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It was all over within a few seconds, and then it was only me and Azazel, staring at each other with shock rendering us both mute.
Until a vibration disturbed the air. A shimmer like a desert mirage, and then, rolling his shoulders, Azrael took form, stepping from in between the worlds, coalescing his being into shape in the here and now. His right hand grasped a bloodied sword.
The sword that had just killed those angels.
My heart stumbled as I tried to process what I saw.
He’d come. After he’d run like such a coward, after he’d refused to help save his son from certain death, he’d somehow changed his mind and come to save us.
My mouth opened and closed. I was too stunned to get out a single sound.
Azrael met my gaze for a second, giving me a nod, and then his eyes tracked to Azazel. He swallowed hard, a thousand unspoken things on his face, but he only jerked his head toward the gate and said, “Go.”
Azazel stood still as a statue, his expression raw. “Father…”
“There’s no time,” Azrael cut him off. “We can have this conversation later. I will meet with you, and with Azmodea, for there are things I need to say—to her as well—that have weighed heavy on my soul. Apologies won’t mend old wounds, but you both deserve them nevertheless.” A pause, then more quietly: “As does your mother.” He waved in the direction of the gate. “Now go.”
“Thank you,” I choked out, getting to my feet.
The muscles in Azazel’s throat moved as he swallowed, his face ravaged by some emotion he kept in a stranglehold inside. He gave his father a jerky nod. “We will have that conversation.”
Just as he turned to the gate, I saw something move in the periphery of my vision. A shadow behind Azrael. Light glinting off a blade.
My eyes widened, my mouth opening in a scream of warning that came a second too late.
The blade cut through Azrael’s neck with lightning speed.
A thin line of red glistened on his skin right before his head tumbled over sideways, cleanly severed from his body. Blood gushed from the open wound on his neck, pulsing out and rushing down his torso…and then the Angel of Death vanished into embers of light.
CHAPTER 22
Azrael’s clothes and sword fell to the ground, making the angel behind him who’d dealt him the death blow visible.
It was the first one I’d shot with an amrit dart. I’d never stabbed her in the heart, too distracted by the other angels attacking me to make sure she wouldn’t be a threat again.
Her teeth bared, she held her sword still raised from the strike, her eyes no longer as glazed over as before. The effects of the amrit were wearing off.
“Traitors,” she hissed, kicking at the empty clothes at her feet and then flicking her gaze to me.
Something inside me seethed and roiled, a reckoning gathering force like an incoming storm. With a scream of grief-battered rage, I picked up my sword and ran at her.
Her expression fierce, she readied herself for my attack, but just before I reached her, I went down on my knees and slid right under her strike, coming up behind her and ramming the pommel of my sword into her back as I swept her legs out from under her.
She crumpled with a yell, her reaction time still a bit slowed by the fading effects of the amrit. Just as she started to scramble to her feet again, I swung my sword in a powerful arc and let the blade glide cleanly through her neck.
Her life ended in a shower of sparks.
Breath heavy, I turned to Azazel.
The entire thing had happened in the span of a few heartbeats, with only a moment’s time between Azrael telling Azazel to go and then me dispatching the angel who’d killed him. And Azazel still stood rooted to the spot, his usual composure completely broken, his shell-shocked gaze on the heap of clothes where Azrael had stood, the only thing left of his father.
“Azazel,” I said and grabbed his arm.
His lashes half lowered over his remaining eye, muscles twitching in his face. When he spoke, his voice was as rough as gravel. “He’s gone.”
A horrible ache twisted my chest. To see the man he’d despised for thousands of years for abandoning his family be murdered right in front of him just as he’d glimpsed a glimmer of hope for a heretofore impossible reconciliation, to irrevocably lose all chance at mending old wounds, at rebuilding bridges, in the very same moment he might have dared wish for it…my soul bled at what this meant for him.
How he’d carry this hurt for the rest of his life.
