Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (37 page)

“There!” I bellowed, jerking our joined hands toward the pair. I felt, rather than saw, Jack’s nod of assent. I let him guide me, his tattoos pulsing around the edges as he aimed at the fighting pair. A thick blast of black power erupted from the two of us, knocking the angel down. He didn’t move again.

I wanted to hug Jack, to crow in triumph, but he wouldn’t let go. He was already scanning the battle, looking for more targets, when I looked back at Ethan and Belial.

Only yards behind us, Belial had somehow disarmed Ethan and had him in a chokehold.

I couldn’t make myself hold on to Jack any longer. I let go of him and ran, full out, mindless of the demons and angels and creatures that fought all around me. I failed to heed Jack’s warning cry and kept running, kept trying to close the distance to where Belial had somehow gained the upper hand. He had wrapped one single massive hand around Ethan’s pale, human throat, and was proceeding to choke the life out of him. Literally. The sword passed down from Azazel lay abandoned on the grass at his feet. If Ethan could only get free, could only wrest a few inches from the demon’s pressing grip…

But it was not to be. Ethan was slowing down. His eyes were clouding over and his features were unnaturally pale. I realized I was screaming, begging, pleading, but if Belial heard it, it only served to make him crueler. Finally, I could stand it no more; I closed the distance and threw myself at the demon, heedless of everything around me, and wrapped Shadows around his arm.

Obsidian fire sprang into being in an instant, bathing Belial’s entire arm with dark flames of power.

Belial dropped Ethan with an inarticulate cry as the lines of Shadows crept from his arm and snaked across his torso. I found myself thrown from my hold on his back, hitting the ground with a force that turned everything black and momentarily stopped my breathing. I regained the power of sight in time to see Belial growling and clawing at the Shadows. Unable to make them disappear, he advanced on me until his looming figure blocked out the sun.

“You will pay as she paid,” Belial thundered, but I barely heard him because a demonic hand was now locked around my neck.

My vision blurred as I lost air and everything began growing dim around the edges. I gathered my thoughts to beg him, to plead with him, but it did no good as my tongue thickened and speech became impossible. I was going to die.

And then Jack crashed into us from the side. He held Azazel’s blade, the sword his father had given him before he died, high in the sun. He must have grabbed it from the grass where Ethan had fallen. The sword looked right there, as if it belonged there, in a way it never had in Ethan’s grasp. And with one great swing, Jack cut off the demonic hand that was choking me to death. Something wet and burning splattered across my cheek, and I realized it was what passed for Belial’s blood.

I fell back to the ground and rolled, landing next to a still-gasping Ethan, who reached for me with shaking hands.

Belial, enraged and in pain, took two steps towards Jack. I couldn’t see the future like Cassandra could, but I didn’t need a drawing to know what was coming. Before Jack could raise the blade again, Belial cut him with his own black dagger, driving it forward and deep, straight into the center of his heart.

I screamed and screamed, pushing Shadows that had no direction, Jack dropped to his knees in front of me, the life bleeding from his eyes. He lay, cold and still, just like the figure I couldn’t identify in my drawing.

I had no time to register my shock, my grief, and my horror as I watched Jack collapse on the ground. I wanted to reach out to him, to hold his rough hand one last time in mine, but I knew I wouldn’t feel anything from our linked hands now. There was no combined power to share, no way we could ever be a weapon together again.

I was alone, the last Azalene.

Beside me on the grass, Ethan alone made an effort to acknowledge our loss. He tried to crawl toward me, but he had been too badly damaged by the fight with Belial. No one else noticed anything in the heat of the battle. Around us, the fight raged on.

The light from Jack’s tattoos had faded entirely. I looked for it, remembering the way they used to shimmer around the edges, when a shadow fell over me in the grass. Belial loomed over both Ethan and me now; I fumbled for my daggers, hoping against hope that I would be in time, would still have enough strength left in me somewhere, to save both myself and Ethan. But as Belial’s sightless eyes grew ever closer, I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough.

Ethan reached out for his sword, but it lay too far for his questing fingers on the grass next to Jack’s now lifeless form. As I closed my eyes and prepared for the final blow, I made one last desperate grab for Ethan’s hand. If this was to be the end of us, at least it would be together, fighting for a cause worth dying for.

I always thought that when the moment of my death arrived, I would be the kind to meet it face to face, staring it fearlessly in the eyes and daring it to come for me. But as Belial’s shadow loomed over, blocking out all light, warmth, and everything I held dear, I wanted nothing more than to roll toward Ethan and make him my focus. After all, he was my everything, and how better else to go out than in his arms, his eyes, his love? His blue green gaze held mine, and I saw regret there, but no fear or pain, and it was all overshadowed by overwhelming love. I wondered what he could see reflected back as my silver eyes flared, and then…

Something crashed between us, separating us from each other.

Belial. His body lay between us, massive and completely, deadly still. A single booted foot appeared on the dead demon’s body, displacing it from me with one strong kick. Belial, who had tormented me for so long, crashed to his side with a heavy thud, finding his final rest on his face in the grass. A long, deep chasm ran cross-wise down his back. The edges of his gaping flesh were charred black and seeping blood. He’d been skewered from behind, straight through his spine.

“My favorite thing about madness,” said Asheroth, leaning on Azazel’s sword, “is that no one quite knows when to expect you.” The pommel of the fearsome blade rested easily in his hand, its surface decorated with the blood of the fallen demon. Asheroth inspected one perfectly white hand, checking it for bloodstains as casually as if examining a recent manicure for flaws. “Insanity really is quite handy.”

Around us, the sounds of battle faded, and I had eyes for no one but him. He stared back at me, and it was more difficult than ever to read what I found there. White hot supernovas bored into me, and I saw so many things lurking there: triumph and relief and possessiveness and… was that joy? I wasn’t sure because I didn’t know if I had ever seen that particular emotion on his face before. But something was different now, something had changed since I had seen him last, and I burned to know what it was. Almost as much as I burned to know what had sent him at just the right minute to save my life. To save both of our lives, Ethan’s and mine.

But Ethan beat me to the question. “Asheroth,” he said, rolling toward me and rising slowly to one knee. “Where the hell have you been?” He kept himself between me and the dead body, between Asheroth with the sword, his stance protective.

Now that it was sinking in that the immediate danger was over, I wanted nothing more than to lay back into the grass and enjoy the miracle of breathing, but Ethan reached for me and pulled me into a sitting position.

As the sounds of battle faded, I looked up to see that Belial’s red-cloaked Nephilim now stood around Asheroth in loose groups. I bolted to my feet, fingers flexing against the air as Shadows danced across my palms, ready to defend us as best I could without Jack. Although the thought of his absence sent a sharp pain through my heart, I knew what these rogue Nephilim could do. Their gifts could be unpredictable as were their allegiances.

“Ethan, Asheroth.” I said their names as if willing them to come with me, backing away slowly, palms still outstretched. “Belial’s Nephilim,” I said softly by way of warning. Some of them snapped up their heads when I called them that. I recognized the young Caroline Bedford amongst them. She dropped her red hood and stepped forward defiantly.

“We don’t belong to Belial anymore,” she practically snarled. She stripped off her cloak in a series of quick, jerky movements. I could see that she had tears in her eyes. “Not ever again. I will never belong to that demon, thanks to
him
.”

It took me a minute to realize she meant Asheroth.

He
had saved them? What the hell?

To my complete and utter shock, my insane angelic former guardian placed a possessive arm around the girl and drew her close. His eyes were as clear as I had ever seen them as he indicated the other Nephilim with a sweep of his free arm. “They are all under my protection. They may return with me to the Dark Realms, to stay with me in my Twilight Kingdom. The Light will not bother them there, under
my
protection. I have seen to it. I have no desire to start wars, or to traffic with the mortal world in any way.” Caroline dropped her head, but not before a look of relief crossed her face. “They will be safe there with me. I will make the Twilight Kingdom into a refuge for all Nephilim, into a home they’ve never had.” He indicated the battlefield with a sharp slash of his hand. “And when I remove the Gifted from this mortal realm, the armies of the Light will have no more reason to fight you.”

“What’s to stop them from coming after Caspia and Logan?” Ethan asked.

Asheroth made a strangled, impatient sound in the back of his throat. “I said
mortal
realm, E’than’i’el. Whitfield is something else entirely. As long as neither of the Chastain siblings strays from the protective barrier for too long, they should be safe.”

Beside me, Ethan’s jaw dropped. I don’t even know what my own face looked like. Somewhere between hit with a frying pan and kissed by a bear, probably.

“I suppose there are worse things than being stuck here,” I said. After all, I was the girl who never really wanted to leave anyway, and Logan could just learn to deal. But then the rest of Asheroth’s little speech sunk in. “What do you mean,
your
Twilight Kingdom?” I asked. This was Asheroth, after all. Maybe he was merely on another one of his insane rants. I turned back to the twelve-year old Nephilim. “And what about your father, Caroline? He has to be going crazy with worry.”

“He’ll understand,” she said softly, regret and longing plain in her voice. “He’s always known I’m different, just like he knew my mother was different. He’ll know this is best. And it’s not like I’ll never see him. Asheroth says the Twilight Kingdom is to be a haven for my kind, now. He says he’ll even set up a kind of school where we can develop our gifts until we can control them, and understand them. So really, as I see it, this really is the best way.”

A school, for Nephilim? Run by
Asheroth?
Just what had happened to him to cause such seismic changes?

But Asheroth had more pressing issues to contemplate. He sheathed the sword as if he already owned it and gave Belial’s dead body another experimental kick. The dead demon stayed dead. Asheroth frowned. “Pity. One death just isn’t enough, sometimes.” The hard glint of my sometimes-cruel protector flashed across his face, but was quickly replaced by the clarity I found every bit as unnerving and unexpected. He turned his back on the demon and waited while Ethan helped me to my feet.

“You asked where the hell I had been, E’than’i’el,” he said, walking across a battlefield that had grown still. Now that Belial was dead, his forces seemed scattered, off-kilter. Those few still fighting ceased their activities and moved out of our way when we came near. “I have been in the Twilight Kingdom, spying, discovering, and, when necessary, removing those who stood in my way.” He indicated the fallen demon, now far behind us, with a toss of his black hair. “Belial was the last piece in the game. And now that I have removed him, there is nothing to stand in my way of complete mastery of my little part of the Dark Realms.”

Ethan and I exchanged a quick, uneasy glance. Asheroth, in charge of the Twilight Kingdom? Was that how it worked? Asheroth killed Belial, and got his kingdom in return? For the millionth time I wished for a manual, a guide that would explain “the rules” of the supernatural games and power plays that went on around me all the time. But there was nothing of the sort, and we both knew it.

I cleared my throat. Of the two of us, I was the least likely to set him off. “Asheroth,” I said as calmly as possible given the fact that we were crossing a battlefield littered with dead bodies. “What are you talking about? You have a place here as one of the Guardians. You can’t just set yourself up as a demon king. We…” I took a deep breath as I said the words I had never, ever, not in a million years, dreamed I would say. “
I
need you. To stay here.”

At that, his diamond eyes blazed as bright as the night he’d first kidnapped me from Blind Springs Park.

“Oh, my Caspia.” He stopped dead still in the middle of the battlefield. The Nightmare Forest pulsed around us with its shielding properties. But Asheroth, even though he stood surrounded by the same things, was miles away in some other place, maybe some other life entirely. He caressed the side of my face with his cold marble hand. “She is waiting for me there. She has been there since she first left me, waiting in the Dark Realms, knowing I would find my way there eventually. Her. The first Caspia. She chose the Dark, when she could have had Light, to wait for me. I don’t know why. I don’t deserve it.” His voice took on the reverent tones of one who had seen his own personal god. He dropped his hand and fisted it, striking the pommel of Azazel’s blade as madness mixed with hope blazed forth on his face once again. “But I shall spend the rest of my days there, remaking that world just for her.”

I thought of the Grey Lady, the one who always felt like warm, gentle rain, and who had helped me during my own imprisonment in Belial’s kingdom. The one who had shown me images from her past. The first Caspia, my ancestress, and the one woman who had the power to save Asheroth from himself. The one who waited in the Twilight Kingdom.