Chapter 26
What Lucius hadn’t explained was that we now had to restore some kind of order to the city. It wouldn’t have been too bad if there wasn’t the very real possibility of more rebel demons lurking on the streets. It was doubtful that Claudia could have managed all of the destruction and panic alone. She had with just thirty men and a small pack of hell hounds. And that’s all it was, a fledgling pack. Caius and his brother had informed us that there were still thirty or so hellhounds unaccounted for. I shuddered at the thought.
Swinging my sword through the air in a delicate arc, to distract myself from the tension thrumming through my veins, I sighed as its deadly whistle streaked past my ear. I had been walking for hours but there was nothing and no one to be seen, just streets of burnt out cars and ransacked homes.
It was going too smoothly and as soon as the thought entered my mind I cursed myself for it. Because it was like I had drawn a target on my back. A growl rippled outwards from the gaping doorway of what was once a family home but was now a mere burnt out shell. I didn’t even have to turn to see what was lurking there.
The hellhound taunted me. I could feel its gaze upon me as it sat on its haunches on the top step. And yet, it did not pounce. It was waiting.
My hackles rose on instinct, and my wings flared out to the sides. Every little detail screamed out at me while I quietened the voice inside my head that wanted nothing more than to run away. I shivered. Now that I was paying attention and not swinging my sword around like it was a toy, I could feel something in the air. It was different – uncomfortable. It was like ants were crawling all over my skin.
Glancing the left, I was greeted by the sight of an ordinary and rather unassuming row of houses. It was so plain and yet it felt more extraordinary in comparison to any sensation I had even felt and not it a good way.
“What the -?”
“Please do not finish that sentence.” A cool and even voice spoke softly from behind me. And yet the tone of voice was so commanding, it hit me with enough force that I felt like I had been punched in the chest.
Spinning on my heel as I gasped in desperate breaths of air, I came face to face with... I paused and frowned as I took in what could only be an angel. No, I corrected myself; he must have been an arch-angel because there was pure power oozing from his very being. And staring into those beautiful baby blues I knew my instincts were right for he looked too much like Lucius and yet not enough.
“You defy all logic and yet here you are. My father’s pet masquerading as one of us.” He chortled like it was a joke but there was no twinkle to his stare, no mirth in the action.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I cut through his horrible giggles, my tone belying just how false those words were. “But who are you?”
That brought him up short. Taller than Lucius but slimmer, this man exuded power. He was thin and wiry yet the slightly gaunt look to his facial features only made his glare more sharp and cutting.
“Who I am is none of your concern. What matters is I have been watching for many centuries and just as it was all about to go my way, you, a mere woman, had to go and foil my plans. Not this time though, I will get what I want.”
I opened my mouth to ask what on earth the crazy bugger was talking about when he held his hand out to the side and the air thickened until a long gleaming blade appeared within his grasp. It was so beautiful that I actually felt myself entranced by it as he wrapped is fingers loosely around the hilt and swished it through the air with practiced skill.
“Did you really think Claudia could figure this entire scheme by herself?” he laughed incredulously when he saw my expression. “Do be serious woman. Do you think we advertise how to break the seals like we are a fat balding man announcing the weather? If we did that there would be hell on earth already.” The archangel clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “I really don’t understand what makes you so special. I think my father has finally gone crazy.”
He curled his lip and turned his face away as disdain registered in every part of him form.
Taking his distraction as an opportunity, I grasped my own glowing blade in both hands and tightened my grasp around it. A moment later I was swinging it up through the air towards the man before me. A dozen fears ran through my mind as I watched his eyes jolt into awareness, his focus staring at me with incredulity while my blade swung towards him. In that second I almost regretted the action, but there was no undoing it. The blade had been swung and it was getting closer to him as the milliseconds passed.
And it was the open hostility in his glare that made my stomach roll and bile to well up in my throat. That glare promised revenge for my actions. It was only made worse when, before I could get within an inch of his skin, his blade was there meeting mine.
The sudden weight pushing against my blade had me stumbling back a few steps. I fought to regain my stance but those lips which had been pressed into a line only a moment before were now twisted up into an ugly smirk. He pressed forwards, his incredible strength urging me back so that I tripped over my own feet trying to maintain my balance.
And then, under the weight of his brute force I felt my own sword waver in and out of existence. One second it was there and the next it wasn’t. Blinking I concentrated with all my might but the archangel standing toe to toe with me just laughed. He laughed so hard that the tremors shook my already straining arms.
“You don’t have the strength of will or the faith in your blade to kill me.” He pushed me away carelessly but with enough force that I stumbled and fell backwards.
My bum hit the floor so hard that my skeleton trembled with the force. I also must have bitten my tongue because the muscle throbbed and blood pooled into my mouth. My sword sputtered and died out like its batteries had run out, bouncing once, twice and three times before disappearing with little fanfare.
I knew then that my time was limited. I was nowhere near strong enough to defeat this traitor, so I did the only thing that I could. I talked.
“Lucius will stop you.” I taunted before spitting the blood from my mouth onto his shoes.
The archangel’s lips curled up in disgust as he peered down at his blood and saliva covered leather moccasins. Before I could react, his foot was kicking out. It caught me under the chin and my eyes rolled back in my head as the force of the blow shuddered through my skull.
My head snapped back on my neck but I resolutely brought my gaze back to his and stared at him with open defiance. He would not defeat me, no matter what he did. He would have to kill me first.
“You think you’re brave don’t you.” He didn’t wait for my response. Instead, he tilted my face so that I was staring directly into his eyes. “Even if you were to strike me down here and now it would not change a thing for there are many others just waiting to take my place and bring hell upon earth.”
“Why?” I questioned. It was something that plagued me with each and every loony tune who tried to destroy the world as I knew it.
“Because I can and because none of you apes did anything to deserve my father’s love and respect. You just keep on taking everything for granted and destroying everything in your path. What makes you so special that you are granted chance after chance?”
I opened my mouth to retort but the blade of his angel sword bit into the flesh of my neck hard enough to draw blood.
“Enough talk. You will die here and the gates to hell will open.”
I frowned at the man and he laughed.
“Haven’t you ever wondered what you are, what your markings on your back mean? The baby was a nice distraction – a back-up plan if you will. But you, you were the actual target. You were born a human, turned into an angel and yet are destined to be the right hand and wife of the devil. Ironic isn’t it, all this time you have been trying to protect the little one when all along you should have been trying to protect yourself.”
I smiled at the man then, my eyes travelling past him for a moment but flicking back to his face that in his winner’s speech he did not even notice.
“Nice to know. I could say the same for you though,” I murmured, pushing myself up from my prone position on the floor and instead glancing up into the face that was so much like my Lucius’ and yet was so very different.
My smile turned into one of triumph when the archangel balked at my words.
“You should have watched some human films. You would learn that the villain who talks and tells the victim his plans always meets a sticky end.”
The archangel frowned at me and cocked his head on the side looking a bit like a curious puppy but the resemblance ended a second later. The sound of a blade piercing through flesh turned my stomach but I kept my eyes open and felt a small bit of triumph as I watched the archangel look something other than smug.
“Is stupid isn’t it? If you paid attention to us apes you might have learnt something.”
I climbed to my feet just as the winged man wavered on his. The golden haired beauty dropped heavily down onto his knees as his eyes dropped down to his chest where the tip of a blade had burst out of his chest, right about where the human heart was located.
Despite the grim scene before me, I smiled as my eyes fell upon the man with his hands around the hilt of the sword. With a yank Lucius Satani pulled it free and the archangel was left gasping and sputtering while his hand, which wasn’t holding his sword, tried to stem the flow of blood.
“You okay?” Lucius asked, as he shook his sword and the blood absorbed into the blade causing it to glow bright before it vanished in to thin air.
I nodded my head in answer and then all I knew was pain. Gasping for breath, I glanced down to find myself run through by a glowing blade held in the wounded archangel’s hand. My eyes looked up to meet Lucius’ in an involuntary action. I felt my heart clench as I looked upon his face. His features were all twisted up into a grimace but it was those startling and icy blues that broke my heart. They held so much sorrow and pain -- it was like he was already seeing me as dead.
The archangel on the floor smiled at me as blood bubbled from his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
“You have taken my life but you won’t stop me completing my work.” He laughed manically and his eyes dropped down to the road at my feet.
We all followed the direction of his gaze and in an instant I felt sick. Where my blood had touched the tarmac it fizzled and bubbled. The earth beneath my feet gave a shudder.
“Barachiel what have you done?” Lucius hollered, completely ignoring the dying angel to scoop me up into his arms.
The archangel in question did nothing more that gurgle out a laugh as he slumped back onto the ground to take his last few breaths. His chest rose and fell once more before it stilled.
My eyes drifted from the hard planes of Lucius’ chest as he held me close and quickly drifted up to meet the eyes of the man that was to be my destiny.
“Fly me away angel,” I whispered with a lazy and somewhat weak grin. “If I am to die, don’t let it be here.”
My head lolled to the side and I stared down at the ground which had cracked open where each drop of my blood had fallen.
“This must be one of the gateways. If I die here it will bring hell on earth.” I met his gaze once more, forcing my attention away from the floor so I could look up at him. He growled and looked away for a second but I forced his attention back to me, squeezing tighter than necessary when a wave of pain coursed through my stomach. I shuddered, my eyes fluttering shut in pain.
Through desperate pant, I had to force the next words out between my lips.
“Fly me away my angel.”
Lucius mumbled something, the rumble vibrating against my ear a mere second before his big strong wings flapped so powerfully that we shot straight up in the air. He hovered for a second and then started to drop only for his beautiful wings to get caught by the wind. It carried us across the city so quickly that it would have made me dizzy if my head wasn’t already spinning from all of the blood I was losing.
I felt my eyes going heavy and I wanted to sleep so desperately but the voice in my ear, the deep rumbling voice kept shouting at me to wake up. I smiled and felt my heart beat a little faster in my chest as the fast moving air whipped my hair about my face. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“You should really let me sleep Lucius,” I said with a grimace as he thumped back on to the earth. “The sooner I sleep the sooner I can heal.”
“No, the sooner you sleep the sooner you…” He stopped himself from finishing the sentence and I felt him physically shaking himself for even thinking it. “No, you’ll stay awake until I find you some help.”
I would have hit him upside the head for his stubbornness if the pain wasn’t becoming so unbearable that it was getting too difficult for me to focus.
“Let me sleep before I grab you prized jewels so you can understand just how much it hurts.” I muttered prying my eyes open enough that I could glare at my fallen angel.
His concern only made him look more beautiful to me and it was with tears in my eyes that I placed my hand on his cheek, my thumb rubbing against his stubbly chin in a caress.
“Trust me Lucius, everything will be okay.” And as I said the words I knew there was no lie to them. I knew that everything would be fine because in my mind I could see him, the smiling man in the Stetson telling me that everything would work out as it should. “Your dad will make sure everything will be fine. “
He stared at me for several long seconds, his icy blues boring into mine. He must have seen something but I couldn’t really take the time to care. I just felt the warmth of his breath as it fanned across my face, felt the tender and tentative caress against my lips.
“Go to sleep Miss Holmes,” he whispered, his lips brushing mine as he spoke.
And with a sigh, that was exactly what I did.