Sins of the Warrior (38 page)

Coldly, deliberately, she twisted the sword a quarter turn to the right, then pulled it out. Blood and phosphors gushed from the wound. Mittron’s head jerked back, and a howl erupted from him. A sound of agony, fury, loss.

Alex watched him crumple to the ground. He twitched twice, then lay still. A Naphil child near her whimpered. Another followed suit, then another and another. The whimpers grew to howls of disappointment. Children deprived of their entertainment. Alex’s legs quaked beneath her, but she locked her knees and forced herself forward.

Michael would know Mittron had died. They had minutes at most.

She knelt beside the broken Bethiel, laying her sword on the ground. He lifted his head, and zircon eyes met hers, their blaze fierce.

“Thank you,” he rasped.

Alex smoothed the hair back from the battered forehead of the angel who had been willing to forfeit his soul for her. She swallowed a lump at the base of her throat.

“You should get out of here,” she said. “Can you walk?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Alex slipped a hand beneath his arm. Bethiel took it in his and held it.

“No,” he said again.

“But—” Alex broke off. She stared into his blue, blue eyes and then nodded. She glanced at the sword on the ground at her side and steeled herself to make an offer she would never have dreamed possible. “Do you want me to…?”

Bethiel looked first shocked, then grateful. He shook his head again. “Thank you, but no,” he said. “Just give me Mittron’s spear, and I’ll be fine.”

Alex turned her gaze to where Mittron sprawled face first in the dirt, the spear on the ground beside him, crimson with Bethiel’s blood. Then she lifted Aramael’s sword and pressed it into Bethiel’s hand. The angel-forged steel sat quietly there, giving none of its usual blue sparks of disapproval. Bethiel tried to resist, but she curled his fingers around the hilt and held them there.

“I’m not going to need it anymore,” she said. “And Aramael would approve.”

Bethiel stared at the weapon. Then up at her.

“I get it now,” he said. “I understand what the others see in you. Your honor would do any angel proud, Alexandra Jarvis. It has been a privilege to know you.”

Tears sprang to Alex’s eyes, and she blinked back their sting. Swallowed the burn in her throat. She opened her mouth, but whatever words she might have spoken died unuttered as the ground vibrated beneath them. Rumbled. Slowly began to undulate.

Silence, sudden and absolute, dropped over the Nephilim.

The air itself stilled.

Michael
.

Alex shot to her feet. Her eyes searched as far as she could see, scanning over the heads of the Nephilim, flicking up to the rooftops and back down again. She had to find him. Had to know where he was before—

Her gaze fell on a lone figure in the distance, at the base of the Ferris wheel that towered over the remnants of an amusement park.

Michael stood in profile to her, his magnificent black wings folded behind his back, his sword held aloft in both hands, pointing at the sky. Clouds gathered above him, dark and swirling, flashes of pale blue in their depths.

Alex caught her breath.

“Alex, you need to get out of here!” Bethiel tugged at her pant leg.

She barely registered voice or touch.

The blue flickers increased. Spread. Began to snap above the heads of the Nephilim. The children cowered. Whimpered. One, somewhere to the left and far behind Alex, began to cry, a single voice rising above the others. A small hand stole into hers, and she looked down, into wide brown eyes in milk-chocolate skin. Her heart faltered.

Children.

“
No
,” the memory of Bethiel’s voice whispered. “
They’re not. Every despot in the world, every serial killer, every sociopath—they all descended from the Nephilim. They’re not just children. They were never just children
.”

Alex lifted her gaze back to Michael. The clouds above him churned black, pulsated blue, spread out over the park, the street, the city. Their roil became organized, rotating over them in a slow, boiling circle. The outer sweep grew darker as the blue flickers gravitated to the center, and the snaps and sparks above the crowd of children raced to join their light there.

“Alex!” Bethiel shouted.

The very air went still. Waited.

The hand holding Alex’s squeezed tighter, and a small body pressed against her leg. She struggled not to pull the child closer, to try to protect him from—

Michael’s wings opened with a crack of sound that ricocheted across the ruined city. The vortex above him narrowed, and its blue light became white, nearly blinding, then shot from the sky to join with his sword. The instant the two touched, Michael turned the sword, fell to one knee, and drove the blade into the ground.

The power of Heaven itself rolled out from him in a great wave of white fire.

“Alex!”

Bethiel lunged up from the ground, his strong arms encircling her. He tore her away from the Naphil child’s grasp and bore her to the ground. Feathers brushed her cheek. Softness encased her.

“A privilege,” Bethiel whispered in her ear, and then he and the world disappeared in a rush of heat that burned all the way to Alex’s soul.

EMMANUELLE PUSHED AWAY THE
concrete slab that covered her and spat out the grit filling her mouth. She wiped more grit from her eyes. One hand came away warm and sticky, and she peered at it through the dim light that filtered through the wreckage into her tomb. Faint shock registered at the sight of blood.

She’d never bled before.

It was sobering as Hell to find out she
could
bleed.

As far as wakeup calls went, this was a doozy.

She pushed to her feet and dusted off the front and shoulders of her leather jacket, the thighs and butt of her leather pants. It was time to put a stop to this. Time to stop holding back her own power in an effort to protect what Seth would only destroy anyway. Time to—

A wave of nausea rolled through her, and she sagged to her knees. An invisible force crushed down on her. She struggled not to let it push her into the floor. Not to panic. Seth? But how? Where had he found that kind of power? There was no way in Hell he should be able to—

And then it hit her.

It wasn’t Seth, and it had nothing to do with Hell.

It was Mika’el.

He’d done it. Tapped into the power of Heaven itself and loosed it upon the world. Upon the Nephilim. But the flow wasn’t stopping. It was going on and on, draining Heaven. Flooding the Earth. Something had gone wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong.

Mika’el.

Gritting her teeth, Emmanuelle summoned every atom of her power and thrust herself upright and through the wreckage. She landed with a grunt at her brother’s feet. Black eyes stared down at her in astonishment. A frown furrowed Seth’s brow. Then the unseen force slammed into him as well, knocking him to the ground beside her.

All around them, angels and Fallen rained from the sky.

The universe shuddered.

The weight of Bethiel’s body pressed down on Alex as she fought off the nightmare memories and tried desperately to shut down the voice in her head that wouldn’t quit shrieking.

Not again not again not again
.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Sucked in a breath. Feathers filled her nose.

Not again not again oh sweet Jesus not again
.

She gritted her teeth against the scream clawing at her throat. Bit down on her lip until she tasted blood.

For fuck’s sake, Jarvis, get a grip
.

This wasn’t Aramael. Seth wasn’t waiting for her outside the shelter of Bethiel’s wings. And she didn’t have time for hysterics. Michael needed her.

Now
.

She shoved aside the wing weighing her down and rolled out from under it—into the body of the child whose hand she’d held. Vacant eyes stared into hers for a split second, and then, before she could fully register the horror, the body disintegrated into dust.

“Fucking Hell!” she growled, scrambling to her feet. She stared at the street around her, its surface covered in bodies draped over and across one another, piled knee-high.

Her stomach clenched. Heaved.

One by one, the bodies crumbled. Children one second, dust the next. A wind swirled through, picking up bits and flinging them into Alex’s eyes, her nose, her mouth. She sheltered behind a hand, clamped her lips closed against the rising bile, and tore her gaze from the macabre scene.

Michael. She needed to find—

Her heart contracted as her gaze settled on the place where he’d last been. The place he still was…but not really.

Michael
.

Crumpled on the ground, his powerful wings splayed about him, his eyes closed. Defeated. Broken.

Fallen.

And beside him, the sword he’d plunged into the earth, glowing brilliant blue with the light that poured into it from the heavens above.

The wind gained momentum, shoving Alex one way and then the other, tearing at her clothes. She cast a last glance at Bethiel’s body and the phosphorescence pooled around a shard of steel protruding from his back. Then, bracing herself against the onslaught, she staggered toward the Ferris wheel and the Archangel lying beneath it.

Step by step, she fought her way through the stinging sand that pelted her, focused only on the being who had given himself to save the world. Twice she stumbled and fell to her hands and knees, buried up to her elbows in the dust of children. Twice she swallowed the nausea and struggled again to her feet, tears turning to mud as they streamed down her face.

At last she stood over him, swaying as she stared down at the angel slowly being swallowed by the remains of the army he had destroyed. He lay unmoving on his side, one knee drawn up, a hand outstretched toward the sword he’d released. His powerful shoulders slumped, limp and lifeless, and his wings sagged along the ground, their black feathers riffling in the wind.

Alex lifted her gaze to the sword beyond him. To the light that poured into it from above. The power.

A tremble vibrated through the ground beneath her feet. The air surrounding her crackled with pent-up electricity.

Too much power.

Ice crept through her veins. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Whatever Michael had started, it hadn’t stopped. And it needed to. Dear Heaven, it needed to.

Alex looked to the unmoving Archangel, willing him to wake, knowing he wouldn’t. She stared again at the sword. Could she? Did she dare?

Just how immortal was she?

She closed her eyes against the brilliance that grew more blinding by the second. Against the choice that faced her. So much had already been sacrificed for this world, and now—now, if she didn’t survive, Michael would have no one to hold him as he had held her. He would be forever alone in the darkness.

Choices
.

Alex turned and knelt at the Archangel’s side. Her tears dropped onto his face, leaving dark stains in the dust that covered him. She tugged a corner of her t-shirt free and, with shaking fingers, wiped the dirt from his eyelids, his nose, his mouth. Then she leaned down until her lips were beside his ear.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, Mika’el of the Archangels,” she said, “or if my words will make a difference, but know that you did the right thing. You made the right choice. The only choice. And I—”

Her voice broke, and fresh tears spilled from her eyes. She cupped Michael’s face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I can’t be here for you like you were for me. I’m sorry I didn’t say thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough or strong enough or brave enough to do more for you, Michael. I’m so, so sorry.”

Then, before she could reconsider, she shoved to her feet, turned, and threw herself into the inferno that had swallowed the sword.

Mika’el screamed until he was hoarse and could scream no more. Until his throat bled, and he choked on the liquid warmth of his own blood. Until his ears shrieked in protest at the sound of his voice.

And then he screamed some more.

But no one heard.

Because no one was there.

No one to hear him, no one to witness the agony of his splintered, shattered soul. No one to break his fall.

Thou shalt not interfere
.

It was the Cardinal Rule, the one law that could not be broken. Could never be broken, not without a price.

Those in Hell had paid one price; Mika’el would pay another. They had fallen only so far before coming to terms with their penance. But he—he who had been Heaven’s greatest warrior and protector of all life, he who had become destroyer—he would never come to terms with what he had done. Could never come to terms with it.

Eighty thousand lives.

Eighty thousand
children
.

He screamed again.

Continued to fall.

Would never stop falling.

That was
his
price.

Then, in the breath he drew between screams, came a voice.

“…the only choice,” it whispered.

Mika’el’s breath hitched. His descent slowed for an instant, then resumed.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said.

He turned, frantic, peering through the dark, stretching out his hands, trying to catch hold of something—anything—to stop his fall. He knew that voice. Knew it, cared about it, clung to it.

“…wasn’t good enough or strong enough or brave enough,” it whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Realization surged through him, and his fall ended with an abruptness that rattled his teeth, jarred his spine, shocked through his entire being. He hung, suspended in the dark, grappling with the impossibility.

Alex.

But she was supposed to be dead. Safe from Seth. Mika’el had made sure it would happen, counted on it as his only salvation in the face of what he would become. If she was here, if she was holding him…

New agony ripped through him.

If she was holding him, she was still alive. Seth would come for her. And Mika’el would have failed at the only thing that might have saved a tiny part of his soul.