Kobal

I watched as the last of my followers slipped through the gateway before turning to those who remained with me. “After you,” I said.

I waved my hand at the gateway as the dais at the far end of the room collapsed into the fires. Sparks and flames shot upward in a deafening roar. The hounds crouched; their hackles lifted. The colorful stones of the pathway fell steadily away as the ground crumpled toward us.

The flames devoured more and more of the throne room until the hounds were flattened against my legs and only five feet separated them from death.

“Gallha,” I commanded them when Bale stepped into the gateway behind everyone else.

The hounds slid away from me and bounded into the gateway as they followed my command to go. My gaze ran over what remained of the throne room, a room built specifically for me to rule from.

No longer my world. And it wasn’t. My world was Earth now. My life was with River, and I had to get to her.

Turning, I watched as the last of the hounds slipped into the gateway before I followed them. I made my way unerringly through the darkness until I stepped out and into the chaos of those fleeing Hell. Glancing into the fiery pit below, I noted the scorch marks left on the walls by the receding flames. Below me, surviving creatures and demons poked their heads out of the side tunnels they’d taken refuge in.

An echoing roar issued from within the flames. The force of the bellow fanned the fires upward as the ground quaked beneath my feet.

“What is that?” Bale asked.

“The one-hundred-first seal has fallen,” I replied. “The drakón are free.”

“I think that’s our cue to get out,” Magnus said.

“Yes, it is,” Bale agreed.

Turning away from the fires, I ran up the pathway behind the others. The hounds carved a line through the lower-level demons and Hell creatures by tearing them in half or knocking them over the side of the cliff. A lower-level demon lunged at me from behind. Its razor-sharp talons sliced down my back before I turned to seize its throat.

I walked it to the edge and tossed it over as another bellow issued from below and the flames shot higher. Morax, Verin, and Calah stopped beside me to peer into the inferno.

“I think continued fleeing would be best,” Lopan said and patted Calah on his head.

Calah scowled, but before he could respond, a manticore tail whipped out of a tunnel the shadows had obscured beneath us. The scorpion stinger struck Morax in the center of his chest.

“No!” Verin shrieked.

Blood spurted from Morax’s mouth and his body jerked before he froze. Leaping forward, my hand caught in the waistband of Morax’s pants as the manticore pulled away. The tearing of cloth filled the air as his pants ripped away from him and the manticore rose away from me.

“Fuck!” I tossed the ruined fabric away as another manticore soared out of the tunnel and pierced Morax’s thigh. The creatures snarled at each other as they dipped toward us while they brawled over their catch.

“Closer,” I grated through my teeth.

Bracing my legs apart, my muscles bunched as I prepared to leap off the pathway and grab Morax the second they came within reach. They didn’t fly closer, but rose higher with Morax’s frozen form between them. My claws dug into my palms as I watched them. Morax was one of my strongest fighters, closest allies, and one of the few I considered a friend. I would get him back.

The manticores were almost to the edge of the gateway when they tore Morax in half. He can still regenerate…

Each manticore lifted their stingers to their mouths and gulped down their half.

“Nooooo!” Verin’s heartbroken wail drowned out the triumphant cries of the manticores and the roar of the drakón. Calah snatched Verin back and clasped her against his side when she almost tumbled over the edge.

The inferno below rolled apart to reveal the first drakón rising toward freedom. The gigantic beast released a wall of blue fire from its mouth, its wings fanned the flames below as it soared upward. Opening its skeletal jaws, the drakón swallowed both the manticores whole.

Calah held Verin up when her legs gave out. Lopan shifted to the side when Calah lifted Verin and tossed her over his shoulder. Her sobs were the only noise punctuating the strange hush that descended after the drakón’s emergence. And then another drakón roared from below and the fires surged higher once more.

***

River

“The angels are using a lot of power for this,” Caim murmured as he stared at Angela.

“I know they are,” I whispered.

Closing my eyes, I became completely still as the warmth of the sun’s rays flooded me. For one second in time, it was just me and this powerful world that had helped to forge me into the person I was.

Opening my eyes, I blinked against the sun before returning my attention to the pit. I searched for Kobal amongst the fleeing horde, but he was still nowhere to be seen. He was alive, but I wanted to see him.

I looked back to Angela now encased in a vibrant white light that caused others to stumble out of her way. Corson lifted his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes as he turned his head away from her.

“What are the angels trying to say?” Corson asked as Angela kept her hand over the gateway.

“I don’t know,” Caim murmured.

I knew, but I couldn’t tell Corson. Like Kobal, he would stop me from doing what needed to be done.

The demons and creatures who had fled Hell turned tail and bolted for the woods when the aura surrounding Angela grew stronger. The ones that weren’t struck down by Kobal’s followers fled into the trees, but no one pursued them. They remained where they were, waiting to see what would happen, and waiting for their king to arrive.

“Is it an angel?” Vargas breathed.

I realized he and Erin had edged closer to us. A pretty blonde woman I didn’t recognize stood beside them with her rifle aimed at Angela. I didn’t tell her to put it down; bullets wouldn’t do anything to the child. If the woman fired her weapon, she would learn that soon enough.

“No,” Caim answered. “It’s a guide, and it’s trying to direct River.”

“To do what?” Corson demanded.

“Do you want to know a secret, daughter?”

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath as my thoughts turned to my brothers. Everything I’d done since childhood was for them. I’d fought to keep them safe and give them a better life than the one I’d had with our mother. Their lives could never go back to what they’d been before Hell opened, no one’s could, but Gage and Bailey could still be safer and have better lives, if I succeeded in closing the gateway.

Everyone on Earth would be safer and happier if I succeeded in that.

Sorrow tore at my heart as I recalled the last time I’d seen my brothers. It had been right before I left the wall behind to come here. Gage had grown to become a stoic young man. Bailey cried when I embraced them both.

“They told me I have to let you go, but I don’t wanna!” Bailey had sobbed, his tiny face flushed with his distress.

“I know, B, but I have to go. I promise to do everything I can to see you again as soon as possible. I love you,” I’d whispered to him.

I loved them so much that there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them. And then there was Kobal. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him either. He may never rule Hell now that it was collapsing, but he would rule Earth. He would gather the demons and he would work to establish control over the annihilation being leveled against this plane. He would succeed in killing Lucifer.

However, if all the creatures of Hell and from the seals continued to pour onto Earth, not even Kobal, the most powerful being I’d ever encountered, would be able to destroy or control them all.

I opened my eyes to gaze into Hell once more. My breath sucked in when I spotted the monstrosity soaring toward us. What…?

“Is that… a fucking… dragon?” Hawk asked.

Yes, yes it was, if dragons were skeletal creatures with a fiery blue glow crackling over all the bones making up their easily hundred-foot-long frame. Holes were interwoven throughout the black, leathery flesh connecting the bones of its wings.

A bright blue flame formed a ball at the end of its tail as it released a bellow. Everyone near the edge of the gateway scrambled away from the creature rising toward them. Its eyes were also made up of blue fire, but I felt it when the creature’s gaze settled on me. My heart leapt into my throat as the dragon burst free and soared high into the sky, leaving a trail of blue fire in its wake.

As it rose to be silhouetted against the sun, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful it would be if it wasn’t so freaking terrifying.

“It’s the one-hundred-first seal,” Corson murmured.

If the gateway wasn’t closed, and if the creatures caged within the seals could survive fire, there were still over a hundred more seals that could crumple and release their prisoners onto Earth. The fires of Hell were receding too. Soon enough it might not matter if the creatures could survive the flames or not when they were set free.

“Fall back!” Corson shouted as the dragon craned its head to look down at all of us and blue fire spiraled out of its nostrils.

“No,” I breathed as another loud roar reverberated from Hell.

This could not be allowed to continue, not when I might be able to stop it. My gaze fell to Angela as her aura swelled.

“Do you want to know a secret, daughter? Would you like to know why I never attempted to stop you from trying to close the gateway? I’ll tell you and only you the secret.”

The joy Lucifer took in spinning me within his web of evil brushed over my skin once more.

“I never tried to stop you, because even if you did figure out how to close the gateway, Kobal never would have allowed you to do it,” he had murmured with glee. “Because to close the gateway—” He’d taken a deep breath, his smile growing as he spoke. “—you have to die.”

When he uttered those words, I’d been unable to stop myself from looking at him. His onyx eyes burned into the fiber of my being while he continued speaking. “Life’s blood, that is what the gateway requires, the sacrifice it needs. Along with a little extra… life,” he purred the word life like he was a cat getting scratched behind the ears. “I was mortal when I sacrificed myself to open the gateway. I used the last of my connection to the Earth and my angel blood to open it. I became immortal again upon entering Hell, but you will stay the mortal you are now and simply die.”

He’d giggled when he revealed this and steepled his fingers before his nose to study me over the top of them. “I never stopped you, because Kobal would have.”

And I knew he was right. No matter how many more seals fell, Kobal would never allow me to die to close the gateway, even if it was the best for everyone.

But Kobal wasn’t here now, which was the reason I’d agreed to leave him behind. If I succeeded in closing this gateway, Kobal would be able to form his own gateway to exit Hell. The remaining seals would still fall, but they wouldn’t be able to leave Hell and roam Earth. All those I loved would be safer.

Corson shoved me further back when Angela rested her hand over her heart in a gesture I knew meant to show me love and support.

“Tell Kobal I love him and that I’m so sorry for this. Please take care of my brothers. Make sure they’re safe,” I said to Corson as I felt the swell of life flowing into my feet and surging up my body toward my hands. Sparks danced across my fingertips as renewed vitality flooded me.

He turned his head to look at me over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

I met Corson’s gaze head-on. “I’m sorry.”

Before he could react, I hit him with a ball of energy. It hadn’t been strong enough to maim him or knock him out, but it flung him ten feet away from me. Spinning toward Caim, I ripped the small sword from his side before hitting him with a blast of energy as well. I didn’t know if he would try to stop me or not, but I couldn’t take the chance he might.

Running forward, dirt skidded out from under me as I fell to my knees at the edge of the gateway. My heart shattered when my gaze landed on Kobal, only fifty feet below and coming fast. Tipping his head back, his gaze latched onto mine.