A Mermaid s Kiss

  All her words, all the thoughts moved through him, settling in, rotating slowly, a carousel. There had to be more than a reason to fight . . . there had to be someone to fight for. And that one heart was all that was needed.

  The memory of me . . . I will hold it for you . . .

  He put back his head and cried out. Somewhere in the middle, the cry of grief expanded, included not just her but all the rest. And then it became a roar of intent, a tidal wave of energy that rippled out through the air, causing the fault lines below the canyon to rumble in warning. His rage was fueled not only by him, but by those he'd lost. He stood with Alexander's fierce countenance on his left, Ronin's feral smile on his right, Diego giving him a sure nod from the head of his battalion, as if they and all the others were somewhere inside of him, drawing their swords, at his back and prepared to charge into battle with him once more. He could almost hear Ronin. You about ready to do this?

  Get back.

  It had the power of thunder, the command he sent out and into the sky above him. His angels obeyed instantly, disengaging, falling back from the Dark Ones. Their unquestioning loyalty and trust took him beyond words or even thoughts, overwhelmed him like a flood, gave even more power to what he could unleash.

  They'd always been connected to him. It was he who had turned from them. But now he could give them that love back, along with his own loyalty, not only to those in the sky but to the reason they fought.

  It was the Goddess and more than the Goddess. It was in everything each one of them chose to love. They each fought for themselves, as well as for Her. Hadn't Anna as much as said it? Ronin and Alexander had followed him, but they had their own reasons for believing.

  Feeling and structure, Jonah. Let the feeling back in and the balance is restored.

  The second of confusion from their enemies was all he needed. Jonah spun into the air, charging his sword. There was a heartbeat, a blink, and the lightning forked from a hundred places in the sky, arrowing down into the point of his weapon, blinding the Dark Ones but not masking the danger they were in. The front lines were already scrambling back, but he could circle Earth in the time it took them to have a malevolent thought.

  While he could incinerate the world in a thought, wielding power over a certain level was too dangerous, because of the control it required and the impact of the aftershocks. Nature had limits, always.

  Today, however, he had no qualms. The wall of flame roared up and out like a wave of water, chasing them down as they scrambled back screaming, trying to scrabble over each other. His retribution engulfed nearly a third of them, incinerating the first ten rows of their army in a firestorm of flesh and shrieks. The sky darkened with the smoke, and the angels were on the move again, darting here and there to obliterate the ash so it didn't fall and defile the earth.

  He was on the wrong side of this battlefield. But as the fire of his light ebbed, Jonah knew he couldn't leave her here, where any Dark One could lay his filth upon her. Scooping her body up in one arm, holding her against his side, his wings took him into the air. Some of the Dark Ones from beneath had moved to intercept in a foolish attempt to stop him. He cleaved the first that threw itself at him with a deft upward slice of the sword and felt his heart twist at the shower of vile blood that spattered her hair.

  He fought his way through several more, until he was where other angels could surround him, protect the vulnerable side where he held her. How delighted she'd have been to fly like this, to see the amazing spectacle of the angels sweeping and darting, like a magnificent phalanx of chimney swifts, eliminating the ash of the Dark Ones.

  Now, though, they were moving back, regrouping. Unfortunately, the Dark Ones still had overwhelming numbers and too much invested to retreat. They were re-forming ranks, leaving the angels more to fight.

  The angels also were re-forming ranks. While his place was with them, first he found a wounded Mina, lying upon a ledge, watched over by several angels of David's division. The battered lieutenant was there himself, on point with bows and arrows. Lucifer's doing, he was sure, as certain as he was that his quiet yet determined lieutenant had not agreed to it easily. Having the seawitch to protect was the only thing that ensured David would obey Lucifer once the battle started. Another reason that it was a boon the witch had joined them.

  Jonah would put Anna down there. While he didn't want to upset Mina with the body of her friend, he knew the witch would protect even Anna's lifeless form with her last breath. That would give David another reason to stay put, which his Prime Commander was about to reinforce, with threats if need be.

  As Jonah dropped toward that ledge, his heart leaped in his throat. The body in his arms moved, the skin beginning to heat beneath his palms, rapidly.

  Damn it all. He cursed as another small group of Dark Ones from below swarmed upon him. He swung the sword through them like a battle-axe, snarling, even as he felt the energy from Anna's body shifting, burning.

  David's men were trying to get a bead on the ones closing in on him, but they didn't want to hit him with their arrows. In his mind, he heard David calling Lucifer for backup and hand-to-hand fighters.

  Light erupted in his arms, flame gleaming with the purity of gold. Rays shot out in all directions, as though he held a sun in his arms. The Dark Ones in the way of its blast were consumed, and the angels in the cross fire cried out in surprise, but the fire was purity and they were not harmed. In fact, their faces, as they swooped in around him to help get him to the ledge, were momentarily etched in all their perfection, both the planes of bone and expressions. The physical and the spiritual. It was dazzling, like a painting on the walls of a cathedral, depicting the heavenly host, dauntless in the defense of their Creator.

  Then flame became blue, cleansing smoke, rushing over his skin with the fluidity and speed of water. In its rush, he felt the sun begin to shimmer, disintegrate.

  No.

  A moment ago, he'd known she was dead, but that eruption of energy gave him a hope that was shattered like a knife unnecessarily twisted in a fatal wound as her body dissolved into particles of gold flame. There were thousands of them, like stardust shimmering through the air, a whirling vortex that swirled around Jonah, coated his blade, sank into the few wounds he'd sustained, and charged his body with his purpose, gave it one single focus.

  End this. Be who you know you are meant to be.

  The deepest wish of her heart, the last message from her soul. His mermaid who, if given any wish, might have wished Ariel to win the love of the prince, or her own mother to find hope in the love of her child. Or an angel to find himself and return to the skies to do what he was created to do.

  The shimmering pieces drifted away on the air.

  Jonah.

  It was Lucifer. Also Michael, who'd brought the western flank of their army. He'd apparently given Lucifer the center, since that contingent would have met Jonah first, if the Dark Ones had been successful.

  Jonah knew Anna would say he couldn't linger, but he could not keep himself from watching some of the gold flecks drift across his skin, the rest moving down the cliff side, carried by the wind in a thick, spiraling arc toward Mina.

  Great Lady, the blood. He was close enough now to realize the wound he'd dealt the witch had been mortal. While he couldn't say he still fully understood Mina's motives, for this battle Anna's faith in her friend had been justified. And the strike of his blade was rapidly taking her life from her.

  Pushing the weight of guilt and grief to the back of his mind, knowing he would have to face both later, he winged up, sparing a nod to a grim-looking David.

  Lucifer's ebony wings were outstretched in an intimidating display as he hovered, reaper's blade in one hand, a foot-long dagger in the other. Jonah's men were arrayed behind him in a streamer of silver weaponry, wings holding them in formation, ready to launch forward.

  At his approach, a wave of triumphant calls erupted all along their ranks, a shouting welcome that moved him enough he could only m
anage another short nod to them, a lifted hand.

  As he came to Lucifer's side, he cleared his throat. "I thought you said it would be a cold day in your Hell before you would come to my aid again."

  "Well, you'll note I came to kill you, not to aid you." Luc shrugged. The wind fluttering through the sash around the reaper's blade drew Jonah's attention, a moment before the scarf raised its head and became the venomous form of a crimson snake. It hissed, its fangs baring.

  "That would have distracted me."

  "That was the plan. I'm glad I can now use it on someone who, while not less deserving, is far less pretty."

  Don't let him fool you. He missed you.

  David's voice was clear in his mind. Jonah glanced down at the ledge. His lieutenant shot him a strained smile before returning to the preparation of his arrows, looking like a fierce Cupid, checking his array of daggers as well. Apparently determined to protect the witch as long as life remained in her.

  I need to threaten you far more often, fledgling. Lucifer's thought.

  I'll try to control my trembling enough to shoot straight.

  Jonah closed his eyes as the banter continued, comments put in from his captains, as well as a couple of daring snippets from the un-ranked soldiers. The normal prebattle banter of men who might be dead in the next hour. During his vision quest, he'd thought the immersion in blood was an escape from the overwhelming agony of facing the darkness that had taken over his soul. It had not been an escape, but rather an embracing of that darkness.

  But this time, this battle was the escape he needed, with those angels who chose to fight at his side. When this day was over, if he survived, he would have to face that he was responsible for Anna's death, and that of her friend. As well as the fact that he would never again feel Anna's touch, hear her teasing, see her smile fall upon him. See the absolute love in her eyes that somehow a week had created between them. Whatever else he had to resolve with the Lady, he did not deny that kind of love was one of Her miracles.

  This would help him deal with it. He could do what he knew best, for the right reasons, and then maybe, when it was over, the cleansing power of fighting without the darkness in his soul would help him face the loss. The sense of loneliness tearing at the edges of him even now.

  He focused as Lucifer turned his head toward him. As he said nothing, Jonah knew somehow that Lucifer understood all that was going through him, even the thoughts Jonah was choosing not to share. It was a surprising feeling, comforting and disturbing at once.

  There also was another note of power to it, one he'd never detected before . . . stronger. One he realized Lucifer was deliberately letting him feel. Lucifer cocked his head, and his dark eyes held Jonah's.

  "You know now," he said quietly. "Where the humans come from."

  Jonah nodded.

  Lucifer glanced back across the chasm. "Every time She sends Her angels out to fight them, She suffers. Sometimes, She gets an insane notion to join the battle Herself, but you and I both know the effect of Dark Ones on female energy. If the Dark Ones' energy overwhelms the human soul, drowns that spark . . . In Her mind, you're fighting for the humans. But I tell you here and now, you have always been fighting for Her. You understand?"

  Jonah studied him, trying to wrap his mind around not only what Lucifer was saying, but why it was Lucifer saying it.

  Lucifer knew. Had always known. Just as She had.

  "In one moment of compassion," the Lord of the Underworld continued, "you can do the right thing and create tragedy. Or you can compromise your soul and life goes on. Have you ever thought of what the consequences are of compromising a Goddess's soul?

  "She knows much we do not, but it doesn't mean She doesn't feel pain, loss or anger. She is all love, Jonah. And like your little mermaid, love is a tapestry against which pain can imprint itself again and again, giving it scars as well as richness."

  As Lucifer's gaze locked with Jonah's, he was captured in the moment with the Dark Lord of the Underworld, even as the captains commanded the angels to draw weapons, to ready for the charge that would come in moments.

  Everything is a balance . . . Female energy is feeling; male is structure . . .

  What would be the balance to the Lady? Why would She have faith in love above all things? Why had Lucifer always championed Her so fiercely . . . Why had Jonah always sensed the lingering touch of fire upon Her?

  Because Lucifer was Her Champion.

  It hit Jonah so powerfully, it was like he'd opened his mouth and taken a gulp of water too fast. He drew in a painful breath. The warrior arm of the Lady, Her protection, Her balance. The Lord and the Lady, something that was almost a legend among the angels. Never doubted, but the Lord was illusory, such that the angels had not really thought to question His identity any more than they had the fact of His existence.

  He was facing the Lord. Her Consort.

  Lucifer gave a slight nod, his dark gaze flickering. Then, as if nothing momentous had happened, he glanced over at the still smoking ledge across the canyon. "Don't suppose you could do that again, about twice as strong, and save us all some trouble?"

  "It . . . I've never had the ability to control that level of power so accurately before." Nor had he ever felt as he did when he did it. Not hatred. He'd had the fierce adrenaline he always felt during a fight, but he hadn't felt the dragging weight of hatred or despair he'd been feeling for so long. If one Dark One had asked him for mercy, a choice, he would have given it. Justice with compassion . . .

  He was Jonah, Prime Legion Commander, and he would help keep the Goddess's earth safe for purple flowers, laughing mermaids, surly witches, children with pink backpacks, husbands and wives trying to find their way to the true path of love and light, migrant workers offering soda to stray hitchhikers . . .

  He was an angel, soldier of the Lady, and he knew his cause was just, not just because of what he knew, but what he felt . . . how he loved.

  Because he did it for Anna, he could do it for the world.

  "Let's finish this," he said. Lucifer nodded and deliberately adjusted to his right, meeting Jonah's eye. Drawing his sword, Jonah took his proper position at the front of the army that was ready to follow its Prime Legion Commander wherever he would lead them.

  Twenty-five

  IT was the largest battle David had yet witnessed. Though they'd failed to gain a captive angel, the Dark Ones foolishly believed, despite his burst of fiery energy, that Jonah might be weakened and they still had a chance. Courage was something the Dark Ones didn't lack, though David preferred to call it mindless bloodlust. Once they had it in their nose, they did not typically back off, even when things were against them, as they were now.

  Watching Michael, Jonah and Lucifer fight as a unit was like watching an ethereal, fierce ballet, the most perfect inner workings of a living body. The interweaving of drops, turns, spins and twists as they struck and dove within inches of each other, one scything through an opponent as another cut off the attack of someone else, was so mesmerizing that for once David was glad he wasn't in the thick of it. Instead he was afforded the occasional awe-inspiring glimpse as he notched another flying arrow and shot a Dark One out of the sky.

  Whether she'd acknowledge it or not at this point, the seawitch was too weak to participate further, not that he was so sure she would have. When Anna had died and Jonah had surged off the rock with her, she'd collapsed, her magic spent and purpose done. Even knowing she was mortally wounded, David had sent an urgent call for Raphael, though it wasn't likely the healing angel would put a Dark Spawn and the request of a junior lieutenant over other higher-ranking calls on this blood-soaked day.

  Then Anna's ashes had fallen to the ledge and the seawitch had cried out in protest. He'd turned to see her trying to stave off the glittering shower that seemed to be . . . Yes, they were settling onto the cuts, healing them, sinking into her skin, limning her lips where they liquefied, forcing themselves down her throat. Mina had been caught somewhere half between
dragon and human forms, too weak to complete the change in either direction. However, now, as the last dragon vestiges disappeared, her mercreature form reappeared, the long black tentacles and harlequin-scarred body. The gold ash melted into her skin, over the scars. The ones she'd gotten from this battle disappeared while the gold remained, forming swirling patterns on older scars and in the sleek black flesh of her tentacles, imprinting itself in protection symbols. Her struggles had increased.

  "No, Anna . . ." Astonished, David saw tears coming out of Mina's eyes, running with the gold, giving her a macabre mask. It was oddly beautiful, like a temple goddess cast in bronze where the bronze was breaking away, showing the living woman beneath.

  Following instinct, he'd dropped to one knee, caught her up to still her struggles. Of course, being Mina, her violence increased at his touch so he had to release her to calm her. He did manage to pull her inside the shelter of the shallow hollow, now that she was in a more diminutive form. While she didn't seem to be suffering from lack of water, the rain had stopped, so he put her next to the trickle of underground water, her tentacles receiving a constant flow of moisture, the only thing he could do for her.

  "Liar," Mina had muttered. "She's such a liar. Never take any choices away from each other . . ."

  A battle cry from above, a thunder of drums, and he'd had to shove aside his worry for her in the face of the more immediate task of protecting their ledge from attack as the battle engaged. His men had held well. Though they didn't like the duty of protecting a Dark Spawn, none shirked it, and every Dark One they smote was one less to engage their fellows above.

  When next he could spare a glance back, he was somewhat relieved to see Mina had at last settled. She held two fistfuls of Anna's remains in her hands, the glitter of the gold faded so she was simply left with metallic ash that stained her hands with dust. At some point, perhaps she'd buried her face in her hands, for her face was marked with gold fingerprints.

  He had the unexpected wish to offer her comfort, though he couldn't imagine what type she'd welcome.