Torn by Fury Read online

  Another angel broke away, running down the bridge into Hell. His shape distorted as he passed through the fissure.

  “Abel!” Elise shouted.

  The wolf leaped onto the bridge without hesitation, following the angel down.

  It probably wouldn’t matter. There were already many other angels in Hell, and if they could break through the Palace’s protections, then all of the City of Dis would fall.

  Elise! James called.

  She glanced at him as she parried another blow. There was exhaustion in her black eyes. Get out of here, she replied. We’re outgunned. I can’t stop them.

  But James could. Or, to be more exact, the sphere in his arms could.

  It warmed, brightened, stirred. Use me. Let me work miracles.

  “How?” he whispered.

  Fingers of energy extended from the sphere, caressing the bridge with surprising gentleness, considering how it had brutalized the demons outside the circle of power. It took James a moment to realize that it wasn’t actually caressing the bridge, but the fissure.

  His heart skipped a beat as he realized what he could do. How he could keep the angels out of Hell. How he could stop this entire battle in a single stroke, and heal more than just Northgate.

  “Okay,” James said. “What do I have to do?”

  You’ve already done it.

  He lifted his gaze from the sphere—suddenly empty—to the battle on the top of the bridge. With a gasp, the glass ball slipped from his fingers and shattered on the ground.

  There was no longer a bridge.

  Or a fissure, for that matter.

  One minute, Elise was standing at the top of the bridge, locked in battle with two of her children: Sarospa, a woman with fiery red hair; and Makael, a man who Eve had once forgiven for murder. Both were incredible at swordplay. The only thing keeping Elise from impalement was that her body had taken over for her mind. Muscle memory and sheer instinct kept the obsidian falchion meeting their sabers, driving away killing blows.

  The next minute, there was no bridge.

  Her blade locked with Makael’s, hilt to hilt, and his weight forced her to take a step backward. Instead of sliding onto crystal, her foot connected with flat, dead grass. Warm wind whipped around her and then died.

  She risked a glance over her shoulder.

  No pylons. No bridge. No Palace far below.

  She had just sent Abel down there to chase an angel, and the path for him to return was just gone. “What the fuck?”

  Fire lanced up her ribs and her words turned to a scream. Elise looked down to see a saber sunken into her armor, amber blood spilling onto the grass. Sarospa had taken Elise’s moment of distraction to cut her.

  The female angel’s eyes brightened at the sight of the blood. “This is the one,” she whispered. She gripped her companion’s arm. “Makael—it’s the Godslayer.”

  “Godslayer,” he echoed.

  Elise pushed his sword away from hers and fell to her knees where the fissure should have been. All she found was baked soil. Her eyes tracked up the scar in the ground to the street, where the pavement had been chewed to dust, leaving sinkholes into the sewers. Northgate was so dark without Hell’s red glow. And it was rapidly growing far colder than she was comfortable with.

  “How?” Elise asked.

  She reached out to James with her mind, searching for him out on the street. It was too crowded and dark to see him now. He was definitely there—she could feel him as surely as she could feel the cut in her side—but he seemed to have gone numb with shock.

  He wasn’t the only one. The battle was stilling as the demons and angels realized that the fissure was missing. The entire seventeenth centuria stared at her like she had done something.

  Pair by pair, luminous blue eyes focused on her, too. There were still three—no, five angels who hadn’t made it into Hell. Demon bodies were scattered at their feet. Their wings were glowing with new strength now that they didn’t have to struggle against the energy pouring from Dis.

  They were all murmuring Sarospa’s message. It’s her. Godslayer.

  Elise recognized all of them as they advanced on her, lifting their swords. She could remember the moment she had reached into their eggs, hauled them into life, breathed souls into barely animate bodies, and whispered names into their ears.

  Shamsiel. Zephon. Omar.

  But they weren’t close enough to realize that she was carrying Eve’s soul. All they saw was a demon like any other, maybe an attractive nightmare or an ugly succubus, with the blood of the Tree running through her veins.

  Someone that, apparently, they had been warned about.

  Makael was the first to say it.

  “They want her dead. Kill her.”

  Abel plummeted through the fissure, squeezed by the change in atmosphere until it felt like the fist around his chest would never let him breathe again.

  His paws hit the crystal bridge. He slipped, tumbled, and rolled.

  When he regained his footing, he was already a good quarter of the way to the Palace, surrounded by eddies of smoke from the factories. It stung his eyes, dried out his mouth. His tongue lolled over his fangs as he panted, trying to release the heat building inside of his dense fur.

  He focused on his quarry. The angel was running for the open door at the bottom of the bridge, guarded by only a handful of humans with Tasers—more than capable of stopping most demons, but useless against angels.

  Damn.

  Abel forced the discomforts from his mind, put on a burst of speed, and hurtled down the bridge. The angel heard him coming. She looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened.

  He leaped into her back, digging his claws into the soft flesh just above her wings.

  She twisted and hacked with her sword, but it was a clumsy weapon; she couldn’t reach Abel on her back.

  Abel sank his teeth into the base of her left wing.

  “Let—me—go!” she cried, driving an elbow into his underbelly. Her wings beat on either side of him.

  He ripped a mouthful of feathers free and went back for another bite.

  The angel took three steps toward the edge of the bridge. Abel had only an instant to realize what she was doing, and then she jumped, and they were in open air.

  Smoke beat around them. The wind pushed them away from the bridge, away from the Palace, and Abel made out the streets growing underneath them through streaming eyes. In a distant, detached, sort of horrified way, Abel realized that the Dis looked like a huge chunk of black glass that had been shattered at the center where the Palace stood. The streets were just a lacework of cracks.

  Cracks that they were approaching very rapidly.

  The angel couldn’t flare out her wings with Abel gripping them, though she tried hard to fly. Abel had always assumed an angel’s flight was more magical than physical—he had seen Nash float around without flapping his stupid wings—but she wasn’t glowing now, and she definitely wasn’t floating.

  They plummeted together. She twisted under him, trying to flip him off of her back. He dug in harder.

  If we’re going to hit, we’re hitting together, bitch.

  The roofs swelled around them. Suddenly, Abel was alongside the smokestacks of the factories, and then they were there.

  The angel hit first, on her face, underneath Abel’s claws.

  He struck a fraction of a second later.

  Abel must have blacked out, because he blinked and found himself against a stucco building that had been graffitied with a huge black X. There was a crater in the street with the angel at the center. Her feathers clung to the dirt in a smear of blood.

  Oh, man. Abel hurt. Every single goddamn inch of him was on fire. That was good—the healing fever would have him on his feet in minutes—but he could feel that just about every bone in his body had pulverized, including his spine.

  He’d be fine before long, but for the moment there was nothing but pain, the struggle to breathe Dis’s harsh air, and trying to
focus on the angel as she stirred at the point of impact.

  She was going to get up first. She had her sword. She was bleeding from her wings, but not enough—they were still attached.

  Abel tried to twitch a paw and couldn’t.

  Paralyzed. Fuck.

  His hide rippled. If he was bleeding he couldn’t tell. His eyes rolled, and he realized that he couldn’t even see the bridge from the street, much less the towers of the Palace. God only knew where he’d ended up. He was in an unfamiliar demon city, alone with an angel, separated from his mate and helpless to move for at least another two minutes.

  Abel had definitely had better days.

  The angel slammed the point of her saber into the street and used it to push herself onto her knees. Her jacket hung loosely around her body, sticky with silver blood. Her slacks were ripped. One of her wings was doubled over on itself. The left side of her face had collapsed. That’s where she must have hit. Abel let himself feel a little bit smug about that.

  He could finally twitch his tail. That was good.

  Now it was just a race to see who could heal faster.

  Unfortunately, it looked like the angel. She got to her feet, braced her legs in a wide stance, and reached back to yank on the end of her wing. The bone popped as she snapped it back into place.

  She jerked the sword out of the street and held it in both hands, as though it were too heavy for her to wield.

  Abel managed to get one leg under him, but only one. He flopped onto his side again.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  The angel staggered toward him, twisting her hands on the sword’s hilt. The blade wasn’t igniting. Small mercy.

  Good. At least I’ll only get stabbed to death instead of stabbed and burned to death.

  Heat rippled over Abel, and when the shivers subsided, his vision was a little clearer and his hind legs were working. Maybe he wouldn’t get stabbed today after all.

  She crossed the street, dragging her left foot. Abel didn’t move. He let his eyes slide halfway shut and waited.

  Come on…

  The angel lifted her sword. “Die, you mangy mutt,” she said thickly. Fresh blood rolled down her jaw.

  She swung.

  Abel rolled out of the way, and in a flash, he clamped his jaws on her calf.

  With a hard jerk of his head, he yanked her off of her feet. The angel hit the ground hard—though not quite as hard as the last time.

  She stabbed and he wasn’t quite fast enough getting out of the way. The saber opened a cut along his flank. The air filled with the scent of his blood.

  Abel snapped his teeth shut on her wing. With all of his remaining strength, he yanked.

  It tore free of her back.

  She was definitely screaming now.

  And her screams had attracted attention—or maybe it had been all the spilled blood. Shadows moved in the streets. The scent of demons swept over Abel. He couldn’t tell if they were allies or not. Shit, he wasn’t actually sure he had allies in Hell. Elise seemed like she barely resisted the urge to kill him half the time, and she was about as friendly as it got.

  He needed to finish this fast.

  Abel went for her other wing, but the angel scrabbled away from him on all fours. She was surprisingly fast, given all the damage she’d taken.

  He leaped on her.

  She drove the sword up, between her arm and her body, and the point thrust into his belly. He howled with pain.

  “There’s one over here!”

  Through the red haze of pain, Abel saw demons in some stupid Renaissance Faire-type armor come loping around the corner. They were carrying spears. Spears. Hadn’t these assholes ever heard of a fucking gun?

  But there were more than just demons with them—there were a handful of humans, too. They were wearing that red and black leather armor that marked them as part of Elise’s team.

  They also had fully automatic weapons.

  Abel flung himself away from the angel just as they opened fire. Bullets chewed through her remaining wing, blasting it off of her body.

  Then they blasted her skull off, too.

  She didn’t scream for long.

  The instant she stopped moving, the army turned on him. Abel bared his teeth in a warning growl. But one of the men lifted his gloved fist to stop the others.

  “Wait. It’s a werewolf. They’re on our side.”

  Abel let his lip drop, but he didn’t smooth his hackles until the guns were lowered. Then he sat back on his haunches. He couldn’t exactly make himself look friendly—he was way too big for that—but he could at least look like less of a threat.

  The man in front stepped up to him, fingers spread in a gesture of peace. He wasn’t a particularly tall man. His eyes barely came up to Abel’s.

  “My name is Azis. I’m from the Palace. I saw you fall—we can get you to safety.”

  Fuck safety. Abel had tasted angel blood, and now he wanted more of it.

  It looked like Azis was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by a noise like a hammer the size of the Empire State Building slamming into a city-sized anvil. It shook the street, the buildings. The whole world shivered.

  Abel leaped to his feet, jumping away from the building so that he could see the sky.

  It was whole and unbroken.

  The fissure was gone.

  James felt something warm trickle between his toes and looked down. The glass from the shattered orb had cut his feet through his shoes in at least three places. It didn’t hurt, though. He couldn’t feel the cuts. He couldn’t feel anything but mindless shock.

  The fissure was gone as far as he could see, no longer clogging the night with smoke. The sprinkling rain rapidly washed away what little remained.

  Pain lanced through his side. He doubled over with a shout, pressing a hand to his ribs.

  He had no injury there. That was Elise’s pain.

  James?

  She was trying to talk to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to reply. He didn’t have any explanations.

  He shook the glass off his feet and slipped past the stunned demons staring at the place the fissure no longer sprawled. The only sign of the months it had existed were the burned ground and Bain Marshall’s ash-caked legs.

  The angels closed in around Elise, wings brightening with each step that they took. She stood to face them. She looked fearless, but the bond betrayed her—she was uncertain, worried, confused.

  A handful of brave demons tried to attack. The angels didn’t even look at them. Flaming sabers flashed, and bodies fell.

  James felt a tugging deep in his belly as Elise tried to phase and failed. It was too bright around the angels. There weren’t enough shadows for her to escape.

  She backed away, but there was another angel behind her. She jerked away from his reaching hand.

  No—Elise, get out of there!

  She stared blindly at the angels, obviously searching for James, but unable to see beyond the glow. She focused vaguely in his direction. The corner of her mouth lifted in a half-smile.

  Then she jerked her jacket off. It was a leather duster with long sleeves that fell to mid-thigh, and when she pulled it over her head, it covered her chest, her hands, her face. She dropped to her knees and disappeared from James’s line of sight.

  “Elise!”

  He leaped onto the base of Bain Marshall’s statue, straining to see over the shoulders of the angels. He glimpsed Elise curled on the ground, a lump underneath her jacket.

  One of the angels got brave. He drove his sword into Elise.

  James ripped a glove off with his teeth and gathered his most powerful ethereal magic, the kind that he had adapted from his son’s notes, the ones that would move Earth underneath Heaven. Just pulling it into his palm made his muscles ache. He had already been the vessel for magic beyond his comprehension today. His body protested the idea of casting more.

  But the angels were all jumping on Elise now. She was helpless under the lig
ht of their wings.

  If anything could kill her, it would be them.

  “Hey! Over here!” he shouted.

  Only one angel glanced at him, looking wholly unimpressed. Then she did a double take as she realized that James’s arm was completely engulfed in brilliant magic, just as blue as their eyes, far more brilliant than their wings.

  Her mouth opened in warning.

  James didn’t give her the chance to speak. He pointed at them. Magic arced from his fingers and engulfed the angels.

  He jerked. Hard.

  The night went dark.

  The angels vanished from the dimension to some indeterminate other-place. He thought it might have been a Haven, but it could have just as easily been one of the Hell dimensions, or no dimension at all. Nathaniel was so much better at manipulating that kind of magic than James was. He could have put the angels exactly where he wanted them. For James, it was a much less precise art.

  But they were gone.

  “Impressive,” Terah said, descending on her fell beast. She had to shout to be heard over the beating of its leathery wings. She carried a spear that was slicked with silver-tinted blood. “I spent almost twenty minutes dogfighting a single one of those bastards and barely injured him. How did you kill them all at once?”

  “I didn’t,” James said.

  He leaped off of the Bain Marshall statue, trying not to slip on the bodies below him. The smell of blood was overwhelmingly strong. Someone was crying—several someones.

  A hand gripped his ankle. He jerked away. He’d been grabbed by one of those brute-like demons, breath rattling in its chest. Once James saw that demon, he noticed the others. Dozens of demons writhing in puddles of blood. Many of them had already stopped moving, but not all of them. Not nearly enough. They were suffering.

  This hadn’t been a fight. It had been a massacre. Only Elise and Abel had been capable of fighting the handful of angels that had confronted them, and only barely. A hundred demons hadn’t made any noteworthy difference. James doubted that a thousand would be any better.

  How in all of the worlds were they going to be able to save everyone in New Eden if it took an entire centuria to fight a couple of angels?