“Quickly. Make up your mind,” she said.
“David?” Lasca asked. “What do?”
Fuck. Fuck fuck. He looked back to the group, to the angels surrounding the rider, and to Laoko still fighting Moriah.
He shook his head. “We can’t keep crossing Hell if everyone we run into turns into an enemy.”
“Yes we can,” Caera said. “We just stay low and–”
“It’ll backfire, eventually. We’re talking about angels, Caera. They’re hunting us, and they can fly all over Hell. We have to find a way to stop them, to get them on our side. Something!”
“You spared that bitch’s life before, David! And look what happened!”
“That… That…”
A shriek drew their eyes. Moriah stood over the tetrad demon, sword dripping with blood, and Laoko held her side, bleeding over the white stones.
But a second scream stopped the angel. An angel scream. Moriah spun, burning ruby eyes setting on David, but the cries of her companions drew her gaze to them, and she dove into the air with a battle cry.
“Everywhere I go, the past haunts us!” She landed behind the rider, and the angels with her backed off. Three lay on the ground, and the rider’s dripping axes steamed, blood bubbling and boiling on the metal edges. “You have plagued our doorstep for too long, rider!” If rage could kill, the area would have incinerated.
She brought her glowing sword down on the rider, and the man twisted at the last moment to block it with an axe. The angels now behind stabbed with their spears, while the gabriem flew down and helped pull the injured and dead angels to safety. Moriah didn’t slow down. She screamed death at the rider and swung fast, each hit crashing against his axes. But the rider retaliated smoothly, motions perfect, direct, without a shred of emotion or hesitation, and Moriah blocked an axe and disappeared under an explosion of fiery embers.
The next axe came down harder, and smashed through her shield. It shattered, and Moriah fell on her back around disappearing shards of mirror metal. The other angels went for his back again, but he turned and swung with both axes, caught spears and swords, and the angels recoiled. He came at them instead, spinning, almost dancing, and another went down, axe to the side of their helmet. A gabriem went to help the fallen, and got an axe to the chest for her trouble. The rider’s burning weapon had no trouble piercing the breastplate and into the angel’s insides.
There wasn’t enough time for Moriah to get back up and get out of the way, and the rider came for her.
Save her? No. Don’t save her. Let her die. She was psycho and had it out for David. That’s what the girls would have said. Just let her die and probably let the other angels die. Turn and run, right now, use this opportunity to put some distance between yourself and the rider. Go. Get out of here.
Fuck.
David pointed a hand at the rider, and summoned the song. Every pluck was agony, but it didn’t matter. He had to do something, anything.
He summoned a tombstone. A single one, not big at all, but he summoned it between the rider and the downed angel. It shattered, embers scattering over the battlefield. But it was another moment Moriah could use to escape.
She didn’t. She dove through the explosion, straight into the rider, body almost fully pointed forward in a lunge. An axe collided with her wing, but she didn’t care, and as her right wing erupted in flames, she drove her sword through the visor of the rider’s helmet.
She screamed and fell to her knee as her right wing half disintegrated. Sword still lodged in the rider’s face, she stared at the body in front of her, and her wing reduced to a measly stump with some bone exposed. Only hellfire destroyed things that fast.
But she got him.
Laoko sucked in a breath, rolled onto her knees, and pushed herself to her feet. She didn’t get far. Red liquid trickled down her side, and she clutched it tight, but the blood didn’t stop. She hobbled away, looked David’s way, and froze.
They all looked at the angels. They weren’t moving. Seven stood — Moriah knelt — around the rider, and stared down at the man and the angel sword still sticking out of the slit of his helmet.
Snarling like a demon, Moriah forced herself back to her feet, yanked her sword free of the rider’s face, and stared at the blood on its tip. Holy shit, she’d killed him?
“For thousands of years, this… beast, has preyed on one and all. How many angels have we lost to this mad dog? How many…” Her burning eyes glared down at the rider through the t-slit of her own helmet, and she slowly raised her death glare to David and the girls. “You. You thought the rider–”
David put up his hands. “The rider’s been trying to kill me for weeks!” He almost added ‘and my sister’.
The two living rapholem kept their shields and spears pointed at the rider’s corpse, but everyone else pointed their weapons at David and the girls. Moriah took another step toward David, and re-summoned her shield in a gold poof.
“You lie.”
“I’m not! You lot dropped in on us to kill me, right? And you found me probably because of all the destruction you saw nearby, right? The rider and… and me did that. Fighting each other.”
Moriah flared her wings. Wing. She screamed in agony, aimed her glare at her burnt, half stump, half bone wing, and again pointed her sword at David.
“You caused all that damage, as I suspected. The other unmarked did the same.”
“Yes I did, to stop the rider!”
“The other unmarked killed hundreds of angels!”
“I… what?”
Moriah came closer, and her helmet disappeared, fading away in a gentle glow of gold that didn’t match her rage at all. She had tan skin, long black hair flat and smooth, and large ruby eyes that would have been beautiful if not for the death-stare she wielded.
“The unmarked girl has killed hundreds of my kind! The girl who looks just. Like. You.”
Fuck. Well, that cat was out of the bag.
“Mia would never do that! She’s the nicest–”
“And you killed Tzipporah and… and Shaul.” Her gaze fell the moment she said his name, but reset and stabbed daggers through David’s chest. “And you expect me to listen to a single word you have to say, unmarked? The council has decreed the unmarked must die, and you have given us plenty of reason to agree!”
“We should have run,” Jes whispered, shaking her head.
Acelina hissed. “We cannot outrun angels, not out in the open.”
“Acelina,” David said. “Can you help Laoko? If we want to get through this province, we need her help.” So far, she was the most cooperative demon they’d run into.
“What difference does it make? We’re doomed.”
“Please.”
Again she hissed. He used the p word, knowing full well she’d probably never heard it before. Sighing, she marched over to the tetrad and stood by her, though Laoko stood on her own. But at least she’d have some help if some angels went for her.
“Moriah,” David said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why my sister did what she did, but I can guarantee it was probably in self defense or to save someone’s life. She can barely hurt a fly.”
“Lies!”
One of the gabriem lowered their bow. “Yosepha–”
“Silence!” Moriah pointed her shield at the gabriem, but kept her eyes on David, not so much as glancing Acelina’s way. Laoko didn’t matter to her. “We have our orders. The unmarked must die.”
A rapholem turned, the other one still watching the rider’s corpse. They didn’t think he was dead, either.
“Galon died for these unmarked, Moriah.”
That got her. She didn’t turn, but she did flinch.
Another angel spoke up. “Yosepha and Galon–”
“Galon is dead!”
Another gabriem lowered their bow. “And whose fault is that?”
“I–”
“We came here,” the rapholem said, “on orders from the council. We joined this squadron, because you promised a swift result. But if the rider is chasing–“