River

“What?” I gasped. “Why?”

Before I could think, I grabbed her arm. She yanked it away from me and slapped me so fast and hard that I never saw it coming before it staggered me back. “Devil spawn!” she spat.

My hand flew to my stinging cheek, but for the first time, instead of feeling anger and humiliation over her actions, all I felt was an odd detachment. Before, I’d always questioned why she hated me, why she couldn’t love me, and now I had the answers. Maybe she still should have loved me. No matter what, I was her child, but the voices had broken her to the point that she was incapable of caring for me.

Kobal closed in on her with his fangs and claws extended. “No!” I cried. I regained my balance and stumbled forward to stop him from killing her. “No!”

“She will not be allowed to get away with hitting you!” he snarled.

“It’s fine.” I wedged my body between his and hers. “She can’t hurt me anymore.”

Kobal’s muscles tensed to spring as he stared at her with a hatred that vibrated through the air around us. My mother drew her knees up against her chest and hugged them as she made a pitiful mewling sound.

“Demon,” she moaned.

I tried to nudge Kobal away, but he wouldn’t budge.

“I won’t allow her to touch you in such a way,” he stated.

“She won’t hurt me again, physically or emotionally.” I was surprised to realize, I believed this. She’d cut me open with her words more times than I could count, hit me more times than I cared to recall, but she couldn’t hurt me anymore. I’d believed this so many times over the years, believed myself armored against her time and time again, yet she’d still slipped through to pierce me in one way or another. There would be no more slipping through for her.

“She will never hurt me again,” I said. He didn’t go after her, but he didn’t back away either. Turning back to her, I kept myself between them as I spoke. “What happened to the people in town?”

“Taken. Dead. Your father came to claim them,” she said in the singsong voice of children skipping rope on a playground.

“Lucifer was here?”

“He came for you.” She giggled as she glanced at the TV again. Whatever few screws she’d still had in place in her mind were working their way free right before my eyes. “He found only the people and the children.”

“Why did he leave you here?” Corson asked her.

“Left a message for his daughter.”

“What is it?” She stared at the TV instead of responding to me. I stepped in front of the TV, forcing her attention to me. “What is the message?”

“That he knows the truth and so should you,” she said and pointed a finger at me before wrapping her arms around her legs again. “If I go to town today, can I get some rabbits?”

In my head, I heard the clatter of the last screw coming free from her brain and hitting the ground. What had Lucifer done to her? What had all the angels done to her?

“What truth?” I asked.

“I think I would like some flowers instead,” she murmured.

“Mother, what truth?”

“Not your mother, just the vessel.”

“She’s broken,” Hawk muttered.

“She’s been broken for a long time,” I said as I knelt in front of her. “Where are Gage and Bailey?”

“Well, they’re with him,” she replied and clapped her hands. “We’re all kin after all, and they are his kin too.”

My eyes flew to Caim as terror curdled like rotten milk in my belly. “Does Lucifer know I am a mix of two angels?” I demanded.

“No, or at least he didn’t,” Caim answered. “I would have known if he did. We all would have known if Lucifer learned Michael propagated while on Earth. The fit he would have thrown would have been heard throughout all of Hell. However, if she”—he waved a hand at my mother—“spoke to him about voices, and after seeing what you did with the seals, he may have figured it out.”

“He couldn’t suspect it’s Michael’s line,” Raphael insisted. “You knew nothing of it.”

“Lucifer is not stupid, nor does he have any faith in you assholes!” Caim snapped. “Michael and Ariel were the only two angels who walked the Earth before the fallen. If Lucifer thinks on it, he’ll figure it out. And since Ariel never waddled around with a full belly, he’ll figure out who real quick.”

“Oh,” I breathed. “Mother, did Lucifer tell you where he was taking Gage and Bailey?”

Her eyes cleared and she bared her teeth at me. “Spawn of Satan.”

“Yes, that’s already been established,” I replied with an impatient wave of my hand. “You were right, but where did Satan go with Gage and Bailey?”

“When we go to town, I’d like to ride the pony,” she said and turned away from me. “Play some games as we do, eat the food, all the food. Hungry. When the trucks come, will they take me too?”

“Mother, please, where are they?” I implored.

She stared at the screen over my shoulder. “I’d like to go to town to play the games and hear the music before going with the trucks.”

“Mother—”

“Devil’s eyes! Rotten seed.”

She lifted her hand to slap me again, but I caught her wrist before she could. I held on when she tried to jerk it away from me. “No!” I hissed. “I no longer fear you, and I won’t allow Kobal to kill you, but you will never hit me again.” I wanted to tell her she could never speak to me like that again, but I didn’t think she knew half the things she spewed from her mouth anymore.

When she jerked at her hand again and sulked like a petulant child, I released her and rose. Kobal’s eyes remained fixed on her before sliding to me. “I will find your brothers,” he vowed.

“But what will Lucifer do to them before then?” I asked. “Because of me, because of them”—I thrust a finger at Raphael—“Gage and Bailey might be suffering right now!”

Kobal took my hand and rested it against his chest. “I will find them.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady the riotous sway of my emotions. If anyone could find them, it was Kobal, and I knew he wouldn’t rest until he succeeded in freeing my brothers from Lucifer. My mother said the rest of the town was dead, but I held out hope we would be able to find and free them too. I couldn’t think about everything that could happen to them before then; I’d go insane if I did. I had to stay focused on what I could do now. It was the only way to get through this.

“We’ll find them,” I whispered.

“Yes. Now it’s time to leave here.”

“The voices told me to find the soldiers and give you to them,” my mother whispered as we walked toward the doorway. “I went to town and played the games!” She clapped her hands again, and when I glanced back, she was wiggling back and forth in her seat. “Can I play them again when you go to town now?”

I froze when her words sank in. My abrupt stop halted Kobal. “I know where they are,” I said.

“Then we will go there,” he promised.

I tried not to shove him out of my way in my rush to get to my brothers as I followed him out the door. Running headlong at Lucifer was a surefire way to have everything implode on us though. Lucifer wouldn’t kill my brothers, but he would use them against me, and he would be willing to maim them.

When we exited onto the porch, I turned to two of the men standing guard with Bale, Lix, and Verin. Calah and Lopan stood at the foot of the stairs.

“My mother is inside. Take her back to the vehicles and keep her safe until we return,” I instructed the men.

Kobal stiffened beside me, but before he could protest, I turned to face him.

“She was unable to handle what the angels did to her and she broke. She will sit in there until the house falls around her, but she will not die, not anymore. It’s no existence for anyone to live, and no matter how horrible she was to me, she doesn’t deserve that fate. We will find somewhere at the wall, away from us, where she can reside. I don’t ever have to see her again, but I won’t leave her to this. I would never forgive myself if I did.”

“She wouldn’t do the same for you,” Kobal said.

“I know, but I’m nothing like her.”

He bent to kiss my forehead. For a second, I allowed my eyes to close as I savored the warmth of him. “No, you’re not,” he murmured.

“Lucifer must be ended,” Raphael said when the guards slipped inside.

“He will be,” Kobal replied.

“Oh, of course he must be,” Caim retorted sarcastically. “Do me a favor, Raphael. The next time you talk to Saint Michael, or I mean Sinner Michael, tell him he can go fuck himself from me.”

Caim spun away from us and went down the steps so fast, his feet didn’t touch them. Tilting his head back, he pointed a middle finger to the sky. “Fuck you, Michael!” he bellowed before pointing both his middle fingers at the sky. “Fuuuuuuuck yooooooou!”

The humans and demons closest to him exchanged confused looks before edging away from the irate angel who stormed toward Lisa’s house before spinning back toward us. I was so focused on Caim that I didn’t notice the shadows circling across the ground, until Kobal stepped protectively in front of me. The hounds in the clearing all crouched low, their hackles rising as they stared at the sky.

My stomach sank when Onoskelis landed a few feet beyond Caim. Caim spun toward her and planted his legs in a defensive position. Folding her wings behind her, a savage smile curved Onoskelis’s lips as she grinned at him.

“You chose wrong, brother,” she purred when more angels touched down around us.

The humans and demons fell back, grouping closer to my house. Shadows crept through the trees before higher and lower-level demons emerged from the woods.

“I bet most of those upper-level demons are from the hundredth seal,” Corson murmured.

“How did they get here so fast?” Bale asked. “I doubt the angels were giving them rides across the ocean.”

“There are still two airports open,” Kobal replied.

“The idea of demons on an airplane is absurd,” Hawk said.

“More absurd than the idea of demons in the first place?” Erin inquired.

“Yeah, a little.”

“The demons behind the hundredth seal wouldn’t turn down helping Lucifer and getting what they feel is a justified revenge, no matter what they had to do to get here,” Magnus stated. “Some of them may have exited the gateway on our side and regrouped here.”

“Lucifer can telecommunicate,” Raphael said. “He could draw his followers in and let them know where he is.”

“It doesn’t matter how they got here, they’re here,” Kobal said. “And we are surrounded.”

“Satan would like to speak with you, dear niece,” Onoskelis called to me. “And he’d really like to kill you,” she said with another smile at Caim, who remained unmoving. “Raphael,” she greeted. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to see you again, but that would be a lie.”

“It would be the same if I were to say it to you, Onoskelis,” Raphael replied.

“I bet she was a rotten bitch even before her wings turned black,” Magnus said.

“She was,” Raphael confirmed.

“It seems some of our ex brothers and sisters have been keeping secrets. Our king is eager to learn all of them. If you’ll follow me,” Onoskelis said and gave a sweeping wave of her hand toward the woods.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

At least two dozen angels were on the ground now and shadows continued to swirl across the grass from those still circling overhead. The craetons grouped closer and circled my house until it became a sea of black wings, demon faces, and other Hell creatures around us.

“We have no choice,” Kobal said. “We can’t allow them to willingly take us to where Lucifer is. That’s playing right into their hands. We have to fight.”

Bale pulled her sword free of the scabbard on her back, and Corson’s talons extended as the hounds released a howl that echoed over the land.