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I didn’t reply. Holding onto the arrow with both hands, I broke off the base that was still sticking out of Malachi’s chest, then I placed the broken shaft between his teeth. “Bite this.”
He was about to protest, but I stuck the wood into his mouth to keep him from arguing with me. I turned him onto his side to inspect his back. The arrow had gone in through his chest and the other side of it had almost made it all the way through his body. I could feel the arrowhead in the muscle, just under the skin, which was probably luckier than it being stuck somewhere in the middle.
I counted to three, grabbed what was left of the shaft, and pushed it through until the arrow broke through the skin of his back. Malachi cried out in pain, his cries stifled by the piece between his teeth. Thick, dark red blood poured from the wound and onto the sand, but I was able to grab the arrow and pull it all out. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the only bit of pain he was going to have to suffer.
“Bite harder,” I said, and after laying him on his back again, I placed my hand on his chest. “Everyone else, look away.”
Malachi’s eyes widened. “No, no, no!” he struggled, begging me not to do what I was about to do.
We were no longer in Hell, and between the rush of Light from Lucifer’s portal and my own reserves, I knew I had enough Light in me. I could already feel myself recharging, my connection to the Light restored, but what I was about to do to him was as likely to kill him as it was to heal him.
Still, I had to try.
With a bright flash from under my palm, I channeled my Light into Malachi’s wound. As I had expected, the Light seared his flesh and made it sizzle and burn under my hand. I knew it was going to hurt. Demons were not able to withstand the power of Light, but he was mortal now, so that either made him more susceptible to it, or less—there was only one way to find out.
Malachi gritted his teeth and clamped his jaw shut around the broken arrow shaft as my Light pushed through him. His eyes widened, tears formed at their corners and spilled down the sides of his face. “I’m sorry!” I said, “I’m almost done.”
And I was almost done. Another moment or so and I knew, the wound had sealed through. He wouldn’t die from it, but the handprint my Light had left on his chest wasn’t going to be pretty. I could only hope it would fade in time.
“Get him up,” I said, not sparing a single second. “We need to leave, right now.”
“And go where?” asked Missolis.
“I don’t know yet. It doesn’t matter. But in a couple of moments, the second Abaddon is going to come through that portal and when he does it’ll be impossible for us to scatter to the four winds.”
“They’re all doing it,” said Kainon, pointing at the demons up in the air.
They looked like drunk flies, zipping around in the air kind of aimlessly. I felt bad for them. They were all screaming—clearly they hadn’t understood what was going to happen to them when they so eagerly rushed through that portal and made it through to the other side.
“Alright,” said Missolis. “You heard her, everybody up—we take to the sky.”
“Where is Lucifer?” asked Etari. “Why did he not stay behind?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “and honestly, I don’t care. The further we are away from him, the better.”
I backed away from the portal, stretching my wings out to either side of me. It was time to get out of there, and put as much distance between myself, Abaddon, and Lucifer as I could. The thought itself was bonkers. All this time I had wanted to get back to Abaddon, but now the thought of going near him set alarm bells off in my mind.
He had changed so much. Had he really taken up the mantle Lucifer had given him? It was only a few days ago that I adamantly told myself there was no way he would do that, and yet, there he was, Lucifer’s right hand.
King of the Ashes.
The Oracle’s words were hard to ignore, but maybe there was still time to stop it.
Demons were still pouring out of the portal to Hell, but their numbers were slowing down. We didn’t have much time before the last of them—and Abaddon—came through. As soon as the rebels were ready, Missolis gave the order for them to take to the air. I shot up ahead of them and called out for them to follow me. I scanned the sand for Lucifer and endeavored to move in the opposite direction to where he was, but he was nowhere to be found.
There were only demons, scattering, flying, running in all directions.
“This way!” I yelled, and the rebels followed me into the air just as readily as they had followed Missolis off the edge of that mountain in Hell.
Think, Sarakiel, I thought to myself as I soared, think. Behind and below me I saw a bright flash of Light, there was a pulse of air and sand, and a moment later the portal to Hell was gone. Nobody took flight to chase us down—nobody seemed to care about us nearly as much as the first Abaddon had.
Good. That was one less problem to deal with, but the other problem was still pretty big. We had nowhere to go, no shelter from the sun and the sand, no food, no water. If these demons were all mortal, they were going to need the same things I needed, and I had no idea where in the world I actually was.
The first thing I was going to have to do was find a landmark, somewhere; something that could tell me where on Earth we were.
Food.
Water.
