Russell replies, “She got him good, though.”
Whatever Zee was going to say fades from his lips as another Emil emerges from the house with his hands up. I cringe. Behind this Emil, a slew of Emils run from the house. They move over the snow, stumbling and getting up to trudge through the drifts.
Russell says, “Remember the paintball fight on the beach, Red? It’s like the Delt Wars. He’s throwing Freshmen at us.” My soul mate is right. It’s just on an entirely different scale.
Reed clarifies, “He’s trying to deplete our ammunition and demoralize us by making us kill his victims.” I choke back the sour flavor in my mouth.
“Nobody fire!” I order. The victims with Emil’s face keep coming. They swarm into the yard with his strawberry-blond hair and his lazy eyes. I want to smash all of their faces in. They trip and stumble toward us. That’s when I realize that some of them are wearing vests covered with incendiary devices.
“Evie,” Reed says while he looks over the edge of the trench.
“I know! I see them!”
“Can you amplify my voice?” Reed asks, his eyes never leaving the fake Emils as they struggle to get to our trenches.
“I think so. I have to come up with a spell—”
“Do it!” he replies urgently, his assassin’s eyes honing in on a fake Emil running across the frozen water of the small pond only yards away.
I whisper a spell over Reed, nodding my head for him to speak. My Power angel looks in the direction of the possessed human wearing Emil’s face. He calls out, “Stop!” My head vibrates with the resonance of his persuasive voice. It echoes and reverberates in my mind causing my brain to rebel as if it were being scrubbed by steel wool. I hold my head in my hands, looking through my splayed fingers. The possessed soul halts only a yard or so from us. “Go find your master. He’s waiting for you to embrace him.”
The soul doesn’t waver for a moment. He turns around and stumbles back across the frozen water. Reed repeats his order. It amplifies over the mass amount of evil souls coming at us. They turn, fighting one another to claw their way back into the door of the house to get to their master. Hissing sounds, like the spray of fire from a flame-thrower, and then BOOM! The house explodes shaking the ground and throwing debris up in the air for miles. Fire and smoke billows up. I straighten, feeling a cautious sense of elation bubble up in me.
My angel grasps my wrist and says through clenched teeth, “Get down!” I have just a second to comply before he pulls me to him and covers me with his body. I catch a glimpse past his shoulder of magical flames traveling at us over the mall in front of where the house used to be. The flames pass over the trenches, moaning. Everything that was in its path is ash in a millisecond. My magic shield is wiped out.
Reed shifts off of me. He leans against the frozen dirt wall and uses the blade of a sword to reflect the area above us. The house is completely gone. It’s reduced to ashes that float around us like snow. In its place is a gigantic gaping hole to another world—a hellscape I only glimpsed once before. I peek over the edge of the trench. It’s as if our world is a solemn, ethereal landscape painting that’s been torn to reveal a dark, sinister masterpiece with blood-red skies underneath. It’s something out of a Bosch nightmare. I cover my mouth as the reek of Sheol hits us all at once. I have to choke back my gag. It is so bad it makes the Trolls smell like perfume.
In the Sheol sky, legion upon legion of fallen angels fly. There’s every type of fallen angel, from Seraphim to Reaper, swirling around in the putrid air. Even with their ability to fly, some angels ride upon the backs of enormous dragons whose scales shine like embers. Dark-winged bulls with polished black horns and hooves ferry other evil angels on their backs. Some Fallen have harnessed teams of powder-white mothmen to carry them in gilded chariots across the sky. Vulgar creature mashups of man and beast hurtle toward the open doorway to our world.
Finding Emil among the fallen angels is impossible. They darken the sky like locusts. The sheer numbers I’m seeing of my enemy is horrifyingly bigger than what I could ever imagine. But they’re not just angels and demons. Evil souls numbering in the hundreds of thousands are being set free from Sheol. They’re spirits—bodiless evil entities—until they find a human host here to possess and inhabit. Once that happens, they’ll be powerful with the ability to maim and kill. We’re outnumbered at least a thousand to one in this fight. My little army doesn’t stand a chance against the malevolence coming for us.
“We have to close Sheol,” I whisper to Reed. “If you give me the boatswain, then I’ll do it automatically—I think—I hope—this hole will collapse before they get here!” I hold out my hand to him for the whistle.
His hand moves to where the whistle lies beneath his armor. He covers it, making no move to give it to me. “If I do, you could get trapped on the other side and slaughtered by them.”
Russell crawls over to where Reed and I crouch in the trench. “We need to pool our energy, Red, and come up with a spell to kill the apocalypse of evil that’s about to crash in on us.” He calls out to Brennus and Finn who are giving orders to the fellas to prepare to leave the trenches and storm the field. “Hey! Brothers Grim! Do you mind helpin’ us out with some magic?”
Brennus scowls at him, but moves closer to us. Finn has never been more than a few yards from me, always protecting my back from Gancanagh and Trolls behind us. It’s a very precarious position to be in. My army could turn on me at any time if they feel they have a better chance of coming out of this alive. And right now, I kind of wouldn’t blame them.
Brennus crouches down in front of me. “I’m going ta give ye energy, mo chroí. Ye have to accept it as yer due. Channel it inside ye and hold on ta it. Do na hurl it away in a spell. Make it part of ye.” Brennus holds out his hands. He channels his energy into me. It’s painful and pleasurable; I hate the duality of it. Finn joins him. His energy is contrary to his brothers’. Whereas Brennus’ energy is power and dominance, Finn’s is playful and effervescent. Russell puts out his hands to me. I feel his energy flow inside my body and it’s like the feeling I get when I hear my favorite song. When they all drop their hands, I stretch my arms out to the sides because I cannot seem to hold them down. I’m not anchored to the ground. I levitate in the air, defying gravity. Without the use of my wings, I lift out of the trench. Reed is by my side, flying next to me. My movement out of the trench signals my army into action. The hoard of mythical creatures behind me catapults out of the trenches, running over the torched ground toward the invading evil.
Now I know how Emil creates such devastating magic. He’s basically doping off of other beings’ energy like I just did. Knowing this, I whisper a magic spell to conjure fire. Aiming it at Sheol, I ratchet up the pain when I control the flames like an extension of myself instead of a cannon ball let loose. White-hot light burns through the clouds, connecting with the swarms of beasts on the other side of the divide. Clear paths of red sky ripples through the vile creatures. Angelic figures catch fire and fall in flames to Hell’s terrain.
Fallen angels pour over the divide because I can’t stop them all. Flying low to the ground, Sheol’s angels hatchet Gancanagh, severing heads from bodies. Automatic weapons fire rings in the air. Bombs explode falling angel carcasses from the air in a color array of magic. I switch my tactic. Instead of burning the skies, I try to narrow the gap. This will force them to enter our world in a smaller, more manageable way that will enable us to cut them down easier the moment they cross over the divide between worlds.
Whispering a spell, I pull my arms together; the sky knits and seals in a section, closing a small part of Sheol. I’m making headway, cutting off a procession of mothmen driven chariots and blocking them from entering. They pull up, reaching the edge of the world that has become too tight to get through.
A sigh escapes me at my small victory, but it’s short-lived. My magic is only a bandage on the wound. It unravels and opens again. A golden armor-clad angel with bright red Seraphim
wings flies along the divide, scoring his dagger over the fabric between our worlds. It rends and frays growing larger than it was before.
I recognize the angel. It’s Emil. My heart pounds; I had almost no hope of finding him among the damned, yet, there he is. I glance beside me. Reed hovers in the sky to my right. His dark wings beat with a graceful rhythm. His attention is on the masses of Fallen engaging in battle around us. I’ve been so focused on my spells; I hadn’t questioned their proximity to me. Now I see I’m at the center of the conflict. Reed swoops in front of me, slicing off the arm of an angel who would’ve tackled me from above. The carnage falls to the ground where Gancanagh are tearing apart possessed souls.
Buns is just a small distance from me, her golden butterfly wings flying her in zigzag patterns. She clutches the neck of the cham-pain bottle. Using it like a bat, she smashes it into an angel, yelling, “Take my pain!” The brutal Power cramps up, yellow lightning bolts of suffering charging through him as he falls from the sky. At her side, Zephyr stabs his sword through the belly of an albino mothman, its mouth opens wide like a dying fish, showing rows of pointy rotten teeth.
It’s not enough, though. The pathway into our world from Sheol is widening with every slice Emil makes with his soul shredder. Soon, there won’t be just a hole; Sheol will be the horizon. I need to get to Emil to stop him. I try to catch Reed’s attention, but as I do, I hear a scream that nearly stops my heart. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Buns’ golden wing fold in. Blood sprays from her chest and mouth as she’s impaled on the end of a spear of a dark-haired fallen Seraph. My response is automatic. I reach over my left shoulder and grasp the handle of my battle hammer. Wielding it like a shot putter, I let it fly. The silver hammer tumbles through the air. The flat side of it connects with the depraved Seraph, knocking his head clear off his shoulders, casting it down to the ground below. The angel’s body goes limp and chases his head to the ground. I whisper the command, “Come back to me.” The hammer twists and returns, striking my palm.
Zephyr catches Buns in his arms, refusing to let her fall. His face is one of devastation as he yanks the spear from her chest, letting the blood-covered metal shaft drop from his fist. Zee’s hand smoothes her hair back from her forehead, smearing red in her flaxen strands. Before I can move, Russell flies up to them and hovers in the air, his red wings beating behind him. He holds out his hand and uses a spell to encase Buns, Zephyr, and himself in a bubble. It’s like the kind of bubble little children blow with soap and plastic sticks in their back yards, only his bubble is huge. Fallen beat on the curve of the bubble, trying to get to them. The wall bows in, but it doesn’t pop; the spell holds. Russell’s hand begins to glow with golden light. He presses it to Buns’ wound while he punches his other fist through the wall of the bubble. Again, it doesn’t pop, but closes in around his wrist. He palms the froglike face of a Sheol demon. The grotesque flying frogman’s chest breaks open and orange-colored blood projects out of him to cover the side of the iridescent bubble with evil frogman guts. Buns’ arms flail as the wound in her chest closes.
I feel numb with fear. I glance at Reed, he’s a windstorm blowing through straw men, scattering and killing everything that gets close to me. A knicker beside me jolts me out of my shock. My waist is seized and I swing up behind Brennus on the back of a black-winged horse. My hair streams behind me as Brennus drives the steed forward, aiming at the expanding red sky and the evil freak who’s cutting my world to pieces. Holding onto Brennus’ waist and looking behind me, Finn is right there on the back of another winged-horse whose nostrils breathe fire with each powerful stride and flap of its beautiful feathered wings. I wonder where they got the mythical creatures, but because the equines seems real enough, I’m going to go with them being from Hell.
“Clear a path for us, mo chroí!” Brennus orders over his shoulder.
I lift my hands. I’m a matchstick poised to strike. I spark, lighting the fuse inside me, becoming an arsonist, destroying fallen angels and demons without mercy. Emil notices the commotion that I’m making with my magic. He pauses from his task of ripping the world in two. Focusing his full attention on us, his lips move. “My inescapable lover,” I hear Emil whisper in my mind, “how shall I enslave you this time?”
He aims his magic at us, thrusting energy. The army of fallen in the path between Emil and me become crumbling sand sculptures slowly falling apart. Brennus tries to block the spell with his own magic, but it keeps coming, crawling over him and turning his forearm crispy. He urges the black winged-horse aside, soaring away from the beam that will kill us. Emil lifts his hand once more, his golden armor gleaming, even in the lack of light. Aiming his palm at us, he’s unable to throw his magic because Reed appears in front of him. Emil shifts his diabolical magic to Reed, plying him with heinous energy. Reed’s ring takes the brunt of the curse Emil would cast upon him.
With the spade blades notched between Reed’s fingers, he slashes Emil in the throat, cutting an X pattern in his flesh and watching his blood spurt from his body. Emil reels back, his blood flowing down the front of his golden armor. He reaches for the first being he sees. A Cherub falls into his clutches. Emil’s hands glow golden. The gaping slits in his throat closes in seconds, appearing on the neck of the Cherub in his grasp. Emil takes a huge, ragged breath in; his eyes wild and wide with the need for air. Reed presses forward, cutting through bodies of evil creatures that get in his way. My inescapable is in full retreat, flying across the divide, back into the underworld. Reed doesn’t stop at the threshold, but follows him into Sheol. His ring glows blue, the jewel in the center glows with its own fire
The other demons Emil has left behind press into our realm, engaging in the battle without any sign of retreat. “REED,” I scream. I dismount the winged-horse. “REED!” I soar after him, veering into the mass of fallen, swinging my hammer and knocking the life out of everything in my way.
Reed tugs on the chain around his neck that holds the whistle. It emerges from underneath his armor. Placing it to his lips, he steps over the threshold of our world into Sheol. The second he does, blue light from his ring closes in around him and he disappears, becoming invisible. I hear rather than see him blow the whistle. Atwater must have taught him the notes to use to close our worlds when he gave the boatswain to him. The sound is muffled. It doesn’t affect me the way it had when I was next to it. This time, I hardly feel it at all.
The sky around us begins to change. The fabric of our world, the one of gray skies and dark clouds closes in, making the red sky behind it shrink. I panic knowing Reed is on the other side closing the gateway to Sheol. He plans to try to kill Byzantyne and Emil on his own. It’s not a bad plan. If he can make Emil’s Seraph mentor cease to be and slay Emil’s angelic body, only Emil’s soul would survive. Wouldn’t it? But Emil would be trapped in Sheol. It could work! It would allow Reed and me to remain together, but it’s still a horrible plan for one reason: he intends to do it without me.
Trumpets sound. Startled, I turn, scanning the clouds behind me. Divine winged warriors careen through the air in rows like paper angels strung up in the sky. Weapons gleam from sunbursts that cut through the clouds. Some divine angels are attired in black armor with red Xs on the front of it. Others wear red armor with black Ts across the chest and abdomen. They engage in the fighting. The roar of their war cries echoes in the air.
Even though the gateway is closing, it doesn’t mean the battle is any less excruciatingly real. There are hundreds of thousands of fallen and divine angels clawing at one another everywhere I look. I turn and keep moving toward Sheol, slicing through anything that gets in my way. Brennus and Finn are by my side, cutting and slashing demons to get us to the entrance of Sheol. “Do ye intend ta go dere den?” Brennus shouts, while beating back a bald skeletal beast that is in a very serious stage of decomposition.
“Yes,” I reply, not looking at him, but using the long handle of my battle hammer like a bo staff to beat away anything that gets near me. I r
each the threshold to Sheol. It’s closing in fast.
“Den I go wi’ ye,” Brennus says, raising his chin as if he expects an argument from me. On the contrary, I think it’s a solid plan having someone with me to help. It might just be the best plan he’s ever had in his undead life.
“Okay,” I agree. Finn takes a position on my left side, protecting me from being assaulted by flocks of bat-winged reconnoîtres with taffy puller-shaped mouths.
Struggling through the misshapen mess of violent creatures, we make it to the edge of Sheol. I fly over it to the other side. My hammer glows an eerie blue. Finn calls out, “Genevieve! It works!”
“What works?” I ask, but something strange is happening. Evil creatures are now avoiding me, careening around me as if I repulse them.
“Da weapon I made for ye repels demons and makes ye invisible ta dem when ye’re in deir realm. Dey feel pain when dey get close ta it—it stings dem with da power it emits.”
He’s right. Sheol’s finest are giving me such a wide berth that they’re even avoiding Brennus and Finn because they’re near me. “This is the best gift ever, Finn,” I breathe. “How come your magic works on angels, Finn?” I ask.
“It only works like dis when ye’re in Sheol. It will na work dis way on Earth. Sheol has different energy.” Then I notice that, although it works on the lesser demons, the sting does not seem to extend to angels. They don’t see me, but they’re not shying away from me either.
Finn tries to come nearer to me, but he’s brought up short on the threshold to Sheol. He tries again, but it looks as if he is walking into a wall each time. Brennus scowls. He attempts to cross the threshold as well, but it prevents him from passing, just like Finn. He growls in anger.
“I can na go wi’ ye!” Brennus’ voice is thick with frustration. “I’m mostly undead. I ca na pass over da threshold. It rejects me.”
Iniquity (The Premonition Series Book 5) Page 28