by Amy Braun
Drake was edging close to Warrick, cutting down every angel he saw as he approached. There was an excited smile on his face that made me sick.
The only creatures I couldn’t see were Lucifer and Michael. Before I could look harder for them, a clammy hand snared my wrist. I jumped and whirled around, my eyes finding Dro’s. There was no shining madness, no contempt or malice. Her eyes were wide and scared, and behind them I swore I could see a hint of peace.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand, fighting back tears. “Of course.”
“Why?” Her eyes glistened. “I was trying to kill you.”
I squeezed her hand. “You could have done it right when Lucifer told you to, but you didn’t. Deep down, you were still the honest, good sister I know.”
Dro closed her eyes and rested her head back on the grass. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
“You saved me because you saw the good in me,” she whispered. “I understand it now,” she breathed.
I was about to ask what she was talking about, tell her that we needed to get up and fight, but invisible arms looped around my stomach and pulled me through the air. I screamed involuntarily and the sudden reaction, flying away from my sister until I landed in the middle of the clearing. My side hit the ground and caused me to roll onto my stomach. The same invisible hands clutched my shoulders and yanked me onto my back. I tried to fight against the magic, but the binds were strong, and soon I was lying frozen on the ground, looking up at Lucifer.
His wings were blacker than the sky behind him, as black as the hatred in his eyes. The claymore he held was smeared with blood. Wind and motion moved the edges of his shock-white hair.
“How did you do it?” he asked in an angry whisper.
The binds turned into hooks, and dug into my skin. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed, unable to block the sudden piercing pain that sank into me.
“I constructed this strategy for centuries, planning what I would do once I produced a child.” The hooks plunged deeper and coiled over me, tightening my skin like a constricting wire. “I perfected everything. Creating the fragments and embedding them into humans, making them believe they held enough power to stand beside me, though giving them nothing.”
I slowly opened my eyes, heart pounding as Lucifer revealed the details of his plot, too angry to stop himself. He bowed lower, blocking out the world around me until it was just his darkness and me.
“My daughter was to be the Key, the wickedness that would hold the Gates of Hell open. But you stole her from me. You turned her soul from the darkness to the light. You corrupted her.”
I would have grinned, but the hooks and coils clenched so tightly I started to see dots in my vision.
“So I chose another. A soul so devious there could be no redeeming it. An image of consummate sin. He did not need prompting as my daughter did.”
Drake’s laugh seemed louder now. Lucifer knelt down, looking at me as I trembled from pain and fear.
“How did it feel to have a fragment inside of you?” he asked. “Did you feel my influence burning through your veins, or did you feel me when I saved your life?”
Just like that, Lucifer’s face shivered. In one smooth transition, it was Maria staring down at me. My heart stuttered.
“All I needed to do was have her touch the fragment,” Lucifer said with Maria’s voice. “A simple touch to bring her back to me.”
I went cold all over. When Dro had taken the fragment out of me, she’d touched it. She’d been mesmerized. Lucifer’s magic had invaded her mind, and she didn’t know it. That was why she left, why she turned on me, why he was able to put a fragment inside of her and let him control her.
Lucifer’s face changed again, back to its awful beauty.
He slowly stood up, standing tall and strong as he towered over me.
“Now you have taken her from me once more. As you have taken something I cherished from me, I shall take the same from you.”
An unseen, clawed hand clamped on my head and twisted it sharply to the side. I spotted Michael and Gabriel. The archangels were bloodied and burned, with Gabriel trying to lift Michael to his feet. The Commander’s eyes were closed, blood oozing from his gaping wounds. One of his snowy white wings was broken, and his skin was deathly pale.
But Lucifer didn’t want me to see them suffer.
Instead, my eyes fixed on Sephiel, leading the angels and fighting for his life. Drake was across the clearing from him, trying intently to murder every angel he could before he got to Warrick.
Then Drake stiffened, like a robot receiving a new command. He shoved aside the angel in front of him and turned on his heel, stalking toward Sephiel with his Bowie knife in hand. I opened my mouth to scream a warning, but an invisible hand covered my mouth. My brain kept screaming, desperately wishing that Sephiel would hear my thoughts. But he couldn’t. He was human now.
On the edge of my vision, I saw Max pull himself away from the last ghoul he killed. He winced and suddenly whirled around, eyes going wide when he saw Drake, now just feet away from Sephiel’s back.
“Seph!” Max shouted.
The auburn-haired angel turned his head at the sound of Max’s alarmed voice, seeing the direction of his eyes. Drake raised the knife. I heard Warrick shout in the background just as Sephiel turned.
He swung his swords up to defend himself, but it was too late.
Drake’s knife plunged down into the bottom of Sephiel’s neck, just above his collarbone. Drake twisted the knife, then tore it free. Sephiel’s blood shot out with it. Sephiel dropped one of his swords, planting another hand on the mortal wound. He shook, desperately trying to raise his other sword to fight back and heal himself. But he had no powers. Blood was spilling over his hand.
The hand over my mouth was freed, and I screamed for real.
Drake stared at Sephiel with a cold, evil smile on his face. He let the dying angel swing his sword weakly, laughing as he easily stepping back from the strike. Then he lunged forward again, and stabbed Sephiel in the heart.
My scream turned into a loud aching sob. My eyes blurred and I felt my heart shatter. Drake kicked Sephiel off his knife as though he was nothing. Sephiel landed on the ground, the sword tumbling from his hand. He didn’t get back up.
I heard other voices crying– Max, Warrick, Dro– but I was numb from heartache. Sephiel had given up so much for us, never falling apart or betraying us. He deserved a fresh start. He shouldn’t have fallen. I turned my head away, crying in earnest now.
There was a furious war cry and intense heat, both of which came from my sister. I was about to open my eyes to see what she was doing, when the hooks in my body pulled.
I arched my back as much as I could, screaming in agony as Lucifer’s magic yanked on my insides. Everything in me– organs, bones, and muscles– were stretched against my skin. I felt as though someone had stuck meat hooks into me, and was ready to suspend me from the ceiling. I screamed until my throat was hoarse, but the pain didn’t stop.
“You have a choice, daughter,” Lucifer shouted over my cries. “You can remain at my side and save her, or you can defy me and watch her soul be ripped from her body.”
To emphasize his point, Lucifer’s hooks pulled sharply on my soul. Another hoarse scream escaped my lips as the hooks dragged through me. The pain was blinding, stretching me like an elastic band about to snap. I could almost feel my soul edging against my skin, begging my mind to let it go to escape the pain. Lucifer backed off and I dropped back onto the ground, feeling my eyes close. My mind was heavy, and I knew I was close to passing out. Or worse.
My eyes were sluggish to open, though I still managed to find Dro. She was hesitating, looking from me, to Lucifer, to the battle past us. I lolled my head to the side, hearing angry male shouts.
Warrick and Max had caught up with Drake, and both had jumped him. Drake shoved Max away with an elbow to the stomach, but Warrick got payback by slamming his foot
into the bounty hunter’s jaw. Drake stumbled, buying Warrick time to drop down and sweep his legs out. He hadn’t even fully hit the ground before Max came back and started kicking him in the ribs.
“You taught me so much,” Dro said softly. I rolled my head back to her, but it wasn’t me she was talking to. It was Lucifer. “I know how to control it all now. You showed me how much more I can do.” Dro stood at her full height, looking confident but sad. She glanced down at me, icy blue eyes knowing and resolved.
“I understand what I have to do. And I hope you will, too.”
My heart lurched. She couldn’t say yes again. I begged her with my eyes. I couldn’t lose her again. Not now. Not when we’d already lost Sephiel. His death couldn’t be in vain.
Lucifer’s hold on me relaxed. He believed she was coming back to him.
That was when Dro shoved out her hands and blasted him with hellfire.
Lucifer hadn’t expected it, so he was engulfed. She held the blaze over him as he screamed with more anger than pain. Once he was consumed, she darted past both of us, running straight for Drake, Warrick, and Max.
As she ran, she passed Gabriel and Michael. The two archangels watched her blur past them, Michael barely hanging onto Gabriel. The dying Commander said something to his second, and Gabriel’s eyes widened with shock.
Max was still kicking Drake while Warrick loomed over top of him, holding a knife and looking determined. The fire beside me began to dwindle. Lucifer was dousing the flames, but I was watching my sister.
Warrick raised the knife when Max stepped back. He was ready to get his revenge, for his sister, for Sephiel, for everyone else Drake had helped destroy.
He never saw Dro coming.
Then she was there, pushing Warrick aside, making him miss his strike.
And saving Drake’s life.
Nothing happened at first. Then Lucifer screamed.
It took me a moment to realize why he was screaming, and why Drake was rolling around in agony, even though Warrick hadn’t touched him with the knife.
Lucifer’s howl was one of anguish and frustration. The sound of a man who knew he had lost.
He turned his outrage on me, digging the hooks in as deep as they would go, finding my soul and beginning to rip it from me. I screamed and clutched the grass, feeling the hooks sever my soul’s ties to my body.
As this was happening, the air began to change. The power in the air was weakening, crunching down as the Hell Gate closed. Lucifer was losing his power, but he was determined to take my soul before it was gone.
Just as my soul started to break out of my body, Lucifer’s hooks disappeared. I dropped onto the ground with a muffled cry, breathing heavily, but suddenly able to move. I felt like I’d been run over by a cement truck, but I turned my head enough to see what had saved me.
Michael and Gabriel appeared, launching the last of their heavenfire at Lucifer. The King of Hell responded by snapping up his hand and throwing hellfire at Gabriel. The archangel wasn’t able to move away in time, the ferocious white blast slamming into his chest. His scream was agonizing as he dropped to his knees and batted at the flames.
Lucifer snapped his wings back and launched himself at Michael, his sword extended forward. The powerful angel raised his hands, but was only able to catch Lucifer with them. Michael winced in pain as he collapsed on the ground with Lucifer. I couldn’t see where the sword was, but Lucifer was the only one who got up. He whirled around, facing me with murder in his eyes. I pushed myself up as he stalked toward me, grimacing as the air continued to gain weight. Lucifer raised his sword and swung it toward my neck.
That was when the pressure increased, and Lucifer stopped mid-swing. He arched his back and screamed, in more pain than I could imagine. He dropped to his knees, dragging his fingers through the soil and tearing it to pieces. I watched in horror and awe as Lucifer’s wings began to lift from his back, the curse of the Hell Gate taking them away. Lucifer struggled to hold onto his wings, but it didn’t seem like his curse would let them. They split out of his skin, bones snapping as they broke from his back. Lucifer’s blood was darker than any demon’s I’d ever seen. His beautiful face was contorted with agony as his wings were torn from him.
But he wasn’t the only one screaming. Every living demon, even the one Knight standing, howled in agony. I turned my head in their direction, seeing a portal had opened from the spot where Dro had saved Drake’s life. The demons were dragged back toward the portal, as if magnetized to it. They were swallowed up by the portal’s fire, disappearing from the clearing.
Another scream cut through my awe, and I turned my head again. Dro was writhing in Max’s arms, screaming as the portal tore out her power. Max cradled her close, not sure what to do, but refusing to let go. Warrick was just as lost as he was, looking at me with despair, but not wanting to take his eyes off Drake either.
Lucifer grunted behind me. I twisted to see him. His back was covered in dark, smoking blood. His wings burned to ash on either side of his knees. He looked up at me, obsidian eyes sparking with fury.
I didn’t think. I just reacted. I grabbed my hatchet and swung it at Lucifer’s head.
He leaned away so my swung went wide. I tumbled onto my hands and knees, giving him the perfect chance to punch me in the stomach. He hit harder than Mateo and Drake combined. Harder than the Knight I fought earlier. He didn’t just crack my ribs. He broke them completely.
Done with beating on me, he fisted my hair and yanked my face up to his. I came up swinging, driving my fist into a sloppy uppercut that landed in his jaw. Lucifer’s head rolled with the hit, and that was when I swung my hatchet again.
The silver blade landed in his neck with a heavy thunk. Lucifer blinked at me, unable to believe that I’d cut him so easily. But he hadn’t expected to be weakened from the Hell Gate closing, or for me to have a plan of my own. He thought he could control everything and everyone he set his eyes on. He used to have that power, but he never seemed to understand what simple humans like me would do when we escaped that hold.
We fought back. We overcame the odds. We fucking survived.
Black blood spilled over the hatchet and onto my fingers. A tingling burn went through them, but I barely felt it.
I was just about to rip the hatchet free when a sharp force grabbed hold of Lucifer and pulled him toward the portal. He gripped my wrist and dragged me with him. Frantic, I grabbed at the grass and dug in my heels, but it made no difference. We were moving too fast, and Lucifer wasn’t going to let me go. I punched him, clawed at his eyes, even let go of the hatchet.
The portal loomed ahead, drawing closer with each second.
My friends and loved ones saw me as I was pulled through the grass, unable to fight, or escape the fiery door to Hell.
“You are mine,” Lucifer whispered, still able to speak despite the blade lodged in his throat. “And I will make every second you endure in Hell agony. You will bleed until you beg for death, and then I shall heal you to repeat your suffering.”
My breath hitched. The portal was overhead now. I could feel its heat smothering me. I closed my eyes, rushing through the moments I had with Max and Sephiel. The love I shared with Warrick.
My sister, and how she would be alive when all of this was done–
Lucifer jerked suddenly, his hand suddenly gone from my throat. I dropped heavily onto the grass, opening my eyes and watching the King of Hell gape at the bloody stump of his forearm. Black blood oozed from the ground, right onto the rapidly dissolving shape of a hand.
His head snapped to the side, just as he reached the edge of the portal.
Dro stood over me. One of Sephiel’s swords was in her hands, the blade slick with the Devil’s blood.
“She’s free of you, demon,” Dro cursed. “We both are.”
The edges of the portal closed around Lucifer, igniting his face in a blaze of red light. He threw back his head and howled one last time before the portal snapped shut, leaving only his furio
us echo on the wind.
I lay on the grass, breathing heavily with my broken ribs. Michael and Gabriel were still lying on the ground, barely moving but still alive. I turned around to see the rest of the corpses lying in the blood-soaked clearing. The portal had closed. Piles of demonic ash scattered the dead grass. Angels that had been dying before were now simply dead.
My heart clenched at the thought of Sephiel. My eyes found his body, and I choked on a sob. I kept staring at him with the hope that he would get to his feet.
Sephiel lay on the ground in a motionless heap.
A sword thumped onto the grass. Dro collapsed onto the ground beside me. I tried to reach for her, but even that movement was torture. Broken ribs made pretty much every movement agonizing.
Voices shouted our names, and soon I was scooped up in strong, familiar arms. I winced when Warrick touched my ribs, but it was a small price to pay knowing he was safe and alive. He steadied me so I could look at my sister.