Holy Hell, page 13
part #5 of Sins of the Father Series
“Mine,” she said. “All mine.”
24
I glanced cautiously at the others, my muscles tensed. So this was the Prince of Envy’s true power: to take, to claim anything and everything for herself. As if controlling a nest of snakes at will wasn’t bad enough. We were well and truly fucked.
Leviathan dropped her hand.
The air whistled as the three golden weapons zipped through the air, each aiming for a different target. She’d specifically picked Raziel’s spear for me, like she intended to skewer my ass or something, shish kabob style. I was never going to understand this demon prince obsession with reducing people to bits of meat. Creepy, and gross.
I ran like hell. Leviathan’s laughter echoed throughout the abandoned mall.
Listen. Raziel was a full-fledged angel, and there was every guarantee that a celestial of his station would have the privilege of regenerating a new form up in heaven. Samyaza had proven that he had similar advantages, even if his particular kind of regeneration took a much longer time to actually kick in.
As far as I knew, there was no evidence that nephilim had any kind of power to come back from being obliterated. Were we like starfish? Could I regrow from a piece of ear if it got sliced off, like it almost did back there when Raziel’s spear got a little too close? These were the kinds of questions I would have loved for Sadriel to answer, but no, all she had for me was a buttload of bullets and monstrous debt. Fucking hate debt. There’s a reason I never went to college.
I tucked and rolled for cover, squirreling myself under a dusty kiosk that once sold incredibly tacky costume jewelry. The spear zinged overhead as it crashed through a display case of ancient earrings and accessories. A fitting end, I thought, as I flinched against a shower of plastic beads and broken rhinestones.
“Think, Mason,” I muttered. I gnawed on my bottom lip, my heart thumping, mind racing. “Think.” How were we supposed to defeat someone who could steal our weapons? Samyaza at least could still use his fighting skills, that is, provided he could somehow get close to Leviathan without being slashed to ribbons.
I snapped my fingers when it came to me. Another smiting. That could do the trick, maybe even finish Leviathan off. The first set of blasts blew her snakes right off her body. Maybe a second one could end her, and I could track down Box and we could all get the hell out. Where was Box, anyway?
First order of business was to make contact with one of the guys. But how? The spear was still out there somewhere, and both Samyaza and Raziel were dealing with their own individual sword-shaped problems. I peered around the bottom of the kiosk, trying to make out their positions. I couldn’t even hear anything, no whistling of weapons as they flew, like heat-seeking missiles designed specifically for exploding angels into grisly little bits. I was so focused on finding the others that I barely noticed the spear before it slammed at full force into the ground in front of me.
I yelped, scurrying away from the explosion of shattered tile and cement. The spear was wobbling, like it was struggling to pull itself out of the rubble. That bought me some time. I sprinted back towards the atrium – back towards certain danger, if Leviathan was involved, but how else was I going to find the other two?
Then it came to me. Maybe if I was in close enough range to the swords I’d created, I could dismiss them manually, sort of defuse the bombs that Leviathan had so kindly turned against us. Even better, maybe Raziel could defuse his damn bomb, too. The loud crash in the distance far down the hall behind me was warning enough. The spear had worked its way free, and it was coming straight for my ass.
I hoofed it even faster, taking a turn down another wing of the atrium, thrilled to find Samyaza outrunning my sword at the end of it. Well, not thrilled, exactly, but you know what I mean. He had found himself a plank of wood, using it to swat the sword away like it was some errant seagull trying to steal his slice of pizza.
“Samyaza, I’m here,” I yelled out, as if I was a hero come to save the day. Stupid. I held my hand out, focusing on the golden sword, commanding it without words to crush itself into nothing, to disintegrate. My muscles strained. I couldn’t see myself, but I knew that the veins in my neck were bulging.
Oh, that got results all right. The sword took a sharp turn mid-flight, and aimed itself directly at me.
“Fuck.”
I turned, prepared to haul ass, only to remember the full-length spear that was still zipping directly towards me. Damn it. If I timed it just right and jumped out of the way, maybe the two missiles would collide, then cancel each other out in the resulting impact, like some bizarre game of chicken.
Long story short, the only chicken involved was me. I ran perpendicular from the path of sword and spear, muttering a litany of curses as I went, my heart practically smashing through my ribcage. Leviathan’s laughter was still ringing around us. She could have been anywhere. The worst thing would have been getting cornered by her and our turncoat weapons.
Or cornered at all, really. I stared in disbelief at the end of the hall. It was a dead end, with no escalators, no exits, just some dilapidated candy store. Damn it.
“Who the hell builds a cul-de-sac in a shopping mall?” I shouted. “No wonder it’s out of business.”
I turned on my heel, the shrieking of the sword and spear coming ever closer. Instinct took over, and I brought both my hands close to my waist, my fingers clasped around an invisible hilt. Energy surged down my forearms and out through my palms as golden light built in a plume and hardened into a claymore, an enormous two-handed sword. I waited for my moment, then took my swing.
Clang, and clang again. I’d swatted both the sword and Raziel’s spear with a single blow. Incredible, honestly, and close to impossible, but it sent them flying long and hard. Both weapons clattered and fell to the ground a dozen feet away, motionless. I sent up a ragged cheer.
“Fuck yes. Yeah!” I held my claymore aloft. “Did anyone see that? Raziel, Samyaza? Did you guys see what I just did?”
No one answered, except for a woman’s voice, somewhere up on the second floor.
“Mine,” Leviathan said.
The claymore began tugging against my grip.
“Ah, nuts.”
It ripped itself out of my grasp, flying down the corridor to join the other weapons. Raziel sprinted past, far down the atrium, and his own sword came to a complete stop, then turned to face me. Oh. Oh, great. Now there were four of them.
Samyaza came thundering through, hooting and hollering, waving his arms in the air. “Over here, you dumb – uh, swords. Also spear. Chase me instead. Bet you can’t catch me.”
I wanted to yell at him for being so damn stupid, but it worked. It actually worked. As one the four weapons rotated in place, then pursued him instead. Giving Leviathan more of what she wanted wasn’t exactly the best thing to do. I ran back down the hall, away from the candy store and into the central atrium, where Raziel was clutching his knees by an empty fountain, panting.
“Why – huh – why in heaven’s name would you summon another bloody weapon, Mason? Did you not think this through?”
“This is neither the time nor the place to lecture me,” I said, blushing furiously red, knowing how impulsive and dumb conjuring another sword had been.
“And yet paradoxically it is,” Raziel said, “because otherwise, how would this ever get through your thick skull? You’re fortunate that your father is so durable.”
Samyaza sped past again, throwing us a hopeful, desperate glance as he quite impressively continued to outrun his pursuers. We had to think of something, and fast. I mean, I’d just met my dad. I didn’t exactly want him dead already.
“Stupid angels.”
Leviathan leapt from the second floor landing, falling gracefully into a crouch as she hit the atrium. She licked her lips as she rose to her full height, sneering triumphantly.
“We will end you, demon filth,” Raziel said, holding his hand out against my chest, forcibly backing the both of us away from Leviathan. “One way or another, we will defeat you.”
She laughed again, studying the backs of her enormous talons. “Truly, I would love to see you try. And what’s so entertaining about this entire situation is how the world is being invaded by the risen dead, even as we speak.”
“She lies, Mason,” Raziel growled. “All demons lie.”
“Very true,” Leviathan said. “Most of the time. But not this time.”
Time. That was what we needed, to finish off Leviathan long enough to send her to her prime hell, to meet up with Box and get to safety. And then what? We still had to get Asher to locate Roland’s corpse, very likely Roland’s walking corpse, in fact, and reunite him with his stupid sword. What we needed was time, but also a massive game changer to turn the battle around. We needed a bombshell.
Oh. Oh no.
I blinked, then stared down at my bare hands. Surely it wasn’t that simple. It was an idea, but could it even work?
“This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever considered,” I muttered. “Even dumber than that cannonball thing.”
“What are you even saying, Mason?” Raziel hissed. “Stay in the present. We need to help Samyaza, defeat this evil, and there isn’t enough of my essence left to smite her.”
“Maybe it’s not about smiting,” I said absently, my mind distant. “Maybe we need a slightly different approach. A more explosive one.”
“Good gracious,” Raziel said, breaking away from me, assuming a martial stance as he stood between me and Leviathan. Was my mentor, the angel of mysteries, really about to punch the Prince of Envy in the face?
Something which I would have loved to see, honestly, but Leviathan was right. Time wasn’t on our side. I curled my fingers, cradling them around something in the shape of a sphere. This really was going to be the dumbest thing yet.
If Leviathan wanted all our weapons, then she was going to get them, right in the face. If we were ending this fight, we’d need to end it with a bang.
A really big one.
25
I focused on the space between my fingers, massaging the air slightly as I envisioned a perfect sphere. “That’s right,” I muttered as little specks of light floated between my hands, forming into the outline of a ball. “Yes. Exactly. And then the wick.” It was working. The faint smell of gunpowder tickled at my nostrils.
Listen. You saw what happened with the cannonball, back when we fought Loki’s enormous pet. Creatio ex nihilo or not, I had to go off memory. I’m not exactly a demolitions expert, so I went by what I’d only ever seen in Bugs Bunny cartoons. The spaces filled in, and then I had it in my hands at last: a golden bomb, complete with a golden wick.
Except it wasn’t lit. Damn it. I rummaged through my backpack, then patted myself down, feeling at my pockets when I found a hard, squarish lump. Sterling’s lighter, from the graveyard. Perfect. My hand shook as I flicked it close to the bomb’s wick. It caught fire immediately, sputtering. This was a matter of timing. I had to be quick.
“Hey, Leviathan,” I shouted. “Square off with me instead. You can’t fight an unarmed angel. That’s just not fair.”
“Mason,” Raziel shouted. “Don’t tell me you made another blasted thing.”
Leviathan laughed heartily. “Such fools, you celestials.”
She raised her chin, reaching for the air, her gaze locked on mine, clearly not caring what it was that she intended to steal. Leviathan truly was the essence of envy. She curled her finger, beckoning.
“Mine.”
I gladly let go of the hissing bomb in my hands, even as Raziel protested. I tackled him, then dragged him kicking and spitting away from the atrium.
“What in blazes are you doing?”
“Trust me,” I said. “For once, just fucking trust me, Raz.”
He complied, following me behind a pillar. Far behind us, at the center of the atrium, came Leviathan’s confused words. “What the hell is this?”
Next came the explosion.
I should have hidden my face behind the pillar. Should have, could have, didn’t, because I wanted to see what happened. Leviathan’s entire body flew apart, bursting like some horrible, gory firework, parts of her flung all across the atrium, all over the mall – and onto my face.
“Awesome,” I mumbled, the adrenaline surging through my body only momentarily distracting me from the wet warmth on my forehead. “And gross.”
Raziel stared wide eyed between me and what was left of Leviathan. A scorch mark on the ground and a crater, in case you were curious.
“You did it, Mason. What in the world – you did it.”
I brushed a hand across my shoulder and chuckled. “And Mom always said that cartoons would rot my brain.”
“I say you should watch even more,” Samyaza called out, marching triumphantly towards us with a claymore, two swords, and a spear cradled in his arms.
Raziel raised his hand, dismissing his spear. Aha, so it was Leviathan’s influence preventing our control. I did the same, waving my hand, feeling a thrill of mastery, and weirdly, ownership, as the three swords vanished.
Samyaza looked into his newly empty arms, appearing crestfallen. “You’re welcome.”
Raziel shook his head. “No one asked you to bring them back. I do wonder, though. What about Mason’s curious little invention?”
We walked towards the atrium, looking around the mall, finding bits of Leviathan plastered to the pillars, the kiosks, the escalators. “I have a feeling we won’t be finding any remnants, honestly. She’s dead. Super dead.”
“I wouldn’t be so confident,” Raziel said. “A demon prince only needs time to reform. We should leave, and soon.”
“Almost ready,” I said. “We just need Durandal before we go.”
I brought my fingers to my mouth and blew, whistling as hard as I could. You could hear Box coming from a mile away, stampeding down the corridors, bashing the bottom corners of his body into the tile as he clumsily, yet somehow very speedily rushed for the atrium. I went down on my knees, grinning.
“Did you find it, boy?”
Box opened his gaping maw and disgorged an assortment of debris. Sitting on top of it was a beautifully crafted gleaming white sword. The pile of limbs, twisted metal, and a number of chains and padlocks suggested that Leviathan had either hidden Durandal in some old kiosk, or an actual lockbox. The limbs suggested that she’d also left a number of poor demon underlings to defend it.
“Good boy,” I said, pulling the baggie of treats out of my backpack, then dumping the contents into Box’s mouth. He chomped happily, devouring the lot in a matter of seconds. When it was safe to approach his teeth again, I returned Durandal to his stomach. You know, for safekeeping. I patted my pocket, and Box obeyed, shapeshifting and shrinking once more into a tiny cube.
“That’s one hell of a pet,” Samyaza said, bemused.
“He’s a good boy,” I said, stuffing Box back into my pocket. “The best boy.”
My other pocket started buzzing. I fished my phone out of it, surprised to find five missed calls from Asher. The screen lit up as a sixth call came in. I frowned, then swiped, answering and expecting the worst.
“Oh, good,” he said, deadpan. “You remembered how to pick up your phone.”
“Listen, I’m covered in demon prince splatter right now. We weren’t exactly out here playing video games.”
Asher scoffed. “I didn’t think it was going to be that kind of demon prince party.”
“You’re an ass, Mayhew, you and your Obsidian Palace, and when I see you – ”
“Come to Latham’s Cross. We’ve got a problem.”
That came like a punch in the gut. So Leviathan wasn’t lying, after all. “Problem?”
“Yeah. It’s Roland. Remember him? He’s come to join the party.”
“Crap.”
“Crap is right. Get here as fast as you can.”
Asher hung up, but the look on my face must have said everything.
“Then the demon wasn’t lying,” Raziel said.
“We gotta go. Now. Latham’s Cross. Roland is there.”
Raziel nodded solemnly. “Nothing for it. We take flight.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, holding my hands up. “It’s been a while.”
“This is no time for resistance, Mason Albrecht. By the high heavens, how many times have I told you to exercise your talents? And look where we are now, you practically forced into your power through dire circumstances. Perhaps it’s the only way we’ll ever see you truly perform to the best of your abilities.”
I pressed my lips together, shoving my hands in my pockets, twisting the sole of my foot against the ground. He wasn’t exactly wrong, on any of those counts, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be a pouty little shit about it.
Samyaza looked at each of us, whistling softly. “Wow. You definitely fit the father role more than I ever did, Raziel.”
“Shut up, Samyaza. Impertinent and insufferable, the both of you. This is a matter of import. Spread your wings. We must away from here.”
I snorted. “Must away, he said.”
Samyaza giggled. We really were related.
“A pair of fools,” Raziel muttered. He shook his hair, then his shoulders. I tried not to marvel when four perfect wings sprouted from his back. Except – wait.
“Hey,” I said. “How come yours didn’t rip your shirt off? Come to think of it, Sadriel didn’t ruin her pantsuit when she extended her wings, either. What gives?”
The smugness on Raziel’s face made me regret my question on the spot. “It comes with experience, dear Mason. You’re meant to manifest your wings on the outside, so as to avoid ruining your clothing. As in the case of the celestial host, who have learned very early on about these matters, it’s to avoid utterly destroying your standard issue suit of armor from the inside.”
Ugh. I shouldn’t have asked. “Fine,” I mumbled. “I’ll practice.”
“It’s easy,” Samyaza said cheerfully. “Look.” He mimicked Raziel’s motions, shaking his shoulders like a bird shaking off its feathers. I held my breath, waiting for the money shot, then was somewhat disappointed to find that he only had two wings. They were gold, just like mine, shimmering like they were bathed in the sun. But I did assume that there’d be more of them.
