by J. L. Myers
The pressure of Darius’s body on Gabriel’s legs vanished suddenly, and the glass was kicked from her hand. And then Darius was on top of her, his legs straddling her waist and his knees pinning down her arms. His free hand caught her throat and squeezed. A pop and a crunch made Gabriel’s head swim with darkness. “You are coming with me.”
“Gabriel!”
The scream came from beyond the main door. Zallina’s barking became more desperate. Lucifer was out there, Gabriel could feel him now. She could even hear his thundering steps as he raced up the grand coiling stairs that came off the open throne room to lead to this towering level. But there were so many steps, and she was about to lose consciousness.
Gabriel’s thrashing legs lost momentum as blood flooded out, and Darius smiled down at her. The lava she had dropped was already turning black, cooling to become useless. The glass was gone from sight. “Time to go, angel.”
Darius’s hold remained on her neck but one of his knees lifted in readiness to haul her up. The closest lava bubbled above her hand in the pit.
Gabriel didn’t think, she didn’t even hesitate.
Forcing her heavy arm that stung as if being attacked by needles to move, Gabriel caught the lip of the pit and twisted her body sideways. The blistering lava coated Gabriel’s fingers and then her hand as she plunged it down into the bubbling mass. She was melting, her flesh peeling back from her bones and tendons. But Gabriel didn’t stop. With her searing hand cupped she catapulted it up. Lava flew from her grasp as her knees tucked up protectively. Burning red drops sprayed at her attacker and peppered her side and numb leg.
Darius released her neck with a scream, leaping up off her in an instant. “Damn you!” The blobs burned straight through his armor and made his skin sizzle. He snarled at the pain—and lunged at her.
Gabriel twisted further, fighting the logy sensation that had a hold of her body as she gasped for air. The moment her knee steadied on the ground, one of her wings was tugged back. Darius’s foot slammed down onto her back, pushing against the pull on her wing—and then the dagger stabbed into her. The intricate bones that tipped one of Gabriel’s wings were severed as the dagger rushed back and forth. She tucked her knees up quick and fell flat on her face as the flesh, bone, and feathers were ripped away.
Expecting more pain, Gabriel tried to move, to roll onto her side to protect what needed to be protected. But the assault never came. Instead, the sound of retreating footsteps led away from her as the thumping of Lucifer’s approach sped down the corridor outside the hall. Lifting her head, Gabriel saw Darius dart over the burning hellhound and into the secret passage right as rays of fire shot up through the animal.
Head swimming and body feeling numb, Gabriel let herself collapse completely—at the exact moment the main doors burst open and Lucifer raced in through the burning flames.
Chapter Nine
On all fours in the looking glass, Michael’s head hung. His dark hair dripped from the tousled strands hanging around his face as more trails of tepid water forged paths over his face and down to his chest. He bit back a hiss as the water flowed over the gaping wound in his neck. His entire body ached, muscles fatigued and skin mottled with black and blue bruises. Michael had fought a hard fight. He’d survived.
And he had escaped—barely.
Now as Michael concentrated on returning his breathing to normal, to stilling the quiver of his wings that had delivered him above despite the fractures he’d sustained when thrown back down onto them, he saw the marks begin to fade. With each settling breath as light beamed up and through him from the silky water, he felt his strength return as bruises faded from dark to brown and then yellow. He heard creaking and a few clicks as splintered bones and joints fused back to where they belonged.
A flare of blinding and glorious light instantly removed any lingering aches and pains and healed the hole in his neck.
Michael sighed and sagged. He was no longer alone. The large glowing orb above him was God. “The hybrids have increased in numbers. They can spread their disease.”
“Your angelic team was not strong enough to defeat them.”
Not a question, Michael knew as he winced at the punch of words. Yet he still answered the telepathic statement that had surged through him with power and perhaps even dismay. “No. We were vastly outnumbered. I do not doubt they will continue to populate and murder, even though I defeated their leader.”
“Not before he threatened your very existence, I see.”
Michael stiffened at the lack of emotion in God’s words that would hint at any distress he may feel if Michael had succumbed to death below. At the same time, he had to wonder what God had or had not been privy to. “I sent warning when the situation turned dire…in case I did not return.” Michael eased down off his folded legs and reclined back against the curved edge of the looking glass, peering up into the light that seemed to pulse in time with a heartbeat. “Did you receive my message?”
“Your soldiers reported upon their return…”
God continued speaking, but despite the power his voice radiated inside Michael’s head, he did not hear the words. Instead, all that consumed him was a startling revelation. God had not heard him. His message. His deflecting answer was proof. Yet it was not due to arriving souls from the hybrids that had been put down. No. His warning had bounced back at him. It had been rejected. Not by God. But by…something else.
Staring down at the pool he had erupted through before the floor reformed to catch his falling body, the tendrils of swirling red and thin ribbons of glittering silver blood that muddied the sparkling water stood out like living tentacles. Blood that had coated his flesh like a dripping blanket. Blood of his enemy. Blood that had been changed because of what Lucifer, a fallen angel, had done to infect humans. Though the substance was somewhat angelic, it was more substantially demonic. Smelling a layer still coating his face, Michael sent out an unspoken question. “Did being saturated in this filth somehow cloaked my ability to reach you?”
A sudden shock, as if someone had branded Michael through his forehead, had his head snapping back. No longer a glowing orb that floated above him, God’s boy-like form knelt right in front of him, hovering an inch above the surface of the water. The finger to his forehead glowed at the tip, dying out as volts of power struck from between Michael’s eyes and down through his veins. His body heated up, the veins along his shoulders and arms bulging in pulses that matched the speeding of his heartbeat. Light glowed from every forking track, burning brighter before fading back into his skin.
Michael slumped at once, his breathing fast and face sweaty even though his body felt chilled to the bone. Had that been a punishment for interrupting his maker and questioning him? “What is this?”
A small smile stretched the boy’s lips, though no emotion reached his pale milky eyes. “A gift. My power for you to deliver below.”
Michael tried to control his breathing. God had not heard his telepathic query. His thoughts raced, but he had to stay on course. He had to keep this discovery secret. Michael cleared his throat. “Your power…delivered to who? In what way?” Michael had seen what God’s power could do when wielded through another angel. The Earth could shatter and part, trees could bend at will. Fires and quakes could ravage places below and above, beings could be healed or brought to their knees, and waters could drown all of existence. Michael had witnessed the phenomenon himself. But this was different. The lingering sensation that made his luminescent skin hum was somehow like nothing he had ever felt before. It was raw and tangible, becoming overpowering and so much stronger than anything he had ever felt.
God’s boyish face simply nodded as he floated higher. With his arms out at his sides, palms up, his expressionless face was angelic and majestic. “When the time comes, Warrior of God, you will know.”
With that, light burst from the boy’s body in spears, shooting outward like a star with infinite points. Michael had to shield his eyes at the intensity that
lasted but a few seconds.
When Michael peeked through cracks between his fingers, God was gone…but that power inside him remained—as did the knowledge of how to hide from his maker.
Chapter Ten
“Gabriel!” Lucifer all but fell through the doors as they burst open, the ground sliding out from under him. Zallina barreled in too, knocking his legs and barely escaping the flames that doused around the room for only a heartbeat before shooting sky high. Gabriel’s pet was as desperate as Lucifer was to get to her. To Gabriel. Yet even as he raced around the pillar and over the lava track to get to her, time seemed to slow down. The drowning fear that had gripped Lucifer from across the valley made way for the horror before him. His eyes registered her form through the flames that blazed from his eyes. On the dust-scuffed ground, Gabriel’s silvery-blonde hair splayed around her, matted from the fight. Bruises marked her exposed wrist and her arm above that acted as a shield over her head. Her other was tucked around her waist, shielded by—the blood and all her other injuries were suddenly lost to his staring eyes.
Gabriel was curled up in a tight ball on her side with a growing pool of silver blooming from her body. Another smaller pool further down below her legs drew his eye. Silver drops fell from above, the constant drip, drip becoming all that Lucifer could hear, falling from the severed tip of her wing that shook as it sat cradled over her.
Time sped back up as Lucifer slid down to his knees, the flames that had coated his entire body simmering out and leaving his fire-retardant clothes intact. Swooping Gabriel up as the hellhound whined and circled, the color to her face released the breath he’d been holding. A little more pale than usual, but not graying, that rosy tint was coming back to her cheeks. As Gabriel looked up at him with relief, her silver eyes glittered rather than turning dull. “Lucifer…”
Blood coated her face from a cut under her jaw. “Shhh…I am here now. I am here.
Here in Hell, even without Heaven’s powers, Gabriel was healing. Slowly. The long, gaping slice visible through her torn rob still leaked blood as he pressed his palm to her thigh, but it was no longer flooding out.
Cradling her in the wet smears that stretched out beneath them, Lucifer gave himself a moment to brush back the tangled hair from her face. He leaned closer and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I will make this right.” Despite the cording of his muscles that ached to keep her safe in his arms, Lucifer released her then. Sitting Gabriel in her own blood, he tore strips from the bottom of her damaged robe. Around and around her thigh he wrapped the dark material, tugging it tight in a way that made Gabriel gasp as he tied it off. He winced and moved on to her wing.
“Lucifer, slow down. Breathe for me.”
Lucifer heard the words and felt her tacky hand on his forearm, but he could not stop. Wrapping the severed tip of her wing with shaking hands, he was reminded of the sight of her fully grounded above. The jagged stumps of her wings protruding and bloody was one of the worst things he could ever imagine happening. This was only a fraction of that, one wing, the last third of the length sheared clean off, leaving white bone and silver bloodied hacked feathers as proof. It could have been so much worse. And without light to infuse into her, this time he could have lost her for good.
An awkward patter of feet brought her head up as her other pet clumsily loped into the chamber.
“Zax!”
Battered and bleeding, hobbling on three paws, he ran faster at the sound of Gabriel’s cry.
Lucifer wanted to be happy for Gabriel, he wanted to feel her utter relief. But then he saw her hand.
The flesh was gone, leaving raw bone that was marbled black and white and silver. Eyes skittering he saw stray black drops of cooled lava across the floor, leading to a door that had never been there before. Lucifer knew at once how Darius had gotten to her…and he knew what she had resorted to in order to fend him off.
“I know you are scared. You are worried.” Gabriel continued to talk, her voice somehow calm as he tied off the wing to stem the blood loss. “But you cannot let the darkness in. You cannot let it control you.”
So consumed by the act of getting to her and ensuring she was tended to, Lucifer hadn’t noticed, he hadn’t even felt it. But Gabriel had, as had Zax who continued to whine while Zallina circled from a safer distance. Lucifer’s entire body was alight again, flames licking every inch of him like a living, moving second skin—except for his forearms and hands. The places where he touched her and the place she still clung to him were free of fire. The burning was a clue to what he was feeling, a sign of where his mind was rushing to without him even realizing. His entire body was scalding inside and out, burning with a rage he knew all too well, one that would not back down until it was paid off.
Lucifer rolled up from his knees, barely feeling the loss of her boney touch as his course of action was set in stone. His breath became slow and steady, deeply filling his lungs with purpose. His sight of her kneeling on the ground, hands clasped as if begging almost took him back down. But he would not give in. Not now. Not ever. He would do anything to keep her safe. Even if it meant breaking for her. “I will never let anyone hurt you again.”
“Lucifer, no!”
Lucifer was running before Gabriel could reach out to catch him, his fingers in his mouth delivering a high-pitched whistle from his lips. “Zallina, Zax. Kill anyone who comes near Gabriel.” And then he leaped through the flames of a window and spread his arms out like wings.
Chapter Eleven
Crows appeared like a black projectile from the sky, splitting from one swirling mass into two that shifted and transformed. Claws stabbed into Lucifer’s outstretched arms, hitting bone as they anchored in. The tug up as their small wings beat as one had streams of silvery black trailing from his arms and shoulders as they lifted him up into the red-tinted sky. Letting the birds keep him aloft, safe now that his fire had absorbed back into his body, Lucifer’s blinding need to find Darius was fed by the fear that his enemy might escape, that he would survive and plot to take the love he could not live without.
Lucifer scoured the terrain. With his guards moving with purpose through the city, and more now marking the prison cave entrance, there was no hope for Darius to get to Cyrus again. Heading to the maze was a death sentence. And the mines were too heavily guarded to be an option. The vast landscape of barren black ash with nothing but a few sparse dead trees offered no cover. Which left only one place to run to, one place to use what he had stolen from Gabriel.
Directing his makeshift wings with an outstretched hand, Lucifer soared across Hell, covering the distance in seconds. Reaching the mountains that led up and then down to the fiery lake where he’d fallen to Hell, he hovered above. A smile stretched Lucifer’s lips wide. There, amongst the rocky decent over the ridge, close to the spot Lucifer had been visited by Remiel, was Darius. Through the torn and ruined material that covered his chest and back, gory holes dotted his skin—from Gabriel’s attack. Her wing fragment was secured under his folded arm against his body, while he held a single long and glittery gray feather in his hands. Every few seconds, Darius would look up, his eyes darting through the gap between rocks to the city, the castle and its descending steps, and to every other place the soldiers were stationed. Though even when Darius saw no one was coming his way, when his focus returned to the feather, his features creased with distress and irritation. His lips moved quickly, his mouth tight as if he wanted to be shouting rather than grounding out rough words that were lost to the hot wind between them.
Lucifer’s smile grew. It wasn’t working. Gabriel was right, her feathers could not grant passage from this place.
The realization suddenly hit him like being pounced on by one of his hellhounds with their massive paws. It wasn’t working. No monster could use Gabriel’s feathers to escape this place whether permanently or even temporarily. Which meant…neither could she.
Gabriel could not escape Hell.
No one could.
The upsid
e was that this knowledge would make her less of a target. The downside? Seeing her light ruined by all this darkness…by Lucifer himself.
Hovering closer to the mountain, the injustice of the situation added to Lucifer’s simmering rage after the attack on Gabriel. There was no changing the past, and there was no fixing what could not be fixed. But there was something to be done. An action that welled inside him and begged to be let loose.
As Lucifer tensed his muscles in preparation, the whisper from his mouth was swept away with the wind. “Release.” As one, the crows retracted their claws and Lucifer fell. Plummeting down like a stone, he landed, one foot and one bent knee taking the impact as his fists claimed the rocky ground beneath him.
Darius whirled at the landing that shook the undulating terrain—not fast enough.
Sword already in hand, Lucifer drove it forward as his muscular thighs pushed him upright. The deadly tip sliced into Darius’s side right below his ribs, halting his turn to face the Dark Prince. Lucifer marched forward, burying the entire length of the blade through the man until the curved hilt stopped him. Head over Darius’s shoulder, Lucifer frowned, seeing a tiny dark brown speck amongst other large gray rocks. He swooped up the smooth oblong-shaped item that disappeared between his thumb and forefinger until he let it tumble down along his fingers onto his palm. A seed? In Hell? Getting over his surprise, Lucifer dropped it into his sheath, returning to task by grating in Darius’s ear, “I am going to make you wish you were dead, every day, for the rest of your sorry existence.”
Darius gargled and spluttered, spitting blood as the wing fell from under his arm. He grabbed the wet, protruding metal and tried to walk sideways off the spearing length. “You think I am afraid of your threats? I am already dead.”