The noise, the smoke, the blood, were too much. I couldn’t see the other women, couldn’t find Raziel in the melee. The Nephilim who fought Azazel went down, and a moment later its head went flying, the rest of it collapsing into a useless pile of bones as Azazel turned to face the next attacker.
And then I saw Sarah behind him. She held a sword in her hand, and her face was calm, set, as Azazel defended her. There were others protecting her as well, Fallen whose names I didn’t know. I saw Raziel by the door then, cutting down the horde as they poured into the building, wielding a sword of biblical proportions. The noise was deafening: the screams of the dying, the clash of metal, the unearthly howls of the Nephilim as they set upon their prey.
A blade slashed, and I felt blood and bile spray me, hot and stinking of death. The Nephilim were everywhere, and I watched in horror as the madness surrounded me.
Something grabbed my ankle and I screamed, looking down to see one of the women lying on the stairs, grasping at me for help. Poor thing, she was well past help of any kind, but I sank down, pulling her ravaged body into my arms, trying to stanch the endless flow of blood. “You’ll be all right,” I murmured, rocking her, trying to hold her broken body together. She was going to die, but at least I could comfort her. “They’re going to stop them. Just hold on.”
To my amazement, the woman reached up and touched my face with one bloody hand, and she smiled at me, peace in her fading eyes. A moment later, she was dead. Blessedly so, given the horror of her wounds. I let the woman go, setting her down gently on the stairs, and looked up.
I could try to run. Back up the endless, blood-soaked flights of stairs, through the torn pieces of what had once been living flesh. Or I could face the bastards.
One of the Fallen lay across the bottom of the stairs, his torso ripped almost in half. One arm was gone, but the other still held a sword, fighting to the end.
I stepped down and took the sword in my shaking hand, then turned to look for Raziel.
One of the Nephilim must have spied me on the stairs. It turned away from the men defending Sarah, advancing on me with its hideous disjointed shuffle.
It was too late to run, even if I wanted to. The thing had seen me, caught my scent; and when one of the Fallen attacked it, the creature simply tossed him away, and the body flew across the room, landing on a table that collapsed beneath him.
I wanted to scream for Raziel, but I kept my mouth shut, gripping the sword tightly in my hand. If I was going to die, then I was going to die fighting, and I wouldn’t distract Raziel from his defense of the portal. Maybe death wouldn’t hurt, I thought, still backing up, the screams of the dying belying my vain hope. It hadn’t hurt the first time. It didn’t matter. I was supposed to be here, I’d been drawn down here, and if I was going to be torn apart, then so be it.
The Nephilim rose up over me, so close I could see the maggots living in its skin, and the smell of blood and death was enough to make me gag. If I was lucky, it would rip off my head—it would be quick, rather than having my stomach and intestines clawed out—and I wondered if I could get away, run far enough up the stairs to jump, as I’d promised Raziel. Maybe that was what I was supposed to do, land on a Nephilim or two and crush them.
The creature had a hideous open hole for a mouth, and the double sets of teeth were jagged, sharklike, made for tearing flesh, and I wasn’t going to scream, I wasn’t, even when it reached me. Its hands were deformed, more like pincers, razored and bloody, and I slashed at it, blindly, severing one of them. It didn’t react, coming closer, and its remaining claw made a horrible clacking sound. I clutched the sword, prepared to fight to the death.
And then the hideous head disappeared, simply vanished, and I stared in shock. The monster collapsed in a welter of bones in front of me, and Raziel stood behind it, a bloody sword in his hand, the sword he’d used to decapitate the creature.
I almost didn’t recognize him. He was covered with blood, his eyes dark and glazed, and I half-expected him to yell at me. But he simply turned around, keeping his station at the foot of the stairs, protecting me as Azazel protected Sarah.
Some of the Nephilim carried swords, knives, spears—primitive weapons. Others simply relied on their claws and teeth and superhuman strength.
They fell beneath the fierce onslaught of the Fallen, making no sound as they went. Their howls had been screams of hunger, and that had been assuaged by the torn bodies that littered the hall. They died in silence.
We were going to survive, I realized with sudden shock. I’d come downstairs prepared to die, certain I was going to, and now everything had shifted.
Only one Nephilim was left standing, a thick pole in his claws, out of reach of Azazel’s blazing sword, and I felt the pull of Sarah’s gaze from across the carnage.
I turned to look, and Sarah gave me a sweet, loving smile—almost a benediction—a second before the heavy pole pierced her chest, slamming her against the wooden door behind her and impaling her there.
I heard Azazel’s scream from a distance. I scrambled past Raziel as if he didn’t exist, climbing over corpses and twitching victims, pushing past Azazel himself to reach Sarah’s side.
Someone had wrenched the pole free, and Sarah slid to the floor, her eyes glazing as I caught her, lowering her carefully. That sweet smile still clung to her mouth, even though her blue eyes were filled with tears. “I’m . . . so glad . . . you’re here,” she managed to gasp. “You’ll help . . . Raziel.”
There was nothing around to use for a bandage, so I simply mashed together an armful of my full skirts and held it against Sarah’s ruined chest. “It’s going to be all right,” I said desperately, refusing to admit it wasn’t. “Hold on.”
I’d said the same thing to the girl on the stairs, the girl who’d died in my arms. Just as Sarah was going to.
“Try to help Azazel,” Sarah whispered, trying to gather her ebbing strength. “He’s going to be in trouble. Raziel can help him. You can help Raziel.
Promise.”
“I will,” I said helplessly. “But you’re not going to die.”
“Yes, I am,” she whispered. “I’ve known it for quite a while. You must . . . stop the one who betrayed us. You must . . .” Her voice faded, but her eyes sharpened, grew warm with love.
Someone picked me up and forcibly hauled me away from Sarah—Azazel, who handed me off to Raziel and sank down beside his wife. When I resisted, just for a moment, Raziel simply used force, putting an arm around my waist and carrying me out of the building, which was knee-deep in bodies and blood.
He dumped me on the beach, not even bothering to tell me to stay put. “I’m going to seal the wall,” he said. “Azazel and Sarah need to be alone to say good-bye.”
I sank down in the grass just above the sand and put my face in my arms. The tall, oddly shaped bodies of the Nephilim littered the beach, and the smell in the night air was thick and poisonous. I tried to muffle the stench, but all I could smell was Sarah’s blood that had soaked into my dress. Her life’s blood, draining away.
My own blood as well. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been hurt. There was a rip down my arm, a shallow slice from shoulder to wrist, made by a talon of that hideous creature. It had begun to throb, and I ought to find something to stanch the flow. I could use my skirt, already soaked with Sarah’s blood, but I didn’t touch it. There was already too much blood everywhere.
I looked around me, dazed, when I saw Tamlel lying at the edge of the water. He must have staggered down there and then collapsed.
I managed to pull myself to my feet, picking my way carefully through the carnage toward him. He was lying facedown in the surf, and his body had been scored by the claws of the Nephilim. I remembered how they’d taken Raziel into the ocean to heal him. Perhaps Tamlel had sought the same healing power.
“Help . . . me . . .” he gasped. I knelt beside him. “Do you need to go into the water?” He was already soaking wet, and still he was dying.
; He managed to shake his head. “I need . . . my wife is dead. She was one of the first. I need Sarah.”
I froze. “Let me get some bandages. Is there a doctor here? Your wounds will heal.”
He shook his head again. “Lost too much blood. Need the Source. Find . . .”
I couldn’t tell him. There must be some other answer, some other way to help him, but he wasn’t listening. “I’ll go find her,” I said simply, rising. The water couldn’t hurt, and there must be someone back on the littered battlefield that had once been the grand hallway, someone who could help.
By then the moans of the dying had faded into background noise. I moved like an automaton, past tears, past grief, past horror. I’d made it to the open door when someone grabbed my skirt, pulling at me, and I stared down at another of the Fallen, one whose name I didn’t even know.
“Help me,” he choked.
“I’ll try to find someone,” I said patiently, looking back toward Tamlel where he lay in the surf.
“No.” His grip was strong on my dress. “Save me.”
My heart was breaking for him, for them all. “There’s nothing I can do,” I cried. “I can’t help you.”
Still he clung to me, and without thinking I sank to my knees beside him, feeling the tears start in my eyes, and I dashed them away angrily. Tears wouldn’t help. Tamlel was so close to death nothing would help him. This one was almost as bad, and all I could do was hold him, as I’d held the woman on the stairs, until he was gone.
He closed his eyes, all color draining from his face as he began to shudder, and I brushed his hair away from his bruised, bloody face. The blood from my arm, my own blood, smeared his lips, and I quickly tried to wipe it away; his eyes flew open, and he somehow managed to catch my wrist with sudden, unexpected strength, twisting it painfully as he tried to bring it to his mouth.
“It won’t help,” I started to say. It had to be the blood of his bonded mate or the Source, and Sarah was dead or dying. And then I stopped fighting. If he thought it would help, if it eased his passing, then I wouldn’t deny him. I let him bring my torn flesh to his mouth, felt his mouth clamp onto me; and I pulled him into my lap, holding him as he drank from me.
Slowly the shudders stopped, and he lay very still. The fierce sucking on my flesh stopped, his hold loosened, and my arm fell away, free. He was dead, I thought, brushing the hair away from his face again. He looked so young, so innocent, even though he had to be thousands of years old, and I wanted to lean forward and kiss his forehead as a last benediction.
So much for touching gestures. His eyes flew open, and they were no longer dull and listless. His breathing had become regular, and his color was back. Whether it was supposed to work or not, my blood had given him enough strength to hang on.
I eased him down carefully on the grass. “I’ll be right back. I need to see to someone.” Tamlel was no longer moving. The tide was receding, leaving him beached on the wet sand, and I knew it was too late. And I knew I had to try.
I ran back down to the shore, tripping over the carnage, falling to the sand beside him. He still breathed, but his eyes were closed, and I knew that he was very close to death.
I put my bloody arm against his lips, but he didn’t react, and I cursed my foolishness. It had been a fluke—there was no way my blood could save anyone. I didn’t belong here—the poor creature at the front entrance was simply in better shape than I’d thought, and my weak, wrong blood had been enough to stabilize him.
Tamlel’s skin was icy cold now as death began to move over him, and I knelt beside him, hopeless, crying, the useless blood dripping down my arm.
And then, at the last minute, I pried his mouth open and held my arm over it, letting the blood drip onto his tongue, twisting the cut to make it bleed more, oblivious to the pain.
His mouth fastened on my wrist, and I felt the sharp pierce of his teeth in my skin, opening my vein so that I bled more freely. The other man hadn’t bitten me, but Tamlel was holding me, sucking at me, his hands clutching my arm so tightly that it was numb.
I was growing dizzy, and I wondered if it was blood loss or the horror of the night. It didn’t matter—dizziness was preferable to the reality that surrounded me, to the death and horror that had turned an idyllic escape into a charnel house. I closed my eyes, growing weaker, when I heard a roar of such blind fury that I knew that all the Nephilim hadn’t been defeated, that I would be torn limb from limb. Something grabbed me, jerking me away from Tamlel, and I went flying through the night air, landing breathless on the bloody sand, prepared for the death I had managed to avoid.
I looked up, expecting to see the huge, unwieldy shape of a Nephilim. But it was no monster silhouetted against the moonlight. He was covered in blood, it matted his hair and covered his skin, but I knew those eyes, Raziel’s eyes, blazing in fury as he turned on Tamlel, his fangs bared in attack.
“No!” I screamed, certain he was about to tear his friend limb from limb. A moment later the rage drained from his body, and he turned to me, sinking to his knees beside me in the sand, pulling me into his arms. The smell of death and sweat and blood covered him, and I sank against him in weak relief.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I don’t know . . . did I hurt you?”
I was past speaking. I could only shake my head against his chest, trying to get closer to him.
Something folded around me, soft as feathers, dark as the night as everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR THE FOUL stench, I might have slept forever. It was a gray day, somehow different from the gentle mist that usually enshrouded Sheol. I lay in bed, unmoving. The light that came in through the windows was murky, filtered, and the bed beneath my poor, aching, bruised body was much too comfortable to leave. I rolled over reluctantly. The last thing I could remember, I’d been flying through the air, dragged away from Tamlel by a furious monster, and in that brief flash I’d been convinced I was going to die. Until I looked up and saw Raziel.
I couldn’t remember much more. Someone had managed to drag my ass upstairs and cleaned me up. I hadn’t slept alone—somehow I knew that. I was stark naked, and the blood and filth had been washed from my body by some ghostly handmaiden. Raziel had tended to me, despite his own wounds.
Raziel had carried me upstairs and seen to me.
Had I dreamed it all? I looked at my arm, searching for tooth marks. The wound was still there, a long scratch from my biceps down to my wrist, but it had already closed up, healing, and there was no sign that two of the Fallen had fed on me.
Just as Sarah’s wrist had healed instantly when she’d fed Raziel. But I couldn’t think about Sarah.
I pushed back in the bed. I hadn’t meant for it to happen last night and I couldn’t believe it had done them any good. My blood had been nothing more than a pacifier. An empty breast for a starving infant, bringing momentary comfort but no sustenance. But at least it had eased them, and for that I could spare a few pints of blood. Until Raziel had appeared with a roar of rage, pulling me away from Tamlel, about to kill his old friend. Had the battle temporarily stripped his sanity from him? Why would he want to hurt Tamlel?
My scream had stopped him. And his arms around me, his mouth against my temple, had been safety, protection, love.
No, not that. He wasn’t going to love anyone ever again.
That horrible smell, mixed with oily smoke, was enough to make me throw up. I climbed out of bed slowly, my body aching, and grabbed the robe that hung on the back of the bathroom door. It was an ancient kimono, the heavy silk oddly reassuring as it draped over my naked body, and I walked barefoot into the living room, half afraid I’d find Raziel there, half afraid I wouldn’t.
He wasn’t there—the place was deserted. I headed over to the open windows and looked out, hoping to see a tall, familiar figure on the beach.
The bodies were gone, but the sand looked black with the spilled blood. I could see smoke off to the right, and without
thinking I climbed out onto the balcony to get a better look, wincing as my knee cramped up. There was a huge bonfire, tended by three of the women. I couldn’t recognize any of them—
they looked as battered as I was feeling—but they kept a close watch on the flames, and it took me a moment to realize what was causing the horrific stench. It was a funeral pyre for rotting flesh. They were burning the bodies of the Nephilim.
The Fallen couldn’t do it. Fire was poison to them—a stray spark and they might die. It was up to the humans to deal with the fire. Up to us to clean up the mess. But Sarah was gone.
The bloodstained beach in front of the house was deserted. The mist was light, covering everything like a depressed fog, but there was no sign of life.
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