by Erin Hayes
Finally, after what seems like hours, but could only be minutes, we reach the end of the bridge. Here, the path widens, and we catch the demonlings on guard duty by surprise that we have made it across the bridge.
“Next time, make it wider, dumbasses,” I growl to them as I slash through their bodies. The effect isn’t as impressive as when Nakir used his angel sword, but there’s something satisfying about them falling off into the crater below.
“Hurry!” I hiss, gesturing for Jennet and Kerem to come inside.
There are no more demonlings to greet us as we sneak in the front Door, just an empty stretch of the Watchtower. The inside is hollow, with a ring around the perimeter the only walkway. A spiral staircase winds its way up to the roof. There are only two floors that I see: the floor we’re on and the floor at the top.
The three of us cast a cursory glance around the place, poised and ready for the demonlings that Fatma said were in here.
None come to clash against us.
However, there is one thing that I do take note of.
Abaddon is horrible at decorating.
Maniacally, I laugh. The black walls are all bare. Then again, if he’s afflicted by the same curse, he wouldn’t be spending energy on something like that. It’s the same reason I never repaired the recliners back at the Lodge or bothered to fix nonessential items around the property.
You simply don’t have the energy, and there are far bigger fish to fry.
Seeing it in this grand scale, however, makes me realize just how big a problem it is for everyone involved.
“Do you think we need to go upstairs?” Jennet asks in a hushed whisper.
“Only one way to find out,” I say honestly.
She flashes her eyes my way. “Yes, but what if it’s a trap? We only have so much energy and…”
I nod, cutting her off. “We’ll figure it out. For now, just trust that we’re heading in the right direction.”
It’s the only reasoning I have. Kerem lets out an unimpressed sniff, but he doesn’t have a better idea, so we head up.
We make our way up the spiraling stairs, our footsteps as soft as we can make them. No booby traps on the staircase. Good thing, too. I try to imagine myself slowing my breathing and heartbeat to make softer noises as we head up and up and up. We don’t speak, only this panicked sensation of must-keep-moving driving us forward.
As we near the top, I wonder if we’re going to be all right. If there is enough energy in us to continue this fight if we’re attacked.
Too late to worry about that now, I realize as we finally make it to the top floor. This is it. The end of the journey. If Abaddon isn’t here, then we’ll run out of energy before we can fight back.
If he is, then we have an entirely different set of problems on our hands.
Honestly, I’m not sure which one I’m hoping for.
But as I make my way to the landing, I see that demonlings are in something like bleachers, and as soon as they see my little group, they erupt into the raucous cheers. In the center of the large, circular room, I see Abaddon sitting in the center of the ring, expecting us. Like our surprise tactic didn’t work out anyway. It’s too soon after the demonling at the bridge gave the warning for him to have organized this.
He’s planned this to showcase our demise to everyone.
Still, he does look impressed as we step out in front of everyone.
“Welcome to my home,” he says grandly. “I must admit, you made it here quicker than I expected. I haven’t even had a chance to follow through with the funeral.”
Funeral?
Then my eyes fall on the still form behind him, lying on his back as if he might be sleeping. Candles with black flames are scattered throughout the room. It truly does look like we’re at a funeral. The only thing that hints that something may be off is the giant sword still sticking out of the man’s chest on the dais.
Nakir.
Chapter 28
“You haven’t removed the sword?” I say dumbly. Of all the questions I could pose to the Demon Lord, I ask him this. But I can’t tear my eyes away. It just seems…morbid. Grotesque. Like it’s a trophy for him. “Why haven’t you removed the sword?”
The angel’s body lies on the ground, his eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. He looks like he could almost be alive, laying there. I wish I were strong enough to remove the sword, give him a proper send off.
Abaddon looks at Nakir and shrugs in mock surprise, like he hadn’t realized it was still stuck in there. “You caught us off guard.”
I blink slowly, trying to process all of it. No, there has to be another reason. There has to be something else. It would have been hard for Abaddon to move Nakir with the sword like that. There is a purpose to it, because it seems so absurd.
Then it dawns on me like the hottest day here in the Door to Hell.
He’s still alive.
It’s hard to control my face at that realization. Nakir is still alive, and the only reason he’s not moving is because his sword is keeping him from healing and getting up. Nakir told me that he’s immortal.
And that hasn’t changed despite the fact that there’s a huge angel sword sticking out of his chest.
“I thought,” I say, raising the level of my voice, “that you were as much a victim of the curse as we are. Why the big stage?” I gesture to the demonlings surrounding us. “Why put so much effort into something that won’t matter?”
The Demon Lord’s eyes narrow, but his smile doesn’t falter. “Because I wanted to give my brother a proper sendoff. I’m as much a prisoner as you humans are. Sometimes you need to enjoy life as much as possible.”
“Did you just call him ‘brother?’” Kerem asks beside me, his voice quiet, contemplative. So subtle that I nearly miss it in my own thoughts.
I tear my eyes away from the angel’s sword to give a hard look at Abaddon. I try to see the set of his jaw, the way he holds himself. Despite the obvious differences, from Abaddon having his leather set of wings to his red skin, their bone structure is similar. Their swagger is the same, that same kind of self-assured confidence that is not just because they’re powerful beings.
Another thing that Nakir told me—Abaddon was like a brother to him when they both lived in heaven. Not that they are brothers, but it’s technically still true, isn’t it?
“Of course,” Abaddon says slowly. “Isn’t it obvious? Don’t you see the resemblance?”
Shit, I really, really do now. How could I have missed it?
They’re related. All this time, Nakir has been trying to kill his own brother. I hadn’t realized it, hadn’t thought on it. So many times I could have picked up on it, and…
I gulp back the lump in my throat, the feeling that we’ve stumbled onto something that makes all the difference. I can’t believe it. Can’t believe that he kept something critical like this from me and the Halos.
Can you blame him?
No. Does it really change things?
The answer to that is no as well.
I think back to the conversation I had with Nakir as we looked out at the Watchtower from so far away. Maybe he wanted to get a better feel for what Abaddon was doing out here. Maybe he wanted to feel closer to the brother he fell from heaven with. Nakir’s love for a human changed him in certain ways and protected him from falling completely as a demon.
It’s how Nakir knew that Abaddon is the source of the curse. He knew because he knew so much about his brother.
I look at the Demon Lord, trying to gauge how much energy he has left. Maybe he’s been working just as hard as we have to get to this point.
I have maybe thirty minutes of energy left, which is the first time in a long time that I’ve nearly depleted it this early in the morning. I have to make it count, because we won’t get another shot at breaking the curse.
But I have Jennet, in more ways than one.
I glance back at her and reach out my hand for her. “Lend me your strength,” I whisper to her.
She wets her lips as her eyes widen, but she still takes my hand. I feel that now-familiar heat rise within me, of my energy coming back. I don’t know how long she gives me, but I drop her hand suddenly, not wanting to take everything of hers. I know she’d give it to me.
Our gazes connect, and I wish I could give her one last kiss, tell her I love her one last time. But I’m out of time.
“Be ready,” I whisper to both her and Kerem.
Jennet’s eyes flash in worry, and I tear myself away before she can ruin the surprise.
I charge toward Abaddon with a yell, aiming my yataghan directly toward his heart. I feel a deep rumble reverberating throughout the entire room, and I realize that Abaddon is laughing at me, mocking me.
No, I have no chance against him with one-on-one combat. There’s no way. But I’m not trying to kill him, not really. At the very last possible instant, I fake, twisting away from the Demon Lord, and run straight toward Nakir.
The last time I tried lifting Jan, my strength had given out and Abaddon had run me through. I have Jennet’s strength whirling in my veins now. I make it to the sword and grasp at the hilt, trying with everything I have to get it to move.
Once again, it doesn’t budge. My feeble humanity, the very reason Nakir likes hanging around earth, is going to kill all of us.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
“What do you think you’re doing?” Abaddon sneers before he rushes my way, raising his kilij in a downward strike. As I watch the blade fall, I see my own death, how there’s no way I’ll get out of this.
Maysa had been so sure it would end differently.
Well, in all those stories, you don’t have a fuck-up for a hero. Which is exactly what I am. I failed everyone. I couldn’t save the world.
After all, you’re only human.
The clang of metal rings through my ears, and I blink in confusion to see Kerem blocking Abaddon’s strike with his own sword. I’m still alive. Kerem stepped in to save me. The witch’s muscles strain as he holds up the sword.
Abaddon snarls at us and raises his blade to strike again.
I have to try again. I grasp the blade and pull. Pull, pullpullpull.
It slides out. Barely, just barely, inch by inch, but as soon as it starts, it gets easier. I feel the cords in my neck strain against the sheer weight of the weapon, but I didn’t take Jennet’s power for no reason.
I try using everything I have to put it into this one last effort.
Please. For all that’s good in this world, please.
I roar as the blade finally pulls free of Nakir’s chest. It crashes to the floor beside me.
Now all he has to do is wake up. Wake up, dammit!
“Kerem!” Jennet screams, and I look up in time to see Abaddon slash him across his middle, disemboweling the male witch. The slick sound of blood and guts and everything else hits the dark floor, and I feel like my stomach drops there, too. Abaddon wastes no time and runs his blade through Kerem’s chest, all the way to the hilt.
The witch stiffens around the sword, coughing up blood in the Demon Lord’s face before he’s kicked away. Kerem crumples in a heap.
Someone’s screaming hoarsely, and I realize that it’s Jennet. I grit my teeth, hating the hurt in her voice. Like Sena, she’ll blame herself for Kerem’s death.
It causes her pain.
And, Nakir’s brother or not, I hate that Abaddon caused this for him.
“Jennet!” I yell. “Help Nakir!”
She whirls on me, her eyes streaming with tears as if she doesn’t quite understand me. Her gaze falls on the now-freed Nakir. At the sword that lays behind him.
“No!” Abaddon roars. “Not you!”
The big demon tries to make it past me as she runs to the fallen angel’s side, but if there’s anything I have left in me, I use it to meet the Demon Lord head-on. I actually catch Abaddon by surprise and land a blow on his cheek, a small cut that oozes thick black blood.
He turns murderous eyes on me. “You don’t get it, do you, human?” he sneers at me.
Keep him talking. Keep him away from Nakir and Jennet.
“We’re all prisoners here,” Abaddon says to me, rounding on me like he’s some sort of predator. “Nakir and I were cast down from heaven. And for what? Because he fell in love with a human woman? It nearly destroyed him. I was the only one who helped him. I was the only one who came to him. And how were we repaid?” He throws up his arms. “With a curse. And it’s ruined everything!”
It takes everything I have not to glance behind me to see if Jennet made it to Nakir. To see if our last hope is awake.
Abaddon leans in closer to me, his breath hot and sticky, and I nearly gag. “Nakir lost everything. And God has the sense of humor to make me responsible for this curse. That my death would end it.” His lip curls. “I refuse to be a pawn in this whole thing any longer.”
He raises his sword, ready to hack off my head in one swipe—and I know he can do it, too, because he’s that powerful. I wait for the inevitable end.
It doesn’t come.
I open my eyes, which I hadn’t realized I shut like a coward, and see Nakir standing between us, the sword of Jan in his hands as he parries, deflecting Abaddon’s attack. There’s still enough of a hole in his chest that I can see through to the other side. Somehow, Nakir is still standing. Somehow, he has the strength.
Somehow, he was healed.
Abaddon’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Brother…”
Nakir smiles serenely. “Let’s try this again.”
And he meets Abaddon in the fight, more collected in his attacks, more assured of himself. I don’t know if he knows he practically came back from the dead, but there’s a calm over the fallen angel that hadn’t been there the night before.
Now I chance a glance back to Jennet. And to my utter surprise, I see Kerem hoisting himself on the dais, his entrails dragging behind him on the floor. Jennet is with him, one hand on the witch and another where Nakir used to be.
It takes me a moment to piece together what happened. I think. Kerem must have healed Nakir, to do everything he could to make Nakir open his eyes and fight. Instead of healing himself, Kerem spent the last of himself bringing Nakir back to life.
And Jennet…Jennet used the last of her strength to give Kerem that energy.
“Fuck…you…de…mon…” Kerem mutters through a gurgle, spurting up blood, before the light leaves his eyes forever. He collapses forward, and his death rattle passes through his lips.
Jennet meets my eyes, but there’s something off about her appearance, like she’s become papery thin. She falls forward, and I drop everything I have to run to her side before she cracks her head on the hard ground.
She feels too limp in my arms as I hold her against me. I’ve held many people as the Hibernation overtook them, but this feels different. Like she went beyond her limits to grant Nakir this last boon.
“Jennet!” I shake her a little too roughly, but desperation makes me feel crazy things. “Jennet, wake up!”
I put my hands on her chest, her neck, her face, anywhere to see if I can find a pulse. Even if she’s in Hibernation, I should be able to feel some sort of life within her. A heartbeat, the labored rise and fall of her chest.
There’s nothing.
A low cry escapes my lips. “No.” Tears suddenly blur the entire world around me, my tears, but there will never be enough tears if Jennet died. She brought me back to life as a man. She brought out the good in me, reminded me why I joined the Halos in the first place so long ago. Reminded me why we keep fighting the good fight.
And now, she’s gone. There’s nothing in her to signify that she’s alive. Just a limp broken husk of a body in my arms, too beautiful to go.
“Don’t leave me like this. Jennet, don’t leave me!”
Dimly, I hear Abaddon and Nakir fighting, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Not with Jennet gone.
Did she know that she could give her life to someone along w
ith her energy? It didn’t matter to her, did it? She’d always been willing to sacrifice her life for others. In this last moment, she knew that she had to sacrifice everything for it.
My initial shock over, I rock her gently, smoothing down her hair and whispering to her to come back to me.
Even as I feel my own energy fading.
Time is up for me. Whatever bit I had taken from Jennet earlier—and I try to not dwell on the fact that if I hadn’t taken it from her, she may still be alive—I’m about to fade, too.
Through my haze of grief and pain, I look up at the angel and the Demon Lord, still locked in a battle for supremacy. Suddenly, I feel too damn tired to care anymore. There’s no point in this fight. Not with Jennet gone. I don’t think I can live without her by my side.
She gave me purpose. And with that purpose gone…
The kilij goes flying, landing blade first into the ground beside me. The steel twangs with the force of it. Abaddon has been disarmed by Nakir and holds up his hands placatingly, pleading with the angel.
“Nakir—” Abaddon starts, “you know why I did this. For you. Because you’ve been fucked by circumstance. Because someone has a bad joke that means you have to kill me for the sake of these humans. Don’t you see? It was designed to turn us on each other.”
Nakir looks at Abaddon for a long time before finally nodding. “The problem is, brother, you never realized why I was okay with it. I wanted to be here. And you let it twist you into this.” He gestures helplessly. “I can’t let you go on.”
It’s some part of a bigger conversation. I feel myself fall as Nakir swings the angel sword around—impossibly easy for him—and hacks it through Abaddon’s neck, severing it in one go. The Demon Lord’s head spins around once before sliding off its axis and falling to the floor.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
A whoosh of air escapes my lips, and I feel the sudden surge of energy pulse through my veins, enabling me to sit up again. I’m…awake… And I haven’t fallen into the Hibernation.
I’m alive. Awake.
Nakir meets my eyes, and something like his own kind of grief passes beyond his eyes as he wipes the blade clean.
