29. Living Sacrifice #2
I dropped the withered pain beast to the ground, saw it’s papery skin wrinkling and then dissipating like a nest of maggots, burrowing into the parched earth.
Gamaeron, with the head of a vulture and uncannily knowing eyes, only watched me with every step.
I was not friends with the generals of Hell, especially not the ones who served Kimaris, but Gamaeron had perhaps been the least offensive of that lot.
He had no taste for my flesh or my habits, so our paths never crossed in my torments.
“General,” I said, resisting the urge to flinch as I bowed, my neck bared for his great beak to snap. I knew he wouldn’t. Kimaris didn’t want me dead or broken by any hand but his own.
“Tsuccubuts,” Gamaeron clacked. “You turned against ussss, eater.”
“I killed one measly little general,” I said, rising and trying to find a cheeky smile to wear on my face as I shrugged. “It’s not like it would’ve been the first time.”
Hell warred with itself more often than not, especially in the centuries of its captivity in its own realm. Only now that it had claimed Earth had the legions and armies and kings been so fucking harmonious with each other.
“You have orders to take me back,” I said, as Gamaeron turned his head to stare at me through one milky red eye. “And here I am. Bet you haven’t had a day’s work this easy in a while, right, Gam?”
“I have orderts to retrieve you, yesss. And orderts to burn the little human tsettlement. Orderts to reclaim the angel for our Majesssty.”
I blinked at Gamaeron feigning innocence. “Oh yeah? That place? I just got done corrupting it.”
This caused stirrings of excitement from the crowd of hellions around us and Gamaeron cocked his head in interest.
“Oh yeah. Three priests broke their vows. Got some sodomy going too,” I said, hating myself with every little word. “Stirred up suspicion and jealousy. Broke a devout man’s faith in God.”
I hoped this was worth their safety. It had to be.
“But, you know. It got to be a little bit repetitive by the end. Profanities, fucking, threesomes, yada yada yada. I’m ready to return,” I said, my chest burning as I struggled for breath, holding Gamaeron’s too-canny gaze. “To Hell. To my Lord Kimaris.”
I bowed again, letting my eyes squeeze shut, my mouth vise-tight as I tried to bury the urge to be sick on the ground with my own lies.
Gamaeron hummed in thought and the sound was the wheeze of one hundred men’s dying breaths.
Please let this be enough , I thought, starting to rise.
And then with a rustle of sharp feathers, a hoof came down on my back like an anvil, pinning me to the ground and snapping a rib.
“I don’t believe you, eater,” Gamaeron snapped, and the hellions screamed with new excitement. “Let us tsee for ourselts, hmm?” His hoof twisted and ground into my spine, the pain blinding. “You were kind enough to leave an opening in the gate for uts, yesssss?”
No, and I never would! My scream was lost in the dirt as he pressed me into the ground. My arms and legs flailed at my sides in panic. The army would not be able to enter, but if they got close enough, a spark of hellfire could torch homes, the church, everything.
The hellions’ screams rose higher, scratching at my eardrums, and with them came a strange and horribly familiar whooshing sound.
“Hey, bird brain! Release her!” Azariah boomed from overhead.
I groaned as Gamaeron’s hoof pressed harder, suddenly regretting how much energy I had spent before leaving Bethel, unable to lift myself up. The ground was growing brighter, glowing, and I couldn’t tell if I was on the edge of blacking out or if—
“I will burn every one of these creepy-crawly little rat bastards in the meantime,” Az warned.
The pain hellion’s screams were at a fever pitch, shields dropping to the ground, plastic bags tearing and shredding as they began to boil under Azariah’s holy light.
I cringed as one melted into those poisonous little worms in front of my face, and then gasped as Gamaeron stepped off of me, only to grab me up in the scorpion pincer of his tail, hanging me over the ground.
Azariah was shining in the air above me, John raised in his hand—wait, that fucker had taken my sword?!
“Az, go back, you dickhead,” I screamed.
“In league with angelssss, eater?” Gamaeron bellowed, thrashing his tail and shaking me, my ribs jostling horribly.
“Just this one,” Az said, a bright grin popping onto his face even as his brow remained furrowed with worry.
“Azariah, I am going back to Hell,” I snapped, glaring at him, crying out as Gamaeron’s tail bit harder into my shoulder, blue blood rushing from the wound.
“Fucking are not,” Az snapped.
I growled, ignoring the scream of pain, all the resistance of my weak form, to throw my good arm out and grab at the pincer, trying to pry it open.
“I chose this,” I snarled, not able to say what I really wanted to in front of Gamaeron. That this would protect Bethel, protect my men, protect Az.
“Don’t be a dumb bitch!” Az cried out, and then with a great beat of those enormous golden wings, he dove forward, swinging the sword directly at Gamaeron’s neck.
The blade struck quick, shining with Azariah’s angelic blessing, and with me still in the tail’s grip, Gamaeron was missing his best defense. He reached for Azariah, but it was too late, John sliced cleanly through Gamaeron’s neck.
The pain hellions scrambled away as I dropped like a stone to the ground, barely managing to roll out of the way as Gamaeron’s head landed with the wet smack of meat and his body went toppling over.
“Azariah, stop!” I screamed, but the sound was weak, my breath watery. Had a rib punctured a lung?
He ignored me, wings beating and glimmering, growing in brightness until he was brighter than the sun, his entire being shining so fiercely that my eyes stung with a rush of blood.
The pain hellions dissolved like they’d been struck with acid, and Azariah dove to the ground, knees landing on either side of me.
“Quick, feed,” he panted, the glow fading rapidly.
“Noo,” I whined, sobs catching in my burning chest. “You fucked it up, Az. I was trying to—”
“You were trying to go back to Hell because you thought you could convince King Belial to stay out of Bethel,” Azariah snapped, one fist punching against the ground by my head, squishing some of the remnants of a pain hellion beneath his fingers.
“But it wouldn’t matter Deyva, even if you succeeded, which you wouldn’t have.
Kimaris and Belial will burn them to the ground whether you're there or not. And if they won’t, some other demon will.
Or Kais or fucking Stavros or even perfect Zach will try and go chasing after you! ”
Fuck.
Fuck it all. He was right.
I curled in on myself, sobbing at my failure, crying at the truth of Azariah’s words. Bethel had a target painted on its back before I’d arrived, simply for having humans living safely inside its gate.
“I can’t lose them,” I gasped, something rising in my chest, drowning me with every breath I tried to catch.
“Well, leaving seems counterproductive to that plan, Deyva,” Azariah said, gentling his tone, slipping his arms underneath me and wincing in sympathy as he lifted me off the ground and I moaned.
“You can protect them,” I said.
“Of course I can. And I will. But so can you, just get over this self-sacrificing hero’s story bullshit,” Az muttered. “Together, we can make sure nothing ever happens to them.”
I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t so instead I only squeezed out, “They deserve better.”
Azariah rolled his eyes and smirked. “Sure, but they keep turning me down. So you’ll have to do. Feed, Deyva.”
“You deserve better,” I said, appealing to his selfish side.
Azariah blinked at me. “We both do. Now feed.”
He didn’t give me a choice, one hand moving to the back of my head, his own lowering to press his mouth over mine.
I moaned into the kiss. Azariah’s lips were smooth and hungry, doing more than the necessary press of connection to let me feed.
He was searching, pleading, bleeding his strength into me and clutching me closer.
For a moment I wanted to scream with the fiery ache, but then the feeding did the work on my ribs, and his grip didn’t hurt so much.
His smirk was even deeper when he raised his head, eyes warm and openly admiring. His eyes drifted down to my shoulder where I was still bleeding and the expression shifted, going sly.
“Man, I can’t wait to see what Kais has to say about you walking out of Bethel on a death mission,” Az said, grinning and turning back the way I’d arrived. Around us, the ground squirmed with the remnants of pain hellions, but none moved toward Azariah.
“Kais?” I asked, frowning. And then I stiffened. “Az...wait! Finish healing me!”
I definitely wasn’t healed enough to take whatever punishment Kais would dole out for this stunt.
Azariah just laughed, wings starting to rise and spread, lifting us through the air with one massive beat. “Nope, don’t think I will. You’ll live and I think your men deserve to know what you nearly put yourself through. Your ass is gonna be so red , little succubus.”