Chapter 38
Something thumped down hard beside me, jolting me awake. Cracking open my eyes, I reached out and felt cloth. Familiar cloth. My dress! I'd left that on the beach.
I was immediately awake, but Nick moved faster. Surging to his feet, he stood naked over me, those wings spread for protection. I rolled to the side, grabbing my dress as I made it to my knees, searching for some hint of what was going on as I frantically pulled my clothes on. Screw the bra and panties. I just wanted to be covered.
Just as I saw the angel, Nick acted. Slapping his right hand down on his left forearm, he growled, "Samyaza, Beelzebub, Lucifer."
Marks glowed, flaring to life even while clothes began to materialize on his body.
And Michael laughed.
The bastard was flying just out of reach, hovering even with the ledge we were on, in all of his natural glory. His white gold hair had become truly metallic, his wings were the typical pearly white, but those green eyes were a sick and putrid flame, all too visible in the darkness. He also wasn't alone.
I had no idea how, but the angels had found us. "Nick, we have to go," I whispered.
He shook his head. "He brought them all, Sia. I count at least twenty on this plane. I'm willing to bet there's more in either corridor."
"Of course there are," Michael said. "You have the worst habit of getting away from us, and I really want that Muse."
"Yeah? So why didn't you just grab her when she was asleep?" Nick asked smugly.
The archangel snarled something I couldn't understand, then, "Because I can see Lucifer's shield on her, and I'm well aware of those little tricks he likes to weave into such things."
Nick lifted his chin and crossed those strong arms over his chest. "Then I guess that means you can't have her. Go find your own Muse, Michael. We're not about to give up ours."
Like an exclamation point, something whooshed into existence beside me. I flinched away, seeing nothing but gold and feathers, then there was a soft pop on my other side. Taloned hands caught me as my head whipped around. I'd never seen him like this before, but it was Sam in all his stormy dawn brilliance – and his horns were just as impressive as I'd imagined. In the darkness, I couldn't quite make out the color of his skin, but he blended perfectly in this purplish world.
Then a third pop came right behind us. I didn't need to look to know it was Bel, but I'd wanted to see him as a demon. When I did, I was glad Sam held me, because I flinched again, stepping into my friend for protection.
Beelzebub was big, completely black, and probably the scariest looking thing I could imagine. Even the short, thick horns on his head were meant to cause nightmares. As a human, I'd gotten used to his charming smiles and teddy bear personality, but as a demon? That was one scary-ass mother fucker.
Michael made a point of sighing dramatically. "Really? Do you idiots want to feed us aether so badly that you'll bring your whole legion for us to drain?" He lifted his hands like he just couldn't imagine such a thing. "If you insist."
"Nick," Luke said, "drop her shields."
"What the fuck happened?" Nick asked.
Luke moved to guard the edge. "Her peak appeared on the map a few minutes ago. Sia's shield is gone. I think she lost control of it. You need to drop yours."
And without a word, he did, the nearly invisible Satanael symbols dissipating from around me. I'd woken up so fast I felt like I was barely keeping up, but I still understood what that meant. I had full access to all aether, and we were about to throw down with the enemy. I just hoped those idiots had no idea what I could do.
"Plans?" I asked Sam, keeping my voice low.
"You," he said, "are going to hide behind Bel. Do not cross the veil. We came straight through from Earth, but I'll bet they have a few choirs waiting to grab you."
"And you," Michael said, pointing at Sam, "and you, and you, and you!" He moved his finger to each of the guys. "And there's not a damned thing you can do to stop us. We're going to do horrible things to your little Muse."
Sam leaned closer. "He's trying to taunt us into the air. It would make things easier for them since this is a defensible position. Whatever you do, sweetie, don't let his words make you do something stupid."
I shrugged that off. "He's an idiot. Just like most guys. I'm kinda used to it."
Mike heard me, and from the furrow of his brow, he was not impressed. "Like most guys? Like humans? You stupid little –"
"Now!" Nick yelled.
Sam shoved, pushing me toward Bel. The scary black demon was already in motion. Grabbing me by the waist, he spun, damned near slinging me against the wall before planting his bulk between me and the flock of angels hovering over the sea. From here, I couldn't see much, but I didn't need to. I could hear it.
Someone screamed. Something hummed like electricity. Bel opened his wings, but I could still make out an eerie purple glow from whatever he held. And they were all moving. Fighting, I was pretty sure, but demon wings were huge. They worked better than any curtain I could imagine.
"Can you call a shield?" Bel asked.
Days of training made it easy. I wrapped myself in one as I answered, "Yep. Covered."
"Good, because we're about to be swarmed. Do not let them touch you, Muse. I taught you better than that."
So he thought, but my self-defense lessons had been something I wasn't very good at. However, if all bets were off, there were a few things I did excel at. Draining aether was one. It might even be the biggest one.
From directly above us, something moved. I ducked, reaching one arm up as defense but Bel was faster. He turned, swinging what looked to me like a lightning bolt, and I watched as a white, feathered wing separated from the tin looking man it had been attached to. With a scream, the angel plummeted down, landing hard only feet away. What I didn't expect was the blood. Bright red and more than I'd ever seen before, it drained from the severed limb and spurted from the remaining stump. A part of me was grossed out, but I couldn't stop to think. While he was trying to grab at the remnants of his wing, I darted in and slapped my hand against him. Then I pulled, refusing to stop until the asshole was unconscious.
Aether. This war was about the resource they needed most, and I was a magnet for it. Doing my best to stay low, out of Bel's way, I kept to the cliff wall and searched the skies. Angels were everywhere, each one trying to find an opening, but Sam was right. This ledge was small enough that four demons could hold it, and positioned so they couldn't come directly at us except for from the front.
That didn't mean I couldn't come at them. Spotting an angel at the top of the cliff, I reached, straining to call the life force inside him. I had no idea how to do it, or if it was even possible. All I knew was that I'd pulled out the robber's life without touching him. I'd drawn Gabe's after I let go. That meant there was a chance I could do it from here. I just had to try a little harder.
When the man began to scream, I knew it was working. This time, the aether was chrome, beautiful in its own way, but it was about to be mine. Trusting Beelzebub to keep me safe, I dared to close my eyes and pull as hard as I could. Completely focused on the power rushing into me, I never stopped to think about what would happen if it worked. Not until Bel suddenly jerked me out of the way and a dazed Angel crashed onto the ledge where I'd been only seconds before.
Without remorse, Bel cleaved the creep's body in half and turned back for more. Me? I sucked up the last of the aether then thrust my palm against Bel's back. "Refill incoming," I warned, then relaxed. Just like I had with Sam, the trick to get through Bel's wards was to convince them that this aether already belonged to the big lug. I just had to make his protections believe it was one and the same. It wasn't even hard.
"Luke next," Bel growled over his shoulder. "He's throwing too much."
I nodded even though he couldn't see and kept pushing. That didn't mean Bel stopped fighting, he just kept his feet planted while he did it. Clinging to his back, I twisted and turned with him, but I kept pushing, encouraging the life to flow from me to him until it felt too thick and sluggish. Only then did I let go and scramble away from the demon's wild thrusts.
Avoiding the body against the cliff, I searched for a way to Luke. Where humans would have stood shoulder to shoulder, demons needed more room. Their wings were massive, and Luke's were no smaller. Each one had to be at least twelve feet long, which meant about twenty-five to the next man, if I had to guess, and that was a lot of distance to run when angels were trying to kill me.
But I did it. Running bent at the waist, I covered my head with my hands and just went. A wing flared over my head. A bolt of something crashed onto the moss to my right, and Luke was making a lot of sparks. Sparks I could only assume cost him aether – but I still had more to give.
"Luke," I called as I reached his back. "Refuel incoming!"
Then I grabbed his wing with one hand and palmed his back with the other. Holding on kept me out of his way. It also made me aware of the vibrations coursing through him. They said aether was life, but it was also music, made up of the microscopic vibrations of particles, all humming together in symphony. It wasn't loud, but it was still hard to miss, and getting harder. Like grabbing a jackhammer, I could feel the tremors in my bones and I realized something. I'd been doing this wrong the whole time. I'd been trying to play by their rules, but those limitations didn't apply to me.
No, I created and destroyed. I painted and erased. I didn't need to work in patterns or suggestions. I was an artist, and the only thing inhibiting me was my own lack of imagination. As the last of my excess aether flowed into Luke, I was feeling a little too inspired. I was a god damned magnet, and their power was nothing more than my iron filings. They had it, my friends needed it, and I could make this happen.
"I gotta get more," I told Luke as I let go. "Just give me a second."
He thrust out an arm, forming a small shield between us and the open beach then looked back at me. "You need to stay by Bel, Sia."
"Nope." I glanced around, quickly counting the number of angels still in the air. "There's more of them than us. Hold the ledge. I'll be right back."
"Sia!" he hissed, but I was already stepping back to the gap between this place and Earth.
I hit the corridor and saw too many glowing specks. Some were close, more were farther away, but the army assaulting my friends on Vesdar was nothing compared to the numbers here. Good. That's exactly what I'd hoped for. If there were six hundred and some odd angels available to take me down, then that was a shit ton of power for me. I just had to catch it before any of them could touch me.
And hold it.
Without bursting.
But I was a vacuum. A funnel. A magnet that pulled so hard I could bend the veils, and if that was going to be my bane, then I'd make it my strongest power. I'd do this through sheer willpower, if nothing else.
A wave of my hand changed the protective screen beside me into a wall. A thought made a chain spring up from the billowy ground to clamp around my leg. A really big chain, attached to an even bigger bolt that went so far through the center of this plane that nothing would be able to drag me out of here without permission.
Just as the first angel reached for me, I dropped the last of my protections, threw my head back, and just pulled. In my mind, I saw myself as a drain, sucking all the life force into me. It didn't matter where it started, in an angel or flowing on the current, I needed it so it would come. I believed it with every cell in my body and I pulled as hard as I could possibly imagine anyone having pulled before.
It worked.
Angels began to scream, their voices echoing through the corridor like banshee wails. Slapping my hands to my ears, I tried to ignore it. That was all I could do. That, or give up, but my friends needed me right now. They needed this power, and I was going to make it happen. If nothing else, this would be my legacy, downing more angels than even Beelzebub, but by doing it my own way. As I felt the aether flow into my body, stretching the limitations I hadn't even known existed before now, I just hoped that history would remember me as theirs. As the Demons' Muse, not just some stupid girl who couldn't get anything right – so I pulled harder.
Filling with too much aether feels strange. It's like being stuffed after Thanksgiving, but all over. My mind, my heart, my fingers, and even my hair felt bloated and stretched, as if the cells themselves were about to burst, but I couldn't stop. If I ruptured whatever aether bladder a person had, I knew someone would fix it. Luke or Nick, probably. Those guys always took care of me, and I had to do this. There was no other way to –
Suddenly, the corridor fell silent. The sound of the wind rushing past was the only thing I could hear because the voices were all gone. Forcing my aether-puffed eyes open, I looked, shocked to see grey silhouettes of angels scattered around, lit by a glow pulsing out of me. The aether. I had too much, but I knew exactly how to relieve just a bit of it.
Tossing my hand out, I imagined painting those bodies as dust flying on the breeze. In my mind, I could see them lifted, dissolving, and dissipating in the winds until they'd be impossible to collect. Molecule by molecule, the angels would tumble between worlds preventing anyone from putting them back together. Before me, it happened. At least fifty angels dissolved right in front of my eyes, making the balance of power just a little more equal. But I couldn't stay to enjoy this. I still had friends to save.
I tried to step back, but my leg jerked to a halt. Sucking in a little breath, I remembered the chain. A thought dispelled it and I tried again, this time stepping easily through the veil and into a world of chaos. The skies of Vesdar were filled with lightning, energy balls, glowing swords, and the screams of men. I paused for a split second to find my bearings, then shoved both hands down, painting the biggest protection I could imagine with the force of my will.
A gigantic bubble appeared, mimicking the gesture. It formed at the top and grew, using the aether inside me to make a shield from raw power. Like an oil slick, it shimmered in a myriad of colors but I could see through it enough to watch every angel on the other side pause in shock. Nothing would be able to get through that.
"What did you do?" Nick asked, turning to look at me.
"We're shielded and I cleared the corridor. Guy's, let's go!"
But Nick was shaking his head. "Sia, there's no pattern." He turned back and my eyes followed his.
"Oh, shit," I breathed, realizing my mistake.
There was no pattern to my shield, just pure, raw aether, there for the taking, and the angels hadn't hesitated for long. All of them pulled, sucking at it, but the way I'd built it had only made things worse. I couldn't pull it back. I couldn't stop them. No, instead of helping my friends, I'd just given aid to the enemy, and the beautiful swirls of life were getting thinner and thinner right before my eyes.
"Sam," Nick snapped. "Get her home. Luke, make sure she learns something this time." Then he sucked in a deep breath. "Bel, you're with me."
"Always, Satan," the big guy promised as he moved to stand beside Nick.
"No," I gasped, holding up my hands. "I can fix this."
"Get her safe!" Nick ordered.
But Sam and Luke looked like they dreaded leaving as much as I did. "Just..." I thrust my hand out, banishing the shield to swirl away in the atmosphere. "Give me back my aether, Mike."
"Come to Angelis with me, Muse," he countered, dropping lower to see me better. "Come with me, and I'll even let your friends go back to their forsaken little home."
"Damn it," Nick snarled. "Sam!"
Beside me, Sam took a deep breath and braced. "I'm not leaving you, Nick. We are legion."
"You need to protect Sia," Nick growled while Michael's hands were starting to glow brighter and brighter. "She can wake me up, you idiot, but she can die." He turned to meet Sam's eyes, nothing but determination on Nick's face.
"Let's go," Luke hissed, daring to grab my arm, but it was already too late.
Mike thrust both palms out, and behind him, the other angels did the same. My one mistake had just become even bigger as the wrath of at least a dozen angels rained down on us in the form of sprites. Big ones, little ones, and all sizes in between, the angels cast them at us, knowing we could either defend against the beasties or defend against their masters, but not both. The one thing they didn't count on... was me.
That was my aether. This was my mistake. For my entire life, I'd had to learn how to fix it when I screwed up, and I was damned good at it. So I pulled. I pushed. I waved them away while beside me, my friends hacked and slashed at them. Luke threw something white – I didn't get the chance to see what, but it flashed like a strobe. There was just one problem.
Mike wasn't stupid.
He must've been able to feel the drain, because his only target was me. Beelzebub did his best to block and deflect, but I was busy. I had to get that stupid archangel out of play or we'd all end up regretting this. Changing my focus, I ignored the rest and reached up, calling to only the life inside that one arrogant asshole, just as he threw something big.
"No," Nick yelled, launching into the sky.
The something was hideous, green, and about the size of a big dog. Nick grabbed it, but the blob was still forming, growing teeth as I watched, then arms, legs, and wings. All of them had claws, and every single one found a home in Nick's flesh. A leg slashed at his wing, tearing through the flight membrane. A hand hacked at his chest, marring one of the wards. That wasn't the worst. I watched in shock as long, sharp teeth buried themselves in the uppermost bone of Nick's other wing and pulled.
Then Sam vanished from beside me, just to reappear in the air by Nick. An ethereal dagger in his hand plunged into the sprite as he wrenched it away, but he was only one man. He'd removed the beast but Nick's wing was useless and gravity was more powerful than wishes. Nick fell, crashing into the plush moss that had been an amazing bed only hours before – and didn't move.
"Nick!" Sam screamed, dropping down at his side.
Me? I didn't bother screaming. I couldn't quite find any tears to cry. All I had was rage, and it was fueling something deep inside me. Something that rumbled, begging for release and all it needed was a form. Nick had asked me once if I could kill a butterfly and I'd said yes, to save the rest. Well, right now, I couldn't think of anything more perfect to extract my revenge.
If a sprite had just killed the man I loved, then I wanted a million sprites to make them pay. Every drop of aether I'd stolen from those angels went to fuel it, burning as it rushed out as a mass of delicate blue and black wings. Perfect, beautiful little monsters to make those assholes pay, I made them in droves with no other desire than to consume the flesh of angels. Not demons, not dragons, and certainly not of humans. They only wanted the sweet metallic skin of angels, and I ordered them to continue until they couldn't find any more.
"What the –" Luke gasped as he ducked under my surge of blue to rush for Nick.
Bel's response was even better. "Damn," he breathed.
But Mike couldn't see the threat. Butterfly after butterfly appeared, some bursting from my body while others materialized in the air beneath our ledge, and the idiot laughed. He dared to laugh at the most beautiful and harmless looking weapon he'd probably ever seen. That is, until the first one reached him, because my butterflies weren't like any others.
Those tiny little bodies and harmless little heads opened to be nothing but teeth. Having read too many dark fantasies, I'd made the proportions impossible, the fangs extra sharp, and their appetite unstoppable. Like a lazily flapping school of piranha, my sprites fell on them, clinging with their six sticky little legs, and they began to bite off hunks of metallic angel flesh to keep them going.
"Send them back," Bel yelled over the screams of pain. "Sia, send it all to Angelis!"
Perfect, and all it took was a wave of my arm and the last of that power inside me. I'd been to Angelis. I knew the resonance and Luke had taught me how to move people to other realms, but never before had I sent so many. I didn't bother to think about it, I just did it, forcing every angel on this entire planet to cross the dimensions whether they liked it or not. The bloating inside me vanished as bodies disappeared right in front of my eyes like candles blown out on a cake. My head felt light, my heart began to race, and my knees crumpled out from under me. Just as I fell into the moss, I realized that the world had gotten a whole lot quieter.
The only sound I could still hear was Sam calling Nick's name over and over. "Satan. C'mon, Satan, take it! Take my damned aether, please."