Lord of Hell (Alex Holden) (20 page)

“It’s not yours! I don’t care who you are, I won’t let you destroy the world.” Now I drew Animus, looking up at yet another giant monster I needed to fight.

“Will you stand against me then and battle for the fate of the world? Will you take the Earth from me?” he asked, an eager light in his eyes. He must want to fight as much as I did.

“Yes.” Animus blazed with red fire.

For all that Jehovah shone with white light, his smile was dark. “That’s all I needed to hear.” A sword appeared in his hand, the blade longer than my body. He swung down.

Instead of jumping back, I jumped in, under his swing, and rolled between his legs to come up behind him. It was a bit like fighting Fenrir, except Jehovah had two legs and a sword instead of a mouth full of fangs. At the end of the roll I jumped and spun, slashing the back of Jehovah’s leg.

Animus sang high and sweet as she cut into him. As Jehovah shouted in pain and anger, I dodged, moving back as quickly as I could to avoid his next attack. Unfortunately, since I was behind him, backing away meant I backed toward his army.

The battle cries of the angels filled my ears. I glanced between the oncoming angry god and the oncoming army. Well, time to find out if my fire hurt him the way it had hurt Satan. The fire inside me was ready, more than ready. It came out of me like a bomb going off, so bright that for a second it outdid the white light coming from Jehovah.

He shouted, angels screamed, and I took advantage of the chaos. I leapt at Jehovah, Animus gripped in both hands. For a brief moment I thought I had him. He was totally unprotected and I wondered if it might be over right now. Then his sword came up, crashing against Animus, and the force of it sent me flying.

I landed in the middle of Heaven’s army. Terrible pain shot through my leg and I glanced down to see a sword sticking through it. Panicked at being wounded and surrounded, I slashed out with Animus and took several angels down. I stood in a half crouch with the sword still sticking through my leg.

White light flowed from several angels and when it hit me, it burned like fire. I screamed again, the sound rising to a shriek. I fought back with ice, hoping it would cool me and hold off whatever energy they were throwing at me, but it did little good.

Then the burning faded, and people were calling my name.

Alex!
Mew-Mew appeared above me, using his body as a shield while the sounds of fighting went on all around me. I blinked up at his dark, furry chest, such a comfort after all that painful white light. Every inch of me throbbed with pain, and Animus groaned unhappily.

“Alex!” Two voices, almost overlapping each other. Hayley and Stefan rushed through the fight and knelt beside me.

“Are you okay?” Hayley asked, her face full of worry.

“I’ll survive.” The pain was fading, except for my leg.

Let’s get out of here.
Mew-Mew shifted to grab the back of my armor in his jaws. He picked me up like a kitten and carried me through the battle while Hayley and Stefan cleared a path for us. In a blur, I saw demons and Norse warriors fighting angels.

Then we were out of the fighting and into no-man’s-land. Our reserve troops waited at the top of the hill. Mew-Mew carried me through the ranks and kept going. “Wait, wait. Put me down.”

“We need to get you to the healers,” Hayley said.

“No, I’ll be fine. Stop right here.”

Mew-Mew stopped but still kept me in his jaws. Stefan stared at me. “Alex, there’s a
sword
through your leg. You need help.”

So that was why it still hurt so much. “Then we’ll take it out. Put me down,” I told Mew-Mew again. He set me carefully down, and I turned on my side so the leg with the sword in it rested on my other leg. The point had gone through my right leg from beneath, the hilt sticking out the back of my thigh.

I realized I still had Animus in a death grip and set her down on the fluffy white ground. “Take it out, quick.” My whole leg was soaked with blood, as was the sword. Not demon black, but human red.

Both Hayley and Stefan made faces. “Pull it out,” I repeated. “I can do it myself but it’ll be awkward and it’ll hurt more.”

Still making a face, Hayley stepped up. “All right.” She grabbed the handle and braced her foot on my lower leg. I grunted with pain at how it jostled me, then screamed when she yanked. The sword slid out of me, leaving a gaping wound behind.

“Fuck,” I said through clenched teeth. I reached for the wound, but my armor prevented me from putting pressure on it.

Hayley dropped the sword and knelt next to me. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll take you to the healers.” Stefan moved to pick me up.

I waved him off. “I told you, I’ll be fine. I heal fast, remember?”

“And maybe you’ll heal faster with a healer to help you out.”

“I don’t have time for that.” Hot blood soaked through my fingers, but I could already feel the wound closing up. “I need to go back and find out what’s going on.” Had they made the third attack without me giving the signal? Or had the plan been scrapped when Jehovah attacked me?

Hayley put her hand on the back of my leg, squeezing painfully as she tried to stop the bleeding. The armor was thinner back there. “You can come back when this is bandaged up. You can spare a few minutes.” She gave me a hard look. “You can’t even walk.”

The army is doing fine,
Mew-Mew said.
Let them take care of you.

I tilted my head to look up at him. “Fine, since you’re all ganging up on me. But it’s a waste of time.”

Mew-Mew picked me up again, holding his head high enough that my feet didn’t drag on the ground. It was still painful and jostling. With Hayley and Stefan hurrying ahead of us again, probably to make sure I actually followed through, we went far behind the lines to where a mobile hospital of sorts was following well behind the army.

All the wounded were being moved back here as fast as they could, and with yet another battle, our third, going on, the numbers were picking up.

Several people stood out in front of the beds, directing the wounded and those assisting them to one area or another.

“Elliot!” Stefan called, and sure enough, there he was, directing the incoming wounded.

Elliot saw Stefan, then his eyes flicked to me. “Alex! What happened?”

“I landed on somebody’s sword. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

Stefan shot me a glare. “He needs help.”

Elliot nodded. “Third row back, two beds to the right.” He pointed.

Mew-Mew and the rest of my entourage went that way. By the time Hayley helped me onto the bed, my leg was half-healed and the burns from the holy fire barely hurt at all.

“You’re so damn stubborn,” Hayley complained.

“Says the person who sold her soul for demon powers so she could go to war.”

She smacked my shoulder.

A healer showed up and yanked the armor off my leg to check out my wound. She poked at it, making me wince, then held her hands over it. She spoke a few words, muttering low enough that I couldn’t make them out, and warmth flowed into my leg. A few seconds later, the pain was gone. A few more seconds after that, the heat faded and she stepped back.

“That should do it.” She smiled. “Now if you’ll forgive me, I have many other patients.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said.

The healer went off to the next bed. I fastened the pieces of armor back on my leg.

“Ok, I’m fine. We need to get back to the battle.” In the back of my head, a panicked little voice kept shouting that Jehovah was there, tearing apart my army and I wasn’t there to help them. “Stefan, you can ride Mew-Mew if you want. Hayley and I can fly back.” Before anybody could complain or question, I grabbed her hand, summoned my wings, and jumped into the air.

We passed a few wounded on the ground and in the air, going toward the healers. I kept hoping the losses were light. As we got closer to the battle, I scanned it from my vantage point, trying to make out how things were going.

Hayley noticed it first. “I think they’re retreating.” She pointed to the far side of the battle. The white robes and armor of the angels stood out against the varied colors of my army, and it did look like they were pulling back. I couldn’t see Jehovah anywhere, and that wiped out any relief I had at the possible retreat.

I spotted Astaroth reforming with his squad and landed to talk to him. “Where did Jehovah go?” I asked.

“I do not know.” Silver and black blood glistened on his armor. He looked a bit winded, but not hurt. “He shrank down when we charged in to rescue you, and he disappeared during the battle.

I guess that was how a twenty-foot-tall god went unnoticed in the middle of a battle. He stopped being twenty feet tall. “Son of a bitch.” He could be anywhere then.

In the distance, a trumpet sounded.

“What’s that?” Hayley asked.

Astaroth paled. “Michael’s trumpet.”

“What does that mean?” I told myself not to panic.

The trumpet sounded again, with a few more notes.

Astaroth eased a little. “It is a signal to fall back.”

“So we’re winning?” I asked.

“It appears we have the upper hand, at least,” he said.

“Stay here,” I told him. “We can use this as a chance to regroup and reform our ranks.” If this was a retreat, we could make another charge and hope to crush them.

Of course there would be no victory without killing, or at least capturing, Jehovah. All of this was just one big obstacle. Everyone fighting, dying… I closed down those thoughts.

I passed along the order to regroup. Odin and Semiazas found me. Stefan and Mew-Mew showed up a few minutes later, and many of the other generals met up with us near the middle of the regrouping army. I got a quick report from each of them. Heaven’s army was indeed retreating, no one knew where Jehovah was, and we’d suffered losses, but not as bad as we’d feared or expected. The charioteers had been ambushed halfway through their mission but had held the angels off enough to be able to backtrack and join the main battle. Instead of going around behind and crushing Heaven’s army between, the cavalry had crashed right through the center of the battle minutes after I’d left.

That had caused enough damage, probably, to cause the enemy to retreat.

“We should crush them now, while they’re weak,” Set said, his eyes glowing red.

One of my scouts dropped out of the air, landing neatly beside me. “My lord.” She bowed. “They are regrouping in a valley behind the next rise.”

“Did you see Jehovah?”

She shook her head. “I could not make him out among the warriors, master. He has either disguised himself or he is not there.”

I wouldn’t put either option past him. “How many?”

The generals leaned a bit closer as she said, “Estimated at six thousand, master.”

Six thousand. Even with the losses of the wounded and dead, my army was over a hundred thousand. Where were the rest of the warriors? Semiazas had said Heaven’s forces were more than twice that of the rebelling angels. Adding in the gods and their warriors, we should be almost equally matched. We’d only seen a few thousand warriors so far.

What was Jehovah up to? If he kept throwing small forces against us, eventually he’d have none left.

Unless… was he
still
stalling for something?

I rearranged the positions of the various legions and then told them, “We attack, full force. But keep your eyes out and be ready to change at any second. It could be a trap.”

Chapter 23

The valley was much larger than I’d thought. The clouds here were less fluffy, less white, and they formed a sloping hill that led down into the valley below. The clouds had a slight gray color, like they were getting ready for rain. The valley itself was wide and far, with a sharply rising cliff on the far side. The six-thousand-strong angel army was in the middle of the valley. Their white outfits stood out against the gray clouds. A trap? A stalling tactic? Both?

“Should we charge?” Semiazas asked.

“No, why waste the energy? We march.” Even more than caution, it was swagger. They’d be able to watch us take our time getting there, wave after wave of demons, gods, and supernatural warriors marching down the slope and into the valley. And if they wanted to run, they would have plenty of time.

They were outnumbered, what? Sixteen or seventeen to one? What the fuck were they thinking? And with that cliff to their backs… Well, they could fly, so they
did
have a way to escape.

I sent up little fireballs as flares, signaling the march.

I kept glancing around—to either side, to the army in front of us, up into the air, at the distant cliff on the other side of the valley. Nothing.

Just before I drew Animus, ready to give the signal to attack, a lone figure stepped out in front of Heaven’s army.

Sick dread filled me and I stumbled to a stop. “No.”

Joshua stood in simple white armor, holding a gleaming new sword. His posture was straight and tall, but his eyes were full of sadness.

The demons around me grumbled, muttered. Chuckled. I blinked and spun to face them. “Stay back. Just stay back. Nobody move.” More grumbles, but the army halted.

I walked alone out to the space between our armies. After a moment of hesitation, Joshua moved to join me. He spoke first. “I’m sorry, Alex. This is the way it has to be.”

I swallowed, cold fear settling in my stomach. “Your army against mine.”

He nodded. “The final battle.”

Hot tears stung my eyes. “Is this it, then? Nothing I did made any difference? Was it always going to lead here, Christ and Antichrist at the end of the world?” All this for nothing?

“It’s my Father’s will. This was always the plan. Some of the details changed, but there was never a way to escape it, not for either of us.”

I shook my head, slightly at first, then harder and harder as if I could make this all go away if I denied it hard enough. “It can’t be. It can’t. Destiny doesn’t control us. We make our own choices. We can change things. We can
change them!
”

“We can take different roads,” he said, a waver in his voice, “but they all lead to the same place.”