Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (46 page)

She turned, a silent breath of wings, and edged back down the stairs.

*   *   *

Michael dropped to one knee, and cupped the vial in his hands.

Inhaled its shimmering golden glow.

Bathed in its magical shadows and light.

Fuck, yeah. The heady flavor dizzied him, sparkled fresh strength through his limbs, imbued his ancient soul with power he’d rarely felt before in his five thousand years. Better than sex. Richer than the spurt of demon blood on his blade. More enticing than betraying a friend.

He laughed, and diamonds rained.
Yes. It’s mine.

And now I can use it for what it was made for.

Beside him, bleeding on the stones, wingless Salome groaned, whispering a few broken words.

“What?” he murmured, without interest. “Did you say something, darling?”

Her broken body shuddered. Blood oozed from her pores with the effort of the horrible wheezing noise she was making. “Set me…free…”

Michael flicked his wings, landing beside her in a crouch. She didn’t smell too good, but hell, he wouldn’t either if he was lying in his own piss. Her teeth were broken. She wasn’t pretty anymore. “Why the hell should I do that?”

“Free…” It was all she could manage. Her breath exhaled, rasping. Exhaustion and pain clouded her pale blue eyes.

He leaned closer. “Do you think I don’t know what you are?” He laughed, and frost crusted her bleeding lashes. “Gabriel’s feathered fuck-buddy? Oh, yes, Salome, I know exactly what the two of you are up to. Did he tell you to keep this away from me? At all costs?” He dangled the vial between his fingers, taunting her.

She tried to shrink back. But she had nowhere to go. No muscles she could move.

Michael liked it when they were tied down.

He set the vial down carefully. Folded his hand around her neck, and squeezed.

Her eyes bulged. He tasted her scarred cheek with his tongue. Salty, unfresh with terror and torture. “Well, this is what ‘all costs’ means,” he hissed. “Do you swallow for him? Do you? Well, suck up your ugly pride and swallow
that
, Salome. And tell Gabriel I’ll see him on the other side.”

She writhed, her face purpling. Her swelling flesh excited him. Michael squeezed harder. It made him think of doing the same to Gabriel…

Mmm. All in good time, brother. Satan first. Then you and I will have words. Oh, yes, we will.

Salome’s eyes drained to empty gray. Pleading. Imploring him for mercy, to let her free, let her heal.

Mercy.

Now
that
was a fucking laugh.

He let go, and punched his fist through her chest, and tore out her heart.

*   *   *

At the bottom of the stairs, Jadzia clutched the wall in one numb hand. Her heart pounded. Her limbs screamed to flee, but she stood, frozen to that spot.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit
…

He killed her. So Gabriel wouldn’t know. And now he’s got the vial
…

Her chest constricted, treacherous, and she gasped for air.

Michael jumped up, Salome’s beating heart dripping in his hand…and his homicidal blue stare homed in on Jadzia.

She backed off, stumbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Michael’s feathers burned, rich with glory and rage. He dropped the bleeding heart. It squelched on the stones. And he sprang, and crashed to the floor in front of her.

The shockwave staggered her. Effortlessly, Michael grabbed a fistful of her hair. Salome’s still-warm blood dripped onto her armor. “I warned you, Jadzia. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Panic leapt wild in her veins. She fought, kicking, clawing for his face, his fingers, anything…

Michael just shoved her backwards. White fire flashed from his palm, insufferably bright. She screamed, blinded, and something hard and impossibly strong punched her in the chest…

She fell to her knees, choking on hot liquid. Blood. She gasped for breath, but only more blood.

He’d stabbed her. Right through her silver-plated chest, into her heart.

Jadzia gasped a prayer. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her heartbeat stumbled, and stopped.

And oblivion drowned her.

CHAPTER 42

Hurtling on hell-whipped breeze, Japheth homed in on Michael’s sugar-ice scent. He knew it well. It clogged his mouth, ran like blood in his feathers. Snow stung his face, and he plunged to earth with a hungry howl.

His body coalesced from glittering black ash, and in an explosion of feathers and clawing hands, he crashed into Michael and knocked him flat.

Lightning crackled, violet and blue, archangel on demon. Gravel grated Japheth’s cheek. Dead flesh and fire stunk the air rabid. Squishy warmth coated his palms. A dead angel. Crucified, flayed, her heart torn out.

Inches from his nose, the holy vial gleamed golden.

For a moment, the sight stung him useless.
And the fourth angel poured out his vial over the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire
…

Michael kicked him in the guts, flinging him across the room. He somersaulted, crashing into the wall. Michael sprang aloft on icy wings. Japheth fell and stumbled into a fighting crouch. And the archangel landed with a juddering crunch on the scorched stone floor of the monastery hall.

He laughed, and crystalline shards sliced the air, a sweet-sharp dissonance. “What the hell happened to you?”

Japheth spat gritty vomit. Ultraviolet flame rippled over his wings, the eerie dark light of hatred. In the corner by the stairs, another dead angel slumped, blood flowing in her pale blond hair.

Jadzia.

His heart stung, swift and poisonous. “You did,” he growled. It tasted of rage and sour injustice. He liked it.

“Now, that’s not fair.” Michael circled, ice-blue wings glittering like knives. “I didn’t shove demon’s blood down your throat. Is that what happened, Jae?”

“No.
You
happened.” Japheth advanced, his demon-spelled senses sharp. His vision zoomed, his ears pricked at the tiniest noise. Michael’s heartbeat, his feathers as they rustled together, his tongue as he licked his beautiful lips. He could taste the archangel’s deceitful breath from across the room, and rage stabbed him wild.

He clutched his sword, so tight his fingers cramped and bled. “You cast me out for nothing. You lied to me!”

“Poor you.” Michael flashed a sarcastic smile. “I lie to everyone. It’s my job. Doesn’t make you special.”

“I trusted you!” Tears burned his eyes, and he sizzled them away. “You wanted what I had, and when you couldn’t have it, you got rid of me.” He snarled, blood spitting, and waited for Michael to deny it. It wasn’t true. Zuul lied. All demons lied…

But the archangel just laughed, razor-bright, and his bitterness showered like acid rain, smoking holes into the stone. “You got above yourself. You belong to
me
, Japheth. I
own
you.”

Scarlet mist blinded him. The ground shook, and he struggled to see, to clear his rage before it exploded. “I never fought that! You know I didn’t—”

“Then you should have pulled your fucking ego in. I gave you every chance. But you just wanted the glory.” Michael’s eyes flashed with starlit hatred. “Well, the glory’s mine, angel. Not yours.
Mine
.”

Finality slammed hard into Japheth’s guts, a cruel sucker-punch. Zuul was right. All these years, he’d been so sure there was a reason. Grimly, he’d fought against the silent, creeping evil in his heart…and there wasn’t any.

Michael had Tainted him for nothing.

Insanity gripped him, the hungry claws of hell, and he thrashed, and screamed, and surrendered.

His fangs sprang out, sharp and bleeding, and his mouth watered. A hungry smile spread over his lips. “Well, you got what you wanted. You told me I was lower than demonscum, and I believed you. And now I’m damned. Does that make you happy?”

“It makes me retch,” Michael growled. “You flaunted all that fucking honor, and now you’re just a demon’s whore like the rest. Your stink fouls the air I breathe. Get out of my sight, hellshit. Crawl on your knees back to Babylon and suck your new master’s cock. It’s what you’re good at.”

Japheth laughed, and the walls spat fire. “I’ll be in hell soon enough, don’t worry about that. But I’ve got a job to do first.”

A sarcastic grin. “Sorry. All done. The vial’s mine. You can tell your demon prince his Apocalypse is over—”

“Shut up.” Black lightning crackled in his fingers. He advanced, in a glitter of scarlet ash, and steel shimmered alive in his hand. He flexed hot fingers around the sword grip. Light, perfectly balanced. The burning iron felt good. “You feasted your filthy soul on my misery,” he hissed. “You cut my heart out and let me bleed for fourteen hundred empty, excruciating years and I will make you pay for it, Misha, if it damns my soul for a thousand eternities. I’ll have my vengeance. Tonight.”

Michael’s eyes glittered. He flashed his sword, and crouched, leveling it one-handed, a blinding slash of bitter blue flame. “Okay, lover,” he whispered, and smiled that magnificent killer’s smile. “If that’s the way you want it? Come get me.”

Japheth howled, and hurled hellfire.

Michael hurtled aloft, and conjured thunder. Head splitting, ripping the air asunder, the curling stink of ozone.
Japheth staggered, blood gushing from his ears, and Michael dived, a supersonic blue arrow edged in lethal heavensteel.

Japheth twisted, dizzy. Michael’s sword pierced his shoulder. Blood spurted, hissing. He grabbed Michael’s shimmering hair and smashed his forehead into the archangel’s nose. Bone crackled. Fire mingled, blue on scarlet, and exploded, flinging them in opposite directions.

Japheth slammed backwards into the wall. Bones crunched, pain shooting through his veins like the sweetest drug. He healed his broken bones, a spritz of ashen spellwork, and they shuddered and knitted, a dark ache that invigorated him. He scrambled up. Michael was already aloft. He shook his head, dizzy. He knew Michael’s moves. The archangel knew his. With his hellspells, they were evenly matched.

This could take all night.

Michael speared straight at him, wings streamlined back, shrieking electric blue hatred. Japheth met him head on. Sword blades clashed. Lightning struck and sizzled. His arm jarred with the force of the blow, and they hit the ground together. He whipped his wings taut, and rolled, just in time to avoid Michael’s stabbing sword point…but the archangel’s fist slammed into Japheth’s trailing wrist, and his hell-spelled blade shrieked and shattered.

Shit!
He dissolved, and sprang from the ether a foot away. But the sword didn’t come back. Michael had destroyed it.

Japheth cursed, foul words souring the air. He flexed his healing wrist, fresh flame licking his skin. But his mind raced.
No sword. Should’ve seen that coming
…

From the corner of his hell-spelled vision, he spied the golden vial. Sitting on the stone floor, muttering, spitting angry orange flame like lava.

He didn’t think. He just dived.

Beneath Michael’s slashing diamond-blue wings, an inch aside from the archangel’s lethal scything blade. He rolled, and came up with the vial in his fist.

It burned, sweet fucking hell it hurt, the glory raking under his skin and chewing at his cursed bones. He screamed, shuddering, but held on.

Lightning split the stone ceiling, cracking it apart with the
force of holy wrath. The earth quaked, and split in two with a sepulchral groan. Flames leapt from the crack, hissing scarlet and blue.

Stormy wind howled, and freezing rain hammered down, deafening. He staggered, but stayed upright. “You want this?” he screamed over the roar. “Then come and get it!”

Michael growled at bay on the other side of the crack. “Give me that. You’re not fit to touch it.”

“And you are? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Let’s see, then,” Michael snarled, and advanced. “Why don’t we ask God?”

“Because He doesn’t talk to me! You made sure of that.” Japheth shook the burning vial in his fist. The golden liquid sloshed dangerously, licking the vial’s narrow lip. He gripped it tighter, and his blood sang with strange pleasure-pain.