Samyaza tilted his head to the side and back, and he watched Armen adjust her aim. “So it was for me. I you were lying,” he reminded her of their previous discussion within the Basilica. “You do not doubt your power to destroy me, nor the will to carry it out.”
“Sue me.”
Terry stood frozen. “Armen?”
Samyaza straightened his head and looked at Armen dead on. “I could have him stop time again.”
“You could, but you won’t. It wouldn’t be fair, and I believe Father would enter the game. Besides, who’s to say Luc would do that for you again?”
“Wow,” Terry said softly. Armen then knew he’d caught up on what had just happened and how he came to be behind Agares.
Samyaza gave a short nod. “You do know me well, Sister, but perhaps our dear Father will turn a blind eye once again.”
“Call it a hunch, but I don’t think that’s going to happen this time around.” She held her aim steady. “Step away from him or I will kill you.”
He chuckled. “And what would the world be like without me, Princess?”
“A hell of a lot better, I’m sure,” she replied with a smirk.
He shook his head and took a step away from Sean. “Doubtful. I have given them knowledge. I have taught them how to learn what Luc opened their eyes to. I am the reason they better themselves.”
“Or become the dregs of society.”
He chuckled. “Ah, but those were already on their path to us. It is because of our temptations, however, that mankind ventures toward the Light.”
“Damn, you’re an arrogant son of a bitch. If Luc heard you talking like this, he’d slap you out of existence.” Armen held her aim on him with each step, keeping the silver ball locked on his head.
“You call your own Mother a bitch. Nice.”
“It’s an expression, Sam.”
“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” He swung his arm low, backwards, rounded up from behind, and when he stopped, his hand spread open, in the form of a baseball pitch. A fast-pitched sonic wave traveled across the room until it slammed into Armen and Terry. Armen had just enough time to close her hand around the silver ball seated within the slingshot before barreling backwards into Terry and the wall behind them. The impact forced all of the air from her lungs and she gulped in gasps to force it back in.
Terry fell next to her, a pain-filled yell coming from him before he reached for her leg. “I hate being human, too.” He sucked in a breath when he attempted to move and gave up shortly thereafter.
Armen couldn’t help herself, she laughed, and it hurt . . . bad. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “Anything broken?”
“My leg, I think,” he grunted.
“No more demon fighting for you. Not today, anyway.”
“You okay?” He attempted to sit up again, but failed and fell to the floor with a grunt. The fact that he wasn’t still yelling in agony with a broken leg was a testament to his strength, and Armen admired him a great deal more.
“Stay put. I’m fine.” She moved her hand to his cheek and rubbed her fingers along the stubble. “I love you, Terry.”
He attempted a smile. “I know.”
“I just wanted you to know that.”
“I love you, too, Armen.” He clenched his teeth to bite back the pain. “Finish him off.”
“Will do.” She slid her right leg beneath her to stand and casually searched for the scepter with only her eyes. If they needed to kill her with that weapon, she wanted to know where it was at all times. She spotted it on the other side of Terry, between him and the wall. “Keep that hidden until necessary,” she whispered. Thankfully, he’d had the good sense to retract that blade before she’d slammed into him.
Terry nodded and squeezed her leg. “Don’t let him take my dad.”
Armen frowned. “I’ll do my best, Terry, but he’s strong.”
“I’m just asking that you try.”
She nodded once and pushed herself to her feet by sliding up the wall, pausing a moment to gather her energy before pushing away. Armen needed a prayer answered right now. Father, if you can hear me . . . . It was worth a shot. She stepped forward. This was something she would have to do without the divine weapon. Truly, it was the only way.
Samyaza stood near the desk and Sean, his long black hair resting against his shoulders and his blue eyes brightening to the color of a true flame. Armen did not have the stamina for this fight. Her energy had all but drained completely out of her by the time she stood and walked a few feet from Terry and the wall. A heavy sigh left her.
“I told you once, Sam, that taking the wrangler or his son will start a war between us.” She was rather surprised he hadn’t vanished with Sean already.
He grinned. “You are still flesh, Sister.”
“I won’t be for long.” Her voice sounded tired and at its end.
“What?” Terry said in the background.
He scanned her body. “You are not injured.”
“Not on the outside.” Armen continued her path to him with painful steps, and each of those steps felt as though someone poured sand into her legs, making them heavier every time she lifted a foot.
“Armen?”
She ignored him. There was nothing left to say.
Samyaza arched a brow. “And yet, you still seem willing to fight me. Not surprising, I suppose. You always did find strength when you needed it the most.”
“I can’t allow you to take Sean,” she said, still moving toward him. “And I simply won’t allow you to take the man I love.” She paused in her step to catch her breath. “They’re good people who don’t deserve Hell. If that means I have to fight you, then so be it.”
“I cannot kill you, Armaros,” he said. “I do not wish to end it all. You can keep the detective.”
“You’ve already killed me, Sam,” she replied. “I’m just not dead yet.”
Concern creased his face. “Then the war would take place in Gehenna.”
“Yes, it would.” Armen kicked the shillelagh up with her foot and caught it. He knew she could kick his ass in that realm. Being a princess had its perks. “So why not begin it up here, where Armageddon seems to be starting?”
He pointed a long finger at her. “I had nothing to do with that!”
“I don’t care.”
Sam stared at her for a long time, and Terry attempted to make his way over to her by dragging himself along the floor. Sean stirred and his eyelids fluttered. Silence filled the air as the sky outside turned red and black; lightning filtered across the sky, clouds darkening and swirling, thunder roaring, but not from brewing storms. As much as Armen wanted to know what made the thunderous sound, she couldn’t concern herself with finding out . . . not yet.
“Think about what you are doing, Armaros.”
“It’s no longer my choice, Sam.” Cries in the distance made their way to her ears, but she didn’t remove her eyes from him. “You’ve brought this upon me now, finished what the others couldn’t. You know that even without the weapon, my dying at the hands of one of the Fallen will take me back to Gehenna, not Home, regardless of the fact that I’m in the Light now.”
She could see the changes taking place outside from the corner of her eye, and it perplexed her. Perhaps she’d misinterpreted the demonic graffiti. Maybe Armageddon didn’t rely on her death to begin its reign because the war had already started falling to this realm a little at a time over a much longer period than the time frame in which they had been attempting to kill her. Perhaps it was just that her death coincided with the End of Days, or it was the perfect time to kill her as a way for Hell to win the war without a fight. Kill the Fallen Princess with her Father’s weapon; everything falls and the Darkness wins. Earth would become Gehenna, everlasting Darkness, and all the things that came with it. Samyaza and the others would have all of humanity readily available to torture, no matter how they lived their lives. A harpy flew across the sky, followed by several scattered human screams from peo
ple running to get away.
Armen stood still, staring into her brother’s eyes, fighting the weakness that was about to overtake her human body. Her breath hitched and she coughed. It made her stumble forward and she tightened her grip on the shillelagh for support. She coughed again and found blood on her hand when she withdrew it from her mouth. Questions arose in her mind of why her Father made her flesh. She reminded herself of Sean’s words: Faith in why He does things.
“Armen,” Terry called to her, fear catching his voice as he crawled across the floor. “No.”
Samyaza closed his eyes, the regret showing on his still angelic features.
Sacrifice. Armen knew the Fallen despised it, and she had apparently just done the deed, not for the first time, by stepping in front of Terry before the sonic wave hit and casting a spell that wouldn’t get him killed. She’d forgotten to include herself in that spell.
Oops.
Sean tried to sit up, but fell back to the floor with a grunt, catching Armen’s attention.
Samyaza’s eyes shifted to him, and then quickly back to Armen. He moved fast, twisting in a whirlwind over to Sean, and picked up the demon wrangler. He held Sean in front of him like a shield.
Armen hadn’t moved. She only stared at him. “Father won’t let you keep him,” she growled. “You know that.”
“Father will have to look for him if he wishes to save him, and by then, there will not be anything left.”
“He belongs in the Light.” She fell into a coughing fit and dropped to one knee, leaning forward, her fist pressing hard against the cold floor, the silver ball still confined within. “You cannot take . . . that which . . . belongs in the . . . Light.” She coughed again, spitting blood onto the floor.
“He is not the golden child you think, Armaros.”
“I don’t c-care. It’s not my pl-place to judge him.” She raised her head and glared. “He still belongs . . . to Father if he can hear Father’s v-voice.”
Samyaza cocked his left brow, as though he didn’t know that information. He shifted his gaze to the side of Sean’s face. “Is this true, Wrangler? You can hear and speak to our Father?”
Sean nodded.
Samyaza’s wide grin reappeared. “Tell him you are fucked.”
A scream came from within the offices and a door opened. Jasmine ran into the lobby, chased by a one-headed hellhound much smaller than Cerberus. It was nonetheless horrific, however, as it had no skin. Nothing but muscle and tendons and bone; the creature didn’t even have any eyes, but it still had very sharp teeth.
“Here,” Terry shouted, and when Armen looked behind her, he slid the scepter across the floor to her. She dropped the shillelagh and snatched up the scepter, then thumbed the trigger for the full blade. As the beast ran by, Armen beheaded it from her crouch on the floor after Jasmine ran past her. She didn’t have the strength to stand any longer.
“Jazzy, go to Terry,” she shouted as best she could. Jasmine skidded to a halt and turned to look at Armen, her eyes bewildered, and then she eyed Terry and ran over to him after seeing the events unfolding outside. Armen couldn’t blame her. Things walked the earth that didn’t belong on it.
A ball of fire shot across the sky. Damn, she hated being wrong about the fire and brimstone shit.
“That was my favorite dog.” Sam growled.
“Sorry, they all look alike to me.”
“You are such a bitch.”
Her eyes tightened with pain and she grunted. “Get over it.” She collapsed, and the scepter clinked against the floor, but the silver ball remained within her left hand.
Terry’s shouts echoed across the lobby. “Jasmine, get the scepter!”
Armen turned around in her spirit form and stared at the small group nearing her body. She stood twenty feet away, and Samyaza’s eyes shifted from her spirit to her body, but he said nothing.
She wasn’t dead yet.
Jazzy ran toward her, picked up the scepter as she slid across the floor, and she positioned herself in front of Armen’s body, shielding her, pointing the blade toward Samyaza.
“Armen!” Terry finally made his way across the floor, dragging himself over to her. He turned her over, cradling her in his arms. “Come on, Armen.” Terry patted her face lightly, but her eyes remained closed, even when he shouted her name again. “God, please, no. Don’t let this happen.” He whispered into Armen’s hair.
Jasmine didn’t move.
Terry looked up at Samyaza, anger raging in his green eyes. “What have you done? Look at what you’ve done!”
Sam stared at him, uncertainty evident in his gaze. “I did not intend for this to happen.” He briefly looked at her spirit again.
“Well, it did happen.”
Armen watched as Sean reached into his satchel and withdrew the powder he’d used on the minions earlier. He carefully opened the container during Samyaza’s distraction, and threw it over his shoulder into the Fallen’s face. Samyaza roared and let go of him, and Sean stumbled away from him as quickly as his legs would carry him.
Gunfire erupted in the lobby, and Samyaza jolted a step back. Smoke billowed from the wound in his right shoulder and he stared at it, shocked. Another shot hit his left shoulder, throwing him back two steps.
“How?” He scanned the lobby for the perpetrator.
Dante Peterson stepped out of the shadows with a Glock pointed directly at Sam’s head. He smirked. “I was a priest before I became a cop; therefore, I blessed the few silver rounds I still had before loading the gun.” He glanced at Terry. “Thanks for dropping it in the lab.”
Terry nodded. “Figured you’d need it when you woke.”
Dante fixated on Sam again. “Now, fix it before it’s too late.”
“I did not mean for this to happen.” He regarded Armen’s body, which looked rather pale, and then glanced at her spirit once more.
“That’s why I’m telling you to fix it,” Dante said. “You may not wish to go back to your Father, but I know you don’t want all of this. It’s the only reason I haven’t taken the shot to your head.”
Sam pointedly arched a brow and tilted his head. “Do you really think you can kill me with a mortal weapon?”
“I know exactly how to kill you, Samyaza,” Dante said. “You’ve already killed your lord’s only true sister. You’ve already brought forth the Darkness.”
“That is not the Darkness.” He gestured to the window. “I cannot stop that because it has nothing to do with her death.” Rather than pointing at Armen’s body, he pointed at her spirit, which, of course, no one else could see. “That outside is the War falling to earth.”
“If you won’t fix it, then my killing you will.”
Dante wasn’t budging on his view of things, and Armen had no way to communicate with him that Sam wasn’t lying. For once. Maybe twice.
Sam’s eyes dawned with comprehension. “If you think the Exchange will fix things, be my guest. It will not save her. It will not stop Armageddon. She and I will return to the Darkness, where we will likely fight until one of us is dead now that I have completely pissed her off.”
“You’re talking like she’s still alive.”
“No, that vessel is dying, but she is right there.” He pointed in her direction again, but Dante looked right through her.
Silence swept the room as Dante considered his words. “You have to do something. You know He’ll be here soon.”
“Too bad I beat Him here,” a newcomer answered. “It would be interesting to see what He’d do with you, Sam.”
Sam flinched. “Shit.”
The newcomer leaned against the front desk casually, one leg crossed over the other while tapping the tip of his cane against his foot, long black hair pushed to one side and flowing over his shoulder. He scratched his bearded chin before dropping the tip of the cane to the floor. “Would someone like to explain to me just what in the bloody fucking hell is going on?”
Armen gasped, covering her mouth before finishing hi
s name.
He looked right at her spirit and shook his head. “Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in quite some time.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “What, Lucifer?”
“I thought you were going to shorten it like you always have.”
“It got cut off by my shock at your arrival.”
He laughed. “Pity, you’re the only one who’s ever been allowed to say it.”
Terry cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to interrupt the crazy session, but the love of my life is dying—”
“Oh, right, you can’t see her.” He pushed away from the desk and walked over to Armen’s spirit, taking her hand. “Sam did this?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Terry stared at Lucifer. “Who the hell are you and who are you talking to and just what exactly are you going to take care of?”
“Don’t see the family resemblance?” Lucifer smiled at him as he strolled away from Armen. “I am the King of all demons, the Angel of Light, the First created and the First of the Fallen, the King of Hell, the Prince of Darkness, and I was speaking with the love of your life, the princess, who is standing right fucking there.” He pointed at her without averting his eyes from Terry. “Now, if you’ll allow it, I can save her. Otherwise, I’ll have to arrange to have her pulled out of the damn Darkness again.”
Armen gasped again, and Lucifer gave her a wink.
“Why should I trust you?” Terry protectively pulled Armen’s body close.
“Because she is my one true Sister, and I cannot allow her to die and leave this world like this. It needs her.” Lucifer pointed at the windows and what lay beyond them, behind the glass. “Be glad you’re on this side of the glass. Her death will speed it up.”
Sam brought his hands up. “Fucking hell. Are you going to save her?”
Lucifer sliced through the air sideways with his hand, and Sam flew back and hit the wall, sticking there. “I will deal with you later,” he growled. Then, Sam was sucked into the stone wall, completely vanishing beneath its surface.
Dusk of Death: an Armen Leza, Demon Hunter novel (Armageddon Trilogy Book 1) Page 27
