by Misty Dietz
We’re going to need something stronger than holy water for this bastard.
Finish this, Ari. I need to protect the Chains.
The Chains of St. Peter. Of course, the Rephaim would be after Kat’s relic. If Siolazar managed to steal it, he’d take it to his brother, Lucifer. Everyone assumed Satan’s cage would only break open with the power of multiple relics. But what if it only took one holy relic—one key—to free Lucifer? If that was the case, no one could know which relic was the authentic key that would unlock the cage.
Either way, sooner or later, the loss of any relic threatened Armageddon.
Siolazar hissed amid the steaming slide of his gray skin. Ari shouted orders for Kat’s staff to guard her as he swung his sword in wide arcs. The Rephaim were taller, faster, and stronger than most Guardians, but they could usually be outsmarted. Ari stabbed and swung, breathing heavily, lulling Siolazar into believing he was weakening and getting backed into a corner.
Five more feet and the demon would be in perfect position under a Devil’s Trap inscribed on the ceiling.
A new scream splintered the air, pulling Ari’s attention to the main entrance. Through the filtered dust and debris in the besieged club, a horde of black-eyed demons poured into the building to flank their leader Siolazar. Ari risked a glance up and swore. The Devil’s Trap wasn’t large enough to encompass all of them, and worse yet, while he was distracted, Siolazar ripped a dancer’s pole from its base and smashed it against the ceiling to break the circle. The Rephaim opened his arms as though offering a macabre embrace. “How does it feel to be the loser, Viking?”
“Vikings don’t lose, you war-mongering son of a bitch.” Ari tried to dematerialize and stream to a better location, but Siolazar compressed the air molecules to such a degree that Ari’s form wouldn’t fit through. Fuck. The Rephaim held his raw belly and threw his head back to laugh, the sound like a wire brush scraping across a chalkboard.
Now what? Ari glanced at the bar where Kat’s security team was holding their own, but their supplies were dwindling. Kat, you’d better be in the sanctorum by now. He heaved his sword at the light fixture over the demons, bringing it down on top of three of them in a cloud of dust and glass. In the melee, he dropped and rolled under the nearest table, then stood explosively to launch the table at Siolazar and the demons who were still standing, barreling them off their feet and smashing them against the nearest wall.
Ari took advantage of the precious seconds he’d bought to charge down the hall toward the sanctorum. The door was wide open. Inside, Kat stood by the reliquary door, which led to the inner chamber where she kept the relic. She’d formed a protection arc around the doorway with chrism oil, so demons shouldn’t be able to break through it. But with her so weak, how long would it actually hold them off? It was clearly draining her. Anger and confusion rushed through his blood again. Why hadn’t her rejuvenation lasted? And why the hell hadn’t he pushed her to complete the bonding ritual when they were awaiting their child to be born? A mistake he’d always regret.
Standing in the sanctorum doorway facing the hall, he materialized his sword once more, ready to fight off whatever came their way. “When this is all over, you’re in my bed for a month,” he barked over his shoulder.
She ignored him, her lips chanting ancient wards. He could feel her desperation—like the breathless listening at a fallen comrade’s chest—as he lunged into the hall and raised his sword against the first demon sprinting his way.
“Et vade in gehennae ignis!” Begone the fires of hell. The host body crumpled, the demon’s black mist evacuating through the human male’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears to settle like gun powder on his stocky body. It lit on fire briefly, then the whole body turned to ash.
One more black soul past redemption, permanently extinguished.
Those damn black eyes, though. They were so unnatural with no white, no color, no emotion.
No soul.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, except the vacuous black. As the centuries had worn on, it seemed more and more humans were losing the battle for their souls. Which meant more exorcisms were necessary, yet the Powers That Be didn’t seem to be creating more Purifier Guardians to pick up the slack.
A new black-eyed demon stalked down the hall in front of a renewed Siolazar, who now wore a blood-red body suit over his tight, gray skin. Ari manifested a protective shield around himself and Kat, then built the air pressure to skull-crushing levels in the hallway. The demon crumpled with a hideous peal, but Siolazar continued forward, unaffected. The Rephaim leader raised his right hand and the walls of the hallway began to liquefy, the gold paint running like shiny tears down the gypsum plaster of the sagging and warping drywall.
As the heat continued to spike, a roaring built from below, shaking the now-naked wall studs. Ari dropped his sword and summoned his axe as he lunged toward the power demon. He attempted to cross out of the safe circle, but found himself bound inside. He hissed in frustration and spun on Kat. He could override her power binding, but it would hurt her. You don’t need to protect me, dammit. You’re only draining what little reserves you have left. Release me before he awakens an entire legion.
He’s feeding dark energy into the walls to scramble our thoughts. I can feel the darkness calling me. Almost like it’s inside me. Eventually we won’t be able to communicate.
Ari’s gut bottomed out. “What the hell do you mean ‘like it’s inside’ you?”
Kat shook her head as though chastising him for speaking out loud. No time for discussion. You can’t fight him alone, Ari.
“Kat!”
He would have grabbed her to make her answer. To make her reassure him that she was exaggerating. But she blasted him back with a surge of energy she shouldn’t be expending, goddammit, and then set off the emergency sprinklers, spraying holy water throughout the hallway to counteract the melting of the walls. Siolazar’s attending demon sizzled, rolling and screaming on the floor until the Rephaim shut off the sprinklers with a snap of his fingers, oblivious to his own peeling—and, this time, rapidly regenerating—skin.
Ari kept his eyes on the fallen angel, shifting back and forth, looking for the demon’s weakness. Kat was right about one thing. It was growing more difficult to push his thoughts at her. He took a deep breath to bank his anxiety. Whatever you think is going on inside you, you can fight this. I’ll help you, Kat.
Stop thinking about me, Viking. You have a job to do. If he kills you, I’ll be so pissed. I might even drag you back to life to destroy you myself.
“How sweet…a lover’s spat.” Siolazar’s serpentine blood vessels and wiry muscles pulsed and rolled under his skin-tight red bodysuit. Ari’s mind spun. Kat wasn’t able to hold the sprinklers on full-blast so the oozing walls were making it increasingly hard to concentrate. He needed to get out of this safe circle before Siolazar got any closer to Kat or the relic.
No time to reason with her. He widened his stance, gripping his axe tighter. “Kat promised to warm my bed for the next month if I get her out of here alive. And I fully intend to collect on that promise.”
You’re talking about sex when this son of a bitch is ruining my club?
Bingo. Ari broke from the circle when Kat’s telepathic censure weakened her hold on him. Siolazar launched, fangs bared, eyes afire. Ari raised his axe, lunging toward the Rephaim, but before they engaged, Siolazar froze mid-air, unblinking red eyes fading to a sick yellow, his gray leathery face shriveling. He crumpled to the hardwood floor, twitching, his features twisting in agony while his mouth belched great clouds of steel-colored smoke.
What the fuck? Ari’s gut clenched, his gaze moving beyond the Rephaim down what remained of the gutted hallway. Both bathrooms and the kitchen were now fully visible without their walls.
Leviathan walked calmly into view, a pale, clenched fist at the end of her outstretched arm. Her face and lips were as sallow as her fist, except for a pinkish-orange coloring around her striking blue eyes. A silk, sand-color
ed blouse floated on her tall, willowy frame, a wide pearl choker nestled below her chin, and a sleek, chestnut braid coiled from the right side of her forehead to her left ear, tucking into a shiny bun that defied gravity. Ari couldn’t understand his sudden fascination. He slowly stood and took a step toward her.
“Ari, stop!” Kat snarled.
Ari shook his head to clear the buzz that had started at the base of his skull.
Leviathan’s ashen lips curved seductively, her eyes warming. “Like what you see, Viking?”
He glanced at Kat before turning back to the archdemon. “Hell, no.”
Leviathan’s lips turned down, and she twisted her wrist, making Siolazar scream. Jade and Stark emerged at the mouth of the hall, stopping abruptly when they saw the archdemon. Jade wrenched her crucifix out of her pocket, while Stark uncapped a flask of chrism oil.
Kat gasped. “No! Go back and protect the others! I mean it, go now!”
Ari gave Jade, Stark, and the rest of AQUA’s core team a mental push toward the storage room off the kitchen. Any remaining staff who’d managed to stay alive, he compelled home.
This was a terrible spot to make a stand against a Rephaim, much less an archdemon. He needed a more open area to manipulate air pressure to their advantage, but Siolazar’s prolific smoke was going to make that challenging. The only saving grace was that the DJ booth was open on both sides to the pool terrace. Ari built a gust from outside, forcing fresh, oxygenated air inside.
We need to build a storm.
Kat coughed, then nodded. With Kat’s water and his air elements, they could create a greater calamity than he could make on his own. As Leviathan began speaking in the old Enochian language, Siolazar quaked, his movements pulling down more sheet rock and tearing down two-by-four framing posts. Sweat rolled between Ari’s pecs. He’d been in confrontation with an archdemon only twice in his eleven hundred years, but both times he’d had Alexios at his side. He sent out a call to their Guardian leader, then raised his axe and zeroed in on his target. “Leave now or in pieces, Dark One.”
Chapter 11
Katherine moved away from the reliquary door toward the demolished hall to watch Leviathan with morbid interest. On one level she realized that she should be doing something to help Ari. She could feel him stoking up his considerable power. It was both arousing and terrifying. But looking at the archdemon, she also felt frozen by a strange sort of detached horror mixed with admiration and…affinity?
I’m sick.
Aye, very sick, goddammit.
Kat closed her eyes and forced Ari from her mind. She felt the drain of their disconnection almost immediately.
“Don’t waste your resources so foolishly,” Ari chided, angling his body between her and Leviathan.
She didn’t have the strength to respond.
Leviathan tilted her head back and laughed euphorically, then opened her fist. Siolazar stopped smoking from his mouth and staggered to his feet. He demolecularized instantly into a stream of twinkling red vapor. The vapor twirled into a mini cyclone, ripping down the crystal chandeliers as it shot toward the reception area, then blew out the main entrance door. The melted plaster and sheet rock from the walls bubbled one last time, then hardened to a milky white on the floor.
Leviathan’s friendly smile sent chills up and down Katherine’s arms even as it made her want to sit down in a warm room and divulge all her secrets. “Temper tantrums, violence, and insanity…Siolazar has never managed his emotions very well,” the archdemon said softly. “Hence he’s Rephaim instead of Nephilim.”
Katherine felt Ari trying to communicate with her, but if she let him influence her, how would she ever know Leviathan’s true intentions? She’d been on the wrong side of people’s judgments far too often herself. She’d be damned before she’d be like all of them. If she could look beyond the Devil’s daughter’s shell, beyond the preconceived evil narratives, maybe others would give her the same benefit of the doubt.
Maybe then she could find peace.
Leviathan’s blue eyes seemed to see into her soul.
Ari’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his axe, stepping closer to the archdemon. How stupid to think she could keep him contained. Kat had known he wouldn’t force down her puny binding because that would damage her, but she hadn’t counted on him baiting her, distracting her so he could slip out of her bindings without harming her.
How could she protect him?
This was all her fault. She couldn’t stand it—would just want to die—if something happened to him because of her. She moved forward and grabbed his arm, feeling the warmth of him, his need to charge full-on Viking mode, but recognizing he needed more mojo.
Mojo he should have been able to count on her for.
He shook off her grasp and made his body bigger as though to shield her. More aggression, but that wasn’t the answer. Was it? She was so tired of fighting. Fighting to keep people the right distance from her brokenness. Fighting the evil around her.
And the darkness within.
It was growing, that darkness. She could feel it spread through her cells, a slow-moving, but relentless taint, sapping her Guardian life force.
A painless, but conscious defilement she was helpless to stop.
Her legs quivered, then gave out. Ari was there before she hit the floor, his back and legs pressing her into one of the few remaining walls so she didn’t slump to the ground.
“Let me heal you, Katherine,” Leviathan called fervently, “You can’t carry on this way.” Her smooth voice wrapped around Katherine’s limbs like a serpent in the old book Archangel Michael admonished her to read.
“The day you touch my compar is the day this world ends.”
Kat blinked at Ari’s back as his words rumbled out. How could he sound so calm? Leviathan would kill them all, take the relic, and disappear into Hell where she’d horde the Chains until they secured enough relics to free Satan and start Armageddon. And I can’t even hold myself up.
Leviathan clucked her tongue. “Such bravado, Mr. Grimmson, but so far, I’ve seen nothing to back it up.” She moved left into Katherine’s line of sight. “Beautiful Guardian, regardless of what my brothers and sisters have come for, I’m not here to fight you or destroy this beautiful island. I wish to get to know you and help you. Most of all, I want to know what it feels like to have a friend.”
Ari laughed, though his body remained rigid. “Miklimunnr. That’s the biggest crock of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Nice try, demon, but you’re what’s making her sick.”
“Katherine, surely you can do better than this overgrown cave dweller who kept women as slaves. As a protégé of women’s rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that’s got to rankle.”
Katherine closed her eyes, imagining what Elizabeth would have thought if she knew her apprentice was in league with a Viking. Sure, she’d been a women’s rights suffragette in those days, but hers had been self-interested activism. When she’d run away at fifteen, she received boarding from a friend of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She’d been spoon-fed women’s right ideology by the very leaders who’d made history.
But she’d only wanted a place to feel safe. Safe. So she listened to their speeches and attended their meetings. But she never felt their passion. Their unrelenting drive for equality.
Life wasn’t fair and never would be.
It just never would be.
So why was she even entertaining second thoughts about a future with Ari?
Agitation pumped blood back into her limbs, and she squirmed against him.
Ari shifted, letting her stand on her own, though he didn’t turn away from Leviathan. “Thralls were paid workers. They could even buy their freedom from their masters.”
Leviathan rolled her eyes. “Thralls, huh? Polite vocabulary never ennobles slavery. The fact is, you Vikings were brutal plunderers—of women, land, and culture. Quite frankly—”
“Quite frankly, you can turn the TV off and go back to
school. We were farmers and explorers. When we raided, most men didn’t take the time to rape anyone.”
Leviathan laughed. “So inconvenience was the deterrent to rape, not morals?”
“You’re twisting my words, demon. Vikings love and respect women. Rape was severely punished.” Ari glanced back at Kat. “Viking women could freely divorce their husbands. A society that gives women that kind of power isn’t barbaric.”
“Yet you captured innocents in violent circumstances and brought them back to serve you as spoils of war. In any age, that’s called human trafficking, Ari,” Katherine said quietly, feeling the loss of her vigor once more.
Ari’s cold stare made her stomach feel warm and twisty. “I’d never condone that anymore. Come on, Kat, you know it was a different world back then.”
“Indeed. How about…diabolical?” Leviathan supplied, and Kat knew her mentor Elizabeth would’ve agreed.
Ari threw down his axe and summoned his sword. “This is rubbish. I’m sick of your meddling. Go find some other planet to terrorize, you treacherous bitch.”
“Ari!” Kat looked anew at him. In all the years they’d been in and out of each other’s lives, she’d never seen this side of him. She’d never imagined he could be so callous with anyone.
Leviathan’s face revealed none of her feelings. “Real classy, Mr. Grimmson.” She turned to Kat. “I’m deeply sorry that my presence has brought out the wickedness in him, but perhaps it’s for the best. He will only cause you pain.”
“Kat, don’t listen to her.” He placed a hand gently on her shoulders. “Look at me. Look.” He crouched down slightly so she was forced to stare at him or look childish with her continued refusal. “You know this is exactly how demons operate. The more vulnerable someone is, the friendlier they come on. They suck you in, steal your soul, then leave you an empty shell. Don’t let her do this to you. Don’t!”
Leviathan sighed loudly. “There he goes again, lumping all demons into the same tired stereotype. Are all humans the same? Are they all good, all bad? No. Are all Guardians the same level of fucked up? No. Neither are demons. Use your logic, Katherine, then let me know when you want to talk. Remember, I’m not here to make trouble, as I’ve just demonstrated by my timely dispatching of the Rephaim.”