Raise Hell

by Briana Michaels

“Then help me understand what the fuck we’re supposed to do now.”

  “Stick together,” Eve said, curling her knees to her chin. “We stick together… no matter what.”

  “And what about all the souls?” Lucifer asked with a dangerous tone. “We can’t let Michael or anyone else destroy them. Not if it hurts Eve.”

  “We’ve got more important matters to address first,” Gabriel frowned. He pinned Eve with a somber glare, “Tell us about Merri.”

  “Oh…. Shit….” Eve squeaked.

  Chapter 46

  Gabriel was close to snapping. Eve explained how Merri was the Purity Sect’s leader, and was the reason Eve went to Michael and asked to be taught how to fight and defend herself. She knew Merri would eventually come looking for her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Eve said into her hands. “I’ve dragged you all down into this Hell with me.”

  “Hell?” Lucifer frowned. “What is that?”

  Eve shrugged, “A new word I just made up. It feels right. Hell is a place of pain and suffering. This is Hell.”

  “Well if this is Hell, at least we’re together here,” Constantine batted away a fly.

  “Together is good,” Laz smiled. “There is strength in numbers.”

  Gabriel wasn’t feeling the power of that statement at all. There were only six of them and he had no clue how many would be on Michael and Merri’s side. If the two sects joined together, they’d never win this fight. Some of the brotherhood might side with Gabriel, but the rest were going to join Michael’s fleet because they feared Michael too much to rebel.

  Shit, this was bad. Gabriel wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Is it wrong to be relieved that at least they think Uriel and Eve are dead now?”

  Maybe the shock factor of seeing those two on the battlefield would slow down their enemy’s reflexes at first. Or maybe Uriel and Eve could stay back and out of it all together so they remained spared. One could dream, right?

  Uriel’s voice was controlled and deep. “They think I’m dead?”

  “I told them you were,” Constantine explained. Then he looked over at Gabriel and added, “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you it was a lie. It had to feel real in order for them to believe it.”

  “It definitely felt real,” Gabriel swallowed the lump in his throat. “For a minute there, I… yeah… I fucking thought he was actually gone from us.”

  “I damn near was,” Uri leaned against the table. “Thought for sure I was fading into the light and then these two over here saved my ass.” His neck and face turned a deep crimson.

  Constantine’s eyes narrowed, “How did you two do it?”

  Lucifer’s mouth clamped shut and he looked over to Eve.

  “We,” Eve cleared her throat. “Well, there was Lucy’s black fire involved.”

  “Yeah, and?” Gabriel didn’t understand why the air filled with tension. “What else did you have to do to him?” Because if it brought back a brother from death’s door, Gabriel wanted to learn how to do it too. “Tell us what you had to do.”

  “We…” Eve gnawed on her bottom lip again and blew out an exasperated breath. “We pleasured.”

  “Pleasured?” Con and Gabe repeated in unison.

  “Mmm hmm.” Eve’s feet hit the ground and her confidence roared to life. With wings at half-mast, she swaggered over to Gabriel and ran a finger down his torso. The effect was a rippling of goosebumps over his arms and abs that spread down to his thighs.

  “We acted upon the desires of the flesh. We brought him pleasure. Allowed him to bring me pleasure. And it was in a circle of Lucy’s black flames. He was cured and completely healed of all injuries after one climax of extreme pleasure.”

  You could have heard a pin drop in that cottage.

  “It’s true,” Lucifer chimed in. “I don’t know how it worked, but it did. And when Eve and I joined our bodies prior to that, our feathers grew back. Our wings are completely functional now.”

  Gabriel felt this horrible, heavy, vile weight vibrate in his gut. That Uriel and Lucifer had both touched Eve’s body made him see red.

  His eyes snapped to the patch of hair at the joining of her thighs and his mouth watered and cock hardened. It pissed him off so much, his wings snapped out and turned rigid like the rest of him.

  He needed air.

  He needed to get out of this Hell.

  Storming away, he wrenched open the door and made that first step into the sun, only to get his wings caught in the doorway. The damned things were too wide and stiff to fucking fold.

  Embarrassment and rage tore through him like a wild fire. He pounded that damn door apart. After his knuckles were bloodied and his breathing turned labored, he finally got that space wide enough to accommodate his still too hard of a body and wings, then he marched out of there and didn’t look back.

  He didn’t know why he felt this outraged. It made no sense. Nothing made sense.

  Not his life. Not his purpose. Not his needs or desires. Not his fears or his anger.

  Gabriel was unraveling and he couldn’t fucking stop it. All this time, he’d envisioned taking over the Brotherhood of Angels and now, that was the last place on earth he ever wanted to step foot in again. He was truly ready to leave his life behind and start something else. With Constantine. And Uriel.

  And Eve and Lucifer.

  Why? WHY? It made no sense. Neither had Eve’s name banging around in his head since the moment he no longer had his watchful eyes on her.

  To make it worse, the moment Gabe left for the brotherhood, Eve ran straight into Lucifer’s big fucking arms.

  Closing his eyes, Gabriel tried to calm down. Getting this angry and jealous wasn’t helpful. He hated feeling so vicious. Hated that he wanted to shred something else to pieces. Hated that he’d abandoned the only home he ever knew and the rest of the brothers in it. He hated that Michael was a corrupt piece of shit. Hated that Lucifer kissed Eve first. Hated that Uriel damn near died.

  “Fuuuuck.” What a versatile word that was becoming now, huh?

  He wanted to fuck up Michael. He wanted to fuck with the Scourge and figure out how to fix them. He wanted to fuck Eve too. “Bring pleasure” was to sweet and innocent of a phrase. Fuck felt more accurate. It was hard, vicious, merciless…

  Fuck, fuck, FUCK.

  “You’re doing that thing again,” Constantine said from behind him. “You know, where you’re thinking so hard, steam blows out of your ears.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re jealous of Lucifer, too?”

  “I’m not jealous of—” Gabriel stopped himself. “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

  “He saved Uri’s life.”

  “They saved Uri’s life.” Gabriel deadpanned, “I don’t know what’s worse: That I’m this jealous over something I have no claim to, or that I hadn’t thought to do it first.”

  Constantine chuckled, “I doubt any of us had pleasure on our minds when we were patching Uriel up.”

  Gabriel smiled at that. He and Constantine were a lot alike. “Aren’t you jealous that you couldn’t fix him with your healing? You’ve always been able to before, but this last time…”

  “I’m not jealous, I’m thankful. Lucifer’s powerful, Gabe. That he chose to heal and not harm is a wonderful thing. He was able to fix our brother when I couldn’t. I’ll never be jealous of that. I feel like I owe him now.”

  “You don’t owe him shit.”

  “I’m not surprised Eve was a part of it. She’s incredible. Powerful in her own right.” Con shrugged, “She’s precious to all of us, brother.”

  Yeah, Eve was. And how did that happen? Gabriel barely knew her and had sacrificed so much already. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Does it have to?”

  Gabriel cut Constantine a nasty glare. “Yes.”

  “Not for me, it doesn’t.”

  But that was typical for someone of Constantine’s ilk. He never questioned reasoning versus intuition or anything else. That’s how he was able to
write stories all the time. He made it up as he went along and didn’t think too hard about how to get to the ending… he just enjoyed the ride.

  But this wasn’t a story. This was their lives.

  “I feel like I need her,” Gabriel confessed. “I’m guessing you feel something similar.”

  Con nodded.

  Damnit. Gabriel rubbed the back of his head. “When? When did you feel that way?”

  “Since the moment I clapped eyes on her. Before she ever stepped foot in the Brotherhood.”

  Well shit.

  “There’s a reason we’re together, Gabriel. I have no idea what it is, but I can feel it. She’s going to be good for us.”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that so he said nothing.

  They walked through the woods in silence for long enough to get Gabriel’s wings to finally relax. Then they headed back to the cottage and ignored the damaged door. When they stepped back inside, no one said a word about the destruction of the cottage to him, and in turn, he didn’t say a word about them all wearing clothes now. Clothing, Gabriel now remembered, Constantine had packed some right before they made their big escape.

  And it didn’t go unnoticed by him that Eve was wearing one of Gabriel’s old tunics. That made him feel better. Although, again he asked himself, why?

  “What now?” Uriel asked.

  They all looked over at Lazarus. “I can’t say,” he raised his hands, “I’m at the mercy of your decisions.”

  What the fuck did that even mean? Gabriel bit back a grumble because Loony Laz said things all the time that never made sense. He also never offered actual, useful advice. “Then what can you say, Laz?”

  The Golden-winged Angel sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. “What do you want most? Find that, and go to it.”

  See? Not helpful.

  “I want peace,” Uriel piped up. “And I’m tired of always being on the wrong end of Michael’s sword.”

  That admission broke Gabriel’s heart. He wanted peace for Uriel too. It never made any sense that Michael always hurt him so badly. And somewhere along the way, Michael had managed to sever Uriel’s desire to defend himself.

  Fear, if applied darkly enough, can break a mind in irreparable ways. No thanks to Michael’s manipulations, Uriel never defended himself. He only ever tried to spare others from Michael’s bloodthirsty sword. Admirable as it may be, that shouldn’t be Uriel’s goal in life.

  “I want to be left alone,” Lucifer said next. “Apart from all of you, I don’t want to be around the other Angels. I don’t trust them.”

  “And they’ll never trust you, Lucy,” Eve tucked her hair behind her ears and frowned. “You’re a perfect blend of each sect. None will allow you to enter into their fold. They’ll be too threatened by the prospect of you taking over their sect.”

  “Angels are quite territorial,” Laz nodded.

  “I want us together,” Eve said to the room. “I don’t care how. And I honestly don’t even know why I feel this way. But I do. I want us together, no matter what we do next.”

  That blew all the hot air out of Gabriel on an exhale. For the first time in days, he felt lighter. “Me too,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want us to break apart. I feel stronger with you all… I feel better, more whole.” Shit, was he rambling? Damnit. “I can’t explain it either, but I think I know what you mean, Eve. My gut says we’re together for a reason.”

  Her cheeks reddened, “Same as when Lilith said she knew she needed to be at the Brotherhood for some higher purpose.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe’s voice rumbled, “maybe.” He plopped his ass down in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “We’re going to need to do something with Michael. Possibly Merri, too. If she knows you’re the reason mankind has souls and that energy is tied to us, we’ll have to stop both of them from annihilating the spirits and hurting you.”

  “Us,” she amended. “It’ll hurt us. I may take the brunt of it, and that’s fine because that’s my curse and my punishment for the compassion I felt that day, but you will all feel the cost of this burden too. It’ll weaken you, and that’s not something we can afford. Not now. Not ever.”

  “There must be a way to get more energy,” Gabriel’s leg bounced with nervous energy. “Harvest it somehow.”

  “Be careful there, brother,” Lazarus warned, “You sound like Michael.”

  Michael had his reasons for doing what he did, and now, so did Gabriel. He might not be the leader of the Brotherhood of Angels, but he could certainly lead this small band of Angels to glory.

  “Should we go after Michael?” Lucifer asked. “You wanted to in the beginning… is your desire still the same now?”

  Gabe shot him dagger eyes. “Yes,” but that felt wrong too. Why?

  “It’s not your place to go after Michael,” Constantine argued. “And what do you think will happen if you even tried? He’s got more magic packed into his pinky than we do collectively in our whole bodies.”

  “You know about his magics though, right?” Uriel stepped in. “You can maybe figure out how to weaken him and then we can, I don’t know, bind him or something.”

  “And what about the Scourge?” Gabriel went back to staring at the corner of the bed, “We can bind Michael for a while, but how are we supposed to take out the Scourge?”

  Those four Angels didn’t deserve to be morphed into something unnatural. Or killed because of it.

  “I…” Constantine licked his lips, “I don’t know if they’re helpable at this point. I could feel the damage done to them, before the spell broke. I’ve been using what energy I have left to block Nikolai, Raphael, Jude, and Cassian from syphoning the rest from me. Michael meant to drain me dry, Gabriel.”

  “And he was almost successful,” Lazarus yawned. “Good thing you got out of there while there was still time.”

  Eve’s eyes widened, “If you’re still somehow tied to the four of those Angels,” her voice quivered, “then is it possible for them to track you down?”

  “Not so long as I keep them blocked.”

  “And can you keep only them blocked, Con?”

  Gabriel realized where Eve was going with this. He cut his gaze to the brother to hear his answer.

  “I believe so.” Those three words held zero confidence as they spilled out of Con’s mouth.

  Lazarus clapped his hands, “Believe!” He wagged his fingers in each of their faces. “Believing is a powerful antidote to even the sorriest of situations.”

  It took a considerable amount of self-control for Gabe to not knock that lunatic’s head off his shoulders.

  A terribly foul smell wafted into the air, followed by what felt like an earth quake. They huddled together with their wings flexed as shields to block the ceiling that was collapsing above them.

  “What’s happening?” Eve put her hands over her head to protect herself from more falling debris.

  “We’ve got company,” Lazarus pointed towards the sky.

  The Scourge circled the cottage, peering down on them from the hole they’d made in the roof.

  Chapter 47

  Lucifer flew through the wrecked roof and went after the biggest of the four damaged Angels.

  Barreling into Raphael, Lucifer drove him higher into the sky and away from everyone else. With a roar, his speed increased and Raphael’s leathery wings caused a drag reaction that almost slowed Lucifer down. As he continued to propel them, he reached over with his free hand – the other was firmly locked on the fucker’s throat – and Lucifer tried to snap one of Raphael’s wings off.

  Raphael bellowed when Lucifer broke the first bone. He grabbed Lucifer’s face and pressed a thumb into his right eye socket. Lucifer went ballistic, let go of Raphael’s wing and throat, and drove his fist into Raphael’s face next. Blood spurted everywhere.

  They went into a nose-dive down towards the ground – one free falling, the other like an eagle with his eye on dinner. They tumbled onto the ground, entwined in each other
, grunting and pummeling one another as they rolled across the dirt and slammed into a massive tree. The oak cracked and creaked as it began falling from the collision.

  Not that either of them noticed.

  Lucifer managed to get on top and started strangling Raphael again. The bastard just wouldn’t fucking die! He tried harder, using every bit of muscle he owned to squeeze and suffocate the Angel. It was like trying to strangle a thick iron bar. There was no true give to his neck. Nothing that could allow Lucifer the opportunity to snap it or rip out his throat.

  Raphael had become impenetrable.

  The stench coming off the Angel grew so strong, Lucifer’s eyes watered and he struggled to breathe past the fumes. Raphael laughed with his red eyes glowing and turned the tables. Punching Lucifer in the gut, Raphael gained the upper hand.

  “Oomph!” It felt like he’d just been slammed with a battering ram – and yes, thanks to Michael, Lucifer knew exactly what that felt like.

  Raphael flipped him backwards. Feather and fists started flying again.

  “Don’t make me kill you,” Raphael ground out between swings.

  Lucifer’s anger lashed out and his flames dripped off him like black fiery water. Unfortunately, the damned flames healed, which meant Lucifer was all better right now, but so was Raphael.

  Damnit!

  “Stop!” Raphael hissed. He put his hand out, like that would force Lucifer to halt.

  It didn’t.

  Lucifer drove into him again. There was only one reason The Scourge was made – to destroy. And there was only one reason they would be here right now – to destroy. Lucifer wasn’t going to stop defending those he cared about until either he, or the last of these Angels, no longer drew breath.

  “Stop!” Raphael barked loudly. He bit down on Lucifer’s ear. The sharp sting made Lucifer instantly rip away, which tore the top of his ear in half. Raphael spit out the mouth full of blood like he was scared to have it touch his tongue.

  For some reason, that pissed Lucifer off even more. Did this smelly, leathery, iron-skinned fucker think Lucifer was the disgusting one here?