30 FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE #2
He clawed at the chain, trying to get a grip to loosen it and clear his airway.
Sunshine pulled her wrists apart in opposite directions, tightening the loop in the metal, closing the gap even further.
Raphael’s wings flapped frantically, trying to dislodge her, but she held on tight, anchoring her legs around his hips.
Distantly, she heard Raum and Eva shouting from their respective sigils.
For them, she had to hold on.
Raphael charged backward, and Sunshine’s back slammed into the concrete wall. It felt like she’d been hit by a semitruck. She screamed against the pain but refused to loosen her hold.
Raphael ran forward, stopped, and then charged back. Again, her back hit the wall. This time, her skull smacked against the concrete. Lights danced in her vision, and her head swam. Don’t you dare loosen your hold, Sunshine!
Raum’s shouts echoed in her ears. The look of fear in Eva’s eyes was burned into her brain. The story of how Raphael had betrayed her and ruined her life replayed on a loop.
She’d lost everything because of him, and then he’d had the audacity to blame it on her.
He’d left her to suffer in Hell. He’d stolen Raum’s memories.
He’d lectured her while she lay sick and traumatized in her bed, criticizing her carelessness for allowing herself to get captured.
He’d threatened people she loved— good people—as part of his quest to stroke his narcissistic ego, and he couldn’t recognize the evil in what he was doing.
She was suddenly sure, for the first time in her existence, that she understood the meaning of the word “hate.” A dark wrath consumed her until her body numbed and her mind cleared, and she fixed on the target of her newfound hatred with single-minded focus.
As she crashed against the wall again, she screamed at the pain in her spine, but she didn’t loosen her hold.
She held on tighter.
Raum watched in horror as Raphael slammed Sunshine into the concrete. His rage was so immense, it felt like his body wouldn’t be able to contain it. He would have shifted into demon form, but the sigil wasn’t big enough.
All he could do was stand there and watch while Sunshine’s screams echoed around the dark chamber. Just let go! he wanted to shout at her, but he knew she wouldn’t.
So he was going to have to help her.
Without really knowing what possessed him, he charged forward to the edge of the sigil he was trapped in. He knew what would happen. He’d been electrocuted by sigil magic many times throughout his life, and it was never pleasant. And Empyrean magic was ten times stronger than Temporal magic.
He didn’t know what he thought was going to happen this time, but he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. He just acted on instinct.
As expected, when he hit the barrier, the blue light of Empyrean magic traveled over his body, and it felt like he’d been struck by lightning. It threw him back into the center of the sigil, his wings crumpling beneath him. He hauled himself to his feet, dazed, head pounding from the aftershock.
Just as he shook it to clear his vision, he saw Raphael body slam Sunshine, dropping to the floor this time. She was crushed beneath his weight, his wings spread to smother her, but still she didn’t let go. The sight was enough to make Raum lose his mind.
And maybe he did, because next thing he knew, he was charging the sigil barrier again. And this time, when he hit it and the light traveled over his body, he didn’t let it throw him back. Instead, he braced his hands in front of him and pushed .
Electric shocks traveled down his arms in waves. Again and again, the magic rolled over him, until it felt like he was melting from the inside out. He felt wetness in his eyes, nose, and ears and knew it was blood. His brain was probably liquifying inside his skull. He kept pushing anyway.
And then he actually felt a give in the barrier.
It flexed beneath his hands, bending outward. He pushed harder, squeezing his eyes shut, though the piercing light still seemed to burn right into them. Everything went white. Searing agony was the only sensation in his body.
The barrier bent outward further, and then he finally felt it start to tear.
He knew he was shouting, but the sound didn’t seem to carry anywhere.
There was a roaring in his ears so loud it obliterated all else.
The pain started to steal his consciousness, and blackness crept in at the edges of his awareness.
And then the sigil actually broke.
He flew through and hit the ground, his wings splayed out, leaving black feathers strewn across the concrete. He lay there for a second, aware only of the pain throbbing in every cell of his body, unable to remember what he was doing or why.
A scream echoed distantly at the edge of his mind. Sunshine.
He turned his head, and there she was. She was still clinging to Raphael, while he continued his savage efforts to dislodge her, having climbed to his feet to slam her into the wall again and again.
Raphael’s wings were spread, and between each forceful collision, he would reach overhead to pummel Sunshine with thick fists.
She’d formed her wings too, in a futile attempt to cushion her back against the wall that was now cracked from her body’s impact.
Her face was streaked with blood, her features contorted with pain.
Raum rolled over. Sat up. His body throbbed and weakness wanted to suck him down into oblivion, but he didn’t have time for that shit right now. He lurched to his feet, the room spinning like a carousel from Hell.
In his peripherals, he saw Eva still trapped in her own sigil. He couldn’t hear her words—had his eardrums ruptured?—but he could tell she was shouting encouragement. She was shouting at him to get up. To get the hell up and go fight. He focused on the imagined sound and took a step forward.
His leg almost crumpled, but he locked his knee and managed to stay upright.
He didn’t care that he was nearly out of strength—he’d happily use the rest of it to take out Raphael—but if he wanted to be sure it was an effective attack, he was going to need a weapon.
He would have shifted into his demon form, but he was pretty sure the effort would knock him unconscious.
His blurry, blood-clouded vision landed on Raphael’s discarded sword.
Raphael’s consecrated sword.
He didn’t think. There wasn’t time for thinking, and if he had, he would likely have remembered the last time he’d touched a consecrated weapon and how much it sucked.
Before they’d become frenemies, Eva’s Grigori father had thrown a consecrated blade with startling accuracy straight into Meph’s chest. Raum had yanked on the thing until his hands melted off, and he still hadn’t been able to pull it out. Jacqui, Eva’s mom, had shown up and done it instead.
He was well acquainted with the damage consecrated weapons could do to demons, but there wasn’t time to care now. Stumbling over to the sword, he bent and wrapped both hands around the heavy weapon, lifting it high.
Immediately, his skin up to his forearms burst into flame.
Fucking goddamn fucking shit—
The pain was excruciating. Mind-numbing. He had seconds until his burning hands became useless and forced him to drop the sword.
With single-pointed focus, he charged the archangel. If he could have run him clean through with the blade, he would have, but he couldn’t risk stabbing Sunshine. So he aimed low. At the knees, since Sunshine’s legs were around Raphael’s hips and safely out of the way.
He swept the sword down in an arc, throwing all his weight into it, shouting with exertion and at the flames burning his hands off. The sword connected with the side of Raphael’s left knee …
And took his lower leg clean off.
Damn, it was sharp.
Raphael bellowed an unholy roar, and his remaining leg folded under him. Blood poured from the grisly stump. Raum had one good swing left in him before his hands were equally stumpy.
He waited a split second longer than he perhaps should have, but it was worth it because the perfect moment presented itself. Raphael landed on his side, Sunshine falling away from him, though she never released the chain around his throat.
Raum lifted the sword at the exact moment that his hands could no longer hold on, probably because his fingers were gone. The heavy weapon slipped from his grip, but it didn’t matter, because he’d positioned it perfectly.
It dropped, blade pointing straight down. The tip hit Raphael’s temple, and with that preternatural sharpness, it sank straight through his skull, pinning it to the floor.
The archangel lay still.
There was a moment of total silence. The world was spinning.
“Raum!” Sunshine’s voice. She was still on the floor. “Your hands!”
He blinked, trying to focus. They’ll grow back , he wanted to tell her. Been there, done that. In fact, last time they’d been melted off, Eva had used her badass Nephilim powers to regrow them almost instantaneously. Maybe she could help him out again.
“Y’okay?” The question came out garbled, but honestly, he was impressed he was speaking at all. He was swaying on his feet, barely holding himself upright.
“Yes, I’m okay.” There was pain in her voice, but he believed her. “A-are you?”
Sunshine was safe. The relief was so immense, he nearly passed out then and there. But first, he had to make sure Eva was all right.
He stumbled in the direction he knew she was in. His sight wasn’t working great. Somehow, he managed to discern the edge of the sigil trapping her, and he smudged the chalk line with a foot.
A second later, he felt Eva’s hands gripping his arms, keeping him upright, which was helpful. He hadn’t fallen on his ass yet, but he wasn’t far off.
“Oh my god , Raum, your hands! Why the fuck are you always melting your hands?”
“S’all good,” he mumbled.
“How the hell did you break out of that sigil? That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen—Oh, Jesus, fuck, your hands—Oh god, I’m gonna be sick.”