“Leave us!” Lucifer barked.
The wraiths stopped circling and rushed upward as one powerful unit. They vanished through the ceiling a hundred feet overhead.
I tore the arm off an angel as I thrust her out of my way and used the bloody stump to bash in the head of another. The spikes on their wings sliced at me, flaying open my back and slicing across my chest, but I barely felt it as I remained focused on one thing: getting to River.
As more blood seeped from her, the ground beneath my feet vibrated before lurching violently and knocking me back a step. Around me, the angels scrambled away from the seal. Their frantic movements opened a pathway between me and River just as a crack spread through the seal behind River.
The crack lanced from her hand down by her knee all the way to the one above her head. One of the jagged lines raced toward the ceiling while the other ran from her palm to the ground. Orange light seeped through the edges of the fissure when it spread behind her.
River screamed as her back arched off the seal. Power crackled over my skin, my markings all shifting to point toward her. The orange light faded to the golden-white color River had emitted before traveling so close to Hell.
The vast power of my ancestors had forged these seals. The symbols etched into the surface of the wall were a power all their own. River had reacted strongly to the seals before, drawing on their energy to help me keep a seal up. When the wraiths were here, they’d kept her from latching onto the power of the seals. It had bottled up inside her, and once the wraiths fled, her ability had unleashed to feed on the seals.
More than that, Lucifer had made her a part of the seal by using her blood to crack it. Her blood seeped deeper into the seal at the same time the power of the seals spread throughout her. Lucifer’s hand wrapped around her throat, flooding her with his life force. He bowed his head against the increasing intensity of the light emanating from her.
I blinked as my retinas were seared by the aura burning brighter around her. River’s scream grew until the sounds of the battle were drowned out, or perhaps they had all ceased fighting to watch.
An eon seemed to pass as it all unfolded in slow motion, but only seconds elapsed. I ran toward her, my way clear now that the angels continued to stagger away from her.
Lucifer spun toward me, swinging out with a wing. Seizing the wing, I propelled him back and pinned him against the seal, but he didn’t release her. River’s eyes were the deepest shade of purple I’d ever seen when they met mine. Pain filled their brilliant depths to the point where I didn’t know if she saw me before her. I reached to pull her free of the seal.
“No! Don’t touch her!” someone shouted as my hand fell on her arm.
The second I touched River, her back bowed further out and a volatile rush of blinding white light exploded from her. It tore through my chest as it lifted me off my feet and flung me backward.
***
River
I’d never felt anything like the power coursing through me. It crackled over my skin and sounded like a million bees swarming me as it hummed in my ears. It saturated my cells and thawed parts of me that had been frozen solid only seconds before. I was pinned to the seal like some sort of sacrifice, but I didn’t feel like a sacrifice when every part of me was alive in a way it never had been before.
At first, I welcomed the warmth, but it swiftly became too much. I struggled to see anything past the golden-white glow as I became certain my heart would tear out of my chest. I tried to shut it down, tried to withdraw from the source of all the power, but I was pinned to that source, and it was consuming me.
Screams resonated in my head. I didn’t know if I released those screams or not. I didn’t know anything beyond needing it to stop before it destroyed me. I thrashed against the spikes, but whatever they were made of had melted and forged into the seal, making it impossible for me to break free.
Lucifer was knocked aside, but his hand continued to grip my throat. Kobal’s face swam before me, and then my body was flooded with more energy. Pushed beyond what I was capable of handling, power exploded from me and nothing existed anymore.
CHAPTER 25
River
I’m dead.
That was the only explanation that made any sense. I’d died. And someone had judged me worthy of going to Heaven.
This had to be Heaven as unicorns couldn’t possibly exist in Hell.
Unicorns were loving, magical beings that danced over rainbows or some such nonsense. Although there were leg-munching leprechauns, or leporcháins, in Hell, there were no rainbows for them to slide over.
I almost laughed out loud, but death wasn’t funny, and I so badly didn’t want to be dead. I would give anything to kiss Kobal again and hold my brothers close, but I didn’t want to be Lucifer’s pincushion either, so death could be preferable. And apparently, unicorns came to visit the dead. Maybe I hadn’t made it to Heaven and the unicorns had come to guide me there, or maybe they would decide I didn’t deserve Heaven.
I didn’t know how it worked, and I hurt too bad to figure it out.
If I was dead, then why did it feel as if every muscle in my body had been stomped on like grapes for wine? Why did I feel as if it would take far more energy than I had to draw my next breath? And why could I feel the warmth of my blood trickling from my palms? I would no longer have a body if I was dead, so I wouldn’t be able to experience all those things, or would I?
I glimpsed one of my hands. Whatever Lucifer had used to pin me to the seal was gone, and I could see the floor of the seal through the hole in the center of my palm.
The unicorn stopped before me. Its nostrils flared and it snorted. With a black coat instead of a white one, it wasn’t entirely what I’d envisioned a unicorn to be, but it resembled a horse, and the golden horn protruding from its head could only belong to one creature.
A large hare hopped into view and sat beside the unicorn. I could almost believe I was in an enchanted forest or some such thing, but the hare was far from enchanting. Fangs protruded from its upper jaw and jutted over its bottom lip. The four-inch claws attached to its paws could eviscerate a person in a single blow. When the hare turned its head, four sets of red eyes met mine from both the heads on its shoulders.
Nope, if I was dead, this definitely was not Heaven.
Horror coiled within me, but I was so battered I couldn’t move as the two-foot-tall hare hopped closer to me. Its claws clicking against the smooth surface ticked away the last seconds of my life. A sound to the right caused its head to turn in that direction, and it hopped away with a screeching clatter.
The unicorn’s head swiveled toward me, and its blue eyes met mine. Exquisite in its beauty, there was still something unnerving about the creature as it snorted again. Its hooves clattered against the seal when it walked over to something else lying on the ground.
Bowing its head, it stabbed its horn into whatever had caught its attention. The striking gold of its horn became red in color. Nausea turned in my stomach when I realized it used its horn to drain the blood from its victim.
Kobal had once told me the wood nymphs most likely spawned the vampire legend. Watching the unicorn drain something’s blood, I knew why some humans believed vampires could shape-shift into animals.
More creatures came into view, followed by others who looked more human. I remained incapable of moving, my body too drained to do much more than breathe and blink, as the creatures swarmed over the floor of the freshly broken seal.
A seal that I had been the one to break. A lump formed in my throat, but I had no energy for tears. My body and my abilities had been used to bring about the seal’s destruction. This had happened because of me, but I was not the cause.
Kobal. Where was he? I recalled his face in front of me before everything exploded. Had he really been there or had I imagined him? Then I recalled the influx of power bursting through me and I knew he’d been there. He was the only one who could have created such an intense deluge of life within
me. He must have tried to pull me from the seal.
Had I killed him? Before I would have felt certain I would know if he were dead or alive. Now, all I knew was that I’d plunged us deeper into the despairing pits of Hell by unleashing more of its worst occupants.
***
Kobal
Lifting my head, I scanned the numerous bodies scattered across the floor. River hadn’t sent just me flying, but everyone else too. I’d always known she was one of the most powerful beings in existence, but the level of power she’d unleashed stunned even me.
Blood poured from the fist-sized hole River had torn straight through my chest. The blood loss from this wound and the ones I’d sustained earlier left my muscles weak, but they were already repairing themselves, as was the bone beneath.
The click of something had me turning my head toward the newly collapsed seal as the first of the púca emerged from their former prison. One of them paused to feed from a lower-level demon while another hopped over to sink its fangs into an upper-level who groaned but was too weak to fight off the creature feasting on it.
I placed my hands under me and pushed myself up as more angels, demons, and hounds stirred around me. My gaze latched onto River lying on her side near the edge of the seal. I couldn’t see her face, as her back was to me, but I saw the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders.
Still alive. I had to get to her before the púca did.
More púca emerged around her, and one stopped to sniff her. The creature had taken on the form of a white unicorn. The color bled from its silver horn in preparation of feeding as it nudged her.
It pawed the ground before nudging her again. I opened my mouth to yell at it to get away when her hand fluttered up and she rubbed the púca’s nose. I’d never had any experience with the púcas. They were locked away before I rose from the Fires, but I knew they’d been imprisoned because of their ability to completely desiccate their victims. Their original shape was unknown, and though they could adopt many forms, including demon, they couldn’t speak.
The púca hadn’t been imprisoned for being gentle, but this one appeared to be trying to take care of River as it nudged her again.
Because she is the one who set them free.
Lucifer had believed they would follow him, but the púca knew River was the one who had brought down the seal. The púcas may follow him once they realized she wasn’t on his side but on mine and that he had orchestrated their freedom. It wouldn’t take them long to realize she was my Chosen either. However, for now they sought to protect her.
A cracking sound drew my gaze beyond River and the still emerging púcas to the fissure racing up the center of the seal behind the one that had just fallen. I leapt to my feet as the next seal toppled and the rokhs were revealed. Many of the large birds had been perched on the ground, but they took flight when the seal fell.
The rokhs’ wings, with their eight-foot span, created a breeze in the air that blew back some of the púcas closest to them. Their red, yellow, and orange feathers reflected the fires of Hell outside of the viewing panes where demons had once looked upon those locked within the seals.
Behind the rising rokhs, the fissure raced across the ground toward the next seal, and I knew nothing would stop the remaining seals from falling.
I raced toward River as a rokh swept overhead. Resembling a ten-foot eagle, the rokhs were beautiful, but lethal. Their talons often eviscerated their prey, and the rokhs feasted on their victims while they were still alive. If food was in short supply, the rokhs had been known to let a demon regenerate before picking away its intestines again.
I ran over the bodies surrounding me, my heart hammering as the púca beside River lifted its head and snorted at me before pawing the ground. None of them would have any problem with tearing me apart.
I was still fifty feet away from her when a breeze stirred the air behind me. Turning, the black eyes of the rokh filled my vision. It extended its talons, and I launched a punch at its golden beak. My knuckles cracked as they broke, but the rokh was knocked aside before regaining its balance.
When it came at me again, Phenex and Crux bounded out of the sprawled bodies to leap onto the massive creature. The rokh reeled back as it attempted to shake the hounds off. There would be no escape as Crux clamped onto a wing and Phenex closed her jaws around its throat.
I spun back toward River as the next seal fell with a loud crash. The floor lurched before settling into place. Across the wave of newly freed creatures and, from the bodies littering the floor, Lucifer rose to his feet. Bloodied and battered, his gaze met mine from where he’d been thrown twenty feet away from River.
A smile curved his lips when he realized he was closer. Ignoring the weakness in my limbs, I ran for River again.
A flapping of wings filled the air, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Lucifer lift off the ground. A blur caught my attention before it plummeted from above to land beside River. Caim kept his wings unfurled protectively over her as he gazed from Lucifer, to me, and back again. Crouching lower, he said something to her before embracing her against his chest and flapping his wings until he hovered in the air.
“Take her to Earth, Caim!” Lucifer shouted and flew toward the ceiling as Caim swept overhead.
“No!” my roar reverberated through the seals. I changed direction and sprinted back toward my followers. If Caim left Hell with her, I may never see her again.
CHAPTER 26
Kobal
Caim swooped low with her as the other angels stirred from where they’d been thrown onto the floor. Having been farther away from the burst of power River emitted, my followers were already regaining their feet. Most of the hounds stalked protectively in front of them.
Onoskelis speared a púca before taking to the air as Caim landed behind my followers. The demons closest to him drew their weapons and advanced on him. Caim held River closer against his chest and stepped away from them. His wings unfurled as he prepared to take flight again.
“No!” Corson shouted and he pushed his way through the demons toward Caim.
“Leave him be!” Calah bellowed. He palmed the demons’ heads as he shoved them out of his way.
“Caim!” Lucifer shouted. He switched course to fly back toward the fallen angel.
Caim stared at Lucifer as all around him the demons tilted their heads back. They grinned at Lucifer while they gestured with their hands for him to go at them.
“What are you doing?” Onoskelis demanded of Caim as she hovered above him.
“What must be done, what should be done, and you know it,” Caim replied. “This insanity must be stopped.”
The clattering bang of the next seal falling echoed throughout. The ground rose in a wave that nearly knocked me off my feet. Traveling faster with each new seal it brought down, the crack ran up the front of the eighty-third seal as the ouroboros rose out of the remains of the eighty-second one.
The hood of the ouroboros unfurled from the sides of its diamond-shaped head. Its red, forked tongue flicked out to taste the air. The one-hundred-foot-long and twenty-foot-wide, green serpent hungrily eyed its prey from its black eyes.
Every fifteen feet across the ouroboros’s back, another snake tail curved out of its flesh. At the ends of those tails were rattles that went off all at once as the ouroboros struck a púca and swallowed it whole. Two of the tails on its back were in the process of regenerating as the ouroboros consumed its own tails when no other food was available.
Lucifer glanced between the falling seals, River, and me. I could feel his fury as his wings battered the air and a throbbing vein appeared in his forehead. He turned and dove toward Caim, but a wave of swords clashing together over Caim’s head blocked Lucifer before he could get close to River.
With a shout of frustration, he pulled up and spun away from them. He soared toward the ceiling before fleeing from the seals. The other angels followed behind him. They left the rest of the craetons behind to be slaughtered by the palitons or the esc
apees from the seals.
“Go!” I shouted at my followers as Phenex and Crux fell in beside me.
We had to get out of Hell before it completely fell apart.
***
River
“Give her to me!” Kobal commanded when he caught up to Caim.
The angel could have gotten away a lot faster if he flew, but he’d told me he didn’t dare take to the air when he had no idea where Lucifer was. On the ground, we were sheltered by Kobal’s followers and the craetons looking to flee the creatures emerging from the seals. In the air, there was nothing to protect us.
“You’re badly wounded. I can get her from here faster,” Caim replied. I suspected he also feared one of the demons might try to kill him if he no longer held me.
“I’ll never be too injured to protect her,” Kobal growled. “Give her to me.”
Caim was right, but I was too weak to protest, and I really didn’t want to. If these were going to be my last moments alive, then I preferred to spend them in Kobal’s arms. Caim slid me into Kobal’s waiting arms. He cradled me against his chest, his mouth brushing over mine in the briefest of touches, but his love for me radiated through the kiss.
The hole in the center of his chest had closed, but blood coated his flesh. I loved him more than I’d ever believed possible. The idea of anyone hurting him made me want to murder whoever had done it, yet I had done this to him.
When he adjusted his hold on me, I briefly saw over his shoulder the destruction I’d wrought on the seals as a wave of bizarre creatures trailed behind us.
“Lo-look at what I did,” I stammered out.
“Not you,” he stated. “Lucifer created this.”
“Maybe Lucifer was the reason behind this, but I unleashed it. My abilities did this.”
Kobal’s nostrils flared when he glanced down at me. “It’s not your fault.”
I knew he was right, but a part of me blamed myself for the destruction that had been unleashed here.
Into Hell (The Road to Hell Series, Book 4) Page 15