Angel Of Solace (32 page)

“Understood,” Kronn replied. “Good luck, my friend.”

“You too, sir.”

A pair of shots blew out a chunk of the wall he was hiding behind, spraying the entire area with flaming plaster. Kronn counted to four before spinning out and firing again. A support column on the far side of the room, already scorched and battered, completely fractured apart when his third shot struck its center. Two enemies who had been using it as cover dove away to try and find new positions, but Kronn managed to tag one before he got anywhere. His friends on the other side of the room, however, retaliated quickly.

Kronn screeched as a shot burned through his shoulder armor, and before he could drop down another one caught him squarely in the chest. Suddenly he was lying flat on the ground, but the pain vanished. He glanced down to his smoldering torso and wondered dimly if the armor had saved his life—and then he tasted the burning bile and blood in his throat, and realized he couldn’t breathe.

He made a grunt that almost sounded like a bitter chuckle, and then his helmet smacked flat against the floor. At least, he thought darkly to himself, he wouldn’t end up in a cell being interrogated by another Portis. At least he had given Sariel and the others a chance. At least he didn’t have to look Shyrah in the eyes one last time.

A faint smile stretched across his lips before the darkness claimed him.

Chapter Twenty One

“Fine,” Sariel said. “Let them all go, and I surrender.”

Marivean raised an eyebrow and a crooked smile played at his lips. “There is some sense in you, then.”

“No!” Damien snapped, lunging towards her. “You can’t do—”

His entire body lurched violently, and a moment later he was flying through the air again—and then she reached out with her own powers and grabbed him. He stopped abruptly, suspended in mid-air but utterly immobilized.

“Release him,” she growled. “That’s the deal.”

The other Angel made an amused grunt. “Very well, sister.”

He released his grip, and Damien dropped softly to the floor. As tempting as it was to dash over and see if he was all right, she knew she couldn’t afford it. Not quite yet…

“Come with me,” Marivean beckoned, extending his hand. “It is time for us to go home.”

Sariel drew in a deep breath and tried to make herself relax. Behind her, Damien was pulling himself to his feet, a bit shaken but otherwise fine. She turned back to Marivean and the hand he was offering her.

A memory flashed in her mind: two years ago, the High Priest offering his hand after telling her she had been selected for the Bonding. She would become an Angel, and her power and virtue would be an inspiration to all who walked the path of God. She had been ecstatic, and she had believed every word.

Now she couldn’t see past the lies and the hate, or the barely restrained fury burning in Marivean’s dark eyes. He too had been a man once, perhaps with the same good intentions and naïve faith she herself had once possessed. But staring into his face at this moment, she saw nothing human about it. It was little more than a shell for an alien mind consumed with revenge.

A mind which might have held the only key to her own survival. 

Sariel straightened herself and walked forward. She touched his hand and closed her eyes. The empathic spark flared between them, and it was just as potent as she imagined. All his emotions—certainty, determination, and malice—battered against her like a tidal wave, and her knees buckled as she tried to stand against it. He was even stronger than she had thought possible…

“Welcome home, my sister,” Marivean said softly. “You have been missed.”

“I’m not your sister,” she told him, steadying herself and opening her eyes. “I am your end.”

Sariel channeled all her power into him, bombarding his mind with all the rage and turmoil inside her. He stumbled against the unexpected assault, and for an instant she thought she might overpower him quickly, push through his barriers and—

She felt the creature inside her stir. Not the Angel, but the Demon that had always been a part of her. For the first time its thoughts pushed in her mind, its compassion for her twisting with its hatred of the Angel that was trying to consume them both. And then she felt its power bristling through her mind, and the room was once again bathed in a bright silvery radiance. 

Marivean let out a feral roar and fell to a knee, pulling her down with him. Her hand had gone white clasping his, but this was not a struggle of bone and flesh. It was a battle of the mind, and he had not been prepared for the strength of her assault. Renewed by the Demon’s power, she pushed past his mental barriers towards his memories, searching for the secret that might set her free…

No
! a voice screeched inside her. This one was far more familiar; the Angel was now surging to life, pulling down its brother inside her.
You are mine!

She felt herself shriek, but she somehow managed to keep her grip. Her body became a battleground again, this time more violent than ever. It was as if she were flanked by an Angel on both sides, and all that was left to defend her was the lone Demon she had carried since childhood. It was a battle she couldn’t win.

But then, she had known that from the start. This wasn’t about winning. Not yet.

 “Now, Damien,” she breathed.

She felt a whisper of air as Damien dove past her to grab onto the other Angel. Marivean roared again, and she could feel the sudden terror in his thoughts as he realized what was happening.

“Tell me everything,” the Incubus whispered as he grabbed hold of Marivean’s face and plunged into his mind.

Sariel clenched her teeth and did her best to hold back a scream. She wouldn’t last long and she knew it; she could already taste the blood trickling from her nose. For good or ill, she had initiated the final battle in this war for control of her body, and there was no turning back. 

But it didn’t matter. She didn’t matter, not in the end. As long as Damien got what he needed—as long as he learned every Covenant secret he could from Marivean’s mind—then it was all worth it. He would be able to save so many others, including himself.

And most importantly, he would know how to destroy the Covenant once and for all.

***

The Chosen had a reputation as fierce and borderline insane warriors, and really, Shyrah wouldn’t have expected any less from a bunch of brainwashed zealots. Still, she had to admit they put up one hell of a fight, especially given how badly their first skirmish had gone for them.

Twelve minutes after their battle on the landing pad, they were finally approaching the area Corin had tentatively identified as the most likely place for their command center based on signal traffic, power usage, and whatever other wizardry went into making that assessment. She didn’t doubt him, though; the Chosen were gradually pulling back towards that same area. But this was taking too long and costing them too much.

“Last floor,” Corin commented as he peered up the stairwell.

Shyrah nodded, sweeping her rifle up towards their target doorway as they approached. They had been fighting up these damn stairs most of the trip, and had even managed to collapse several floors worth of them. Without her powers, they would have all been dead several times over, either crushed from falling debris or detonated by grenades. But even with them, only four members of her team remained, and she knew the police wouldn’t be long in joining the fray.

She clenched her jaw and focused on the doorway, lamenting for about the hundredth time how they didn’t have more shield projectors. The damn things were absurdly expensive, and theirs had all burned out in the opening fray. Now they were just going to have to rely on luck, plus whatever alien magic she could cook up.

“Just stay back and let me handle this,” she told the others, summoning her powers. She felt drained already—far more than she had during their escape from the ESI base. It seemed like she had just run up about a hundred flights of stairs—though to be fair, they had jogged up about ten.

Shyrah reached out with her mind to the door and ripped it from its hinges, then pushed it a few meters into the room. As she expected, the firestorm was almost immediate; shots from at least three different directions blasted into the floating hunk of metal. It wasn’t nearly as good as a shield projector, but it was better than nothing. She quickly dove in behind it and used it as a makeshift shield before lunging behind a desk. She then hurled what was left of the superheated slab into the center of the room.

It was a big area, just as the blueprints had shown: twenty-by-twenty, and mostly empty outside of unused desks and office equipment. There was, however, a rather extensive computer terminal near the room’s center, and she made a mental note to do her best not to blow it up if at all possible.

A few of her men fired from their position in the doorframe despite her orders, but as much as she wanted to yell at them, it did give her the break she needed. As one of the enemy Chosen tried to dive for new cover, she reached out with her mind and grabbed onto his body. All she did was toss him up in the air a few meters, but it was more than enough. Exposed and out of cover, he was immediately gunned down by her men. Now all that remained was to find the other two…

“Grenade!” Corin cried.

Shyrah turned back towards the door and saw the small cylinder rolling towards it. She quickly plucked it up with her powers and hurled it back across the room—

It exploded in mid-air before it was clear, and she reeled against the flash, momentarily blinded. She felt the sting of molten shrapnel bite through her armor and heard the cries of her people in the doorway. More shots sounded, and by the time her vision cleared it seemed like the entire room was saturated in smoke and flame.

She propped herself up just over the edge of the desk, firing a few wild shots for cover and hoping to catch a glance of their attackers, and a hand suddenly clutched onto her shoulders and pulled with a frenzied scream. She flipped up and over the desk, tumbling recklessly when she hit the floor again. Her weapon flew from her grip and she put her arms up defensively as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“Demon bitch!” her attacker roared, swinging forth a weapon that would finish her off.

In the fraction of a second before she died, Shyrah reached her mind out to the gun and wrenched at it, trying to shift his aim—

It mostly worked. The barrel twisted as the shot fired, ruining the weapon, but the blast still singed her side and burned away a chunk of her armor. She screamed at the flash of pain and rolled away to get behind cover in case his partner tried to finish the job.

She could barely make out her opponent through the smoke and cracks in her visor, but he was tall and muscular. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and the short hair on the right side of his head seemed badly singed—likely a casualty of one of their earlier skirmishes. Undoubtedly his most striking feature, however, was the glowing latticework of blue veins across his neck and face.

For a moment they just stared at each other, shots still firing behind them in the smoke-filled room. An insane, zealous fury burned in his eyes, and she knew from his countenance alone why the Chosen were feared by Demons across the world. His entire purpose in life was to subdue or kill people like her, and she wondered idly how much innocent blood was on his hands.

Then she reached for the pistol at her side as he pounced forward on top of her, flailing in a manic flurry of blows. Shyrah had a lot of training in close-quarters combat, including many styles designed to use an enemy’s strength against them. They had served her well in countless skirmishes over the years, both in the Syndicate and the Asurans.

In less than a second, she knew her skills were useless here. He was probably twice as strong and at least as fast, and before she knew what was happening he was pummeling her armor and tearing off her helmet. He countered every block and flattened every attempt to escape. Suddenly his hands were wrapped around her neck and he was crushing the life from her…

Light exploded from her body, and the Chosen actually winced. Without her even willing it to happen, her mind grabbed onto his body and tried to hurl him away—

She was tired and drained, and his raw determination was overwhelming. She had crushed walls with a thought, and right now she could barely hold a single man off of her. His hands were only centimeters from her neck, and he still had her completely pinned with his body. He roared as he fought against the invisible grip, creeping so close she could feel the heat from his fingers…

In that final moment between life and death, Shyrah caught her reflection in the man’s gaping eyes. Streaks of white laced through her hair, and as she watched her blue eyes began to darken bit by bit until they were little more than globes of burnished obsidian.

The Chosen paused when he saw it, confusion cutting through his insane rage, and for a moment he even gave up some ground. “Angel?” he whispered.

“Nope,” she breathed. “Just another Demon bitch.”

She shoved as hard as she could, and he lurched backwards off of her. It was all she had left, and she knew it wouldn’t be enough. He roared when he hit the ground and immediately bounced back to his feet, ready to pounce upon her again—

And a pulse shot exploded in his chest. The Chosen tilted to his side as if he couldn’t believe it, eyes fixed upon the crouching man with a pistol in the corner, when the second shot hit him in the head. He collapsed to the ground, the latticework of blue veins still glowing menacingly even through the blood.

“Corin,” Shyrah managed, leaning up slightly. The firing, she belatedly noticed, had stopped.

Corin smiled faintly and dropped his gun. His entire body stopped moving.

Shyrah dove across the room, whatever little energy she had left instantly flooding through her. He was wounded; his armor was badly scorched in several places, and a jagged shard of metal stuck out from his side.