Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
Page 20
Uro backed up. Kevin, miraculously still able to form clear, coherent thought despite the fact that there was no physical brain involved, used another of his powers. A sharp shot of magic rushed Uro, hard and painful. In a blast of forced air, Uro’s body went flying back across the cave to hit the other side with incredible force.
Another torch was knocked from its sconce. Kevin quickly took in the status of the cavern’s inhabitants: Ely and Mitchell stood back, one on either side of the room, their glowing red eyes focused on Kevin’s vampire opponent. Sophie Bryce was unconscious, held firmly in Luke’s strong grip. They’d worked fast, as he had instructed them to, but the seconds were not on their side and it was time to end this.
Uro’s normally black eyes were glowing a hellish red as he slowly turned in place, taking in the fact that he was surrounded. Kevin waited until Uro turned back around to face him; he was never one to strike a man from behind. Then he pulled his power from inside and focused it once more, heating it with vampire speed to release it in the form of a massive fireball.
He could feel the flame suck the oxygen out of the air in the room with surprising speed; whatever magic had created the oxygen in the first place hadn’t been made to keep up with such a thing. The fire raced across the cave as if sent by a flamethrower and struck Uro’s oncoming form with a vengeance.
The vampire was lost in the blaze, his body swallowed by the red-orange inferno and once more thrown back across the underground space. Kevin wasted no time, refocusing his energy in order to surround Uro’s burning body with a force field of dark, painful energy.
There was no escape for the ancient vampire. Kevin’s force field trapped him within the flames even as it slammed him against the far wall. The only torch remaining in its sconce tumbled to the ground and went out, but there was plenty of light in the cave.
Lightning struck somewhere aboveground, but the thunder could scarcely be heard over the bellowing roar of Uro’s pain.
The world had slipped into slow motion for the occupants of that cave, every movement stretching into a short eternity. But in the real world the fateful fight had taken mere seconds. Still, it was long enough for Uro to have called Azrael. The former Angel of Death could be trusted to be on his way, and Kevin’s force field would not last long before it dissipated and Uro was once more free.
With this knowledge hard on their heels, Kevin rematerialized, not wanting to face the enigmatic forces of the shadow world in anything other than his true, physical form. Mitchell and the others joined him in the darkest corner of the cave, their minds united in the knowledge that they had very little time.
There, Luke handed Sophie’s sleeping body to Kevin. He was the one who had the most experience traveling through the shadow realm, and none of them had any idea what would happen when they tried to take someone who wasn’t a vampire through with them. It was best to leave the task to their leader.
Kevin hugged Sophie to his chest and took a deep breath before he stepped into the darkness. At once, he noticed the difference. It was strange and difficult enough to pull his own body through the dim, surreal dimension. Dragging an unconscious captive with him was disturbing. At first, it felt as though something were trying to pull her out of his arms. He had to hold on with everything he had. It took him longer to move through, as if his limbs were weighted down or mired in quicksand. This sensation persisted, making it difficult for him to concentrate on breathing, on his own every movement, and he began to worry about Sophie. Was she breathing? Would the shadow dimension suck the life from her sleeping body?
Kevin pushed on; every action trailed behind, lagging through time. But after a few difficult seconds, he recognized the solidness of the shadows he was approaching and knew the trip was nearly over.
Not long after that, Kevin was stepping out of the shadows once more, this time with Sophie, and moving into Kevin’s office. He looked down at the beautiful woman in his arms and was relieved beyond comprehension to see her chest rise and fall with normal breath. Now he knew.
As the others arrived behind him, he turned and handed the sleeping archess to Luke. Luke smiled and took her with more than willing arms. Clearly, just as Mitchell had taken a liking to Juliette and Kevin had fallen for Eleanore, Luke was more than a little taken with Sophie Bryce.
“Azrael’s vampires will be on our tails,” Kevin told the three of them. “I don’t know whether they can find this building or not,” he went on, referring to their hidden headquarters, “but it’s possible they’re familiar enough with shadow walking that they can track us through what we just came through.”
He let that sink in for a moment and then went on. “We need to keep moving. Gather the others.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Azrael could feel his brothers’ frustration like needles against his spirit as he turned from them and Michael hit the light switch. Uro had just called out to him; the cry had been frantic, terrified, and filled with pain. The Adarians had struck without warning—impossibly—coming through the shadows and into the cave where he and Sophie had been hiding.
Somehow, Abraxos the Adarian-turned-vampire, had learned to traverse the shadow world, taking three of his men with him through the macabre passageways. They’d managed to find their way into the underground cavern where Sophie was, and then he and his fellow Adarians had attacked Uro and taken her back through the shadows with them.
In the two thousand years that he’d been a vampire able to walk the shadows, Azrael had only ever attempted to take one other being through with him, and that was Sophie. He wouldn’t have thought to bring his brothers through now if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d taken Sophie through that same night—and that Abraxos appeared to have done the very same thing.
If Abraxos and his men could do it, maybe Azrael could do it with someone besides Sophie.
That knowledge had Azrael summoning Michael to his side as he faced the shadows in the corner of the mansion’s living room. Uro was on the other side of those stygian passageways, and he would need healing. Michael would not be able to do everything; the ancient vampire would need blood . . . and fire left scars. But the healing he could provide would make a big difference for Uro. Azrael knew this much from personal experience.
As Azrael placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder, he called out to his vampires across the globe. Months ago, Abraxos and his men had been at war with four archangels. Now the Adarians would face the entire vampire nation.
Minutes ago, in the temporary quiet and calm of the mansion’s living room, the news of Sophie being an archess had affected Azrael’s brothers as he’d expected it would. The only one who did not seem to be surprised was Juliette. She’d merely stared at Azrael, and then closed her eyes and nodded. The next words out of her mouth had been, “I should have known.”
Azrael had been prepared to discuss the importance of the development with Max and the others. There was so much to take into account: The fact that the archesses were suddenly cropping up all at once, the phantom that had caused the accident on the Golden Gate Bridge, the strangeness to the air that hinted at so much more going on than any of them had previously believed. But there was no time.
Uro’s call came in hard and fast and desperate. Now Az stepped into the shadows, guiding Michael and feeling as though a trench had been torn through the middle of his soul. The darkness engulfed them, welcoming its king back home.
Behind them, in the space where he and his brothers had been discussing events only moments before, Max and the others scrambled toward the nearest doorway. He could hear their portal opening just as the shadows closed him off from their world.
He wanted to let go and allow the varying degrees of darkness to simply guide him as they normally did. He’d been walking the shadows for so long, they were familiar tributaries and alone, he could have relaxed and let them carry him through as if he were a leaf on the river, and then used his momentum to move faster with the energy he would have spared.
All he wanted to do was find Sophie and kill Abraxos for touching her.
But having to take Michael through with him forced him to temporarily put thoughts of Abraxos aside. Azrael hadn’t known what to expect when taking someone as conscious and powerful as Michael through the darker dimension. Sophie had been relatively easy, but she was the other half of Azrael’s soul, a part of him—and she’d also been asleep. Az was certain that had made things easier.
Michael was another matter. It was an odd sensation, like both pulling and pushing at once, and there was a lag on Michael’s body that Azrael had to concentrate hard on getting past. It was as if the black space recognized the Warrior Archangel as a stranger—and it wanted him to leave.
It took much longer than he would have liked to get through the shadows and out the other side, but within seconds, Azrael was nonetheless pushing past the final murky barriers and entering the cave where he had left Uro and Sophie.
What he found when he stepped once more into the light turned his stomach to lead and opened a second gaping cavity in his heart.
He was beside Uro’s fallen form with blurred speed. “Uro,” he breathed, unable to say anything else. His friend’s body was caked with the grime of smoke and blood. His clothes had been shredded by the flames. Miraculously, though there were third-degree burns across his neck, chest, arms, and legs, only half of his face had sustained any damage, and it was minimal. Against all odds, Uro still had a full head of hair.
Not that it mattered.
With a painful slowness, the ancient vampire opened his eyes. Slits of glowing, throbbing red greeted Azrael and a voice echoed softly in his head.
Go after her now. I read his thoughts, my lord. . . . They’re going to take her blood. They might kill her.
“Michael, can you heal him?” Azrael heard himself ask. He was seething inside, going numb with the roaring, screaming, colossal fury battering his soul. And yet somehow he managed to ask the question that needed asking. For some reason, he maintained his place at Uro’s side—and even gently took his hand.
“I don’t know,” Michael said honestly. He had never tried to heal a vampire before. In the twenty centuries since Azrael had first fed on Michael’s blood to ease his pain, the vampire king had never needed Michael’s help. Vampires normally healed on their own, so the healing powers of Michael’s hands had never been necessary.
But fire was deadly to a vampire. And Uro was near death.
Even if Michael could close the wounds and erase the scars, Uro would need blood—and it would have to be something more than human.
Azrael knew this even as Michael very gently, very slowly, placed both hands palm down over Uro’s burned and smoking chest. Az watched his brother close his eyes and lower his head. A moment later, his hands began to glow.
Az felt the pull of time on him; Sophie was out there somewhere—and Abraxos meant to do her harm. But he had no idea where they had gone. He concentrated on zeroing in on her location and scrying her whereabouts, but either the fact that she’d been moved through the shadow realm or the fact that her mind was infinitely complex due to her burgeoning powers as an archess made it impossible to get a fix on her.
To make matters worse, he’d been traveling the shadows long enough to know that if enough time passed after someone had traversed them, there would be nothing left of them to track. Shadow substance was inky and clingy and magical in nature; it warped what moved through it and would erase all traces of Sophie and her abductors.
By this time, the shadows would be completely unable to tell him where the Adarian had taken his archess.
No one left a lasting footprint in a shadow.
Azrael ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes just as Uro’s quick, ragged breathing changed, slowing and growing deeper. Michael’s magic was working. There was that, at least.
“I have to leave,” Az said softly, without opening his eyes. Behind his closed lids, he saw Sophie smile. In the hollow, raging silence of his mind, he heard her laugh. Time ticked across his skin, raising his hairs, scraping his nerve endings.
“I know,” said Michael. He sounded more tired than ever.
Azrael opened his eyes to find his brother’s head bowed, his hands at his sides. Uro gazed up at Azrael. His clothes were still destroyed—but beneath them, his body no longer bled. His wounds had been closed. Angry red scars crisscrossed across his chest, ran up his side and down his right arm. A thick raised line marred his left cheek and trailed down the left side of his neck to disappear under the ruined shreds of his shirt and jacket.
Azrael wondered whether Michael might have been able to do away with those as well had he not had to heal dozens of injured people on the Golden Gate Bridge earlier that night.
“Go,” Michael said. His voice sounded hollow, empty.
“You’re coming with me,” Az told his brother. Michael wouldn’t be able to escape the cavern without a vampire to lead him through the shadows. And despite his love for Uro, there was no way he was stupid enough to leave Michael alone with the other vampire when they were both so drained. Uro needed blood and the hunger for it when a vampire was this injured could be overwhelming. The last thing Az needed was to have his brother and his first created vampire fighting in his absence.
Michael seemed to be in no mood to argue. He nodded and slowly stood on shaky legs. Azrael steadied him with one strong hand and led him quickly to the nearest shadow. He turned back to Uro, whose brow was furrowed in concentration. He was trying to draw his legs in, trying to get to his feet.
“Stay here,” Az instructed softly. “The others will be here soon. Randall will take care of you. Do as he says.”
Uro’s dark eyes met Az’s for a moment and throbbed a dull red once, twice, and then closed.
Azrael’s grip on Michael’s shoulder tightened—and then he was moving once more through the shadows, pulling his brother along beside him. It was even harder this time; Michael’s body was fighting not only Az but himself. The blond archangel was exhausted.
By the time Az was stepping back into the living room of the mansion, Michael’s form had begun to tremble.
Max and the others were gone, most likely meeting up with Randall, Terry, and Monte at the cave. The vampires would have had to use brute force to create a passage through the ground and into the cave for the archangels and archesses, as none of them could move through the shadows as he and Uro had. But Az knew they’d find the Adarians were already gone and Uro the only one left inside. Az knew Randall well enough by now to know that the ex-cop would offer up his own blood to replenish Uro’s. Uro was now under direct orders to do as Randall instructed, so he would drink. It would be enough to get him back out through the shadows. After that, it was possible that an archess would be able to heal what burns and scars remained on his body. Az had a feeling that both Juliette and Eleanore would insist on at least trying.
Right now, the mansion was empty and to Azrael, it felt cold. Which was strange—he never felt cold. The knowledge that Sophie was in enemy hands was turning the blood in his veins to ice.
Azrael took his brother around the waist and draped Michael’s arm over his shoulder to walk him to the nearby couch. Michael didn’t argue; he didn’t say a word.
“See that you eat something,” Azrael instructed.
Michael nodded. “Where are you going?”
Azrael waited before answering, truly not wanting to give voice to his response. In all of this chaos, there was only one being that Az was aware of who stood a real chance of knowing exactly where the Adarians had taken Sophie. And right now, Azrael was devoid of pride.
“You don’t want to know,” he
told Michael. To his own ears, his voice sounded strange. There was a deepness to it reminiscent of the very shadows he’d just traversed. It was as if he was being tailed by darkness.
Without another word, he turned from Michael and stepped back into the shadows. He moved so fast, the Warrior Archangel never had a chance to object. If he made a sound of protest, Azrael didn’t hear it.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sophie came awake slowly and comfortably. Her body was warm, the surface beneath her felt soft, and there was an aura of safety enveloping her that made her want to keep sleeping.
But she couldn’t sleep. Something tapped at her brain, knocking repeatedly, trying to get her attention. She kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore the sensation, ducking her head deeper into the softness beneath her cheek. But it grew more insistent, morphing from a gentle tapping to a kind of buzzing that circled around the base of her skull.
A flash of something raced before her mind’s eye. It was a sliver of a memory, a bit of a dream. It was dark and harried and red.
She was forgetting something. The buzzing grew and a thrum of apprehension went through her middle, forcing an extra beat from her heart and clenching her stomach. She frowned and blinked her eyes open. The room was dim and her vision blurred.
Where am I?
She rolled over to survey her surroundings. She was on a small bed and it was indeed fitted in the finest sheets, composed of a thread count that she was sure she would never be able to afford. The pillow cradled her head with a loving tenderness that only big bucks could buy. The duvet over her was thick, keeping the world’s chills at bay.