Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (31 page)

To emphasize his point, Lucifer’s hooks pulled sharply on my soul. Another hoarse scream escaped my lips as the hooks dragged through me. The pain was blinding, stretching me like an elastic band about to snap. I could almost feel my soul edging against my skin, begging my mind to let it go to escape the pain. Lucifer backed off and I dropped back onto the ground, feeling my eyes close. My mind was heavy, and I knew I was close to passing out. Or worse.

My eyes were sluggish to open, though I still managed to find Dro. She was hesitating, looking from me, to Lucifer, to the battle past us. I lolled my head to the side, hearing angry male shouts.

Warrick and Max had caught up with Drake, and both had jumped him. Drake shoved Max away with an elbow to the stomach, but Warrick got payback by slamming his foot into the bounty hunter’s jaw. Drake stumbled, buying Warrick time to drop down and sweep his legs out. He hadn’t even fully hit the ground before Max came back and started kicking him in the ribs.

“You taught me so much,” Dro said softly. I rolled my head back to her, but it wasn’t me she was talking to. It was Lucifer. “I know how to control it all now. You showed me how much more I can do.” Dro stood at her full height, looking confident but sad. She glanced down at me, icy blue eyes knowing and resolved.

“I understand what I have to do. And I hope you will, too.”

My heart lurched. She couldn’t say yes again. I begged her with my eyes. I couldn’t lose her again. Not now. Not when we’d already lost Sephiel. His death couldn’t be in vain.

Lucifer’s hold on me relaxed. He believed she was coming back to him.

That was when Dro shoved out her hands and blasted him with hellfire.

Lucifer hadn’t expected it, so he was engulfed. She held the blaze over him as he screamed with more anger than pain. Once he was consumed, she darted past both of us, running straight for Drake, Warrick, and Max.

As she ran, she passed Gabriel and Michael. The two archangels watched her blur past them, Michael barely hanging onto Gabriel. The dying Commander said something to his second, and Gabriel’s eyes widened with shock.

Max was still kicking Drake while Warrick loomed over top of him, holding a knife and looking determined. The fire beside me began to dwindle. Lucifer was dousing the flames, but I was watching my sister.

Warrick raised the knife when Max stepped back. He was ready to get his revenge, for his sister, for Sephiel, for everyone else Drake had helped destroy.

He never saw Dro coming.

Then she was there, pushing Warrick aside, making him miss his strike.

And saving Drake’s life.

Nothing happened at first. Then Lucifer screamed.

It took me a moment to realize why he was screaming, and why Drake was rolling around in agony, even though Warrick hadn’t touched him with the knife.

Lucifer’s howl was one of anguish and frustration. The sound of a man who knew he had lost.

He turned his outrage on me, digging the hooks in as deep as they would go, finding my soul and beginning to rip it from me. I screamed and clutched the grass, feeling the hooks sever my soul’s ties to my body.

As this was happening, the air began to change. The power in the air was weakening, crunching down as the Hell Gate closed. Lucifer was losing his power, but he was determined to take my soul before it was gone.

Just as my soul started to break out of my body, Lucifer’s hooks disappeared. I dropped onto the ground with a muffled cry, breathing heavily, but suddenly able to move. I felt like I’d been run over by a cement truck, but I turned my head enough to see what had saved me.

Michael and Gabriel appeared, launching the last of their heavenfire at Lucifer. The King of Hell responded by snapping up his hand and throwing hellfire at Gabriel. The archangel wasn’t able to move away in time, the ferocious white blast slamming into his chest. His scream was agonizing as he dropped to his knees and batted at the flames.

Lucifer snapped his wings back and launched himself at Michael, his sword extended forward. The powerful angel raised his hands, but was only able to catch Lucifer with them. Michael winced in pain as he collapsed on the ground with Lucifer. I couldn’t see where the sword was, but Lucifer was the only one who got up. He whirled around, facing me with murder in his eyes. I pushed myself up as he stalked toward me, grimacing as the air continued to gain weight. Lucifer raised his sword and swung it toward my neck.

That was when the pressure increased, and Lucifer stopped mid-swing. He arched his back and screamed, in more pain than I could imagine. He dropped to his knees, dragging his fingers through the soil and tearing it to pieces. I watched in horror and awe as Lucifer’s wings began to lift from his back, the curse of the Hell Gate taking them away. Lucifer struggled to hold onto his wings, but it didn’t seem like his curse would let them. They split out of his skin, bones snapping as they broke from his back. Lucifer’s blood was darker than any demon’s I’d ever seen. His beautiful face was contorted with agony as his wings were torn from him.

But he wasn’t the only one screaming. Every living demon, even the one Knight standing, howled in agony. I turned my head in their direction, seeing a portal had opened from the spot where Dro had saved Drake’s life. The demons were dragged back toward the portal, as if magnetized to it. They were swallowed up by the portal’s fire, disappearing from the clearing.

Another scream cut through my awe, and I turned my head again. Dro was writhing in Max’s arms, screaming as the portal tore out her power. Max cradled her close, not sure what to do, but refusing to let go. Warrick was just as lost as he was, looking at me with despair, but not wanting to take his eyes off Drake either.

Lucifer grunted behind me. I twisted to see him. His back was covered in dark, smoking blood. His wings burned to ash on either side of his knees. He looked up at me, obsidian eyes sparking with fury.

I didn’t think. I just reacted. I grabbed my hatchet and swung it at Lucifer’s head.

He leaned away so my swung went wide. I tumbled onto my hands and knees, giving him the perfect chance to punch me in the stomach. He hit harder than Mateo and Drake combined. Harder than the Knight I fought earlier. He didn’t just crack my ribs. He broke them completely.

Done with beating on me, he fisted my hair and yanked my face up to his. I came up swinging, driving my fist into a sloppy uppercut that landed in his jaw. Lucifer’s head rolled with the hit, and that was when I swung my hatchet again.

The silver blade landed in his neck with a heavy
thunk
. Lucifer blinked at me, unable to believe that I’d cut him so easily. But he hadn’t expected to be weakened from the Hell Gate closing, or for me to have a plan of my own. He thought he could control everything and everyone he set his eyes on. He used to have that power, but he never seemed to understand what simple humans like me would do when we escaped that hold.

We fought back. We overcame the odds. We fucking survived.

Black blood spilled over the hatchet and onto my fingers. A tingling burn went through them, but I barely felt it.

I was just about to rip the hatchet free when a sharp force grabbed hold of Lucifer and pulled him toward the portal. He gripped my wrist and dragged me with him. Frantic, I grabbed at the grass and dug in my heels, but it made no difference. We were moving too fast, and Lucifer wasn’t going to let me go. I punched him, clawed at his eyes, even let go of the hatchet.

The portal loomed ahead, drawing closer with each second.

My friends and loved ones saw me as I was pulled through the grass, unable to fight, or escape the fiery door to Hell.

“You are mine,” Lucifer whispered, still able to speak despite the blade lodged in his throat. “And I will make every second you endure in Hell agony. You will bleed until you beg for death, and then I shall heal you to repeat your suffering.”

My breath hitched. The portal was overhead now. I could feel its heat smothering me. I closed my eyes, rushing through the moments I had with Max and Sephiel. The love I shared with Warrick.

My sister, and how she would be alive when all of this was done–

Lucifer jerked suddenly, his hand suddenly gone from my throat. I dropped heavily onto the grass, opening my eyes and watching the King of Hell gape at the bloody stump of his forearm. Black blood oozed from the ground, right onto the rapidly dissolving shape of a hand.

His head snapped to the side, just as he reached the edge of the portal.

Dro stood over me. One of Sephiel’s swords was in her hands, the blade slick with the Devil’s blood.

“She’s free of you, demon,” Dro cursed. “We both are.”

The edges of the portal closed around Lucifer, igniting his face in a blaze of red light. He threw back his head and howled one last time before the portal snapped shut, leaving only his furious echo on the wind.

I lay on the grass, breathing heavily with my broken ribs. Michael and Gabriel were still lying on the ground, barely moving but still alive. I turned around to see the rest of the corpses lying in the blood-soaked clearing. The portal had closed. Piles of demonic ash scattered the dead grass. Angels that had been dying before were now simply dead.

My heart clenched at the thought of Sephiel. My eyes found his body, and I choked on a sob. I kept staring at him with the hope that he would get to his feet.

Sephiel lay on the ground in a motionless heap.

A sword thumped onto the grass. Dro collapsed onto the ground beside me. I tried to reach for her, but even that movement was torture. Broken ribs made pretty much every movement agonizing.

Voices shouted our names, and soon I was scooped up in strong, familiar arms. I winced when Warrick touched my ribs, but it was a small price to pay knowing he was safe and alive. He steadied me so I could look at my sister.

Dro was breathing shallowly in Max’s arms, blinking to stay awake. Her eyes stopped fluttering when she looked at me.

“Is he gone?” she whispered shakily. “Is it over?”

I nodded slowly.

Dro slumped with relief. Max kissed her head, holding her tightly to his chest.

“Almost over,” Warrick muttered. “I’ll be right back.”

I gripped his arm. “Help me stand.”

“Constance–”

“I’m not going to lie here like a beached whale. I want to stand.”

Warrick frowned and shook his head, muttering something that sounded like, “Stubborn, impossible woman.”

Yet he still looped his arm around my back and carefully helped me to my feet. I hissed and swore every time I bent my body, but I was on my feet soon enough. Warrick kept his hand on my shoulder until he was sure I was steadied, then turned and walked to a dark-clothed man on the ground. He picked up his knife along the way.

Warrick put the edge of his boot under Drake’s shoulder and flipped him onto his back. Drake’s face was a mess of pulped flesh and blood. I couldn’t feel sympathy for him as he coughed and spat red saliva.

“How did you know?” Max asked.

“To close the Heaven Gate, we had to destroy something beautiful,” I heard Dro mumble. “To close the Hell Gate, we had to save something evil.”

It made sense. Lucifer had loved cruel irony.

But he’s gone now, and the last piece of his curse is about to meet his fate.

Drake coughed again. “You got some lucky shots in, Johnny-boy,” he rasped. He spat out more blood onto the grass. “But you don’t got it in you to kill me on my back like this. You’re too noble for that.”

Warrick stood over him with a knife in his hand.

“I should be,” Warrick said evenly. “Dro saved your life to close the Hell Gate. I should honor that.” His grip tightened. “But the Gate is closed now, and all I can think about is how you destroyed my sister. You killed a mentor of mine. You kidnapped an innocent girl. You stabbed the woman I love. You murdered my friend.”