Chapter 17 #2
I dropped to the roof and stumbled until I landed at his feet. It was him, but with a film of demonic over his eyes. I scrambled away from him, but came up against the solid form of Gavriel at my back.
I grasped his hand, squeezing it too tight, but the sight of David hurt so much. “How are you still alive? When I killed Tralcon, you should have died.”
He gave me an apologetic, closed-mouth smile and nodded, looking so human, except for the eyes. “Yes, I probably should have, but staying alive gets to be a habit.”
I stared at him while I shivered, harder and harder. I inhaled and, in spite of all the angel blood that still wrapped around me, I smelled him, just enough to know his corruption. Not even Tralcon had been so cankered with evil intent and twisted desires.
“Tralcon corrupted you.”
He smiled, showing fangs. “Sweet Louisa. Your love was so sweet and pure, it was almost enough to save me. My soul, not my life. No, saving my life ruined my soul. This is what happens when you fight against the will of God. You did this to me.”
Gavriel growled. “Your fall has nothing to do with her. The next time you blaspheme, it will be the last thing you do.”
David flashed those fangs at Gavriel. “Yes, we both know that she is innocent, but she’ll still feel guilty and responsible in spite of the fact that I betrayed her.
She’s like that. So stupid. Even now, she loves me.
Who can love a demon? Only an angel. Tralcon hoped that she’d love him.
The power that comes from that sort of love is practically limitless, but she killed him first. She couldn’t kill me, and she couldn’t love him because she still loved me. ”
I snorted and stepped away from Gavriel. I wasn’t weak. I was stupid, yes, but not quite as stupid as I’d been a hundred years ago. Could I kill David? I wasn’t sure, but Gavriel could.
I gestured at the demon. “Kill him.”
David shook his head. “But why would he do that when I have the one thing he wants more than anything in the world?”
It was Gavriel’s time to scoff. “I already have everything I want.” He looked at me, concerned.
Did I really want him to kill the person I’d loved so much?
It would hurt me, and he didn’t want to hurt me.
He really loved me, like I’d thought David loved me.
My heart panged, like it was alive to hurt so much.
David sighed heavily. “But I can give her life. She hates being a vampire. She wanted at least five children, and now she wants them with you. If you give me what I want, I’ll bring her back to life. Not a weak impersonation of life, but the real thing.”
I hissed at him. “Liar! You have nothing to give but death. That’s the demon in you.”
He ignored me, keeping his gaze on Gavriel. “She wants your children. To love and hold and care for, like she wants you, to be your wife. She deserves happiness, and you can give it to her. All you need to do in return is do one small thing for me.”
I shook my head. “Lies. One small thing? Gavriel, kill him!”
I grabbed his arm and tugged on him, but he stayed in place, staring at David like he was seeing something else, an illusion that contained the images to the lie he was weaving.
Speaking of weaving, shadows of darkness and malevolent evil were wrapping around us, threads that wrapped tighter and tighter while David’s eyes burned a dull red that echoed in the veins of the darkness.
He was a real monster. I’d killed a few of those, and they required more than my claws and fangs, such as the sword hanging at Gavriel’s side, still tucked in its scabbard.
Only an idiot would touch an angel’s weapon, particularly when the angel was a reaper.
It would burn me to my soul, but it would also be able to kill the demon David worked for a century to become.
I’d given him a chance to live, and he’d taken that chance and turned it into this, feeding his own darkness until it had consumed every spark of goodness he’d ever had.
That was on him. I’d sacrificed my life so that he could live, and he’d chosen this? The only thing I owed him was death, the death I’d taken away from him.
Gavriel was lost, the darkness was closing in, and only I could destroy the evil.
Even though I still had pieces of love embedded in my heart for who David used to be, who I’d thought he was, that love wasn’t going to save him, not when the burning flame of my love for Gavriel demanded that I make a new sacrifice.
I took a deep breath, burning my lungs with the icy air threaded with demonic evil, then I moved, pulling Gavriel’s sword from his scabbard, and leapt at David, swinging the sword in an arc even as it came to life, a blazing fire of death and darkness that ripped through me, burning me to my soul, exactly as expected.
It didn’t hurt as badly as years spent as Tralcon’s Blood, or the thought of Gavriel losing his beautiful soul to the darkness. No. As long as I had a choice, I would choose to save, no matter the personal sacrifice.
I probably was as stupid as David thought, but love was like that, and I loved Gavriel too much to let him suffer for my past.
The sword finished its arc in David’s neck, sending his head flying, but this was just the beginning of destroying a demon. The flames swirled around my hand and up my arm, melting my hand to the blade. Perfect, then I wouldn’t drop it.
A wave of devouring darkness hit me, knocking me flat to the roof and threatening to sweep me off. I dug my hand into the beams and then swung around, bringing Gavriel’s sword down through David’s heart.
It was like trying to drive a toothpick into solid rock, and the evil beat at me as roaring and devouring as anything, while the sword burned up my arm, down to the bone, the soul, devouring flame that hurt more than seemed possible, like it created more nerves so they could scream at me.
I grunted and grabbed the hilt with both hands, driving it into the chest, gripping the roof slate with my toes, pressing the blade into the heart until tears were streaming down my face and I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
I wasn’t prepared for a demonic power that had been growing for a hundred years, born of my own love.
This would destroy me, but I wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left of me.
Gavriel’s hands covered mine, wings wrapping around me, blocking out the wind.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, and then together, we drove the point down into the heart of the demon that roared around us, piercing David’s heart with a crack that went through my skull like a bullet.
The world went still for a moment, and then the Victorian monstrosity creaked and cracked, collapsing beneath us.
Gavriel beat his wings, but instead of launching us up, the tattered ribbons barely held us aloft above the house and the demonic storm that was sucking us down into the house and to the final resting place of my biggest mistake.
Gavriel beat his wings frantically, but the whirlpool of darkness was pulling us down and down until a golden streak of light hit us from the side, knocking us into a tempestuous darkness that lasted for a moment of horror, before it released its grasp, allowing us into the fringes of the darkness.
We hit something that screeched like metal, then the thud of exploding bricks, until we slid to a stop at the edge of the apartment building across the street.
I stared at the stormy sky, unable to move.
Lorien started laughing like a lunatic. “She pulled your sword, Gav. You’ve got to tell your girlfriend she’s not supposed to do that kind of thing in public.”
Gavriel groaned and then sat up, pulling me up with him.
His beautiful wings were so sad, beaten and battered while they’d wrapped around me, protecting me.
They were so beautiful. Like him. I stared at the face of the most beautiful angel in the world, unable to feel or move my arms. It was still heaven.
He was my heaven. Heaven burned the damned, like me.
But burning was worth it if it saved my perfect angel.
“I’ll love you forever,” I whispered, then closed my eyes and let the world disappear.