Ronen
Chapter
Five
Lucifer bellowed.
The pelting snow condensed into a wide cluster of ice spears.
They glinted in the forest’s blue light as they cut through the air, fast and deadly, toward a figure luscelering away.
I didn’t believe Lucifer’s ice could match the speed of an angel.
Then the blurring form staggered at the tree line—hit.
Their lethal, masculine form and blond hair came into view for a moment before they disappeared into the shadows.
The rest of Lucifer’s attack slammed into the glowing trunks.
I moved to track the male when screams and fighting erupted.
We were being attacked by infected Damned.
“Aspen,” I barked, startling him with his name. “Get her to the castle.” There was an unspoken threat behind my words if he didn’t. “MJ.” I turned to her. “Follow them. Alexei, with me.”
Rune, you’re with Lucille.
They moved with my orders, and I scanned Lucifer’s body for wounds. As far as I could tell, he seemed unscathed.
“My liege?” I pressed urgently.
He adjusted his collar. “Bring them down, but do not kill them,” he thundered to the crowd before lowering his voice for me and Alexei. “Trap as many infected Damned as you can in your Soul Swords. No soul”—unfathomable pain filtered through his anger—“will be entering Limbo tonight.”
Fuck.
Saraqael was a disembodied soul. She’d be left to wander Hell’s Circles until she ceased to exist completely or the gates opened again.
I didn’t know what to say or how I’d tell Lucille. But I knew one thing for sure: Lucifer wouldn’t be as adamant about the Unmaking Ceremony. He’d want to stay king to keep an eye on Saraqael’s soul and find a way to help her.
“The Horde refuses my orders to eat the infected when I recycle them,” Lucifer continued.
Seven Hells.
“Bring any bitten back to the castle once this is over,” he ordered, and moved without waiting for our reply.
We entered the fight quickly and viciously.
Lucifer froze an infected solid and shoved it toward me right as I swung my sword.
I sliced through its neck, the soul shattering and sifting into my blade.
Bolts of lightning flashed to my right and left as Alexei fried them, leaving me a trail of bodies to clean up.
A couple of panicking Powers burned two with their elemental magic.
Lucifer cursed, feeling the effects the souls had on the unseen world. “Do not kill them!” he bellowed. “Leave them for General Ronen.”
I luscelered through the clearing as our angels fought to stop them, taking every soul I could into my blades.
The ones that were frozen, electrocuted, bound in vines, trapped in dirt, knocked unconscious and unable to fight back were easy, swift kills.
But then there were the infected Damned that had clarity in their gaze, power they shouldn’t have at their fingertips, and the ability to lusceler.
They put up a fight. They instilled panic in our people.
I beheaded the filth on my way to help an angel. She wielded water against an infected Damned, hammering him back. She kept him at bay despite his continued attacks. Then she encased the infected’s head in water.
But the infected didn’t drop to his knees, didn’t claw at his face as he choked. Instead, he laughed, taking in more water—he was from the Suffocation Circle.
“Blast him back!” I shouted as I fought three infected.
She did, biding her time until I could help her.
The three infected, with glazed eyes, mouths gaping and exposing their venom-coated teeth, dove for my neck.
I ducked, spun, and stabbed. My blade tore through the head of one and slashed through the skinless back of another, black blood oozing from the wide gouge.
The infected hissed and twisted. He lunged.
His infected companion charged. I swung.
His head lopped off. His body dissipated into particles and was pulled into my sword as I dodged the teeth of the third infected.
I drove my sword through her stomach, stopping her next advance.
I was almost to the angel. Only a few feet away.
From the corner of my eye, she was still holding him back. But he was closing the distance. I threw a shadowball right as a vine wrapped around my wrist and yanked. It flew wide, missing the infected. More vines wove around my boots, pinning me in place.
The infected female pushed further onto my blade, trying to reach my neck and knocking me off balance. I fell. My blade tore from her stomach. She dove. My shadows surged, and lightning slammed into her head with a vicious crack.
I found Alexei through the melee and gave him a quick nod before slicing through the entrapping vines. I stood and turned toward the female angel.
“Behind you!” I called as an infected female with flaming green eyes charged her and wrapped her in vines.
Panicked, the female angel lost control of her power. The infected closest to her charged.
I luscelered toward the first threat and threw a shadowball at the second. My fingers dug into the infected’s exposed, slimy spine, and I tore him back before his teeth connected with her skin. His spine cracked as he struggled against me.
“His crown will fall. His kingdom will burn. And the sinners will sing,” the infected Damned taunted in a rasping, musical voice. I whipped up a blade and sliced through his carotid and tendons, black blood spurting before his end.
The angel screamed. Water encased the second threat’s head. The infected female smiled through the wobbling water as her teeth dug into the angel’s neck. Before I moved, an icicle shot through the infected’s forehead. She slumped to the ground, and I finished what Lucifer started.
There were no more infected Damned after that. At least none that were actively attacking.
The angel touched her neck, her hand coming away with blood. “She—she bit me. Why? What are they?”
“Damned souls,” I answered, my gut churning with the reality of her situation.
She didn’t even know what would happen. None of them did. We’d been keeping it so under wraps in hopes we’d eradicate the infection ourselves. Now, it was too late for her.
“Damned souls don’t have powers. They can’t get into the Redemption Circle.” She shook her head vehemently.
“Things have changed.” I scanned the clearing, finding two others clutching their necks.
Lucifer and I met each other’s gazes and came to a silent agreement. This was it. Lilith’s death hadn’t impacted them. Either her control over them was superficial, or someone else had taken command. And we were no longer dealing with small occurrences. This had been a large group.
The Redemption Circle had to be warned.
“Bitten, stay with us. The rest of you, back to the barracks or your houses. We’ll issue a statement tomorrow explaining what’s been happening in Hell,” Lucifer announced.
No one questioned Lucifer or demanded an explanation, not even the ones bitten.
They followed his orders without protest. It was how we trained them—don’t ask questions, do as we say.
We had little leeway with our authority being in Hell.
Everyone here knew they would suffer one way or another, as decreed by the laws of our world.
But what of the living who paid for their debts and remained here of their own accord, for sanctuary or any other reason? I wanted to say we owed them more protection and less suffering. But they chose to stay. Yet I couldn’t shake my desire to give mercy to some of the blood-banded.
We waited until most of the angels left. Then Lucifer and Alexei escorted the bitten back to the castle in Lucifer’s sleigh while I flew to meet them.
I landed in the barn just as Lucifer handed his reins to Alexei and said, “You know where to take them.” He left us with the wide-eyed, confused angels. Two of them were blood-banded, and the third, with his exposed, bloodless scalp, was a soul.
“Great,” Alexei grumbled, stepping out of the sleigh to unharness the Hellcats.
It wasn’t like Lucifer to hand over the dirty work.
Well, at least not completely. Usually, he would help put the angels in the dungeons, especially if it pertained to the infection.
But I had a feeling he’d reached his limit today.
And by the lack of feeling coming through the bond, save for a soft, sleepy hum of life, Lucille had too.
“Ro?” Alexei nodded to the three starting to move in the back.
Right.
I threw three shadowballs, hitting each angel in the chest. Two slumped over, knocked out, while the third groaned, resisting me.
Interesting. That hadn’t happened in a long time.
I formed a denser shadowball and tried again, reluctant to ingest her blood to try and rip through her mind shield.
Fortunately, she crumpled, asleep like the two males.
Alexei quirked a brow. “That bruise your ego?”
My face remained flat.
“When’s the last time it took two tries to knock someone out?” he taunted.
“I can remind you what it’s like to be knocked out by one if you’d like.”
He eyed the three bodies behind me. “By all means. I wouldn’t mind a quick catnap instead of hauling them to the dungeons.”
“Where’s MJ when I need her?” I muttered.
Between the two of us, we managed to carry all three of them. It wasn’t easy, and it took longer than we liked since we had to drag one between us, but it worked.
In the dungeons, we placed them on cots.
“Go get Sam. Then split the Dreads and Nightmares up to search the Eternal Forest and Hoar Hollow for more infected. I need to check on the pet.”
Alexei bumped his fist against his chest, then left.
Walking to the other line of cells, I passed by Anya’s.
“If you’re looking for the handsome one MJ released, he’s not here,” she said.
I stopped.
Of course MJ wouldn’t put him back in his cell. Why would I think she would when she knew he wasn’t a threat to us?
Only Lucille.