River
A heart attack was not out of the question, I realized. Sweat coated my palms, and my throat had gone completely dry, yet I waited for the hideous creatures to come closer. If I couldn’t do this, they would be almost on us when I failed. There would be no fending them off.
Six feet…
The bartas hunched their backs and thrust their shoulders forward in a move I recognized as their physical preparation to spring at their enemy. My nails dug into Kobal’s arm. A fresh surge of power from him flooded my sapped body as the bartas raced forward.
Lifting my other hand, I released a blast of life so powerful that Kobal and the others turned their heads away from the radiant flash bursting across the room. I moved the light coming from my open palm over the creatures barreling at us. The life force crashed into each one of them, only knocking them back a few feet.
My shoulders heaved, and I struggled to get air into my lungs as the bartas stared down at their chests before lifting their hideous red gazes to all of us once more. They all released a strange chittering noise that sounded a lot like laughter. My ability hadn’t affected the other barta I’d killed during Magnus’s training at first either, but there were over a dozen of them gathered before us now.
What if it didn’t work? If it didn’t work, we’d be barta food.
Raising his arm, Kobal pressed it against my chest as he moved me back a step. His claws lengthened, and flames burst from his hands and over his body as one of the bartas took another step toward us. Hawk lifted his gun to take aim, but before he could fire a bullet, the barta stopped and stared in confusion at his chest.
The barta demon emitted a strange chh, chh, chh sound. The one behind him quickly picked up the sound as they glanced at each other before focusing on their chests again. The first one raised its claws to its chest, and like the one I’d destroyed before, it began to tear at its own flesh until it exposed its ribcage.
Kobal spun and wrapped me in his arms as a loud pop resounded through the cavern. Though Kobal shielded me with his body, I still saw the spray of blood bursting over him and splattering the wall behind us. More pops filled the air and more blood sprayed the walls around us as the bartas’ hearts exploded.
Kobal released me, but kept me behind him as he spun to face Lucifer’s group. I stepped out from behind his back to survey the wreckage of the bartas sprawled out around us. Beside me, the disconcerting mirage of Magnus as me was covered in blood. Magnus’s eyes met mine before the blood vanished from his countenance.
I couldn’t suppress a shudder at the spectacle of blood vanishing from my face like that. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head to take in Lucifer and the surviving demons across from us. After encountering the two lower-level demons at The Gateway truck stop with Azote, I found them easier to differentiate from the upper-levels.
Morax may have a tail and horns, but it was nothing compared to these grotesque monsters we currently faced. Some had pig snouts like the ones from The Gateway, others had cloven hooves and jackal faces. Others had alligator tails and jaws, while some resembled animals I’d never seen before, and a few were a cross between many different animals, some of which I assumed were also creatures who resided within the bowels of Hell.
My gaze settled on Lucifer standing amongst them. He was nearly as tall as Kobal, but lean with a powerful, whipcord-like frame. I held his empty black eyes as he grinned at me. He folded his arms over his chest when he leaned back to survey me. I hated the smug look on his face; if it was the last thing I did, I would destroy him.
“Stay here,” Kobal commanded.
“No!” I cried when he broke away from us and bounded through the piles of carnage with an ease matched only by the hounds running at his side.
I took a stumbling step after him and almost fell when my legs gave out on me. Magnus grabbed me back and pulled me against his side. I bit my lip as I turned to take in the ashen hue of Magnus’s face, or my face as it were. Nearly black circles surrounded his eyes, the blue veins beneath his skin were visible in the corners of his eyes. My fingers drifted to the corners of my own eyes before my head turned in the direction of Kobal.
I may be drained, and I may look like a corpse, but I’d still kill anything that tried to injure him. I tried to jerk my arm free of Magnus. He held on tight as Kobal dodged past one lower-level demon and then another.
Corson, Bale, and Hawk rushed forward behind him. “Let me go!” I shouted at Magnus, and a burst of fire shot up from my hands to encircle my arms.
Magnus yelped and released me. Free of his grasp, I ran forward. I kept my gaze focused ahead as Kobal sliced the throat of one demon before setting fire to another one. My foot caught on a tangled gargoyle wing. I nearly sprawled into the twisted mess beneath my feet, but Magnus had followed me through the carnage. He grabbed my arm again to jerk me up beside him.
“Wait!” he barked in my ear, jerking me back when I would have raced forward again. “You are weakened! If you go rushing in there right now, you’ll be playing into Lucifer’s hands, and though I’m willing to go with you, I’d prefer not to be captured because of rash stupidity.”
I shot him a ferocious look, but even as I was contemplating clawing his eyes out, my knees knocked together, and I almost sank into the pile of remains around my feet. He pulled me upright again. I opened my mouth to shout at him that I had to do something as Kobal reached Lucifer.
Satisfaction gleamed in Lucifer’s eyes when he braced his legs in preparation for Kobal leaping at him.
“No,” I moaned when Lucifer’s black batwings spread out to nearly touch the sides of the tunnel he stood in.
One of those foot-long silver spikes lashed out at Kobal, slicing across his shoulder. I cried out when his blood spilled over his bronzed skin. Instead of going straight at Lucifer, Kobal darted to the side at the last second. Fire burst over his back to engulf his whole body. My breath caught in my throat, and I lurched forward when Kobal seized Lucifer’s shoulders and swung him toward the center of the cavern with so much force that Lucifer became a blur as he spun through the air.
Lucifer’s wings flapped, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from bouncing across the body parts littering the floor when he landed. At the entrance to the tunnel, Kobal leapt into the air and swung his arm up. His claws embedded in the thick, black rock twenty feet above where the angels and demons stood.
He swung his legs up so he gripped the rock of the entranceway with his knees and feet too. Using his free arm, he lifted it up and swung it at the rock at the same time a burst of fire erupted from his palm. The surface indented, and fissures burst over the rock face when his fist pummeled into it. He lifted his hand and drove it into the rock again. More fissures spread throughout as pebbles and dust rained down on the demons beneath him.
I couldn’t breathe as his powerful muscles bunched and flexed with his movements. I’d never been more in awe of someone before as I watched him move. One of the angels swung a wing up, slicing across Kobal’s back and spilling his blood.
I screamed in fury and threw my free hand up. Drained more than I’d ever been before, only a small burst of fire erupted from me, but it shot across the room and hit the offending angel with enough force to knock his next swing off balance.
The silver point of his wing drove into the roof of the tunnel instead of Kobal’s back. The rest of the demons turned toward me; smiles stretched across their faces as they all realized Magnus and I stood within the center of the cavern. Another angel unfolded her wings in preparation of taking flight, either at us or at Kobal.
A few of the demons stepped forward as the rock Kobal had latched onto gave way with a thunderous crash. Magnus jerked me back when I screamed again and lurched forward. My heart lodged in my throat as Kobal’s body was driven down by the force of the collapsing entranceway.
Dust and rocks rushed outward from the tunnel, pushing some of the hounds, a couple of skelleins, and Bale back into the cavern as debris spilled into the room. Lucifer had regained his feet. Corson and Hawk circled him with the rest of the hounds and a few of the skelleins, but they froze to watch the continuing avalanche.
Rock piled over rock in a clattering wave I didn’t think would ever stop. The black dust rising to fill the air became so thick I couldn’t see through it to where Kobal had fallen beneath the rocks.
“Magnus,” I breathed when the last of the rocks clattered into place. The silence following the deafening roar of the collapse was broken by that one word.
Anguish twisted in my heart. Not dead. I would know if he was, but if Kobal was at the bottom of that pile…
Oh God. My hand flew to my mouth; I choked on the dust-filled air. I didn’t care what it would take, what I would have to do, I would get him out of there.
The thick dust settled on the remains around us and plumed into the opening above us before slowly receding to reveal more of the avalanche and rocks now spreading almost to the center of the cavern. Those who had been closest to the collapse had a layer of black coating them.
Magnus’s hand tightened on my elbow as more of the cavern became visible through the receding dust. There was still no sign of Kobal beneath the twenty-foot pile in front of us, but I didn’t see how there could be with all of that rubble piled onto him.
Magnus yanked me back as three lower-level demons and four upper-levels who had been trapped in the cavern with us turned in our direction. None of the angels, aside from Lucifer, had made it to this side of the collapse. In fact, most of Lucifer’s followers had been effectively cut off from us.