Chapter 13 #4
“I did it. I freed her from enslavement. We’re going to end your kind. You’ll never prey on the helpless again. Never steal another man’s family!” Josh cried out in triumph.
A sly smile curved Sariel’s dark, full lips. “Yes, you have freed me from imprisonment, dear Joshua.” Her voice resonated with strength and magic, echoing across the church. “And for that, I should reward you.”
Part of Emma wanted the council to be wrong about the stately, mystical being, but the dread trembled within her belly long before Sariel faced her first rescuer.
Blood bloomed across Joe’s shirt, his torso split in half by a vicious sword stroke.
His astonished gaze dropped to the weapon protruding from his chest, and then he fell to his knees after she yanked it free, bloody spittle foaming between his lips.
His weakening pulse ceased all together before he hit the floor.
“Joe,” Emma whispered, horrified. Whatever he had become these past years, he hadn’t deserved this death.
“I d-don’t understand,” Josh stuttered. “We… we’re your loyal servants.”
Her husky chuckle raised the hairs on the back of Emma’s neck. “Is that not gift enough?”
A tremble of rage raised Josh’s voice. “You killed him. That isn’t what you promised me. That’s not what you said we’d do together!”
“I freed him from a wretched life of pain and misery. And now, I will free you from yours.”
Before Josh could protest, she turned her back on him and thrust with a single wing. The longest flight feather pierced through the magician’s body like a spear and withdrew, red with blood. Josh staggered backward and fell behind the altar.
Sariel licked the blood from her feather and smiled.
“Humans are so fragile,” she said. “So gullible, and so fragile. I will not make the same mistake again, and leave it to a wizard to decide my fate. Now there is no one able to stop me, and my reign on this world shall begin anew, unhindered.” Smoldering eyes turned to River and Emma.
“Once I have taken care of you. A vampire and a mere witchling.”
Think, think, think. What would Adrian do?
Adrian would have a battle strategy worthy of a military general. His personality lingered in the recesses of her thought, their eternal link bound in blood.
Think, think!
No time to think. Sariel swept the sword through the air. A hurricane of metal shards came toward them and crashed against River’s magical shield, each molten and pink. The witch grunted and leaned into the attack with both palms out.
“Yes!” Emma cried in victory when it ended and they were unscathed.
“Don’t celebrate yet,” River murmured over her shoulder. “I can only do this so much. She’s powerful enough to wear down my reserves, and I need to conserve it for putting her back.”
Not to be discouraged, the fallen one growled and sliced the open space dividing both halves of the church again.
True to River’s word, the barrier cracked like glass at the end, unable to withstand another attack from the fallen celestial.
Despite the yards of distance between them, Emma and River were forced to dodge to the side to avoid the third volley of embers rushing down the narrow aisle.
Emma landed on the floor between the pews as their opponent raced toward them.
Wood splinters shattered over their heads as Sariel’s wings sheared off the back of the wooden benches.
One moment, she’d been thirty yards away, and in the next, the fallen angel was on top of them.
She leapt on the pew and stabbed the blade down.
River grasped Emma by the back of her dress and ripped her through space before the lethal weapon could cleave them in two. Blinking, Emma gazed around the dark confession box they’d landed inside, huddled close and trembling together.
“You can run, but there is no escape from me, petty mortals. I sense you. I smell your fear and taste your sins.”
“Can you put her back in that stone?” Emma asked in a whisper.
“I can try, but it’d be easier if I knew how he broke her out in the first place.”
“I’ll buy you as much time as I can then, to figure it out.
” Emma removed her pistol from the holster attached to her left thigh then ducked out of their hiding spot.
Taking pot shots at her target, she dashed across the church.
Sariel pursued her, a whirlwind of impenetrable feathers and indomitable fury.
When she clapped her wings forward, the buffeting wind would have blown Emma across the church if she hadn’t tucked into a roll and landed flat beside Joe’s corpse…
and an open duffel bag of weapons meant for urban warfare.
Grenades, handguns, and a pair of short-barreled shotguns lay amidst a cache of magazines and loose shells.
Grabbing both shotguns, she rolled to her feet again and pulled the triggers.
Like her bullets, the first round sparked off Sariel’s metallic feathers and ricocheted steel pellets across the room.
The second missed entirely, and a horizontal sword stroke forced her into a backbend to avoid becoming two distinct Emma pieces.
Shit. This was going to be harder than she thought.
Emma straightened, pivoted on one foot, and kicked out with the other. Her bare sole connected with Sariel’s jaw, but she might as well have kicked a statue. Pain radiated up through her leg. She scrambled back, ducked another sword strike, and continued to keep the fallen one’s focus on herself.
Hopefully River was having better luck, though she hadn’t seen the witch emerge from the confessional. In fact, she didn’t see her at all.
Becoming a living tornado, Sariel spun with her razor-sharp wings spread around her.
Emma leapt back, but not before a thin line of blood had been drawn against her chest. She sucked in a sharp breath, leaped atop one of the broken pews, and squeezed off two rounds at the angel’s feet, to little effect.
Her enemy’s sword whistled through the air, the blade producing heat like a blast furnace. While the fallen one was quick, Emma was faster and had preternatural speed on her side. Darting to the side, she threw her body from the path of Sariel’s flaming sword.
Before she fled beyond her enemy’s reach, the edge of a feathered wing caught Emma in the small of the back. Fabric ripped and tore, hot blood spilled down her body. She stumbled and cried out before staggering to the floor, striking her face against the edge of a pew.
Blood was one thing Emma couldn’t afford to lose.
She needed every precious drop, and while the scent of Joe and Josh’s spilled essence tempted her, there was no time to recoup her losses from the deceased humans.
Her eyes watered from the pain, her broken foot was barely healed and her back was sliced to the bone.
And no matter how much she wanted to flee in terror, she couldn’t, because River was depending on her to pull through.
A flash of insight swept through her mind—Sariel’s smoldering blade cleaving through her neck with a horizontal swing.
Warned by her gift, Emma lurched up from the ground and dove over the fallen one’s head before the vision of decapitation could come true.
She tucked into a roll on the other side then bounced to her feet the moment she hit the floor.
When Emma spun to face Sariel, she fired at the fallen archangel’s exposed back. The second shell landed at the base of her lower left wing and hot blood splattered, tearing muscle and silver-edged celestial feathers.
Sariel’s outraged shriek pulsed through Emma’s eardrums, threatening to blow them out like wet tissue paper. She pushed through the pain and gritted her teeth. No matter how much it hurt, the dark creature’s pain brought Emma a sense of elation and success.
She can be hurt. She can be hurt! Emma realized. She may be immortal, but she isn’t invulnerable to pain and damage. No wonder the Ancient One of the past had perished—vampires back then hadn’t been packing firearms.
The moment the angel recovered, two more sword strokes sliced at Emma—each one deflected by an invisible force.
It had to be River interfering and protecting her.
Refusing to waste that precious second, Emma grabbed the edge of the pew to her right and raised it in the air.
Her biceps flexed and her muscles screamed.
She’d never in her life lifted anything so heavy, but sweet bliss and elation surged through her body when she brought it crashing into the stalking angel. It shattered into smaller shards of wood, and Sariel stumbled to the side.
I can do this. Another swing whistled past, but Emma wasn’t there any longer.
Her unusual, rapidly maturing gift told her where to go and how to move.
She placed her trust in it and surrendered to its guidance.
With quick footwork, she avoided a flurry of fiery blade attacks coming in for her face and torso at close quarters. The heat singed her brows.
Desperate for a moment to recuperate, Emma put a marble pillar between them while panting for breath.
“Foul little blood drinker. Do you think you can stand against an archangel? Many a vampire have faced me, many centuries your elder, and yet none have survived. You are nothing. You prolong the inevitable.”
“Shit talking won’t win you this fight, bitch.”
“Then perhaps I should find your witchling friend and spread her entrails over this altar. Where are you, witch?”
The confession box where River had teleported them shattered beneath Sariel’s wingstroke. Thankfully, the witch didn’t appear to be inside.
“Come out, come out, little witch.”
“No, you don’t, bitch. Not my friend!”
Burning through her blood supply, Emma forced speed into her muscles and blurred across the church aisle, moving so quickly she thought she’d phased across the room. She slammed into Sariel’s back and plunged the dagger into the base of one silver wing while yanking on another with her bare hand.