Last of the Mighty (21 page)

Just five of those that had started this war were still standing. I assumed the recently exorcised bear keeper had limped far away after seeing the bloodbath in the cemetery. A bloodbath that was about to grow bloodier.

My eyes slid over to Amos and Chool.

The Nephilim had been speared between the eyes with the Fourth Nail, a rusty flagpole rising out of the pulpy mess of his face.

Amos stood over him, breathing heavily.

At Phaeus's command, Azazel advanced on me while Uzza stalked to Amos. Phaeus posted himself in the background like some cowardly general watching his troops from the safety of a war room.

Bottom line was, it didn't matter who was facing off with whom. Amos and I were outmatched regardless of the Watcher assigned to us.

Azazel sashayed to me, grinned a little, and said, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my son, prepare to die.”

I smiled at The Princess Bride reference. Azazel. If he hadn't been a psychopathic Fallen Watcher, we would've been friends.

We began to dance, cautious, each of us looking for an opening. I couldn't let Azazel's carefree air and relaxed likeability distract me. Given the chance, he'd waste me. I couldn't forget that.

The Watcher struck first. He feigned a left jab then threw a right cross. The world went slow when his fist was halfway to me. If only I still had Peter's sword, Azazel would be gone. I ducked beneath the blow, drew the old knife from my back pocket, and swiped Azazel across the upper thigh. I spun away while quickly tucking the blade back into my pocket. I didn't want him to know I had the knife. Let him wonder what had made that cut. My teeth? Fingernails? Or some other enchanted weapon.

“Oh, ho! Nice one, Og!” He turned to face me, discomfort on his lips. He inspected the red trench in his leg with his fingers, blood staining them as he did. “But your little butter knife ain't gonna Shemja-za me, broham.”

I knew the rusty blade wouldn't Pit him, but also knew from Shemja's reaction to the long saw that any deep gash would cause the Watcher pain. Shem's wound had taken a few minutes to close. I was hoping for the same with Azazel.

Beyond my opponent, I watched Uzza smash a front kick to Amos's torso. The strike lifted Amos off his feet and sent him into a headstone. I prayed that he'd find a weapon somewhere close by.

Amos had left the Nail in Chool's face, but still had the Roman whip. So why wasn't he using it?

I wanted to help, needed to, but there was no way. If I turned my back on Zaze for even a second, he'd squash me.

The Watcher came at me again. My turn to play offense. I shifted into turbo and smashed a sidekick to the place on his thigh where I'd split him.

I must have telegraphed my kick.

Because Azazel caught my ankle and wrenched it around so my toes were pointing at the ground. With my back to him, and my nose aimed straight down at a rose lying on a grave, I was at Azazel's mercy.

The Watcher tightened his grip on my ankle, jerked me toward him, and wracked my spine with his forearm guard. Pain exploded through me from neck to heels. My face hit dirt, thorns, and petals. Azazel leapt on top, his knees crashing down on my upper back. I heard my ribs crack.

He loaded up his fists and threw one grenade after another to the back of my skull, the side of my face, my temples, ears, and jaw. My brain sparked in red and white each time it got smashed. Burning welts raised on my cheekbones. Blood from my ears striped me all the way to the tip of my nose.

My knuckles went to cover the back of head while my wrists protected my ears. Azazel's next punch shattered every bone in my right hand.

I dug my knees into the soil and bronco'd my hips. It was just enough to joggle Azazel and cause him to lose his balance. Ignoring the pinch of my cracked ribs, I tucked my right shoulder under and rolled—an elementary wrestling move. Going with the momentum, I lashed out blindly with my left arm. A back-fist moshed the Watcher squarely in the cheek.

Zaze reeled from my unexpected spank. I kept rolling and sprang to my feet.

I checked on Amos. His left eye was puffed and swollen. Nose broken. Blood pushed out from the sides of his mouth, and his right hand hung limp at his side, as useless as mine.

I watched as Uzza seized Amos and lifted him off the ground, hoisting him up to arm's length over his head.

Amos did not resist.

Azazel was still rising, and I helped him up. With the flat of my foot. It blasted off the ground and rocketed directly into his nose. When his head jerked back, I drew the knife and hacked a canyon across his neck.

His recovery would give me the time I needed.

I sped to Amos. Uzza was getting ready to pitch Amos's slack body over a headstone, spine first. The deathblow.

I launched into the air a fraction of a second before the Viking dumped Amos.

“No!” I screamed, and couched my foot into the Viking's wide upper back…

But it was too late.

Amos's spine slammed into the gravestone below. His backbone snapped and his body went soft. The old man hung there, draped over the peak of the headstone, for a few seconds before sliding off into the dirt.

I skidded to the earth and scrambled to Amos. Knelt at his side. “Amos,” I said, squeezing his shoulder and looking into his battered face.

Nothing.

I didn't care where the enemy was, almost hoped they were circling behind me now, a second from killing me. They were going to do it in the next few minutes anyway. Might as well die with Amos.

“Wake up!” I demanded, tears welling.

His lip twitched.

His forehead wrinkled.

He coughed, blood spurting from his mouth. “Chool…” he whispered. “Gone…” His eyes struggled to find mine, and lit up when they did.

At the side of my vision, Phaeus had an arm in front of Azazel's chest, like he was holding him back, as if he wanted me to experience every cruel splinter that came with watching a loved one die. To hear the gurgle of that last breath, feel the light gust of it on my cheek, to gaze into his eyes as they darkened and closed, for the last time.

“Thank…you, Og.” The exertion of speaking made Amos's face jiggle.

I shook my head. “Shhh,” tears spilling.

Amos wheezed and grimaced in pain. “Of every…man I…I eve' m-met”—with enormous effort, Amos forced his hand toward mine—“y-yer the…best…one.” And with his last shred of strength, he put his fingers on top of mine. “Was an…honor to…know ya.”

I felt so stupid not saying anything, but pain and sadness were so swollen in my throat that no words could get by. I wanted to tell him that he was the honorable one. The mighty one. The man of unwavering faith. Not me. That he was the one with more angel in one of his calloused fingers than I had in my whole body.

“Goin' t' see…” a peaceful smile edged across his face, “my, m-my Lav-vender...now…”

His lungs drained with a long, slow hiss.

They never filled again.

I fell onto Amos, weeping. Sobbing. My arms hugged him, and my body rocked with each wail of regret. It was my fault he was dead. One hundred percent. I knew he died doing something he thought worthwhile, holy and good. But that didn't make it any easier.

I was alone now, with no one left who had my back.

A foot nudged me. Uzza. He grunted, an irritating smirk to his face.

Fury set fire to my guts. The Watcher's disrespect for Amos and everything good and human boiled in my chest. I made a vow then and there. To honor Amos. I promised not to die until the Viking was gone from this earth.

I snuck my fingers into the back pocket of Amos's overalls, felt the cords and glass of the Roman whip. Found its handle.

Uzza tapped me again with his boot, urging me to get up and finish the fight.

I glanced up and saw Phaeus a few yards in front of me. His hand was raised at Uzza in the take-it-easy position. Part of the Watcher's dignity of fighting fair, I guess.

Like three impervious giants against a teenager was fair.

My hands flexed. In my left fist, the Roman whip was warm and willing. In my busted up right, there was only pain, shooting all the way to my shoulder.

And I liked it.

It worked to focus my rage.

I could feel the Mighty part of me building. And building. Until I could contain it no longer.

I yanked the whip free of Amos's pocket, spun around, and launched myself at Uzza, a pouncing leopard, teeth bared, roaring. I slashed the whip at the Viking's head, praying the cords would find purchase anywhere along his neck or face.

Yet the Watcher was too fast. He crushed me in the jaw. I don't remember hitting the ground.

When I opened my eyes, I could feel the Roman whip still firmly in my grasp. Driven by instinct, I hopped to my feet and shook my head to clear the fuzz from my eyes and brain before another enemy fist put me down.

Uzza came into focus.

I went into Tiger stance, ready for war. Squeezed my bad hand as hard as I could, pushed a finger into my damaged ribs, let the pain sharpen me.

The Viking stood a few feet away, unsteady in his boots, in a stupor. With four bloody and ragged one-inch cuts—like bite wounds—notched into his neck.

A warm glow flowed from each jagged tear. Cords of smoke, growing thicker, unspooled from each nick in his fair Viking flesh.

In a sudden blast of light, Uzza was gone.

I took a step toward Phaeus and Azazel, still in Tiger with the whip in my fist, primed for battle.

Phaeus lifted the Gethsemane sword and pointed its tip at my face. “Throw aside the Roman scourge,” he said, “or die.”

He was twelve feet away. In a rush, I might be able to lash him, scratch him on the wrist or knuckles. Maybe go for the knees. Phaeus was still in his angel garb—leather sandals, white war kilt. There was so much unprotected skin to play with here that it was hard to resist. Still, it was too much of a long shot. Peter's sword would cut me down far before I made it to him.

I chucked the whip at them. Right at them. Both of them darted away from the cords as if they were rattlesnakes.

After the whip had stopped its snapping, Azazel squatted down and carefully lifted the relic by its handle. He held it well away from his body while inspecting it.

“Hmmph.” Zaze faced me. “Who'd a thunk—Uhhhh!”

The bloody point of Saint Peter's blade twisted as it broke through the flesh of Azazel's throat right below his chin.

I looked on, baffled, as Azazel lurched and swayed with a sword skewered through his neck from back to front.

But who had stabbed him? Gadriel? Michael?

Yet holding the hilt of the sword, was Phaeus.

The ditch in Azazel's throat bled and glowed and steamed.

Why would Phaeus off one of his own?

I watched in awe and confusion as Zaze burst into a ball of light. Echoes of his Pit scream rang in my head.

With the blond Watcher suddenly gone, the night grew quiet. Eerie shadows, like a dark tide, ebbed and flowed across the ten dead bodies strewn about the headstones. Severed limbs scattered from one side of the blood-soaked graveyard to the other. And the lifeless eyes of that hideous bear-thing, humped near the trees, flickered and flashed as the light of the moon brushed against them.

The hoot of an owl broke the silence.

Followed by the resonant voice of Phaeus.

“Azazel refused to submit to my authority.” Phaeus cast the Gethsemane sword deep into the woods. “He is precisely the type to defy orders.” He picked up the whip and heaved it out of the cemetery. “It is a foolish leader who would allow him to remain. The rogue would have killed you, Augustine, and thus robbed me of the honor of slaying the last of the Mighty.”

Phaeus was the incoming male lion, the new pride leader. The kind that murdered all the cubs and drove off the males to assert his dominance and declare his position as the new head honcho.

He strode toward me. “I've put away the shofar and Nail as well.”

The coward had made certain there was no way I could possibly Pit him in the main event to come.

As Phaeus came closer, I coiled into a fighting stance.

“Give me your ruined hand,” he said.

I backed away.

“Augustine, please. I want only to heal you.”

What?

“I have never battled a Gibbor. Their strength and cunning is legend. It would be undignified of me to take up the gauntlet with a Mighty One performing at anything less than the full measure of his powers.”

I didn't see the downside. Anything to better my chances of beating him couldn't be a bad thing. And he was going to kill me anyway. What did it matter if it happened now or in five minutes? Cautiously, I held out my hand.

He healed it, along with my ribs, spine, ears…all of it.

“Now,” he said, “I've a proposal. Choosing to accept it will gain for you a quick and painless death. If—”

“Forget it…”—I added a little emphasis to this last part—“Fallen.”

His face kinked. “I can assure you, Nephilim, that declining my offer will result in something far more wretched. You will—”

“Hey, Smartacus.” My interruption put a crease of annoyance across his forehead. “I said forget it.” I felt healthy and strong. Mighty. Time to make good on my promise to Pit Phaeus.

“For your insolence,” he spat between gritted teeth, “you will pay.”

“Bring it on, sister.”

The Watcher wasted no time.

Phaeus struck before I could even blink. I misread the length of his leg, and his left foot ripped into my abdomen. He tried to follow with a right cross, but I vaulted into a back handspring to avoid it.

I came up into Panther and whooped, “MICHAEL!”

Guess who got a new war cry?

For a split second, Phaeus panicked. He scanned the boneyard, thought my uncle might appear.

I took advantage of the distraction and flew at him, caught him in the temple with a crescent kick. He stumbled, rattled by the Mighty power and quickness. I smoked an uppercut to his solar plexus and roared, “WHO IS LIKE GOD?” then shoved the iron dagger into his chest.

Phaeus nearly toppled, gasping for breath, gushing with blood.

I leapt on his back and went for the same chokehold he'd used on Big Winnie. If I could cut off Phaeus's oxygen and make him faint, I'd buy myself some time to scour the woods for holy weapons. Without a Pit-worthy relic, victory was impossible.

Yet Phaeus was so immense and strong, I couldn't pull it off.

I hopped off him and kept my distance. Had no desire to engage in a ground game with a ten-foot, six-hundred-pounder.

He came at me, warily this time. “Impressive.” He rubbed the bloody place where the knife had gored him. “I underestimated you.”

“Opposite for me. You fight like a Nephilim.”

His nose flared. It was exquisite.

He charged. I cartwheeled out of the way and sprinted for the trees. No way was I going to stand there and go toe-to-toe, trading punches with Phaeus all night. It would amount to nothing. I had to get my hands on the sword, the whip, the Nail, or shofar.

But I should've never turned my back on him.

He tackled me on my fifth stride.

And the merciless slaughter of Augustine James Caffrey had begun.