Kael jolted upright, bits of brick and cement crumbling off him noisily. He peered through the haze of dust that had settled in the air and saw Rafael already standing, Seth beside him, and Michael rising to his feet while assisting Julius who had a deep, bloody gash down his shin.
Looking further, Kael realised they had fallen into the cells beneath the Halls. He tilted his gaze up to see the gaping hole in the ceiling, which was now just a pile of rubble at their feet.
'You see, Animas,' Rafael said, and his voice caught Kael by surprise; it wasn't edged with a growl, or with that familiar hot-tempered anger he usually displayed. Instead, his voice was hard like steel, cold like ice. The Angel looked to Kael with eyes of solid gold and said, 'This is why she must be killed.'
As Rafael stalked past him, Kael frowned. Fury could have killed them, could have burst through Michael's neck with her blood bullet, but she hadn't. Why? She didn't seem the type to spare people, in fact Kael was pretty damn sure she wasn't the type at all, and yet she had.
Kael rose to his feet as Michael followed Rafael, leaving Seth to take the job of supporting Julius.
'Why did the sanctuary ward not activate?' Kael asked as he caught up with Michael.
It was Julius who answered though. 'The gateway rooms are neutral ground. There are occasions where we need to transport demons through, such as into Alcatraz, and the only way to do that is by passing between the gateway rooms. Having the sanctuary ward in there would slow down these transportations.'
Made sense, he supposed. How he was going to combat the sanctuary ward when it activated, however, was a different question. He'd be rendered useless in a fight. 'Where will Fury be going to in the Halls?'
'The library,' Julius answered once more. 'It's the focal point of Lucifer's seal.'
Kael looked to Michael, who had dash of blood at his neck where Fury had dug her bullet into. 'Couldn't you and Rafael simply...fly up?'
'We do not fly, Kael,' Michael told him gently, in a voice he could only imagine Michael reserved for the students he taught while playing the part of an ordinary teacher. 'Our wings are protection, our defence, and as far as transportation goes we can portal ourselves between the Halls and our home, or open Doorways otherwise, but that is all.'
Since Kael didn't want an elaboration on the word "home", he didn't ask anything further. He and Michael caught up to Rafael just as he slammed open the door at the top of the stairwell, the bright light of the vestibule area flooding the threshold. The vestibule was just a plain, hexagonal room that connected the jail area to the next corridor. Glancing up, Kael saw the word Luella painted abstractly on the ceiling which he knew meant atonement or punishment in Latin.
Kael reached Rafael's side, and the Angel cast him an irritable side-long glance. 'You interfere in any of what Michael and I have been assigned to do,' he warned, 'and I will make sure you are banished to Purgatory, understood?'
Kael gave him an unwavering look. 'Then I guess I'll be moving to Purgatory, because I won't let you kill Taryn.'
'She isn't—'
A sudden boom surged through the Immortal Halls, making them pause. There was no force, no energy or wind; it was just a sound. Rafael pushed through the next door and they arrived at the main hall from under one of the staircases ascending to the mezzanine floor. Kael's eyes fell to the first two bodies he could see, blood staining the once pristine marble floor in stark streaks.
Rafael stalked ahead, ignoring the bodies, and Kael followed. From the corner of his eye he saw Michael momentarily reach down to the fallen Immortals and touch his index finger to their forehead, as if blessing them.
The library doors had been torn open, one laying on the floor outside with a large split down the middle while the other was just barely hanging on by its hinges, threatening to fall at the slightest jostle.
Rafael turned to Julius and Seth and said, 'Get everyone out of the building – we can't afford any more deaths in the Halls,' before storming through to the library, Kael and Michael right behind him.
Kael almost tripped over his own feet when he saw what awaited them in the centre of the library, because no longer was it Fury. It was Taryn. Her back was to them and she was looking up as if admiring the gallery above, where more books lined the walls and couches offered comfortable places for visitors to sit and read. He could've pretended, if just for a moment, that she was actually Taryn – until she turned around, revealing red eyes like burning rubies. She smiled.
He was about to question why she had taken up Taryn's appearance when he realised the sanctuary ward hadn't activated yet. Perhaps it couldn't sense her ill-intent when she was portraying Taryn? Still, he'd rather the sanctuary ward activate and send him to his knees than have Fury wear Taryn's face like she was.
'Taryn!' Seth shouted in surprise and Kael turned, grabbing Seth by the elbow just as he was about to rush toward Taryn, and pulled him back.
Rafael shot Seth a sharp glare. 'I told you to get everyone out of the building.'
'Julius is handling it,' Seth snapped, and for a moment Rafael looked as if he were about to give Seth a strict reprimand, but he tore his attention away from Seth a second later and back to Fury. Seth tugged his elbow out from Kael's grip, but he stepped back as well, remembering who was really in front of them.
'You won't achieve anything here, Fury,' said Michael calmly, as if there was a part of him that believed Fury could be reasoned with. 'The sanctuary ward has been strengthened since you woke and it will activate the moment you make your threat known.'
'Oh?' said Fury, and even her voice sounded like Taryn. It had lost its dangerous edge, the tone that had helped distinguish Fury's voice from Taryn's when she spoke. 'I think you're underestimating me. Shall I test the sanctuary ward for you?'
She raised her arms and just as it had happened the first time, her clothes began to meld with her skin into the demonic armour that concealed her torso, shoulders and legs, leaving her bare arms to be entwined in the markings of both Hell and Heaven's signums. As she transformed, Kael felt the weight of the sanctuary ward settling on his shoulders, pushing him to the ground, and above him the large symbol traced across the ceiling in stark black lines, edged by an effervescent blue light.
Kael dropped to his knees, instinctively trying to oppose the sanctuary ward, but the weight pressing him down only grew heavier, as if matching his resistance and then strengthening to overpower it. He craned his neck, seeing Seth glancing between him and Fury, because Fury didn't seem affected by the sanctuary ward at all. She stood tall, watching Kael with a mixture of amusement and sympathy before lifting her gaze to the roof where the sanctuary ward's symbol glared down at her, as if demanding obedience.
'Aboleo,' she said – and suddenly the symbol was wreathed in red, overwhelming the blue light like a travelling flame devouring everything in its path.
'No!' Julius shouted just as he dashed into the library, but it was too late.
The sanctuary ward's symbol shattered.
Kael covered his head, expecting shards to rain down on them, but instead the fractured pieces of the sanctuary ward fell like red snow, dissolving as they reached the ground. Kael realised that he was no longer being weighed down and quickly climbed to his feet, returning his gaze to Fury who was admiring the light show, like a proud artist before their work.
'That shouldn't have been possible,' Julius murmured, stumbling forward as he stared up at the ceiling, which was now covered in scorched outlines from where the sanctuary ward had been destroyed.
'You seem to be under the impression that I am at the exact level of strength I was at when I awoke,' said Fury, almost sounding incredulous. 'Has it not occurred to you that I may be growing stronger each day I walk freely?'
'You aren't free,' Seth protested. 'You're still in Taryn's body. You're not your own person, Fury.'
'And yet I'm growing stronger because of that very reason,' Fury stated matter-of-factly. 'I feed off Taryn's negativity, you see, and unbeknownst to all of you your actions aided in this. Every lie she was told, every secret she discovered,' Fury met Kael's eyes, 'even every kiss you shared and then every time you pulled away, were hits to her, one after the other. She can hear everything even now, you know, and I can feel her despair while she regards you all.
'You the Angels, once people she considered friends now enemies uncaring of whether she died; the childhood friend, who had so easily lied to her and now fears her true nature; and lastly, the false uncle,' said Fury, and Kael waited for her to address him as well – but she didn't. 'The false uncle,' she continued, 'who kept her ignorant of what was to become of her, who allowed her to pretend that she would live a normal life, that she wouldn't one day be consumed by the darkness instilled in her soul. Not to mention, the truth you have been hiding from her about what happened to her parents.'
Kael looked across to Julius, his eyes widened with shock. 'I don't know what happened to Taryn's parents.'
'Lies,' Fury hissed, but it wasn't just her voice. Kael had heard Taryn's too.
Kael remembered Julius' words as he recounted Taryn's story to him, the truth behind what she was and her childhood. He had said that Taryn's parents were forced to leave the mortal realm, and knowing that they had committed some sort of crime because of Taryn's birth Kael had assumed there was punishment. What that punishment was, Kael had only been able to guess.
But he knew it now.
Kael looked over to Rafael and Michael, realisation sinking in.
'Oh,' said Fury, pressing a hand to her chest. 'I think I may have actually felt Taryn's heart break just now. Such fragile things, these hearts.'
'Regardless of what lies or what truths you tell her,' Kael said, 'I know Taryn, and I know she won't let you break her. She might be hurt, she might be suffering, but she won't give in to you.'
Fury raised her hand, her palm open toward them, and she said, 'I beg to differ.'
The library was suddenly filled with light, light that lifted from the ground like red stalagmites. The energy that surged through the room tore around them like it was simply wind, but Kael felt the power across his skin as if embers were being carried amongst the gale. Fury stood in the centre of it all, the red light intersecting through the room in the shape of a pentagram, but she stood so still that it would seem not even the most vicious wind could knock her down, though her hair whipped around her just as it had when she stepped through the torn Doorway, as if the energy she conjured was from her very soul, so full of hatred and power that when released it was a force unmatched.
She looked formidable; Hell personified.
'The seal is breaking!' shouted Julius. 'We need to—'
Rafael cut Julius off by releasing his wings, and then he charged through the red light toward Fury, a blade unsheathing from thin air for Rafael to wield.
Kael, just like the day Fury had woken, was torn. How could he stop Fury, save Taryn, and also stop Rafael? Michael didn't seem as eager to kill Fury like Rafael did, which meant Kael had one less Angel to worry about, but Rafael was fearsome in his own right – and Kael didn't want to have to fight him as well as a demon as powerful as Fury.
Kael saw Fury break away from her position as Rafael reached her, crystallised whips forming from the blood she drew as she cut her palms. With her distracted, the red light marking the pentagram weakened and it must have meant something to Michael, because he darted across to one of the pentagram's points and knelt, pressing his hand to the ground. He began to chant something in Latin and the gold glow that enveloped his skin trailed down toward the floor, like water running off glass. As it reached the floor, the red light changed to gold.
Michael was reversing what Fury had started.
'Seth,' Michael called, 'I need you to help me with this. It's a simple transference of energies so ours will counteract Fury's, do you understand?'
Seth nodded, so Michael gestured him to the next point of the pentagram while he went to another, the first now completely golden right up to the centre where Fury had begun the ritual. Kael was just about to return his focus to Rafael and Fury when Julius came to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder.
'If you tell me there's nothing I can possibly do, I may just kill you,' Kael warned, turning to him.
Julius shook his head. 'I was going to say that we need to save Taryn, no matter what else.'
'Are you offering to distract Rafael?' Kael asked.
'I don't think it will be that simple,' he replied.
'Reasoning with him won't work either.'
'Then we reason with Taryn.'
Kael's brow lifted, surprised by the statement.
'She's in there, Kael. Fury admitted that herself,' Julius said, his gaze steadfastly watching Rafael and Fury as they dodged around each other, crystal red whips like extensions of Fury's fingers parrying Rafael's blazing swords. 'We need to reach her. Whether or not Fury was speaking the truth when she explained how she overwhelms Taryn, you were right; Taryn won't allow her body to be controlled. If there's a way out, she'll take it. We just need to give her one.'
But was it easier said than done?
'When Seth and I found Fury at St Paul's church, I took some of Fury's energy,' said Kael, seeing Julius' gaze snap across to him from the corner his eye. 'When I did this, I saw Taryn. She appeared like an apparition and she spoke to me, but when Fury pulled away Taryn disappeared. I think my absorption ability weakened Fury's hold over Taryn enough that Taryn could break through.'
'Can you do it again?' asked Julius, but there was hesitance in the question because of the risk the idea carried.
Kael would have to get close enough to Fury while stopping her from moving away, and she was quite obviously stronger than she had been before. Besides, he doubted Fury would give him another opportunity to get a hold of her like in the church.
If only he were stronger.
'I have an idea,' Kael said suddenly.
'What is it?'
His brow drew in. 'Its best you don't know.'
'Then how am I supposed to know if it goes wrong?' Julius questioned, his brow drawing in with suspicion.
'Because if it goes wrong,' he said carefully, 'you'll have to kill me.'
A flash caught Kael's eye and he turned back to where Rafael and Fury fought, a clash of gold and red in the centre of the library. Rafael's wings glinted like solid gold under sunlight as they arched upward and curled, and Kael saw the tip of each translucent feather harden into steel tips. They pointed toward Fury, who was rising back to her feet after being knocked down. The symbols on her body were moving across her skin, tracing the curves of her forearm and up under her armour, then curving about her neck to sweep her jaw, and though Kael knew them to be powerful signums, he also knew she couldn't use them on Rafael. Being an Angel, he was superior – Hell's Signums couldn't be used on him, and Kael doubted Fury could use the Heaven Signum's. He suspected they were only there because of Taryn's pure blood.
Kael saw Rafael go in for a strike and his first instinct was to run forward, to impede Rafael, but a sudden rumble through the library stopped him. It stopped everyone. Kael braced himself as the rumbling grew louder – but it was the sound that was intensifying, not the shaking at his feet. It was like a jet plane was overhead, or a semi-trailer was thundering past, though he knew that couldn't be possible. He looked back to Fury, but she seemed just as perplexed by the sound as everyone else.
Something black and sharp burst through the ceiling between Rafael and Fury, hitting the ground so heavily that it dinted the floor, making the marble ripple as if it were as supple as rubber. Thick smoke, looking almost like oil in water, lingered in the air from the ceiling to the floor as the creature unfolded its body and stood up, revealing the shape of a human man. The veil of black that covered all skin and any indistinguishable feature began to dissipate, like water evaporating, and as the figure underneath began to appear Kael found that although he didn't recognise the face, he knew the demonic energy rolling off it.
'Asmodeus,' said Rafael, disbelief in his voice. He looked, for once, caught off-guard.
Asmodeus had a new body, still male, young and blonde, and he lightly brushed down his grey suit then threw a cursory glance across the library. A smile lifted his lips as he said, 'Room for one more?'