He considered it. “Your dagger. How do I know you won’t throw it?”
She removed the lion-headed weapon and scooted it toward him as well.
“Stay down but back up. You, too, half-breed.”
Both she and Eitan retreated a few steps. Andrei cautiously lowered the scimitar, watching them both warily, and traded it for the silver blade. “Now, crawl to me, abhadhon bitch. Draw your blood and soul with the unholy blade and I will leave this man here.”
Jovienne crawled forward only as much as needed to reach the golden blade. With a tentative touch, she found it burned her fingers. “I’m going to get the dagger to cut a piece of leather from my pants so I can hold it, okay?”
“Fine.”
When finished, she belted the dagger and used the leather to maneuver the sword into position, laid the hide across the hilt and gripped it. She scooted back and stood.
Holding the lion-headed dagger, she turned to Eitan. “I want you to take this back.” She kept the golden blade tip down before her and twisted loose the cap as she stepped in front of him and offered the dagger.
“Don’t do this,” he said, not accepting the smaller blade.
“You know I have to.” She twisted the lion-headed dagger point up. She felt the holy water pour from it onto the back of her hand holding the golden scimitar. Shifting her hand the water hit the blade directly. “Look after Andrei for me?”
Eitan glanced down and his eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. His expression hardened and he met her eyes. “I will,” he said, accepting the blade and capping the end with his thumb. “You’ve…you’ve always impressed me, Jovienne.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, and then turned.
Araxiel had moved Andrei to the other side of the small circle, and held the silver sword at his throat. “C’mon. I am eager to see the unholy blade pierce your heart.”
She sank to her knees before the circle and lifted the sword into position. “You will leave him here. You swear it?”
Araxiel stepped two paces back and also sank to his knees. His mouth curved into a sinister smirk. “You’re all the trophy I need.”
They stared at each other across the circle.
Jovienne took a deep breath.
“Do it!”
“Kehena puka hamama!” With the last syllable, she pulled the blade inside her chest.
Razor sharp, it was easy, but the pain, fiery and intense, seized the whole of her body at once. The warehouse filled with her scream, “Ahi!”
When it ended, she wanted to breathe and yet she could not remember how. The scent of blood filled her nostrils. Her mind reeled. Dizzy, nauseous, and weak, she swayed. Unable to catch herself, she fell. Her head cracked on the floor.
Her vision blurred and refocused on the flames licking up from the small circle as the interior fell away and an orange glow flashed before something huge surged upward. A demon’s three-toed foot stepped free of the barrier she’d made. Another foot lifted out and the ground shook as it stood.
The demon had leathery blue-gray skin and two massive horns jutted forward where its eyes should have been. Ten feet tall, the thing’s torso was more than a yard across. It moved like a gorilla because its arms and shoulders were so laden with muscles its bottom half seemed to belong to a smaller creature. A reptilian tail flicked behind it.
Between the legs of this demon, she saw Andrei’s body collapse and she knew Araxiel had left him as she hoped.
But this pain was more than she’d felt when doing this before. The scimitar had not ejected from her chest. The holy water didn’t work.
“Come, little abhadhon.” The voice was deep but had a quality about it that told her it was Araxiel. He’d claimed this demon. A huge blue-gray paw with raptor-like claws reached for her. She felt herself rise, felt the sword waiver at the movement and tear her heart open wider. She wheezed, spasmed, and choked on blood. “You too, half-breed. We are going to have so much fun.”
THIRTY-FOUR
ANDREI’S EYES OPENED. He heard a thud and a deep voice said something about having fun. He did not feel up to having any fun. Everything hurt.
He turned his head and saw a huge gray demon, long claws wrapped around Eitan. White lightning crackled up and around the demon’s arm where it touched the angel. The demon emitted high-pitched squeals that hurt Andrei’s ears.
Its claw opened to release the angel and it shifted its weight to fling Eitan away, but the demon stumbled. Instinctively, Andrei twisted as if to roll away should it fall, and saw two of the demon’s toes had dropped over the edge of the Hellgate.
The pain in his side blackened his vision. He tried to scream, but the sound was more a gurgling as blood spewed from his mouth. His head sagged against the cold floor until the demon said, “The abhadhon will be enough.”
Jovienne.
He looked up. It had regained its balance. Andrei realized it held her in its other claw. Its strange foot clopped down inches from Andrei’s face. The other lifted, aimed for the circle.
It’s going to take her Hell.
His left arm was under him. His broken right was free. He dragged it across the floor, feeling shards of bone like splinters digging into his flesh. He wiped it across the edge of the hole, ruining the circle of daggers as he recalled her saying that was what she’d told Damnzel to do.
The hole backfilled before his eyes.
And the demon’s foot came down on his arm.
ARAXIEL STEPPED ON the Hellgate, but met with solid ground.
Lifting his foot to look, he saw Andrei at the edge, a smear of flesh that had been his arm where the circle had been. He’d shut the gateway.
He roared in anger.
“Release her!” Eitan shouted, “You cannot have her!”
Araxiel’s massive horns angled toward the sound. He had no eyes in this demon’s body, but saw with a kind of thermal imaging. The angel held the little dagger in one hand and the silver sword in the other.
“What is this?” The demon laughed. “You waste your breath, half-breed! You won’t strike me. You wouldn’t risk being tarnished.”
“I’m no seraph.”
“No, but you think you can atone for the sins of the sons of Elohim.”
Eitan’s chin leveled up and his shoulders squared. “Who better than I?”
“You would put out you own eyes rather than ‘see’ that your piety makes you a bigger sinner than your father and mother combined.”
Eitan’s shoulder slumped.
“Put down your weapons and stop pretending you’re going to strike me.”
Eitan looked at the sword as if considering, and faced Araxiel once more. “My resistance to violence and impurity has won me nothing. It has not lifted me above what I am.”
“Of course not!” The demon’s mouth split in a fang-filled grinned. “Lay down your weapons. Show your commitment to non-violence. Maybe Yahweh will reward you this time.”
Eitan’s grip firmed on both hilts. “Maybe not.”
Araxiel decided then, if he could not persuade Eitan into giving up, he’d settle for ensuring the brat showed his violent nature and made himself irredeemable. “Trying to be good enough in His eyes has only ever multiplied your regrets. And you already regret so much, don’t you, fake angel?”
Araxiel laid Jovienne down and one gnarled claw traced along the side of her face. “She gets it. She knows it isn’t about what you don’t do, what you resist, what you deny yourself. She understands that regrets are heavy.”
Eitan’s chest rose and fell. Araxiel knew the angel’s anger and indecision were mounting. He pushed farther.
“Do you know why regret weighs so much more than sin, half-breed? Regrets are choices combined with guilt and shame. Yahweh can forgive a sin if He wants, but what burdens you anchor yourself with…ah, those will chain you until you decide to unshackle yourself from it.”
With a jerk, Araxiel removed the golden sword from Jovienne’s chest. The weapon was
like a toy in his huge paw, but it felt so good to hold it, to anticipate hacking into Eitan with it.
“Each of your stupid little regrets is another link in the chain that binds you to what might have been and keeps you from what you can be. Worse, those regrets you carry so honorably for your long-dead parents confine you in a Hell all your own, far, far from the fires.” He leveled the sword at Eitan. “You haven’t half the courage of your father.”
Araxiel thought Eitan would charge, but the angel did not.
“You’re crippled trying to be what you think others expect you to be.” He spat pus-colored froth at Eitan’s feet. “And what do you choose now? What will you regret from this day? The action or the inaction?” When Eitan said nothing, did nothing, Araxiel laughed. “And now you understand that it doesn’t matter, does it? You’ll never be the Christ of the nephilim!”
Eitan swung the sword into a threatening position. “I no longer seek such a lofty purpose.”
“Good. What will you reach out and take? What fruit from what tree do you want, Eitan?”
THE INSTANT THE sword left her chest, Jovienne felt her wound knit. She lay still, but her mind raced to decide what she should do next. The daggers of the small circle!
The demon moved away from her, threatening Eitan.
She rolled to her stomach and moved toward the ruined circle, but the sight of Andrei stopped her. There was nothing left of his arm and the pool of his blood spreading from it was getting bigger.
“Wait!” Eitan shouted. “I surrender!”
She twisted to look at him and saw the silver sword flipping end over end through the air toward her.
The blue-gray demon thought the angel was surrendering, and casting away his weapon.
Activating the quickening, she stood and called the wings. As she ran forward and flapped the wings, she knew instantly they were once again feathery. She reached out and plucked the sword from the air.
A second down-stroke of the wings made her soar upwards and she thrust the sword hilt deep into Araxiel’s back. As momentum carried her past him, she held the sword tight and sliced out from his torso, severing one of his apish arms. It fell in slow motion and Hellfire gushed as he straightened, surprised.
She landed beside Araxiel before his severed arm hit the floor and she leapt again, slicing through his neck.
Without looking back, she landed and fanned her wings. She released the quickening and turned. She saw the blue-gray head plummet and the body slump forward on it. Hellfire poured. She stabbed her sword into the demon’s heart and left it there.
Behind the body, she saw Eitan crouched beside Andrei. A vortex of mist began to form.
The Angel of Death was coming.
One beat of her wings carried her to them. She fell to her knees beside him. “Andrei!” His eyes were glazed. He was so pale, his lips turning blue. He fought to reach up, but not to her.
Andrei’s weak fingers brushed Eitan’s forearm. “I…”
His eyes rolled up, and she feared the worst. A sob stuck in her throat and she could barely breathe. She looked up and saw the Angel approach Nathan’s body. A pale orb flickered, but as she reached for it, the orb darted this way and that to avoid her. Then, it skittered away.
“I…” Andrei began again, drawing Jovienne’s attention back. His eyes fluttered and his focus locked on Eitan as he lifted his head from the floor. “I… defeated a demon.”
Before Eitan could answer, a brilliant crimson light filled the room and a voice rang out, “Andrei, you have earned your wings.”
EPILOGUE
JOVIENNE STOOD ATOP the Transamerica Pyramid holding a lightning rod. In the distance, a gray feathered abhadhon chased a brown feathered angel. She smiled, certain that Andrei was enjoying his flying lesson. He was going to be Damnzel’s replacement.
She extended her wings. The darkblood had been cleansed away and her black feathers restored. It was too soon to tell if she was going to miss what she’d gained by the transfusion.
But then, she knew where to get darkblood if she wanted it.
Her gaze locked on Eitan. Araxiel had called him ‘half-breed’ multiple times and she’d heard what the demon had said about his parents. She was pretty sure she knew what that meant.
Jovienne dived into the wind, and flew off to intercept Andrei and Eitan.
THUNDEROUS VIKING THANKS WORTHY OF NORSEMEN:
Tim Marquitz and Joe Martin and everyone at Ragnarok
m/ ROCK - N - ROLL m/ THANKS:
Gwendolyn Nix
for attention to detail that made this story stronger
David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson
for thoughtful and effective feedback
Pablo Fernández Angulo
for a gorgeous, kick-ass cover
Shawn King
for kick-ass Design
Christopher Golden
for the fantastic blurb
SPECIAL THANKS TO MY BETA READERS:
The Unstoppable Shannon Franks
The Indubitable Melissa Sawmiller
The Unbreakable Deakila Stickney
The Incomparable Jackie Miller
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Once upon a time, Linda Robertson was the lead guitarist in a hard rock/metal cover band. In the days when hair-bands became classic-rock, she won first place in the OSU Mansfield’s Florence B. Allen writing competition (2006). Since then, she’s earned a cum laude Associate of the Art’s Degree in English, worked as a graphic artist, and dabbled in costuming/sewing, crafting and furniture renovation.
In addition to the Immanence series, she is the author of the Persephone Alcmedi series. She has also written, performed, and produced a musical score/CD for Jovienne. She attends various writing conventions, blogs, and gives workshops about the craft of writing. A mother of four boys, Linda is married and lives in Ohio.
Find out more about her at www.authorlindarobertson.com
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