“And I with you, but—” I turned to Azrael. “I lost my swords.”
“You don’t need them anymore.” Azrael held out his arm and the hallowed glaive shimmered into existence. I stared at it, bathed in the beauty of the weapon, and I took the staff tenderly in both my hands. I closed my fingers around it, feeling the heat from its energy course into me and meld with my own, as if it were merely an extension of me—a fifth limb.
“Remember what I told you,” Azrael said, voice grave, “about summoning the power to use the hallowed glaive.”
I looked up to meet his gaze. “I know. I’m ready. Thank you, Brother.”
Antares called a long, elegantly curved sword. “I will meet you on the battlefield. Good luck to you.” Her wings carried her into the air, and she was gone.
“I must return to Michael now,” Azrael said. “All of our brothers and sisters have come to fight and to bid you farewell.”
I smiled at him. “I’m happy that I won’t be alone when I lie down for the last time.”
Azrael jumped into the sky, beat his wings once, and shot toward the battlefield so fast that he became a ball of fire once again. I squeezed the staff of the hallowed glaive again, testing its center of balance. I wasn’t nearly as tall as Azrael, but the glaive, behaving like a sentient thing, seemed to adjust to exactly where I needed it.
“Gabriel!” Lilith screamed in rage from above.
I answered her call, leaping into the air, feeling rejuvenated by my healed body and new hope. The black eyes of the Demon Queen fixed on me as I dived for her, and the hallowed glaive lit up with angelfire from blade to pommel. She drew her own weapon, a thin blade nearly as long as she was tall. From above, I struck, swiping left and right with the glaive. Her sword glanced off each blow and she whipped her body out of the glaive’s path when I thrust it right at her chest. This was my vulnerable point, I realized, when she sliced open my arm. I left myself open with every attack. I hissed in pain and spun my body, smashing the pole of my weapon into her back. She hit the dirt with a grunt and my boots found the earth.
“I hate you,” she snarled. “You, and everything you stand for.”
“The feeling is mutual, I assure you,” I said in return.
We circled each other, searching for any sign of weakness. She wore no armor, so all I needed to do was get past her sword. The length of the glaive would help me do that, but I still felt a little clumsy and unused to such a small blade in proportion to the long helve. I charged at her again and her blade met my strike; left and right I sliced, cutting fabric and flesh as she cut mine. I launched off the ground and kicked her in the chest. As she staggered away, I flipped the glaive over my head and thrust. The blade plunged into her belly, just shy of her heart.
She bared her teeth at me, grabbed the helve, and yanked the blade from her body. She held fast and I refused to let go of my weapon. She dragged me toward her and slashed with her sword. When I ducked to avoid losing my head, she kicked me in the ribs and then again right under the chin. I flipped end over end through the air and hit the ground with a grunt, feeling my cracked ribs and jaw twisting and snapping back into place. The healing was even more agonizing than when they first broke. Lilith came toward me and I struggled to rise, flailing, and every muscle in my torso shrieked as the ribs healed. I reached for the glaive, but she crushed her boot into my wrist, shattering it as well. I screamed in pain, writhing.
“My favorite song!” Lilith said joyfully. “Though I do prefer the chorus to the verses. What shall I break next to get you to sing the bridge?”
“Ellie!”
My head fell to the side just in time to spot Cadan jetting toward us. Lilith snarled, having noticed him too. She cast a hand out, her power grabbing his body and hurling him over her head through the air. He hit the rocky ground with a thud and an earsplitting crack and then lay still.
With my good hand, I grabbed a fistful of dirt and pebbles, and just as Lilith looked back at me, I chucked the debris into her face. She screeched and clawed at her eyes, but she lost enough of her focus for me to roll free. I grabbed the pole on my way to my feet and shoved the blade with all of my strength right through her chest, punching through her body cavity, stopping her cold.
Lilith dropped to her knees and the glaive’s magic killed her, sending lightning through her veins and crackling in her open mouth and eyes. I ripped the blade back out and she began to shudder violently, collapsing onto her back. Her death throes finally faded when her life did, and the lightning consumed her in angelfire flames. As the power of the hallowed glaive took the Demon Queen’s life, I could feel it slowly taking mine with her. I’d used so much of my angelic energy to destroy her that I wasn’t sure if I had enough left in me to battle Sammael. It was suddenly harder for me to breathe. My limbs felt heavier and a bit numb, as if they were full of sand.
I darted toward where Cadan had fallen, and I crumpled to the ground by his side. I checked him for injuries, which healed quickly, and I held his face, searching his opal eyes.
“Cadan,” I said to him, turning his face to mine.
He grimaced with pain as he sat upright. “Did you get her?”
I nodded. “What happened?” I asked him. “Why didn’t you move the forces? Where are Adara and Anders?”
“Anders killed Adara,” he answered with a grunt of discomfort as bones cracked into their rightful positions. “The traitor tried to stop us from engaging.”
Rage boiled through me. “Where is Anders?”
“Over there,” he said with a gesture of his head in one direction and then in the other. “And over there. He’s in a few pieces after he tried to kill me too. The stupid traitor.”
I smiled at that, overjoyed that what I feared had happened wasn’t the truth. “I worried that you had betrayed me.”
His expression crushed with hurt. “No. Never.”
“Thank God,” I said, and hugged him close.
When I released him, he smiled up at me a little deliriously. “You’re a beautiful angel. You glow. And you’re badass. Just as I thought you’d be. You never disappoint.”
“Hit on me later,” I said with a grin. “We’ve got a war to win.”
I took his hand and helped him to his feet. “Where are the demonic troops?”
“Still waiting,” he said. “Anders distracted me from hearing your signal and I never sent them.”
“That’s okay. Heaven sent reinforcements. I give you my signal now to engage. Clean up what’s left of Sammael’s forces and I will find him and destroy him. My body is growing tired and I have to do this now before I’m too weak. I want to say good—”
Cadan took my hand and pulled me to his chest, making me gasp. He touched my cheek, thumb brushing my bottom lip. “No,” he said gently. “That will not be the last thing you say to me.”
His fire-opal eyes, hardened, impassioned, moved over my face, my throat, my shoulder, my wings. He opened his mouth and inhaled, but he said nothing. He just gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head and gazed at me.
“I have no words,” he told me.
I stared at him and swallowed, feeling my heart whirring in my chest. “That’s a first.”
He grinned sideways and drew my face to his. He kissed my cheek, pausing, lingering as if we had all the time in the world to just stay like that. He held me close, as if we’d just been dancing and I couldn’t help closing my eyes and leaning into him. This kind of comfort was something I’d never experienced as an angel before, this human sort of love, a friendship.
He pulled away and I opened my eyes to his face. “Thank you,” he said, all the humor gone from his expression. “For fixing me.”
“You never needed redemption,” I told him. I put my hand to his chest. “You had it in your soul all this time. I never would’ve made it this far without you.”
“You’ll make it farther,” he promised. “Don’t give up hope. Now go. Kill the Lord of Souls.”
I didn’t have i
t in me to tell him that I was already dying, but I understood that he knew. I just needed to find my strength and keep fighting. I squeezed the helve of the hallowed glaive in my hand. The staff was so solid that it gave not even a gasp under my strength.
Cadan turned and jogged toward the back of the hill where his forces waited. I stood, strung so tight I felt like I was about to snap, as I listened to the assembly of the legion of demonic reapers who’d pledged their loyalty to Heaven. There was a great rushing of wind as wings and talons took flight, blackening the crest of Armageddon with their shadows as they descended on the armies of Hell.
I raced through a path between crumbling buildings toward the top of a rock ledge to watch the demonic reapers descend on their kin. I searched for Sammael, but I couldn’t see him. Where he had gone when his leonine reapers had distracted me was a mystery.
“Sammael!” I screamed. “Come and show your face, you coward! Sammael!”
A hand clasped around my throat from behind me, tightening around my windpipe until it creaked. “Here I am, Sister,” he hissed, his ice-cold lips brushing my ear.
I cracked the back of my skull into his nose. He roared in anger and I twisted away, swiping the glaive through the air between us. The blade shrieked across his chest plate.
The Lord of Souls glanced down at the gleaming streak I’d put in his armor and frowned. “Azrael’s glaive.”
“Look familiar?” I taunted, circling him.
“When he and I last met,” Sammael said, “Azrael fought me with that blade.”
“He should have killed you with it,” I growled. “But I supposed he’s left that up to me.”
I charged at him, slashing and thrusting the blade, forcing him to move backward. The staff of his scythe clanged off the staff of mine, the angelfire lighting the space between us, and his demonfire exploded, the flames dancing obsidian and midnight. I caught the scythe in the hook blades of the partisan. The demonfire blazing against my skin felt more like acid than flames. My wings beat once to launch my body into the air, dragging the scythe with me as I spiraled over Sammael’s head. I forced his weapon to the ground and released it to thrust my blade toward his face. The metal ripped through his corpse-gray cheek, flinging blood. He stepped aside, scowling and wiping his cheek with the back of the obsidian gauntlet covering his hand.
I thrust with the blade again and he whirled out of its path, smashing his elbow into my face as he came around. I hit the ground on my back and I kicked him in the knee. He grunted and collapsed forward and I kicked him in the chin. His head snapped back and he staggered, falling to his knees. I scrambled away, jumped to my feet, and returned to my ward just as Madeleine had taught me. I tried not to think about her, for fear that she was dead along with Ava.
I gasped for breath. My body was buckling. This power—it was all too much for me. I’d remained in Heaven for decades to gain power, and now it was killing me. I had to call all of it in order to use the hallowed glaive and it was slowly destroying me.
Sammael was angry. With blood smeared across his face and golden eyes blazing, he launched himself at me, charred wings wide. He swung the burning scythe up high, towering over me, dangling bones and teeth clinking against each other, and he brought it down in a sweeping arc as I threw my weapon to parry his. The scythe hooked through one of the outer partisan blades and completely around the staff, and he pulled the glaive right out of my hands. It went soaring through the air behind him, landing nearly two dozen feet away from me, and my angelfire went out like a candle flame. Before I could dart around him to retrieve the weapon, his form vanished and reappeared in front of me, blocking my path. I ran the other way, but he blocked me again. I needed the glaive. Without a weapon I would die immediately. I raced directly for him, to his surprise, but instead of colliding with him, I hit the ground and slid across the pebbles and dirt and right through his legs. I stopped sliding and rolled to maintain my momentum, and I collected the glaive. My heart pounded. I felt my strength slipping.
He set the pommel of his scythe on the ground and lifted his hand. His power snaked off his form and slithered toward his palm, inky tendrils coiling around his armored limbs. Then his power rushed at me full-force, a black tsunami of electricity and Hellfire. I took it straight on, but it was so strong that I felt my boots slipping in the dirt and I was forced to fold my wings to protect them. Wind threw pebbles in my face, whipped my hair around like flames. I gripped the staff of the hallowed glaive tighter and I took a step, but I couldn’t move anymore. Summoning the power just to keep myself standing was draining me.
I glimpsed a shadow passing behind Sammael’s form and an enormous blade punched through his body, right through his armor. The sword slipped free and Sammael doubled over, and I could see Will at last. My Guardian raised his sword to strike again, but Sammael’s power hurled into his chest, knocking him back, which lifted the force rocketing against me barely enough to free me. Will hit the ground and when his green eyes met mine, I knew. I wouldn’t let the distraction go to waste.
Wings spread, I launched, my energy erupting like a bomb, and I raced full speed toward Sammael. I thrust the glaive, he knocked it aside with his hand, and I smacked the pommel into his ribs. As I slashed the blade, I studied his armor, searching for weaknesses that would allow me a killing blow. My best chance to kill him would be through his unprotected neck. The metal collars of his chest plate were high, but they didn’t cover every inch of his vulnerable skin. When the scythe hooked in the outer partisan blades this time, I was prepared. I wrenched it from his grip and flung it across the ground. I spun the staff around my body and before he could retrieve his blade, I pressed the tip of the glaive directly into the hollow of his throat, freeing a trickle of blood from his soft skin. His golden eyes stared up into mine, his life firmly in my grip.
“It’s over,” I snarled.
The hardness in his expression did not falter, even though he knew he was about to die. “I am not the only lord in Hell. others will rise to take my place. The Morningstar will crave revenge.”
“Let them come.”
I slashed one last time and opened his throat. He coughed and gagged, drowning in his own blood. I watched him suffer, feeling the wall my archangel discipline had built around my emotions crash down completely. I let my tears run as I stared into his face. He seemed beyond the pain now, and perplexed by my emotions. His mouth moved as if he would speak but was unable. Lightning flashed beneath his skin, once, twice, three times. And then his eyes rolled into the back of his head as his life’s blood was spent, pooling in the dirt beneath us.
I turned away, gasping for breath, and gazed upon the battlefield, knowing I had friends among the dead. Still, our forces had devastated the armies of Hell. The bodies of the dead had turned to stone, and the valley looked more like a boulder field than farmland. There were human corpses lying bloodied and broken among the reaper remains. My heart felt sick and I was tired, so very tired. But I wasn’t done yet.
“Ellie.” Will’s voice was quiet behind me. I closed my eyes as he stepped near and I sensed his heavy, gentle presence. He laid his hands on my arms, his touch soft and warm.
“Where are my friends?” I asked. “I want to see them.”
He drew away, his fingertips lingering on my skin, and then he started down the hill. My grip on the hallowed glaive grew weak and I almost dropped it. Will called to Marcus, and they met among the ruins. Will dipped his head close to Marcus and said something I couldn’t hear from this distance. Marcus put a hand on Will’s shoulder, and I had to look away.
I glimpsed Cadan walking among the bodies. He moved toward a reaper lying in the rubble. I saw that the fallen vir was Ronan, still lingering. Cadan knelt beside him and took his hand. They exchanged words, and moments later, Ronan was gone. I wanted to call to Cadan, to comfort him as he grieved for his friend, but then I remembered that I did not want him to repeat so soon what he had just endured. I didn’t want to make him watch me die. our
last words had been enough.
Will and Marcus made their way back to me through the debris. Marcus offered me an encouraging and triumphant smile that still couldn’t hide his sadness. His clothes were torn, filthy, and bloodied, and his skin was marred by still-healing wounds.
“We’ve won,” Marcus said. “Ellie, you did it.”
“No,” I replied. “We all did it.”
His gaze seemed to search for the injuries bringing me down, but he would find none. “The angels are helping our forces kill the last of the enemy. The demonic reapers who fought with Cadan are spared but the ones loyal to Hell are destroyed. There may be pockets of them somewhere in the world, but there’s no way they can replenish their ranks before we find the last of them and wipe them out. The war is finished.”
I felt a rush of relief and joy, and I smiled. “I never thought this day would come.”
“Did our friends make it?” Will asked.
“Ava is dead,” Marcus said, his voice grave. “She was taken down by a demonic vir. Cadan is helping the others look for survivors.”
Will looked toward the now-quiet battlefield. “My mother?”
“Madeleine was injured badly, but she’ll live. Evolet is with her now, making sure she heals.”
“You’ve done so well, Marcus,” I told him. “If you find Azrael, please thank him for me. And give Kate my love.”
He hesitated before leaving, but then he yanked me into him and gave me a strong hug, burying his face in my hair. The hallowed glaive slipped from my fingers and clattered to the ground as I wrapped my arms around him with the last of my strength. “You’re the one who has done well,” he whispered. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
He pulled away, and I was sad to watch him leave. I wanted to follow him, to help Cadan find the survivors, to keep on going, but I was so tired. My breathing became even more ragged and I closed my eyes, feeling the wind on my skin, savoring it. My wings vanished back into my shoulders, unable to hold their form any longer. I was falling before I realized it, but strong arms looped around me, and I sensed him all over, took in his scent, felt his rough cheek against mine.