Seals (24 page)

“Do you really think we can beat them?”

It was hard to tell.

“It’s not a question of
if
anymore.
In fact, it’s not a question at all. We just
have
to.”

“What about Metatron’s plans?”

David spotted a higher demon making its way
slowly toward them. It meandered toward them like it didn’t think
they posed any real threat.

“What about Metatron?” David’s blades
twitched in his hands.

“Well, did you hear anything about them?
About how he’s planning to destroy the archfiends and win this
thing? David? There’s something behind me, isn’t there—?”

The higher demon pulled out a death blade
faster than a flash of light, but David was already moving.

He knocked the death blade with his own
weapon and slammed into the surprised higher demon. They both went
down in a cloud of dust. David caught of glimpse of its laughing
face, and a wildness spread in him. His blades flashed, and then
there was a squish of metal in flesh and a crunch of bone. Black
blood sprayed from the demon
’s
severed neck, and David slammed his other blade down into the
demon’s head. The higher demon went limp, and David jumped up,
pumped with adrenaline.

“
I don’t
know anything about Metatron’s plans,” said David. “It’s not like
the guy trusts me or anything. I’d doubt he’d even tell me his
brand of cigars. I’m just another grunt to him.”

“I think we’re all grunts to that guy.”

Jenny kicked a small imp in the face and
sliced his throat before he could run off. The creature fell.

“I just don’t see how we’re going to win
this war. We’re seriously out numbered.”

David knew Jenny was right. He had done the
math, too. The demons outnumbered the legion twenty to one. It was
crazy.

Suddenly, the ground trembled and moaned
like the roar of a hundred thunderstorms. An explosion of earth and
dust created a giant cloud, and hundreds of severed demon limbs and
bodies fell to the ground around them.

“What in the souls was that?”

David cocked his head toward the dust
cloud.

“I guess we’ve got our answer.”

The cloud dissipated, and Metatron stood in
the middle of a small crater with a devious smile on his face.
There was not a speck of dust on his suit. His female entourage
danced around him, cutting down any demons that had survived the
blast.

David smiled impishly. “He’s a jerk, I’ll
admit that. But you can’t deny the man’s got some serious
moves.”

Jenny rolled her eyes, drew her sword
quickly, and perforated the neck of a goblin-like demon.

“Oh please. We’ve all got moves. All he has
is a bad haircut and oily skin.”

They both burst out laughing, a strange
sound amongst the wails of the dying. But all too soon, their
little burst of hope died.

Cries erupted like wind, and David thought
it was another one of Metatron’s homemade bombs. But what he saw
sent a cold shiver through his body.

The dead demons’ bodies began to twist and
move. They began mending themselves and stitching their limbs and
heads together until they were whole again. The only signs that
they had been dead were the semi-dried stains of blood on their
bodies. Otherwise they were as good as new.

“This is not real. It can’t be.” Jenny’s
voice came out like a whisper.

“This can’t be happening.”

David watched horrified, transfixed, as
demons that had suffered blows that no otherworldly creature could
have survived didn’t stay down. They kept getting back up.

“They’re not dying,” said David, astonished
and disgusted at the same time.

“They’re different. They’re
stronger
somehow.”

“This isn’t just a regular fight anymore,”
he said slowly. “We’re fighting what won’t be killed.”

“But how can that be?” Jenny jumped back as
one of the imp creatures she had killed a few moments ago, and that
technically should have stayed dead, started to screw on its
severed head like a plastic doll.

“What’s giving them this new strength? How
can they stay alive?”

“I don’t know.”

This was something new. The archfiends had
to be responsible.

The angels had fought with all they had, but
the demons kept coming. And soon fear spread like a wildfire, and
the battalions broke apart. Some angels ran. But most stayed,
determined to fight till the end.

Piles of angel bodies accumulated on the
ground. The demons cheered, cutting and slicing the already dead
angels just for the sick and twisted pleasure of it. And when the
angel souls rose from their fallen bodies, the demons ate them
savagely. Although they were already drunk on the souls they had
ingested, they wanted more.

David felt sick. There was no stopping
them.

“Stay together,” Metatron commanded.

“Don’t run. We must fight! Where are you
going! Guardians come back!”

The legions broke apart.

Although a small group of angels protected
the big archangel, it wouldn’t be enough. A few hundred angels were
nothing compared with the tidal wave of unstoppable demons. They
wouldn’t last more than a few hours. The archfiends were going to
win.

They were all going to die.

“David, we have to get out of here!” Jenny
sliced off the head of a massive lizard-like demon. But as it hit
the ground, tendrils of black mist shot up from the neck stump,
grabbed its severed head, and pulled it back on.

“This is so wrong!”

Jenny kicked the creature’s head one last
time and then jumped over to David.

“David, we can’t stay here. They’re
slaughtering us. We need to leave and regroup. David!”

But David ignored her and didn’t move. Even
as retreating angels came crashing into his shoulders, he stood
still and scanned the area. Jenny shook and pulled him, but her
shouts were empty. He was completely preoccupied. He had to find
the source of the demons’ power. He had to find whatever it was,
for Kara.

Something had happened to change things. It
was like
something
had started feeding the demons with
supernatural power intravenously. Whatever it was, it had to be
near. It had to be close. If he could find it and break the
connection, then maybe…

Barely aware that Jenny was still trying to
get his attention, David watched as Metatron and his legion of
angels ploughed through a wall of lesser demons. He was fierce and
every great blow sent dozens of broken demons hurtling through the
air. But how long could the archangel keep it up? How long could
any of them keep this up? Every time a demon went down, they got
back up, but the angels’ souls were devoured when they fell, and
they stayed down. At this rate, it wouldn’t matter if they won
because the angels were being annihilated.

A new wave of spider-like demons emerged
from a hill in the east and scurried over the battlefield toward
more unsuspecting angels. The air felt heavy and thick, like a fog
had suddenly materialized.

David looked up. Above the battlefield a web
of shadows spread like a network of thin strings. He followed the
black threads.

Six giant creatures with black wings stood
in a circle on the perimeter of the battle.

Even in the distance they were enormous,
bigger than archangels, and David knew instantly that these were
the archfiends. Black tendrils shot from the fingers of their
outstretched arms and spread over the battle like a giant web of
dark power. He could see the tendrils moving and pulsing like veins
as they supplied the creatures with an endless supply of power.

A shudder went through him, but he knew what
he had to do.

“David?” Jenny followed his gaze. “What are
those things?”

“Archfiends.”

Metatron beat a creature to a bloody puddle
nearby.

“Metatron!” David bellowed.

Metatron stopped pounding the creature and
looked up. His face was unreadable, and his shades were smeared
with green-black blood.

David pointed to the sky with his blade and
then to archfiends standing at the edges of the battle. The big man
stiffened as he surveyed the webs in the sky above them. He turned
back to David, his brows furrowed, and David knew the archangel
understood what they needed to do.

Metatron bellowed orders and charged into a
gang of lesser demons and imps. With one stroke of his sword, he
severed six demons in half, and they fell at his feet. His legion
formed two lines on either side of him and slaughtered every
creature that came close. They drove the beasts back until there
was a clear path through the fallen bodies, a clear path for
David.

“Jenny, get ready.” David only had only a
few moments before the demons reformed. It had to be enough.

“We don’t have much time. You’re going to
have to trust me.”

“Get ready for what? What is it that we need
to do?”

Jenny stared at the archfiends, almost
transfixed by fear.

“We need to break the connection.”

“What?”

“Come on, hurry!”

Most the other angels ran in the opposite
direction, but with Jenny at his heels, David charged over the path
of demon bodies that Metatron had cleared and headed straight
toward the great winged archfiends.

Chapter 21

D
avid ran like the
devils were at his heels because he knew that they soon would be.
He heard Jenny’s tread behind him, but he didn’t look back. He
didn’t want to break his momentum and slow down even for a second.
He only had a few moments to reach the nearest archfiend.

He could see that it stood at the edge of a
cliff just below the volcano. It was female, he was certain of
that. A crown glimmered in the gray light on top of her flowing
black tresses. Metal armor covered her upper body like a tight
bodice, and black veins pulsed under her gray-colored skin. Her
beautiful cold features were sculpted and refined, unnaturally
perfect. She radiated power. David could feel it all around him. It
pushed him back like some sort of force field.

She immediately made him think of Kara. It
was obvious now, when he looked at her more closely. The dark gods
had infected Kara with a poison that would morph her into something
that looked like this great fiend.

He remembered her sadness when she had first
showed him the veins that covered her trembling hands. He had felt
a cold chill down his spine when they had spread to her face and
the rest of her body. He knew she had been terrified she would turn
into a monster.

Kara…

David ran harder.

He would make the poison go away. He would
find a cure to help her. Something. It was his
job
to
protect her. They were soul mates, and he desperately wanted the
old Kara back. He’d do anything to make her pain go away. Heck, he
would even rip off those cursed wings if he had to. He’d kill all
of these wretched archfiends with his bare hands if it meant he
could get her back. He would do anything for her.

David sprinted.

Kill them all. He hit the wall of darkness
that surrounded the female archfiend like a cold mist and pressed
on. He didn’t even know if the legion could defeat the archfiends,
but he didn’t care. He could only hope that Metatron had a lot more
of those bombs, or something better. Right now he had more pressing
matters.

He had to
break
the connection.

He had to destroy the archfiends’ web. It
was the only thing he could do to help the angels. It was a long
shot. God knows if it would even work. But he would take the chance
or die trying.

He wasn’t sure what he
was
going to
do exactly.

Some of the demons who had been destroyed
were already on their feet again. Soon they’d be fighting, and his
path would be gone.

He had less than thirty seconds.

He made a wild dash.

Running was the right thing to do, wasn’t
it?

He was so close now that he could see the
wicked smile on the archfiend’s face. He was nearly overwhelmed by
the smell of death that exuded from her, her unfathomable beauty,
and the cold, icy power that she radiated.

The air around him became cool, and a
high-pitched ringing began to reverberate in his head. The ringing
in his ears worsened with each step, and he couldn’t hear Jenny
behind him anymore. But he couldn’t look back. Not now. He was
nearly there. He only hoped she wasn’t too far behind. He would
need her help.

David was a lot of things, truth be told,
but he wasn’t a fool. The female thing scared the crap out of him.
He didn’t want to die, but if his sacrifice helped save Kara, he
would do it. He gripped his soul blades in both hands and dashed
toward her.

Her yellow cat-like eyes had no kindness in
them. If she was surprised to see him, it didn’t show on her
stone-cold face. She didn’t move a centimeter. She didn’t even move
her head, but she followed him with her eyes. Tendrils of black
power poured out of her into the battle, never missing a beat.

Could she multitask?

He didn’t wait to find out. Maybe she felt
that he wasn’t a threat, but merely a tiny little insect.

That would be her mistake.

He didn’t aim for her face, or her chest,
but hurled his soul blades into the creature’s hands.

She winced as dark blood spurted from her
outstretched fingers. And then the black tendrils flickered and
vanished.

David looked to the sky. Although part of
the web shimmered and faded, the shadow branches from the other
five archfiends still remained strong. But there was a gap in their
web. He had damaged it. And the fact that he actually could make a
difference filled him with hope. He had given some of the angels
enough time to recover and regroup.