Wings of the Wicked (39 page)

Sammael spread his arms wide, opening his palms to the sky, the scales in his obsidian armor clicking. “It’s time to start over, light the fires, and burn it all, and from the ashes of Heaven and Earth a new era will rise.”

Whimpers beside me tore me from the visions in my head, and the heavy sense of Gabriel washed away from me. I was Ellie again. Emma had regained consciousness and stared at Sammael as tears rolled down her cheeks. She paled, and her body shook with tremors of fear. She was moaning something under her breath, the same thing over and over again: the Act of Contrition.

“Our Savior suffered and died for us,” the girl chanted. “In His name, my God, have mercy …”

“Emma,” I called gently to her. “Emma, it’s going to be okay. Don’t look at him. I’ll get you out of here.”

Sammael laughed, smooth and deep. “You lie now, Gabriel? That is a first. It must be the human infection.”

I ignored him. “Don’t worry, Emma. We’ll get out of here. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Sammael raised a hand and motioned to Merodach and Kelaeno. “It is time for me to feed. My power must be at its full strength.”

I braced myself for the reapers to take me, but they walked right past me, right toward Emma as she screamed. They took Emma down from her chains, handling her flailing body with ease, ducking out of the way of her flying fists and kicking legs. I wrenched at my chains, felt the stone give a little, but I was no match for the magic binding my power. I was useless to help Emma and save her from whatever terrible fate the demonic had planned for her.

“Please!” I screamed at the reapers. “Please don’t hurt her! She’s just a girl! Take me. Take me instead, please!”

Merodach clenched his hand around the back of Emma’s neck and thrust her body forward in front of him as if he offered the girl as a gift to Sammael. I quickly realized that that was exactly what he was doing.

“Don’t do this!” I screamed. “You can’t kill her! Please take my soul! Let the girl go!”

Lilith turned her face to look at me. My blood ran cold. “Be silent. Your time will come.”

Emma stopped struggling. She was sobbing now, her body limp, shoes dragging on the floor as the reaper held her up to Sammael. The Fallen angel of death held out both his hands, but instead of taking the girl, something long materialized out of thin air in the same way my swords did. Through the shimmering air, the thing in his hands came into view: a scythe. The weapon was enormous; the long helve was as big around as my forearm and decorated with bits of bone, hair, and fur, and human and animal teeth. A human skull was mounted at the top of the gigantic curved blade, which was embedded with the desolate eyes of the soulless damned. The eyes all blinked and stared at the whimpering girl before Sammael. Then the scythe—from the tip of the blade to the bottom of the staff—lit up with fire. Flames danced black and blue; obsidian and midnight. Demonfire.

Before I could say or do anything, Sammael slashed the scythe down through Emma’s body like butter, and I let out a sickened shriek as Emma began screaming and writhing in earsplitting agony, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. My stomach twisted and I wanted to throw up but couldn’t. I could only keep staring. But there was no blood, no wound, as if the blade had gone through her like she was a ghost. And then Sammael lifted the scythe, and something clung between it and Emma’s body, something silvery and viscous. I saw Emma slacken, and I thought her pain was over. A spring of hope went through me until I realized what the silvery-blue thing was, clinging desperately to her body. Her soul.

A face formed in the struggling mass caught between Sammael’s soul scythe and the girl’s body, a face that belonged to Emma. A perfect imprint of her pretty hair and face frozen in terror was cast in the soul’s form like ghostly clay, and limp arms and legs grew, but threads reached for Emma’s body, trying to free itself from the blade it was caught on. Sammael grabbed Emma’s soul around the throat and lifted it, parting his deathly blue lips. With a deep breath, he sucked Emma’s soul into his mouth like a vacuum until there was no more silvery shimmer left. I sobbed hysterically, and Emma fell to the floor in a crumpled, dead heap.

I realized suddenly that it was all over. Nathaniel was dead. Will was probably dead. I was chained up in a room filled with demonic reapers and two of the Fallen, and for a moment I gave up. I sagged against my chains, pressing myself against the wall of the Enochian spell binding my power, making me helpless.

Will’s words echoed in my head:
“Don’t stop fighting.”

I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t end my ageless existence defeated and surrendered. I had always died fighting, and I would end fighting. If this was it, then I refused to be destroyed while chained to a wall and powerless. I was Gabriel, the Left Hand of God. I was a warrior.

I forced myself to stop crying as Sammael stepped around Emma’s body and moved toward me, raising his scythe.

“I am sorry to have to do this, sister,” he said. “But every last angel must die, including, and most importantly, those closest to God. I cannot have you stand in the way of the Morningstar.”

Something crashed above me, onto the floor above the cellar, and I flinched. I heard shouts and more crashes. I looked up, staring at the stone ceiling, listening to whatever was going on upstairs. Sammael was also looking up, his cold expression stone hard. Someone let out a scream of pain, and then there was another crash.

“You!” Lilith snapped at one of the demonic reaper lackeys. “Go upstairs. See what’s going on.”

He darted up the stairs and out of my sight. I heard the cellar door open, and someone let out a muffled cry. Something ripped, and a moment later he tumbled back down the stairs in two halves. By the time his body hit the bottom step, his parts were nothing more than a waterfall of tumbling rocks. Footsteps descended, and the person they belonged to gasped for breath as he came into view.

It was Will.

27

WILL’S CLOTHES AND SKIN WERE DRENCHED WITH rain and blood, his shirt torn from injuries healed and ones acquired moments before. I stared at him, so surprised and overcome with joy to see him alive that I couldn’t say a thing. I hadn’t even cried out to him. But still, his eyes—crystalline green and bright as stars—were locked on mine, and he knew what I felt inside, because that was exactly how he felt, too. That was as much of a reunion as we would get for now.

Then he charged, sword high, and my elation turned into fear for his life once again. There was no way he could fight everyone in here. They would kill him before he got close enough to Sammael to see the gold of his eyes.

“Destroy the Guardian!” Lilith shrieked above the chaos.

Two of the demonic reaper guards attacked him before he reached the bottom step, both swinging blades. Will dispatched them quickly, shoving his blade into the chest of one of them, splitting bone and flesh before tearing it out and taking off the head of the reaper behind him.

Merodach collided with him next, moving out of the way of Will’s sword and calling his own into his hand. He sliced, sweeping one end of the double blade low, and it slashed across Will’s side, ripping another tear in his shirt. Will paid it no mind and continued his assault.

I watched Kelaeno bound toward them. “Look out!” I cried to him.

Will slammed his foot into Merodach’s chest, knocking the demonic reaper into the wall as Kelaeno jumped into the fray and Will cracked the pommel of his sword into her face. Blood sprayed from her nose, and she reeled back, hissing and snarling. Merodach swung his sword just as Will’s body was yanked away abruptly by an unseen force. His back slammed into the far wall, shattering stone. Debris and his sword crashed to the floor, but he hung there, suspended in the air, his body grinding into the wall as he groaned in pain. His fists balled at the ends of his outstretched arms and he strained against the force, but it was too much for him. I stared in confusion and horror, and then I saw Sammael’s hand reaching for Will and felt the push of his seemingly infinite strength. My horror thickened, making my heart pound harder, as I realized Sammael was using his power to manipulate Will’s body, something no reaper or even I could do. Something I didn’t know how to defend against.

A second subtle movement of Sammael’s clawed hand dragged Will through the air and slammed him into the ground.

Lilith laid a hand on Sammael’s arm. “My lord, don’t spend what little energy you have. You’ll need it all for Gabriel.”

Will lashed out as Sammael released him, but Merodach appeared at his side and struck him—
hard
. Will’s head snapped to the side and he grunted, falling to one knee. A deep gash struggled to heal on his cheek. Merodach grabbed Will around the throat and raised his fist.

“That’s
enough
,” Bastian bellowed, and Merodach froze. “Bring him to me.”

Merodach held on to Will tighter and shoved him toward where Bastian stood. I thrashed against my chains and screamed obscenities at them, swearing to tear them apart if they harmed Will. His head hung loosely, the sense knocked out of him. A thin trickle of blood grew out the corner of his mouth. I ached to run to him, to hold him and comfort him, to tear away Merodach’s harsh hands. I felt like I was falling deep through the earth, falling fast into the underworld.

Kelaeno took hold of one of Will’s arms while Merodach took the other and held an iron grip around the back of his neck, forcing him to his knees and his head down. Bastian stepped up to him, crouching down to peer into Will’s face.

“William,” Bastian murmured almost gently. “I didn’t want you to come here.”

Will spat blood onto Bastian’s shiny black shoes. “Then you shouldn’t have taken her.”

Bastian’s cerulean eyes fell to the splatter of red on his shoes. “You go where she goes, yes? And yet again, here you are at my mercy. I thought you would have learned better.”

“Torture me again all you’d like,” Will growled. “It won’t make any difference.”

“I don’t want to torture you. Merodach and Kelaeno were under specific orders not to kill you. I am to have that honor. It’s my desire to make your death quick and clean.”

Will gave a laugh that sounded more like a grunt. “That’s sweet of you. Really. I’m touched. Why the change of heart?”

“I learned something about y—” He stopped midsentence when Sammael came toward them, scythe in hand. My heart dropped into my stomach. No … no, no. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t watch Sammael take Will’s soul like he had Emma’s.

“This one,” Sammael said, studying Will with a gaze that seemed to see through skin and bone altogether. “He is not human. He is a reaper born of the Grigori. I have no use for his soul.”

Bastian stood and faced Sammael. “You were never to take his soul.”

Lilith snarled, baring teeth. “The Lord of Souls may take whomever he chooses.”

“He is to die at my hands if he refuses me, and no one else’s,” Bastian said firmly. “He is too dangerous to let live.”

“Why the compassion, Bastian?” Will asked in a sarcastic, bitter voice.

Bastian ignored him. “I need to speak with the Guardian for only a minute, my lord,” he pleaded to Sammael. “Before we continue with the Preliator.”

“I am anxious to devour Gabriel’s human soul,” Sammael said, tightening his grip on the scythe. “My stomach growls for her.”

“One minute,” Bastian repeated. “That’s all I need.”

The tension in Sammael’s shoulders eased. “Very well. I have waited a long time for this moment. I can wait a little longer. Patience is something I have come to know dearly.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Bastian bowed to him and looked again to Will as Sammael stepped away to rejoin Lilith. “I truly wish you had not come here, but since you have, I might as well make you an offer.”

Will huffed in amusement, not quite a laugh. “Is that so?”

Bastian remained calm. “Sammael cannot be stopped. You know now there are only two options. One of which is death.”

“And the other is to join you?” Will laughed. “You’re a fool for even considering I’d say yes.”

“Do you choose death, William?”

“Not going to happen,” Will said through gritted teeth.

“Then join me.”

Will shook his head. “Never! I am angelic and sworn to protect Gabriel’s vessel and all human souls.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Bastian confessed.

“I will not join you, and I will not let you kill me,” Will said, his head held up in defiance. “My mission is not yet over.”

Bastian stared at him for a moment, and then he paced slowly left and right, his gaze quietly on Will. The longer the silence dragged on, the whiter the knuckles on Will’s balled fists grew. He pulled against Merodach and Kelaeno, but they held him tightly.

“I learned something very peculiar recently,” Bastian said. “About you. You are the son of Madeleine.”

Will let out a small, exhausted laugh. I could tell from here that all he wanted was to end the talking and start the fighting. “
And?
What does my mother have to do with this? How do you even know who she is?”