‘Rephaim,’ I shout. ‘Fall back. NOW!’
I hear the call repeated further up the beach before I slip into the void, feel Jude and Rafa shift with me. We materialise at the rainforest end of the esplanade, halfway up the sandbank.
For a heart-stopping moment it’s just us, and then the rest of the Rephaim materialise in groups of three and four, panting. Ez arrives close to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder to steady herself. ‘What’s going—’
She doesn’t finish because she sees it for herself. Her fingers dig into me. I wait for the Fallen to wheel around, change direction to come at us, but the host stays straight and true. Plummeting towards the fleeing demons. A murmur of astonishment ripples through the Rephaim.
The orange sky flares brighter. The ocean churns and roils, flashes gold.
‘Hold!’ Zarael shouts at the Immundi. ‘They are but two hundred. We are legion!’
The Fallen are almost on them. My breath catches. And then the angels plough into the swarm like hawks on a plague of mice. I stand with the Rephaim, watching our fathers hack and slash at our enemies with dull blades. It’s utter chaos.
‘They’re free, then.’
Daniel stands near Jude. I can’t tell if it’s observation or accusation. Either way, he’s as culpable as the rest of us—the Fallen wouldn’t be here if we didn’t all want it at some level.
‘Where’s the glory? Why aren’t they manifesting?’ It’s Daisy who asks. She’s slipped beside Jude to get a better view. Her right eyebrow is split, her blades dark.
The Immundi have stopped trying to get away from the Fallen. They’ve noticed the absence of blinding light now too. They’re turning…and charging. And still no glory from our fathers. I don’t get it. They’re fighting Gatekeepers, hellions and a seething horde of Immundi without glory. Unless…
‘What if they can’t light up?’
There’s a tense pause on the boardwalk.
‘Then they’ve got no chance of finishing this on their own,’ Rafa says.
The Fallen are taller than us, stronger and faster, but without their trademark weapon they’ll have to fight Zarael’s army of Immundi the hard way.
I look to Daniel. ‘We have to get to Nathaniel.’
‘I know.’
‘Then we have to help them.’
Daniel’s hair is slicked back with sweat, his chest still heaving from exertion. ‘You want us to fight beside the Fallen?’
‘You got a better idea?’
His eyes skim over the Rephaim: Jude, Rafa and Ez. Daisy and Uri. Beyond to the others. I know how difficult it is for him, how the idea goes against everything he’s ever believed about our purpose and our destiny.
‘No,’ he says, bitterly. ‘I don’t have a better idea.’
‘Okay then. Let’s focus on reaching Nathaniel—and take out as many demons as we can along the way.’
We’ve reached critical mass now, enough to push back the Immundi, buy us time to get Nathaniel out from under his macabre burial mound. Most of the demons smothering him are already dead or badly burnt, having taken the brunt of his scorching light before it winked out. We finally reach the wall of dead demons and Daniel takes the lead in digging through the bodies. Others join him and the rest of us form a circle, keep fighting off Immundi.
I don’t know which job is more sickening.
I’ve never killed and maimed this many demons before—not even close. The sand is littered with their hands and arms and guts. Blood spattered everywhere. There’s nothing glorious or badass about it. It’s death, pure and simple. Mayhem. Not war. Slaughter. But then, that’s all war is: killing and dying.
In fleeting moments between opponents, I try to glimpse the battle raging between the Fallen and the Gatekeepers: between former members of the Garrison and the demons who were their masters and torturers for millennia. The battle that was always theirs to fight. Never ours—or never meant to be.
I catch Rafa straining to see, and I know it’s not that simple. He wants to be in the main event, not because he’s desperate to bolster the Fallen’s ranks but because we have history with the Gatekeepers too. The animosity between our fathers and their jailers became ours the moment the Fallen disappeared and we were allowed to live. Or, more to the point, the moment Nathaniel decided to make us into an army.
The movements behind me turn frantic.
‘Move that one—no, that one.’
‘Oh, no…’
I smash my sword hilt into the side of an Immundi’s skull and look over my shoulder. Zak and Seth have dragged away the last Immundi corpse, stinking of burnt flesh to reveal—
Dear god.
I can’t quite comprehend what I’m seeing.
Nathaniel is facedown, crumpled, his face pressed into the sand. Completely still. Every bit of exposed skin is covered in bite marks—his hands, forearms, neck. His clothes are in tatters. Clumps of blond hair ripped from his head. But worse are his wings…
One is bent beneath him at an angle that’s all wrong. The other is splayed, spattered with blood and gaping where feathers have been ripped out. The exposed flesh is pink, torn and clotted. The sand is littered with his feathers. He must have lost consciousness before he could hide his wings. Why else would he let them do this to him? Daniel is on his knees, lifting the angel’s head, brushing sand from his mouth and nose.
‘Get him to the infirmary.’ Jude joins Daniel on the sand and feels for a pulse at Nathaniel’s wrist.
Nathaniel’s eyes flutter open. ‘No.’
He’s alive. The force of my relief takes me by surprise. Rafa—or Ez, I can’t tell—pushes me out of the way, rough. Protects me while I’m standing, stunned, with my back to the fighting.
‘The Garrison will come now.’ Nathaniel’s voice is stretched thin, every word an effort. ‘I need to’—he swallows, grimaces—‘be here.’
I stare at his mutilated face, taste bile. Did he sacrifice himself in the hope it would bring the archangels? Daniel helps him sit up. Nathaniel moans, grips Daniel’s wrist hard enough to turn his knuckles pale.
‘Nathaniel.’ Jude waits until the angel’s eyes are open again. ‘The Fallen are free.’
He stares at my brother. His irises are faded, barely flickering. ‘How?’
‘We released them.’
He closes his eyes and lets out an exhausted, defeated sigh. ‘Where are they?’
‘Here. Fighting Zarael.’
Nathaniel lifts his head. ‘Let me see.’
‘Can you shift?’ Daniel asks. He’s still supporting the angel, a hand pressed between Nathaniel’s broken wings to stop him slumping back to the sand. Nathaniel shakes his head.
‘I’ll help,’ I say, and I don’t only mean getting Nathaniel to higher ground. I crouch down next to Jude and hook my fingers around Nathaniel’s elbow. I almost draw back: his skin is burning. I have no idea if we can even heal an angel—we’ve never had to try before. We let Daniel guide the shift to the top of the dunes. It only takes a millisecond, but it’s long enough to feel my energy slam against a solid wall. I glance at Jude and then Daniel as soon as we materialise. They both shake their heads.
I guess not.
We position Nathaniel against the boardwalk fence, his back to the road. Giving him an uninterrupted view of the churning violence. Daniel is crouched beside him, silent and pensive. Nathaniel makes no attempt to move or hide his wings. They stay spread out either side of him, tinged pink. But Nathaniel’s not worried about his wings: he’s focused solely on his fallen brothers-in-arms.
The Rephaim have pushed up to join the Fallen now. Two hundred warrior angels, wings folded at their backs. A hundred and fifty Rephaim, give or take. Rafa’s down there, shouting orders, and everyone is following his lead, filling the spaces between the Fallen, creating an impenetrable phalanx. They drive the demon army onto the back foot. Stepping over the dead as they go, Immundi and Gatekeeper alike.
A pack of Gatekeepers materialise behind the Fallen/ Rephaim force, but Rafa’s been waiting for that last, desperate move. He turns and Rephaim turn with him: Micah, Malachi and Taya. And then four of the Fallen join them. One with dirty blond hair hanging in dreadlocks down his broad back shoulders his way to Rafa’s side. Glances at him before swinging his ancient sword at the nearest Gatekeeper.
I reach for Jude. ‘We should—’
I don’t finish because Zarael materialises. Right next to us.
He doesn’t gloat or goad, he swings for Nathaniel’s neck without a word, straight and true.
Jude reacts quickest, blocks the first strike. The second is already arcing down—Zarael is wielding two swords now—and I lunge to stop it. The impact jars, hard. It rattles my bones.
I kick to take out his legs, but he’s already shifted and he’s on my left, swinging at Nathaniel again. Jude and I move on instinct, block him. I feel the heat of Zarael’s breath, feel a blast of his rage, and then he’s gone again. Daniel is up now, covering Nathaniel. The angel is slumped against the fence, unable to stay upright under his own strength. We have to spread out to protect him to avoid stomping on his broken wings.
‘The Garrison will come.’
I can barely hear Nathaniel over the blood pounding in my ears. I try to steady my breathing. My eyes flick between skirmishes on the beach, searching for Rafa, for the others, and I have to force my attention back to the immediate space around me. Zarael’s not done up here. He might have the Fallen and their bastards to subdue, but his hatred for Nathaniel is too strong. He’s coming back for him.
My stomach wrenches, but it’s not Zarael who materialises and blocks my view of the battle. It’s Semyaza. His eyes fall on Nathaniel. Harden. He disappears, and all three of us are too slow, caught off guard because this wasn’t the opponent we were expecting.
I spin around and find the leader of the Fallen—a former member of the Garrison, my father—standing over the angel who raised me, his wings hidden and his blade pressed against Nathaniel’s jugular. There’s so much blood caked on Nathaniel’s throat I can’t tell if Semyaza has broken the skin or not. Nathaniel lifts a hand to stop us interfering and we all falter, even Daniel.
‘Brother,’ Semyaza says. His voice is raw as if he’s been shouting. The unexpected familiarity of it tugs at me. ‘You have been busy.’
Nathaniel looks at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘I saved them from annihilation,’ he says, trying to move his jaw as little as possible. ‘I protected your twins.’
I blink. He knew. All this time, Nathaniel knew we belonged to Semyaza.
‘You turned them against me. You slew their mother. You created a generation of orphans.’
The injured angel bears the accusation. ‘If your women had survived the testing, I would have taken them with me to raise their children.’
‘It was not your place to judge them.’
A shaky breath. ‘It was my commission. My glory was returned to me so I could accomplish it.’
Semyaza lets out a gravelly laugh. ‘There was no commission.’
Nathaniel turns his face so he can see Semyaza with both eyes, ignoring the insistent blade at his neck. ‘The Garrison led me to each of them. They—’
‘It was not the Garrison. It had nothing to do with them, you fool.’
Nathaniel glares at him, bruised and bloody but defiant in the presence of the warrior he’s hunted for a hundred and forty years. ‘How could you know, Semyaza, you were not even in this realm when I received the calling.’
The leader of the Fallen leans in, but I still hear his words.
‘I know it was not the Garrison, brother, because it was we who led you to each of those women.’