Wings of the Wicked

26





BASTIAN’S EXPRESSION WAS A MIXTURE OF EXCITEMENT and trepidation as he stood beside Lilith. Kelaeno and Merodach pulled the heavy stone lid away from the sarcophagus and set it aside. I wondered whether Bastian was, for an instant, regretting all that he’d done, if he was second-guessing his decision to release Sammael. But he did nothing, frozen, as I was, waiting for the beast to emerge. He swallowed, his throat moving up and down, his chest heaving, his gaze locked on the sight before him. I realized then that he was terrified.

“Bastian,” I called to him, trying to muffle my voice. He looked at me curiously and without any amusement on his face. “You can’t do this, Bastian. Please stop them.”

He measured me with his gaze, as if considering whether or not to take me seriously. “This is the only way.”

“Why do you want to destroy the world?” I asked, my voice shaking.

He shook his head. “We aren’t destroying the world to just destroy it. We’re going to rebuild.”

“Who says you will be able to control Sammael?” I shot back. “He’s too powerful. You don’t know what he’s really going to do! He’s too dangerous to be released, and you know that. You have to stop them!”

“I will not.”

“When I get out of here,” I snarled, “I’m going to kill you. You’re the reason my parents are dead, the reason the world’s gone to hell. I will kill you, that I promise.”

Through his fear, a smile broke, something dark and cruel, before he looked back to the sarcophagus. Blackness filled the open tomb like a void, like a doorway into nothingness instead of a mere coffin. The air throbbed as if it had a pulse, and then it was sucked into that void and rushed back out again as if a long, relieved breath was taken by some unseen giant within. Something stepped through the blackness and into the torchlight of the cellar with a flash of inky smoke that reminded me of the Grim. The beast was somehow feline in shape, with a long, sleek body, muscles rippling beneath a coat of dark slate fur. Its face was longer than a lion’s, more serpentlike, the golden eyes more slit, and it shook a heavy mane of bone spikes much thicker than the quills of a porcupine. It took one look at me and hissed, flashing strong but delicate-looking fangs. Its spiked mane flared, and its long, scaled tail lashed the air like a whip. It stepped stealthily to the side, and a second beast emerged behind it. The creatures were only slightly smaller than lupine reapers, but far more graceful. They were reapers of a rare breed, the leonine, which I hadn’t seen in thousands of years. They hissed and snarled and snapped at one another, their bodies fluid and moving like ripples on a black lake.

Something else stirred within the dark void of the sarcophagus, and an armored hand slid through, long, bony fingers curling around the stone edge. The black metal gauntlet attached to the hand gleamed like obsidian glass formed in the fires of Hell. More of the arm appeared, encased in a couter and rerebrace of the same strange metal. And then he emerged, his chest and shoulders covered in more of the gnarled, sharp armor, points and spikes cutting through the air. His eyes were gold—pure and gleaming metallic, the color deeper than pyrite. His hair was long, straight, and silver-white, and around his high, spiraling horns was a crown of bones. I knew through instinct that the small skulls and other bones were human and realized with horror that they were the bones of children.

As Sammael stepped completely free from the sarcophagus, he looked around with a bored expression on his sharp features. His skin was corpse gray, not white or blue, but the gray of decay. Spread from his back were the charred skeletal remains of what were once magnificent wings—the unmistakable wings of the wicked Fallen, fleshless bones burned and blackened from when he fell. They spread wide, the dry joints clicking and grinding.

I felt Gabriel seeping through the cracks in my amnesia, causing my human soul to stir, and then I was myself again—more Gabriel than Ellie. When I had seen Sammael last, he had been beautiful, radiant, his grace bright and true. This monster resembled nothing of my glorious brother.

Lilith stepped toward Sammael, lips parted and eyes widened. “Is it you, my love?” she asked, her voice weak and trembling. “It is truly you?”

He reached a hand to her, his armored fingers touching her cheek with limited affection, but for her it was enough. She closed her eyes to his touch and shivered. Even from here, his skin and armor looked ice cold.

“I’ve missed you,” she breathed.

His expression hardened. “I know.”

My human fear was slowly overcome by sadness and pity for the once-beautiful creature before me. Gabriel shuddered at the overwhelming emotion. “Brother,” I said faintly. “Was it worth it? To fall for the power you have now?”

His golden eyes rested on my face, studying me curiously for several long seconds. Surprise lifted his brow for an instant, as if he didn’t recognize me at first. “Tell me, Gabriel, was it worth it to you? To abandon your grace for a mortal body?”

“I have not abandoned my grace,” I said, lifting my chin and pulling against my chains. “It’s with me now, even with my mortality.”

“I sense no grace. You have fallen.”

I shook my head. “Not as you have, Sammael.”

His lips curved into a quiet smile. “You will be nothing when I’m finished with you. The Morningstar and I will tear Heaven and Earth apart. After I have destroyed the human soul infesting you, Gabriel, this world will burn until blood and ash rain from the sky.”

We stared at each other as memories from the First War flooded through us. The fire and blood. Winged, torn bodies falling with the ash, hitting the scorched earth. Metal stained red as brothers and sisters ripped at one another. No words in any mortal language could describe the violence between angels, creatures who felt no emotion, and the fluid ease of killing without remorse, sorrow, or fear. I was there. I remembered. The orders were to destroy the rebels. Nothing I ever did on Earth fighting the demonic reapers could be compared to the horrors I had seen and done defending Heaven against Lucifer, the Morningstar, so very long ago.

“You can’t kill them all,” I told him. “There are too many angels.”

“We have grown strong and our army is vast, but that is only the beginning,” he replied, holding his palms out at his sides, black sparks flickering and snapping at his fingertips. “Soon I will have the power to tear every single human soul on Earth from its vessel and send them all to Hell to join the countless souls the reapers have already collected. In my head I see them now. You can’t even imagine how many there are. Souls screaming in agony, tormented until all they understand is violence and rage. When we unleash them upon Earth …” He drew in a long, satisfied breath. “It will be magnificent. I will turn our Father’s creations against Him, and all that He loves will be destroyed. It is the ultimate revenge.”

I trembled, considering the weight of his threat. The End of Days everyone had spoken of, this was it. Opening up the gates of Hell and releasing every last tortured soul into the human world. They would tear it apart. And then the Fallen would tear a hole into Heaven.

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.