by Jenny McKane
And Eli? He didn’t even want to be on these side missions helping Jericho and her militia. He’d complained about losing focus on their own missions. Now he was all about marching into battle and breaking portals?
Just when she thought she was making progress and finding her footing, she was painfully reminded just how little faith they all had in her leadership and critical thinking skills.
“Motherfuckers,” she swore as she kicked the dirt.
They were already some ways ahead when Nino appeared beside her, making her jump a bit.
“Apologies, Lady Hunter,” Nino said with a bow.
Sunny ran her hand through her hair and shook her head. “It’s fine, Nino,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Nino heard the discussion and sees how upset Lady Hunter is,” he said hesitantly. “Does Lady Hunter want Nino to continue on? Or should he escort Lady Hunter back to the car?”
The little dream demon was conflicted.
Sunny looked after the trail that everyone had just gone down and chewed her lip. Out of spite she wanted to take her dream demon and go home, leaving them to figure this shit out on their own and without her help, but she knew she couldn’t do it.
“No,” she said with a long, painful sigh. “We’ll go, too. I just hope I’m wrong.”
But the feeling she had in her gut told her she wasn’t wrong. Stopping, she called for Nino again.
“Just a minute,” she said. “Can you go invisible for me?”
Nino gave her a bit of a confused look before disappearing in front of her.
With a deep breath, Sunny uttered the words she knew would piss Eli and Gabriel off even more. Hell, Asmodeus, too. But she gave zero craps at this point.
Aperio. Aperio. Apperai. Agarei.
Agares was there in an instant and she stepped back in shock as she realized the old bearded demon was riding a giant turtle.
He blinked and looked around, taking in the desert scenery before giving a nod to Sunny.
“Solomon,” he said, hiding the surprise in his voice. “How may I be of service to you?”
She skipped a lot of the details, but explained as quickly as she could that she’d been given a warning from Gideon not to follow a blue bird.
Nino cut in as she spoke.
“Apologies, Lady Hunter,” he said, reappearing. “But they are at the portal. Should Nino assist them?”
She looked toward The Twins, not able to see anything at all—nothing amiss, nothing normal.
“Sure,” she said and Nino was gone again.
“Your team doesn’t trust you?” Agares asked.
The question stung a bit, but there it was.
“I guess not,” she admitted.
“And you trust the betraying half-archangel?”
Again, Agares had a way with words. Did she trust Gideon?
“I trust that he wants me alive for whatever he has planned for the end of this,” she said. “I am certain he doesn’t want me dying too soon.”
Agares urged the turtle around Sunny as she tried not to stare too hard.
“And why did you call me?”
Indeed. Why Agares and not Baal or Zepar?
“Because I believe you to be better at making objective decisions.”
Sunny wasn’t trying to appeal to the old demon’s ego, but that’s what she seemed to do. The old man practically beamed.
“What about your archangel? You have a warrior with you? Shouldn’t he be able to handle a couple Powers with the help of an archdemon?”
Sunny glanced down the Lazuli Bunting trail, worried they were taking too long.
“Lost their powers,” she said. “Both Gabriel and Asmodeus. It’s getting worse, too. They’re both turning more and more human.”
Agares was pulling on his beard as he thought.
“Interesting,” he mumbled to himself.
Sunny wasn’t sure if it was a bad sign that he was intrigued by their recent handicap, but she didn’t have time to look too deeply into it.
“You’ll come with me?”
He gave a nod and turned his turtle down the trail.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be riding that,” she said as she fell in step beside him.
“Nobody ever is,” he mused, sounding mighty amused with himself. “Carrana is an old friend of mine and helps me when my legs feel weak.”
She tried not to panic, worrying that she called up the demon who needed a turtle wheelchair. She had considered the other guardians, but her gut had told her to call Agares—they’d built up a certain level of trust back in Japan while she recovered and if anything, he could tell her that she was being stupid.
But he hadn’t done that. He’d wheeled his turtle thing in the direction of the fight and prodded it along.
“Should I call another guardian to help us?”
Agares pulled the turtle up short and frowned at her.
“I’m insulted,” he said, and even the turtle turned her long neck towards Sunny and grunted at her. “You think I can’t help you by myself?”
Sunny swallowed hard.
“You just said your legs required the turtle,” she tried to explain, practically wilting under the old demon’s angry stare. “You know what? I apologize, Agares. I will stop talking now.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond and started down the path again, hoping beyond hope that the demon and turtle would start moving again. Blessedly, after a long tense, couple of moments, they did.
“I’m not sure I could muster enough courage to call any of the other three up even if I needed to,” she said quietly as they pressed on.
Sunny was keeping her eyes on the trail ahead of her, looking for any signs or sounds of distress. So far, there were none.
“You can’t fear the guardians,” he said simply. “They can sense it and they’ll use your fears and weaknesses against you. It’s natural to them—they’re warriors and conquerors. They need a target and if you don’t provide one, or if you appear too weak, you’ll become the target.”
She glanced sideways at him.
“But not you?”
He gave a low chuckle that didn’t sound like it contained a lot of humor.
“I’m the worst of the bunch,” he said quietly, raising a single eyebrow at her. “You should especially watch what you say around me.”
She cursed herself inwardly for being unable to look the blank expression of fear off her face.
Agares’ stern expression crumbled then—and his laughter broke through the scary mask he’d constructed. He bellowed and rubbed his stomach.
“You should have seen your face, Solomon,” he howled, “You looked like you expected me to climb down off this turtle and eat your face!”
She hated to admit it, but that’s half what Sunny thought he was about to do. Sunny found herself walking a little further from him, despite the good-natured laughter that followed her.
“Don’t be angry, Solomon,” he said, urging the turtle to catch up to her. “It’s that I get so little joy in my days—teasing is one of the more innocuous ones I’m allowed. Trust me, I will not hurt you or yours. I want this curse lifted as much as the next guardian. But I meant what I said about showing weakness and indecision around the others, especially Beleth. Be on your guard until you’re more comfortable in your authority or you will lose control of the generals quickly.”
She grumbled a bit but nodded anyway.
“Thanks for the warning,” she said and they resumed their slow pace forward.
Sunny was beginning to feel foolish. Not only for trying to delay the team from the portal, but also for summoning Agares. It seemed like a waste—that she’d been worried for nothing, as nothing seemed amiss as they got closer to The Twins.
Just as she was about to say something to Agares about it, an explosion rocked the area, rattling Sunny’s head a little.
As if in slow motion, she looked toward the end of the trail, still a ways away and watched in horror as the
rock column on the right, one of The Twins, crumbled from the top down, landing in a heaping cloud of dust and smoke on the ground.
Chapter Twenty-nine
They’d gotten farther ahead of them than Sunny had realized and it took her a long, full sprint to reach the rock structure. Sunny had a hard time getting her bearings on the scene when she arrived, too.
The fight was in full force and there were bodies everywhere. She’d kept her runed sword handy as she ran up the path toward The Twins, and now that she stood at the edge of the fight that had obviously been set as a trap, she was unsure where to jump in.
For his part, Agares didn’t seem overly concerned and took his sweet time getting down off the massive turtle.
“Start at the perimeter, Solomon,” he said.
With a flick of the wrist, his long white robes were transformed into close-fitting garments made of linen. His flowing beard and white hair were suddenly neatly braided and queued and he had a massive bo staff in his hands.
Twirling it around, he seemed to be warming up his hands and wrists.
“Don’t dash straight into any battle, no matter how anxious you are to see where you stand,” Agares said as a lesser angel creature came flying toward them and screeched.
If she didn’t know better, that she was dealing with Powers, she would have sworn that it was a feral demon that had flown at them.
Whatever it was, it met the business end of Agares’ staff and turned to a cloud of light grey smoke as soon as contact was made.
Sunny’s jaw dropped.
“What is that?”
Agares didn’t look over when he spoke. “Ancient and powerful,” he said, getting ready to fend off another attack. “That’s all you need to know about this thing.”
Before she could come up with another question (and she had plenty now) there was movement to her right and she turned just in time to have another beautifully terrifying winged thing fly right at her.
She gaped at first, taking in the sight of what had to be a feral angel. Its eyes were wild, its golden hair flying in the wind. It had no clothes on, but had no distinguishing genitalia, either. It was a strange, sexless creature that had a mouth full of sharp teeth and bright, diamond-like claws.
The irony.
Where the feral demons were red and had black claws and teeth, the feral angels were all golden yellow and glittering diamond. The color schemes might have been different, but the creature and its aim was the exact same.
It was funny, really, but not in the haha way.
More in the son of a bitch way, actually. Of course, they’d find a way to warp creatures from both the angel and the demon realm--between Camael and whoever Death was, they had access to both. And the feral creatures would have different genetic codes, which would mean different genetic skill sets.
The thing’s glittering claws were reaching for Sunny’s throat when she brought the sword down and twisted her body to the side, slicing the thing’s hands off at the wrists. It tumbled out of the sky and before Sunny could consider her next move, Agares smashed its head in with his staff, sending it into oblivion.
Or wherever his magical weapon was sending them.
Sunny didn’t know and didn’t care at that point.
With a chance to move forward undisturbed, Sunny and Agares did so cautiously. She saw that Jericho and some of her men were fighting ferals--a lot of them. Luckily, they seemed to be holding their own.
Toward the base of the rocks, Eli was fighting a bigger feral--the size of which she’d never seen before. Sin had found his way close to Jericho and was basically protecting her back as she hacked and sawed through the demented angels.
Metatron was kneeling near a large pile of rocks, a look of anguish on his face. Was he hurt?
Asmodeus was fighting an angel--a proper one—and, despite not having his archdemon powers, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
Nearly 3,000 years without a proper row had left him scrappy and anxious to beat up an angel or two. He was squared up with an angel Sunny had never seen before. He was taller than Asmodeus and broader, too. Stronger. Asmodeus had to work harder and be lighter on his feet than his opponent, but as far as Sunny could see, he was doing a good job. The angel across from him had jet black hair cropped close and a strange, jagged marking on his right cheek that went down into his neck.
Odd.
Did angels get tattoos?
It wouldn’t have been too huge of a leap for Sunny to wonder if she was looking at Death, but as soon as the thought was in her head, she dismissed it, knowing deep within herself that this angel wasn’t it. This angel was powerful and dangerous, but this was not the bringer of the Armageddon.
Asmodeus and his opponent swirled and slashed and as she watched, her eyes were drawn over to another fight happening--Gabriel and Tesah.
Tesah was different than the last time she’d seen her when they summoned Baal. Tesah had short hair that hardly reached her shoulders that was pulled in a half-ponytail that looked okay, Sunny supposed, but looked very un-angelic.
Tesah moved with less grace and more brutality. Less lethality and more rage.
Of course. She was still holding a serious amount of anger at losing Eron, her love/brother/cohort. Eron had been a creepy bastard that hardly spoke, but when he’d charged Sunny and tried to kill her in Japan, both she and Sin had acted out of instinct with their weapons and had killed him.
Tesah had sworn vengeance. Gideon had foreshadowed it.
None of this was a surprise to Sunny, but what was shocking was how hard the fight seemed to be.
“There she is!”
Tesah’s voice rang clear above the din and seemed to slow time. Suddenly all eyes, feral, angelic, demonic, and human, seemed to dart over to her and she stood rooted where she stood.
“Get out of here, Sunny!” Gabriel yelled, his voice booming and with a hint of--fear? Was he scared of something he’d seen here?
Before he could elaborate, Tesah gave him a giant push kick in the center of his chest and sent him flying straight into the remaining upright rock column. The thing shuddered under the impact and it wasn’t long before it, too, started to collapse. Lucky enough, it went the opposite direction of the fight, but the noise and the chaos were deafening as the rocks fell and a giant cloud of dust flew up.
Sunny was temporarily blinded and hacked through the heavy dust to catch a breath.
“Sunny,” she heard Eli’s voice from somewhere beside her. “Run! You can’t be here!”
What was he talking about? And hadn’t she suggested they all not be here not ten minutes ago?
Disoriented in the dust, Sunny didn’t notice that the dark-haired angel and Tesah had moved and were now headed straight for her.
Agares stepped in front of her and held his staff out between himself and the dark angel. Asmodeus managed to do some battlefield sorcery and popped up between Sunny and Tesah. Both demons squared off against the two imposing angels.
“Killing you will only sweeten the victory,” Tesah said, launching into a double-bladed attack against Asmodeus.
The change in opponent had thrown Asmodeus a little, as Tesah moved faster than the dark angel. With a spin and a duck, she was around Asmodeus and sent one of her blades high in the air and down in an arc across his back before he could recover.
Sunny let out a yell, but Tesah took a look at her and laughed.
“You’re running out of saviors, human,” the Power laughed. There was something new about her voice. It was--almost demonic sounding? That couldn’t be right. But there was no denying the pitch had gotten lower and a whole lot more menacing.
Agares fared little better against the dark angel, who managed to duck and avoid every swing of the powerful bo staff the old demon threw.
“You need new tricks, ancient one,” the dark one teased, easily avoiding more offensive moves and staying one step ahead of Agares. “You’re a sad set of defenders, indeed. Nothing can stop us from taking her and yo
u’re only making this more fun for us.”
Sunny gripped her blades tighter, obviously the “her” that the angels were talking about. Feral angels had begun to form a wide half-circle behind her while some of their brethren kept Eli, Sin, and the militia busy.
She was being herded somewhere.
Glancing around, she saw the portal that they’d been sent to destroy--up and running. Was that how the Power and her angelic friend had traveled? To Sunny’s somewhat trained eye, the portal looked demonic. Was that where they were pushing her?
She stopped moving, not wanting to be herded anywhere, but the sounds the feral angels behind her were making were terrifying.
She took another step just as Agares was knocked from his feet and rolled away from the sword of the dark angel. Tesah was walking backwards as the pack of wild angels moved Sunny forward where they wanted her.
No. She wasn’t going anywhere with them.
Eli had gotten free from whatever giant abomination he’d been fighting and after a quick glance over in his direction, she saw the thing dead at his feet. Eli wasted no time barreling toward them and headed straight for Tesah. The dark one was busy trying to finish off Agares, so Sunny knew this was her chance.
She could tell from the way he was positioning himself at the Power, that Eli was going to try to knock Tesah off balance and get an advantage in the fight. That gave Sunny a few precious half-seconds to capitalize on the distraction.
Sure enough, as soon as he’d covered enough ground, Tesah turned her body to face Eli head on and when she did, Sunny made her move.
With a few short steps, she made it to the Power’s back and didn’t hesitate to perform the most heinous act of brutality a creature could do to an angel.
Sunny brought her razor-sharp sword down at the joint on Tesah’s back where her wing met her shoulder blade and felt the sickening pop as she pulled the blade through, releasing Tesah’s right wing from its joint.
The scream that Power let out was unholy and shook Sunny, but she stayed on her feet. Tesah was done in that moment, as any angel would be, and collapsed into a bloody heap at Sunny’s feet--the white, feathered wing lying blood and useless beside her.
