Ah, ha! Gotcha, sucker!
I walk out as well and start to follow him down the street.
“Hi!” I give him a beaming smile as I pull up beside him, hustling to keep up with his long strides. I’m still annoyed, but I’ve calmed down from our earlier confrontation, and I’m determined not to let him get to me. I’m going to succeed, even if it means wearing him down by annoying him every single day.
“You again?” Beckett shoots me a dismissive glance from the corner of his eye. “Do you not take a hint?”
“Nope!” I shake my head. “I admit I lost my temper back there in your office, so I took a little walk—and here I am again, ready to discuss how much you’ll be donating to the HDR.”
“I’m not donating anything.” Beckett keeps walking, and he’s really quite tall, annoyingly so. I have to practically jog to keep up with him.
I put on a burst of speed and slip in front of him, walking backward so fast I pray I don’t trip and go sprawling. “Listen, you’re a very busy man! I get that. You’ve got a lot of things to focus on and think about.” I narrow my eyes. “But I don’t. I just have this one, single mission, which is to convince you to donate. So which of us do you think is going to succeed?” I smile at him. “The guy who’s got a million things on his mind and doesn’t need one more problem on his plate? Or the girl who has nothing but time on her hands?”
Of course, I don’t know how much time I’ve got. Do I have a time limit? I’m not sure. But the sooner I can complete this assignment, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Beckett stops walking, and I nearly crash into some poor guy behind me as I skid to a halt too. The imposing sin gazes at me, and he actually looks almost impressed. “Listen, Ms. Pope—”
That’s when I notice an odd smell.
Huh. It’s… it’s distasteful, coating the back of my throat and making my nose wrinkle. I know that smell, know it and instinctively hate it like all of my kind do. It’s the smell of sulfur.
Sulfur means one of the corrupted are nearby. But that can’t be possible. Sulfur this strong?
It smells like an entrance to Hell is being opened up right nearby, but that’s all wrong. Earth is neutral territory! Demons shouldn’t—
Suddenly it doesn’t matter what demons should or shouldn’t be doing, because in the alley right next to us, the ground opens up as if chunks of rock are falling down into molten lava.
A blast of heat and an awful, indescribable stench hits me, and demons emerge.
Oh, no.
Yup. This is totally a portal to Hell. This shouldn’t exist, since Earth is neutral territory. This isn’t where the war is being fought.
Why are these demons doing this? What’s going on?
There’s a street full of people just a few feet away. If I don’t stop these demons, I have no doubt they’re going to hurt innocent people and wreak havoc on the city.
I have to do something.
It’ll mean showing Beckett my true form and letting him see what I really am, but that matters less to me than stopping these corrupted before they hurt anyone. The demons might even be after Beckett, although who knows why that would be? He’s not exactly on their side, but he’s not on our side either.
Gah. I’ll worry about why later.
For now, I step into the alley, unfurling my wings as I prepare to fight.
Demons are called corrupted for a reason. They look sort of like humans, if those humans were badly diseased. Puss oozes out of them from huge boils and lesions on their flesh, and they have blackened gums and milky eyes. Through the cracks in their skin, something like lava glows an unearthly color, and their blood is black. They’re absolutely disgusting.
They can seem frail, since they look like they’re one good cough away from keeling over and dying, but they’re a lot stronger and more powerful than that. They can and will mess you up. They’ll mess me up for sure, if I’m not careful.
“Go back to where you came from!” I yell, striding forward. “This is neutral ground! Go back!”
Of course, they don’t. Whatever brought them here, it wasn’t an accident; it’s not like they just made a mistake and took the wrong exit off the turnpike.
Okay. We’ll do this the hard way.
From out of the ether where it resides, I summon my angel blade.
Anderson returned this to me along with my wings and my powers, although I have to admit, I was really hoping I wouldn’t need it.
I twirl the glowing blade, everything else forgotten as my focus narrows on the demons before me.
I haven’t used my blade in thirty years, and I was never a soldier to begin with. But I’ve got to do this now. I grip the hilt tightly and lunge for the first demon, the closest one.
The demon shrieks and tries to sink its claws into me, fangs appearing out of nowhere. Yeah, like I said, they’re tougher than they look. I yell in pain as the claws sink into my shoulders, stabbing wildly. I catch him in the gut, making dark blood spurt everywhere, then I fling the dead demon to the side and take on another one.
These are the lower level demons, not anything special or extra-powerful. Which is good for me, because it means I have a chance of taking them all out. Hopefully. Bigger, stronger demons would eat me for lunch.
As if they can smell my fear, two of them come at me at once. I swing my blade hard, yelling and beating my wings, using them like limbs. My wings are strong—they can knock out a human and generate some good wind too. I use them like I’m trying to throw punches, and I’m able to fend off the two demons who attacked me, but they’re tearing at me with their claws, and there are more of their kind right behind them.
I’ve taken one out, but there are five more. They’re bleeding where I’ve slashed them with my blade, but I’m really worried that I’m bleeding too.
I feel like I’m burning.
So hot. So tired.
I can’t keep this up. There’s no way I’ll be able to fight off an endless stream of corrupted. I have to close the portal, to stop more demons from getting out.
My angelic blood is pumping, burning through my veins, and I stretch out my free hand, screaming with exertion. I’ve never closed a portal before. I don’t even know quite how, but I’m an angel—demonic stuff is literally the antithesis of me. I should be able to do this.
My body feels like it’s on fire, but as I pour all of my strength and angelic power toward the portal, the molten edges of the sinkhole begin to harden to dark stone.
It’s working. It’s working!
But with all my energy focused on closing up the breach between Earth and Hell, it leaves me vulnerable to the demons who are literally ripping into me. I’m bleeding everywhere, bruised and battered, my poor wing feathers being ripped out, and if I don’t hurry up, there’ll be no point to this because I’ll be dead.
The portal hardens and smokes, emitting a low rumbling sound until at last it closes.
I stumble, the energy draining out of me. The world spins.
So this is what passing out feels like, I think vaguely.
Then I don’t think anything at all.
Chapter Eight
Beckett