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I stared out the window at the horror in front of me; the shrill cry of the baby in the background couldn’t pull my attention away, not with the fight to the death unfolding on the snow-covered lawn. The battle between my father and Lucifer raged, dredging up a white flurry around the two angels. My heartbeat rammed my throat, drawing my breath in fast pants of anxiety as I watched each mighty blow.
Red splattered white and I bellowed at the vision of my father’s head in the demon’s grip. My palms banged against the cold windowpane as blood rained down on my father’s wings. Even my brother couldn’t break through the devastation layering my heart, and my inability to influence Damian’s actions just added to my frustration.
A second trembling cry broke through the blackness shrouding me and I glanced at my brother. Tom’s gaze was glued to the scene outside while tears slowly tracked down his cheeks. His lips pressed together and he grieved in silence, but I felt the darkness grip his heart as surely as it griped my own. Tom’s saving grace was the baby in his arms. The child tempered his reaction and the cry of disdain coming from the baby’s lips pulled both our eyes to the swaddled bundle; Damian’s first born.
I tore my gaze away and refocused on the macabre scene outside. Lucifer decimated three angels in a matter of minutes and I wondered how in God’s name Damian would be able to conquer the bastard. Damian held the same vengeful expression my reflection carried, and my jaw clenched. My hands followed suit, and my nails drove painful welts in to my palms. When Damian’s hand shot toward Lucifer’s chest, I commanded it to smash through the angel’s unbreakable skin. I willed Damian the strength to shatter bone and rip the devil’s heart out.
Power leaped from the center of my being like a bolt of lightning and surprise raked through my form when Damian’s hand came into view holding a beating heart. And then Damian did the unthinkable, he took a bite of the bloody muscle. Disgust filtered through me, burning through the horror, and my hand shot over my mouth, clamping down control over my roiling stomach.
The moment the last piece of the bastard’s heart disappeared into Damian’s mouth, the heavens opened and a blinding light encompassed him, dropping Damian to his knees. I stared at the man in the midst of the heavenly glow, wondering if the angel grace effect would last. Tom gasped at the spectacle and I traded a glance with him before refocusing on the bloodied winter scene. The glow faded and Damian climbed to his feet. The fury etched into his features made me want to shrink away from the glass and I couldn’t imagine being the recipient of such wrath.
A blast leaped from Damian, enveloping Lucifer, leaving only torched earth where the devil had stood.
Damian took an unsteady step backwards, reaching for the gazebo post for support as he stared at the same blackened spot. His gaze met mine and he put the back of his wrist to his lips, paling under the bright moonlight. When Damian finally started toward the house, his gait was steady and he ignored the severed heads sprinkling his path.
As the former vampire passed by my father’s head, my gaze locked on the vacant eyes staring at the sky. Anguish encompassed me, numbing my body, and I dropped my chin to my chest, ignoring the birthing process happening less than ten feet away.
I didn’t want to be here.
I didn’t want to know there were such dark creatures crawling top-side.
I didn’t want to experience this type of devastation again.
What I wanted was Sandy.
Sandy had always stood by my side, keeping me sane after my sister died and again many years later when we buried my older brother. She held my hand at my father’s funeral and again at my mother’s. Losing my brother and then my parents so close together nearly undid me, and Tom was no help during that dark period. He was too busy insulating himself from everyone after being kidnapped and tortured by a madman.
Sandy kept me in line at a time when my world nearly fell to pieces. I couldn’t help but blame Steve, even though I knew it was only the proximity to the former FBI agent that got most of my family killed in that small span of time, it still didn’t stop me from feeling he was the cause of the catastrophe. The twist I never saw coming was my father becoming Steve’s guardian angel. Because of that, I could hear my father through Steve’s mind, and hearing his voice tempered my rage, but not the sense of loss.
Sandy helped fill that void. She was there at every turn, even when her parents forbid her from seeing me. I breezed through college in two years instead of four and had to wait for her to graduate. The past two years seemed to stretch forever, but this spring, she would get her diploma and I planned to pop the question the moment she stepped off the podium.
I hadn’t seen her since Christmas break and that disaster was still in the forefront of my mind. Her father had refused to let me in the house and, while I could have forced my way in, I didn’t; not with Sandy shaking her head and silently pleading for me not to make another scene.
It was the first time she had truly given into her father’s will since she’d turned eighteen and it irked the hell out of me. I left her present in the driveway with the keys in the ignition; and I can still hear her father yelling for me to come get the god damned car as I trudged away from the house.
It wasn’t my worst Christmas, but it came close. I hitched home on Christmas Eve and Sandy and I didn’t talk until New Year’s, when she was able to find the time to call without her father standing over her shoulder.
This semester had been particularly tough to deal with. Her course load was insane and with a part-time job and an internship, it made it nearly impossible to catch more than a moment with her by phone and no luck at all with seeing her in person. She kept saying she’d let me know when she had a day off, but it’d been close to two weeks since we actually spoke, and all my messages garnered was a quick text response or an equally brief message in my voicemail box.
I stared at the blood soaked snow and decided spring was too long to wait.
I needed her, now.
The wail of a third baby pulled my attention and I turned in time to see the little girl swaddled and placed on Naomi’s chest. Damian rattled off the names of the boys honoring the fallen angels, my father included, and I gave him a nod of thanks. When Damian and Naomi decided on the name Grace, for their little girl, my lips curved into a ghost of a smile.