Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I hit the ground hard enough to jar my knees and carved my way through the madness, using both Inferno’s Kiss and Dragonbane to slice a path toward the source.
Two plaguebearers lunged at me—mine, both of them—eyes glazed with the siren’s call.
I spun, fire licking from my palm, and burned them down before their claws could touch me.
Later I would regret harming my own. But right now, I was fighting for all our lives.
“Eliza!” I shouted, forcing my voice to carry over the chaos. “Don’t do this! You know compulsion—fight it! Fight him!”
She simply shook her head. Her song continued to pour from her lips even as tears streaked her cheeks. She swayed once, as though she hated every note and still couldn’t stop. Lucifer stood just behind her, eyes glinting like a cat’s in the dark.
Another netheron crashed into me from the side—one of mine. I ducked, slammed my elbow into his jaw, and swept Inferno’s Kiss across his chest. Black blood fountained. He crumpled.
I forced myself forward, every step a battle.
“Eliza!” I roared again, parrying a sanguinari’s strike and skewering him. “He doesn’t own you. If anyone can break his compulsion, it’s you!”
Her shoulders trembled. The melody—whatever it was—wavered for a heartbeat. Hope flared in my chest.
Then Lucifer leaned close and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Eliza’s voice rose.
Her pull over my army deepened like a riptide.
Hellspawn howled their anger. Some dropped their weapons to keep from turning on their brothers in combat, while others turned their blades on their allies.
A nearby netheron stumbled forward, her eyes burning with fire, drawn toward Eliza like a moth to a flame.
A ravager clawed at his own head, likely trying to silence the music resounding in his head.
Gorr dug his claws into the dirt next to me and threw his massive head side to side, fighting Eliza’s call with a guttural roar that rattled my bones.
“Eliza, look at me!” I ducked under another swing and drove my blade through a plaguebearer’s chest. “You’re stronger than him. You’re stronger than this!”
For the briefest second her eyes met mine. They were wild with terror—pleading—and still the song poured out, unbroken.
Lucifer’s grin widened.
I cut down another hellspawn, barely pausing to look now.
If they attacked me, I ended them, it was as simple as that.
But with every hellspawn I cut down, another took its place, keeping me at a distance from Eliza and Lucifer.
It felt like I was wading through tar. Around me, my soldiers faltered, some clamping clawed hands over their ears, some biting their own tongues until blood ran, others completely lost to her allure.
“Hold your ground!” I shouted, but my voice drowned beneath the pull of her melody.
A netheron lunged at me, eyes glassy. I ducked his strike and blasted hellfire across his chest. He shrieked, stumbled, then crawled toward the sound again—toward her.
Panic scraped up my throat. If I couldn’t break the song, my army would eat itself alive. If she didn’t stop, I would have to stop her. And I couldn’t. I could not raise a blade against my best friend. Not again.
My mind raced through every option, just as Dragon screamed overhead and unleashed a torrent of fire on the enemy line.
Dragon…
He’d once belonged to Lucifer, had he not?
Until I’d tamed him. It wasn’t the same thing as Lucifer owning Eliza’s free will, but maybe—just maybe—I could do the same for her.
She’d avowed herself to Levi, not Lucifer.
Clearly, my father still had power over her, but maybe that distinction would be enough to free her.
I couldn’t do nothing. And I’d never forgive myself for killing her.
I had to try.
I cut my way closer to Eliza. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. Then I summoned the darkness and prayed this worked. Otherwise, what good were these powers that plagued me?
It rushed out of my chest and burst across the ground.
Thick, shadowed ropes coiled outward, writhing like starved serpents.
All nearby hellspawn recoiled at the sight, and those too slow to respond, my shadows snatched and hurled across the battlefield.
Two fresh shadows slithered from my palms and spilled toward Eliza.
Lucifer’s head snapped toward me, eyes narrowing. “Don’t you dare,” he barked, dragging Eliza against him as he summoned his own magic. His darkness met mine in a violent clash, shadow against shadow, sparks of black fire exploding where they collided.
For a heartbeat, I thought he’d overpower me. He always had. But then something changed. My shadows pressed harder, surer, responding not to rage but to purpose.
I had to get her away from him and break his control over her.
With merely a thought, my magic surged. My shadows slithered between him and Eliza, then shot upward, straight to the sky, cutting him off from her.
Pure shock twisted his face—an expression I couldn’t recall ever seeing on him before—and he stumbled back a step, his snarl echoing through the chaos.
Lucifer’s fury instantly sparked. His eyes blazed, and he drove his power against my barrier. Shadows cracked and hissed under the assault, the air itself vibrating from the force of his rage. I felt each strike in my bones, the wall shuddering as he tried to rip through it.
I had seconds. Less even.
My shadows took the opportunity to wrap around Eliza and pull her closer to me. The moment I deemed the distance between them acceptable, I poured my magic into her. Tendrils of magic wrapped around her waist, her arms, the soft curve of her throat.
Her eyes widened with fear a second before a single thread of darkness slid into her. Instantly, Eliza’s voice fractured and she stopped singing, the look of pure relief on her face slumping my shoulders.
For a moment, the silence deafened me. The surrounding hellspawn staggered and blinked as though waking from a dream. They took a moment to gather their thoughts, regardless of which side they fought for. Then they surged forward, the sound of war echoing in my ears again.
Lucifer’s roar snapped my attention back to him. Black veins crawled under his skin, and his pupils bled into pure darkness.
“You dare defy me, child?” he shouted, his voice cracking with the promise of violence.
“I’ve always defied you,” I proclaimed. “And I always will.”
Eliza’s eyes, still wet with tears, found mine.
She glanced over her shoulder at the black barrier separating her from Lucifer, and her whole body deflated.
She staggered away from him. One step. Two.
Three. The next thing I knew, she was running to me.
A part of me wanted to open my arms to her, offer her comfort.
She’d not only learned that the angel she loved was dead, but that the devil had manipulated her into promising herself to him.
I couldn’t imagine the pain ripping her apart right now.
But unfortunately, this was war. A fact proved true when, instead of seeking comfort, she drew her daggers and struck down a hellspawn too close to me for comfort.
Cursing myself for becoming distracted, I refocused my attention on my father.
He stood amid the carnage, power rippling off him in waves strong enough to distort the air itself.
Magic leaked from his hands like black fire, but he didn’t move, content to watch, to wait.
I pushed forward, cutting down every hellspawn that dared stand in my way.
By the time I came to a stop before him, at least a dozen bodies lay scattered in my path.
I paused and eyed the barrier between us. He’d stopped trying to break it down, likely because he knew I’d do it for him. Why waste the effort when he knew I’d come to him? Remove any obstacles standing between us. And I did. Because today, this fight ended.
When I finally stopped, I stood only a few feet from him, and the world had narrowed to only the two of us.
Lucifer’s eyes burned, twin pits of black flame. “Come then, daughter,” he said, voice low, almost tender. “Show me what you’ve learned.”
“Gladly.”
I raised both swords—Inferno’s Kiss in one hand, Dragonbane in the other—as my shadows coiled tighter around me.
Hellfire poured from my palms and rushed down the edges of both blades.
Fire wouldn’t kill my father, but he surely would feel it.
And right now, I wanted nothing more than to cause him pain.
“Care to surrender?” I asked, my voice glib.
He tilted his head, and the faint curl of a smile split his face. Except, the smile wasn’t pleasant or calming. It was downright cruel. The sort that promised me a world of pain and suffering.
“Do you?” Power infused his voice, and it took every shred of willpower not to flinch. But I’d long since promised myself I would never flinch again. Not in his presence.
I matched his grin. “Never.”
“Ah.” His smile deepened, wicked and knowing. “At last, something we agree upon.”
“Looks like.”
Lucifer rolled his shoulders, then summoned his power. It came to him as quick as lightning. A surge of darkness thundered across the field and coalesced behind him just as he snapped out his wings and drew his sword. His power pressed on me, silently demanding I bend a knee and yield.
I would never bow to him again, but it took effort to remain standing on my own two feet rather than drop before him. My darkness instantly responded, and I let my wings flare out behind me.
“Then,” he said, his eyes—two endless pits of blackness—locking on me, “let us finish this.”