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Just far enough for Micah to be able to rush out from behind the line of Helena’s soldiers and spring the trap.
The entire courtyard went up in lights, light that seemed to come up from beneath the stone somewhere. Every single one of Micah’s sigils burned to life, forcing Lucifer to his knees, grabbing hold of the sides of his head. He was screaming, but no one could hear him.
When I looked across from where Lucifer was, I saw Hekata standing where Lucifer had been a moment ago. She had come from out of nowhere, appearing as swiftly and as suddenly as she used to back when she was known as Gadriel, my Seeker.
For a moment I saw her as she had been before, as the angel with hair the color of night and the wings to match. She was beautiful, dark, and deadly, and she towered above Lucifer; only it wasn’t Lucifer anymore. It was Medrion on his knees, the archangel who had beaten her, broken her, and thrown her into the Pit so, so long ago.
Hers was a look of vengeance, and pain, and anger… the purest expression of herself I had ever seen, and I was in awe of it. She wasn’t just an angel, or just a demon, or just a Seeker. She was something else altogether. Something cosmic, and unstoppable.
Gadriel looked to me, her eyes filled with righteous fire, and nodded.
“Micah!” I screamed, “Now!”
A buzzing sound began to grow all around me, and I saw the forms of every angel and demon around Lucifer start to glow as if they were radiating light from within. Lucifer looked up at Micah, his eyes filled with anger, and hate, but also fear.
Micah slammed his hands together, and in a flash of Light, we were all gone.
Every last one of us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Heaven.
I was back in Heaven, where it all began.
Blinking the brightness away took a moment longer than I would have liked because we were in near total darkness. It wasn’t long before I felt the pull of gravity on my bones, as if some powerful force was pressing down on my shoulders, trying to push me into the ground.
We had arrived at the mouth of the Pit.
The most damnable place in all of Heaven, the Sacred City’s dirty little secret—or as mortals would probably put it—the asshole of the universe. It was a place that shouldn’t exist. A place that went against everything Heaven was supposed to stand for, what it was supposed to mean.
But it was here. The Pit into which all of Heaven’s problems go, only to be spat out in another dimension leagues below. None of the angels assembled around the mouth of the Pit had ever been here, but I had, and so had the demons who joined us now. We knew this place well, knew its power, its purpose.
A flickering light caught my eye, and when I looked up, there was Lucifer, dangling from the ceiling suspended by ropes made of Light. I wanted to say that he looked defeated, or even deflated. That he looked like someone who had just lost the war he was fighting because he was too proud and too arrogant to even consider he could be outsmarted or outplayed by his underlings.
He wasn’t even angry, not anymore.
In fact, he kind of looked… amused.
Micah came up beside me, the cherub looking like he’d just stuck his hand into an electrical socket. His curly blond hair stuck out in places, his hands were still glowing, and his entire face appeared to be covered in angelic runes that were slowly fading.
“That’s it,” he said. “We did it.”
I looked around at the angels and demons assembled near us. “Where’s Azrael?” I asked.
“Here,” came Abaddon’s voice. He had already broken off to try to find her. In his arms he carried her, the crowd parting for him as he moved toward me, his giant bat wings curled around his shoulders. Though her face was turned into his chest, I could tell it had been smashed almost beyond recognition.
Seeing the smear of blood across her cheek made my stomach turn.
“Is she dead?” I asked.
Abaddon’s jaw clenched. “She has a pulse,” he said, “but not much time.”
“That looks like it hurts,” said Lucifer. “Say, how about you let me go and I’ll fix her right up?” He clicked his fingers, his Light chains rattled and hummed. “Just like that.”
I turned my eyes up at him. “I won’t let her die,” I said.
“Good luck helping her. I’m the one who did the deed, so I’m the only one who can put her back together again. I’m certainly not going to do it from up here.”
