Samantha blinked. “Did you just call me by my name?”
“...No.”
“Yes, you did. I just heard you call me Samantha.”
“You must be hearing things.”
“Look at how touching this is,” Mephisto said, the marionettes by the door parting to allow him admission. He walked over to them, his footsteps calm, composed, and deadly. “You two seem to be having such a nice, precious bonding moment that I almost hate having to break it up.”
“How are you moving?” asked Samantha, her eyes wide. Tristin understood her shock. Mephisto shouldn’t have been able to walk and maintain a barrier at the same time. It went against everything they knew about that particular ability.
“My dear. You should know that not everything you know about us demons is accurate.” Mephisto’s tone was patronizing. “The fact that I am standing here before you now is proof of this.” He spread his arms wide, as if to emphasize this fact.
Chills traveled up Tristin’s spine. Fear. Primal and all-encompassing. It consumed him. He wanted to run, but his legs had turned into led. He wanted to scream, but his throat was constricted, his air passage blocked. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. He wanted to do so many things, but the fear, the terror, the overwhelming and insurmountable self-assured knowledge that he was going to die held him in place.
Was this what Christian had felt the first time he’d gone out into the field? Had this terror overwhelmed his friend when he found himself alone, fighting against a demon that could destroy cities with ease?
Probably not. His friend had never feared death. Sometimes, he almost thought Christian was walking toward it, seeking his end in order to atone for sins he had not committed.
“Now then.” Mephisto’s smile revealed his sharp fangs. On his pale face, and combined with those sickly yellow Sith eyes, he almost looked like a vampire instead of a demon. “I do believe it is time we put this little chase to an end. I’ll admit, it has been fun. You gave me the turnaround and evaded my grasp longer than I care to admit, but the fun, I’m afraid, has officially come to an end.”
There was a soft creaking, the leather that wrapped around Zaphkial’s handle straining in Samantha’s grip. The soles of her boots slid across the floor, squeaking as she lowered her stance. Right hand on the hilt of her sword, left hand holding the sheath, it was clear that the woman was not going down without a fight.
Tristin, despite his own terror reducing him to silent quaking, felt admiration for this woman. That she could stand in the face of her demise, look death in the eye without a hint of fear, was impressive.
He wished he could be like that, even if it was the pipe dream of an idiot. Unlike Christian, who seemed to rush toward death with near suicidal tendencies and had actually created a style based around that concept, and Samantha, who accepted her death but was determined to make her enemies work for it, Tristin was a coward. He didn’t want to die.
“Kill them.”
Time seemed to slow. Tristin could actually see the marionettes’ fingers as they started to squeeze the triggers. For some reason, his life did not flash before his eyes, making him suspect that sort of thing only happened in movies and books. What did happen, however, was that he finally resigned himself to his fate. There was no escaping this end.
And then a miracle happened.
The sound of shattering glass rang loudly in everyone’s ears. He, Samantha, and even Mephisto looked up in shock to see the large glass roof, with its beautiful tinted windows, shatter as a pair of black boots crashed through it.
A figure attached to those boots descended to the ground, a black coat whirling around their body. As glass rained down all around them, causing both Samantha and Tristin to raise their arms over their head, the figure hit the ground boots first. The marble cracked, the noise echoing along the chamber, accompanied by the sounds of a thousand glass shards hitting the ground.
Black coat ruffling, the figure stood up, revealing it to be a man, his face youthful and pale. His chin was sharp and pointed. Icy blue eyes stared out from underneath finely combed bangs. His hair, long and dark, the color of midnight, created a startling contrast to his pale face.
His clothing matched his features perfectly. His black coat, long and flowing down to his knees, looked like the suede jacket of a nobleman from the renaissance era. Black boots ran halfway up his calves. Branded and buckled, they shone as if just polished.
Most girls would probably consider him handsome, Tristin thought with a pang of jealousy, but there were three aspects about him that stood out the most.
His ears. They were pointed and elven. A most unusual feature on anyone, regardless of species.
And his eyes. Bright yellow irises shone with a brilliant luminescence. They radiated power. Dark power, which was emphasized by the lack of white in his eyes. The entire sclera was black.
The third aspect, and probably the most important, were the black angel wings that stretched out behind his back. Four sets of two black angel wings. They flapped and extended to at least three feet in length before retracting.
“A fallen angel,” Samantha practically hissed.
Tristin shared her trepidation. Things were already bad enough with just Mephisto and his puppets. Adding a fallen angel to the equation, and one that was a leader of the Grigori, if the eight black wings were any indication, was just asking for shit to hit the fan.
“Kokabiel!” Mephisto snarled at the fallen angel before them.
Tristin felt like a bolt of lightning had struck him. This was Kokabiel? The Kokabiel? The strongest warrior to have graced the fallen angels? A being that was said to have been birthed by God for the sole purpose of slaying demons? That Kokabiel?
“We are so screwed,” Tristin muttered. Samantha did not argue with him.
“Good evening, Mephisto.” Kokabiel’s smile was that of a predator about to pounce on his prey. “I hope you are up for another battle. I am rather interested in paying you back for that scar you gave me two hundred years ago.” The fallen angel pressed a hand against his chest, perhaps where the aforementioned scar was.
Mephisto looked nervous. A trickle of sweat, shining in red in the light, ran down his face. “How did you get here? I would have felt it if you broke through my barrier.”
“You are assuming that I broke through your barrier at all,” Kokabiel said, still smiling. “I have been in Las Vegas for a while now. When your barrier went up, I was already inside of it.”
A grimace crossed Mephisto’s face. “I am only here for the humans.”
“And I am here to stand in your path.” A brilliant light flared in the palm of Kokabiel’s hands. The light, which took the form of two spheres, elongated and sharpened into a pair of wicked-looking spears, which the fallen angel clasped in his hands. The smile grew wider. “Now dance with me.”
Kokabiel was swift to move on the offensive. He rushed forward, his feet seemingly gliding over the ground. He thrust out his left hand, stabbing a marionette through the chest and causing it to burst into ashes less than an instant later. He then spun around, the spear in his right hand slashing the head off another puppet, which also became naught but ashes.
So, that was the fabled spear of light, a gift only the angels and fallen angels possessed. It was supposedly the last remnants of their God-given powers. What a terrifying ability.
As Kokabiel took the fight to Mephisto, who was forced to block the attack with his cane, Samantha darted forward. Keeping her body low to the ground as she ran about in a zigzag pattern, the woman reached the first group of marionettes in her path.
She released her blade from its sheath. As she thrust Zaphkiel forward, penetrating the face of a marionette, she brought the sheath down on the head of another. One demon went down like a puppet with its strings cut. The other was sent stumbling backwards. It righted itself, but soon found its head removed as Samantha’s sword sang out with a horizontal slash that went straight through its neck.
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br /> She spun around, then, ignoring the marionette as it clattered to the floor. Her next target, a puppet to her immediate left, tried to raise its gun and shoot her, but she divested it of its hand and then bisected it from the left hip to the right shoulder. In that same exact instant, she was already thrusting her sheath into the eye of another, shattering the glass ball with ease and making it tumbled backwards into a heap. Samantha then rotated a full 360 degrees and bent low, Zaphkiel extending out, cutting off the legs of six marionettes that were about to shoot her.
Moving to her feet, the woman was quick to reach a new target, her body spinning and twirling like a ballerina dancing in a ballet. Her dance was much deadlier than a ballerina’s, as the demons in her path soon found out. With grace, power, and speed, Samantha Gale carved a path through the marionettes that were still trying to bring their guns to bare, the woman never giving them a chance as she moved constantly, making getting a bead on her impossible.
Yet even the most powerful warriors eventually slow down, and Samantha was no different. The sound of a gunshot going off echoed like a thunderclap. Samantha yelped, then stumbled, the grip on her sheath slackening. As it fell to the floor, the woman grimaced, ignoring it and dashed to her next target.
Tristin found himself ducking down on all fours after the first gunshot went off. Unlike Samantha who began fighting with twice her usual viciousness, he began trying to crawl away from the battle. He moved on hands and knees, doing everything humanly possible not to shriek like a little girl as the sounds of battle and Kokabiel’s insane laughter reverberated all around him. He didn’t want to be caught and killed because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Sanctuary was found in the form of the courtesy counter. He quickly hid behind it, ducking down, his hands over his head and his eyes clenched shut. Blood was pounding in his ears, rushing to his head. Dizziness warred with terror that only increased as the sounds of battle continued.
He had no clue how long the battle lasted, how long the explosions thundered around him, or the length of time Kokabiel’s laughter continued. He didn’t know. Time was indeterminable to him. Yet the battle did cease. At some point, the sounds of fighting stopped, the gunshots disappeared, and even the laughter was no more, almost like it had never happened.
Tristin peeked out from above the table. The marionettes were gone, either lying broken on the ground or turned to ash by the power of Kokabiel’s light spears. Mephisto was nowhere to be found. The barrier was still up, surprisingly, or maybe the fallen angel had put his own barrier in place. That, too, was a possibility.
Samantha was standing there, in the center of broken puppet bodies, blood dripping from a wound on her forehead, her left arm hanging uselessly by her side. The clothing she wore had several rips on them, the left strap was torn, the lower half below her breasts had been ripped off to reveal her toned stomach. Several nicks and cuts ran along both her arms and torso, the wounds leaving small trails of blood that roved across her porcelain skin.
Despite this, she stood tall, facing down Kokabiel, who stood in front of her, prepared to fight.
“Be at peace, Executioner,” Kokabiel said, raising a single hand. “I am not here to fight.”
Samantha did not look convinced. “Then just what are you here for?”
“You are asking the wrong person.” Kokabiel’s smile was somewhat self-depreciating. “I know not why I am here. It was merely on Azazel’s orders. ‘Go to Las Vegas. There, you will eventually run into two humans, members of the now defunct Executioners of the Catholic Church. You are to aid them in any way you can.’ was what he asked of me.”
“Azazel asked you to protect us?” Samantha appeared shocked. Truly shocked. Tristin didn’t blame her.
“Indeed.” Kokabiel nodded. “Though why he asked me to do such a thing, I’ve not a clue.” He shrugged. “I never know what goes through that man’s mind anymore. And it’s not like I truly care. My only desire is to find and fight powerful opponents. So long as I can do that, nothing else matters.”
Huh. So Kokabiel was a battle maniac? Somehow, Tristin should have figured that. Wasn’t he an angel originally bred for warfare and strife? That was probably why he had fallen in the first place.
“Azazel did want me to pass along a message for you,” Kokabiel added, causing Samantha, along with Tristin, to perk up. “He wanted me to tell you that the person you seek is located underneath Yellowstone Lake.”
“Christian,” Samantha muttered, her voice soft but still loud enough for Tristin to hear. What the hell was his friend doing all the way over in Yellowstone National Park? And why exactly was he under a lake?
“He also mentioned that after you find the person you seek, he wishes to meet with you two in order to discuss your coming war against the Catholic Church.”
“We’re not waging war against the Catholic Church.” Samantha scowled.
“Then you intend to let them destroy you?” asked Kokabiel, his voice placid, as if discussing the weather.
“Of course not,” Samantha practically spat. “But our enemy is not the Catholic Church. It’s―”
“I am not here to argue semantics with you, Executioner.” Kokabiel appeared the bastion of calm to Samantha’s stormy rage. Not a single feather on his wings were ruffled. “I am merely here to aid you in your time of need, and to pass along the message that my leader has requested of me.”
“Fine then,” Samantha spat. Her entire body shivered from head to toe. Tristin suspected that the only reason she had not launched herself at the fallen angel was because she knew her death would be a foregone conclusion if she did. “You can tell your leader that I have no intention of ever meeting with him.”
“I will be sure to tell him that, then.” Kokabiel shrugged, looking like he couldn’t care less. He probably didn’t. The fallen angel appeared to care for nothing other than the chance to fight strong opponents. “Though you would be wise to heed his request, and you would be unwise not to meet with him. Azazel is many things, eccentric and atypical being but a few aspects to him. Above all else, he is knowledgeable about the world and the new situation we find ourselves in. It would be remiss of you not to at least hear what he has to say.”
Samantha said nothing, but the way she clenched her hands into fists, which were shaking, told Tristin all he needed to know about her emotional state.
“Regardless, I have now finished my task, so I shall take my leave.” With a powerful flap of all eight wings, Kokabiel took to the sky. As he reached the shattered glass roof, he paused, then looked down at Samantha while Tristin walked over to her. “Should you choose to meet with Azazel, you will find him at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and Cabins in Wyoming two weeks from now. He will remain there for a month. I recommend you go meet with him. You will be sure to find it... enlightening.”
Kokabiel put on a sudden burst of speed. There was the sound of shattering glass. The red haze that had been hovering over the world was lifted. The bodies and pile of ashes disappeared, but the damage remained as the barrier that separated Tristin and Samantha from the real world was released.
And that’s when Tristin realized just what kind of chaos their battle had unleashed. Even if people couldn’t see the battle that had taken place, the damage done to the walls, floor, ceiling, and columns had caused everyone to panic. People were running every which way. They shouted and cried, panicking. It was a threnody of voices striving to be heard over the cacophony of pandemonium.
“I think it would be best if we get out of here before anyone notices us,” Tristin whispered.
Samantha couldn’t help but agree. “That is the first good idea I’ve heard from you in a long time.”
The two made their way out of the casino filled with overwrought, panicking patrons. They stepped onto the street, doing their best to remain nonchalant, which was much harder than it looked because there were a lot of people doing exactly what they were doing: getting the hell out of dodge. At least the massive amount of
people helped conceal their presence.
A thirty-minute walk in silence brought them to the car they had used to get to Las Vegas, the F-150. Both entered. Samantha sat in the driver’s seat, started the engines, and took off, peeling out of the parking garage and onto the street.
In the silence, with only the sounds of the engine thrumming beneath them, Tristin asked a question. “Do you think we should meet with Azazel?”
“Of course not.” Samantha’s scowl came back with a vengeance. “There’s no way we’re ever going to meet up with a fallen angel. They can’t be trusted.”
Tristin wanted to point out that it would be foolish not to go, and that Kokabiel could have killed them if he wanted to but hadn’t, proving that there may be some benefit to meeting with the Grigori leader. He didn’t because he had no desire to get hit on the head.
“Are we at least going after Christian?”
Samantha hesitated, then said, “we’ll see.”
Despite her answer, Tristin found himself feeling hopeful. It might not have been a yes, but it certainly wasn’t a no. He really did want to see his friend again.
What a reunion that would be.
CHAPTER 12
Christian passed through a doorway. The room he found himself in was fairly large, not quite as big as the training hall where he had taken to practicing with his swords, but still a decently spacious area. Much of the room looked the same as all the others. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of stone, having been literally carved into the rock of the cavern. Several lockers were situated to his immediate left, and several drawers built underneath a couple dozen racks containing guns of just about every shape and size were on his right. The drawers most likely held ammunition.
There were many women already inside; all of them were adorned in skin tight black clothing that conformed to their figures, leaving little to the imagination. It looked almost like they were wearing a pair of black spandex shorts, or maybe some kind of leather since it looked awfully shiny and creaked as they moved. Their shorts didn’t go very low, stopping several inches below their butts. They were so short they looked almost like bloomers. Much like their shorts, their shirts were also made of black leather. They were sleeveless but connected to a pair of black gloves that went all the way up to their forearms. The outfits were finished off with a pair of black boots that extended well past their thighs.
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