The Fallen 03 - Warrior (35 page)

It was a good thing he wouldn’t be looking to the Source—she had been called upon so often in the last few weeks that she figured that must be partly to blame for her constant sleepiness. To be sure, none of the unattached angels drank much. And Allie did her best to eat spinach and liver, though she really shouldn’t be anemic. Women in Sheol didn’t have periods, because their bodies didn’t change, and there were no babies to be had.

And she wasn’t going to think about that. She’d let it go. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life mourning the inevitable. It distressed Raziel. It distressed them all.

She’d already made peace with that. Loving Raziel as she did, she decided it would be enough for her. And for years it had been enough.

It wasn’t as if she even had a biological clock ticking. While the other women in Sheol lived out long but normal lives, there was a good chance she’d make it several hundred years or more, thanks to the
blood Raziel had given her when she had been dying from a sword thrust. Such gifts were strictly forbidden, and it was a lucky thing that Allie hadn’t died from the cure. Instead it had saved her, made her stronger, surer, more powerful.

She’d never touched his blood again. He would take hers, and if she felt a strange sort of longing she ignored it, finding enough sensuous satisfaction in the giving of blood. After all, she was ostensibly still human, even if it was up in the air whether she was technically alive or not, having been whisked away to Sheol after her fatal encounter with a bus but before being cast into the afterlife Uriel had planned for her. Humans couldn’t digest blood—she’d looked it up on the Internet once in that previous life when she’d considered writing a book about biblical vampires. Little had she known how close that was to the truth.

Funny, but she didn’t miss the Internet, or television. She still had books, and she wrote. Anything worth doing was worth doing for love, and there was something freeing about not having to worry about sales and marketing. She could just write, and no one would look over her shoulder.

Except Raziel, who would snort in disbelief and then make her act out the love scenes in bed. Which was perfectly fine with her. As long as this intermittent nausea wasn’t plaguing her.

Raziel wasn’t going to die today. She refused to consider that possibility. Besides, she would know,
and if that were the case she would drug him and tie him up and hide him until the danger passed. There was no way in hell she was going to let him die, no matter how mad he got. To hell with honor and duty. She was keeping her man safe.

But her Spidey-senses told her he’d be fine. Even so, she couldn’t loll around in bed while the Fallen were risking their lives. She needed to be there, for moral support if nothing more. She wasn’t sure she could wield a sword at this point, though maybe she could throw up on someone.

She sat up slowly. Raziel had already left the bed, though he’d held her in his arms all night long. It was just past dawn, and the Fallen would be assembling on the beach, awaiting the first wave of Uriel’s armies.

And, damn it, she was going to be there too.

I
T WAS AN EXQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL
morning. I walked out into the dawn-lit sky, listening to the gulls as they cried, watching their graceful swoop and dive. Was there such a thing as reincarnation? If so, I might want to come back as a seagull, here in Sheol. The fish were plentiful, the ocean would surround me, and I could watch over Michael to my heart’s content.

But I wasn’t going to think about that now. There was a job to be done, and it was a good day to die. I would die cleanly, bravely, with the minimum of fuss. I just hoped it would be at the end of the day, when victory was assured, and not at the very start of the battle.

Michael held my hand, his grip a little too firm. I felt almost tender. It would be worse, much worse, if he really loved me the way the euphoria had forced him to profess. He cared about me, I knew it. He did
love me, just a little, though he was still fighting it. And he would grieve, I had no doubt.

But he would get over it. He had been alive since the dawn of time; he had done horrific things and wondrous ones. During the small, quiet hours of the morning he’d confessed, driven by some need, and I’d heard it all, holding him in my arms. And when it was over I’d kissed him, and I felt his grief. He would be alive for millennia more, time enough to make amends for all the harm he’d done at Uriel’s behest, if he felt the need to. I wouldn’t be there. He might even forget all about me. I was a mere blip on the endless timeline of his life.

I smiled up at him. His face was carved in granite, his eyes like obsidian. He was a man with everything held firmly in check. A soldier ready for battle.

I was trussed in lightweight armor at his insistence. I humored him, though I knew it would do no good. He’d had far longer to get used to the inevitable, but clearly he wasn’t able to let go. If I could accept it, so could he.

I looked up at him and a little part of me melted as I relived the feel of him, the taste of him, the sweet joy of giving and taking. I would die with his seed inside me, with the marks of his lovemaking on my breasts, on my thighs. I would die happy.

We were a ragtag group, I thought, glancing down the line. Everyone was on the beach, more than I could begin to count, the Fallen and their wives and a few widows, armed with every sort of weapon.
No guns, thank God. Guns were too impersonal. If someone was going to kill me, I wanted to see his face.

It was after 6 a.m., almost full daylight, and the ocean had calmed, as if it knew all the drama was going to be played out on the sand. Rachel stood beside Azazel, both of them calm and determined. I could see others whose faces I knew but whose names were unfamiliar. Raziel paced before everyone, but there was no sign of Allie. I glanced back and saw her standing at the main entrance of the house, watching over everyone. She looked pale but composed, and there was a strange light emanating from her. I gazed at her, and felt an irrational hope for the future.

“We’re all glad you’re back, Victoria Bellona,” Asbel’s soft voice intruded, and I jumped, startled. I hadn’t noticed him so close to us, his sword drawn, waiting with the others.

I summoned a smile. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said lightly.

The sun was shining cheerfully, glinting off the ocean, sparkling in the sand. It made the sudden darkness so much more startling as the sky was filled with shadows, and we all looked up, into a heaven filled with what seemed like a thousand winged creatures all heading toward us, blotting out the sun.

I tried to pull my hand free of Michael’s, but he held on tightly, and I yanked at it till he turned to look at me. I gave him a warm smile. “You can’t hold
on forever, Your Saintliness,” I said lightly. “We have a battle to win.”

For a moment I thought he wouldn’t release me. The first wave of angel-soldiers had landed on the beach, the first clash of metal on metal resounding through the early-morning air.

“I’ll look out for her,” Asbel said.

“No one’s looking out for me,” I said firmly. “You will look out for yourselves.”

Michael didn’t move, and in his dark, dark eyes I read love. “I need to tell you one thing,” he said, drawing his sword with his other hand.

“Okay.”

“I’m immune to euphoria.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it, hard, before releasing it. And then, with a furious roar, he drew his flaming sword and charged into battle.

I had never been in a war before. The movies had it wrong—there was no glory, no courage, no sense. Just noise and blood and sweat as we slashed our way through Uriel’s army.

There were so many of them, faceless angels, their wings stark white, a strange contrast to the deep hues of the Fallen, Raziel’s iridescent blue, Azazel’s jet black, the deep, burnished darkness of Michael’s wings that had felt so soft around us. Wave after wave they came, dressed in armor, wielding swords.

The energy burned through my body, down my arms, and I flung it at the angels overhead, hearing their screams as they caught fire and plummeted to
the ground. Over and over I sent the punishing bolts of energy into their midst, until the battle came to me, and I had no choice but to draw my own sword and fight hand-to-hand. I couldn’t count, but the ground was thick with them, and more were coming. I hacked and slashed my way through, ignoring the cries of pain, ignoring the blows that hit me. There was no way any of us would come out of this—we were outmanned, outmaneuvered. It didn’t matter that Michael had spent the time between arriving back in Sheol and coming to my bed involved in feverish planning. Even the most brilliant tactician couldn’t succeed against such insurmountable odds.

It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think about outcome or survivors; all I could do was fight my way through this faceless crush of warriors, angels, friend, and foe, and push them back toward the sea. Rachel had told me the sea healed the Fallen. I had no idea why we were driving our enemies toward it, but I followed orders without question. In a moment I knew.

As each wave of angels landed, their blindingly white wings furled, disappearing and leaving no sign on their strong backs as they charged into battle.

But the moment their feet touched the water the wings unfurled, large and unwieldy, dragging in the seawater, soaking in it, until they were dragged down, helpless beneath their own murderous weight, and I felt hope burst in my heart. I didn’t have time to think of right or wrong, or the horror of taking joy in another’s death. This war was not of our choosing,
and if we didn’t stop the invaders they would bring that war to the world, destroying humankind as if they were locusts. I pushed, forcing another into the sea, ignoring the blood that splattered me, ignoring the cries and howls of fury, ignoring everything but what I must do.

I had to get as far from Michael as I could. Three times I saw him leave what he was doing to slash at someone heading my way, his vicious, flaming sword a beacon in the bright sunlight. I knew he was still trying to protect me. Didn’t he know it didn’t matter? He loved me. The foolish, tender things he’d told me in that sickly-sweet land hadn’t been brought out by euphoria; they had been real. He loved me, and that would be enough. Even if our time together was short, it had been glorious.

More angels were descending, but the beach was filled with fighting men and bodies strewn about, and there was no place to alight. Many attempted to land on the edge of the surf, only to be pulled immediately into the water’s depths. Others tried to drop down atop the broken bodies of their comrades, but lost their balance and had to face the fury of the Fallen. Wave after wave, till the beach was soaked with blood and the water ran red, till the cries of the wounded and dying filled the air. In the distance I saw Metatron, fighting with a ferocity matched only by Michael’s, and I knew a moment’s confusion.

One of the invading angels struck me in the side, the blow partially deflected by the armor Michael
had insisted I wear, and I fell to one knee, the breath knocked out of me. My enemy moved in, his blade held high to bring down a killing stroke.

I shoved my sword up into his throat and felt his hot blood spray me before he pitched forward into the sand. I rolled out of the way just in time, springing to my feet again as more of the enemy landed.

Time lost its meaning. The noise faded into silence as the battle raged around me, and I continued to fight like a creature possessed. I couldn’t worry about when my own fatal blow would land. I had accepted that it would, and that I would fight until it came. I fought until my arms were numb, until my skin was stiff with blood splatter.

They were dying all around me, and I reveled in it, as tears ran down my face. I killed, I wept, I triumphed. I fought as my feet slid in gore and blood-soaked sand, I fought until I knew I could fight no more, and I kept going, knowing my strength, my precious strength, was beginning to fail me.

I looked up as the sky darkened once more, and my heart sank in despair. A huge cadre of our enemy had appeared in the sky, so thick with sharp white wings that they blocked out the sun. I wanted to drop my sword and send what fierce punishment I could into the sky, but the fighting was too thick around me, and I knew we were all going to die, and I would go down fighting.

There was no place for them to land on the bloody beach, and they hovered, a phalanx of death. Then I
saw Rachel in the distance, bloody, fierce, throwing her hands toward the sky.

If she could do it, I could. I thrust my sword into the sand. I was going to die anyway; I might at least die trying. I could feel the heat rush through my body, down my arms, and I raised them and flung the bolts of energy directly into the enemy’s midst.

The angels veered, trying to avoid it, just as a fierce wind caught them, and they plummeted, miscalculating, into the sea, pulled to their deaths in the beautiful ocean.

And then, suddenly, there were no more to kill.

I looked around me in blind exhaustion and disbelief. The fighting was winding down and I knew that, at least for now, we had prevailed.

And I still lived. It made no sense, but I lived.

I looked across the body-strewn beach, trying to see whom I could recognize among the dead and dying. In the distance I saw Michael, his massive sword ablaze, still fighting the few remaining soldiers, unable to stop until the last enemy was vanquished; if I hadn’t been numb, I would have smiled. But something was wrong.