by Elicia Hyder
“We must hurry,” Kane reminded us from his cell. “They have cameras all over this place.”
“I disabled the cameras,” Iliana said.
Of course she did.
“And I locked all the doors, shut down the elevator, and jammed their computer system.”
“Nicely done,” I said.
Several others clapped or cheered.
Fury stretched her mouth wide and closed it a few times before sitting up.
“You OK?” I asked, carefully studying her face.
“I’m fine.” She looked at Iliana. “Thanks to you.”
Iliana smiled as she stood.
Fury grabbed Cassiel’s arm. “And you. Thanks, Cassiel.”
“You would’ve done the same for me,” Cassiel said.
Fury gave a slight nod.
Before our journey to Nulterra, I might have doubted that. As the daughter of Abaddon, the Destroyer, Fury had never had much sympathy for angels—demons or otherwise. I believed the new Fury. She was infinitely kinder and gentler and was—for the first time since we were in Iraq—a true team player.
And for better or worse, she and Cassiel were on the same side of this war.
I stood, pulling Fury up with me, and we all followed Iliana out of the cell. One by one, she opened the rest. When she reached Jett, she ran in and hugged him.
Fury and I looked at each other.
“Nobody greeted me like that,” Kane said behind us.
We turned to look at him as Reuel opened his arms wide. Laughing, Kane pushed him away.
“Here.” Iliana handed Reuel his sword.
He beamed. “Bon velai.”
“Thank you,” she said, picking up the third. “Who gets this one?”
We all cast glances around the group.
“Anya should have it,” Cassiel finally said.
Anya’s head snapped back. “Me?”
“You’re the Archangel of Protection now. It makes sense,” Cassiel said.
Jett nodded. “Agreed.”
Reuel smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. “Munra.”
“I don’t even know how to use one of these,” she admitted.
“Neither does Warren.” Fury jerked her thumb toward me. “Doesn’t stop him.”
I couldn’t argue, so I just shrugged.
With a laugh, Anya took the sword. “How the hell do I carry it?” Hers was the only one without a scabbard.
Reuel grunted and held out his hand. She gave it to him, and he wedged it in with his.
“He can carry it for now, and we have a couple of scabbards in the Echo-5 armory,” Kane said.
I looked at him, surprised.
“Right after you left, your dad took up sword collecting,” he explained.
Sounded about right.
Iliana returned to me and pulled on my arm. “Let me see what you’ve done. If we have to fight our way out of here, we’re all going to need you to have both your hands.”
I gently started removing the bandages. “Probably a good idea. As Fury said, I can barely handle my sword as it is. There’s no way I could fight off demons left-handed.”
“Geez, Warren.” Fury’s face soured as she looked at my mangled hand. “What did you do?”
“He tried to go all Reuel on the cell door,” Anya said. “He failed.”
Reuel came over to look as well. He scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“OK, so maybe it’s nothing like your arm when we were in Chicago.”
He looked at me with an expression that said, “You think?”
Iliana’s healing light made me wince.
Reuel laughed. “Kulan.”
“I’m not a baby,” I said and winced again.
“Hold still,” Iliana ordered.
Reuel walked down the hall, shaking his head.
Sirens blared through the hall and red lights flashed.
“I think they’re on to us,” Nash said, looking around at the cameras on the ceiling. They were lit with green lights again.
Iliana’s light fizzled out. My hand was better. It no longer looked like raw meat, but it was definitely going to scar.
“I’ll work on it more later,” she said.
I rubbed my knuckles. “It will be fine. What now?”
“We fly up the elevator shaft.” Iliana gestured to it. “Reuel?”
With the swords strapped to his side, Reuel balled a massive fist, then slammed it into the right sliding door. The metal caved, creating a gap wide enough between the doors for his hands to wedge between them.
With hardly a strain, he wrenched them apart.
Iliana leaned into the elevator shaft and looked up and down. Loud voices echoed from above as the elevator engine started turning. “They’re coming,” she said.
“Hello again, Warren,” a woman’s voice carried over a speaker.
I looked up. “Chimera.”
Chimera, part-Angel of Knowledge and world-class tech genius, had, no doubt, repaired the disabled security features of the building.
“How was Hell?” she asked.
“Quite interesting. Met your dad.”
There was a pause.
“Where is he?”
“Safe. For now.”
Chimera didn’t care about Torman’s safety. She cared about her own. If—when—we killed him, part of her would die as well. Unless I could find her now. Then all of her would.
“Nash, do you know where the control room is for this building?” I asked.
Iliana spun toward me. “I know what you’re thinking. There’s no time to find Chimera now. We have to get out of here and regroup. And we need to find my parents.”
She was right. I hated that she was right. So many of our enemies were so close. So vulnerable.
And everything inside me wanted to destroy them all.
“Humans, if you’re not bulletproof, get in a cell,” Iliana ordered.
Beside me, Fury hesitated.
I cupped her jaw. “You’re unarmed, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. Please, get in the cell.”
She nodded, which must’ve been hard for her. Nothing in her nature would ever want to sit out a fight.
Kane hooked his arm through hers and dragged her into the first cell where I’d been held.
Surprisingly, Cassiel stood with us. She hated physical confrontation almost as much as she hated gunfire. Both were surely coming on the plunging elevator.
Iliana stepped in front of us all, and I stood beside her. She raised her hands toward the shaft.
The elevator’s brakes squealed as it reached the bottom. When it stilled, the inner doors slid open, and bullets—hundreds of them—exploded toward us.
And slammed against Iliana’s invisible force field.
The gunfire slowed, the guards too stunned to even reload. The last few bullets bounced off the force field, clinking against the metal and concrete as they tumbled into the shaft.
“What the hell is she?” one of the guards asked, his voice quivering with fear.
Iliana’s eyes narrowed. “Not a fucking fairy.”
Had I been any prouder, my heart might have exploded in my chest.
“Seize them!” someone shouted.
Thacker.
He was on the right side of the front row of guards. “You,” I said before anyone moved. He flinched when I raised my hand, but there was nowhere for him to run.
With my power, I ripped him forward until my hand closed around his throat. “I told you I’d find you.” I pulled his face close to mine. “Thanks for making it easy.”
I threw him against the wall beside the elevator so hard his skull clacked against the concrete.
The other guards were frantically pushing buttons to try to escape. “Lock them up,” Iliana said to Jett.
“You don’t want to kill them?” he asked.
“No. They’re only following orders.”
Thacker crumpled onto himself in a heap. I stood over him, grabbing a fistful of his brown hair. I jerked his fearf
ul eyes up to meet mine. “How does it feel to be overpowered by someone stronger than you?”
Panic radiated off him.
And on his soul, it was clear: Thacker was a murderer, responsible for at least two human lives.
He might have been under the direction of the Morning Star, but in his case, it didn’t really matter. Whether he was doing the devil’s dirty work or not, Thacker was guilty. He’d taken pleasure in the suffering of others. And the fear in his eyes told me he knew that I knew it.
I turned his head toward Fury. “Now apologize.”
Thacker was shaking. “I-I’m sorry.”
Fury backed against the wall behind me.
“Let’s show her just how sorry you can be.” I grabbed his face, forcing his jaw open. Then I reached into his mouth, curled my fingers over his back teeth, and plunged my thumbs under his jaw on the outside.
Crying, he fought against me, but my hands twisted away from each other until his mandible broke with a violent snap. I pulled until the lower gums split, his bottom front teeth separated, and blood poured down his throat.
Screaming and choking on the blood, his eyes rolled back, and his body went limp. Part of me wanted to wake him, forcing him to feel what Fury had felt for as long as possible.
But I refrained.
I shoved his head against the wall again before standing and wiping the blood and saliva onto my jeans.
When I turned, my friends were watching me, a clear mix of awe and horror on their faces. My eyes locked with Fury’s. “Did he deserve it?” she asked.
She understood such a brutal retribution wasn’t just because of what he’d done to her. He had killed and would likely kill again.
“Yes. He deserved it.” I jerked my thumb toward him. “You want to get a swift kick in? He deserves that too.”
“I know what he’s going to go through when he wakes up. That’s payback enough for me.”
Down the hall, Iliana was sealing the cell doors, welding them shut with fire blasting from her hands.
Fire I had taught her to use.
When she was finished, she dusted off her palms. “They’re not going anywhere for a while.” She looked up at one of the cameras and shouted, “Chimera, go ahead and try to let them out!” Then she laughed and walked back to the elevator, shaking her head. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
We blasted through the top of the elevator shaft and didn’t stop flying until we were well outside Claymore’s gates. It took longer than I would have anticipated, indicating just how much the base had expanded over the years.
In broad daylight, we flew inland to what looked like a wildlife preserve, or national park. We landed near a wide river, far away from civilization.
“Where are we?” Anya asked as she tamed her wind-whipped hair.
“Roanoke River,” Jett answered. “John used to bring me out here camping when I was a kid.”
Fury froze in front of me and turned toward him. “Really?”
“Yeah. A lot, actually. We’re about thirty miles outside Claymore’s new fence line.”
It was clear Fury didn’t care about the fence line. It was the only detail she’d been given about her son’s childhood.
“That’s great and all, but where are my parents?” Iliana opened her eyes. “I can’t sense their spirits at all.”
“I’m sure Azrael took them to his house on Kill Devil Hills Island,” Jett said.
Iliana looked at me.
I shrugged. “It makes sense. Azrael, or even the Morning Star, would take them to see Adrianne. Even if for nothing else than to shut her up.”
Jett touched her arm. “And it’s probably even more secure than Echo-5.”
“How are we going to get them out?” Anya asked.
“We’re not,” Cassiel said behind us.
We all turned and looked at her. Her golden hair was matted from the flight, and her shoulders were slumped in defeat. “There’s no way we get that close to where the Morning Star sleeps. He’s too smart for that.”
My head fell to the side. “He’s not smart enough to realize how powerful Iliana is. The design of that prison shows just how much he’s underestimated her.”
“I agree, but we could easily get Sloan and Nathan killed,” Cassiel said.
Iliana looked up at me. “She’s probably right.”
Cassiel was usually right about things. It was equally one of the most annoying parts and helpful parts of who she was.
“I doubt he’ll do anything to hurt them. He doesn’t have anything to gain by their deaths,” Cassiel said.
I sighed. “But he sure as hell can use them as leverage.”
“We need to lure the Morning Star away,” Kane said. “Get him alone and minimize the casualties.”
Shaking my head, I crossed my arms. “It’s not that simple. Somehow he’s rigged all the humans close to him. If anything happens to him, they will die.”
“What do you mean?” Fury asked.
I turned to my daughter. “When they showed up on the Island of Fire, you saw it in Azrael, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what I saw, but yes. There was something inside him.”
“What are you talking about?” Cassiel asked.
“I’m not sure if it’s a bomb of sickness, or what. But there’s something concealed inside Azrael’s body that I’m afraid might kill him.”
“Utam katave,” Cassiel said, almost to herself.
“What?” Iliana asked, likely echoing everyone’s thoughts.
“Utam katave,” Cassiel repeated. “Lethal sickness encapsulated. It’s something we discovered the Morning Star was trying to perfect when he was working with Kasyade, Phenex, and Ysha to spread the disease that makes humans sterile.”
“He tried to sterilize humans?” Anya asked.
Fury nodded. “Yes. While you were gone. Warren stopped them.”
“Sloan stopped them,” I corrected her. “Her biological mother, Kasyade, was working with the Morning Star to infect child prostitutes with an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea. They were going to use this utam katave?” I asked Cassiel.
“Yes. It was a failsafe in case they were caught. Should the demons be killed, the girls would die too.”
“But what is it?” Fury asked.
Cassiel made a fist with her right hand and covered the fist with her left. “Warren was right. It’s like a bomb of sickness, covered by a layer of life.” She released the fist. “Remove the life, and the sickness consumes the host.”
“Can I heal them from it?” Iliana asked.
“I don’t see why not. You’ve already proven you can heal the virus,” Cassiel answered.
Iliana looked at me. “So I heal them from it, and then we kill the Morning Star.”
I shook my head. “You might be able to save those closest to us, but you wouldn’t be able to save the entire Claymore Army. The Morning Star said they’re all infected, which means a few hundred thousand will die.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Jett asked. “They chose their side, and casualties go hand in hand with war.”
Leave it to an angel to oversimplify the choices of humans. I thought of Huffman, my friend and longtime Claymore operative. He’d been with the company even before I’d joined, and he’d likely stay as long as Azrael was in charge. He hadn’t chosen the wrong side; the wrong side had trapped him.
Nash was apparently thinking of himself because he beat me to the argument. “Do I deserve to die too?”
We all looked at him.
“Most of Claymore’s manpower has never even seen the Morning Star, much less chosen to follow a psychopath. We’re talking about innocent lives. And the innocent lives of their families and communities.”
“He’s right,” Cruz said. “You unleash that sickness again, and you’re helping him wipe out the rest of the planet.”
“We need more time to figure out how to eradicate the disease in the soldiers before Iliana kills the Morning Star,�
� Kane said.
“Got any idea how to do that?” I asked Cassiel.
“I’m not sure. We first need to figure out how he got it in there,” she answered.
“They were given vaccines for the virus. I’m almost sure of it,” Nash said. “One of my buddies said I got out just in time. That whatever new shots they were required to have hurt worse than the anthrax vaccine.”
“Papa Jordan suggested we might be able to use my blood to create a vaccine or a cure,” Iliana said.
We looked at Cassiel.
“It’s worth some research,” she said with a shrug. “Perhaps I could talk to Dr. Jordan.”
“We need to get back to Asheville anyway. I’m sure word has gotten out that we’ve escaped, and the Morning Star is probably looking for us,” I said.
“They’ll have Wolf Gap surrounded by now,” Nash said. “They’ve had units in place there for a while. And, if I’m being really honest, I wouldn’t put it past the Morning Star to drop a shit ton of bombs on the compound.”
Kane shook his head. “Bombs won’t matter if everyone’s underground. They could drop a nuclear warhead on the bunker, and it wouldn’t even rattle the pictures on the walls.”
“Are they underground though?” Cruz asked. “That wasn’t the order when we left.”
“I’ll send some angels to make sure everyone is safe.” I touched my ear and started to walk away.
“Already done,” Iliana said. “I called out to Lachlan on our way here. He promised to stay close to Asheville when we left, so he may already be at the house.”
Lachlan was an Angel of Death. An angel in my command—and also in Iliana’s, I remembered.
She looked at Kane. “I told him to put Wolf Gap on Threat Level Five. He’ll report back soon.”
“Threat Level Five?” I asked.
“Everyone goes into the bunker, and everything aboveground is completely shut down,” Kane explained. “We’ll be safe there once we get inside.”
“So we have a plan,” I announced. “We return to Asheville.”
Cassiel stepped forward. “What about Sandalphon and Samael?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do,” I said.
“They’re both fully capable of taking care of themselves,” Jett added.
“Are they? Even stripped of their powers? Samael will be fine, but what about Sandalphon?” Cassiel’s voice had jumped up an octave. “Those cuffs have reduced him to little more than a mortal. His body is old. He’s suffering.”
