Archon(135)

It began to bleed, blue liquid warming her hands. Almost—she was almost there.

“Does this part of me hurt you that much, Israfel?” The Devil’s voice was as soft as before, yet unbelievably loud, her words echoing throughout the warped space around the stairs. Each word seemed to ricochet like a bullet. “But if you stood still, it would all be over soon. You know you can’t defeat me like this.”

The light somehow leeched away at Israfel’s loveliness, turning the kohl darkening the circles of his eyes into blotches of pain. He wobbled on his feet for a second, clutching at his stomach with a hiss of agony, his wings flapping. Then he flew for Lucifel, meeting with her so that they crashed and tumbled dangerously down the stairs. Her shadow was still solid enough for a physical battle—until it dispersed again, regathering to swarm around Israfel in a buzzing mass.

He used an etheric blast to break up the cloud, but it swirled back, suffocating.

“I’m eager to learn how you survived all this time.” Her voice was now disembodied, echoing. “You and that infant hope of yours.”

He was on the defensive, using his wings to fend off her attacks, his gorgeous eyes tainted by the vicious pride behind them.

“But if you’d allow it, I’ll forget the past and finish what I started.”

She was going to kill him.

Angela had finally gained on them, only twenty feet away, if that. Her mind was almost numb with rage, and the blood in her hands solidified to match the ice in her heart, lengthening, stretching, until she held a long shaft capped by a scimitar of crystalline blue.

The Glaive.

She’d at last conjured the same weapon that had killed countless angels, the same weapon rumored to have the power to cut through anything, that could terrorize the entire universe, as if she were a newborn god of death, introducing herself to the masses. But this was the Archon’s symbol now, not Lucifel’s. And Angela wasn’t about to use it for the same thing twice.

Israfel spotted her, his eyes hard with a new fear.

He was gasping for breath, too weak to move, maybe to speak.

Lucifel’s cloud sucked in on itself, re-forming into her tall body and imposing stance. She turned her head sharply and glared at Angela, eyes narrow with recognition.

According to her expression, Angela shouldn’t have been able to climb the stairway.

Lucifel gestured with a finger, and an etheric blast struck Angela hard in the chest. It flung her backward, stunning her in a tremendous burst of pain.

She cried out, grasping frantically for the edge of the stairs as the rest slid away from her, leaving half her body dangling in the air. Angela’s muscles felt like jelly, her head like a throbbing drum.

But she held on, knowing that to let go would be the end of everything.

Lucifel was already standing over her, ready to step on her fingers and send her plummeting. Then she must have changed her mind, and she stooped down for the Grail, plucking the blade from where Angela had hitched it into the stairs. The Supernal didn’t even seem to notice the black blood streaming from her hand as the Glaive bit into her vaporous flesh.

“Time to share the toy,” Lucifel said, her voice thunderously loud.

Oh, but it wasn’t hers anymore.

Angela willed the Glaive to collapse, and the blue blade responded, its blood dribbling from Lucifel’s fingers. The angel stared at her, not angry, but certainly annoyed.

They both knew what was coming next.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Angela muttered.

She willed the Glaive to re-form.

It congealed instantly around Lucifel’s hand, plunging through it straight for her chest.

The Glaive resisted for a single second, straining against Lucifel’s considerable power—but soon pierced her back into a buzzing mass, and then sliced through what was left of it, sweeping her away like dust. The Supernal was speaking, but her words contorted along with time and space. Her amused laughter was now the only intelligible exchange between them, and while the Devil’s shadow began to disintegrate, and Angela’s grip finally slipped, the snow stopped, the lightning ceased to strike. A great shudder took over the atmosphere, like an enormous weight was being lifted.

Air screamed in Angela’s ears. Blue blood fell around her like rain. The wind was a torment.

Lucifel had found her anyway, and she gathered her shadow one last time beneath her, taking the shape of a gigantic fly made of a million others.

Its red eyes burned into Angela like bloody flames.

A horrendous buzzing sound overwhelmed her.

There was a final round of laughter, painfully triumphant. Seconds later the dark cloud exploded, taking the Ladder with it.





Forty-one



And the first words in Creation were a song.