Chapter 44

The creatures are dark, serrated shapes that look like congealed nightmares.

And they are getting closer with every heartbeat

But they’re not streaking like before. They’re oozing towards us in slow-motion, giving us every chance to see their details. It’s actually far scarier this way.

They’re a cross between man-sized, bloated-with-blood leeches, and those acid-dripping monsters that lay eggs inside people’s chests. I’ve seen so many ugly supernatural critters in my life, but these are in a class of their own. Their revulsion factor alone is overwhelming.

Along with the talons of terror sinking into me, something else gnaws at me. Though they don’t resemble anything I’ve seen in the Supernatural World, I feel as if I’ve seen them before. Where, I can’t remember. Maybe in a comic book? A dream?

Not that it matters. Only that they will soon surround us. And we have no weapons to fight them off with.

Is this the test then? We are supposed to manifest our Angel-Graced powers under duress? That doesn’t bode well for Sarah and me, since we have none. Jinny, too, since whatever demonic powers she has, she’s half-dead on her feet. Cara may or may not be able to access any powers.

That leaves us with the nephilim who can already use some of her powers. If she’s a thousandth as powerful as Godric or even Lorcan now, we may make it out of this alive, after all.

“Hey, Aela…” I whirl around, in time to see her snapping out her wings.

It’s the first time I’ve seen them. They’re nothing like any of the other Nephilim’s. As unique and spectacular as Godric’s and Lorcan’s, but in the palette of golds and silvers, and seem to be spun of heavenly fire. As my heart trips on its next boom, she beats them once and shoots up.

Before I can yell if she has a plan, and how we can help—Aela disappears. Right before my eyes.

Does she have cloaking powers? Or is that a Glamor? Or did this air that isn’t air somehow shroud her, as soon as she put some distance between us? Is she going to fly over the monsters and pick them off?

This must be why she took off. She couldn’t have left us to face them alone, could she? Not when she’s our best—our only weapon against them.

But the monsters are still advancing. She isn’t doing anything yet. Is she waiting to see if they’ll attack?

Of coursethey’ll attack! These horrors aren’t converging on us to drool over us and wag their tails in welcome!

So is she debating how to round them all up? Or—has she already gauged she can’t take them all on? And that we’d be no help? Has she decided it’s every woman for herself? Will she just hover above us until this is over? With all of us dead?

Maybe that is part of the Trials. To see who can make cruelly pragmatic decisions to survive in the face of overwhelming odds.

This is what happens in war.

But why would they get us here, only to have us killed, in the very first test? It doesn’t make any sense.

Unless it isn’t supposed to. Just like war itself, like life and death never make any sense. Unless this is an elimination like I feared.

Yelling curses, at Aela for abandoning us, and at our so-called professors—who should be renamed our ring-masters—for tossing us like unarmed gladiators to these supernatural maggots, I whirl around to Sarah, and blood freezes in my arteries.

Sarah isn’t there!

Screaming her name frantically, my gaze slams around.

Where is she? She was behind me seconds ago! But I can only see Jinny and Cara, standing almost back to back feet away, stances defensive as they gape at the approaching horde of horrors. I forget them even as I look at them, every sense funneling into searching for Sarah.

Then I see her. Dozens of feet away. How did she get so far? But what almost makes my heart burst is that she’s coiled in a fetal position on the ground that isn’t ground. And one of the creatures is almost on top of her!

There’s no premeditation as I explode into a sprint that ends in a flying leap. All of Godric’s training takes hold of my every muscle and nerve as, while still in the air, I swing my leg in an arc. My heavy boot thwacks into that terror’s dripping-in-inky-slime snout, the full force of my dread and disgust packing the Melek roundhouse.

I feel my hip almost dislocate at the impact. The nauseating sensation of hitting its mass—what felt like a shark and scorpion hybrid, both rotting judging by its stench—almost makes me hurl. At least the kick has been as brutal to the creature. It falls beside Sarah, writhing and chittering in a high-pitched, insectoid frequency.

Landing in a crouch, whole being rioting with violent revulsion and aggression, I kick its head with my other foot, even harder. This time, it goes still. Whether it’s dead or just knocked out, I can drag Sarah away now.

I turn to her, only for another breaker of horror to drench me. Four more creatures are converging on her!

Shredding my throat on a roar, I launch myself at them, and into a frenzied series of kicks and blows. As each fells a creature, more keep coming, all undulating towards Sarah. She remains curled on the ground, arms over her face and head, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

She has never been one for physical confrontations, but she’s always been brave. Too brave. Like when she jumped into a nephilim’s arms, hurling herself into the unknown to be with me. Her condition isn’t normal. Neither is their targeting her in specific. It’s as if she’s become a monster magnet. Are they attracted to her terror?

It doesn’t matter why, and I can do nothing but keep kicking and punching, warding the monsters off her.

Then I discover their slime burns, like the acid of those creatures from that horror movie. It’s the burning-skin reek that alerts me. I know it’s mine, from experience, since I can’t feel anything in my frenzy. All of Kondar’s Circadan cigars have been put out in my back and legs.

Since our uniforms provide full coverage, it’s my hands burning, or my face, or both. Maybe my spotty healing will kick in, or not.

I won’t stop defending Sarah until my hands burn right off. Not even then. Godric has taught me to fight with hands tied behind my back. I’ll fight as long as I have feet. So until I lose those, too, I won’t surrender to exhaustion. If I stop, even for seconds, we will be swarmed.

Not that I’m exhausted. Adrenaline is roaring in my system, and my movements are getting more fluid, more explosive. With each blow that takes down one of those horrors, I can only send a fervent thank you Godric’s way. I wouldn’t have been able to defend Sarah if not for those supernaturally effective moves he’s engrained in me, through so much sweat and tears.

Suddenly, my back bumps into something. I whirl around with a war cry, only to realize Cara has slammed into me. Because a creature has slammed into her. No, two. Three!

So it isn’t only Sarah they are drawn to like flies to a lollipop? Or were they just going through Cara, on their way to her?

Whichever, she has been fighting them off. It’s clear from her disheveled appearance, and the black goo covering her hands and top. But since she’s in one piece, she’s been holding her own. She may not have had Godric for a mentor like she yearned to, but she’s been getting adequate training.

Now three creatures are ganging up on her, and I can’t afford to help her, can’t let even one escape me and get to Sarah. I suspect these creatures liquefy their prey before feasting on them.

But if Cara can’t hold them off, they will do this to her. And once she falls, no matter how successful I’ve been in knocking these things out so far, there are too many of them. I will tire out eventually. Then I’ll be overwhelmed. Once I am, it will be over for both Sarah and me. I have no idea if Jinny is even still alive or not.

As for Aela, that treacherous bitch might be back through the Imperium Gate by now. Even if it’s a total breach of the Trials rules, not even attempting to save her Unitas, I’d bet Raphael’s daughter will get a mere rap on the knuckles for it.

Cara screams with rage and disgust, terror a mere tinge, as she knocks down two creatures with impressive kicks. But she only stuns them, and the third is undeterred, with five more closing in.

She’s good, but nowhere as well trained as I am, can’t hope to ward them off for long. And I can’t do anything for her. My hands, and feet are tied fighting those who keep coming after Sarah.

This is it then. Cara will be the first to fall.

I can’t even feel sorry for her. Not because I dislike the hell out of her, and she would probably love to see me dead. It’s because I won’t last much longer after she goes down.

As I dispose of four more of Sarah’s attackers, Cara shoves her hands out to ward her closest one off, and suddenly they’re glowing bluish green. Next second, the glow leaps, covering her whole body like wildfire.

The moment the creature touches it, it lets out a horrific screech as it joins its fellow writhing monstrosities on the ground.

But this one doesn’t move at all. It curls on itself and shrinks like burning paper, as the terrible stench of its charring flesh sears my lungs.

Cara fried it. Just by touching it.

Her Grace power has manifested!

Now that’s some handy power. Why can’t I have something that flashy and useful?

But she doesn’t seem to be handling her power’s discovery well. While she has faced the creatures with steady vehemence, she now staggers, mouth and eyes round with shock as she holds up arms that look engulfed in blue-hot fire.

A plan bursts in my mind. To see if it can be put into action, I need her to snap out of it.

“Cara!” I shout as I continue to punch and kick the horrors vying for Sarah. Yet another one rams Cara, only to meet the same fate. “Quit standing there playing mosquito zapper. I need you to flare this frying field covering you out, take them all out at once.”

It seems I manage to aggravate her out of her stupor as she shouts back, “What makes you think I can do that?”

“Just try, dammit! And by try I mean, do it!” I scream as another half a dozen nightmares worm their way toward Sarah, appallingly silent and inexorable. She’s now almost buried in the bodies of the fallen ones.

“What if I fry you along with them?” Cara screams back as another one zaps itself against the energy field surrounding her.

“They’ll overwhelm me by sheer numbers sooner rather than later, and we’ll be dead anyway,” I pant as I kick another one in the head. “I’ll take our chances with your zapping powers!”

“If I burn you to a crisp, just remember it was your fault!” Cara gives a straining shriek just before a shockwave of magnificent teal and azure flames burst out of her.

Before I can draw my next breath, the blaze engulfs me, razes through me as I watch dozens of monsters spasm all around us, their jagged, slippery hide distorting as it combusts.

But as they shrivel up on the ground in these supernatural flames, I don’t feel anything. Maybe that initial burn before every sensation ceased means Cara has seared off my every nerve-ending. I may already be dead, and I don’t know it yet.

But I can still see and think, and Sarah is still quaking on the ground, which could mean Cara’s flames have passed harmlessly through us. To test my theory, I turn, find I can move. This proves I’m alive and in one functioning piece, right?

The monsters continue to shrivel at my feet, including the ones I struck down, disintegrating around Sarah, freeing her from being slowly entombed by their accumulating corpses.

It worked! Cara did it!

But as soon as I see her, all elation is snuffed. Just like her flames have been. She’s now kneeling on the ground, retching. This stunt seems to have depleted her completely. And the manifestations of horror that haven’t been caught in her blast’s radius, are still oozing from all around us.

As soon as one gets close enough, I swirl around with another roundhouse, taking it down as I shout to Cara, “Come over here beside Sarah, so I can protect you until you recharge!”

Ifshe recharges.

She can’t even push herself to her feet, hobbles awkwardly toward us on her knees. As she approaches, something red flares at the edge of my vision.

I snap around, only to see Jinny for the first time since the mayhem started.

She’s firing what looks like lava from crimson-glowing hands. The scorching streams arc in the non-air, hitting the two creatures floating above her on their way to us, melting their heads right off!

A “yes” explodes from me, as if my favorite soccer player has just scored an impossible goal.

The glow of her hands flickers and flares, as if revving for another blast. Before she can unleash it, the rest of the creatures’ twitching bodies crash into her.

Jinny yells as she collapses beneath their literally dead weight.

In the moment of distraction, another one rams into me. Before I fall, too, I catch myself on one extended arm, and perform the two-legged kick Godric almost killed me before I got right. One boot tears through the monstrosity’s wide-open maw, and gets stuck there as it crumples, dragging me down with it.

I tear my foot out of its now-flaccid jaws, squelching in its inky, stinky slime, and scrape against its rows of jagged teeth. My yell echoes Jinny’s as she shoves the carcasses off of her. I stagger up to my feet as she hauls herself up, and limps towards us.

As soon as she stumbles into our circle, I snarl at her, “You left me fighting for Sarah alone, the only one who cares for you, when you can fire lava lasers? That’s a new low, Evilspawn!”

“I couldn’t ‘fire lava lasers’ until I absorbed enough of their dark energy, Nobrain,” Jinny snarls back.

“You mean you can feed off them?” I shout as I ram a creature in the midsection, making it spew a gallon of rotten slime down my front. I’m past shuddering in revulsion. “Guess it takes a bigger monster, huh?”

“I didn’t know if I could ‘feed off them,’” she grunts as she blasts another lava laser, punching a hole through a creature before it poured that burning gunk over Sarah’s head. “And when I first tried, it literally knocked me out. I’m not firing on all cylinders, what with having a fallen angel’s footprint all over my vital organs.”

Though I hate to give her that, it’s a miracle she’s up and running at all in her condition. But she’s doing far more than that. She’s using her power, one of them, at least. Another cool, or should I say, red-hot one. I can’t even use mine, as lame as it is, since those things don’t emit any energy I can detect, let alone harvest. Jinny clearly does.

At least, I have the skills Godric ingrained in me.

I grab one by what passes for a tail, what feels like dipping my hands into a thousand worms and cockroaches. I swing it with all my newly-minted strength into its twin. Or its clone? They all look identical, which is more gruesome somehow.

“When I came to, I didn’t know how long I was crumpled like a used hanky,” Jinny pants as she strains, and blasts another two. Her hellish beams slice one in half, and drills the other a fist-sized hole where its eyes should have been.

The stench of their fetid flesh burning is almost enough to make me black out. For once I’m thankful for something Azazel did. Sending us here on empty stomachs. Unless they knew they were sending us to our deaths, then it becomes evil beyond measure. We didn’t even get a last meal!

But it’s weird that Jinny is bothering to explain herself to me. Or is it to Sarah? Letting her know why she hasn’t come to her rescue sooner?

Not that Sarah can grasp anything in her condition, or is aware of anything going on around her. She’s shut down with panic.

“You were out for the time it took me to knock out dozens of those uglies,” I gasp. “And for Cara to manifest her Grace power and fry them. Though her batteries are depleted for now.”

I kick another one away from Sarah, only for Jinny to laser it.

And for a while, we play clay pigeon shooting with them. I’d knock one to her, and she would blast it.

Then her crimson energy starts to sputter. Cara’s blue-spectrum one isn’t coming back online, but she keeps her end of the fight. If only with her feet, burned hands curled close to her chest.

I still can’t feel my own burns, or other injuries, when I’m certain I have many. Nothing too serious, I hope, since I’ve been running on adrenaline and my new-found stamina.

At one point, what feels like forever later, depletion starts to sink its claws into me.

Every breath feels as if I’m inhaling that slimy acid into lungs filled with razor-sharp debris. Every muscle feels made of barbed wire, and trembles as if about to snap. My mind keeps phasing in and out as if to escape the endlessness of this struggle. And those gigantic maggots keep coming. It’s only a matter of time before they overwhelm us. Then it will be all over.

There’s nothing more I can do. There’s nothing to be done. We can only keep fighting. Until the end.

What feels like an hour later, I stumble around as another creature closes in on Sarah. But I know I won’t be able to stop it this time. I can barely move. Can barely breathe.

Then my legs twist over each other, and I crash to the bizarre medium beneath, knowing I won’t get up again. Jinny and Cara have already given up.

Now I’ll watch as these things swarm Sarah. Then it will be our turn. Only Aela has gotten away.

It has been an elimination. She’ll be the only one to exit the Imperium Gate, the only one worthy of serving in the Army of Heaven.

I could have told those angelic monsters that without any of this. They didn’t need to send us all to our gruesome deaths, to find out that the daughter of an archangel is superior to any of us.

Not that she is. That cowardly bitch is the least worthy of us. Even Jinny fought for her friend with everything in her. Those creatures wouldn’t have targeted her otherwise. Jinny will now die along with us because she didn’t abandon Sarah.

But I can’t see Sarah die. I can’t watch them drench her in that hideous slime, can’t watch her flesh melt for them to consume. Even if it would make dying myself easier, knowing she’s already gone.

I still can’t let her die without knowing I’m there.

As I start crawling toward her, Jinny drags herself limply from the other side.

We meet over Sarah, Jinny covering her legs with her body, while I protect her back with mine.

Together till the end, my darling Sarah.

But I can’t even say this out loud.

All I can do is close my eyes, and wait for the end.