Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3) (11 page)

War hadn’t changed. War never changed.

The demon screamed as Nash drove his blade into its gut. The wound was instantly cauterized. He didn’t have to inspect the injury to know this to be a fact—he had pulled apart many demons postmortem in the last war to determine the easiest ways to kill them. He clearly recalled the autopsies of those killed by flaming swords. The blackened flesh curled in at the edges. The cooked meat around the insertion wound.

It was not the stab, the killing blow, that made the demon choke on its own blood. It was Nash’s fist in the demon’s throat, ripping the esophagus free.

That was, he had learned long ago, the easiest way to kill a brute.

He unsheathed his sword from the brute’s body. It toppled at his feet, limp and motionless. Nash kicked it over so that its back was bared and drove the blade in one more time, ensuring that the spine would be severed.

Silence settled over the 7-Eleven parking lot as Nash straightened to inspect the damage. One of the worst fracture points of the fissure was only two blocks away; more than twenty brutes had dragged themselves from Hell to assault the travelers attempting to refuel on their way to the evacuation point. Seven humans had died before Nash intervened. Seven innocent mortals on top of thousands of others.

Though the convenience store was not a familiar sight, the demon bodies were. Brutes had never been able to interbreed with Earth-bound creatures, and as such were not suited to the atmosphere or gravity of that dimension; they would have died within hours of arrival anyway. But that was plenty of time to kill many humans and disrupt the evacuation lines.

A suicide mission.

“Idiots,” Nash muttered under his breath, eyes sweeping over the sagging, sunken bodies of the demons between the gas pumps. Twenty brutes. What fool had sacrificed twenty perfectly good brutes?

With a twist of his wrist, he disengaged the flames on the blade of his sword. When it wasn’t alight, it was a fairly ordinary-looking saber. Its blade had been folded in the fires of Heaven until the cutting edge could only be measured on the atomic level. It could cut through anything. Demons, their weapons, asphalt. Anything that stood between Nash and the safety of the humans who needed him.

A choked sound reached his ears, and his eyes snapped up to the corner of the 7-Eleven, expecting to see a brute that had not yet died. He found a woman hugging her son instead. They were both bloodied. The child’s arm had been bitten and oozed with black fluid, but he was alive.

They were the only ones aside from Nash that were so lucky.

“Take him to the checkpoint as quickly as you can,” Nash said. “They will be able to treat that bite before it becomes infected.”

Tears streamed down the mother’s round face. “Infected?”

He wanted to stretch his wings and take flight, leaving behind that assault to find the next. There would always be a “next time,” at least until Hell was crushed, and the ethereal forces were sorely outnumbered. But the fear in her eyes reminded him of family. Not blood family, but the family he had chosen—the family that made him want to fight.

“It’s treatable,” he said again, as gently as possible.

“The checkpoint’s two hours away in a car,” she whispered. “And our car…” She hugged her son tighter and glared at a white sedan at gas pump three. Its tires were flat.

Two hours by car. Lord above.

Nash glanced around again, but there was nothing to see. The discount guitar store across the intersection was darkened, its windows shattered. The traffic lights blinked red. It was midday, but the sky was orange-gray, choking with smoke. The evacuees traveling by car had already been rerouted around that 7-Eleven to another gas station two blocks away.

Nobody was close enough to help this mother and child.

He sheathed his sword at his hip. “Here,” Nash said, dropping to one knee and opening his arms.

The woman and son didn’t immediately approach him. He knew he cut an intimidating figure in his business suit with a blade at his side and the wings at his back. Each wing was longer than he was tall—long enough to carry a man well over six feet tall through the air, even when he had passengers.

The boy broke away first. He was perhaps seven years old, with a dirt-smudged face and tousled hair. He was pale from blood loss, fear, sickness. Brave child, considering he had just watched the angel slaughter twenty brutes singlehandedly.

“The sword’s cool,” said the boy.

“Perhaps I will let you hold it at the checkpoint,” Nash said.

That seemed to be all the motivation he needed. He stepped into the circle of the angel’s arms, and his mother quickly followed. She was whispering prayers as she hugged her son tightly.

He smiled at her. He hoped that it looked benevolent, rather than condescending—Abel had told him that he had “a douchebag’s smile,” whatever that was supposed to mean, and it had been bothering him ever since.

“I will not drop you,” Nash said.

The boy said, “I trust you.”

With a thrust of his wings, Nash carried them into the smoky air.

The mortals weighed as little to him as the sword. Lifting them required insignificant effort. Given many more angels, a lot of cooperation, and much more time, they could have carried all of the humans to the evacuation points—but Nash had yet to find any of his brethren willing to speak with humans, much less transport them.

He was but a single man. He could only do so much.

As he cradled the boy and his mother in his arms, he hoped that so much would be enough.

Nashriel swept through
the air above the evacuation point. The fissure between Earth and Hell was a bleeding gash as far as he could see in either direction—which, granted, was not very far at all—and it had split Coos Bay in twain. The rift was still growing. It had been only a few feet wide at first, perhaps as wide as one of Nashriel’s wings, but now it had grown to devour entire blocks.

The north side of town was a ruin. That was where the emerging demons had struck on their southward march. Giant footprints were scorched into the pavement where gibborim had tread, and buildings had been crushed by a low-flying kibbeth. The south side was in better condition, and that was where they had built the evacuation station for humans coming from northern California. The cargo ships carrying thousands of humans toward the refuges of China and Russia were dim shapes disappearing into the murky night.

It was as peaceful as any night had been since the Breaking. It was a name the mortal news networks had given the event that opened North America to Hell. Catchy name—Nashriel had heard a few angels call it that despite their best efforts to avoid anything that stunk of mortal handiwork. The official name, as far as angels were concerned, was the Second War.

For it to be so quiet on Earth, it must have also been quiet in Dis. The fissure burned dimly. Nashriel didn’t see any new demons emerging, nor did he see any troops moving through Modoc National Forest as he skimmed overhead.

There would be more fights elsewhere on the continent, but his brethren would be attending to it, as would the human Union. He had slaughtered twenty brutes and a hundred fiends that day alone.

Nash was beyond physical exhaustion. Angels were not easily fatigued, but his soul was tired.

His wings churned the smoke behind him as he soared across the country, heading toward the East Coast. From high above, with utility outages in most towns, the land looked uninhabited. The vast deserts of the West were dark. The plains only had light from transcontinental rail trying to take humans to either coast, where they could be safely removed from the battleground. Nash could easily imagine that it was the First War again.

The fighting hadn’t been in the Americas then—it had been in the Fertile Crescent, the seat of human life, where city-states had only begun to take root. But it had been just as smoky and dark. The stink of demons had filled the air as richly.

With the beat of his wings and the blur of ethereal magic, it took minutes to cross from West Coast to East. The damage to civilization was not as severe here, not yet. Manhattan shined like a morning star in the gloom. The radiating lines of freeways and smaller cities and suburbs were dim, patchy, broken, but life went on. Mandatory evacuation had only gone into effect for the West.

He didn’t go to New York. He steered south and west, following the line of the Appalachian Mountains to the places where trees grew thickest. There were acres upon acres of hostile land here, isolated from civilization by steep valleys and towering cliffs. Places where men could lose themselves.

Or an entire pack of werewolves.

Nash soared over Northgate. The buildings nearest the fissure were blackened by smoke. He remembered Poppy’s Diner being silver-walled and glistening, like a tin jewelry box, but it was so sooty now that it didn’t shine. All of the leaves that remained on the tree branches were shriveled and brown. Ash covered the streets. Even the statue of Bain Marshall was no longer its previously striking shade of white; it was scorched at the bottom, as if flames had been licking its feet.

The quietude of the town was the eeriest part of all. Northgate had been a cozy town. Everyone walked from house to house to visit, walked to church, walked to get a piece of Poppy’s pie. The streets had only been empty in the late evening after darkness fell and everyone moved inside.

Now, all of the streets were empty. There were no humans or demons.

For now.

The fissure was widening. He couldn’t see it happening—it was too slow for that. But the last time he had been there, it had been only a few feet wide. Now it was wide enough that a car could have fallen through lengthwise. And its end no longer stopped at the statue. It had advanced two entire blocks.

The fissure was moving, slowly but surely, toward the sanctuary.

Toward Summer.

Nashriel felt the moment he entered the wards protecting the werewolf sanctuary. Had he been an intruder, it would have been like hitting an electrified wall; instead, it greeted him like sinking into a warm bath. He folded his wings back and descended into the trees. It required deft navigation to slip through the forest, between the craggy rocks, and land at the mouth of the valley where Summer’s pack concealed themselves.

He took care to draw his energy deep within himself, dimming his wings until they didn’t shine at all. If he went in blazing, he would kill all of the generators. The sanctuary would have no power, no light, no satellite access—all things that would make the group very unhappy indeed.

It was easier to walk into the valley than fly into it anyway. He went down the road at a brisk clip, wings folded neatly behind him.

The worst of the smoke hadn’t touched this part of the forest. Recent rains had scrubbed the air clean. Nash could actually see starlight, a sliver of a waxing moon. He smelled wet soil and moss.

Saturday nights at the sanctuary used to be lively enough that he could hear the pack partying from the top of the valley. But a solemn hush had fallen over the sanctuary. A waterfall emerged from the darkness, roaring softly in the quiet night, as if it were in mourning, too. He could hear the crunch of gravel under his feet as he walked.

Lanterns were lit along the street that formed the center of the sanctuary, giving the cottages an orange glow. The pack sat at picnic tables around the square. Dinner had already been served and eaten; empty platters sat at each table, waiting to be cleaned up. It was strange to see the wolves so sedated without their usual carousing. Crystal was in a corner by herself instead of trying to engage everyone in drinking games. Katja was with Trevin and Pyper, playing a card game. Nobody was smiling.

Nash didn’t see the Alphas. He also didn’t see Summer.

Trevin greeted him with a nod when he approached the table. “How’s it going?” he asked, eyes fixed upon the sword at Nash’s hip.

“As well as can be expected,” Nash said. He didn’t share the body count with the wolves whenever he could avoid it. They might be awed by the idea of killing twenty brutes, but they would also despair at the realization that twenty deaths were nothing in the face of what else was coming.

Katja lifted her plate. She had a sweet roll and some green beans. Werewolves only ate meat, but she wasn’t a werewolf anymore—she was the first to ever be “cured” of the condition. The pack had still readily adopted her as one of their own, since there was nowhere else for her to go. Nobody else would know how to help her through the things she had experienced.

“I’ve got some leftovers. Want them?” she asked with a tremulous voice.

Nash made himself smile again. The same smile that he had given the mother and her son at the site of his last battle. “I appreciate your kindness, but must decline.”

She nodded and ducked her head, like she couldn’t look at him.

Most of them were like that. Most of the werewolves had been reverential toward Nash since the Lincoln Marshall incident, when a Northgate deputy had attempted to kill them. Nash had taken a shot to the chest to save a pack member. That silver bullet had all but elevated him to sainthood.

“Summer’s in the greenhouses,” Pyper said, placing a queen on the table.

Nash felt his eyes widen. “At this time of night?”

Assenting mumbles came from around the table.

“Thank you,” he said, and he left the pack to their quiet pursuits.

One thing that Nash had learned from the wars, First and Second alike, was that silence was not something to be desired. Silence seldom indicated peace. It was merely the absence of another noise—screams in the wake of battle, or the laughter that should have filled the night.

Silence was the sound of grieving.

The greenhouses were
the newest structures in the sanctuary. Nash considered them “structures” rather than “buildings” because they were very rudimentary—wooden pallets to lift them off the ground, some PVC piping as framework, plastic sheets to shelter the plants within. There hadn’t been time to build anything better. They had a pack to feed. Werewolves only ate meat, but they might need to learn to expand their tastes, since cows were much harder to nurture than tomatoes.