All That Falls (40 page)

“I’ll carry that kiss with me to heaven or hell,” he said, and for an instant, the rest of the world seemed to fall away. There was only him and the knowledge that he would hold on to the memory of what they’d had for eternity.

Cerise closed her eyes, not wanting to let go. Mist chilled her cheeks; she inhaled the scent of sandalwood and amber, felt the press of his cool skin and hard muscles, and she didn’t regret anything. He saw her exactly as she wanted to be. Powerful and spectacular. He loved her as she wanted to be loved. Without hesitation or limitation. And more than anyone else in the world. Whatever the battle’s outcome, she would always have that.

Her lids flicked open, and she studied his face.

I love you.

“Whatever happens,” she said, “I’m not sorry we met.”

He smiled a brilliant white smile that fractured the light around him so intensely it made her squint. “You love recklessly.”

“All your favorite people do,” she said.

He nodded. “And they rush headlong into battle with me just as recklessly. I’m fallen. I don’t deserve such loyalty, but I’m grateful for it.”

Smoke wafted through the air, and she turned her head. They were two hundred yards from the clearing in front of the cave, and white flames rose fifty feet into the air. Cerise’s heart lurched as screeching ripped through the night.

A portal was already open.

When the emergency alert went out to every member of Etherlin Security, the mobilization took a full seventeen minutes less than the required fifty-minute time set for drills.

The briefing took seven minutes. Their mission was simple. Recover the Etherlin muses and bring them home alive. If anything stood in the way of accomplishing the mission, kill it.

Armed and ready, the air units left the center of the Etherlin within thirty minutes. The ground units shortly thereafter.

The first ES officers still arrived on the scene eleven minutes too late.

The smell of muse blood triggered the ventala thirst. Several times, Tamberi had to force her men back with shoves and threats. Fangs descended and snarling with hunger, they pressed forward over and over.

Reziel struck one down with a blade through the heart. His bloodred eyes were as flat and deadly as any she’d ever seen, and the ventala fell back.

Her eyes darted to her watch. The human sacrifices at the other locations had already begun. They only had moments left to complete the ritual.

“I have to return to the other side, so I can emerge as flesh!” Reziel yelled over the roaring wind that whooshed out of the
cave. “Finish the rite! Kill Rella, then Xenakis, then North. Do it as fast as you can, then get out of the way.”

Reziel’s eyes rolled back, and Hayden fell to the ground, his body seizing.

She shouted the words from the tablet, speaking faster and faster. When the last word was out, she slashed Ileana’s throat. Blood sprayed onto Tamberi’s face and chest, into the fire, and onto the ground. Deep within the cave, the earth cracked. She rushed to Dorie Xenakis, but was knocked back by her own men, who’d charged forward at the spilling of Rella’s blood. They ripped Rella’s body down and covered it, sucking the blood from her wounds and biting into her veins.

A mass of monstrous demons flew from the cave, screeching and snapping their teeth.

Tamberi grabbed Dorie Xenakis’s hair and yanked her head back. Her knife hand was jarred just as she started to drag the blade across the girl’s throat. A blow to her head knocked Tamberi forward, and she landed on her knees. She jumped up and spun to find Cerise Xenakis racing toward her.

It can’t be!

Kill her!

Tamberi swung her blade around. She would cut Cerise’s throat and drain a fourth muse bitch’s blood in the center of the triangle. Then nothing would be able to close the gates of hell. The world would definitely fall!

In the final moment before they clashed, Tamberi knew something was wrong. Cerise’s brown eyes lightened to hazel green. Only distracted for an instant, Tamberi slashed at her. Cerise’s upper body arched back as though she were a gymnast in a backbend. Tamberi’s blade sliced the air above Cerise, not connecting, and Tamberi’s momentum pulled her to her left side. Cerise’s torso sprang forward at the waist, and Tamberi felt the kiss of a blade, then sharp pain as it drove into her, dividing her heart into two pieces.

Tamberi’s broken scream was over by the time she hit the ground.

She’s killed me. The bitch—

Staring at the sky, Tamberi watched burnt-red demons circle like vultures. There were dozens of them already, and then she saw him—the one with massive black horns.

The prince of darkness himself!

She choked out a wheezing laugh.

They’re too late. We still won.

Cerise slammed the hilt of her dagger against the spike that tethered Dorie’s arms to the rock. Cerise had to free Alissa and Dorie and get them out of the ritual site.

A deafening screech made her look up. A demon swooped. She crouched so she could use the retractable blade.

Drawing on her muse magic for inspiration, she whispered to herself,
Do it! Fight like him! Tap that power!

The magic flowed through her and her senses heightened. The smallest sounds became piercingly clear, the smallest movements became obvious. It was as though part of her spirit slipped from her body and watched from above as she spun and dove, slashed and thrust. She wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid all the blows. Some sent her sprawling and claws scraped her skin, but she was able to spring back to her feet. She killed one and then another.

A roar caused her gaze to jerk upward. Black wings with gold tips. Reziel in his massive archangel body. Seven feet tall and ripped. He locked eyes with her and dove straight for her.

Fear cramped her stomach. She bent her knees, readying herself, but she couldn’t remember what strategy Lysander had told them to use against him.

She jerked up, but couldn’t reach to stab him. Reziel’s foot-long blade swung down in a blur of speed. She lurched, wasn’t fast enough.

The blade would’ve decapitated her if it hadn’t encountered Lysander’s.

Reziel cursed and recoiled, flipped backward in the air, touching down and springing up. Lysander leapt into the air in pursuit, but three other demons swarmed him.

Cerise rushed to Dorie and managed to free her, then to free Alissa.

“Cerise?”

“Yeah, Liss, it’s me.”

“Are we very outnumbered?”

Cerise glanced up. There were dozens of demons in the sky. There was no way—

“Yes, very.”

“We have to close the gate.”

Dorie’s scream made Cerise whirl around. One of the ventala tackled Dorie and sank fangs into her throat. Cerise darted around the fire, but Merrick got there first and hauled the ventala assassin back and took off his head with one swing of a blade.

“Get them to cover,” Merrick shouted, shoving a stunned Dorie toward her.

Merrick sprinted back to the thick of the battle where Lysander had been joined by another winged angel with bronze hair. The light around the angel was wicked bright.

It must be Nathaniel! Thank God!

More and more demons poured from the cave. A helicopter landed and ES officers spilled out. They couldn’t defeat the demons, but at least they could fight the ventala and get Dorie and Alissa to safety.

“ES!” Dorie cried. “We’re here!” she screamed to them.

“No!” Alissa said. “We have to go into the cave. We have to close the gate!”

“But—!”

“It may take all three of us,” Alissa said.

“She’s right, Dorie. Come with us,” Cerise said, waving for her.

Dorie hesitated, then bit her lip and rushed to join them.

It was a battle to get to the cave with demons shrieking and dive-bombing like prehistoric birds. Blood dripped from Cerise’s sliced cheek and shoulder. There were an overwhelming number of demons in the sky already. Even if they managed to close the portal, it was probably too late, but they had to try.

Inside, the cave smelled rancid and damp. They all gagged, and Alissa vomited clear fluid.

“She’s hurt! Hayden hit her in the back of the head. She bled a lot,” Dorie said, taking Alissa’s arm to guide her. “She tried to stop this before it started. I should’ve done more to help her,” she yelled with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know! Did you see Merrick save me? I—”

“Never mind. It’s all right,” Alissa said soothingly, power packed into every word. “Help me now.”

“Stay behind me. I may need to stop and fight,” Cerise said.

“Together! Come together,” Alissa said.

Dorie and Alissa stood shoulder to shoulder, and Cerise backed up until her back touched them.

“Create a small pool of our blood, Dorie. Make sure it’s mixed together,” Alissa said.

Dorie moved her leg and dragged a nail over her wound. It bled. She did the same to Alissa’s head and Cerise’s shoulder.

“We’ll say the words as one,” Alissa said.

“What words?” Dorie asked.

“By muse blood and breath, I command you to close,” Alissa whispered.

A moment later they spoke at once and all forced as much magic as they had into the command, but the stench and flow of demons through the gate continued.

“We can’t command them. Demons are former angels—a higher power than we are,” Cerise said.

A wing slammed into Cerise as a demon flew past. It knocked them all down.

“You’re right,” Alissa said. “Even together, we’re not powerful enough.”

Cerise stared into the darkness, feeling the waves of malice pounding from the cracked earth. “They’ve wedged bodies into the opening. Hundreds of demons are holding the gate open for the others.” She couldn’t really see through the darkness. The crack was a hundred feet farther into the cave and at least fifty feet down, and yet in her mind, there was a clear image of a blue-eyed demon with a claw mark on his shoulder. He raged at the lesser demons, cutting and shoving them. They wanted to fly to freedom, but he slaughtered any who broke formation.

Four more high-ranking demons pushed their way through the portal.

“We have to force the lower demons to scatter,” Cerise said, searching for a solution. She couldn’t call for Lysander and Nathaniel to fight at the gate. They’d only get dragged down
into hell by the clawed hands of the demons wedged in the crack. But there was no way they could fight thousands of demons and survive, either.

“Push!” Uriah roared.

Dread wailed through Cerise.

“Oh God! He’s trying to make the hole bigger,” Cerise said, her eyes flying open. “Alissa, you opened a portal to the ancient muses. How?”

“The muses won’t cross into our world, and even if they did, what good would it do? They can’t fight demons.”

“No, but the archangels once had to fight the Greek gods and monsters to force them out of the world. Let’s bring forth the ancient monsters that they banished. They’re mortal enemies. It will even the odds.”

“I don’t know how to summon them,” Alissa said.

A sharp pain pierced Cerise’s back and she cried out. She jerked forward and reached behind her, but there was no blood. She saw Lysander fall. The pain had been his wing breaking.

Oh, no!

“Hurry!” Cerise yelled. She touched the pool of blood, humming a song she’d written with Griffin called “Come One, Come All.”

“Sing with me,” Cerise said and shouted the lyrics over the rushing air.

They sang together and power coursed through them. Like an ancient siren song, it called the monsters of their ancestors. Cerise felt the barrier between worlds begin to melt; she smelled lemon and licorice and the spices that her grandmother had cooked with. Then she smelled the ocean, and the wind rushing from the cave turned warm.

“Keep singing,” Cerise said, and Alissa and Dorie sang at the top of their lungs while Cerise spoke, power flowing through her melodic voice. “Come Minotaur, come Cyclops, come Kraken and Medusa. You can banish those who banished you. Come and slay your enemies. Force them from the world of men.”

The first clash shook the cave and the mountain.

Cerise, Dorie, and Alissa fell into a heap of tangled limbs, but none of them tried to rise. They felt the flow of energy. They’d opened the source of their magic and anchored on the
floor of the cave between the past and the present, they controlled the war.

Cerise saw the battle. She realized she was watching it through the eyes of one of the lesser demons in the crack—
Griffin
, she realized, going rigid.

“Oh no,” she whispered and closed her eyes, horrified by his plight, but also consumed by the desire to close the gateway to hell before any more of them emerged.

The monsters of ancient Greece attacked the demons. They were all forsaken by heaven and therefore all equal now.

The muses continued to sing, thrusting power into the ancient monsters. As the creatures clashed, the demons lost their grip, broke formation, and slid back toward hell. White light blazed through the cave.

“Close your eyes!” Alissa shouted.

They all closed their eyes as hot pulses thrummed through the hollows. They felt the gateway to hell slam shut, and the walls of rock smash together, closing the portal.

Dorie yelled in triumph.

“We have to send the ancients back,” Alissa said. “Quickly, before they escape into the world. Concentrate and blow your breath into the cave.”

They whispered and exhaled in unison and felt the ancient creatures hesitate and wander toward the outside then back toward the door to their own world. For moments, they moved without clear purpose, then the first of them returned to where they’d made their home, to where all the creatures of their kind resided.

When the Minotaur, the last of the monsters, was gone, the three muses whispered, “By the breath of the muses, we command you to close,” and the second supernatural door that had been opened with their blood swung shut and sealed.

The bloody battle against the demons took hours. More and more men joined the fight, but Lysander, Nathaniel, Merrick, and Cerise did the bulk of the slaying. When she and Merrick stood back-to-back to fight Purim, she was overcome with satisfaction. They were extensions of Lysander, heaven’s ultimate warrior.