Holy Hell, page 6
part #5 of Sins of the Father Series
My muscles strained as I banged and bashed to the rhythm of battle, every smashed skull and torso another percussive instrument to add to Asher and Sterling’s symphony of blades. My heart surged with the thrill of victory. Too soon, maybe, but we were beating the undead back and thinning their numbers with hardly any effort. The night felt even chillier as the sweat clinging to my clothes cooled, but the glyphs on my skin burned bright with the heat of my spirit. We had this in the bag. We were going to win this. I brought my mace down for another strike.
I didn’t expect it to snap in half when it made contact with a zombie’s helmet. I didn’t expect the searing blast of light that exploded from the mace’s shaft. I certainly didn’t expect it to hurt like boiling oil.
“Fuck,” I screamed, clutching at my wrist, eyes huge as I searched my skin for burns. But there was nothing there. Didn’t help, though. It felt like my hand was on fire. “Fucking fuck.”
I glared up at the zombie. Why the fuck was it wearing a helmet? Who buries their dead in construction gear? And yet there it was, some rotting apparition from out of a construction site, grinning at me with its decaying death’s head. The ragged bones of its fingers shone white through its broken, diseased flesh, as sharp as claws. It poised to strike.
“Mason,” someone shouted. “No!”
The zombie’s head went flying off its shoulders, taking its helmet with it. Good riddance.
I heaved in relief, turning this way and that to find and thank my savior. But the others were all keeping busy with their own segments of the battle. I wasn’t expecting to find a new ally in our midst.
“Raziel?” I said, greeting him through a huge grin, never happier to see him.
The angel of mysteries answered with a dour look, the darkness of his expression very much contrast for the burning golden sword he held in one hand.
“I told you to practice, did I not?” he said, quiet enough to be menacing, but certainly loud enough for me to hear. “You weapon shouldn’t have shattered so easily. Your mace was brittle and weak – just like your grasp over your power.”
Rude. I turned my lip up and grimaced, because I was nothing if not defiant. He was right, but still.
“This is hardly the time or place for a lecture. Lend me a weapon, Raz. Come on. Be a buddy.”
He flipped his hair over his shoulder. “Make one of your own. Pitiful. A Mason who cannot build. A Mace without a mace.”
I balled my hands into fists, then yelped when my injured hand flared up. The fucking gall of him. I watched as Raziel and Sterling exchanged an easy nod, as they slipped together into battle. Then I watched as Asher gave him a quick smile, followed by a friendly “Hi.” Raziel smiled back with a casual “Hello,” just as he sank his flaming blade into the torso of an oncoming zombie.
And I, I stood in the center of the circle, pariah to my own friends, damaged and weaponless.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? I could barely open my hand without feeling like it’d been plunged into molten lava, much less actually wield a proper weapon and do anything with it. I looked down at my fist, both flesh and skin still stinging and burning, but not quite as badly as when I actually flexed my fingers.
Hmm. It was going to hurt like hell, but it should work. I visualized a sheath of light, or crystal, or steel encasing my fist, something to protect me, but also to help me fight. Motes of golden light danced across my skin, and for a second I even thought that I was healing myself, but not quite. My nephilim blood meant quicker regeneration, but it didn’t work quite that fast. But I did get just what I’d wanted.
The light cleared, leaving in its place a gleaming golden gauntlet. Sweet. I didn’t have enough experience or even confidence fighting with my other hand. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d just put myself in more danger if I tried. Something else to work on for the future, perhaps. For a quick second I pictured how awesome I’d look in battle fighting with two swords. Wicked.
But for now, I had a golden glove, and I was going to use it to apply the Midas touch to every zombie face in a one-mile radius, no matter how much it hurt. I loosed a battlecry and connected my divine steel knuckles with a zombie’s mouth. Broken yellow teeth went sailing through the air. Electric pain shot up my fist and my arm. I tried not to pass out.
“Excellent,” Raziel said over his shoulder. “You’ve managed to improvise. You are, at least, resilient.”
“No thanks to you,” I grunted, smashing the gauntlet into another zombie, biting back tears of agony as my hand begged for me to stop.
“It isn’t resilience,” Sterling said, laughing as he hacked and slashed. “He’s just a stubborn little shit.”
“I’m not little,” I roared, letting my anger drive the fury behind my punches.
“But you are kind of a shit.” Fucking Asher, man, not him, too.
I let them gang up on me a little more before I blocked out their voices, concentrating on the task of driving the remaining zombies back. Fuck ’em. I loved those guys, but in that moment, I decided, fuck ’em. I smashed and crushed and punched, taking my anger out on the trial, demolishing as many zombies as I could manage without driving myself to agonized tears.
Yet in my anger and my burning desire to punch things into pudding, I must have forgotten to pay attention to my surroundings. My chest thumped as I noticed where I was: certainly not inside the circle any longer.
Fuck.
Not that it afforded us anymore protection, right? But the point of sticking close to the others was safety in numbers. We had each other’s backs, and five pairs of eyes between us to look out for surprise attacks and sneaky zombies. I turned in a quick spin. I was surrounded. Where was the circle? Where were the others?
The zombies were closing in. I thought we’d worn them down, but there were so many more out here. Were the death gods cheating? I couldn’t even see the graveyard’s limits for how thick the horde was.
And worse: they were speaking. Muttering in dead voices, through ragged lips.
“Durandal,” they chittered, and rattled, and moaned. “Nephilim. Durandal.”
“I don’t have it,” I found myself answering. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Durandal.”
Somewhere across the graveyard, behind the press of zombies, voices were calling my name. My friends, but where?
“Durandal,” groaned one voice, right by my ear. I flinched, spinning away to find a zombie already reaching for my face.
“Stay back,” I stammered, flailing as I punched at thin air. “No.”
A blast of azure blue lit up the night.
I fell ass-first into the mud, shocked by the sudden brightness. My eyes throbbed from the blinding blue. I disengaged my gauntlets, bringing the heel of my palm up to rub at my eyes, then yelping when I realized I was using the injured one. I yelped again when I only succeeded in leaving a smear of something wet and cold against my skin.
Let it be mud. Please let it be mud.
All the time I kicked at the ground and air in front of me, just in case zombies tried to take advantage of my vulnerability. Slowly the world stopped looking quite so blue. I blinked my eyes furiously, regaining my vision, and understood that I wasn’t nearly in so much danger.
The zombies were gone. In their place were little piles of ash. I stopped bicycle-kicking the air, my jaw steadily dropping as I turned in a circle to ensure that we had, in fact, survived the trial. I completed my circuit, satisfied, hearing the squelching noises of several pairs of feet coming towards me. I glowered up at the others, despite being fully aware that I’d been responsibly for thrusting myself into the jaws of danger.
“Fool,” Raziel said, his eyes dark and admonishing, so much that his single word felt like a punch to my gut.
I gawped for a response, but I was all out of witty repartee and teenage rebellion. Florian shrugged and offered a weak smile. Asher folded his arms and tutted, while Sterling rolled his eyes away from me as he lit yet another cigarette.
“You would have been dead if it hadn’t been for that sudden intervention,” Raziel said, still scolding, his voice harsh. “One that I can only rightly describe as divine.” He rubbed his chin, studying the piles of ash on the ground. “Something celestial in nature must have done this.”
“Azrael,” I said. “Maybe this was his way of signaling that the trial is over.”
“Not quite,” a voice said from behind me.
Raziel’s mouth fell open as he stared past my head, his sword falling from his hands. “Heaven above. It’s you.”
I scrambled to my feet, wincing as the weight of me pushed on my bum hand, powering through it so I could scuttle and join the others. If there was another threat to deal with – and there always was – I was better off if my friends literally had my back. But this new guy didn’t at all seem like much of a threat. He was taller, broader than me, not someone I could properly take in a fight, at least not without the Vestments. Still, there was something strangely familiar about him, about the golden ringlets of his hair, the set of his jaw – about his eyes that burned as electric blue as the glyphs tattooed across his chest and arms.
“No,” I muttered. “It’s not possible.”
Raziel whispered from somewhere behind me, close to my ear, his voice muffled by disbelief. “It’s you. The king of the fallen.”
The man with the bright blue eyes and bright blue tattoos smiled at me, and the night lit up brighter still. “What’s the matter, Mason? Don’t you recognize your own father?”
13
I couldn’t tell you why I gave the man who claimed to be my father such a wide berth. Man, I don’t know. Dead fathers don’t just show up to incinerate an entire battlefield’s worth of zombies. Scratch that: dead fathers don’t just come back. But the dead were rising, weren’t they? Was this just part of the whole deal with Roland getting pissed and looking for Durandal?
“Come and give your old man a hug,” Samyaza said, holding his arms out as stiffly as he’d spoken the words.
I frowned at him and backed up a step, putting the rest of the group between us. Samyaza, or the thing that called itself Samyaza, looked crestfallen, the brightness of his eyes and his smile diminishing just a little.
“You’ll pardon him, brother,” Raziel said. “It isn’t often that the dead return. And certainly not someone we’d thought so very, very permanently deceased as yourself.”
That put the pep back in Samyaza’s step. He grinned widely, making a beeline for Raziel, then hugging him so tightly as to lift the angel of mysteries clear off his feet. “Brother. Then you do recognize me. Raziel, it is so good to see you.”
Raziel wheezed from the tightness of the embrace, then patted Samyaza awkwardly on the shoulder. “Likewise,” he croaked.
Then the damnedest thing happened. Samyaza greeted Sterling and Asher with almost the same level of excitement that he’d given Raziel, and they were pretty chummy about it, too. Sterling looked absolutely thrilled, in fact, that Samyaza even remembered who he was. And Florian, being Florian, offered a polite hand as he introduced himself. No chance. Samyaza took him up in a bear hug as well, though given Florian’s size and physical density, there was not much sweeping of feet.
Samyaza placed his hands at his waist, surveying our group, then setting his eyes on me again. “So, do you trust me now, er, son?”
I squinted at him and said nothing. Raziel rolled his eyes. “Growing pains,” he muttered, as if I couldn’t hear.
Samyaza shook his head and shrugged. “Can’t fault the boy. I’ve been away for so long, after all.”
“Nineteen years,” I said sullenly, totally aware that I sounded like a brat, but unashamed of it. “I never knew you, and you’ll forgive me for not being so touchy feely with you now that you’ve shown up. After nineteen years.”
That definitely took the light out of him. Even Samyaza’s shoulders looked deflated. “Look, the Grigori – the fallen – we’re not in the business of going about making ourselves known to our offspring. You have to understand, son.”
I hardened myself as I heard it, totally unsure of what to make of the word. Son. Not once had I ever imagined, not in my wildest dreams, that my mom’s mystery lover would one day show up. Growing up, I had the craziest notions of who he might be. A traveling musician, some cop in a small town, a genius billionaire. And they told me he was dead, too. How was I supposed to deal with that? I mean, he barely looked over twenty-five. There was way too much here for me to parse.
“I thought you were supposed to be dead,” I said. Sterling threw me a look that suggested I be a little more polite. I threw him a look that suggested I was giving him the middle finger.
Samyaza stretched his arms out, studying the glyphs on his skin, smiling again. “When I gave up my life, I had no real idea of my fate. Unprecedented, you know? When celestials are vanquished outside of heaven, they return to be reborn. But a fallen angel? Unheard of.”
He gave his life, by the way, to save Dustin Graves, to bring him back from the brink of death. It was around that time that I awakened to my abilities. Raziel said as much. The rush and release of power from Samyaza’s “death” triggered the celestial talents he’d left to me. Which begged the question: How many half-siblings did I have out there? How many lost nephilim children? Knowing that, knowing of their confusion didn’t endear him to me very much at all.
“Speaking of giving up my life, whatever happened to that rascal?” Samyaza searched our faces. “Dustin, that was his name.” He laughed out loud, his voice booming across the empty graveyard. “I spilled my blood and gave him the touch of divinity so that he could save the world. Where is he?”
Asher offered Samyaza a weak smile. “He saved the world, but it came with a price.”
I never did approve of what Dustin had done, how his actions were meant to remove him from existence, to leave those he loved – and who loved him – behind. But the sacrifice he made, of tearing his own body apart with five swords, it saved the world, all right.
Samyaza fell silent. He pressed his lips together and shut his eyes for a moment, almost as if he was in prayer. I watched him curiously. Did fallen angels pray? His eyes flitted open, immediately locking with mine. He ventured a smile, but I glanced hurriedly away.
“Thanks for saving my butt, I guess,” I said sullenly, kicking at the earth. This time I was slightly ashamed for behaving like a little shit. I was new to all of this, okay? Having a father, being this stranger’s son, and all the stuff that comes with it. I guess it’s no big surprise how I fell so easily into being such a brat, but hush.
I wasn’t watching him anymore, but I could tell Samyaza was smiling. “Who knew I could even do that anymore? A good old angelic smiting.”
“Very impressive,” Raziel said, “especially considering you’ve only just reconstituted your physical form. I probably couldn’t have done much better myself.”
“Hold up,” I said, my feet carrying me forward and setting me bare inches away from Raziel’s face, because what am I if not impulsive? “You mean to tell me that you could have smited those asshole zombies whenever you wanted? Is it smited? Smote? Whatever.”
Raziel drew himself up, bristling. He didn’t have his wings out, but I could tell that I’d rustled his jimmies. Feathers. Whatever. “Yes, indeed, I could have used my power to smite them. It’s something we celestials can use – with extreme prejudice – against the forces of evil. Weaker demons and base undead can hardly withstand a proper smiting.”
Sterling cackled, tossing his lighter at me. “You can’t smite, can you, Mason? Better hold on to that, then. A little substitute for holy fire. I’m sure it’ll serve just as well.”
I slipped his lighter into my jeans pocket. “Just for that, you’re not getting this back. I hope that the smiting smarted. Jerk.”
“Keep it. I’ve got tons of lighters.” He made a show of brushing off the sleeve of his leather jacket. “And smiting? Pah. Barely felt it.” He coughed when Asher nudged him in the ribs.
“You huddled behind me for protection, numb nuts. I was there.”
“Don’t humiliate me like that,” Sterling said in a small voice, his eyes hard and furious. The two of them broke away, spiraling into their own little spat. I tried not to smile. It really was good to be among old friends again, bickering and all.
“I was only waiting for the right time to use it,” Raziel said, still indignant, talking aloud to anyone who would listen.
I threw my hands up. “The right time was when I was surrounded by all those zombies. You know, when they had me cornered and were about to chow down on my nephilim nuggets?”
“To be fair,” Florian said, his voice even as he tried his level best to sound neutral. “You did put yourself in harm’s way.”
“I’m the one who almost got murdered here,” I said, thumbs pointing at my chest. “Me. But that’s cool, you guys can just gang up on me, that’s fine.”
Samyaza stepped up beside me and stuck out his chest. “You all should know better than to bully my son. Leave him alone.” He relaxed, then elbowed me lightly. “Is that about right? Did I do that correctly? It feels fatherly, I think.”
I clenched my fists, then winced when the injured one punished me with a flare of pain. I lifted my head back, thankful at least for the cool air. “This is going to be a long night.”
“Trust me,” said a new voice. “It isn’t over just yet.”
Just across us, a pale hand resting on a headstone, was Azrael, the angel of death. In the gloom, with the deathly stillness of his body, it could have been easy to assume that he was only a statue. A standing corpse came to mind.
This time Samyaza’s arm drew up across my chest, a barrier between me and the world. The littlest spark ignited in my chest. This physical act of protection had said so much more than any of the words he’d spoken that night.
