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Authors: Heather Killough-Walden

Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (50 page)

BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
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He managed to get his feet beneath him once more and start running toward his brothers when he was knocked to the ground and bowled over by one of the general’s men. The archangel who tackled him was one of the men who had tortured him in his holding cell. He recognized him immediately, not only by the man’s features, but by the fact that the enemy archangel instantly began forcing horrid mental images into Uriel’s mind.
Uriel struck out with vampiric speed and literally ripped out the man’s throat. The man’s esophagus popped open with a whooshing sound and blood sprayed out with exuberant, tremendous pressure, nearly coating Uriel. He managed to duck and roll, avoiding the gory mess, and when he looked over his shoulder, it was to find the archangel toppling forward onto his face in the blood-muddied dirt. The Adarian did not move and no longer breathed. He simply laid there and bled to death.
They
can
be killed by other archangels,
Uriel realized as he listened to the man’s heart falter and stop.
Another shard bullet found Uriel’s shoulder and he grimaced with the spreading rock-hard pain. But it, too, subsided and receded once more, leaving his flesh normal in the end. He shot to his feet and started toward his brothers a second time, using vampire reflexes to half disperse into green dust and dodge beneath bullets that flew in both directions.
Up ahead, Uriel could make out the fire-emblazoned outline of two tall, broad-shouldered men. He heard his name shouted on the wind. In another few seconds and two shard-blast impacts later, he’d made it across the space between them and was being shoved to the ground behind a turbine foundation beside Gabriel.
“Where is Eleanore?” Gabriel shouted, the expression on his face a stark mixture of confusion, fear, fury, and pain.
Uriel’s heart shot into his throat and stayed there. He wasted no time in delving into his brother’s mind, and Gabriel willingly let him in. It was within a few heartbeats that Uriel learned his brothers thought they had already greeted him, albeit quickly and amidst unfriendly fire, and had seen him take Eleanore out of the fight. Apparently, Uriel—or some being they thought was Uriel—had grabbed her, shouted a brief good-bye to the others, and taken to the skies. Gabriel was utterly mystified that Uriel was now back, and without Eleanore.
Kevin Trenton,
Uriel thought coldly. The archangel had the ability to change form.
Once more, he was up and moving. This time, he shot up into the sky and evaporated into green mist, effectively avoiding any and all gunfire. It was more difficult to maneuver like this, especially in the storm that Eleanore had wreaked around them. The wind buffeted his particles, separating them until it took almost too much concentration to keep himself together. And it was harder to see. It was a sight of the mind and not of the eyes—everything was an afterimage, a negative of sorts, and it was like viewing impressions instead of three-dimensional beings.
Still, he was determined.
He found her below, beside the white van, standing with Trenton, who was disguised as Uriel himself. He homed in on her as if she were a lifeline and he was drowning.
He landed on the opposite side of the van and came around the corner to find her and Trenton face-to-face. The general was holding her fast, spearing her with an evil blue gaze.
“God isn’t here,” he said.
“No,” Uriel hissed, drawing their attention. “But I am.”
Kevin bared his teeth in anger, tossed Ellie unceremoniously aside, and braced himself as Uriel charged straight toward him. Lightning once more slammed into something nearby and actual sparks of electric fire fanned out into the night sky above them as he and Kevin met in combat.
Uriel could hear the horrid sound of bending, creaking metal and knew that the last bolt of lightning had done serious damage to a nearby turbine. But it was a passing realization and took a backseat to the battle at hand. He and Kevin now fought in a way that he had never fought another being. This was more than vengeance, which, in and of itself, was deserved. This was more than jealousy, self-preservation, and love. This was hatred, at its finest, at its core, and it fueled his body beyond all sense of pain, sound, or vision.
Trenton’s face morphed before Uriel’s eyes, taking on his own familiar, handsome, and detested features.
“You can’t win, Uriel,” Kevin growled at him through straight, white, gritted teeth. “You’re outnumbered.” He grimaced and grunted as Uriel slammed them both into the cement platform of a turbine. “Two of your brothers have already fallen. The third will follow in short order.” It must have been difficult for him to speak through the limited air supply Uriel’s tight grip around his neck afforded him. But he managed, perhaps fueled by the same kind of hatred that fed his attacker.
Uriel knew what Trenton was doing. Whether he was telling the truth or not, his words were a distraction, a warning meant to slow Uriel down, to give him pause, and make him unsure.
Beside them, a blade from the damaged turbine fell and its impact shook the ground and sent dirt flying into the air. Uriel paid it no heed. Nothing could have deterred him from what he was going to do next.
Heal this,
Uriel spat at Kevin through a forced mental connection. Then he reared back, intent on ripping out the man’s throat as he had the other soldier. But before his arm descended to its mark, it was grabbed by a pair of strong hands and jerked roughly back, forcing Uriel to lose his grip and topple.
It was another face he did not recognize that loomed into view on his left, and it was a power he had not yet encountered that slammed into him like an invisible brick wall, picking him up and sending him with crushing force into the stem of the same turbine that had lost its blade. Reinforced steel and concrete groaned under the impact, bending in on the crumpled indentation where Uriel’s body had impacted it. Up above, the two remaining windmill blades tilted on their axis and began to scrape against their stem, now knocked out of their proper alignment. It sent sparks of heat shooting into the night and wrenched a shriek of scraping metal that sounded like a train wreck.
The turbine’s going to fall,
thought Uriel, as the soldier who had attacked him hit him with his wall of solid force once again. This time, the invisible field slammed Uriel farther into the turbine trunk, crushing him with immense, merciless force. Behind him, the turbine cried out its death throes and buckled. Uriel felt it give, curling over him like a massive, wilting metal flower.
He knew that he was trapped. He tried to evaporate into green mist, but failed. He tried to use telekinesis to make the giant windmill straight, and again he failed. It was as if the very force field that held him in place also trapped his powers within his body. Like a binding bracelet, but bigger. And invisible. And controlled by the enemy.
He could go nowhere as the metal giant above him bent in on itself and began its ominous, otherworldly descent to the ground below.
 
When Eleanore looked up from the ground beside the white van to find two Uriels fighting in hand-to-hand combat, a new kind of terror gripped her. She wanted to help the real Uriel, but was powerless to do so.
And then the turbine above them that had been hit with lightning stopped spinning altogether and began to groan in an entirely new and evil way.
She had looked up once more, her wide-eyed attention caught on the blade as it bucked, dipped a little, and began ripping from its casement where it was bolted onto the stem of the windmill, two hundred and fifty feet up. The sound had been horrible. It was what she would have imagined a plane crash to sound like, the death throes of four engines and three hundred people.
She had spun in place and begun running just as the blade tore free of its bolts and soldering and began its strange, slow descent to the earth below. She’d known it was going to crush everything beneath it. She needed to get out of the way, but it was like she was treading water, moving in slow, sluggish motion through a dense atmosphere.
Behind her, the turbine blade hit and shook the ground. There was more terrible noise, the rending of more metal and the sound of something being crushed, and then lightning struck in several places all around her and Eleanore dove to the ground and covered her head.
Now her ears were ringing, her chest hurt, and there was no sense in the world any longer. Somewhere in her mad dash from here to there and back again, she had dropped her backpack filled with gold weapons. She literally had no idea what to do or where to go.
And then Eleanore felt arms slide around her, gripping her with an oddly gentle security, despite their strength. She uncovered her head and rolled over as she was lifted once more off of the ground.
Samael’s storm-gray eyes were not their normal charcoal as they peered through her. They were platinum and glowing starkly in the handsome planes of his angelic face. Behind him, the darkness moved. Eleanore’s gaze traveled to the shadows beyond Samael. It took but a few short seconds for her vision to adjust, and when it did, she found herself staring at a scene straight out of a Dantesque version of the apocalypse.
Rows of black-armored riders sat astride pitch-black stallions that pawed at the earth, causing sparks to fly where their hooves scraped the ground. There were dozens of them. A horse snorted and fire shot from its nostrils. Another whinnied, and fire erupted from behind its muzzled lips.
Long swords sheathed in black leather hung from the waists and backs of the horses’ riders. From the gaps in their black-metaled masks, their red glowing eyes peered across the darkness and pinned Eleanore to the spot.
They’re not human,
she thought numbly.
Monsters. Demons. Dark Riders ...
“It’s over, Ellie,” Samael told her. She turned her attention back to him and knew that he commanded the strange, dark army behind him. They waited for him to issue orders. “Uriel and the others have as good as lost,” he went on, his glowing gaze unforgiving. “Come with me. I’ll take you out of here.”
Eleanore shook her head.
The horses behind Samael pawed impatiently at the ground. The air felt heavy and the sounds of thunder and gunfire and groaning metal were drowned out by a rushing in her ears.
“Yes,” Samael quietly insisted.
Again, she shook her head. Her heart felt like lead in her chest. Her stomach felt empty and bottomless and she was fairly sure that her soul had slipped through the spreading hole inside of her that led, undoubtedly, to Hell.
“N-no,” she muttered, unable to think of anything else to say. She could not imagine Uriel dying. She could not imagine his brothers losing. She simply could not picture it—or, perhaps, she simply did not want to.
But Samael’s expression told her everything she needed to know. It was both triumphant and repentant, pitiful and victorious. There was a firm resolve to the set of his lips, and it was matched by the unrelenting grip he had on her arms.
“But those riders . . .” Eleanore whispered, “you can use them—make them help!”
Samael shook his head. He did so, once, and a very real panic blossomed within her. In that moment, she saw the remainder of her life spread out before her. She walked the halls of Samael’s infinite mansion alone but for the brief moments that she whored herself out to the Fallen One and his selfish desires. His queen. His concubine.
She saw a grave marker in the mists, dateless and barren, but for a single, ancient name. And she knew that she would never speak that name in earnest or in lust or in exasperation again.
Because he was going to die.
Unless . . .
“No.” Eleanore spoke the word again, this time with conviction. “No!”
She jerked herself out of Samael’s grip and lightning split the sky above them, so close that her hair stood on end and the air around her crackled menacingly. Ellie gasped and ducked, and on impulse, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. Her fingers brushed cold, smooth gold.
Without thinking, she lunged forward, thrusting her body against Samael’s. He wasn’t expecting the strange move; his instinctive response was to wrap his arms tightly around her. Eleanore jerked the bracelet out of her pocket, turned in his embrace, and then slammed the bracelet down onto his left wrist. The gold band shimmered, flashed, and resolidified, now locked securely into place.
Samael pulled back and gazed down at the bracelet. Eleanore watched him, breathless, waiting to see what he would do. She expected him to strike her, and she tensed for the attack.
But Samael surprised her. Instead, he turned his arm over to see the gold glint beneath the flashes of lightning overhead. And then he smiled. It was a rueful and somewhat secret smile.
Eleanore had no idea what it meant—and she didn’t care. She wasted no further time. “Save them, Samael, or I will never remove that bracelet and you’ll be stuck without your powers forever,” she hissed at him. It wasn’t an empty threat. If Uriel died, she wouldn’t care what happened to Samael. She wouldn’t care what happened to anyone.
Samael glanced back up at her and the platinum fire in his gaze died down. “You continue to make an impression on me, Eleanore,” he told her. Amazingly, she heard his voice once again over the cacophony of the battle. “However, I wonder what you expect me to do in Uriel’s favor if I can’t use my powers?”
BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
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