The Unforgiven (34 page)

The disc glittered in her hands. The broken bloodstone gleamed. Drop it? Could she do that? She doubted it. Her numb fingers wouldn’t open.

“I . . . I can’t,” she gasped.

“You can. Maddie. Look at me.”

She raised her chin and stared into his blue, blue eyes. The expression she saw there caused her heart to contract.

“I love you,” he said steadily. “I love your determination and your stubbornness. I love the way you refuse to give up, even in the face of overwhelming odds. You’re a warrior, Maddie. A beautiful warrior. And you’re mine, in love. I refuse to let Azazel own you in slavery. I would rather face Oblivion. If you won’t drop the disc, I’ll take it from you by force. You know what will happen if I do that.”

Yes, she knew. The relic would kill him. The thought of Cade sprawled dead on the ground set her trembling.

Her gaze darted to Dr. Ben-Meir. No. Not Ben-Meir. Azazel. The ribbon of light was almost within his reach. His eyes shone as his fingers reached out—

“No.” Maddie’s hand opened. The disc tumbled from her grip. Metal struck stone with a hollow sound.

Azazel’s exultant shout rang out. The end of the ribbon of light was already in his grasp.

“No,” Maddie whispered. “No.” She stood rooted to the spot as Azazel advanced through the path of the labyrinth, wrapping the white ribbon around his wrist as he came.

Cade shoved her behind him. The strands that had tangled around his legs as he’d plunged across the pattern slid from his limbs, leaving raw, burning strips. The white ribbon disappeared harmlessly into Azazel’s dead flesh.

“You won’t take her,” Cade snarled. “I’ll kill you first.”

Azazel sneered. “Do you think I would stoop so low as to inhabit a female body? Even my own daughter’s?”

“Maddie is not your daughter.”

But Lilith had been. And Lilith was Maddie’s ancestor; her memories lived on inside her many-times great-granddaughter. In that instant, the horror of Maddie’s origins hit her full force. Her relationship might be hundreds of generations removed, but in the end it came down to the same thing: her very existence had sprung from the loins of this creature standing before her; she was the product of his sins, his incest, his evil. How could she bear to live, knowing that?

“Ben-Meir’s body is decaying.” Cade’s angry voice sounded very far away, though he stood right beside her. “Soon it will be no use to you.”

“Soon I will not need it.” Azazel lifted the final length of ribbon. The Seed of Life dangled from the end, and the Watcher’s hands closed upon it.

The ground gave way. Maddie lurched backward, into Cade’s chest. A crack appeared in the stone rosette where her feet had been an instant before.

“What the—?” Cade said. He dragged her back a few steps as the crack expanded.

Amber smoke seeped from crumbling masonry. A flash of light, red as blood, illuminated Azazel’s face. A sulfurous odor rose. Gaze intent, the Watcher knelt and gazed into the widening hole.

Maddie knew what Azazel searched for, what he would find here: the stone hidden by her ancestor. Searching for the key to eternal life, the master builder known as Scarlet had steeped this monument with Watcher magic and alchemic power. He had buried his birthright, the fragment of Lilith’s bloodstone, under the stone in the center of the labyrinth. And there it had remained after his death.

Azazel stood. In his hand the small stone gleamed with bright crimson light. Gaze intent, he fitted the missing fragment together with its other half.

Light exploded. Maddie ducked behind Cade’s arm as
Azazel’s exultant shout echoed off the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling. A high-pitched wail filled her head. Gasping, she pressed her hands over her ears.

The ground began to shake. With a rolling lurch, the pavement beneath her feet crumbled. Maddie cried out, scrambling to avoid the disintegrating stone. Cade jerked her back to solid footing, nearly wrenching her arm from its socket. His muttered curses battered her ear. She clung to him.

She could hardly see through the thick screen of sulfur rising from the deep. The chasm widened, splitting the pattern of the labyrinth. One end of the fissure raced toward the altar, the other toward the cathedral entrance. Yellow dust and putrid smoke poured from the crack.

The screaming wind outside the cathedral reached fever pitch. Thunder shook the walls. And as the rumbling explosion of sound faded, the wail of an emergency siren arose.

Maddie clutched at Cade’s arm. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to be around to find out. Let’s get out of here.”

He hauled her across the nave. The labyrinth crumbled completely to dust as the fissure expanded, dividing the nave in two. At one end of the church, the altar cracked down the center, the fissure continuing on to shoot up the wall behind. The apse windows exploded, spewing showers of colored glass.

At the rear of the church, the vestibule doors, massive wood slabs that had stood for centuries, splintered. The lintel above groaned under the stress. Rain spat through cracks in the crumbling masonry overhead, and rubble poured from the vaulting. Maddie threw her arms over her head. How long before the whole roof came down?

Azazel stood in the center of the destruction, at the edge of the widening pit. He stared into the smoking depths of the chasm, one hand extended in anticipation.

“What’s he waiting for?” Maddie gasped.

“Something’s rising,” Cade answered.

She looked in horror and saw it was true. A beastly figure clothed in dark opalescence climbed from the depths. Its head and limbs were vaguely human, but a long tail curled, snakelike, around its body. Great black wings unfolded from its back, assisting its rise.

A cold hand of dread squeezed Maddie’s heart. She knew this creature. She’d seen it in her nightmares.

“Azazel,” she breathed. “As he was.”

Cade’s grip on her arm tightened painfully. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here!”

But neither of them seemed capable of flight. To Maddie, it seemed as if the world had passed into the strange slow motion of nightmares. Her feet would not lift from the ground. Even her breathing seemed suspended.

The creature gained the cathedral floor. Its tail, supple and pointed, uncoiled.

The thing had no aura, though its eyes glowed and its limbs moved. Maddie turned this odd paradox over in her mind. If the monster had no life force, could it be truly alive?

Ben-Meir’s dead body stepped forward to embrace the monster. At the instant of contact, the glow surrounding the archeologist’s corpse evaporated. A heartbeat later, red light bathed the winged horror.

“Oh, no.” Maddie’s fingernails dug into Cade’s arm. “No. Not this.”

Simon Ben-Meir’s body crumpled. The newly risen demon spread its wings over the corpse. Staring, Cade felt his stomach turn. This was no common hellfiend.

“I thought it would be your body he possessed, Maddie. Not another Nephilim’s.”

Maddie stood rooted to the spot, eyes trained on the monster. “That’s . . . Oh, God. That’s not a Nephilim. That’s Azazel’s own body. The demon he turned into during his battle with Raphael. It must have been waiting, all these years, to be reunited with its life essence.”

Bloody hell. Cade eyed the creature warily. It was stretching its limbs, as if relearning to use them. If a newly resurrected Azazel had returned to the world, the human race was in grave peril.

So far, Azazel in his new form had taken no notice of them. Cade thought he’d like to keep it that way. He began to ease away, slowly, pulling Maddie with him. To his relief she didn’t resist. But neither did she seem fully aware of what he was doing.

“Azazel and Raphael fought,” she whispered. “I saw the battle in Lilith’s memory. The Seed of Life was Azazel’s defense. A blow from Raphael’s sword split the bloodstone in two. Azazel couldn’t stand against the avenger then, but he wasn’t completely defeated. Raphael must have imprisoned only his body. Azazel bound his life essence to the amulet.”

Cade guided her around a pile of rubble. “And the disc ended up at the bottom of the Watcher well.”

“Yes. The other half of the bloodstone remained with Lilith. It passed to the man who built this cathedral. Lilith’s descendant.” She swallowed. “My ancestor.”

“A Nephilim of Clan Azazel,” Cade said.

“Yes. He was known by the name Scarlet. He was a master builder and alchemist.”

The burning red eyes of the newly risen demon swept the cathedral. Cade went motionless, his arm around Maddie, and willed the creature’s scrutiny to pass them by.

It didn’t. That horrible red gaze fell directly upon them. But only for an instant. Almost without pause, Azazel turned his attention to Ben-Meir’s corpse.

Maddie’s breath hitched as her demonic ancestor lifted the archeologist’s body from the ground and bit off its head. With a sickening crack, strong jaws cracked the skull, and the creature chewed and swallowed. Then, upending the headless corpse, it fastened its lips around the severed neck. The beast’s throat worked as it suckled.

“Oh, God.” Maddie bent double. “I’m going to be sick.”

Cade held her as she retched. The black stench of evil burned his nostrils; he was on the verge of losing the contents of his own stomach.

Azazel looked up from his feast. Blood dribbled from bulbous lips and his head executed a slow swivel. Cade shoved Maddie behind him.

The red gaze lit upon them, and a clawed hand beckoned. “Daughter. Lover. Come to me.”

Cade knew Maddie wanted to obey. At least, her body did. It yearned toward the monster even as she clutched at Cade and sobbed. He wrapped his arms around her and put every ounce of his strength into helping her resist the summons.

Azazel’s eyes burned. “Lilith. Long ago I promised that you would live forever. Now, at last, you will. Come.”

Maddie strained in Cade’s arms. “Let me go to him.”

His arms tightened. “Like hell I will.”

“You can’t hold me for long. Don’t you realize that? Azazel’s here. He’s alive. He wants me. There’s nothing you can do. The only choice you have is whether you’re going to get yourself killed trying to stop the inevitable. So just . . . let me go. Get out. Let me fight Azazel on my own.”

“The hell I will. You think I’d do that? Leave you here with that stinking creature? Forget it. We fight together. Always.”

“He’ll tear you apart!”

“Then we’ll die. Together.”

“You’ll die. Not me. Me, he wants to keep alive.”

Cade’s voice roughened. “That sort of existence would be worse than death. I’d kill you before I let him take you.”

Azazel hissed. An angry crash of thunder shook the walls, and wind whipped through the wounds in the masonry. The siren was louder now. Cade heard men shouting. Humans must be gathering beyond the cathedral doors.

He looked down at her and watched the knowledge of the truth he’d spoken come into her eyes. Their time was running out. “I’m sorry, Maddie.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t be. It’s me who’s sorry. For what I did to you during my transition. If I’d trusted you—”

He cut her off. “That wasn’t you doing those things, Maddie. That was him.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “If you have to do it, Cade, if you have to kill me . . . Just make it quick. And as painless as possible.”

Her trust awed him. He opened his mouth to reply, but his words were cut off when, with a subtle down-sweep of wings, Azazel landed before them. Claws scraped rubble as he landed. The scent of arrogant pride flowed from his pores. Cade’s nostrils flared, but he met Azazel’s red stare unflinchingly. There was no retreat. There would be no surrender, either.

He brushed the hilt of the dagger tattooed on his chest and touched cold metal. Pulling the weapon free, he imagined how much he’d enjoy plunging it into Azazel’s heart.

The chance of that was slim. The dark shining shield of Azazel’s power encased his demonic body and Cade’s power was a child’s toy in comparison. The best outcome he could hope for in the coming battle was his own death—and Maddie’s.

Red eyes flicked over Maddie’s body. Azazel’s long tail swept out in an arc, brushing softly up against her leg. “My love. My daughter. We are together again.”

She shuddered. “Cade. Do it. Do it now.”

Cade clenched his weapon but could not bring himself to use it.

Azazel extended a hand. “Come, Lilith.”

“I’m not Lilith.”

“You were.” His claw clutched at her arm. “You are. You will be, forevermore.”

“No . . .”

Cade struck. He aimed his first blow at Azazel’s chest, but the blade bounced harmlessly off. The Watcher laughed. Cade slashed at Azazel’s back, his arm, his thigh. His blade made no contact, and the angel-turned-demon hoisted Maddie in his arms.

“Cade! Don’t let him—”

With a vicious curse, Cade swung one last time. This time, his target was Maddie. The blade flashed as it descended, the point trained on her heart. Something in his own heart wrenched as the dark metal connected—

And shattered.

Black iron exploded everywhere. Shards of metal spewed into the air and sparks flashed. Cade stared stupidly at the untouched swath of Maddie’s skin, then at the stumpy hilt he held clutched in his fist. He’d failed. Thank Heaven, Hell, and earth, he’d failed.

Azazel lifted Maddie’s struggling body higher in his arms. He pressed his thickened lips to hers. As she sputtered and gagged, he drew back and gazed down at his descendant with an almost tender smile.

“Let her go,” Cade snarled. “You disgust her.”

Azazel’s head swiveled. “Son of Samyaza, spare me your righteousness. You would have used her as your slave. Now I have her safe.”

“You want her as your own slave.”

“No. Lilith is no slave. She is my lover.”

“Maddie isn’t Lilith. She’s not the daughter you turned into your whore. She’s not your victim. And she never will be. I’ll see to that.”

“Silence!”

A flick of Azazel’s wrist flung Cade into the air. His body slammed against a wall, then flopped to the ground. He tried to rise; he found he couldn’t move.

Azazel lowered Maddie to the ground. She stood rigid at his side as he considered Cade. “The only question is whether to keep you or kill you.”