Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (34 page)

stood between Ethan and Bain as we crossed the meadow. Belial grew larger and larger with each step. I resisted the urge to wrap my fingers around Ethan’s; I needed to be stronger than that. To show fear could be disastrous. And there was too much at stake; any one of us might need to reach for a weapon. Or two or three.

The early morning sun warmed my face as we walked. I tried hard to pretend an entire army wasn’t watching our approach. I still couldn’t make out who was who among the Nephilim, but I could see the weapons of the misshapen soldiers much, much better now. Swords and axes and other implements of war that I didn’t recognize gleamed. I ripped my gaze away from Belial’s forces and focused on its master: Belial himself.

He stood a bit off from the dead center of the meadow. As we approached, Bain stopped us with a single outstretched arm. “We wait here,” he said in a close approximation of a growl. Belial saw us pause, and nodded, considering. Finally, he and his guards moved toward us. They didn’t walk so much as prowl; I was reminded of Annabel stalking paper wads. Except much bigger. And deadlier. And evil.

Did I mention evil?

I hung on to the word as Belial met us in the middle of the meadow. There were still several feet of space between us―an invisible barrier no one wanted to cross. That was fine with me. I hate to admit it, but a small part of me was grateful Bain had taken the lead in this little meeting. Ethan and I stood off to either side of him. That way, maybe Belial would decide to get our creepy and mysterious host first, if it came down to it.

“I’d say welcome to my home, but you weren’t exactly invited,” Bain said in a slightly mocking tone.

If Belial recognized any mockery, he chose to ignore it. “You are not who I wish to speak with,” the demon said. His sightless eyes drew together in annoyance.

“He means me,” Ethan said, stepping in front of Bain and dangerously close to the no-man zone that seemed to exist between the two warring parties.

Too close, in my opinion. I moved forward to follow him, but Bain stopped me again with his outstretched arm.

He wouldn’t want you in any more danger than you already are
, a voice said in my head.

Wait, what? Was Bain a telepath now? Ridiculous. I shook my head, filing away the information for a later time when we weren’t face to face with our worst enemy. Nonetheless, I stayed put behind Bain and watched the action unfold with trepidation.

“What is between us does not concern these people,” Ethan said. His hand rested on his sword belt; the hilt of Azazel’s blade could have been in his hands in a matter of seconds.

I couldn’t help but wonder as I looked at the master of the Twilight Kingdom, standing there in black edged with silver and a sword that looked too big for me to even lift, let alone wield, if seconds wouldn’t already be too late for Ethan.

He showed no fear. My once-immortal stood there, hand on his sword belt, and didn’t back down. He locked eyes with Belial, sightless black holes meeting Ethan’s clear, blue-green gaze. His hand moved to the pommel of his sword and rested there. They stood only feet apart, near mirror-images of each other. The rest of Belial’s guard and his army melted away until it was only the two of them, seemingly suspended in time.

“I’ve waited so long,” Belial said, more softly than I would have expected. “I have dreamed of this moment. This confrontation.”

“What do you want, Brother?” Ethan asked. His voice carried an edge, and I recognized the tension coursing through him by the way he held himself so still. “You have no quarrel here with anyone but me.”

The demon’s eyes fixed on me for a moment. I knew he couldn’t see me, not really, but being in his direct gaze, however sightless, still made me shiver, reminding me that being blind didn’t equal a lack of vision.

“I would give back the pain you gave me. She”―he indicated me with a nod of his head―“is valuable to me.”

“You won’t touch her,” Ethan growled. The fingers holding his sword tightened until they turned white.

“Give her to me, and I will spare these people. Keep her from me, and I will kill you all, and take her still,” Belial responded in a disturbingly even tone.

I stood there getting rather irritated that I was the topic of conversation. They were discussing me as if I wasn’t right there, capable of defending myself, possessed of Shadows which could harm the Fallen and the Light alike. Shadows I could feel just beneath my skin, pulsating and eager to get out. I vowed to ignore the icy waves through my fingers, and turned my attention back to the unfolding drama.

“The Light is coming to crush you,” Ethan told Belial.

The near-mirror image laughed. “And you as well, Brother.” He nodded toward me. “They come for your human’s head.” The eerie calm that had been cloaking Belial slipped for a minute. For a moment, I saw a being as mad as Asheroth, and just as angry. Loss and rage swam in the depthless void of his eyes. “As you came for
her
, so many years ago.”

Ethan bowed his head. “I was only doing my job. What I thought was right. It was certainly better, for her, anyway―“

Belial cut him off with an angry wave. “Enough. No matter how much you fight me, the Light is on its way to do the same thing. You’ll be fighting on two sides, and she’ll be the target for both of them. At least, if you give her and the other Azalene to me, they have a chance of being on the winning side.” Belial smirked. “I would treat her well, you know.”

“This is what you want?” Ethan asked, unbelieving. “This is what you dragged us out here to say?” He snorted. “You may as well go back to hell, Brother.”

Belial regarded Ethan with a kind of disbelief as if seeing his brother for the first time while Bain chuckled to himself. I was too smoldering mad to do anything but stand there and try to stifle the Shadows. I didn’t want to start a war by attacking the other side’s leader first.

Then, in the distance, but still directly behind us, the martial beat of drums pounded, coming closer. They were in perfect unison, and soon a horn joined them, its notes crystal clear and strong as they rang out across the horizon. The steady march of footsteps could be heard, just barely, above the music.

I spun to see what was approaching. Neither Ethan nor Belial turned from facing each other, but the demon’s guards were a different story. They spun away from their leader’s side, their focus wholly on protecting Belial. Bain and I both waited on our side of the meadow.

Golden armor gleamed in the sun. Light refracted off sharp blades and ornate bows. They wore the old style of breast plate, the kind that looked like it hadn’t evolved in over a thousand years. I clutched what had once been Ethan’s jacket to me fiercely, rubbing the folds of the tough fabric between my thumbs. Since he first gave it to me, it had become like a second skin, and I wanted it near me now. I needed the comfort every bit as much as I needed the protection.

I spared a moment to be glad that the Earth-bound angels, whether Fallen or merely performing the business of Messengers, had already adopted their armor to modern fashion. I much preferred the leather jackets that had replaced breastplates here on Earth. And they were just as protective. Would they keep me safe once the fighting started? I could only hope. Ethan stood beside me wearing Jack’s armor, the one that had come wrapped around Azazel’s Blade, the deadliest weapon we had, so he was far from defenseless, especially given his immunity to magic. But even with the combination of a deadly weapon, his own unique status as an Immune, and impenetrable armor, I still worried for him.

He was only human, after all. Even if that humanity was what made a future for us possible, I would always worry.

I couldn’t count all the soldiers the Light had sent against us. Unlike Belial’s army, they seemed uninterested in displaying the size of their forces. Instead, bright figures hung back in the trees, hugging the meadow’s edge, making it impossible to get an accurate idea of their numbers. I could only assume their army was larger than ours; it had looked that way the night Jack and I had gone spying.

A small group broke from the cover of the trees. One of them was clearly in charge. His uniform was more ornate, and he carried two massive swords crossed over his back. Like Belial, he had extended his wings to an impressive expanse. They towered even above Belial’s, but unlike the demon’s abyss, the leader’s wings were made of radiance and blinding Light. His surrounding guards also had their wings extended, and they were almost as blinding to look at as their leader’s. I caught myself taking a small, involuntary step backward as he advanced on our group.

“Yet another party I did not invite,” Bain said.

The angel ignored us, striding to a place that was equidistant between us and Belial. The knot of us stood there in the middle of the meadow, glaring at each other. The leader of the Light was the first to speak. “We will give you one chance to surrender your Nephilim to us. Our intelligence tells us both sides harbor them.” He looked at me, quick as a flash, as he spoke. So he had already marked me as a target. Great. His face was devoid of any visible emotion. His eyes seemed to look through rather than at me.

“To be tortured and murdered?” Ethan asked. His grip on the sword was very tight indeed.

“You would know, E’than’i’el,” Belial said flatly. “You’ve done it all before.”

Ethan refused to be baited. He ignored the demon’s barb and stared straight at the angel of the Light. “Do you expect me to believe you’ll stop there?” he asked calmly. I already knew the answer to that one, and it was a big fat “no.”

But this time, the radiant angel spoke to the demon alone. “We will defeat your army, as well,” he spoke with the same calm conviction he might use to announce current weather conditions. “How foolish to think you can challenge the Realm of Light. Did you not get enough of defeat at our last encounter?” He turned to me. “Then we will wipe your kind from the face of the Earth, just as we did all those centuries ago.”

I should have held back, but it had been a long time since I had met anyone who could so instantly press my buttons. “Newsflash,” I announced. “You failed before. There are still enough of us Nephilim left to kick your ass.”

He only paid me enough attention to give me a serene, blank look. Then, he swiveled to face Ethan. “And E’than’i’el. They told me they had turned you mortal, but I did not believe. How far you have Fallen.”

“Not so far as to be unable to defend myself.” He pulled Azazel’s blade loose from its scabbard with a ringing sound heard all the way across the clearing. “Or to meet you in battle, In’ri’el.”

The angel betrayed the slightest bit of emotion as soon as the sword gleamed free in the sunlight. There was an almost imperceptible tightening of the skin around his eyes and mouth. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was. His companions wore similar expressions. It was clear they both knew what the blade was too, and feared what it could do to them. As they should.

“More abomination,” the angel named In’ri’el said. His own hand went to the hilt of his sword. “Just when I think you can’t Fall any further, E’than’i’el.”

The angel surprised us by pulling his sword free as well, gripping it as he took a battle stance in front of us. I was shocked at first; we were just supposed to be here to talk. But as the soldier of the Light brought his blade up, then sliced downwards toward Ethan in an arcing motion, I found myself reacting almost without thought. It was as if I was an observer stuck somewhere outside my body, watching my reactions in growing disbelief.

Ethan swung his blade upward to meet the Light’s attack. In’ri’el’s sword met it in a shower of red-hot sparks. The angel’s golden breastplate gleamed in the sun, and thought again of how Ethan was mortal now. Breakable.

My hands were in motion before my brain knew what it was doing. Some deeply buried, ancestral instinct took over, and my twin daggers were unsheathed and in my hands in seconds. The angels of the Light didn’t notice me, so focused were they on Ethan and Belial. They had no attention to spare for a seemingly helpless Nephilim girl standing mute on the fringes of her group. But the demon noticed me, and took a small step backward at what I wielded.