If this was the bag filled with Adrian’s blessed communion wafers instead of manna, I was a dead woman.
Fireballs erupted inside my chest. I cried out and got in the first full breath of air I’d had since the seraph plowed me deep into the earth. My vision also cleared with the suddenness of a light switch being flipped on, and the ringing stopped, too. I had gambled on eating the manna because all my injuries were internal instead of external, and that gamble had paid off. Even my broken arm stopped throbbing, and when I took in another deep breath, the pain in my lungs and ribs was gone, too.
Then new sounds filled my ears with the same volume and intensity as that threatening, you’re-about-to-pass-out ringing. They were shrieks, and they were coming from up ahead.
I turned as much as I could manage while still being clutched to Brutus’s chest by one of the gargoyle’s massive arms. He used the other as a club to pummel any demon who got close to us, but there weren’t that many of them anymore. Once I found the source of the shrieks, the reason why was clear. I stared, unable to believe what I was seeing.
Adrian stood about twenty yards away. Like Brutus, he was covered in demon blood, his blood and multiple injuries, but that was not what had me staring while my mind froze with shock. It wasn’t even the seraph on his knees in front of Adrian, his wings being ripped off while his many eyes were being strafed with countless thin, dark knives that went all the way through.
It was the shadows surrounding Adrian. At first, I’d thought they were part of a dark fog, or maybe even a case of the demonically formed clouds descending until they covered the ground around him. But when I saw those shadows form into knifelike shapes that kept tearing into the seraph until nothing remained of him except a pile of smoldering ashes, I knew what they were. And I totally understood why the seraph I’d killed had looked terrified.
He hadn’t been afraid of me. He’d been afraid of Adrian, and he’d had damned good reason to be.
“You have Demetrius’s shadows.”
My voice was raw from more than my recent brush with death. Adrian’s head snapped up, and I gasped. Even his eyes seemed to have a dark haze over them, as if the shadows weren’t just emanating from behind him like a living, malevolent cloak, but were inside him, too.
Then he looked up, and I followed his gaze to see Blinky hovering about fifty yards above him. The demon looked back and forth between me and Adrian, his expression reflecting equal parts rage and frustration.
“You still live,” he said to me with naked hatred.
I squirmed until Brutus put me down. I wanted plenty of room to hurl a stone at him, if he came any closer.
“I would stop looking at her if I were you.”
Adrian’s voice was light, yet it vibrated with all the unexpected power that caused me to stare at him in continued disbelief. I knew his half-demon side had gifted Adrian with unusual strength, speed and agility, making him by far the deadliest Judian to ever walk the earth. But I had never thought he’d inherited the ability to manifest Demetrius’s deadly, infamous shadows. I hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.
Neither had Blinky, from the way he regarded Adrian with a wariness he’d never before displayed. He also made sure to keep well out of reach of those dark, lethal swaths that could form into whatever weapon Adrian wanted.
“Why do you continue to fight us?” Blinky asked, his demeanor suddenly changing from hateful to conciliatory. “Never has it been more clear what side you belong with, Adrian.”
“I belong with her,” Adrian said, his shadows starting to flare and swirl. “And you nearly killed her.”
“It wasn’t me,” Blinky began.
“Yes, you!” Adrian roared while his shadows struck out like soaring knives. Blinky flinched even though he was out of reach, then he stopped trying to win Adrian over and looked at me.
“Don’t you wonder how I found you, Davidian?”
Actually, yes, now that he mentioned it. I hadn’t had time to ponder that before, what with getting my insides pureed by the pile-driving seraph, but it was a good question.
“How did you?”
“Remember when Adrian repeatedly lashed me with the cloths that had covered Moses’s staff?” he asked in a silky tone.
Adrian smiled. “Good times.”
I wouldn’t have said that. I was still trying to forget what happened to an eye-covered demon when you keep flinging a highly hallowed object onto him. Gross, gross, gross.
“The damage left scars,” Blinky said, briefly extending all six of his wings before flapping them to stay aloft again. That glimpse revealed hardened, burned-looking patches all over him, and I mean all over.
“Nasty,” Adrian said with obvious pleasure. “Remember why I did that to you? Because you were tormenting Ivy. Guess how much I’m going to hurt you now that you tried to kill her?”
“But if you kill me, then you’ll never know how we were able to find the Davidian,” Blinky all but purred.
What was Blinky up to? Yes, I wanted to know how he had found me, but why would he tell us? It wouldn’t cause Adrian to show him mercy; he couldn’t have been blunter about his desire to kill Blinky. The demon wasn’t trying to kill us at the moment, either. He couldn’t risk getting closer. My slingshot and now Adrian’s shadows were lethal to demons, as one very dead seraph could attest. Yet Blinky wasn’t running away so he could regroup and attack with reinforcements later. That would have made the most sense, and Blinky wasn’t dumb, yet here he was, gabbing away like we were all girlfriends at a slumber party...
“He’s stalling,” I said, looking around in quick, jerky glances that still allowed me to keep one eye on Blinky. “Other demons must already be on the way.”
“Look who isn’t as stupid as I’ve always believed her to be,” a hated and familiar voice drawled from the river.
I spun around, already hurling a stone. It sailed true, yet Demetrius was out of its range. It splashed into the water several feet in front of him, and he glanced at the ripples it made with contempt.
“Once again, you fail, Davidian.”
Then he looked at Adrian and his expression changed, mirroring the same shock I’d felt when I first saw those shadows haloing him with tangible, deadly darkness. Finally, a slow smile spread across Demetrius’s features.
“I have never been more proud of you.”
The compliment didn’t sway Adrian. His new shadows flared. “Come closer and tell me that.”
Demetrius responded to the death threat with his smile sliding into a smirk. “No, thank you, my son. Tell me, how long have you been concealing that magnificent power?”
“Didn’t know I had it until today,” Adrian replied, his voice becoming tight. “The shadows burst out of me when one of the seraphs said he’d killed Ivy.”
“Ivy.” Demetrius spat my name out as if it tasted foul. “She ruins everything, including this father-son moment. When will you give up on the little Davidian? She is doomed.”
Adrian’s shadows grew and began to swirl faster, until they resembled a group of tightly clustered tornadoes behind him. It reminded me so much of Demetrius when he’d been at full power that it was stunning. Adrian no longer looked half-demon. He looked one-hundred-percent demon, and the sight of it shook me.
“I’ll never give up on her,” he growled to Demetrius, that dark haze over his eyes changing until the silver rings around his irises flashed. “Never.”
And screw how scary he looked! He was still Adrian. That meant he was mine lock, stock and now shadow-loaded barrel.
Demetrius sighed again. “My strong, foolish son, even with your glorious manifestation of my powers, you have no chance to save her. You are completely outnumbered.”
I looked behind us toward the outskirts of the city, but no one was there. No one else was in the sky exce
pt Blinky, and Demetrius was all alone in the river... Aw, shit. No, he wasn’t.
At least two dozen more heads broke the water to line up behind Demetrius. Some were human looking, but Demetrius wouldn’t have brought regular humans as backup. If I had any doubts that he’d brought a demon horde with him, the misshappen and horned heads among them cleared that up.
“As I was saying,” Demetrius continued. “You are completely outnumbered, and the Davidian is doomed.”
“No,” said an unexpected voice behind us. “She is not.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I WHIRLED, THE TENSION of the situation causing me to hurl a stone even though I’d recognized his voice. Thankfully, the rock bounced harmlessly off Zach’s chest, proving that hallowed weapons can’t harm Archons. Zach looked at the stone, then at me, and a single dark brow arched.
“You could have simply said hello.”
I also could have hugged him. Demetrius had stopped his advance from the river as soon as he saw Zach. Getting his ass kicked by the Archon once before had been an experience that Demetrius clearly didn’t want to repeat, and seeing it made me so happy that I got cocky.
“What’s that about me being doomed?” I taunted Demetrius.
If Demetrius was rethinking his attack, Blinky wasn’t. “You hesitate because of one Archon?” he asked him with open scorn.
“He is no normal Archon,” Demetrius replied darkly.
“I am a seraph,” Blinky hissed, more to Zach this time now. “No Archons were greater in power, and I have even more power now. Who are you to think that you can stand against me?”
Zach pulled off his faded blue hoodie, which made me blink because I had never seen him do that before. I barely had time to notice the plain T-shirt he wore underneath it before that was thrown aside, too. Then he reached behind him, and when I saw the skin around his face bunch up while light burst from the back of his head, I knew what was coming next and flung my arm over my eyes while squeezing them shut.
Not even that blocked out the explosion of light as Zach discarded the human suit he wore and revealed his true form. I didn’t look because I’d seen him like this once before. From the few glimpses I’d caught, Zach’s true form looked like someone had stitched together lightning bolts and blindingly bright solar flares to form a winged, vaguely humanoid shape that, like the sun, was impossible to look at for more than a few seconds.
I heard shouts in Demonish, then splashes, and guessed that at least some of the demons in the river were beating a retreat.
“Michael,” I thought I heard Blinky say, but his voice was drowned out by all the other shouts in Demonish. Then I heard him again, far more clearly this time, and that same name was echoed by other voices, as well. “Michael. It’s Michael!”
“Michael.” Hatred dripped from Demetrius’s voice. “I should have known when you muted my shadows in the desert. Only an archangel has that power, yet I couldn’t believe you’d lower yourself to masquerade as a mere errand boy to mortals.”
“I do what I am commanded,” Zach replied, still in that mild tone. “If you had, you would never have fallen so low.”
“Michael,” Adrian said, shock in his voice. I risked a glance in his direction, although I still used my arm as a shield. It was hard to see Adrian through the dazzling bursts of light that continued to erupt from Zach, but from the glimpses I caught, he had backed away, too.
“You’re not only a secret archangel, are you?” Adrian continued, his tone turning accusing. “The archangel Michael is also supposed to be the general of heaven’s armies, right?”
“Yes,” Zach—Michael—said. “And that is why none here can defeat me.”
That seemed to be the overall opinion, judging from the tiny glimpses I caught between squints. Adrian wasn’t the only one who’d backed up at this revelation. All the other demons had, too, and I didn’t even see Brutus anymore. All that light bursting out of Zach must have looked like his worst nightmare.
But maybe it wasn’t just Zach’s newly disclosed, archangel-plus-general status that kept them back. It might also be the light shooting from him in a wide enough circle to encompass me, too. Light hurt demons, and Zach had all the watts going off.
“Leave the Davidian and get Adrian instead,” Demetrius suddenly said. “Wherever he goes, she will follow.”
“Stop them!” I told Zach when Blinky and the rest of them began to converge on Adrian, who was well out of reach of Zach’s light show. His shadows weren’t out anymore, either. They’d gone from resembling a cluster of terrifying tornadoes to no more than a dark outline around him. Zach’s explosion of light had muted Demetrius’s shadows once before, too. Adrian had nothing left to fight with except his fists, and against over two dozen demons, that wouldn’t be enough.
“Zach, hurry!” I said. “You need to get Adrian under your light, too!”
But Zach made no move to include Adrian in the bursts of light that were keeping the other demons away from me. He also didn’t walk toward him so that Adrian would be safe within the dazzling glow around him. Worse, from their triumphant bellows, the demons realized that. Zach was leaving Adrian on his own to fight them. Again.
Well, I wasn’t about to stand back and watch Adrian get beaten and abducted by demons. I started to run toward Adrian, my sling out and spinning, when an unbreakable grip on my arm hauled me back. I struggled against Zach with everything I had, but I soon found out that it was useless. I’d have a better chance at ripping my own arm off than at breaking an archangel’s grip.
“I was not sent here for him.” The calmness in Zach’s tone lit my every fuse as he confirmed his refusal to help. “I was only sent to ensure your safety.”
“Now your boss wants me alive?” I asked bitterly. That would’ve been great under other circumstances, but not if it meant leaving Adrian behind to get kidnapped.
“At the moment,” he replied with infuriating casualness.
“You can’t do this, Demetrius!” I shouted, switching tactics and trying to appeal to the demon’s love for Adrian. “They won’t stop at trying to kidnap him. They’ll kill him!”
“Then I’ll raise him,” Demetrius shot back coldly. “This isn’t like before, when I expended too much of my power spilling a realm into your world. I can bring him back easily now.”
I’d forgotten that a select number of powerful demons could raise the dead the same way Archons could. If memory served, Demetrius had even told Adrian he’d already done that after Adrian’s former drug addiction caused him to overdose. But that only increased the danger Adrian was in. They’d tear into him without concern for consequences.
Zach might be able to watch this happen, but I couldn’t. The demons had manipulated the weather enough to form a sun-blocking barrier. I could use the staff to tear it down and flood this area with light. We had an hour left before night fell. It should be enough.
The first horde of demons jumped Adrian. I dropped the sling, pulled my sweater off, grabbed the staff tattoo with both hands and then yanked on it as hard as I could.
The staff came out of me with a burst of pain that brought me to my knees. I didn’t care, so I didn’t pause before holding the staff over my head and pointing it at the sky. Then I let all that lovely, agonizing energy pour through me as I screamed out one word.
“Clear!”
Power blasted through the staff before boomeranging back into me. An even more intense pain knocked me all the way over and also left me blind and dazed. A new, echoing sound reverberated everywhere, and I wasn’t sure if it was a sonic boom from the staff’s explosion of energy, or something else, but it was loud enough to deafen me. Then another surge of power knocked me completely out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I COULDN’T HAVE been out long, which was a vast improvement over the last time I us
ed the staff and it put me into a coma. When I opened my eyes, a blindingly bright sun was above me and there wasn’t a single cloud left in the sky. The sight of it made me smile even though I was still in a great deal of pain. Then I smelled the nasty odor of burned meat and looked around to see where it was coming from.
Bad idea.
Both my hands and arms had split open, and the blackened flesh around them was still smoking. I hadn’t imagined the power of the staff overloading my body like an electrical surge shooting through insufficient wiring. My hands and arms looked like I’d been trying to bitch slap a lightning bolt. Any other day, I would have been horrified at the sight, but at the moment, I was too tired. Using the staff had taken too much out of me. All I could muster up was a weary thought of I really hope we have enough manna left to heal this.
“Ivy!”
Adrian appeared above me, his face even more blood-spattered than it had been before, but seeing him let me know that I wasn’t too tired to feel relief.
“Are the demons...gone?” I managed to rasp.
“Yes, but don’t try to talk,” he said, his head whipping around. “Zach! Zach! Michael! Ivy’s hurt! Where are you?”
“Retrieving your beast,” a calm voice said from farther away. “Not only does he have the manna you need, he also has the lance that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Be right back,” Adrian told me, and disappeared.
I closed my eyes. I might be too exhausted to get worked up over the state of my hands and arms, but I had no desire to keep looking at them. And I’d thought Blinky’s burns were the grossest thing I’d seen. Karma was quick to get me this time.
The Brightest Embers Page 19