Iniquity (The Premonition, #5)(95)

Zephyr catches Buns in his arms, refusing to let her fall. His face is one of devastation as he yanks the spear from her chest, letting the blood-covered metal shaft drop from his fist. Zee’s hand smoothes her hair back from her forehead, smearing red in her flaxen strands. Before I can move, Russell flies up to them and hovers in the air, his red wings beating behind him. He holds out his hand and uses a spell to encase Buns, Zephyr, and himself in a bubble. It’s like the kind of bubble little children blow with soap and plastic sticks in their back yards, only his bubble is huge. Fallen beat on the curve of the bubble, trying to get to them. The wall bows in, but it doesn’t pop; the spell holds. Russell’s hand begins to glow with golden light. He presses it to Buns’ wound while he punches his other fist through the wall of the bubble. Again, it doesn’t pop, but closes in around his wrist. He palms the froglike face of a Sheol demon. The grotesque flying frogman’s chest breaks open and orange-colored blood projects out of him to cover the side of the iridescent bubble with evil frogman guts. Buns’ arms flail as the wound in her chest closes.

I feel numb with fear. I glance at Reed, he’s a windstorm blowing through straw men, scattering and killing everything that gets close to me. A knicker beside me jolts me out of my shock. My waist is seized and I swing up behind Brennus on the back of a black-winged horse. My hair streams behind me as Brennus drives the steed forward, aiming at the expanding red sky and the evil freak who’s cutting my world to pieces. Holding onto Brennus’ waist and looking behind me, Finn is right there on the back of another winged-horse whose nostrils breathe fire with each powerful stride and flap of its beautiful feathered wings. I wonder where they got the mythical creatures, but because the equines seems real enough, I’m going to go with them being from Hell.

“Clear a path for us, mo chroí!” Brennus orders over his shoulder.

I lift my hands. I’m a matchstick poised to strike. I spark, lighting the fuse inside me, becoming an arsonist, destroying fallen angels and demons without mercy. Emil notices the commotion that I’m making with my magic. He pauses from his task of ripping the world in two. Focusing his full attention on us, his lips move. “My inescapable lover,” I hear Emil whisper in my mind, “how shall I enslave you this time?”

He aims his magic at us, thrusting energy. The army of fallen in the path between Emil and me become crumbling sand sculptures slowly falling apart. Brennus tries to block the spell with his own magic, but it keeps coming, crawling over him and turning his forearm crispy. He urges the black winged-horse aside, soaring away from the beam that will kill us. Emil lifts his hand once more, his golden armor gleaming, even in the lack of light. Aiming his palm at us, he’s unable to throw his magic because Reed appears in front of him. Emil shifts his diabolical magic to Reed, plying him with heinous energy. Reed’s ring takes the brunt of the curse Emil would cast upon him.

With the spade blades notched between Reed’s fingers, he slashes Emil in the throat, cutting an X pattern in his flesh and watching his blood spurt from his body. Emil reels back, his blood flowing down the front of his golden armor. He reaches for the first being he sees. A Cherub falls into his clutches. Emil’s hands glow golden. The gaping slits in his throat closes in seconds, appearing on the neck of the Cherub in his grasp. Emil takes a huge, ragged breath in; his eyes wild and wide with the need for air. Reed presses forward, cutting through bodies of evil creatures that get in his way. My inescapable is in full retreat, flying across the divide, back into the underworld. Reed doesn’t stop at the threshold, but follows him into Sheol. His ring glows blue, the jewel in the center glows with its own fire

The other demons Emil has left behind press into our realm, engaging in the battle without any sign of retreat. “REED,” I scream. I dismount the winged-horse. “REED!” I soar after him, veering into the mass of fallen, swinging my hammer and knocking the life out of everything in my way.

Reed tugs on the chain around his neck that holds the whistle. It emerges from underneath his armor. Placing it to his lips, he steps over the threshold of our world into Sheol. The second he does, blue light from his ring closes in around him and he disappears, becoming invisible. I hear rather than see him blow the whistle. Atwater must have taught him the notes to use to close our worlds when he gave the boatswain to him. The sound is muffled. It doesn’t affect me the way it had when I was next to it. This time, I hardly feel it at all.

The sky around us begins to change. The fabric of our world, the one of gray skies and dark clouds closes in, making the red sky behind it shrink. I panic knowing Reed is on the other side closing the gateway to Sheol. He plans to try to kill Byzantyne and Emil on his own. It’s not a bad plan. If he can make Emil’s Seraph mentor cease to be and slay Emil’s angelic body, only Emil’s soul would survive. Wouldn’t it? But Emil would be trapped in Sheol. It could work! It would allow Reed and me to remain together, but it’s still a horrible plan for one reason: he intends to do it without me.

Trumpets sound. Startled, I turn, scanning the clouds behind me. Divine winged warriors careen through the air in rows like paper angels strung up in the sky. Weapons gleam from sunbursts that cut through the clouds. Some divine angels are attired in black armor with red Xs on the front of it. Others wear red armor with black Ts across the chest and abdomen. They engage in the fighting. The roar of their war cries echoes in the air.