Champion (War Angel Academy Book 3)

by S. J. West

  “Don’t you dare die out there. If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Emi laughs. “I hear you, little sis.”

  Emi kisses her sister on the cheek one last time before we all head out to the Spire. My friend wipes tears away from the corners of her eyes. I place a comforting arm across her shoulders.

  “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be safe in here because we won’t let anything get past us.”

  Emi nods but she’s too choked up on emotion to make a reply.

  Silas keeps close to my side for moral support. I reach out, grab his hand, and squeeze it, drawing strength from him.

  When we reach the Spire, five more teams join us, and we stand at the ready to fight whatever might come our way.

  The night air holds the sweet smell of approaching fall weather. There are fewer crickets singing their song because the temperatures at night have been getting increasingly colder. The creatures of the night are finding places to keep warm. I wish we had that luxury.

  A leviathan wails in the distance. The people around me cringe at the noise. Even though they’ve heard the sound in the holo-programs, hearing it in person for the first time can be haunting, terrifying. I remember Helena taking me to the honeycomb shaped room in Hell where she kept all of her leviathans. The first time we visited them she brought them snacks. Human snacks. I still remember their screams as the creatures swallowed them whole, slowly dissolving flesh, muscle, and bones inside their acid filled stomachs.

  Poor Helena. She doesn’t know her son is dead yet. She gave up everything she was to save Cal once, and now he’s been killed by his own son in a move that may very well change all existence.

  Storm’s head jerks up as if he can hear something the rest of us can’t.

  Five portals from the Void open up directly in front of Warrior Hall, only fifty feet from us. A series of howls filters through one of them. We all lift our weapons a little higher.

  “Hold your ground!” We hear Gideon instruct as he stands between us and whatever is going to come barreling through the gateways.

  Through the center portal, a pack of five hellhounds charge through to our side and head straight for us. Each team spreads out to tackle one each. Emi fires the first shot at ours, hitting it in the chest, but not slowing it down one bit. I take to the sky while my team charges forward, swords at the ready. We’ve practiced this maneuver so many times in the holo-rooms that it seems a little too easy.

  While my team distracts it, I fly above our target and dive down with the hilt of my sword grasped with both hands and its sharp tip pointing downward. In one smooth motion, my sword pierces the top of the hellhound’s skull and slides through its brain like a knife through butter. It instantly falls to the ground dead at my team’s feet.

  Unfortunately, we don’t have time to celebrate our first victory because another group of hellhounds charges through the same opening. This time they’re not alone. Troops, more than I can keep count of, begin running through the other four gateways. I fear we’ll become overrun and have to retreat, but Jered phases in between us and the portals with at least two hundred soldiers ready to fight.

  What happens next is a blur of motion, blood and unending terror. We’re barely able to keep up with the constant influx of troops from the Void. The battlefield becomes so crowded my team and I are forced to fight shoulder to shoulder.

  Men dressed in white phase in and out of the battle, presumably carrying wounded into the infirmary. I assume they must be part of the group of War Angels who live on other worlds. From what I was told, two thousand of them were sent by God to help in Anna’s battle against Helena.

  Silas and Emi stay close by my sides. I try to keep my eyes on both of them, but the onslaught of enemy combatants is unyielding and nonstop. After thirty minutes of constant battle, I notice Emi’s sword swings become weaker and less accurate.

  I pull her behind me with only the Spire at her back.

  “Rest!” I order. “You’re getting sloppy!”

  When I glance at her face, she looks hurt by my words, but she also knows I’m right. I knew this type of battle would be hard for her. Even though Malcolm’s programs lasted an hour, the fighting in them wasn’t a constant stream of continual fighting. I feared her stamina wouldn’t be able to sustain her, and I was right.

  Not wanting to be taken out of the fight completely, Emi pulls her plasma pistol out and begins shooting anything that isn’t on our side of the fight.

  “Be careful with your shots!” I warn her. “The angels like to phase while they fight.”

  Emi begins to aim her shots to the enemy directly in front of us.

  One of Levi’s soldiers swings his sword right at my throat, but I’m able to block it with my own sword and push him back.

  “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold out!” Silas shouts to me. “We can’t go on like this forever!”

  “Don’t you dare stop!”

  Of all things, we may end up losing this war to simple fatigue. Is that Levi’s plan? To wear us down by sending wave after wave of his limitless army?

  Emi lets out a small yelp behind me. When I glance back at her, blood is streaming down her face. Her eyes are wide in shock and she falls to the ground onto her side.

  “Emi!” I kneel down beside her not caring what may be coming for me.

  “I’ve got you covered,” Keelan says, having seen our friend fall. “Tend to her!”

  When Emi blinks, I breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s short lived when I track down the source of the blood. There’s a bullet sized hole at the top of her skull.

  “Emi, can you hear me?” I ask.

  She blinks in response. At least I think it’s an answer to my question.

  “You really shouldn’t have left the top of this tower unprotected, Lora. That was rather foolish of you. Don’t you know it’s always better to take the high ground in a fight?”

  I look up and see Olivia sitting on the railing, swinging her legs back and forth while she taunts me with her eyes. She has a pistol in her hand that looks very similar to the one Abaddon used on me.

  “I see you take care of your friends about as well as you took care of us.” She mocks me with cruel laughter.

  “I’ll take her from here,” one of the War Angels in white says as he kneels down and touches Emi’s shoulder.

  After he phases her to safety, I realize there’s only one thing to do.

  I have to kill my sister. If I don’t, she’ll pick off my friends one by one.

  “Catch me if you can,” Olivia challenges as she flies off in the direction of the castle.

  “Silas! I have to go after her!”

  Silas stabs the person he’s fighting in the gut before looking at me.

  “Go! But be careful. Olivia is insane and out to hurt you anyway she can.”

  I kiss Silas on the lips before leaping into the air to track Olivia down and end our feud once and for all. When I find her, she’s close enough to the battle that’s raging on the castle grounds that I can hear the metallic clash of swords and smell the stench of hellspawn. We lucked out at the academy to not have to fight those grotesque creatures. Their stench would have permeated the halls of the school for months.

  “You’ve grown weak living here with all these humans, sister,” Olivia says as she floats in the air, waiting for me. “If I hadn’t stopped, you never would have caught me.”

  “You’re the weak one! Why did you shoot Emi? It’s me you hate. Why not just shoot me?”

  “Because I want you to know what it feels like to lose everyone you love.” Olivia points the barrel of her gun straight at me. “I could kill you right now. All I have to do is pull this trigger.”

  “Then do it,” I challenge. “Do it and get it over with. I’m sick and tired of you blaming me for everything that went wrong in your life. I didn’t tell you to join Levi. I didn’t force you to be his lackey for all these years. The way your life turned out is because of th
e decisions you made, Olivia. Not me.”

  Olivia looked mad before, but now she looks on the verge of completely losing her mind to unadulterated rage. She flings the gun to the ground below.

  “A quick death is too good for you,” she snarls, drawing out the sword from the scabbard at her side. “I’m going to cut you from stomach to sternum just like I taught Leo how to butcher his father. Then I’m going to feed what’s left of you to a leviathan so you can rot in its stomach for the rest of eternity.”

  Olivia is on me in an instant. Luckily, I had my sword at the ready. I’m able to block her swing at my head and push her back before she gains leverage over me.

  “I will never let you hurt another one of my friends again,” I declare, taking the offensive and slashing her fighting arm with the tip of my sword.

  Olivia is forced to change hands, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less deadly.

  Like a frenzied whirlwind, she starts to slash in my general direction to throw me off balance. She really should have known better. Her sloppiness only gives me more openings to strike. When she leaves her midsection open, I aim for her stomach but only nick it, drawing very little blood. Nevertheless, it makes her pause long enough for me to get one more swipe in across her left cheek.

  “You bitch!” She struggles to remain in the air and almost loses her grip on her sword as she cradles her face. Blood dribbles down her fingers.

  The sight of her gives me pause. “I don’t want to kill you. You were the first of my sisters to wake up. Where did it all go wrong?”

  “Life isn’t always fair,” she says, grimacing through the pain to speak. “Some people get everything they want, like you. And some people get everything taken away, like me. The have nots always want what the have possess.” Olivia drops her hand away from her face, letting the blood flow freely. “Kill me, Lora. End my life so I can finally find some peace.”

  That’s why she came after me through my friends. She never wanted me dead. She wanted me to end her miserable existence because I was the only one who could. Now that I know what she wants, I also know what I have to do.

  I sheath my sword and begin to fly away.

  “Lora! Don’t you dare turn your back on me again! Lora!”

  I don’t turn around, which was a mistake on my part.

  Olivia slams into the back of me, wrapping her arms around my waist and making it nearly impossible for me to fly.

  She uses one hand to grab the front of my throat.

  “If you won’t kill me, then I’ll kill you.”

  “Enough!” Levi’s voice rings through the air like the Almighty Himself just spoke to the entire planet.

  Olivia spins us around until we’re facing him. I see Levi floating above the castle grounds. There’s a tear in the sky that’s open to another realm. One with pink clouds and a blue azure sky.

  “He did it,” Olivia says in awe as she stares at the tear in disbelief. She begins to laugh hysterically, like the mad woman she has become. “That little pipsqueak actually made a doorway to Heaven for us!”

  A doorway to Heaven? That means Levi is about to get everything he’s ever wanted.

  Levi says something else to the crowd below, but I can’t make out his words until his last two.

  “To Heaven!” he orders.

  Amazingly, the troops on the ground simultaneously disappear, leaving only the creatures behind.

  “Finally!” Olivia laughs, maintaining her grip on my throat, preventing me from getting a single word out. “I get to see him again, sister. I get to see my love!”

  Levi claps his hands and everything changes.

  18

  (Azrael’s Point of View)

  “I am literally going to go insane if I have to relive this memory one more time. How long did you say we’ve been trapped in here?”

  Two and a half years. How is it that I can keep track of time so easily and you can’t?

  “Like I’m supposed to know the answer to that?” I scoff as I watch myself greet the first human who found me for what feels like the millionth time. I’m so bored of watching this same scene over and over again that I would actually reap my own soul if it was possible.

  I’ve tried. It’s not.

  “Do you think Levi has started his war yet?”

  I have no idea. If he had won it, we probably wouldn’t still be stuck in here.

  “Agreed.” I try to stifle a yawn with the back of my hand. “Want to play I spy again?”

  No. It’s boring. Why do you like to play that so much? It’s a child’s game.

  “Because I’m a child on the inside, Caleb. I thought you would already know that about me by now.”

  You are not a child, but you’re also not the monster I thought you were when we first merged together.

  “And you’re not the annoying little brat I first thought you were.”

  Ha-ha. You’re not as funny as you think you are. In fact—

  The memory ends for the first time since we were trapped inside it by Olivia.

  When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is a hairy, disheveled man’s face only an inch away from mine.

  I scream at the sight.

  “Really, Azrael?” the creature-man says as if he knows me. “I didn’t expect the angel of death to scream like a little girl. Get yourself together man. We have a war to win!”

  I look at my surroundings and see that I’ve been trapped inside a rather dingy little cell during my sojourn. Through the iron bars of my prison, I see a lovely woman with caramel color skin and dark hair. She’s dressed in a rather fabulous purple dress watching me with a judgmental stare. It’s Aneela, the physical embodiment of the Void’s consciousness. I remember her from Caleb’s memories. At her feet lies one of the guardians, either dead or simply incapacitated.

  “Who are you?” I ask the man in disdain. “And could you please move your face away from mine? Your breath is beyond foul.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly smelling like fresh daisies either.” He holds out his grimy hand for me to shake. “I’m Faust. We never formally met, but I know who you are.”

  This is Sariah’s father. He’s a pure-blooded djinn.

  “Which war were you referring to exactly?” I ask while dusting off my clothes.

  “Levi’s war with the living world.” Faust acts like I should have already known what he was talking about. “It’s the reason he stuck you in here, isn’t it? So you wouldn’t help the good guys take him down?”

  “Yes. It is, and I’m not one bit happy about what he did to me. Although, I have to say, it was very rehabilitating.”

  Watching myself crave the release of a soul over and over again was better than any other type of intervention for my addiction. About a year in, I started to detest the mere thought of reaping another soul.

  “Don’t you want Levi to pay for what he did to you? I thought you of all people would be out for his blood . . . or soul . . . whichever you prefer.”

  “Eh.”

  “Eh?” Faust grabs my shirt with both hands and yanks me to my feet. “Listen here, you son of a bitch! My daughter is fighting in this war, and I want you to help me win it for her. It’s the only reason we woke you up. Isn’t there at least one person you care about saving over there?”

  Lora. We have to go back to save her.

  Even after all this time, our feelings for Lora haven’t changed. To her, we’ve only been gone a few hours. For us, two and a half years have passed and the relationship between me and Caleb has evolved. We no longer bicker quite as much, but he can still be an annoying little monster sometimes.

  You’re not always the life of the party either.

  I use both of my index fingers to push Faust two steps away.

  “Fine. I suppose we can go see how the others are faring in the war. I could use a little fresh air anyway.”

  “Then phase us there.” Faust grabs one of my arms in a death grip. “Aneela says you phased yourself here when you first ca
me. I assume that means you can do the reverse.”

  “In theory, yes.”

  It’s obvious I won’t be able to get rid of him until I do what he wants. I look over at Aneela.

  “I assume you can’t leave this place,” I say to her.

  “You assume correctly. If I left the Black Castle, I would no longer exist in the physical form I have now.” She tilts her head and I can see a question form in her mind before it even comes out of her mouth. “Can you do something for me?”

  “Depends. What do you want?” I’m not in the habit of performing favors, but she did play a role in this little escape. I suppose I do owe her a smidgeon of gratitude.

  “Don’t let Levi return to the Void,” she begs. “I don’t care if you kill him or not, but the people here deserve to have a true second chance at life. With him ruling this realm, it’s been practically impossible for them to atone for their past deeds and earn a place in Heaven. Please, don’t let him come back here.”

  “That’s a great deal to ask, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.” Aneela bows her head in gratitude.

  “Let’s go!” Faust practically jumps up and down with impatience.

  “All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a wad.”

  I phase us to the top of the Spire at the academy and instantly feel like I’ve entered hell.

  From our vantage point, we can see the war raging down below and for miles around. Everywhere you look, people are fighting, shooting, and running around like ants on a hill that’s been set ablaze. I can’t make out anyone’s faces, and I begin to lose hope that I’ll be able to find Lora in this mayhem.

  “I need to go find my daughter,” Faust says. “You need to decide which side of this war you’re fighting on before it’s too late.”

  Faust melts into the shadows, disappearing from my sight.

  “I should have been given that power, not the djinn,” I grumble before peering over the railing again to search for Lora. She shouldn’t be that hard to find with her gold wings and long white hair, but I don’t see her anywhere.