A series of blows rained against my face as Lucifer unleashed his telekinesis on me. The impact of the blows caved my left cheekbone and knocked all my teeth on that side out. Blood filled my mouth, and I spit out my teeth, but I maintained my hold on him. Pulling on the wing, I attempted to drag him down while he continued to try to rise with his one free wing.
A fist of air assaulted my stomach, knocking the breath out of me. Tired of this game we’d played for too long, I lifted my hand from his stomach and aimed it at his face. He swung his wing protectively in front of him to shield himself from my fire.
Instead of trying to torch him again though, I set Phenex and Crux free.
Phenex burst out of me first. Her claws left bone-deep gashes across Lucifer’s chest and wing. He screamed as his wing dropped down. He tried to grab her, but her momentum had already carried her over the top of him and toward the ground. She landed on all fours and bounded into the battle below.
Crux followed behind her. Lucifer’s fingers tore at his belly, spilling blood as the hound soared past him. Leaping over Lucifer, Crux spun in the air and clamped his jaw down on his wing. Twisting to the side, Crux’s weight bent Lucifer backward as he pulled on the wing.
The hellhound weighing more than both of us, Lucifer couldn’t resist Crux’s pull on him with his one free wing. More telekinetic blows pummeled my body as Lucifer started to flip over, bringing me with him. The sky and trees filled my vision before gravity took over and my body slammed against Lucifer’s so that his feet were in my face.
He continued to beat at me with his telekinesis. My right eye swelled until it became only a slit, and my ribs broke with an audible crack. Sensing my pain, Crux gave a ferocious shake of his head. Half of Lucifer’s wing tore apart and blood spilled free. The jagged remnants of delicate wing bones protruded into the air.
Crux hit the ground seconds before Lucifer and I did. My numerous broken bones protested the impact of the unforgiving dirt, and pieces of my ribs dug into my lungs as I rolled off Lucifer and staggered to my feet.
***
River
My heart lodged in my throat as I watched the battle between Kobal and Lucifer unfold. When they hit the ground, Crux kept his hold on Lucifer’s wing as he dragged him back and shook it violently. An invisible burst of energy hit the hound, knocking his head to the side with enough force that he lost his hold on Lucifer.
Seconds later, Crux was thrown aside as if he weighed no more than I did. Energy rose from the dirt, into my feet, and pooled forth to join with the immense force that Raphael released. Some of the craetons were still stupid enough to batter themselves against the wall of energy, only to be thrown back with nothing but smoke curling from their remains. Most of them were going around it now, but our forces waited for them there. Some were struck down, while others broke through to attack.
When Kobal rose to his feet, my fingers curled with the need to murder as I took in his battered face and bloody body. His hand went to his ribs before falling away. A snarl curved his mouth as an angel dropped toward Lucifer. The angels would fly Lucifer out of here if they got to him.
No! This will end now! The white-hot rage filling me increased the sparks on my hands as fire rose to encircle my other hand. I’d never experienced wrath with this intensity before, but I welcomed it.
Lucifer had tormented my brothers, and he had killed people I cared about in brutal ways. I refused to live with the fear of him coming for me again, or plotting something more. I refused to allow him to exist anymore. That bastard would pay for everything he’d done, and I would make sure he didn’t escape here alive.
“Raphael,” I hissed.
He glanced over his shoulder at Lucifer as he stumbled toward the angels trying to slip in between the hounds and palitons waiting for them. Kobal released a blast of fire that torched across the ground toward Lucifer. Battering the air, Lucifer managed to get his good wing to work well enough to propel him away from the trail of fire.
“Go,” Raphael said.
I released his arm and raced through the battle still waging around me. Leaping back, I dodged the pointed tip of a horn aimed at my stomach. I drove my elbow into the back of the demon’s head, knocking him to the ground. I didn’t have time to kill him as I leapt onto his back and ran over the top of him.
When another demon tried to tackle me, I shot a ball of fire into his face. He howled as he beat at the flames. The angels were almost to Lucifer when Caim dove out of the air and slammed into the side of one. They tumbled through the air before hitting the ground in a tumult of black wings. I spotted Bailey on the ground by Bale before Caim sliced his wing across the other angel’s throat and took to the air again. He swooped down and reclaimed Bailey. The barta demon still had hold of Gage, but Onoskelis was now engaged in a fight with a few palitons.
One of the other angels grabbed Lucifer’s shoulder as Kobal released another wave of fire. This one smashed into the other angel’s face and spiraled him backward. Lucifer roared and released a telekinetic blast of energy so strong that it rippled over my skin as I closed in on his side. The blast knocked Kobal over and threw back the hounds that had been closing in on Lucifer. One of the hounds released a high-pitched yelp and the others all howled. I realized another hound had been lost as the howl became a mournful keening.
Despite their loss, the massive creatures were regaining their feet. Lucifer flapped at the air with his one good wing until he rose slowly into the air. My blood pounded through my veins, and power surged through me as I drew on the energy of the life teeming in the ground beneath my feet while I ran.
“No!” I screamed when Lucifer was seven feet off the ground. The hounds leapt at him, trying to catch him and draw him down again, but he curled his legs up to stay out of their reach.
Planting my feet, I threw my arms up as power and fury coalesced together. From my right hand a stream of golden-white light erupted, while from my left a wave of fire burst free. I buried my shock over being able to use both abilities at the same time again as I drew my hands closer together until they pressed against each other.
Fire and light came together in a powerful surge that snapped and crackled though the air before it slammed into Lucifer. It hit him in the chest, but instead of tearing through him, it enveloped him in the golden-white light at the same time the fire burst over his body. For a few heartbeats, he was trapped in the air, his back bowed and his head thrown back.
As the light cascaded around him, I got a brief glimpse of the golden angel he’d once been with his black hair, violet eyes, and feathered, white wings. I saw a smile that lit a room and felt the warmth he’d once radiated. I understood why he’d been favored, why he’d been the Morning Star.
There had never been an angel so bright and beautiful before, there never would be again, and I wanted him dead.
The fire and light burst off him, radiating outward like a bomb blast that threw those closest to him back. The force of it flung back the angel Kobal had burnt and knocked the hounds to the ground again. Like a burnt-out star, Lucifer crumpled to the ground. Smoke curled off his burnt flesh and wings as he lay unmoving with his broken wing poking into the air. Nothing remained of his clothes.
All around me silence descended. I could feel the gazes boring into my back and saw some of the craetons scrambling to flee, but most remained unmoving as they gazed between me and Lucifer.
And then, just when I was certain he was dead, Lucifer lifted his head to reveal the smoke curling out of the sockets where his eyes had been. My stomach lurched as those empty sockets gazed ahead. Clumps of grass and dirt broke away as his burnt fingers dug into the earth and he started clawing his way forward.
The clashing of swords and the retort of guns pierced the air again. The hounds all yowled, and screams of the injured and dying resonated across the field as Lucifer continued forward. Walking toward him, I watched his charred skin begin to pinken. The whites of his eyeballs slid into place and the black irises took
form. His head tipped back, and hatred burned from his eyes when I planted myself in front of him.
“Hi, Dad,” I greeted, and Kobal pounced.
CHAPTER 57
Kobal
I fell on Lucifer’s battered body just as he flipped over and plunged the top spike of his intact wing into my shoulder. It pierced through muscle and bone before jutting out the other side. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my hands around the end of the spike and tore it out of me. Lucifer shrieked when I twisted his wing to drive the spike into his thigh. His blistered body bowed off the ground as he tore the spike from his leg.
Before he could launch a new telekinetic attack, I seized his throat and drove my claws into his neck. He screamed, his fingers tore into my face, peeling away skin as more fists of air battered my body. I twisted his neck to the right until it cracked. Beneath my hands, flesh and bone gave way until his head remained attached by only his spine.
With a violent yank, I ripped his head the rest of the way from his body. Grim satisfaction filled me as his wings flapped once more before his body went completely still beneath me. My shoulders heaved, the blood falling from my hair and face dripped onto his flesh.
I had expected to feel nothing but triumph when this moment came. Instead, there was only a hollow sense of relief, of a door closing and a new one opening. Lifting my head, I looked at River. Her violet eyes seemed like shards of steel as she stared at Lucifer before her eyes met mine.
The anger in her gaze melted away as love filled them. I’d only known death before her, but now I would only know what it meant to live.
I became aware of the hush enshrouding the field that had been a battleground only seconds before. My fingers clenched in Lucifer’s hair, and my lips skimmed back as I bared my fangs at our enemies. Many of them gawked at me and then at River with fear-filled eyes.
I set Lucifer’s head down, grabbed his still intact wing and tore it from his body. Rising, I drove the silver point at the bottom of his wing into the ground before retrieving his head and spearing it onto the top.
“Who’s next?” I inquired of Lucifer’s followers.
For a second, silence continued, and then more of the craetons turned and fled into the woods. Others were unable to flee and resumed the fight. Most of the remaining fallen angels took to the sky and swooped into the trees. River turned away and ran toward her brothers.
Turning from the palitons she’d been fighting, Onoskelis shoved the barta demon out of the way and snatched Gage from the throne. Closest to them both, Caim lurched toward her before realizing he still held Bailey. He glanced around for somewhere to put the child, but the barta demon was already advancing on them. Caim kept hold of Bailey as he flapped his wings to rise out of the barta’s reach.
Gage squirmed in Onoskelis hold, trying to break free, but she kept him pinned against her as she lifted off the ground. I ran toward them, my bones grating with every step as I followed River through the tumble of dead bodies. I tried to catch her, but with her head start and my injuries, she remained fifteen feet ahead of me as she darted in and out of those battling around us.
“Gage!” River screamed.
“I don’t think so, bitch!” Verin shouted as she charged out of the fray at them.
Leaping forward, Verin caught hold of Gage and yanked him from Onoskelis’s arms before the angel could make it five feet into the air. Verin drove her sword forward as Gage landed on his back with an audible thud. Verin’s sword plunged into Onoskelis’s belly, and she sliced it upward. Blood spewed from the angel’s mouth, but she managed to unsheathe the sword at her back. Swinging it down, she cleaved into Verin’s neck.
I shoved aside the craetons in my way, ignoring the blood spilling over my lips as I ran. Yanking her sword back, Onoskelis lifted it and swung it down again. Verin threw up her hand to try to protect herself. The blade sliced through Verin’s hand and cut the rest of the way through Verin’s neck. A sense of loss clenched my gut when Verin’s severed head hit the ground.
Onoskelis dove for Gage at the same time River threw herself on top of him. Onoskelis’s hands twisted into River’s shirt as her wings flapped rapidly. “River!” I roared when the angel rose with River in her grasp.
Blood spilled from Onoskelis’s belly and onto River as she flew. River tried to right herself, but Onoskelis entangled one hand in her hair to keep her head down while the other remained entwined in the back of River’s shirt. River blindly unleashed a ball of energy into the air over her head. Onoskelis ducked back to avoid it.
Chasing after them, I dodged a manticore tail before punching through the chest of a demon who lunged at me. I tore its heart out as Crux leapt up to tear away its head. The hounds ran forward to come together in a V formation that cut a pathway through the craetons in between me and Onoskelis as she flew toward the woods.
Aiming for Onoskelis’s back, a wave of fire erupted from my palm and shot across the air toward her. Onoskelis must have heard it coming as she twisted to the side to avoid being hit by it.
It had been enough to distract her though, which allowed River to swing her hand up in front of her. She blasted Onoskelis in the face with a ball of fire before hitting her with an energy ball from her other hand.
Onoskelis shrieked and released River. Spinning through the air, River somehow managed to right herself so that her feet would hit the ground first. It didn’t matter, at her height the impact would still kill her.
I pushed myself faster, ignoring every one of my broken bones and battered muscles as River fell. She didn’t scream, but her eyes were squeezed shut as the air whipped her hair straight up behind her.
She was thirty feet from the ground when Onoskelis dove at her with her wings folded against her back. Her fingers caught in River’s shirt. River’s weight and momentum plunged them down another ten feet before Onoskelis stabilized them both. The angel jerked River up and rose with her once more.
A loud roar filled the air and a drakón plunged out of the sky. Blue fire streaked behind it as it bared down on the two of them with its jaws wide open. “No!” I bellowed, knowing that the drakón could consume them both in one gulp.
Onoskelis tried to dart to the side to avoid it, but the drakón’s jaw clamped down with a crunch that echoed over the open land. The closing of the jaws severed Onoskelis so cleanly that the stumps of her arms remained standing in the air as her hands remained locked on River’s shirt and hair.
River remained airborne for a millisecond. Then, gravity won out and Onoskelis’s remains fell away as River plummeted toward the Earth from a height of at least a hundred and fifty feet. My legs moved faster than they’d ever moved before as I raced across the ground toward her.
The drakón swept back toward the battle. It roared again before unleashing a torrent of fire on the craetons running toward the woods. Their screams were silenced by the drakón swooping down to scoop them up and swallow them whole.
River was only forty feet above when the massive shadow of the other drakón soared over me and toward River. With a grace I’d never expected from the skeletal beast, it dipped below River. The blue fire surrounding it went out before she crashed onto it. Dirt and grass shot out from beneath my feet when I skidded to a halt beneath them. River kept her hands in the air as if afraid that, if she touched it, it would snatch her off its neck and eat her.
The drakón touched down without a whisper of noise. It curled its tail around its side and turned its head so the flickering blue flames of its eyes met mine. I continued toward the creature as River remained unmoving. A puff of smoke coiled out of its nostrils, and blue fire rose to encircle its tail but went no further when I neared.
“What’s going on?” River called out to me.
The other drakón landed in front of its partner. Blue fire engulfed it as it prowled across the ground, its tail swishing back and forth in warning for everyone to stay back. Every step it took left the perfect imprint of its bony feet and car-sized claws in the dirt.
“What?” River asked, her hands still raised in the air and her skin three shades paler than it had been.
“They’ve been following you since Hell. Not hunting, not tracking us for Lucifer, but watching you. They’re protecting you. Slide down, slowly.”
She gazed at me for a minute before resting her hands on the neck of the drakón. It snorted two puffs of smoke and shook its body as if her touch pleased it. “Easy. Be a good boy… girl… it,” River said as she ran a hand over the vertebrae of its neck.
When the drakón lowered its head and placed it on the ground, River froze before creeping forward. She slid down its neck, across its skull, and down its nostrils to the ground. She stared at the drakón for a minute before resting her hand on its nose to give it a pet. “Thank you.”
It rubbed its nose against her hand before nudging her away. When River was five feet away from it, blue fire erupted over its body once more. With a flap of wings, the drakón rose into the sky with its partner. River glanced back before running toward me and throwing her arms around my shoulders, heedless of the fact I was covered in blood, but then she had a fair amount on her too.
I embraced her against me while the drakóns circled above before disappearing over the trees.
“Why did they do that?” she whispered.
“You set them free.”
I turned my attention to the waning battle as more of Lucifer’s followers ran for the woods. The surviving angels had all fled. Without Lucifer, there was no one to lead them and they would be hunted down and dispatched of without mercy.
Focusing on River, I brushed the hair back from her flushed face and cupped her cheeks in my hands. “Are you injured?” I demanded.
“I’m fine. You though—”
She tried to pull away, but I kept her against me. “Already healing,” I assured her. I had more broken bones than I could count, but they were shifting back into place and already new teeth prodded at my gums.
Into Hell (The Road to Hell Series, Book 4) Page 34
