by Ashlee Sinn
Leviathan shrugged, his shadow slinking closer to Mammon. “I’m a demon. It’s what we do.”
“Not to my kin, you don’t.” Mammon shot her hand out in front of her and a giant ball of fire flew through the air and smashed into the wall behind Leviathan. He started to smile and say something to my sire, when he suddenly turned around and fell to his knees.
Mammon’s fire had hit the shadow serpent along the wall, slicing its body in two. The dark creature slowly started to slide down the stone toward the ground as Leviathan watched in horror. He reached out to the shadow and made a pained noise when it disappeared into a cloud of black smoke. “You killed her!” he shouted.
Snakes started falling from the walls, just like they had in my cell. Echo screeched and jumped closer to me. Stefan let out a sigh and readied himself for battle. The hounds started stomping and snapping at the creatures slithering across the ground. But Mammon didn’t even blink. Instead, she clenched her hands together and mumbled something under her breath. The glow of magic around her intensified to a brighter red and several snakes stated to writhe in pain.
Leviathan looked around in horror as Mammon’s magic held his at bay. And by the time half of the snakes were piles of ash, he stood and stomped across the room toward Mammon. “You don’t get to win,” he growled, throwing out his arm and knocking her backward into a wall. Her head cracked with the force of the hit, and although she wasn’t knocked out completely, I could see it had impacted her ability to defend herself.
“Mammon!” I shouted, closing my eyes and hoping I could use my magic again. When I blinked in behind Leviathan, I said a secret thank you as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Enough!” he shouted, twisting and turning and trying to knock me off.
I’d successfully distracted him enough to let go of Mammon, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hounds and Echo rushing to her side. Stefan, however, was running directly toward me. “No! Stay back,” I yelled.
But it was too late.
Somehow, Leviathan had communicated with the snakes left in the cavern and at once, they all attacked Stefan. His screams tormented me as he was pulled down to the ground and covered with the black beasts.
I squeezed harder, trying to get Leviathan to lose consciousness, even for just one second. I knew I couldn’t kill him, but I hoped I could distract him long enough so Mammon could get back on her feet and help us.
My left arm throbbed with the pain of trying to strangle someone. Leviathan was tall, which meant my legs now dangled off the ground as I tried to stop his breathing. He whipped me back and forth, trying to knock me free. “You’re a damn fool,” he growled at me.
“I’ve been called worse,” I gritted out, trying to ignore the pain in my muscles.
Leviathan chuckled. “I’m sure you have. And now, I’m done with this.”
An invisible force yanked me away from the demon, just like what happened in my apartment. It pulled me to the far side of the room and held me up against the stone wall like a ragdoll. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and although it didn’t really hurt, I hated the feeling of being trapped. “Ahh!” I screamed in frustration.
Leviathan turned and faced me, laughing at the way I was behaving. “I had such great plans for you.”
“Had? What do you mean had?”
The archdemon simply laughed and focused his attention on Stefan. The incubus was still covered with snakes, yet the pile of serpents twitched up and down and I heard him shouting obscenities at the demon spawn each time one of them was tossed to the side.
From my vantage point, I could see the whole room—a luxury Leviathan didn’t have. I watched as Echo helped Mammon to her feet and saw the hounds slinking off to the sides to flank the other archdemon. I witnessed Echo pressing a dagger into Mammon’s hands. And I smiled when Leviathan noticed me watching the action behind him.
His eyes widened and then narrowed as he spun on his heels to see what was happening. But it was too late. The moment his chest faced my sire, she plunged the dagger into his heart. He immediately dropped to his knees and chuckled when he looked down at the handle protruding from his chest.
“You can’t kill me,” he huffed.
“I know,” Mammon said with a wicked smile. “But I can still chop you up into little pieces.”
“So crass,” he tsked at her. But when he reached up and attempted to pull the dagger from his body, Mammon kicked her foot out and pushed it even deeper. Leviathan flew backward, landing on his spine and coughing several times when he did.
His demon magic pinning me to the wall disappeared. I fell to the ground, landing hard on my injured ankle, but I quickly got up and rushed to help Stefan. The snakes hissed and spat at me while I yanked them away from my friend. He was still under there, fighting and swearing and I kept throwing one serpent after another off him. Echo helped me while Mammon and the hounds circled Leviathan. In just a few minutes, we had Stefan pulled free of the pile and standing on his own two feet again.
“Thanks,” he mumbled to both of us, brushing the dirt and ash from his pants. He shuddered and gave me a timid smile. “I really hate snakes.”
I gave him a quick hug. “Me too.”
A loud boom echoed through the chamber, making all of us look at Leviathan for an explanation. He lay on his back, laughing and holding the small tip of the handle which was the only part of the blade left on the outside of his body.
“What was that?” I shouted at him.
He smiled and closed his eyes. “It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?” I asked as Stefan, Echo, and Mammon exchange some type of knowing look. “What’s happen—”
My shouts were cut off by another explosion coming from somewhere overhead. Small pieces of rock fell on top of us and Mammon swore.
“You fucking traitor,” she shouted at Leviathan. “You know this is a mistake!”
The demon sprawled on the ground laughed and laughed like he’d done nothing wrong. “We wouldn’t have stopped Lucifer. And if you really thought that was a possibility, then you’re the biggest fool of them all,” he spat at Mammon.
“What’s he talking about, Mammon?” I asked.
Stefan gently touched my shoulder. “The reveal.”
“What? No! How long have I been here? I thought we could stop this—” The ceiling shuddered again.
“It’s too late,” Leviathan said. “You’re all too late.”
“Mammon?” I asked, voice shaking with the pressure of what this all meant.
She stared down at Leviathan a few moments before turning her gaze to me. “We need to get outside and manage this.” Mammon started jogging out of the room through another tunnel I hadn’t noticed yet. Echo followed at her heels along with the hounds.
“Stefan, is this true?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so. You were here for almost two weeks. A lot happened in that time and although we all tried to stop this, Lucifer and some of the angels decided a reveal was best.”
“It’s not!”
“I know,” he agreed with a sigh. “But we should go up there and see how bad it is.”
With a nod, I let him take my hand and lead us out of Leviathan’s lair at a jog. When we passed the archdemon, he gave me a wink.
“See you soon, Arabella.”
Stefan yanked me forward before I could respond. And as we ran through the tunnel that angled upward toward the street while explosions blasted over our heads, I wondered what we might face and how we would survive this new life that Lucifer had just given us.
Hell on Earth was the best way to describe the scene in front of us. Buildings burned. Car alarms blasted across the city. People screamed. And the stench…the smell of burning bodies filled the darkened skies. Creatures flew over our heads, some of them Lucifer’s and some of them belonging to God. Wraiths darted throughout the chaos, feasting on the poor souls running for their lives.
“This is worse than I thought,” Stefan whi
spered beside me.
I had to agree with him, even though I knew it would be bad. The screams of terrorized humans filled the street, many of them covered in dust and ash and carrying ghosted looks on their faces.
“We have to get out of here! We have to run!” A middle-aged man grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me. “It’s the end of the world. Everything is lost. Come, come with me!” Pulling me forward as he tried to run away, I stumbled over my feet and we both fell to the ground together. My knees scraped against the pavement and when I rolled to my side, the man’s body shifted and pinned my arm to the ground.
It took me a moment to yank myself free. When I was finally able to stand, I bent forward and held out my hand to the man. “Let me help you,” I said.
Wide, terrified eyes stared back up at me. Slowly, he lifted his arm, as though trying to decipher how a woman running around in a tee shirt and thongs would be able to do anything for him. But he trusted me enough to get him to his feet…until the wraith tore through his body.
“No!” I screamed. Blood splattered across my face when the wraith darted through the man’s back and out of his chest. His lifeless body tumbled to the ground at the same time Stefan jumped on my back and pressed me into the pavement.
“Stay down,” he shouted.
A rush of air surrounded us and Stefan trembled as something sliced across his body. Mumbling against my ear, he squeezed me tighter when we were attacked again.
“We should run!” I yelled into the ground.
“The wraiths can’t kill me,” he groaned a moment before another one came after us. “They’ll figure that out soon enough—ah!”
We tumbled to the side with the force of that last attack. Stefan rolled off me and immediately jumped to his feet. Facing the oncoming shadow demon rushing toward us, Stefan lifted his arms out to the sides and screamed at the wraith. With no face or shape, it was hard to interpret what a shadow was thinking. But the moment Stefan challenged the other demon, it shot up into the air and dodged in between the skyscrapers until it was out of sight.
Stefan turned toward me and smiled. “See, I told you that—”
An angel with mostly gray wings picked him up off the ground and carried Stefan down the street and toward the water.
“Stefan!” I ran after the two, doing my best to keep up with the flying beast and trying to follow Stefan’s cursing. As they pulled further and further away, I could see my friend doing his best to fight against the angel. But when they got over the river, and something metallic in Stefan’s hand caught the light, the angel dropped Stefan.
I watched in horror as he fell several stories and disappeared underneath the black water. My demon friend was tough, and it was hard to kill us. But a fall like that could have knocked him out, and that meant he might be sinking to the bottom of the river right now. Most demons weren’t a fan of water. In fact, I knew Stefan had a healthy fear of the element and wasn’t able to swim.
I did my best to run toward him. I was only a few blocks away but a hoard of humans was coming straight at me. I wasn’t going to make it. I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t get to Stefan and save him like he’d saved me.
Tears and frustration built behind my eyes, and the next human that slammed her shoulder into mine, ended up getting knocked into the side of the building. Someone punched me in the jaw and I stumbled forward. The movement of the crowd pushed me back, but I tried to fight against the wave. Covering my head and staying as low to the ground as I could, I waited for them to pass. It felt like hours—how many people decided to run down this particular street? But when the last of the feet had trampled over me, I was finally able to see the reason. There, burning at full force, every building in Lower Manhattan lit up the sky in a series of oranges and reds. Not a brick was spared in the destruction, and as I watched, one of the buildings crumpled to the ground.
How many humans had just lost their lives? How many more would survive this night? Creatures with dark wings circled the rubble high above and I wondered, again, why anyone would have supported this kind of destruction.
A bright light creeping out from a nearby alley caught my eyes. The screams and sounds of flames drowned out most noise, but I still thought I heard someone…praying? I ran toward the light, doing my best to ignore the cuts on my bare feet. As I rounded the corner, my heart stopped with the sight in front of me.
There, kneeling over a human sprawled on the ground, was my angel. Jericho muttered his prayers while he tried to heal the dying woman. Her arm was almost severed and her white dress shirt was now stained red where she’d sustained some kind of injury to her chest. I would have written her off as a lost cause, but not Jericho. His ability to heal might one day be the death of him. He cared so much, he’d waste energy on someone who was beyond saving. It was what made him special.
It was what made me fall in love with him.
“Jericho?” I said, not wanting to sneak up on him.
His green eyes found mine, and despite the ash covering his face, the matted hair, and the increasingly gray wings jutting from his back, the smile he gave me confirmed that we had something special between us.
“They found you,” he breathed.
Still trying to heal the woman, he let the light flow from his hands. I stepped closer and looked down at her. Young, maybe in her mid-twenties, this woman had probably just started her career. With a beautiful face and a nice suit, it was a shame to see her life taken from her now. But she had succumbed to her injuries and I feared Jericho might be unwilling to accept this.
He sat back on his heels and rubbed his hands over his face in defeat. “I tried to get as many out as I could,” he whispered. “She’d almost made it when the building started to fall.”
I bent forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head against his bare chest. “You did what you could. You aren’t going to be able to save everyone.”
“This isn’t right. This isn’t fucking right!” Slamming his fists on the ground, Jericho shouted to the sky. “Why did they do this? Why?”
I sobbed with him. The humans would never recover from this reveal. The demons and angels wouldn’t recover from this reveal. There would never be peace between the species again, not after today.
“They’ve hit every major city in the world,” Jericho finally said. “It was coordinated but it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“What do you mean?” Being trapped underground for a few weeks had left me in the dark.
Jericho held me tight and kissed the top of my head. He didn’t answer my question. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I wanted to go in with them, but Mammon wouldn’t let me.” His chest bounced with a bit of laughter. “She called me a cherub and told me to get lost. Even after I’d found you.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, sounds like her.” Crawling into Jericho’s lap, I wrapped my body around his. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“Never.”
“And I’m sorry about the woman.”
I could feel Jericho look down at her before he shuddered. “So much death,” he whispered.
We held each other close as more explosions erupted throughout the city. The end of the alley lit up with orange when the nearby buildings got caught up in the flames. But I didn’t see a single human running past anymore. I closed my eyes, knowing what that meant. I wasn’t entirely sympathetic to that species, but I did appreciate my time living among them. They had been good to me. Good enough that I spent most of my years walking up here with them. Good enough that I felt the pain in my gut when I thought about what tomorrow would be like for them. How many will survive? How many will then understand their place in the hierarchy? Knowing humans as well as I did, they would take their time to grieve…and then they would plot their revenge. Today was only the first day of the long and painful war to come.
“I was hoping it wasn’t true.”
Mammon’s scratchy voice had me jumping to my feet and facing the end of the a
lley where she stood with Echo by her side. He had his head lowered as though guilty of something, and from the way she glared at Jericho, I guessed Echo had figured out the extent of my relationship with the angel. And my sire wasn’t pleased.
“Mammon,” I acknowledged.
“You were supposed to kill him, not fuck him,” she growled.
I heard Jericho push to his feet and stand behind me. It was comforting to feel him at my back and it gave me the strength I needed to have this confrontation. “You shouldn’t have bargained with my life,” I said in response.
Mammon laughed and sauntered to us. “You are mine to do what I want with.”
Echo looked at me and mouthed his apology. A gas line exploded on the street behind them and the Under dropped to the ground as Mammon stood still, duster flying up around her with the force of the explosion. She looked like a badass and it reminded me that I still needed watch my attitude with the archdemon.
Jericho stepped around me and faced my sire. “You can’t believe this,” he waved his arms around to highlight the burning buildings and the body near our feet, “is a good idea. Right?”
Mammon narrowed her eyes at Jericho, focusing on his graying wings. “Don’t speak to me.”
He took one step forward, but I grabbed his shoulder. “We don’t have time to fight with each other, Mammon. What can we do to stop this destruction?” As if on cue, the distinct sound of another building falling to the ground echoed through the brick walls of the alley. A cloud of dust rushed between the narrow buildings, forcing all of us to cover our faces for a moment. Jericho wrapped me in his arms, protecting my head and holding me tight. It felt so natural for us to be together. I’d never been able to trust someone so completely as I did with him. And in this time of pure disaster, that fact helped me find the strength I needed.
When the dust cleared, I stomped over to Mammon. “You might not be the one burning this city to the ground, but you let this happen. You’ve helped destroy the life we’ve built up here.”
“Watch yourself,” Mammon warned.
