Empower (43 page)

‘I’ve seen that trick before,’ Sammael said, feigning boredom, though I noticed a telltale twitch at his jaw that suggested otherwise. ‘Release them,’ he said.

I did as he commanded, watching as the stunned exiles turned fierce eyes first on me and then on the four – now humans – who had been reduced to nothing more than rodents in their eyes. Before I could blink, they grabbed the four men and threw them straight off the building. My stomach turned over while I did my best to keep my expression neutral.

Sammael
smiled, knowingly. ‘Consequences, Violet. Aren’t you tired of them?’

‘I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.’

Euripides

‘y
ou said you would release Spence’s mind!’ I yelled into the wind, keeping my feet wide apart for balance. ‘I’m here! Release him!’

Sammael produced an oversized silver chalice with intricate designs etched into it. It hummed with an energy I instantly recognised. Lincoln squeezed my hand, letting me know he had made the connection too.

He has a tabernacle.

The first tabernacle I had come across had been in Jordan, and in an offering of exile and Grigori blood it had produced the ancient scriptures once hidden away by angels.

I now understood from where Sammael was drawing the extra power that would help him cross the realms. A relic from the time when angels walked on the earth – imbued with their power.

Sammael looked at
his watch. ‘We only have minutes left. Fill it.’

The women standing behind Sammael stepped back, as if moving into position. I noticed then that their eyes had changed since I first looked. The whites and irises had been replaced with pure black. They were Nephlim, but they were also something else.

‘It’s too big. She’ll bleed out!’ Lincoln yelled.

‘Release Spence first!’ I yelled at the same time.

‘Violet,’ Lincoln cautioned, but we both knew I had to do this.

Sammael’s eye twitched. He really didn’t like to negotiate. A gust of wind whipped across the rooftop but his shirt barely ruffled while Lincoln and I struggled to keep our feet planted. It became clear that Sammael had some kind of protection within the pentagram.

‘Know that if you do not give me your blood my witches will find him and take it back. I will make sure he exists locked in a reality of pain and nothingness for hundreds of years.’

I shivered at his warning.

So, that’s what these women are. Exile-made witches. The real Voodoo.

‘I believe you. Now release him.’

Lincoln’s phone rang. I saw Chloe’s name on the screen and watched as he answered and listened.

‘He’s alert. He’s demanding she give him a dagger.’

My heart skipped and I let out a shuddering breath as I nodded.

He’s okay.

‘Your blood!’ Sammael roared.

I let go of
Lincoln’s hand and pulled out my dagger, walking into the pentagram, careful to avoid the lines of blood and salt. Lincoln had been right: the chalice was large. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stand after I had filled it with my blood. But I’d made my deal with the devil and I sliced my wrist open, carefully wiping the blade against my sleeve until it was clean as my blood – swirling with silver currents – gushed into the silver tabernacle.

I could feel Lincoln’s anxiety at my back as I bit the inside of my cheek to distract me from the pain. Sammael’s eyes lit up with greed as he watched my blood drain into the chalice.

When the chalice was finally full, Sammael held out his hand.

‘Dagger,’ he ordered.

Oh, shit.

‘Now!’ he yelled when I hesitated.

My mind raced with options. Fight him? Refuse him?

But he could take Spence’s mind again as easily as he had returned it.

Give it to him?

What could he use it for, anyway? A Grigori blade could kill exiles, but not angels. And I’ve already made sure to wipe my blood off the blade.

I clenched my jaw and held out my dagger. He snatched it and pushed me back and out of the pentagram. Lincoln caught me when I stumbled weakly and I felt his healing soothe me instantly as he closed the wound on my wrist and helped replenish some of my strength.

Using my Grigori
blade, Sammael opened a small wound on his palm, hissing in pain as he did so, and allowed a few drops of his blood to mingle with mine. Then he passed the chalice to his witches and threw my dagger off the edge of the building.

In a trance-like fashion the witches separated most of the blood into two small bowls and returned the main chalice to Sammael before resuming their places.

The full moon was at its peak, and in the distance the bells of St Louis Cathedral began to chime over the rain and the battle cries below. Lincoln continued to pummel his healing and strength into my depleted body as two of the women stood opposite one another, each holding a bowl containing my blood stained with Sammael’s. Gracefully, in perfect sync, they threw the blood high into the air. Unaffected by the winds, the two streams arched and joined high above our heads, and then remained suspended as my blood, red and silver, turned to glistening shades of black. I bit back my gasp.

A black rainbow.

The air around us began to still. Gravity started to distort. And a slight vibration surrounded Sammael.

‘What is that?’ Lincoln asked from beside me, his hold on my arms tightening as he stared at the black arch.

I stared ahead, inevitability and fear mingling to create a bitter taste in my mouth. ‘He’s done it. The realms are crossing.’

Sammael heard me, his eyes alight as he pulled a long sword from the sheath at his waist and poured my remaining blood over the blade.

When he stepped
towards the suspended arch of blood that would be his gateway, the hunger and victory in his eyes was maniacal. ‘His last thought will be of you. The knowledge that the very thing he created was the thing that delivered his end.’ His voice lingered over the final word.

Sammael stepped through the gateway, disappearing from this world. The arch of blood instantly dropped to the rooftop floor, and his human witches collapsed a moment later.

However he plans to return, it will not be through this gate.

Lincoln checked the witches.

‘Are they …’ I started.

He shook his head. ‘Unconscious. Maybe in some form of coma.’ He stood back up. ‘Vi, what was Sammael talking about when he said “the very thing he created”?’

I looked around us. Chaos had closed in. Below, I could see the war between light and dark exiles. There were too many. Thousands. Their battle had migrated to the river, using the open land along the embankment for maximum fighting space. I could hear their screams carrying in the wild wind and knew that many of our Grigori brethren were paying the ultimate price.

We’re losing.

This is the beginning of the end.

Small explosions sounded nearby and the rain shot down like sheets of glass. I studied the place where Sammael had disappeared as I answered. ‘I’ve always known,’ I said, realising now that it was true. ‘I just wasn’t ready to believe it.’

‘What?’

I held out my hand
for Lincoln. He took it without question and I looked deep into his green eyes, hoping I might have the chance after all of this to tell him all the things that my heart wanted to scream from a very different rooftop. ‘I know who my angel maker is,’ I said. Lincoln watched me, holding his balance strong against the weather, his eyes flickering as he tried to make sense of my words … and then widening when he did.

‘Oh,’ he said.

I mirrored the thought and pulled my katana from the sheath at my back, checking my arrows and that my secondary dagger strapped to my thigh was in place. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Always,’ he said simply.

With my love at my side, with my angel maker waiting for me, and with death already at the party, I crossed the realms.

I escorted Lincoln through the cross-over, knowing I was risking it all, considering that everything I wanted was held clasped in my sweaty hand. But this was my life. His too. And we would take this chance together.

Even so, I tightened my hold.

The moment we made the transition the wind vanished, the rain stopped and we were in another place, an uncharted space.

‘The desert?’ Lincoln asked, looking around first in wonder, then in panic. ‘Vi, there’s nothing … anywhere.’

I shook my head. ‘The space can be anything. For some reason I almost always conjure a desert, but now that we’re here, I can …’ I smiled. ‘Watch.’

I closed my eyes, willing this image away and for the truth of this space to reveal itself to me. I opened my eyes when I heard Lincoln gasp.

‘Oh my God,’ he said.

The desert
was gone.

Darkness enveloped us.

Lost souls glittered in the space beyond. And hundreds of rainbows lit the nothingness before us. Bridges to a cosmos of possibilities.

My angel maker stood at a distance, another at his side. My maker’s expression remained calm, his sword gripped loosely in his right hand. The angel beside him was startlingly identical to my maker, though I instinctively knew that he was his opposite in every way.

Like Uri and Nox. The ultimate balance of light and dark.

And behind them … an angelic army wearing silver armour over white linen and holding imposing swords were mounted on a field of proud white horses. The vision so otherworldly, so … heavenly, it almost brought me to my knees.

Sammael’s back was to us as he stood facing them on foot, his sword at the ready. His glasses and shoes were gone and he was now in grey linen pants with an untucked white shirt.

I wasn’t sure if he knew we had crossed over. But my angel maker’s eyes looked beyond him – even as Sammael shouted his challenge – and deep into mine, searching, knowing.

Did he always know it would come to this?

I think he must have.

Tentatively I released Lincoln’s hand, hesitating before letting him go completely and flinching with relief when he remained beside me when we finally broke the last contact.

‘A challenge is my right in this place!’ Sammael yelled. ‘Would you set your army on me or prove your worth?
You
who are so mighty, favoured above all others, and so worthy of all praise!’

It wasn’t difficult
to play the conversation forward. Angels were prideful creatures even though they claimed to be emotionless. Not one would hide from a forthright challenge, nor would they relinquish the chance to defeat a mighty foe such as Sammael.

Sensing what I was about to do, Lincoln leaned close to my ear. ‘Our connection is altered in this place. I don’t think I can heal you here,’ he whispered desperately. ‘You’re still weak from the blood loss. Let me do this.’

I turned to him and cupped his face in my hand. ‘You will. You’ll be with me every step of the way, but we both know it has to be me.’

Tears welled in his eyes but did not fall. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly and gave a short nod. ‘Be smart. Be ruthless. And keep our connection open. If I can help, let me,’ he said.

I nodded and my heart swelled. This, more than anything, was Lincoln’s great sacrifice. His willingness to let me take the ultimate risk, knowing there was a great chance I would not survive, was an act of love beyond anything I had believed possible. Using my control and will of this space in time, I altered my katana as I approached, lengthening the blade to match that of Sammael’s.

‘You challenge my maker, and so, you challenge me!’ I called out, causing Sammael to spin in my direction. ‘If you wish to fight him, you must first defeat me.’ I pulled my extra weapons – my arrows and thigh dagger – from their sheaths and threw them to the side, keeping just my sword that matched his.

The statuesque angels
did not react to my intrusion. Sammael, however, while clearly unsurprised to see me, was caught off-guard by my proclamation.