Chapter 59
His eyes flicked open, a low snarl building in his chest as tendrils of rage swirled through him.
The voice–familiar and hated–called out to him again, speaking in an old language, a language humans could hardly speak at all.
One they never should have been taught in the first place.
Those damned angels, breaking their own rules to gift the humans with knowledge.
It had been causing irritating issues since the Beginning.
The voice called out once more, summoning him through that veil, and he could not ignore it for much longer. It wasn’t possible, not with the language of angels being used.
Slowly, Leviathan sat up, his eyes scanning the dark room before they fell on Cullen beside him, his cheek pressed into a pillow and the blanket tangled around his waist, revealing the gnarly scars that now adorned his back.
He had refused to heal them for days, letting them heal slowly so that they would serve as a reminder for what Leviathan had let him do.
The memories still brought a flush to his face, though he could hardly deny he’d liked it, since he’d let Cullen have control for several more days before he’d finally taken over again and pinned him down.
The voice called out to him again, drawing him from his thoughts. Beside him, Cullen stirred, wincing as if something had poked him. New fury flicked through him, his eyes narrowing as Cullen winced again.
Was he being summoned as well? He supposed he probably shouldn’t be too surprised, but the nerve of those fuckers…
He exhaled slowly, reaching to brush his fingers against Cullen’s temple. A gentle, comforting touch followed by a quiet, but strong command. Sleep.
Cullen fell still, his face relaxing again, and Leviathan climbed out of their bed, summoning some of his more intimidating clothes–a long, black-and-red robe made of a thick fabric that only deities had access to that cinched tight around his waist and left him looking the part of a god–onto his body before calling up his shadow portal.
His eyes went to Cullen again, his lips pulling down into a frown. The command would not last against a summoning for long. But hopefully long enough for him to slaughter the pricks and get back before Cullen was disturbed again.
“Sleep well, pet.” He murmured, stepping into the shadows. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Rain misted down from the sky as he appeared exactly where he’d been summoned, exactly where his shadows had pulled him to against his will.
He took in the dark sky, the storm clouds that brewed nearby, the still-demolished building just a few yards away, and then turned a slow smile to the boy that stood in front of him.
That familiar shit-brown hair and that stupid determined look like he actually thought he was going to accomplish something tonight. Fool. This would only end with his blood spilled on these ancient stones. With his beating heart laid bare in Leviathan’s palm, just as it always should have been.
Movement to the side had his gaze shifting, his lips pulling up into a smirk at the sight of Dominick walking up beside the little brat.
He looked just as determined, his glasses pushed up high on his nose and his face set in that pathetic attempt of bravery.
His racing heart gave him away, though. Just as it always had.
The man was nothing more than a coward who hid behind his fancy books and got in a few lucky hits now and then.
The power flickering around his hands, casting small bursts of electricity across his fingers, might have made him nervous.
If he hadn’t known he could take such power from heaven with little more than a wince.
They both looked exhausted, as if they had been up for days.
And Walker’s eyes were red rimmed, as if he’d been crying.
When Leviathan risked a swift glance into their minds, he saw that the boy that had been in his bed the night Cullen had come back to see him had not made it, had been pierced through the chest when Leviathan exploded the building around them all. Good.
Nearby, Diviners circled the courtyard of the academy, all of them with power flickering in their palms. Useless, pathetic fools. Whatever plan they were about to enact, it would fail just as all the others had before it.
“My, my,” Leviathan purred, striding a few slow steps forward, his eyes scanning for any real threat and not finding any, save for… “This may be the most organized I’ve ever seen your little band of cowards.”
Light shimmered in front of his face, making him look down with a small pinch of his lips.
A large pentagram had been drawn onto the ground below him in blood, small runes carved into the stones inside of it. Runes that spoke of capture and holding and death. Runes that represented his name. His name…and Cullen’s.
A muscle twinged in his jaw.
Different. This felt different.
He kept the doubt from his face, sneering up at them as they approached.
“Where’s Cullen?” That pathetic brat Walker demanded, drawing his attention again.
His sneer became more brutal, the rage he felt seeping into it. “Sleeping well-fucked in my bed. But I suppose you wouldn’t know what that actually looks like.”
Walker’s jaw clenched, his teeth snapping together. “You sick fucker-”
“We’re not here for this.” Dominick interrupted, waving a swift hand between them. Leviathan merely smirked at the anger on Walker’s face, forcing his way into his mind again to whisper that he should do it, if he had any balls at all. He should burst forward and attack him–
“Don’t.” Dominick hissed, taking a tight hold of Walker’s wrist as he stepped forward. “If you go into that pentagram, you’re dead.”
“I know.” He snapped, shrugging him off. “He’s in my head.”
A muscle twinged in Dominick’s jaw. “Don’t let him get to you.”
“I’m not.”
“This is all very boring.” Leviathan sighed, spinning in a slow circle so he could examine his surroundings without being obvious. The Diviners around the courtyard were one thing. Weak enough that it would hardly take anything at all to kill them.
But the pentagram…it was perfect. Nowhere to smash through that shimmering golden light that circled him. Usually humans made a mistake here or there, left a weak enough opening that a strong demon could tear right through it with magic. But when they couldn’t…
He kept his face carefully blank as he turned back to the men.
“Well, go on. What’s the plan this time?
” What the hell was his plan? He could not go through the shimmering shield; it would simply bounce him right off.
The runes prevented him from tunneling through the ground with raw strength.
He couldn’t portal out, though his shadows were already teasing the edges of the pentagram, searching for weaknesses.
They found none and Leviathan felt that little pit of anxiety in his chest grow.
If he’d only had his bone knife it would be fine, but he’d left it…
Apprehension burst through him when he realized he could not recall the last time he had seen the damn thing.
The men in front of him exchanged a quick glance and then Dominick drew a small black blade from his pocket.
Leviathan’s fingers twitched at his sides, his eyes widening the slightest bit.
No.
“How did you get that blade?” He demanded, his calm slipping.
“I took it from you.” Walker said quietly, raising his chin. “When you had me in your shadows.”
That’s how they’d summoned him.
That was how they planned to kill him.
A blade made of his own bone…the ichor infused bone of an angel…
It was one of the only things capable of killing a demon of his rank.
They’d known it before, of course, those damned records the Diviners had been keeping for centuries–gifts of an angel, long ago, he knew–giving them far too much information on both Heaven and hell.
But Leviathan never would have thought they’d be able to get their hands on one. On his blade.
“That blade…” He said quietly. “Is the property of a god. Give it to me.” Rage flared off him with a violent burst of shadows.
They slammed uselessly against the pentagram.
His fear reached a horribly vile level, his mind locked, not on the ever burning fires of Hell, of the home that would hopefully be waiting for him at his end, but of Cullen, flinching in their bed, clearly being summoned by them just as he had been…
“I think not.” Dominick murmured, breaking him from his thoughts.
The man turned away then, taking a small book bound in leather from one of the closest Diviners.
Leviathan tensed as he opened it, his eyes narrowing as he flipped to a marked page and started to speak in the old language that had called him here.
Down the bond in his soul, he felt a sharp tug. He was calling Cullen.
“Stop that!” He hissed furiously, prowling closer to him. He was only a few inches outside the pentagram. If he could just get a hold of him…or even the book… “Leave him be! This is between you and I!”
“This is between all of us!” Walker snapped, drawing his attention.
“We are the soldiers of Heaven and you are the bane of Hell. This is bigger than us or you or Cullen.” His lips pressed into a tight, unhappy line.
“He’s just a demon now. You made sure of that.
And all demons must be exterminated like the vermin you are. ”