Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (35 page)

That disembodied feeling had me again; I don’t think I could have done what I did if I’d been able to think it all the way through. My body leaned sideways and carried me into a half-crouch, my blades extended before me. I whirled to the side and found myself right between Azazel’s Blade, and a gleaming angelic sword that looked too perfect to be a real weapon.

In’ri’el saw what I held at last. I watched the look of disbelief play across his face, and then my arm was up and blocking the swing he leveled at me. Any doubts as to the sword’s power were immediately erased by an immense blow to my forearm. The leather of Ethan’s jacket blocked some, but not all, of the impact. I staggered, taking several steps backward and into Ethan’s waiting arms. I couldn’t figure out how he had anticipated my movements, but I was glad beyond measure that he was there to haul me backward out of striking range. He held my forearm with one hand, and raised the sword in a blocking maneuver with his other one.

And then we froze as thick, ichor poured from a puncture in the angel of the Light’s midsection. A dagger stood embedded deep in In’ri’el’s stomach. My dagger. I stared in shock at my empty palm. I had done that. It had happened so fast, I had barely been aware. But there it was―the undeniable evidence. I was an angel killer.

I had drawn first blood.

As In’ri’el dropped to his knees, shouts began to ring out around us. The forces of the Light, content until now to wait just beyond the tree line, surged forward. I had been right about their numbers; they had about as many soldiers as Belial did. But every single one of them was blessed with super strength and super speed. It didn’t seem fair; how was Whitfield supposed to compete with that? They rushed across the stubbly field, swords extended and bows strung, as they let loose with a string of mighty war cries.

Belial’s forces saw them coming. It was the signal they had been waiting for. They left their positions at the edge of the forest and charged forward as well, dark abyss-wings extended and weapons gleaming. Only the Gifted Nephilim stayed where they were. I had to wonder what purpose Belial had in mind for them. For now, I was just glad they were out of the immediate fighting.

Unlike the three of us, who stood in the middle of everything like dumb sheep awaiting slaughter. Bain had been silent throughout the whole proceedings. As we found ourselves in the middle of rushing armies, he grabbed the two of us by our sleeves and hauled us closer to him. He handed me my dagger, hilt-first. I hadn’t even seen him retrieve it, so great was my shock.

“Oh no,” I moaned, transfixed by the approaching slaughter. “What have I done?”

“You just started the war,” Bain snapped. “Congratulations. Now hold onto me; I might be able to fix this.” He grimaced. “For a little while, anyway.”

He yanked me next to him while he muttered a string of words together under his breath. His strength surprised me; I would probably have bruises from his grip. But that was one of the least of my worries. He muttered something unintelligible, and a transparent bubble-like structure rose up around us. I shook myself free of Bain’s crushing grasp. He didn’t try to stop me, now that his bizarre protection was in place. I reached out and touched its shiny, clear surface, only to discover it was a bit bendable, but it felt like steel.

It was true that the original plan had been to act as bait while Whitfield’s forces prepared to attack, but this had all happened so soon. I was only one half the equation; we needed Jack to be the other half of the Azalene offense. And Logan was supposed to lend us his super-strength and speed. The attack had happened too soon, and here were in the middle of clashing forces. I drew closer to Ethan.

At least my brother would be safer, since he wasn’t on the front line with us. I hoped.

“It’s too soon for us to be bait now,” I whispered to him, watching as a big horned creature wearing black and silver attacked an angel of Light with an axe.

The angel countered effortlessly with his sword, and the two crashed to the ground together, rolling and hacking at each other.

“It’s too late to be anything else,” Ethan answered, sadly. He had his sword at the ready. I slipped into a defensive position, back to back with him, with my daggers, anticipating the moment when Bain’s shields failed us, wondering all the while how we were going to escape with our lives.

felt horribly exposed, standing there in the middle of the fighting with nothing but what looked like a transparent soap bubble to protect me. A really strong soap bubble, but still, its see-through qualities weren’t something I wanted to stake my life on. But Bain seemed to have every confidence in his barrier, or whatever it was. He appeared more fascinated than frightened with the battle raging around us.

That wasn’t the case with me. Every clash and clang, every scream of battle, shook me to my core. I had never been in a battle of such a scale before, and to see it unfolding around me was the stuff of nightmares.

I had caused this.

When Ethan had been threatened, I hadn’t stopped to think. My body just reacted. I hadn’t meant to start anything. But that didn’t matter now. The struggle surged on around us.

To my left, several feet from our dome of protection, two angels wrestled on the ground; they fought too closely to use their massive swords. One wore the black and silver uniform of Belial’s forces, and another clanked in his golden metal breastplate. It would have been easy to tell which was Light and Dark, though; their wings extended behind them as they fought. Every so often the abyss wings would touch the glowing Light ones with a shower of brilliant red sparks being the result.

The fury of battle grew uncomfortably close. Above all the other noise, I heard the sound of metal ringing against metal, and realized that another pair of angels fought just behind us. I whirled to see a sword so massive it looked more like a small battering ram come crashing down on a Fallen angel’s shoulder. He fell to his knees under the force of the blow, but his leather jacket didn’t tear or rip at all. From the ground, the Fallen one swung out at the angel of the Light’s knees, sweeping his legs out from under him. Then, they too were rolling on the ground, pummeling each other, their closeness making their weapons irrelevant. Furrows and fissures appeared in the ground underneath them as they punched and pulled and swung at each other. Their display of strength terrified me. How was I supposed to last against that?

But I didn’t have time to watch them for long. A creature I had never seen before barreled straight toward us, a mean looking axe raised in his fist. Its skin was scaled, the colors a mish-mash of dull browns and yellows. Sharp pointed teeth drew back into a grimace, surrounded by a face that was more reptilian than human. As it drew closer, I could see its eyes were slitted like a cat’s. The creature leapt over the angels fighting behind us and continued on toward us.

“What the hell is
that
?” I asked in horror. Ethan seemed frozen beside me, but snapped back to reality at the sound of my voice.

“It’s a lesser kind of demon,” he said, stepping in front of me, maybe to shield me from it. I wanted to protest that I didn’t need him to protect me, but I also found the gesture comforting, so I said nothing. “They populate the wastelands deep in the Dark Realms. It must have answered Belial’s call to arms.”

But my instincts had already taken over almost from the moment I saw the threat. My blades were already unsheathed and in each hand, and my body sidestepped Ethan in a sudden whirl. I grounded myself and prepared to release my dagger straight into the oncoming demon’s throat.

“Wait!” Bain shouted. “Not inside the shields! We’re only safe for as long as they hold. Don’t do anything to penetrate―”

But my daggers were already in the air, ripping a hole in the transparent shield. One of them sank right into the demon’s throat, while the other embedded itself in its upper arm―the one holding the axe. The strange-looking demon from the wastelands of the Dark Realms collapsed just a few feet from where our shields protected us.

Or used to protect us, that is. I could see what Bain had been yelling about. The hole in the transparent structure didn’t seem to be repairing itself. In fact, the entire thing looked less substantial somehow, like the soap bubble was beginning to thin. Both Ethan and Bain eyed it warily while I suppressed a fresh wave of guilt. Here was something else I’d managed to screw up.

“How long?” Ethan asked tersely. None of us needed him to clarify.

Bain shrugged. The gesture looked ridiculous on him in this time and place. “Minutes? Seconds?” He flexed his long fingers and rolled his neck. “I don’t really know. But you’d better be ready.”

I noticed he said “you,” and not “we,” deliberately separating himself from us. So Ethan and I were on our own. Great.

Then Bain began to transform.

It was a subtle change. If I hadn’t been keeping such a close eye on him because he creeped me out so much I might have missed it. His eyes took on a darker, redder tone. His posture changed, becoming more angular as if the bones underneath his skin had grown suddenly sharper. His hands spasmed until they resembled claws, and his nails took on a cloudy, milky-white color. I could have sworn they lengthened as I watched. But most chilling of all were his teeth. His canines, always overly large, lengthened until they protruded from his mouth. And they looked sharp. Like, razor sharp. I wondered if his other teeth were that sharp too, now.

The bubble surrounding us had all but disappeared, and the creatures around us were noticing. An angel of the Light stood only feet from us, holding a sword dripping with blood. A crumpled heap of black trimmed with silver lay at his feet. I couldn’t make out who, or what, the dead creature was. The angel saw us, and started running in our direction.

To my complete and utter shock, Bain charged him. He’s too strong, I wanted to yell, picturing the bone-crushing strength of all angels, Fallen or Light. But Bain slammed into the soldier of the Light, who staggered backward in surprise. My jaw almost dropped. Bain was that strong? Just what the hell was he, anyway? Thank god he was on our side. I didn’t trust him, though. I vowed to keep an eye on him as much as possible while Bain and the angel circled each other.