Steel

Chapter 34

How were there so many of them? They poured from the sea like an oil spill, turning the entire bay black as they rushed through the ashen waves back towards the Manhattan coastline. Grey, unsurprisingly, seemed completely unfazed as his sights settled on the incoming lines. The Archangels around him still seemed drained, however. Grey's powers were going to be needed again to give them more time.

If he truly was siphoning power from me to do this, I hoped I would be able to remain conscious this time. The last time I'd used my soul outside of Heaven with this one sided bond, I'd fainted. Maybe Grey wasn't going to be siphoning as much of my power as Siena thought? I hoped that would be the case. Passing out in the middle of battle- I didn't think that would end well for me.

I watched as Grey dug his heels into the ash covered ground and outstretched his hand once more, releasing a breath as the power of his soul shook the Earth and obliterated more of Hell's ranks. This time, he directed his blow to the New Jersey coastline, and then once more to the Brooklyn's side. I still didn't feel much of a pull on my soul as he laid waste to Hell's ranks. Maybe Grey wasn't siphoning my soul at all.

He'd given the Brooklyn and Jersey legions of Heaven a little bit of reprieve, but the Demons outpouring from the sea were still hurtling towards the Manhattan coastline. Surely he had one more decent blow in him.

However, as Grey raised his hand to decimate Hell's forces once more, a force erupted from the center of Hell's invasion, soaring up several hundred feet and hovering for a moment. It was a woman- a devastatingly beautiful woman. Her skin was dark like God's was, her dark hair braided all the way down to her hips. Charcoal was smeared across her eyelids and the bridge of her nose, almost seamless with her pitch black eyes. Her wings, however, that was what had surprised me the most.

Pitch black feathered wings. She had been an Angel once.

Grey had once told me that his wings were the darkest he had ever come across. Unfortunately for him, I felt as if he'd found his match. Possibly in more ways than one.

I glanced down towards Grey, who seemed oddly confused, as if he didn't know who this woman was either. Michael and the other Archangels, though, they did. I watched as they all took several steps back, eyes wide with either astonishment or fear, I couldn't tell.

"Sie, who's that?" I breathed out, turning my attentions back to Hell's Angel.

"I think- I'm not sure, I wasn't an Angel when she was around, but- I think that's the original Angel of Death. Thanatiel. I'd always assumed she'd died, that God had her killed or something. I never thought she would allow two Angels with the power of Death to exist at once," Siena shook her head in disbelief.

Holy shit. We were screwed. The reason Lucifer had been so confident- it was because he had found her and recruited her. We both had Death on our side.

Grey had explained to me that there was an Angel before him who hadn't wanted to be the Angel of Death and had given it up, only to disappear and never be heard from again. Her leaving had resulted in his Creation.

I watched Grey as he seemed to come to the same realization Siena and I had. I could feel the sinking feeling in his stomach from here, the dawning that this really could be the end. He was fighting himself- there was some sort of ambiguity in him- I couldn't tell what it was. Grey felt like he was being pulled in two different directions, and he didn't know which way to go. What was he confused about?

"Jo-," Siena began, but her voice was cut off by a massive wave of power that shot across the bay from the woman. The ocean waves appeared to split in half as it cut across the water towards the land. It crackled like lightning in the air, the smell of sulfur burning in the back of my throat.