as he bled for me; they combined in a maddening tribal beat to drag me off my knees in the midst of the destruction of the Holy Audience Chamber and stumble towards Mischief.
War was written on my brow in blood. Terrible, I tasted death.
Jahael howled, pinned to the cracked mural walls by Lucifer’s light. Godmaker twisted furiously in my grip towards his prey, hungry to cleave the Burning One’s head from his shoulders.
But Ariel knelt behind Mischief with his hand wound around Mischief’s hair, wrenching back his head; an icicle shank grew from his palm, tracing along Mischief’s throat.
I wasn’t Jahael: my family wasn’t disposable. And Mischief wasn’t bastard dying again.
I battled down the blinkered buzz of Godmaker’s call for an Emperor’s blood, instead forcing out his fire in a hissing beam, which melted Ariel’s icicle shank and scorched his hand.
Ariel bellowed, pressing his other hand cruelly into the base of Mischief’s neck. Mischief screwed shut his eyes against the agony as he elbowed Ariel in the guts.
Ariel let go of Mischief and bent over, gasping.
My eyes widened, as Blaze and Spark skidded on the frozen floor towards Ariel, yet he didn’t even see them, before they were booting him sprawling away from Mischief and tumbling into Gabriel’s path…who’d taken the battle shifter style and transformed into a lion.
The same giant lion with ivory mane and blue eyes who’d fought Mischief in the Shifter Duel.
Gabriel stared down at his true dad, who’d abandoned him to be raised by Jahael and Istafil, using him as a double agent and a means to bring about his own power: nothing but a tool.
Just like I’d been used by Jahael and my own parents as a weapon.
Gabriel shook his mane and lowered his head; his unblinking, predatory gaze met his dad’s. Ariel raised his shaky hand, as if to touch his son.
Then Gabriel opened his jaws…
Crunch.
Never put your hand near a lion: Basic Safety Lesson 101.
Ariel screamed.
Crunch, followed by silence.
Also, never put your head near a lion: Advanced Safety Lesson.
Gabriel shifted back into his Seraphim form, dropping to his knees next to Mischief, who caught his wings around his trembling shoulders. Gabriel was as soaked in blood now as me.
The chamber shook, and Rebel caught me around the waist to stop me falling. I clung to his candy copper scent, snuffling along his collar.
Jahael’s low laugh echoed around the chamber. “Well, I guess that proves my brother right on the not trusting you, Gabriel. Without adoration, kids betray their parents, and parents betray their kids.”
“On my fangs, do you never stop whining?” Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I’d never betray my daughter. Even if…” He glanced at me, with sudden understanding, “…She betrays me because she’s the glorious spark who has to make those choices.”
“I’m the Emperor of the gods,” Jahael roared. “I’m the one who chooses.”
I smirked. “Not anymore, bitch.”
Jahael snatched hold of the light that tethered him, even though his palms charred. I gagged at the stink of singed flesh. Then he yanked Lucifer towards him, before Lucifer could break the connection, and slammed him against the wall.
At once, the temple’s juddering stopped like it’d been freed alongside Jahael.
As one, Rebel and I turned, storming towards Jahael, but he only choked Lucifer, forcing us to still.
“You’d choose this vampire,” Jahael pressed his fingers more cruelly around Lucifer’s throat, “over the most holy of Seraphim to walk amongst humans? A creator and destroyer of realms? Who seeded you?”
“He chose me,” I said, softly.
When Lucifer met my gaze, he smiled. Then he nodded.
Hell, I knew what he meant, as did Godmaker, who surged with flames in anticipation.
Lucifer closed his eyes.
“And he’d die for me,” I added, “that’s why.”
I raised Godmaker to take the shot that’d take down both Jahael and my dad in the final fiery sacrifice.
Except, in a sudden clatter of footsteps behind, flap — flap — flap of wings above, and scratching of claws across the walls to the side, the vampires from the Abyss burst into the chamber.
Tortured, bloodied, and starved, they crawled over the diamonds and pearls in their rags: beaten dogs turning on their master. A gray tide of furious revenge more potent than even my own, they hung on every side of Jahael.
And the Brigadier was their leader.
This had been Ash’s secret mission: to free the vampires who he’d fought alongside in the Angel Games. Not once had Ash forgotten those that he’d left behind.
Ash never did.
Ash marched in, holding aloft Devil’s Trident at full length, which glistened in living bone and chanted, “Death, death, death.”
Ash scanned the room. Then he pointed the killer fork at Jahael, whose eyes had widened in the first genuine terror that I’d seen from him.
Jahael had inflicted fear on Gabriel since he’d been a kid locked in Monster Hall and called him weak. Yet had the debauched Seraphim retreated to this realm because they were frightened of true war? How long had it been since Jahael had been in a real battle, rather than inciting others to fight for his entertainment or playing at it?
Slaying his dragon wife didn’t bastard count.
Now that Jahael was alone, unloved, and outnumbered, Jahael was no god. He was a coward.
“Let’s make this easy: I’m the Brigadier, Lucifer’s not a choke toy, and you’re the wanker who’s about to let him go.” Ash waved Devil at Lucifer. When Jahael didn’t remove his fingers from Lucifer’s throat, Ash’s flinty eyes narrowed. “I hoped that you’d prefer to make it hard.”
“Hold up, asshole…” Jahael hurled Lucifer to the floor.
When Purah and Quinn prowled behind Ash into the chamber, Gabriel grinned, dragging them to his side.
My entire family was here: the joy electrified me, overshadowing my grief.
Almost.
Until Jahael soared into the air, outstretching his six wings that snapped with magic; his hair hung loose from its pins in wild glory and his robe had been reduced to shreds.
But he was still the most transcendent angel that I’d ever seen.
“Worship me.” It was no longer a demand but a forlorn plea.
We’d broken an Emperor: a god.
Although Gabriel tried to hold onto his arm, Purah stumbled before Jahael, staring up at him.
How had I expected centuries of Amitiel’s training and serving as an Acolyte to be undone? I hated Jahael’s superior satisfaction, as Purah raised his wings like he intended to smash them in ritualized reverence against the floor.
“Worship this,” Purah snarled.
Purah shot sparking magic from his own wings at Jahael, blasting him thudding against the wall. Jahael slid, stunned, to the floor.
Godmaker thundered a victory cry, as I ch
arged towards Jahael, straddling and holding him down. Jahael stared up at me in shocked horror: at his own Holy Audience Chamber transformed into his execution room, and at the people who he could’ve ruled.
Only, he’d thrown away their true love for hollow worship.
A mixture of anguish and confusion warred in Jahael’s eyes, before he gasped breathlessly, “Why do you think you can kill me? I’m the one who decides on life and death. You’re all mine.”
“We were never yours.” I kissed Jahael’s forehead.
Then I hacked Godmaker across his throat.
Godmaker bayed in the rapture of the hound that rips apart the fox.
I held down Jahael, whilst his legs kicked, and his eyes rolled back. Godmaker blazed bright violet. His flames burned through Jahael’s neck, and he feasted on his blood, which tear splattered across my cheeks, just as J’s had done.
Blood for blood: it was done.
Exhausted, I fell back on my heels. Godmaker fell silent and sated.
Whooping, cheering, stamping of feet.
Then hands were clasping and spinning me around, raising me on vampires’ shoulders and bearing me around the room like a hero.
Numb, I was desperate to see my family. I was still hollow from J’s loss. I’d saved worlds, yet there was nothing heroic about death. My skin was tacky, my hair plastered with crimson to my head, and my hands were scarlet gloves.
I craved to wash myself clean.
My past selves hadn’t lived long enough to do that. Maybe now I would?
I scrabbled away from the crowd, spinning around to discover my blokes, hanging back beside the divan, as if they’d had no part in the victory.
Like we weren’t equals.
No bastard way.
Crowned in blood, I stalked towards them amidst wild applause with no thought but to run my fingers over each one of them, until I was certain that they might be bloody and battered but they were alive.
Godmaker slipped out of my hand, hovering by my shoulder.
“What a shocker: Violet of the bitches makes an atrocious Knight of the Seraphim but an astoundingly good blood monster.” Quinn raised a sardonic eyebrow.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 130