Heaven and Hellsbane (25 page)

With a quick spin, he dodged my last swing and moved fast to come at me again. I raised my blade to block, but the Fallen’s powerful weapon stopped short, colliding with Ham’s angelic blade.

There was a moment of stunned paralysis, and Ham looked over his shoulder at me. “Go get that horn, Emma Jane. We’ll take care of these two.” And then the fighting resumed.

I lowered my sword, staggering back from the four men fighting to the death. I glanced at Dan hammering the skinny demon. The guy was quick and stronger than he looked, but Dan’s illorum drive kept him on top of the fight.

The horn sounded again and I turned without thinking, and a heartbeat later I realized it hadn’t been by choice. That sound had an effect on me, not as powerful as the unmarked nephilim or the gibborim, but even a little was too much for my taste. I had to get that horn.

I called my power and with my next step…I’d only made it halfway there. Something hard as stone clotheslined me across the neck. My feet went out from under me—my sword went sailing out of my hand, and I landed hard on my butt at the top of the concrete stairs behind the catcher’s net. I shook my head, clearing the stars from my brain and coughing hard to reopen my crushed windpipe.

“Close enough, illorum,” the bullheaded demon said, his voice low and gruff. I skittered backward on reflex, stunned. The demons were shedding their human disguises all over the place. In their true forms, they looked all alike. But years of Sunday school classes as a kid had instilled a kneejerk fear at the sight of them.

Brimstone steamed from his bull nostrils, and he stomped toward me with huge hooflike feet. The demon wasn’t as tall as the one on the pitcher’s mound with Bariel, but he was big enough, and I couldn’t help my cringe when he reached out a meaty, red hand for my shoulder.

Three-inch claws arched from each fat finger, making the shimmering black sword in his other hand kind of redundant. Not that he cared. “Where’s your sword, illorum? A warrior is never without her sword. A least not one that’s long for this world.”

I risked glancing away for a split second, looking for my weapon. I figured it couldn’t have fallen far, and I was right. The hilt peeked out from under the first row of seats, only three feet away. It might as well have been on the other side of the world. I was fast, faster than a demon—even a demon at full power in his true form. But the guy was right there, his hot, putrid breath fogging the air between us.

He raised his sword, and I decided I’d rather die trying. I jammed the sole of my boot into his knee. His joints were thick, but I’d kicked with all my strength and the bones gave, snapping the wrong way. The beast howled—the sound more animal than human—and he dropped, falling forward.

I scrambled to get out from under him as he fell, stretching for my sword. My fingers snagged the pommel, just as the demon’s heavy body crashed down on my legs. I was pinned, but I pulled the sword into my grip, twisted around as he clawed at my blouse and sliced my ribs, reaching for my sword hand.

The gashes burned like acid, and I hissed at the pain, staring down my bloodied body at him.

“Daughter.” The bull’s head mouthed the word, but it wasn’t his voice. It was Jukar’s. The sound and oddity of it all stopped me cold.

“Jukar?” I asked, panting.

“Yes,” the demon said in Jukar’s voice. “Come to me, child. End this battle, this bloodshed.”

“You’ll tell the other Fallen, the demons and gibborim, to stop fighting?” I squirmed under the bull devil, trying to pull my legs free. The demon gave a warning snort, spittle spraying my arm, his claws digging deeper into my side. I gasped and stopped moving.

“Join me. Be my eyes and ears as we discussed, and I will tell those who serve me to cease their attacks,” he said.

“And the rest? The ones who serve the other Fallen?” I asked, staring into the red bull’s face in front of me.

Jukar laughed, but the sound was wrong coming out of that face. “I do not control my brothers any more than you control the other illorum,” he said. “Those loyal to me will obey. I swear to that. And with my army withdrawn there will be few enough left for the seraphim to defeat.”

“You’d sacrifice your fallen brothers just to gain some intel on the seraphim?” I asked.

“I would lose this battle to win the war. To win you. Yes.” The demon bull sat up. “You are my child,” he said. “There is no greater bond. Your impulse to fight at my side is in your blood. Instinctive. I know you feel it even now.”

I swallowed hard, looking away—remembering the draw of that horn. “No one controls me.”

“And so you have proven,” he said. “Twice you’ve raised your sword in opposition to God, weakening the compulsion imbued in Michael’s sword. As my child you are stronger than the others, Emma Jane, and my gift to you has made certain your angelic power flows untethered through your veins. You can fight Michael’s command. Join me and together we will dismantle the ruling seraphim Council and prove to our Father that the angels are more deserving than the sons of man to people the earth with our seed.”

My mind balked at the blunt statement. This had nothing to do with love. This was genocide in the extreme—mixing angelic DNA with human until there were no pure humans left. The result would be a world of nephilim, of supernatural people ruling the weaker, slower, humans until the species blinked out of existence. Would God allow it? Worse, what would He do to stop it?

For an instant I imagined the hand of God reaching down to wipe the earth clean, and I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t let it come to that. I wouldn’t help destroy humanity.

“Sorry,
Dad
, it’s never gonna happen.” My hand tightened on the hilt of my sword, my decision made. But before making my move, another’s blade blurred past my eyes and sliced through the bull-demon’s thick neck.

The big demon’s head and neck toppled off its wide shoulders, and I tucked my feet close to avoid the gush of black goo as his body melted into an indistinguishable blob. I looked up at the caramel-skinned girl proudly holding her illorum sword.

“Nenita.”

Her smile widened. “What’s up, girlfriend?”

She still looked like the little kid I remembered cowering in a hospital bed. But there was a wisdom in her eyes now, a confidence. This time it wasn’t her blood spattered all over her snug-fitting tank top; it was demon blood and she’d put it there.

Nenita glanced past me, her expression sobering, then looked back to me. “Saw you shootin’ the breeze over here with Mr. Tall Dark and Fugly. Thought you could use a hand.”

A quick huff of laughter blew out of me and I smiled. “Yeah. Thanks. It’s good to see you. You look…different…but good. You’re okay then?”

Her smile wilted more, but she nodded, offering me a hand to help me up. “I’m cool. I ain’t gonna lie though. This is some freaky, scary shit goin’ down. But thanks to my new magister I can handle it.”

I took her hand and got my feet under me, wincing against the pain of my gashes and the sting of brimstone boiling under my skin. “Keep your sword up,” I said and the girl nodded again, her dark braids swinging on either side of her head.

“Back at’cha,” she said, then vanished.

Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard Jukar scream my name, or maybe it was the wind and the howl of battle raging around me. I couldn’t waste time thinking about it. Now that I knew his plan, I had to stop it.

The world blurred by and a blade sailed across my path. I ducked under the swing, spinning back to slice my blade from hip to shoulder through the chest of the demon who’d tried to stop me. A heartbeat later the gibborim guards stood before me—a wall of thick bodies and razor-sharp swords, with Bariel and the horn-blowing demon behind them.

“Four against one?” I said to the linebackers. “Any chance you’d go one at a time?”

The Mensa rejects glanced back and forth among one another, considering my request. I capitalized on their distraction, spinning quickly and using my momentum to swing my sword through the first guy’s neck. The other three spared a moment to puzzle out what had happened, and then snapped into action.

I sidestepped the en-masse advance, blocking the swing of the nearest gibborim, ducking the swing of another. They surrounded me before I could recover, but a blink later, Dan and Ham stood with me—our backs together.

“Thought you said you were gonna get that horn,” Dan said.

“I was just about to, but these guys asked me to kill them first.”

“Hey, teach,” Nenita said blinking in next to Ham. “I was wondering where you went.”

“Nenita, this is Daniel and Emma Jane,” Ham said. “Daniel and Emma Jane, meet another of my illorums, Nenita.”

“Nenita?” Dan blinked at the girl, and I could see the recognition flicker through his eyes.

“’Sup, Officer, Dan?” She flashed a wide grin, then looked at me. “We got this, Emma. Go.”

“Really? Thanks.” There was no time to argue. I winked at the refrigerator-sized gibborim targeting me, and then moved faster than any illorum he’d ever met.

Whatever Jukar had done to me with that kiss on the back of my head, I could feel it kicking in full force—doubling my speed and strength. Before the gibborim’s brain had time to understand I was gone, I was already facing the giant devil demon next to Bariel.

His bull head tilted down toward me. “You believe you possess the strength to best me, little woman?” he asked in the same gravely smoker’s voice they all seemed to have.

“Dude, I just want you to stop blowing that friggin’ horn.”

“I am the trumpeter. As long as there is life in my body and breath in my lungs, nothing shall sway me from my duty,” he said.

“Oh. Okay. I can work with that.” I spun like I had so many times before, building momentum, my sword slicing through the air. But the demon was fast, and smart. His big hand snapped up, catching my wrist, stopping me like a finger on a spinning penny, holding me dangling by one arm. “Shit.”

He’d dropped the horn so it hung loose on a rope across his chest and balled his massive fist. Like a boxer to a punching bag, he wound up and thumped me hard in the ribs, aiming for the shredded section of my blouse and the deep gashes underneath. The punch exploded the air from my lungs and sent a fresh wash of pain sizzling through my veins.

I sucked in a breath, my broken ribs gashing muscle and nerves, pain screaming through me. And then he punched me again. My feet gave way, my body swinging out like a sack of sand. I yelped, losing what little air I’d recollected, fresh pain rending my insides with every heartbeat. My brain went fuzzy—threatening to go dark—and I shook my head, stumbling to regain my footing and keep my wits.

He held my sword arm firm, keeping it up above my head. “Hitting you is great fun, but you distract me from my duty,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said and swallowed around the pain of it. “That was the plan. Let you pummel me like a side of beef just to keep you from blowin’ that horn. Ha! Joke’s on you, right?”

A bizarre smile tugged at the corners of his mouth that pulled the skin up from his big square teeth flashing brown gums and drool.
Wrong in so many ways.

That did it. I had to get free of this thing and my desperation gave the girl in me free rein. Finding my balance, I centered my weight on one leg and jerked my knee straight up, hard and fast, putting all the power of my angelic blood into the move. My knee connected with his very
male
body—right between his legs.

I was pretty sure his balls rammed up somewhere behind his belly button. His hold on my wrist loosened, and I jabbed the hilt of my sword into the tender spot of his temple, finally driving the big demon to his knees.

He was down, but not out and I only had a second to keep him from striking back. I cocked my blade to my shoulder like a baseball bat and swung, slicing his head from his neck.

Black ooze sprayed like a volcano from the stump left behind, coating the ram’s horn hanging against his chest. I reached for it, but before I could get a good grip his whole body disintegrated into to a stinky, black goop pile, the horn sinking down into the center of the mess.

It didn’t matter. The people who hadn’t reached Bariel were already snapping out of their trance. The spell was broken, but that didn’t stop Bariel from offering those close enough a sword to defend themselves.

Who could blame them for taking the weapon? People were fighting all around them, dying right before their eyes. They didn’t know those people were angels, demons, and nephilim. Most probably didn’t know they were nephilim, too. They just wanted to leave and figured they’d have to fight their way out.

Another bolt of lightning snapped across the sky, so close the hairs on my arms tingled from the electrical discharge. I limped forward, shoving away my wet bangs, and tensing against each agonizing jolt of pain. The deep bruising, and even the broken rib would heal in a few minutes, but I’d been cut by a demon’s claw that left brimstone boiling under my skin.

I couldn’t waste time thinking about it. I had to stop Bariel from turning nephilim and making new gibborim to add to the battle. I spotted him for a second, only to lose him when he blinked away. He was moving fast around the stadium, cutting off the retreating nephilim who’d been entranced into coming to the stadium. Every one of them were taking up Jukar’s sword, fueling the fight.

Once the confused, frightened people picked up the sword, he’d push them into the path of an illorum or a tired magister, then moved on to the next. They didn’t know using the sword against a defender of God, even in defense of themselves, would mark them as a gibborim…and Bariel wasn’t telling them. To their panicked eyes, everyone was a threat, and so they attacked.

Bariel was sending these innocent people to their deaths. Once they were marked, they became the enemy and eventually they would be killed. I had to stop him.

I fought to focus my thoughts through the poisoned haze fogging my brain. The brimstone burned inside me, making the effort twice as hard, but I managed to track the demon. Once I locked onto him I was able to follow his unearthly quick movements. The thought solidified in my mind to move, just as he blinked from a young kid in a baseball cap—maybe fifteen years old—to an older woman, cowering on the steps near the outfield.