by Lan Chan
“Can’t you heal them?” Max asked.
Raphael shook his head. “They are too touched by the Hell dimension. Their natures are no longer pure. If you choose to do this, Sophie, you should remain in Sanctuary in case.”
“No,” Max said.
“I think you mean, ‘Sophie, what would you like to do?’” I told him.
His nostrils flared. “Sophie, what would you like to do?”
Kai snickered.
I swallowed, looking at the spirits of the malachim who were as fearsome as ever despite being trapped inside the soul circle. They were hauntingly scary. But within that hellish shell, there were frightened souls hiding away. I couldn’t let them suffer.
“I’ll do it.”
Max moved in with me after the first day and shrugged when I asked him who was covering his shift in the Reserve.
After each session, Kai tried as best he could to heal me, but the pain wasn’t physical. The only thing that helped me was time. Kai shoved a hand through his hair after the fourth time. “This is so frustrating,” he said.
I touched his wrist. “I’m human, remember? We don’t get power without a sacrifice of some kind.”
His eyes glazed over. His thoughts were a million miles away.
With Kai’s help, all up the transmuting took three weeks. I was sitting in my room, recovering after the last transfer, when Raphael appeared with a companion. I heard songbirds in my head as Gaia regarded me.
Max walked in from the courtyard and immediately tensed. Raphael placed a hand on his shoulder to stem the growl that was making the room vibrate. The last time Gaia had been around, she’d tried to kill Lex. We weren’t huge fans, even if technically she was my deity.
Gaia gave Max a long look. “Some things were not meant to survive,” she said offhandedly to Raphael. He didn’t stand a chance against her, but Max sure as heck looked like he wanted to try. It was only Raphael that stood in his way.
“Sophie,” Raphael said. “The malachim have a proposition for you.”
I cocked my head to the side. “But they’re all gone.”
After each cleansing, they had disappeared into the aether. I thought Azrael had reaped them. “Not all,” Gaia told me. She waved her hand and two figures of pure white light appeared beside her. The energy radiating from the one on the right was familiar. I recognised her as the malachim that had taken refuge in me during the battle with Apollyon.
“Hello,” I said.
She nodded in greeting.
“Why can’t she talk?”
“It’s uncomfortable for them,” Gaia explained. “Guardian angels communicate through signs and symbols.”
I thought immediately of Haniel who had spoken to me through Professor McKenna, and my heart spasmed. He’d sacrificed himself to help us, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him in the Abyss. Max came to sit beside me, taking my hand and holding it to his lips.
The malachim reached out and touched my other hand. She drew a pattern of vines down my arm. “She has seen what might come and wants to offer you a gift,” Gaia said. “You know the lore of guardian angels?”
I nodded. “During times of dire need,” Gaia said, “they are able to temporarily take over the human they are watching. In some cases, they will sacrifice themselves to save their human’s life.”
I balked. “My life is fine. I don’t want anyone sacrificing themselves for me.”
Gaia bent down so we were eye-to-eye. “And what will happen when the Morning Star rises?” she said. “Do you have what it takes to hold him back?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. The mating link had made me stronger. Max would hold me in place for as long as he could if I needed to use the blood alchemy. But the kind of power she was talking about was beyond my grasp.
Gaia knew that. It was why she was here. “What about balance?” I asked.
She stared at me right in the face, her gaze unwavering and impossible to break. It was almost like she was staring into my soul. I felt myself shuddering, before Max bit out a snarl. Gaia smiled at me and it was free of the touch of insanity that had plagued her in the past. “You will mourn them regardless of this being their decision. That is balance enough.”
I swallowed. “What exactly is going to happen?”
“They will transfer their spirit to you. It will create a buffer for your alchemy so that it won’t erode your soul.”
“Like a permanent possession?”
“Something like that. Except they will no longer exist.”
I squeezed Max’s hand and lamented my own weakness. He squeezed back, his grimace a contained rebuke.
“Don’t let them make you forget who you are, Sophie darling,” he said.
No. I wouldn’t forget. And I wouldn’t compromise myself anymore. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do it. Not knowing they’ll die.”
Raphael smiled. “Did I not tell you?” he said to Gaia. She dismissed his comment.
“This is a decision that will affect the lives of many,” she said.
“I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Another figure materialised in the room. I gasped. This tiny place was beginning to fill up with seraphim. Michael glided up to us. “Why did nobody inform me there would be a transfer?”
“Apparently there won’t be,” Raphael said.
They traded glances. Michael knelt in front of me. He was still too tall, even on his knees. “I won’t let them sacrifice themselves for me,” I told him before he could try and convince me. He took my hand and beamed at me. Beside me I could feel Max bristling.
“The ultimate fate of this dimension is rapidly approaching,” he said. “Will you allow it if the malachim do not sacrifice themselves, but you will feel pain when calling upon their power?”
Max’s eyes flashed gold. It didn’t escape my notice that after years of being insignificant beside Lex, I suddenly had three deities trying to persuade me to be stronger. They were offering me strength in exchange for pain. Max growled low, but I shushed him with a look. I could live with those terms.
“Okay.”
The exchange itself was painless. Michael touched each malachim in the forehead. They shuddered, but not in a bone-chilling way, before their essences were transformed into a silvery white glow that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite remember at the moment. When he directed the flow of energy into me, Gaia reached out and touched my forehead too. The tingle as the malachim entered my chamber of magic was like champagne bubbles fizzing over my skin. Their essences latched on to the paths that the blood magic had traversed, to manifest as blood blades down my arms. Michael sealed them there, and I felt their presence even if I could no longer communicate with them directly.
Max inhaled and I opened my eyes. My arms and hands were glowing. Tattooed over my skin were delicate swirls in silver like I had vines growing inside me.
“Ummm...”
“A by-product of their light,” Michael said. “When you need it, they will manifest.”
All three of them disappeared without another word. I sat there for a second, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Max was a contained ball of fury beside me. “You know what they effectively did, don’t you?” he asked.
I nodded. “They’ve made me into a celestial vessel.” Power hummed inside my veins. Was it enough? Only time would tell. But inside my heart, a small weight lifted. This was at least half-way towards fulfilling my promise to Lex.
I couldn’t help thinking of Emily and how being a vessel had turned out for her. But then the mating link surged up and slapped sense back into me. I wasn’t Emily. I’d grown up with wolves and lived my life under the shadow of a murderer. It would take more than that to break me.
“Let’s get out of this place,” Max said. “I can’t stand the stink of self-righteousness here.”
“I dare you to say that to Kai.”
He grinned at me and I blew out a breath. Oh great, he wa
s definitely going to say it to Kai and get punched in the process.
That night, I sat in the garden bed filled with the flowers Lex had created for me and inspected my hands. The silver was very prominent against my dark skin. I heard the soft tread of bare feet and knew I only did so because Max wanted me to hear him.
I was ready when he crowded me and picked me up, setting me on his lap. “I’ve been out here two minutes,” I told him, leaning into his chest.
“I don’t like waking up with you gone.”
Through the mating link, I felt the real reason he was here. He didn’t like waking up and feeling my unease.
“Can you tell me again how she looked?” I asked.
For the thousandth time, Max described her to me. He could have left out parts, I knew he wanted to, but I also knew he didn’t want me to wonder, either. “I can’t stand knowing she’s there alone,” I said.
He wrapped his arms around me. “She’s strong too, Soph. She’ll be okay.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Both.”
I wasn’t worried that she wouldn’t survive. My concern was how she would do it. She’d lived so many years on her own that survival meant being meaner and tougher than the things that scared her. And there was nothing in this world scarier than Lucifer.
Max held me tight, feeling my emotions swaying. The mating link poured warmth through me. In the moonlight, the silver tattoos glistened.
“We’ll be ready,” Max said. “We’ll get her back.”
I leaned into him and made myself take a long breath. For now, I remembered what I had told the kids when this all started. When she returned, I would be ready for whatever she brought with her. And we would finish this once and for all.
54
Lex
Being seraphim encompassed a lot of repression. Azrael was repressing big time as he gave me what was effectively an angelic death stare.
“You cannot circumvent death,” he said. “It upsets the order of things in ways you cannot imagine.”
“Might I remind you that you did exactly that and that’s the reason why I’m in the shit in the first place?”
It was so gratifying to watch him try and ninja himself out of the corner. “That was different.”
“How? Because you’re seraphim and I’m human?”
He didn’t even try to deny it. “Yes.”
I snorted. “But you decided to save me. Ergo, you think I’m worthy of life. Therefore, you accept how I live my life. And I choose to save my friends.”
The black and silver of his magic rippled over his face. “This was not what I had in mind.”
“Then you can always rescind free will and–oh wait, you can’t.”
“Alessia.”
I blew out a breath. Months and months of holding my tongue in Lucifer’s presence was making it all come out at once. “I’m not going to apologise for saving their lives,” I said. “But I’m sorry if it upsets you.” I was sorry about a lot of things these days.
I swung the demon blade against the grass, decapitating the lawn. He watched me attacking the environment at his workplace and sighed. “How did you know he would be here?”
The same way I knew many things. “I’ve seen a lot of prophecies by now. I chose to believe in the ones where my friends make it.” The other ones didn’t bear thinking about. I would not allow myself to revel in despair. I had enough of that going on already.
Seriously, this optimism thing was starting to become second nature. All that had to happen was a stint in the Hell dimension.
“Does Lucifer know you’re here?” He had to ask it at some stage, but the reminder of my captivity was a blanket of ice that made me raise the demon blade and inspect it closely. The blade was still coated in Max’s blood. Against my palm, I could feel the blade vibrate with vicious intent. Months away from me and it had forgotten who was boss. Sliding the side of my thumb along the blade, I allowed it to draw blood and clamped it still with my will. I was Alessia Hastings. I was its master. It would obey me. The aura around the blade rattled with a blood-red light before it was consumed by black and silver.
“Do you think he would allow it if he knew I was here?”
No. This was the culmination of months of planning. There was only one more thing to do before I returned to Hell.
Azrael moved in close. So close that I felt the slide of his cloak against my leg as it swayed. His soulful eyes neither softened nor narrowed, but when he spoke, I almost lost my nerve. “I can conceal you in the veil,” he said. Though his tone didn’t change, the offer said more than any action.
“Hiding isn’t going to save me,” I lamented. “And I don’t particularly feel like running anymore.”
“Then what will you do? Lucifer won’t stop until all life is under his rule. Including the heavenly realm. We cannot allow that to happen.”
“Can’t we? Everybody keeps telling me what I can’t do but nobody is saying what I should do. So I am muddling through on my own.” The demon blade began to liquefy and reshape into a blade that made rage ignite in my gut every time I thought of my inability to bear children.
“Muddling might not be enough –” I stabbed him through the stomach. It was the softest place on his vessel, and let’s be honest, the only place I could reach. Anatomy wouldn’t make a difference now.
“Alessia?” he choked. Painful confusion blanketed his eyes. An oppressive weight dragged me to the ground, but I held firm and snapped out the Angelical. Decipulah. Contain.
The Ley sight surrounded us. In it I watched as Azrael became encased in millions of threads of millions of colours that wrapped around every inch of him and dragged him to the ground. Free will handicapped him, and the Angelical caught him by surprise. But it was the Ley dimension that disarmed him. The power of the Ley lines was the power of life. Here in the resting place of the Sea of Souls, that power was unmatched. The lines strapped around his throat, his mouth, his eyes.
A gaping portal opened up behind him. The mouth of the Abyss was a gateway to an endless, depthless torment. I closed my eyes as Azrael was sucked into the void. It snapped shut directly after and the Ley dimension returned to its state of calm.
“One down.” I threw the heavenly blade in the air. It sailed above my head and reshaped into the demon blade before I caught it again. “Four to go.”
Lucifer wanted the heavenly realm. I had to stop him. One seraph at a time.
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