Black Wings
Page 41

The nephilim directly above me couldn’t see me but I could hear them sniffing the air. The ones that had me in their sights followed the example of the first nephilim. They lunged to the bars of the cage, some of them reaching through and clawing their fingers in the air.
“Meat, meat, meat,” they chanted, first softly, then louder and louder. “Meat, meat, meat.”
“Oh, crap, crap, crap,” I said, and started to run. I had no idea how strong those cages were but I was not going to stick around for a test.
The nephilim’s chant grew louder and louder. I was soaked in sweat and terrified beyond belief. I couldn’t think of anything. I just needed to get away, just get the hell away from the monsters. I passed beneath the last of the cages and rounded another bend. The nephilim’s howls of frustration followed me, echoing into the chamber beyond.
The view that awaited me there was not much better than the one I had left. The chamber was smaller, and completely empty except for its two occupants.
Ramuell and an angel I had never seen before were, well . . . getting busy. It was disgusting beyond imagining to see a creature of light copulating willingly with the nephilim. At least, I’m pretty sure it was willing. She was making a lot of screeching noises but they seemed to be noises of pleasure. She had the same ethereal beauty as the other angels I had seen—the pale skin, the blond curls, the white, feathery wings. But her beauty was tainted by the horror that she willingly touched.
The nephilim was behind her and they both faced me, but the angel’s eyes were closed. While his skin still looked shredded and burned from our last encounter, some of Ramuell’s wounds had begun to scab over. He saw me and stopped mid-stroke, pulling out of the angel and roaring. I covered my eyes with my hands.
“Oh, my f**king lord, I am blind,” I said, and felt bile in my throat. “That was gross. Gross, gross, gross.”
I pulled my hands from my face as Ramuell pounded across the cavern toward me, giving me just enough time to shoot into the air and avoid a deadly swipe. My magic surged up, practically forgotten in the horror and strangeness of the last few hours. I gave Ramuell a blast of nightfire and flew higher, staying away from his deadly claws. The nephilim screamed in fury but he could not touch me.
There was a tinkle of familiar laughter a few feet away from me, and I turned from Ramuell to see a pair of blazing green eyes.
“Hello, Ariell,” I said to the angel who hovered before me.
She gave a little half bow, a smirk on her perfect pink lips, and then she shot a bolt of lightning straight at my heart.
21
I DODGED OUT OF THE WAY AND THE LIGHTNING SIZZLED across my upper arm instead. Ariell’s magic smelled kind of peppery, not the cinnamon that I associated with angelic powers. I gritted my teeth at the pain in my arm and sent a blast of blue nightfire at her.
She blocked my magic easily, her tinkling laughter echoing throughout the chamber. Her laugh was getting on my nerves. It was the laugh of the head cheerleader in high school, the one who was so perfect and popular and smug about it that you wanted to kick her. Or, at least, I wanted to kick her.
“Is that the best you can do, Azazel’s daughter?”
“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve,” I said. I did have a few tricks—I just didn’t know how to use them on her. But she didn’t need to know that. I gave her another quick blast of nightfire and she dodged me again, shooting a string of lightning bolts at me so that I was forced to retreat rather than attack.
Ramuell grew excited by the violence and paced frantically beneath us. He swiped at my heels if I drifted too low and I was careful to stay out of his reach. I wondered why the nephilim didn’t use blasts of magic on me the way he had when he fought Gabriel at Clark and Belmont. Maybe the binding that controlled the nephilim limited their powers here in the Valley of Sorrows. If their powers weren’t bound, perhaps they could blast themselves out of their restraints.
I tried to concentrate, to think about ways I could hurt Ariell, but it was hard to focus on my abilities when I was trying not to get killed. She launched another bolt at me and I did the flying equivalent of a scurry as part of the rock wall behind me was blasted apart. Ariell giggled.
“You are as weak as your mother,” she said.
I felt the magic inside me bubble with anger. She had been responsible for the death of my mother. She had set a nephilim on Katherine and trapped her soul inside a monster for all eternity. There was no way this bitch was leaving the cavern in one piece.
I looked at the rock wall, and at Ariell, smirking in midair. And then I sent a blast of nightfire at the ceiling above her. She wasn’t expecting that.
Huge chunks of rock tumbled out of the ceiling and she wasn’t able to avoid all of them. One of them smashed into her left wing and sent her spiraling to Earth with a heavy thud. A few more rocks tumbled on top of her and she cried out in anger and pain.
The nephilim hurried to her side like a dog to its master. Ariell brushed Ramuell away as she struggled to her feet.
“Get off me!” she shouted, striking him as he attempted to help her.
Ramuell growled in response. “Be careful, angel.”
Ariell glared at the nephilim. “You be careful, monster. Remember, Samiel can re-bind you at any time.”
Samiel. That must be Ramuell’s other son. I wondered where he was.
I saw Ramuell’s claws curve into his palms and thought that Ariell had better watch herself. Whatever power she thought she had over the nephilim would be moot if Ramuell lost his temper and mutilated her.
Still, now would be a good time for some of those handy magical abilities, or maybe some assistance from Evangeline. Since Great-grandma seemed to have disappeared, time for a dose of magical concentration.
I thought of the match flame inside me, and of the electricity that I’d used on Antares. And just like that, my magic responded. It probably wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t had a few seconds to think, but Ariell considered me such a weak opponent that she could essentially turn her back on me while she argued with her—ick, ick, ick—lover. My hands shot out, crackling electricity, and I caught Ariell by surprise.
She screamed as the electricity danced through her body, over muscle, into bone, under skin. Some of her feathers caught fire and she slammed herself frantically into the walls of the cavern, trying to put out the flames.
Ramuell stumbled away from her and I blasted him, too. The nephilim roared in pain, writhing in the dirt, and an answering cry came from its brethren in the next chamber.
“Yes,” I said, and blasted her again. Her screams became louder and more terrified, and I kept on hitting her with the same spell. “Yes.”
I started to laugh, and as I laughed and hit Ariell again and again I felt something twist inside me. I knew it wasn’t me that gloried in the terror of another.
“Show yourself, Evangeline,” I said, and curled my hands into fists, trying to stop the maniacal flow of magic.
She deserves to suffer for what she has done, Evangeline said, and her voice was inside my head, my blood, my muscles and bones. My fists uncurled of their own volition and magic flowed through me, from me, to torture Ariell. The angel arched on the floor and screamed as electricity burned her up from the inside. She clawed at her skin, just as Antares had done, and the flesh fell away in thin ribbons as she tried to get the magic out.
“Stop it!” I shouted. I was nothing but a puppet to Evangeline. “You have no right to murder her for your own vengeance.”
It is your vengeance as well, Granddaughter. She is responsible for the death of your mother, of your friend.
She was right, and part of me did want to kill Ariell and Ramuell for that. But defending yourself in battle wasn’t the same as cold-blooded murder. Like I’d told Gabriel, I was supposed to be the good guy.
Ramuell started to rise and white fire poured out of my palms, setting the nephilim aflame. He screamed in torment and the cavern was filled with the stench of his cooking flesh.
“We can’t kill them!” I cried out desperately. “It’s wrong!”
Wrong? Evangeline’s voice was cold and furious. Wrong? It is wrong to punish those who took me from Lucifer, who would have murdered his children in cold blood for their own aims, their own petty lust for power? It is wrong to punish those responsible for the deaths of my grandchildren, who destroyed my direct line so utterly that you are the last survivor? It is wrong to punish those who murdered your mother and who would murder you the same way? No, my granddaughter. It is not wrong. It is wrong to show them mercy.
I struggled to close my fists, to shut off the flow of magic. I wanted to capture Ariell, to have her brought to Azazel for her crimes. I didn’t want to be an instrument of murder.
But Ramuell, I thought to myself. Ramuell, I wouldn’t mind killing. If I killed him, Katherine might be set free.
“No,” I said out loud, and as the conviction in me grew I felt Evangeline in my mind, grasping for control. “No. I’m not like them. I won’t be a monster.”
And then I heard Beezle’s voice in my head saying, “Concentrate, concentrate,” and I did. I thought of the little match flame inside me, the one that was blazing like a bonfire at the moment. I thought of Evangeline, lurking in my blood. I knew I wouldn’t be able to shut off the flow of magic while she was inside me. But Gabriel had said my will was strong. That was how I’d overcome the spell he’d put on me, the one to make me compliant.
So instead of trying to shut off the flow of magic, I used my will and my strength to turn it inside, to find Evangeline inside me and chase her out. The electricity that sparked from my fingertips reversed course, flowing back through my veins. I screamed in agony as it tripped through my blood, a hunter seeking its prey. I could no longer keep myself aloft and I fell to Earth in a tumble of wings and bones. I heard something crunch in my leg and nearly went blind from the pain.
Evangeline screamed, Granddaughter, what are you doing?
I could feel her inside me, shrinking away from my power, trying to make herself smaller and smaller. The electricity burned through every inch of me, leaving no cell unturned as it searched for Evangeline.