Or it was a combination of everything.
Still, I waited, persevering through the agony with occasional grunts and hisses.
I blinked through watery eyes, assessing the rest of the church.
Olin and Beckett stared at me in awe as their hair whipped back and forth in the raging storm shredding through my church.
Rai stood before the two Templars, eyes squeezed shut, praying under her breath as she rocked back and forth in the chaos. I sensed movement behind them but disregarded it as I turned to Eae. His eyes were crackling with white lightning.
I turned to Nameless.
Between one moment and the next, his eyes shifted from leaden gray to black.
And my Darling and Dear boots – one pointed at Eae, and the other at Nameless – suddenly began pinching my toes like a son of a bitch.
The one pointing at Nameless.
Now, I told myself.
Chapter 57
I spun to the Templars, locking eyes with Olin and then Beckett. They recoiled at whatever look they saw on my face, but I didn’t take it personally.
“Even Angels can Fall…” I shouted at the top of my lungs over the rampaging storm. “And even monsters can rise,” I yelled louder.
Beckett nodded very slowly, possibly not even aware he had done it.
But Olin’s face transformed into a snarl of outrage – that I would have the nerve to speak against an Angel about to vanquish evil once and for all. Then he seemed to notice Beckett’s lack of support. Olin rounded on Beckett, flinging Rai to the ground as he redirected his rage at the source of the betrayal.
“How dare you!” he shouted at his acolyte, sensing Beckett’s apparent weakened resolve. “You want to side with the monsters over this? After what they did to your wife? Let me show you what it’s like to be a monster!” he shouted. And he raised a werewolf claw over his head.
Which was the exact moment a nightmare flew out from behind a pile of pews – a wall of white fur and inches-long black claws, with teeth as long as my fingers. I couldn’t hear her roar, but to abruptly see a greater than ten-foot-tall polar bear with built-in human slicers on her paws suddenly appear out of nowhere, Olin and Beckett both froze for a fraction of a second.
Beckett drew his gun and unloaded it on Claire when it became clear he was her target.
Then Clairebear slammed into Beckett, ignoring the bullets as she sliced into his stomach in a spray of crimson blood before the force of her mass tore him clear of Olin – right before the werewolf’s claws slashed through now-empty air. The two smashed through another pile of debris and didn’t get up, Claire draped over Beckett, blood staining her fur.
Claire had disobeyed me, too, showing up in time to kill Beckett.
My cheeks felt cold from all the wind as Olin howled in defeat, partially shifted, now. Then he fled, forgetting all about Rai who was sobbing on the floor, curled up in a tight ball.
Stop swatting insects and release us! One of the Fallen Angels bellowed, somehow speaking to me from within the Seal of Solomon, the pulse of raw power making me see stars.
I nodded stiffly. I’m trying! You’re not strong enough to stand against him as you are, now. I must weaken him!
They railed against the prison in protest, and I felt a part of me being tugged back in. As if whatever I had done to the ring had made our connection a two-way street, not me subjugating it completely.
We are Legion! One Brother is nothing!
But we didn’t have just one Angel to worry about. We had two.
Only seconds had passed since Nameless’ eyes had blackened and my boots had pinched.
The time to truly open up the Seal of Solomon was now. I couldn’t maintain my tentative hold much longer or else I would be consumed.
I gasped as one of the imprisoned Fallen Angels suddenly growled in a voice I hadn’t ever heard from the others.
Your games take too long.
I don’t know how I knew, but I was certain it was the Silent Emo Angel. Even though he wasn’t a physical entity, he suddenly raked at my soul with fiery bone claws, breaking his talons and snapping his finger bones as he threw every fiber of his being into the attack on the Seal of Solomon, and by default, on me.
He had seen through my ploy.
I called upon my Silvers with the greatest need I could imagine, relinquishing some of my control on the Seal of Solomon, knowing I couldn’t do this alone, yet until only moments ago, having been unsure I had any allies. Who the enemy truly was.
Or if I instead had multiple enemies.
Eae now shone before me like a golden beacon, illuminated in his own sunbeam – pointedly not Fallen.
The Emo Angel continued to tear at my mind in the prison, roaring.
Nameless still did his Unholy twirl thing.
My Silver blade of power struck the chains strapped over Eae, shattering them like glass. Fragments of molten metal designed to restrain an Angel struck the Nephilim, burning their faces or cracking bones. They screamed as Eae slammed into them, bowling them out of the way like dolls, sending them flying into the depths of the church as he roared like a lion of God.
I reached out and grabbed Nameless’ wings since he had his back turned to me. He spun instinctively, lashing out with his hands to knock me clear. Except they were no longer hands.
His claws slashed across the back of my hands, flashing with fire and a metallic scraping sound where he had made contact, spilling my blood onto the floor.
He stared down at his long black claws in confusion. They were spattered with silver droplets.
Not caring about my sliced hands, I stared down in horror at the Seal of Solomon. A charred line bisected the symbol emblazoned atop the signet ring, breaking the protective ward.
Mr. Emo Angel had used the fragment of time before I could react to break free of his prison.
A black fog zipped up into the air, out of my reach as I frantically rubbed my bloody thumb over the scored line on the protective symbol, hoping that Nameless’ claw hadn’t damaged the actual metal too greatly. I glanced down at it and let out a stunted breath of relief. Nameless’ claw had only scratched and charred it, not destroyed it entirely. It was still intact but had been momentarily broken enough to let out the once-silent Emo Angel. Nameless hadn’t been strong enough to permanently damage the seal, only to score a charred line across it.
Essentially, a Fallen Angel had helped another Fallen Angel bust out of Fort Solomon.
And the exhausted Warden Callie Penrose only had time to nail the door back into place – by rubbing off the sooty line – before the rest could escape. The Fallen Angels still trapped within screamed as they rushed toward the weakness in their prison.
I panted in relief when they slammed instead into the prison wall, not breaking free.
But I knew my original plan had officially gone to shit. I had discovered which of the Angels was trustworthy but had accidentally given the bad one an ally.
And I was too exhausted – too unfamiliar with this strange ability of mine – to do anything about the escaped Angel, the black fog.
I knew that as much power as the Seal of Solomon wielded, I was also the weakest link. To use it, I had to wear it. But if I didn’t wear it, it was just an impenetrable prison again. As long as that symbol was intact.
I made my decision and yanked it off my finger, panting. The sensation of Fallen Angels railing against my mind abruptly ceased, and the silence in the church felt suddenly oppressive in comparison. I let out a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived as I glanced up to see the black cloud hovering above me.
It regarded Nameless standing frozen beside me. Eae was halfway to us, as if running, but stuck in mid-stride. I quickly realized that no one around me moved. Only the fog and me.
The fog chuckled, seeming to inspect his new Brother, Nameless. “You allowed an Angel to Fall, daughter of Solomon. But do you dare try to put the cursed ring back on after he almost broke it?” He drifted back and forth for a mom
ent, as if pacing, or stretching.
An unbidden thought, as clear as a struck bell, bubbled out of my mouth, making me shiver.
“Samael…” I whispered, not knowing how I knew, or where it had come from. But I did know he was powerful. A Fallen Archangel.
He froze for a moment before he began to roil in a slow, circling cloud. “I am He…”
“What… will you do, now?” I whispered, my mind racing. I had done this. Holy Hell.
I’d been so close to trapping Nameless into the ring, locking away his selfish pride into the Seal of Solomon. But I had been too weak to hold him, and as he had recoiled, I’d let him damage the ring – the prison.
I had known it was the only way to take an Angel out. I couldn’t kill an Angel without risking Armageddon. The only option left to me had been to deceive everyone, to try and find out if Nameless or Eae was corrupt – which of the two was beyond salvation – and then trap that Angel where he could no longer hurt anyone.
Inside the Seal of Solomon, that they had both coveted.
Instead I had driven us into a cozy, quaint little town by the name of FUBAR – or Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, as the locals lovingly called it.
“You impressed me,” Samael murmured. “To meet one with such adept skills at deceit, and then witness them using that gift against the Princes of deceit…” he truly did sound amazed. “Perhaps we will cross paths again one day, in the dried husk that will be the Garden of Eden… I thought I was the deceiver, but it seems you’ve bitten from the Apple itself. Eve would be proud…” Then he drifted away, off into the night through a crack in the window high above.
My eyes were blurry with tears, horrified at my failure. I wiped them away, shaking my head, wondering if I had just doomed us all.
Chapter 58
Everything whipped back to normal speed, and Nameless was still roaring in outrage that his hands were now claws. Eae was suddenly beside me, staring up at the window in horror.
He had noticed Samael, too.
Nameless finally spun to see us, face contorted with a wild darkness of despair. Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed him by the face. His flesh instantly sizzled beneath my touch, and I was startled to realize that my hands were coated in liquid silver, dripping off to splash onto the ground and run down my hands and forearms.
I gritted my teeth as Nameless screamed in defiance, his black eyes dancing with agony, shame, fury – a truly diverse cascade of emotions, refusing to accept what he had become.
A Fallen Angel.
And he currently couldn’t move – as if my touch had frozen him.
“LOCK HIM AWAY IN THE RING! HE’S FALLEN!!” Eae screamed beside me, his wings tucked around his body like armor. “I’ll hold him while you put it back on!” he shouted in alarm as soon as he realized the Seal of Solomon lay at my feet where I had dropped it at one point.
Eae tried to grab onto Nameless in a bear hug and was promptly thrown across the length of the church by an unseen force, striking the opposite wall about a dozen feet off the ground.
I stepped down on the ring, keeping it under my boot as I gripped Nameless, staring into his black eyes as my own blazed with white fire to battle those depths. Bolts of black lightning slammed into my hands, trying to knock them free. But even as exhausted as I was, I barely felt them. I was on the verge of passing out, yet the strikes of black lightning struck no harder than someone tapping me on the shoulder with a forceful finger.
I didn’t dare try to put the ring back on as I would have had to release my grip on Nameless to do so. I knew without a doubt that I couldn’t hold back the imprisoned Fallen Angels in my current state. I was too weakened from my ordeal. They would overwhelm me and possibly all break free, not even counting that the ring was potentially damaged and might not be able to withstand their combined offensive.
But something about me had changed. I was able to withstand Nameless’ mental thrashing, despite what it had done to Eae after only a half a second of contact.
Nameless screamed as liquid silver began to encase his body like a dipped statue, the liquid pouring out of my fingers somehow. If that was my blood, I was going to be bone dry in about ten seconds, but rather than draining me…
I began to feel stronger. As if I was draining Nameless.
My face still dripped with tears as I stared through blurry eyes, my face a cold, wet mask, like mud. I closed my eyes, rather than trying to blink through the tears, or risking releasing a hand to wipe them away.
I focused on what I had seen before Nameless’ eyes had turned black and my boots had alerted me that he’d Fallen. He had gone on and on about him singlehandedly vanquishing the demons, using a lot of I, and me statements. Hubris. Had that been the cause of his Fall? Because my boots hadn’t told me he was Fallen until after all of that, when his eyes had finally turned black.
It had been a slow descent from Grace. A calculated walk down a path of good intentions.
Part of me wanted to shed a tear at that, but I was kind of already unintentionally doing that.
I recalled what Nameless had hinted at about my powers, how I was the only one strong enough to use the Seal of Solomon, that it was tied to my powers and my potential relation to King Solomon. But I didn’t dare try the ring again, so what did that leave me?
The Silver liquid currently pouring out of my hands looked to be part of the Silvers.
But I hadn’t known if I could trust them either, which was why I hadn’t spoken with that odd version of myself. I’d only used them to break Eae’s chains.
I hadn’t even known if I could truly trust the Whispers – accepting the possibility that some of those Angelic voices might actually be Fallen Angels. But when I’d first noticed the ring in my pocket while bonding with Phix, everything had changed, and I’d decided to beat the Angels – Fallen or otherwise – at their own game. Because I had sensed the sudden change in their tone – that I was possibly hearing Whispers from inside the ring I had just found in my pocket. Or that merely having the ring on my person had possibly attracted the wrong sorts of Angels, suddenly.
I had misled them, promising them release for helping me fight tonight.
And the only way to keep that secret from them had been to ask Phix to trick my own mind. To tell her my plan, and for her to then hide it from me. To let me believe and justify my actions as I skipped down a dark path, pretending to fall into Nameless’ plan.
Until I had wrought despair upon those who knew me. And then without warning noticed Phix hanging out in the rafters of the church.
Phix had done a good job, because until I saw the despair on everyone’s faces tonight, I hadn’t been able to truly remember the details of my plan, which had been part and parcel of my design. She’d said I would need a talisman to snap back out of her block.
My mind finally my own again, I had intended to trap whichever Angel was bad – Eae or Nameless – into the Seal of Solomon. But that path was now closed to me.
I had only the Silvers to rely upon, and they seemed to be doing a fairly good job of restraining Nameless as I felt him thrash beneath my fingers like a struggling snake.
But my grip was firm enough.
With no other idea at hand, I thought back on the Seal of Solomon, how Nameless had scored it enough for Samael to break free. But… wiping my bloody thumb across it had strengthened it sufficiently to keep the others from breaking free.
My bloody thumb.
The blood currently trapping Nameless…
Silver blood.
I suddenly surged against Nameless, forcing more of the liquid silver out of me. Judging by his scream, it worked. I opened my eyes, blinking furiously through the blur to see the silver liquid practically racing over his entire body.
“You have Fallen from grace…” My voice rang out like a soft chime and I felt Nameless stiffen involuntarily. He redoubled his efforts to break free as the silver reached his bare feet.
Nameless roared – a pained,
anguished, humiliated sound this time.
“You never once mentioned God,” I told him. “It was always I, or me. You lost your way at some point, too focused on your goal that you lost perspective. You forgot why. Your quest for personal fame… to be the most loved of all the Angels brought you to the land of Despair, and now you are mine,” I called out in another soft breath that struck like a wind chime.
A burst of wind erupted from Nameless and latched onto my thumb like a coiled snake. The silver statue I held in my hands was suddenly devoid of life.
I gasped at the sudden icy sensation searing into my thumb, and collapsed to my knees.
I glanced down to see a whirling shadow circling my finger like a cyclone.
A ring of smoke.
A Fallen Angel.
What have you done to me? a voice wailed in the back of my mind.
My finger throbbed faintly, but nothing else. Nameless. I was hearing Nameless.
I didn’t mean to Fall! I was trying to get intelligence! To break them all! What have I become? His voice trailed off as if he was fleeing deeper inside me.
“You did this to yourself,” I told him sadly. He drifted away, the frigid cold from the shadow ring growing more bearable as he retreated from my accusation.
She lied to us! Tricked us! How? The Whispers suddenly wailed, oddly silent until now, waiting until I was finished swatting down the other Angels and possibly – hopefully – weakened.
I released the statue and held up my dripping silver hands, silencing them.
“I promised to release you… Unless you prefer to be bound,” I said, holding out my thumb with the swirling ring of shadows, “I suggest you take the offer. I have nine other fingers and I didn’t bring my patience with me tonight,” I hissed at them.
Angel's Roar: Feathers and Fire Book 4 Page 27