A representation hung on the wall behind me. I’d spent most of the last hour describing it to a Muse, who’d finally produced a close enough representation.
“Dig it out, take it to the Nexus, and cast it into the beam of light.”
I didn’t want to alarm them, but we had only a few hours before Rehniah and I were evenly matched. I hoped that with this many angels, we could slow down the funneling of power enough for me to confront and defeat her before it was too late.
“I’m not given to long speeches, so let me thank you for your service and wish you luck in the battle to come.”
The Source’s voice was still mute. I could feel Its presence through the bond, the churning power feeding me strength, but no matter how I begged and pleaded for help, It didn’t answer. I didn’t know if the others were feeling the lack, and I didn’t want to ask. Now was not the time to bring doubt to our ability to prevail.
So instead, I simply said, “May the Source that made you comfort and aid you.”
Over a thousand voices answered. “Peace and love to you.”
“To Vycanus!” shouted Zaponsla, lifting her trident.
“To Vycanus!” they echoed, lifting theirs.
I envisioned the green of the mountainside and the Temple down below. I faded into the sky above the crystalline water of the ocean, and all around the village came the Nephilim. Cobalt wings flapped, and their tridents flashed in the morning sunlight. Zaponsla arrived beside me, squinting into the valley.
The Vycanums were milling about, some with arms raised, some staring at the ground. Though I didn’t know what I’d find, I expected to see at least some demons, perhaps holding hostages. Instead, we found only humans.
I gazed through the walls of the Temple. Inside, the Matron and Patron knelt on cushions, hands folded. I was too far away to hear speech, but their posture spoke of prayer.
“Where is the Aleph?” said Zaponsla.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
I swooped toward the village, signaling for a pair of Nephilim to follow. Finding symbols would be tricky, and removing them even trickier. I could weave strands of power to help dig them out, but not for everyone, especially with my energy waning.
I landed in the clearing, scanning. There, carved on one tree, was the Aleph’s symbol, nearly hidden beneath a branch. I’d never noticed it before—or if I had, I’d never thought of it.
The Nephilim pair landed next to me.
Remembering something I’d glimpsed in the book of Seraph powers, I placed my hands together and focused to create a ball of glowing, gold energy. The Nephil on my left cupped her hands to receive it. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Go, quickly.”
She hurried over to the tree and pressed the energy into the symbol. The edges burned silver and then melted away. The symbol fell into the waiting hand of her partner.
“It worked,” said Zaponsla.
“Take it to the beam, get rid of it, and then return.”
I leapt into the air. Zaponsla followed into the sky. We hovered over the village.
“What are they doing?” she asked, pointing at the people down below.
But I was worried about something bigger: what good were eight thousand Nephilim, if there was only one of me? I couldn’t make energy balls fast enough to remove the myriad symbols I was starting to spot—one in another tree, one on a roof, another drawn in a series of rocks.
“You there, come here!” I shouted.
A Nephil flew over.
“Did you see what I did?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Imagine energy flowing from the tips of your wings, through your back, down through your arms, and out into the palm of your hand.” I sincerely hoped it wasn’t only a Seraph ability. We didn’t have time to hunt down Books to find other powers.
The Nephil cupped her hands. Her lips pursed, her forehead wrinkled, and she grunted. “No. Nothing.”
“Let me try,” said Zaponsla.
She concentrated, brow furrowed, scar making her look angry, hands cupped. And then, in the center of her palm, a silver ball of light.
“Go, quickly, get more Archangels! We have to show them how to do it, too. Leave the platoons to the squad leaders. Get here as fast as you can.”
Zaponsla disappeared and I created another ball of energy. I gave it to the Nephil and sent her off to hunt down symbols in the village. I’d dispatched a dozen pairs when Zaponsla returned, Umiet and six other Archangels in tow.
“Watch,” I said.
Soon they were creating their own energy balls and handing them out.
But still, the diminishing of energy from my Seraph cord never stopped. It was leeching away bit by bit.
I swooped down into the clearing again and waited for the humans to come get me.
Nearly a minute passed to no effect—no telltale signs of warmth, no approaching acolyte to usher me to the Temple. What are you going to do, Enael? I scurried down the path to find the place where the acolytes prayed for supernatural vision empty.
As I headed into the village, I was stopped short by a fishing spear to the chest.
“What are you doing here?” The woman was nearly half my height, with dark skin and brown hair pinned on her head. She glared up at me and her eyes were clouded with white.
“You can see me?” And I could feel the spear pressing into my chest.
“This is not your village. This village belongs to the Aleph. We are hers and she is ours.”
I put out a hand and gingerly wrapped my fingers around the wood. I tugged, and it popped free of her hands. But instead of turning to go, she stepped closer, peering at me with those terrible eyes.
“You are not to pass. You are not to pass!”
As she screamed the last word, a swarm of humans came thundering toward me. All had clouded eyes and all wore murderous looks.
I froze. Before I could react, the first leapt, knocked into me, and sent me flying backward. Another grabbed my wing, wrenched it, and pulled me to the ground. Another yanked my hair and dragged me backward. Soon they were all over me, pushing me to the ground.
“No! Stop!” I shouted. “I don’t want to hurt you! Stop! She’s not what you think she is!”
A maniacal cackle came from the above the temple. “I am exactly what you think I am,” said Rehniah. “Don’t let her escape. Keep her here until I’m finished with her.”
I wriggled but was unable to get free. I can’t hurt them. They were only human, and I was sworn to protect them, but one had started plucking my feathers, and it hurt.
“Stop it! Leave me be!” I shouted. “Don’t make me…”
Finally, I attempted to leap up. Instead, I got only half a foot off the ground before falling back to earth. I should have been able to push them off me without any effort—but Rehniah’s power had grown and she was feeding it to these people.
“What do you want from me?” I shouted up at her.
She was staring down, grinning, her eyes narrowed, her hair flowing down her back. “All the power of the Source and all the power of the Cornerstone. I will take it from you forcefully since I know you’ll never give it willingly. You’ve made me do these terrible things to you, Enael-Nehleaz.” Her face twisted as she said my true name. Perhaps she thought she was gaining victory by speaking it. “You’ll be punished for opposing me, for not seeking me out when you should have.”
I struggled to break free, but the people were lifting me into the air, carrying me on their shoulders. They moved toward the Temple and the doors opened. Inside, the Matron and Patron were bent over on their cushions again—and there, on the floor, was Voctic’s knife, the real one, the one I’d thought had been lost after I’d killed him.
Not again.
“It’s time for you to hand over the power you’ve gathered for me. Oh, and thank you for defeating Asorat. I barely had to lift a finger.
“I’ve waited millenniums for my plans to come to fruitio
n, but now I grow impatient. I’ve decided to bleed this last little bit of energy out of you rather than waiting for it to leech away. And then, finally, I will ascend to the rank the Source refused to give me. The highest rank of all angels, higher even than the Seraphim. I will ascend to a new position created solely for me, the first, the most beloved, the most powerful.
“For yes, I, Rehniah, am the Aleph and rightful ruler of all of Creation!”
CHAPTER 53
I fell to my knees. The first cut into my wing seared more than anything I’d ever felt. As an angel, pain was usually swirled away by the Source. As a human, I’d lived a fairly comfortable life, and even my death had been experienced while my soul stood above my body. As a demon, the agony from the Fearling sucking away my life force on the Bastille wall paled in comparison.
“Oh, yes, it hurts, doesn’t it?” said Rehniah. “I’ve made sure it hurts.”
“Why?” I screamed, bucking against the hands holding me, arms twisted painfully behind my back and one wing pulled straight to give them access to take what wasn’t theirs. “I’ve never done anything to you!”
“You exist. That’s enough to warrant punishment.”
So you’re angry at the Source for not agreeing to your demands, and you’re taking it out on His instrument. I wanted to shout that, but the only thing that came out was a desperate wail.
The Matron stood at my left, the Patron at my right, looking down at me with those filmy, white eyes. What had she done to them? Both were chanting in sonorous voices, “Eius sanguinum sicuum. Eius sanguinum sicuum.”
It was Latin for, “Bleed her dry. Bleed her dry.”
“Please, help me!” I cried. “You don’t want to do this. Rehniah is not the benevolent creature you’ve been led to believe! Look what you’re doing to me. Look at the pain you’re causing!”
She laughed and the humans continued their chant.
The power surging through me was draining away. Golden blood splattered the floor, my face, and the supplicants whose hands clamped me down. As it flowed from my wound, another human gathered it in a bowl.
I should have distributed the power before I rushed in here. But how could I have known this would happen? Asorat said I’m the only angel in history who could take power from another, so I was overconfident. He only meant removing the cords and she came up with another way! Overconfident. Stupid. So, so, so stupid.
When the bowl was nearly full, the human gathering it lifted it to Rehniah. In great gulps, she swallowed my blood. As she drew the bowl away, gold glimmered wetly on the corners of her mouth.
I looked away, holding in another scream.
Through the roof of the Temple, I saw Zaponsla and the other Archangels in the air, creating energy for the Nephilim, who swooped and dug out symbols. They were pointing, talking worriedly, but none came to my aid. That was best—if I wasn’t strong enough to oppose the Aleph, none of them would be, either. Although removing the symbols seemed a pointless exercise now, they had to continue doing something.
Another human cut my other wing and I screamed with the pain. My blood gushed, and I cried out in anguish at the loss of power.
“You can feel it draining away, can’t you? Now imagine that, only over the course of a thousand years.” Rehniah took the bowl and drank. “Every time a new angel was born, my power diminished. Every time a new human was born, I lost what I’d had since the dawn of time. I created time, and the Source was taking away my dominion over all that I’d made.”
“Earth doesn’t belong to you!”
Enael, focus. You have to defeat her. You’re the Cornerstone, the last hope of humanity. Do something! Another shriek wrenched from my mouth.
Rehniah landed in front of me, plucked the knife from the supplicant’s hand, and shoved her aside. “All this power surging through you, and you talk of bringing the Seraphim back and reestablishing the Council. It’s pathetic.”
She drew the knife across my wing again, and pain bloomed.
“Cry out to your Master! Tell It about all the anguish you’re suffering. You’re Its favorite. Maybe It will listen to you when It didn’t listen to me!” She cackled. “But It doesn’t get involved in our affairs, does it? Scream for me!”
I held it in as long as I could, but she pushed the knife deep through my wing, and I wailed.
I couldn’t allow this to continue. The Source had made me to defeat her. I needed to do something to halt the bleed of power, something unconventional. No matter how I struggled, I couldn’t break free of the iron grips. I would have to stop her another way.
Now that she’d bled away enough of the Seraphim’s power, the tendrils stretching from each of her wings glowed golden, pulsing with the energy she was stealing from me. I traced them with my eyes to where they joined at her back. Unlike Asorat’s, whose threads of power were stolen individually from each Seraphim, hers was a massive cord, growing with each gulp of my blood.
If I could break free, I could unplug her power. I’d let the cords go and allow them to reel back into the Source. I could fight her with whatever power I had remaining, though the eighteen threads that fed into me were fading equally fast.
I struggled again, fighting with everything I had in me. Rehniah snapped her fingers, and the humans forced me backward, from my knees onto my back, hands crushed behind me, wings still uncomfortably outstretched. This position was worse—the most I could do was buck into the air to relieve the pressure on my arms and wings.
What if I were to stretch out a tendril of my own power? If I did just as I had with creating the ball of energy, but pushed it toward her, perhaps I could cut the cords of power running into her back. I screamed at the pain, forcing myself to focus. This has to work. I could think of no way to get free and take back the power in the way I’d taken back Asorat’s.
Rehniah was pacing, glancing down at me, and smiling. With her back turned, I closed my eyes and envisioned the thread of power stretching out from my shoulders toward her. When I opened them, she was smirking and the thread had barely made it a hand width from my body. My feeble outreach of power would never be able to slice through the giant cord feeding her. That wasn’t the intention of the ability I’d read about.
If only I’d had more time to read through the book.
An acolyte sliced away my tunic and drew the knife across my side.
I screamed once more.
“I can feel my power growing.” Rehniah drank out of the bowl again. “I’m approaching the power I once had when I was the Aleph. And I will rule with that might! That weakling Asorat was too obsessed with order and military. I will unleash the chaos that existed at the beginning!”
Do something, Enael! Do something!
“I’ll throw you into the Source,” she ranted, “but not before I sever every last one of your friends from It. I’ll throw you in just long enough for you to feel Its mercy healing your wounds, then I’ll rip you free of Its embrace and make you watch as I wipe away Earth and Heaven and rebuild them in my image.”
There had to be something from the Seraph book that I’d read but discarded. Some power that I hadn’t used yet or something that I’d filed away for use later.
And then I remembered.
My body went slack. The knife drew across my side again. But I couldn’t be distracted. I knew what I had to do.
Again I pressed my hips into the air, creating space for my hands between my back and the floor. In that small area, between my wings and violently twisted arms, I focused. This was unconventional but it had to work.
In the books, I’d read of fire that could burn through eternal flesh. Perhaps I could create two fireballs, one between my shoulder blades and one at my lower back, in the tiny space made from my twisted arms. I might be able to jerk to create momentum, hurl them at Rehniah, sever her connection to the Source, and break free. I concentrated, careful not to disturb them, and they began to grow.
Rehniah whirled to look at me. “Why aren’t you screaming?”
I screwed up my face, grimacing like I was merely holding in my shout. It wasn’t difficult—focusing on channeling power into the fireballs was taking more concentration than I’d expected. They were tipping, wavering, hungry. A bit licked at the back of my tunic, and I twisted my hand, moving my arm painfully so that I wouldn’t set myself on fire.
Rehniah knelt, grabbed away the knife, and stabbed me in the side. I twisted, hiding what I was creating, and screamed.
Both fireballs wavered, trying to break free. They were growing fast, and I wasn’t sure I could contain them for long.
How big do they need to be?
“Stop!” I shouted, unsure that I was pretending panic anymore. I pressed against the humans holding me down, levering to keep the fire in place, to not fall onto them and become consumed myself. It was growing, almost as large as the power cords that were feeding Rehniah.
Her eyes were brilliant gold now, with flecks of silver throughout. She glared down at me, grabbed the bowl, drank, and then threw the bowl at the human. “More. I need more.”
“You’re deranged.” Babbling was helping me focus. “You’re a demented half-angel who just wants to hurt others for your own gain. You’re not worthy of ruling even this little corner of Earth, let alone the whole thing. The Source will never let you get away with this. Never!”
The Archangels in the sky above were getting closer to the roof of the Temple, and I desperately shook my head. Whether they took it as a protest or not, I was unsure, but they kept descending.
“No!” I said. “Stay back!”
I wasn’t sure if I could control the fireballs when I unleashed them. I had only enough concentration to aim them toward Rehniah.
She tipped her head up. “You should listen to your pathetic leader. Or perhaps, don’t. If you come bow before me now, I’ll make your deaths swift and spare you the agony of being revived from the Source when it’s time for me to sweep away all of this world.”
“Shut up, you old hag!” shouted Zaponsla.
I would have smiled if I wasn’t desperately holding onto the fireballs with every ounce of strength inside me.
Warring Angel Page 29