Bile rose in Seth’s throat.
Something had happened here. Something wrong and intimate and terrifying. Something that made breathing almost impossible.
A touching of souls.
A connection.
And because of Heaven’s interference, because of those fucking angels, Seth had been too late to stop it, and now she was gone again. Taken from him. Again.
He clenched his fists.
Alex.
A Fallen One dropped from the sky in a tangle of feathers and clatter of armor. He landed at Seth’s feet, gauntleted hand outstretched for help, phosphorescence oozing from his chest. Seth closed his eyes.
He stilled his center, shut out the chaos around him, and focused. Calm spread through him. Cold followed in its wake. Cold, then dark, then—
Seth threw his arms wide, hands and fingers outstretched. Energy poured from him, catastrophic in its power. Under his feet, the earth trembled. It rolled and bucked, spreading outward in an ever-widening circle around him. Wind slammed like an unseen fist into buildings. Windows imploded. Roofs collapsed. Walls crumbled. Angels and Fallen alike were tossed about the sky.
A building at a time, the entire block fell before his fury. Then a dozen more. Then a hundred.
Thousands of souls shrieked in terror, then fell silent.
Seth dropped his arms to his sides. The wind died abruptly, and the earth stood still once more. Utter silence reigned.
And still no Alex had surfaced.
He surveyed the devastation he’d wreaked, watching angels and Fallen alike pick themselves out of the wreckage, searching for swords and bits of armor, straightening bent and broken wings. Then he turned toward the greater part of the city, outlined against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. She was out there somewhere. If not in this city, then in another. He would find her if he had to take the world apart piece by—
Another energy loomed, sudden and powerful, and Seth stumbled. Catching his balance, he stopped in his tracks. His breath quieted. He searched for the source. Found it in a presence miles away, calm, calculating, watchful.
Waiting.
For him.
So. It began.
*
“We should go,” Bethiel said.
With an effort, Alex brought her vision back into focus. She looked up into the zircon eyes, seeing the same conflict there that roiled in her. She tried to take comfort in knowing this wasn’t any easier for Bethiel than it was for her, but that knowledge actually made it worse.
“You’re sure you want to…do this?” she asked.
“You gave me Mittron. I gave you my word.”
She nodded. Her gaze traveled the silent room, passing over Wookie and Scorpion and the others. It rested briefly on Father Marcus. Settled back on Bethiel.
“What did Michael mean, he can only wait half an hour?” she asked. “Half an hour for what?”
Bethiel’s expression became shuttered. His gaze skidded away from hers. “It’s nothing.”
The knot of uneasiness residing in Alex’s gut doubled in size, pressing against her diaphragm, turning her breath shallow. She glowered at the angel. “Bethiel, tell me what’s going on. Half an hour for what?”
Bethiel sighed. “Half an hour to kill Mittron.”
“But why the time limit?” she pressed. “What happens after that?”
“After that—” The angel’s gaze met hers, unutterable sadness in its depths. “After that, Mika’el destroys the Nephilim army.”
Air whooshed from Alex. Blindly, she reached a hand out in search of something solid. Something that would keep her upright as all capacity to stand fled. A strong hand grasped her elbow, and Father Marcus became her support. She stared at him blankly, then shook her head at Bethiel.
“He can’t,” she whispered. “He’s an Archangel, and the Nephilim are mortal. They’re still just…”
She trailed off. But spoken or not, her words hung heavy in the air. Filled the room. Made everyone present look anywhere but at her.
Children.
The Nephilim were just children.
Eighty thousand of them.
“No,” said Bethiel. “They’re not. Every despot in the world, every serial killer, every sociopath—they all descended from the Nephilim. Hitler, Genghis Khan, Mugabe, Hussein, all of them. There were just one hundred original Nephilim, Alex, and yet their murderous descendants continue today, too many to even list. And now there are eighty thousand of them. Humanity will never survive that. It can’t.”
He looked around the room, addressing them all. “They’re not just children,” he said. “They were never just children.”
“And Michael?” Alex asked. “Will he see it that way when he kills them?”
Bethiel’s silence was her answer. She sucked in a ragged breath.
“I’m going to have to do something unforgivable soon,” Michael’s voice echoed in her memory. “Something I won’t be able to come back from. It will likely destroy me.”
“What happens?” she demanded. “What happens to an Archangel if he kills eighty thousand children, Bethiel?”
Clear zircon eyes met hers.
“He falls,” Bethiel said simply.
The world rocked beneath Alex’s feet, and she clutched harder at Father Marcus’s support. The Archangel Michael, Heaven’s greatest warrior, the One’s most trusted advisor…fall?
“He’ll never survive.” Her voice was hoarse with horror.
“He is immortal,” Bethiel hedged.
“You know what I mean, Bethiel. He told me himself this would destroy him. His mind—Hell, his soul—will never survive this.” Alex pulled away from Marcus. She wheeled and stalked the room, raking fingers through her hair. “You have to take me to him.”
“You can’t save him, Alex.”
“I know.” She made herself stop in front of the angel. Made herself breathe. Made herself meet his gaze with all the steadiness she could muster. She remembered the arms of a warrior that had held her when the darkness had tried to swallow her. Remembered the compassion that had become her anchor, her salvation.
Michael hadn’t tried to save her, he’d said. “I just didn’t want you to be alone when it happened.”
“I know I can’t save him,” she told Bethiel. “But I can be with him. No one should have to be alone in the dark, Bethiel. Not even an Archangel.”
Bethiel held her gaze for a moment, then his dropped away.
“I can’t,” he said miserably. “I don’t have the power to transport a mortal with me, and flying would take too long. We wouldn’t get there in time.”
“But you brought Nina and the baby with you to the beach.”
“That was Raphael, not—” Bethiel broke off. His expression cleared. “Of course. Raphael.”
“What?”
“I can’t take you to Mika’el, but Raphael can. Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Alex put a hand on his arm. “What about Mittron? Will you have enough time…?”
The angel raised an eyebrow. “What about Seth?” he countered. “If I don’t end your life now…”
He, too, trailed off. They stared at one another in mutual understanding, knowing that each might be giving up the one thing they wanted most. Bethiel, the dream of revenge against Mittron; Alex, the only certainty that Seth wouldn’t be able to claim her.
Alex dropped her hand and stepped back. She lifted her chin. “He deserves better than this, Bethiel.”
The Principality’s mouth pulled tight. He nodded. Then he disappeared.
CHAPTER 59
EMMANUELLE SWIPED WITH THE back of her hand at the blood trickling from her bottom lip. From her ignominious position against the base of a high-rise building, she looked up and sideways at her brother, hiding the first tremors of uncertainty behind a glower.
This was not going well.
Seth waved the fingertips of one hand, leveling another blast at her. Emmanuelle shielded herself. The building behind her exploded
into dust and rubble.
Not well at all.
Concrete and glass showered over her as she pushed herself up from the ground. She brushed off the seat of her leather pants, using the time to test again the availability of Heaven’s strength. She and her brother were more evenly matched than she’d hoped. They’d already destroyed Vancouver’s west end and were halfway through the downtown core. At this rate, the entire city would be in ruins before she was able to put a stop to it.
If she could stop it at all.
She fielded another bolt of energy from Seth and watched an apartment tower shudder, crumble, and fall. Tried and failed to shut out the terror of the occupants cowering within. Felt in her core the deaths of every single one.
Impotent fury coursed through her, and she curled her hands into fists at her sides.
Bloody Hell, what if she couldn’t tap into Heaven’s power after all? What if she and Seth ended up slugging it out until they were all that was left? Just the two of them. Brother and sister, locked in endless battle the way their parents had been.
The way she’d sworn she would never be.
“You could just give up,” Seth suggested, as if he knew her thoughts. “Give me Alex, and I’ll let you keep Heaven.”
Emmanuelle struggled not to throw a fireball in response. She hadn’t yet been directly responsible for the mayhem around them, and she wouldn’t start now. No matter how much she wanted to wipe that smug haughtiness from his face.
Because the indirect mayhem she’d caused was bad enough.
“Damn it, Seth, it doesn’t have to be this way,” she gritted. “I told you, I—”
She took the full brunt of an invisible blow that slammed her into a parked car and rattled her teeth. She reacted without thinking, lobbing an orb of blue fire at Seth that would have hurt like Hell if he hadn’t ducked. The storefront behind him exploded. Seth raised an eyebrow and brushed glass from his shoulder.
“Well,” he said. “So you can fight back. I was beginning to think you favored our mother’s side too much for your own good. It’s nice to see some of daddy’s spirit, too. Do it again.”
Fucking Hell.
“Damn it, Seth, I don’t want to fight you. I just want—”
“I know what you want!” he bellowed, and the entire street shook beneath her feet.
Emmanuelle’s skin tightened at the raw, unbridled fury. Furtively, she scanned their surroundings. A dozen buildings collapsed already; hundreds more sitting like tin cans lined up for target practice. She needed to draw him away from here, out to where their fight would do less damage.
“You want to talk,” Seth snarled. “To negotiate. You want me to go back to Hell and leave your precious mortals alone, but don’t you see I can’t? As long as there’s a single, solitary human still alive in this forsaken realm, it will come between me and Alex. She’ll want to save it, just like you do. She’ll love it and feel responsible for it and—”
He broke off and ran both his hands over his head, tangling his fingers in his hair.
“And I can’t share her like that,” he finished raggedly. “She is my life. My entire reason for being. Once she understands that, once she sees how much I—”
“She doesn’t love you,” Emmanuelle said.
Her brother’s head snapped sideways as if she’d slapped him. Pain—pure, white-hot, searing pain—meshed with the fury in his eyes and radiated outward to slice into Emmanuelle’s own soul.
The sheer magnitude of it took away her breath and brought her up short. That was no ordinary pain of rejection. It was more. So much more. And it was utterly unbearable.
She stared at her brother in shock.
Holy Hell. No wonder—
A blue wall hurtled her way.
*
Raphael’s blade stopped just short of removing Bethiel’s head. In one swift motion, the Archangel replaced sword with gauntleted hand, holding Bethiel off the ground and shaking him until Bethiel’s brain rattled.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, sneaking up on me like that?” Raphael shook again. “Do you have any idea how close I came to killing you?”
Unable to breathe, let alone speak, Bethiel clawed at the metal fingers clamped around his throat. With a sound of disgust, Raphael tossed him away, then turned to meet the blade of an incoming Fallen. Sword met sword, gauntleted fist met skull, blade pierced immortality, and in less than a heartbeat, the Fallen One lay unmoving.
Bethiel massaged his intact throat. Raphael took hold of his arm and dragged him to the shelter of a wall.
“Talk,” he ordered.
In clipped words and holding back nothing, Bethiel told him about the Nephilim army and Mika’el’s plan, and about the sacrifice Alex wanted to make. Golden eyes turned bleak, and Raphael’s mouth went tight. He looked out at the battle raging over the city of London, the skies dark with smoke and dust. Precious seconds ticked by as Raphael processed what Bethiel had told him, each one eroding Bethiel’s chances of confronting Mittron. How long had it been since Mika’el gave him the time limit? Ten minutes? Fifteen?
He pushed away his impatience. Alex was right. Mika’el was more important now.
“I should have expected as much,” Raphael muttered. “If humanity is to have a chance, we have no choice but to destroy the Nephilim.”
His gaze returned to Bethiel. “The Naphil woman knows she can’t save him, and she would do this for him? Give up her only chance to escape Seth?”
“She would.”
More seconds.
Raphael straightened his shoulders. His jawline hardened. Massive black wings folded behind his back, and he sheathed his sword.
“Take me to her.”
CHAPTER 60
BETHIEL LANDED AMID A sea of children. A teeming, seething, knee-deep ocean of flesh. Eighty thousand tiny bodies surged around him, weeping and wailing, crying out in hunger and need. Not a single adult was present.
He fought to block the voices hammering at him. To get his bearings amid the din of their demands. The pull of their needs.
Nephilim, he reminded himself, gritting his teeth. Not children. Not to be saved.
He waded through the tear-streaked faces, the grasping, grubby fingers that clutched at his clothing. Focused his thoughts, focused his reach. Searched for the one presence, the one anomaly—
He stopped in the middle of the street. The Nephilim crushed in on him. Ignoring them, he stared up at a squat, broken building. At first glance, it was identical to a dozen others along the street: chunks of concrete missing, graffiti scrawled across its walls, all its windows shattered or missing.
All its windows but one, high above on the top floor, catching the rays of the setting sun, reflecting them back in a dazzling square of pink light.
One intact window in all of Pripyat.
And behind that window, the presence he sought.
The angel he’d dreamed of finding for three thousand years.
Mittron.
Bethiel shoved his way through the Nephilim, knocking them to the ground, oblivious to their outrage. He pushed into the building and closed the door against them. Scanning the dilapidated entrance, he found the stairs against the left wall. He walked across to them and stood at their base, staring up at where they disappeared into shadow. Placing one foot on the first step, he began the long climb, the wails of the Nephilim becoming fainter with each floor he passed.
He ran out of stairs after the sixth flight.
A corridor stretched before him, lit only by the bits of fading daylight brought into it by the doors open along its length. The door at the end stood closed.
Bethiel withdrew his sword from its scabbard. The hilt snugged into his hand, comfortable and familiar. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and walked down the hallway. He stopped before the door and stared at the stained, worn surface.
So this was it. He’d found Mittron. Found the angel who had framed him, betrayed him, sentenced him to an eternity in a place of empty madne
ss.
Bethiel waited for the surge of triumph. A tingle of anticipation. A thread of caring. He found instead only a flat, sad weariness and a bitter irony.
Three thousand very long years he’d dreamed of this revenge—lived for it—and now he wanted only to be done.
Wasn’t sure he wanted it at all.
Impatiently, he shook off the unexpected melancholy and shored up his resolve. Too many had suffered for him to give up now. If he couldn’t kill Mittron for himself, he would do so for the two realms the Seraph had brought to their knees. For the girl who had died in his arms after giving birth to Lucifer’s spawn. For the warrior who would sacrifice himself for the sake of the world.
And for the woman named Alex who would suffer eternity for the sake of that warrior.
Bethiel inhaled. Gritted his teeth. Reached for the knob.
His hand had barely closed over the metal when the door was flung wide and Mittron loomed before him, amber eyes glowing with a wild light, face split by a wide, maniacal grin.
“Bethiel! I’ve been waiting for you,” he said happily.
And then, before Bethiel could recover, the Seraph plunged a sharpened stick deep into his belly.
Bethiel’s sword flew from his hand.
*
Mittron plunged his makeshift spear into Bethiel’s body over and over, targeting his shoulders, arms, thighs—anywhere but his chest. Anywhere but the globe of immortality contained in him. He wanted the Principality to suffer as he had suffered.
A wound for each hour since his release from Limbo.
Stab.
For each hour Mittron had lived in fear of his reprisal.
Stab.
Through the window came the wails of the neglected Nephilim, like fingernails over the chalkboard of his brain, already scraped raw from the return of the voices.
Stab.
He’d run out of Samael’s drug two days ago, and the fucking Archangel had yet to deliver more.
Stab.
And now the Fallen had all taken off, and the mortals had shut down his supply line of caregivers, and he was alone—stab—with eighty thousand screaming, putrid—stab—Nephilim with no respite in sight—and Bethiel had come for him, and—
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