Ash & Flame: Season One (23 page)

Power
.

He heard the whisper in his mind, Emma’s soft, sure voice behind it. The word repeated, more insistent this time, and somehow he knew. He whispered it to himself.

“
Potestas
.”

His eyelids twitched, and a chill ran down his spine. He blinked, the air in his lungs tingling. He felt…

Brad frowned. “What?”

Ren reached up and grabbed Brad’s knife hand. He twisted the man’s wrist and Brad cried out as bone cracked, the military knife slipping through his fingers. Ren twisted and rolled over to one knee, Brad flailing underneath him. He picked Brad up by the shirt collar, the hairs on his arms standing on end, and glared at the man who had tried to take his daughter away.

“You’re right, it is over.”

He shouted and flung Brad away with everything he had, letting loose all of his anger and his desperation. Brad sailed through the air and slammed into the ground with a puff of dirt. He skidded across the sand and rolled over the ledge of the pit with a strangled cry.

Emma
. Ren stared at his hands as he clenched and unclenched them. What had she done? How…?

“Hey, Dad.”

Ren turned around, and when he saw her he had to push back the tears that threatened to spill over his lids. “Hey, Em.”

Emma was sitting up, leaning on her elbow. She wiped her nose. “Well, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

Ren couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

▪▪▪

Ithuriel swept over a jagged terrace of layered stone and beat his wings against the air, slowing to a stop.

His Fallen target stood in front of him, waiting, a massive monstrosity, leather, scaly wings spread wide over his shoulders. He had tried to take his old Grigori form, but eons of corruption and hatred had warped him, his charcoal skin splotchy and cracked. His once-golden armor shone dully in the evening sunlight, scorch marks covering the Words that used to line the armor. Dark, wet hair ran to his shoulders, and he glared at Ithuriel with black eyes.

“Ithuriel.”
The Grigori spread his arms wide, darkened iron flails appearing in each hand. The tips of the flails, jagged barbs, hung just off the ground.
“I have waited for you.”

“Azazel,” Ithuriel said. He clenched his hand and the spear manifested in his grip. He glanced to either side. “Where is my Blessed?”

“Oh, Lilith’s plaything?”
Azazel laughed, his coarse voice echoing in the quarry. He leered and shifted his hands, the barbs of the flails ringing off each other. He lifted a finger and Brad’s pendant dropped to the ground.
“If I had to guess, he has the girl right now. But then you already know that, don’t you,
frater
?”

Ithuriel was not his brother, had not been his brother for a thousand, thousand years. Not since the Grigori had betrayed Father and nearly taken humanity with them.

They had fooled him, and he had left Ren alone. He had left them both, and he knew the Grigori was not lying. Brad was with them, and Ithuriel couldn’t see him.

“What do you want with the girl,
Grigori
?” He took a step sideways, balancing on the balls of his feet, his gaze on Azazel unwavering. “What is she to you?”

“Salvation,”
Azazel hissed.
“But not yours.”

He took a step towards Ithuriel and snapped one of the flails forward. The barbed tips lashed out, and Ithuriel jumped back into the air, hurling the spear in one smooth motion.

Azazel stepped to one side and the other flail flashed, the barbs whipping across the spear, sending it skittering off into the dirt.

Ithuriel dove, the spear flashing back into his hand. He thrust it forward, but not before Azazel’s flail caught against his wing. He grunted as he drove the spear down, the tip piercing Azazel’s side. Ithuriel landed on one foot and twisted with the momentum, slinging the Grigori free.

Azazel spun away, the barbs of the flail ripping across Ithuriel’s feathers, and the Grigori landed on one knee, his boots digging into the sand. Black blood dripped down his armor, spilling against the dirt.

Ithuriel roared as he charged forward, the spearpoint glowing. Anger welled up within, at the eternal struggle, at Father. At this world, at his failures. He lunged, the spear a blinding arc that drove towards Azazel.

The Grigori suddenly shifted, the angel’s spear driving into empty space. Barbs wrapped around the haft of the spear, and Azazel spun the flail around and flicked it out. The whipping flail forced the spear out of Ithuriel’s grip and he lurched forward as he reached for it.

The other flail snapped against Ithuriel’s healing wing, and he cried out as the barbs yanked him back. A knee crunched into his side, and he gritted his teeth against the pain as he jerked away, the barbs tearing into his wing.

He tried to jump away but the second flail drove into his other wing. Azazel pulled with both hands and grinned at Ithuriel.

“Embrace me,
frater
.”

“I…am not…” Ithuriel struggled against the barbs, the spear flashing back into his grip. “…your brother.”

He tensed his arms, pushing against Azazel, trying to leverage any kind of advantage with the spear.

He felt them, then, the baying, raucous cries as they galloped towards him. He felt them deep in his core, the vibrations as their hooves tore into the earth, the vicious, feral malice radiating from them.

Daemons, lesser demons created by the Grigori to serve them, bayed his name. They were coming for him. He had to move.

Ithuriel let the spear go. He growled and pushed against Azazel, going with the Grigori’s pulling momentum. He pushed and leapt forward, his hands gripping Azazel’s armor, carrying him up into the sky with him. Azazel’s eyes went wide, and he started to fight against Ithuriel.

The Malakhi bit his tongue against the sharp bite of the flails, and willed his wings up and up. Feathers drifted back down towards the earth, blood streaked over white tufts as they fell.

He looked at the sun, drawing on its warmth, Azazel’s hoarse roar in his ears. The Grigori’s wings hissed, smoke swirling from his exposed skin.

The Fallen was more than just a name. The Grigori were chained to the earth, never again permitted to soar the heavens.

“
Volare
, Grigori,” Ithuriel said. He reached back and wrenched the barbs free of his wings, holding them up in front of Azazel, blood dripping from the tips. “Fly.”

Ithuriel let Azazel go. The Grigori’s wings flapped once, futilely, and he dropped like a stone. He screamed as he fell, his skin burning.

Pain surged through his beating wings, but Ithuriel held himself there for an instant longer, the spear flashing into his hand. Then he dove, his wings folded behind his back, the spear drawn over his shoulder. He hurtled towards Azazel, his teeth bared, and threw the spear with a throat-numbing shout.

The spear glowed white-hot as it drove down like a bolt of lightning. Azazel was feet from the ground when the spearpoint punched through his chest. Spear and Grigori slammed into the earth together, the haft of the weapon that jutted from Azazel’s chest quivering.

Ithuriel couldn’t contain the sharp cry of agony as his wings spread wide to slow his descent. He beat his wings, thrusting upward, but his injured wing finally gave. He tumbled over headfirst, his heart pounding against his chest as the white malachite of the quarry rushed to meet him.

He managed to roll at the last instant, landing awkwardly on his side. His head slammed into the dirt, the impact sending barbs of shooting pain through his ribs and up his shoulder. He rolled over onto his chest and closed his eyes.

He took a heaving breath and coughed up a trail of blood, the very act sending another tide of agony rolling through his chest and ribs. “
Sanaret
,” he whispered, and the healing Word washed over him. It wound through his chest, running over his ribs, leeching the divinity that was a part of him.

Ithuriel was exhausted, pain still ringing through his chest, his ribs tender as he pushed himself slowly to his feet. Despair grabbed at him, tried to claw and suck the energy from him.

He couldn’t fight anymore. Day after day, hunting and fighting, struggling to maintain a balance that was becoming too difficult to sustain. He could barely feel the divinity within, the touch of his Father replaced by an indifferent nothingness. A black pit that reminded him how alone he was.

He didn’t know how much divinity he had left, how many more Words he might need to use. And he didn’t know what would happen when it had all been used up.

One of the daemons howled, a guttural warble that resonated in his bones. Another sounded, and another, his name repeated.
Ithuriel
, they sang, his name like a beacon.
Ithuriel!

Too many, Ithuriel thought. Too many, countless, dark and burning like the world. He couldn’t fight it all.

Too much for me
.

He shook his head and blinked away the fog in his vision. He felt the warmth of anger and shame, two sides of the same coin. He took it and focused.

He gritted his teeth, his fingers tightening around the spear as it flashed into his grip. The tip shone against the dusk and he reached for the spark of anger. So unfamiliar yet, but he needed it now, needed that surge of warmth to fuel him. He latched onto it, his nostrils flaring.

I am Ithuriel. The Spear
. Hell wouldn’t have him so easily.

The daemons burst through the trees to the northwest, hooves churning up sand as they rushed towards Ithuriel. They clambered over a rock shelf and paused as their baleful yellow eyes fell on the still body of Azazel.

Thirteen of them, the lesser demons chittering as they fixed their attention back on Ithuriel. Their bodies were skinless and shone a dark red, their muscle fibers twitching. Smaller than the Grigori, they stalked towards Ithuriel on hindlegs that bent back like the sick perversion of an animal. Long, gleaming claws extended from their fingers, the wiry sinews of their arms trembling. Bone horns jutted from their ram-like heads, their jaundiced eyes glaring at Ithuriel.

Ithuriel set his jaw and stepped towards the daemons, his grip tightening on the spear at his side.

“I am Ithuriel.”

EPISODE FIVE

Kevin circled back the way he’d come, heading east towards the river. Abaddon’s terrible cries, and the shaking earth that had surrounded him, had finally eased, and Kevin decided this was as good a time as any to make for Kennett’s Castle. He was out of the Unmaker’s reach, at least for now.

He raced through the undergrowth, ducking under branches, and weaving between the tall trees. He didn’t know what he would find at the old castle, and the uncertainty fed his adrenaline.

He jumped over a tangle of roots and half-slid down an incline, cursing as he scrambled to a halt beside a railroad track along the shore of the Mississippi. The river churned past, only twenty or thirty feet away, slight waves slapping against a man-made sandbar that reached into the river like a finger.

Kevin paused, scanning the shoreline for any movement. Confident no one had seen him blunder over the ledge, he moved north along the track, his footing slow and sure.

A couple hundred feet to the north he spotted the narrow clearing that had been cut into the trees on either side, marking the southern fringe of Kennett’s, and the grounds that surrounded it. He hoped it was still in a condition to house the Haven survivors, at least temporarily.

The sounds of the river faded as he stepped behind a thicket. He peered through the bushes, looking across the clearing. The trees stood still and silent on the other side, nothing but faded grass and clumps of ash in between. He couldn’t see anything of the castle from here.

He ducked behind the brush, working his way farther in towards the town. He paused at the edge of the treeline and frowned.

A row of ruined, interconnected buildings stood on the far side, blanketed by ash. The roof had caved in on one end, and the outer, blackened wall leaned heavily inward. Debris covered two cars parked outside, their tires flat and the windows smashed. A great gouge had been cut into the nearest car’s side panel, rust bleeding from the jagged tear like blood. A hundred feet to the east, the tower of the castle protruded from the treetops, the bulk of the old fortress hidden by the trees and the hill it sat behind.

His eyes narrowed as he spotted movement just beyond one of the buildings, across the thin road that wound through the property.

It was Sam.

The Blessed was walking the perimeter. Kevin waited until she circled past the last building and put a hand over his mouth. He let out a high-pitched whistle that his fingers turned into a bird call.

Sam froze where she was, her gaze flitting over the trees. Kevin held up a hand and waved until she spotted him. She nodded and waved him in.

Kevin looked left and right and jumped clear of the brush. He sprinted across the clearing, ducking past the abandoned cars.