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NECHUM FLINCHED AT every white pop as Laszio and Eran’s spheres pinged off his dome’s inner walls. Speeding faster, the lights teamed. Lucifer’s roars grew deafening. Just as Eran had planned, by ricocheting countless orbs in the smoke cover, Lucifer wouldn’t know which direction their spheres were coming from. He’d swing wildly and continue to miss the two angels as they peppered him with a meteor shower.
Nechum didn’t know how much punishment the Devil could take, though, nor if his brothers might accidentally hit each other. “Lord, let this be over soon,” he prayed.
Wack!
Nechum’s ears rang, and his left temple hemorrhaged as he crashed to the floor. “Stay awake,” he pleaded to himself. “Don’t drop the shield. Stay awake.” He dared open an eye.
Three demons surrounded him. Their leader carried a hammer that dripped fresh gold. Grinning, he bent over Nechum, strangled him to pin him down, and aimed his hammer over his forehead. “X marks the spot,” he taunted.
Nechum gagged and squirmed, but couldn’t get loose. He imagined his forehead about to be split open.
The demon swung.
Mist whipped out, grabbed the hammer, and drove it multiple times into its owner’s nose. The demon dropped cold, revealing Alameth standing right behind.
The grim angel shot a stark glare at the other demons, but the stubborn assailants jeered. They flanked Alameth, spitting their threats.
Alameth’s eyes flickered in response. His fogs consumed the hammer. Its wood decayed to rot, and its iron rusted to fine powder.
The demons shrank back with second thoughts about picking a fight with a Destroyer.
The mist returned to Alameth’s opened palm. He balled it in his fist, and it sputtered like an angry pet between his fingers. “Give me one... more... reason,” he dared.
The demons fled like whipped dogs, and Nechum never thought he’d be so happy to see an angel of death in his life. Alameth’s features softened as he bent to help him up. He dabbed energy off Nechum’s temple with his sleeve. “Are you making it through this?” he asked.
“Trying to,” Nechum jested through his rattled nerves. “Thanks.”
More commotion raged overhead. Red and black uniforms from the opposing sides collided with each other in such dense pockets, it seemed a wonder the whole cave didn’t tear itself apart.
Alameth pulled out his bow. He strung three arrows and the white shafts struck their mark. The meaty brute he targeted succumbed to paralysis and dropped heavy as a wheat sack. Alameth smiled. “Do you think I really needed to waste three shots on that one?”
Nechum shrugged. “I really wouldn’t know.”
Giving a thoughtful nod, Alameth lifted off for a better vantage point.
Nechum checked the dome. Despite his near lapse in consciousness moments ago, the shield remained intact. Still, he noticed things were oddly quiet in there. Lucifer didn’t beat the walls. No pinging lights. No clear sign of defeat or victory yet.
***
Rain pelted the ambulance. Jediah remained poised on its roof and grew more and more wary. Elazar had likely delayed his next attack to throw him off on purpose.
The Seine River followed the busy road. Its waters blended with the night as an inky void, and only under the lamplight could one distinguish its irritated waves.
The ambulance turned left onto a bridge. Jediah frowned as the space shrank around the vehicle. “No room for escape,” he thought. “Great place for an ambush.” He leaned far enough to check the waters below. The currents looked ravenous and eager to claim anyone that fell in.
The ambulance got halfway across the bridge, when an enormous truck pulled into the opposite lane. The behemoth’s tires hissed and rumbled. Its horn blared louder than the emergency sirens. Then the truck’s spotlights turned on the ambulance, and before Jediah could react, both vehicles collided.
Screeching rubber, shattering glass, and a cacophony of beeps and honks followed, as Jediah was thrown off onto the street. He screamed at the truck as it shoved the ambulance backwards. The bridge’s concrete railing broke apart, and the back left tire of Chloe’s vehicle hung over the edge. The truck stopped with its grill firmly smashed into the teetering ambulance.
Hearing the semi’s engine rev again, Jediah dragged himself up, sprinted, and focused hard to seize the truck’s tailgate before it could push the ambulance into the Seine. All eighteen wheels spun and smoked against him. They cast up buckets of rain water.
Jediah gritted his teeth—not from strain, but at how easily the physical wanted to slip from his metaphysical fingers. No matter how he adjusted his grip, it kept inching itself out.
He glared at the side-view mirror for the driver responsible only to see the trucker laying lifeless over his steering wheel. No doubt his foot was still stamped on the gas pedal. Jediah grunted and pulled harder, trying to drag the truck back. He checked the mirror again. Elazar exited the man he had possessed, who’m he used to ram the ambulance, and jumped out the driver’s window. He eyed the ambulance where it sat precariously over the river.
“Elazar, don’t!” Jediah shouted.
Elazar looked at him. He wouldn’t smile—didn’t so much as frown. “Her blood is on your head,” he said, as he stepped toward the vehicle.
Desperate, Jediah prayed out loud. “I can’t let go of this truck, Lord. I need help!”
The ambulance driver stumbled out and collapsed on the street. He laid there, shaken and bleeding.
“Get up,” Jediah whispered, as he watched Elazar near the ambulance. “Come on. Please, get up.”
The man fumbled to a stand. He hurried to the semi truck.
That’s it. Almost there.
The man tugged the handle and threw the door open.
Jediah grunted. He couldn’t hang onto the truck much longer. The rumbling engine shut off, and Jediah’s pent up desperation unraveled so fast he sprinted, tackled Elazar, and tossed him off the bridge without registering exactly how he managed it.
As Elazar fell into the river, Jediah ran into the ambulance. The crunched windshield had caved into the warped dashboard. Metal shards had torn the polyester seats.
Weaving through debris, Jediah reached Chloe and found that the devices meant to lock her bed’s wheels in place were compromised. It had already slid into the locked double doors.
Jediah placed a palm over her chest. Her lungs rose and fell. He sighed a prayer of relief. She was alive.
Thud!
Jediah unsheathed his sword.
Clang!
His hands firmed their grip.
Clank!
The ambulance doors swung open. Jediah grabbed, but his unfocused hands failed to stop the bed. In mortal panic, he dove after the girl, and the last thing he saw was her body, her soul, and spirit disappear into the swirling black.
***
The charred wood Laszio and Eran relied on died to embers, and the smoke thinned and steamed into a white grey. Disturbed by Lucifer’s silence, Laszio ground his heel deeper in the powdered charcoal. This wasn’t like the Devil. Either he was down and out or, more likely, biding his time. He and Eran had noticed something odd when their spheres stopped hitting Lucifer in his dragon form. The demonic cherub must have shape-shifted to a smaller size.
Laszio scanned the haze. Eran beside him also inched forward.
Then a silhouette revealed itself. Three bands of color that wrapped the figure alighted. Lucifer’s four red wings crowned his head above and graced the floor at his feet. Jediah’s stolen wings, on the other hand, twitched out of sync. They waved like the crooked appendages of a disgusting insect, and sported a muted gold, after intermingling with the demon’s crimson for too long.
Laszio and Eran shot two spheres at his face. The Devil’s wings knocked the lights aside. Laszio chilled. Their assault hadn’t worn Lucifer down in the slightest.
The Devil sped forward, seized the two angels by their necks, and flung them into the air. Lucifer’s six powerful wings clapped, and Laszio’s vision filled with red and gold lighting.
***
Nechum gasped as the snapping thunder inside his dome vibrated. A barbed pain dug into him when his empathic sense connected with Laszio and Eran. This was not good.
Unnatural reds and golds then filled the cave’s crevices. Both angel and demon armies froze and gawked as the light show traveled. Their mixed colors spread faster, leaving no space untouched.
Nechum’s knees went weak. Whatever Lucifer was doing with Jediah’s power would crush everyone. He yelled to anyone close enough to hear, “Find cover! Hurry!”
Shouts mounted as a quake beyond the Richter scale rattled even the air itself. Minerals on all sides split into pebbles. The ceiling crumbled, and stalactites plummeted, burying angel and demon alike.
Nechum searched for Alameth. He caught the glimpse of a grey coat within the densest of the sedimentary rain. Alameth stood tall. His fogs rammed and broke apart many large stones, but they were coming too fast. Bigger and bigger rocks pummeled him, and he soon dropped to his knees.
Coughing on dust, Nechum covered his mouth and raced to Alameth. He tried to raise a shield for them both, but a thousand pounds of dirt poured down. It bypassed the edges of his fledgling barrier. His field fizzled out. Nechum covered his head as the din blew him down. Rocks piled around him, and Nechum peeked past his elbow to watch the scant light dull, waver, then expire.