part0004

The sky darkened as angry clouds swirled into existence, a bright flash of light arrived, followed by thunder. The ground itself seemed to groan and protest as a herald of his coming.

Lilith narrowed her eyes and searched around them. She was exhausted, their team had been hunting down the remnants of the fifth and worst supernatural race for days. Her feeling of victory at the last necromancer lying dead at her feet drained as fear entered her heart. She was so tired, and her body was sore. Half her team were lying on the ground in relief, or they had been before the unnatural display of nature. They needed sleep, and food, so did she.

“What is it?” Derrin, her beloved alpha and mate asked.

She shivered, and then shook her head. Not in ignorance, in denial. She hadn’t seen him in fifty thousand years, but she could already feel his presence strongly and her mind rushed over the past.

A bright light sped from the sky, accompanied by lightning strikes dancing across the sky, and the loud rumbling and cracking of thunder. The ground exploded as the light hit, dirt and sand were thrown up into the sky in an explosive cloud.

She pushed Derrin away and drew her sword, “Run.”

She looked around and her people looked both mutinous and terrified as they drew their swords, and then stood by her side. She was touched, but there was no facing this threat, not for any of them.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and she took stock of her life force. She was beyond exhausted, it’d taken all her strength to defeat their half-human foe, not that it mattered. Even fully rested and brimming with the lifeforce of magic, she couldn’t face down Samael.

She heard a low chuckle devoid of humor, and her eyes snapped back to the cloud of dust and dirt which was clearing quickly in a blast of wind.

Samael was knelt as if landing that way, with his sword out held in both hands, the tip of the sword buried in the earth. His white wings were beautiful, and in her opinion a lie. He slowly stood, his muscles rippling and straining in the sun impressively, and she rolled her eyes.

Asshole always did like to make an impressive entrance. Pride was one of his major sins, and by all accounts why he fell from grace in the first place.

She challenged, “What are you doing here? If you run now, you might escape Uriel’s wrath.”

It was a bluff more than anything, she hadn’t seen Uriel in years, and had no idea where he was.

Samael said coldly, “You have crossed me the last time Lilith. Uriel is… away for a time. Let’s just say I’ve assured he won’t be interrupting us. I don’t usually like to get involved, but then you are my wayward wife.”

She snorted, and released the spell she’d been working on, “Run,” she growled, as her magic shot out into her mate and the rest of their team. She felt a moment of guilt for it, but she wouldn’t let them die with her in a futile fight. Her hope was she’d last long enough that Samael wouldn’t bother chasing them down.

They ran, and her skin rippled and wings shot out from her back, as she changed into a form that would give her far greater strength and speed than her human form could support.

She lifted her sword and charged, her wings tight to her back for the moment.

Samael whispered in a bored tone, “Hold,” and a wave of magic went through her and kept going.

Her eyes narrowed, as she felt her team stop running behind her, but she herself wasn’t affected. She reached him and swung her sword mightily, he hadn’t even moved yet as the sword raced for his neck. Then his sword was just there, blocking hers, and there was a look of amusement on his face as his foot shot out and kicked her in the chest.

Ribs snapped, and her breath was lost as she was thrown back several feet.

He sneered, and it looked so wrong on his angelically beautiful face.

“You shouldn’t have betrayed me Lilith. Did I not care for you, and keep my promises? You turned on me, on us, and all to protect humans, the very ones that rejected you.”

She snorted, or at least tried to. It came out more like a breathless gasp.

She spit blood, and whispered, “Why now, I left you fifty millennia ago, was freed from your horrid grasp.”

It was the best she could do, she was pretty sure her lungs were punctured, and she couldn’t even lift her arms. She tried to shift to heal, but she was too weak, her life force too low. It had taken far too much magic to take down the last of the necromancers and their undead army. Not that it mattered, she knew he could hear a whisper from miles away.

He laughed, “What is time to a god? Why now? You killed all of my newest children Lilith, all of them, and the filth of humanity still crawls over this world, polluting it. Your fall will be the herald of theirs, I should have done this a long time ago, but you will suffer first.”

He walked over, and stomped on her knees, breaking them. He smiled down at her wickedly as he moved back, and then looked up over her body.

“You may move now,” he whispered as a torrent of magic left him in another wave.

Tears fell down her eyes, as she felt her team running. Not away as she’d hoped, but towards her, to their deaths in an attempt to save her life. She felt their love for her, and their determination. She struggled to shift again, surely she wasn’t that weak, but she discovered on top of the weakness she was encased in Samael’s spell. She was helpless.

She didn’t want to watch, yet couldn’t look away, as Samael slowly murdered her team. And it was, murder that is, not a battle. No more than her sword had a chance of striking him. She watched as he dragged it out, gave them false hope, and then took it away.

He was no god, despite his boast, but he was an immortal archangel, which was a power far beyond theirs.

She felt numb, it was too overwhelming, the utter defeat after their victory. The necromancers had been a plague on the land, and the fifth supernatural race had come closer than any of the others in Samael’s quest of eradicating humanity. Whole civilizations had fallen, and it would take humanity many thousands of years to recover.

Assuming Samael didn’t create yet another race and end them. She thought even without her to lead, the shifter teams could handle the other three races and their rogues. She felt a surge of anger, just where the hell was Uriel anyway? The arch-angel Uriel had been hunting Samael for fifty thousand years now.

Normally Samael wouldn’t deign to get his hands dirty, but there was no comfort in the fact that she’d hurt him enough to make him cross that line.

When the last of her team, the men and women she loved including her mate were dead. He kicked away her sword, picked her up, and took to the skies. The death cries of her loved ones echoed in her mind.

“What are you doing with me?”

The hatred in his eyes was frightening, “You haven’t even started to suffer yet. When you finally tire of it enough to take your own life, you will be delivered unto me in the pit of hell, where you will continue to suffer for an eternity.”

Her mind whirled in confusion and pain, was her soul not bound for hell already?

Agony lanced through her body, as Samael landed in an unfamiliar land and tossed her to the ground. She wasn’t sure where she was, but she hadn’t found any humans in range of her magic on the life-web for over half the flight. Wherever it was, no one would find her. The last thing she saw was his fetid smile as the ground beneath her rumbled, opened up, and swallowed her whole…