Page 49
BLOOD AND ASHES
CADE
H awk's body lay still on the ancient stone floor, blood pooling beneath him like spilled wine. The church felt colder now, as if his death had stolen all the warmth from the air.
Sterling knelt beside his fallen friend, his weathered face a storm of fury, grief, and a quiet devastation that was worse than any shouting could have been.
His hands trembled as he pressed them against Hawk's chest, an instinctive gesture to stop bleeding that had already slowed to nothing.
There was no life left to save. Sterling's jaw clenched, muscles working beneath his beard as he fought for control.
“I'll take care of him,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. The words carried the weight of a ritual he'd performed too many times over too many years. His eyes, wet with unshed tears, lifted to Cassiel. “You take care of that demon.”
The simple request contained multitudes—grief, rage, a lifetime of hunting that had cost him almost everyone he'd ever cared about. But also trust. Trust that we would finish what Hawk had died for.
Cassiel stood apart from us, his normally perfect posture now slightly hunched from his injuries.
His wings, partially visible in this liminal space between life and death, hung at awkward angles, singed at the edges where Asmodeus's power had burned them.
He didn't speak, perhaps understanding that no words could touch Sterling's grief.
Sean turned on the angel, fury barely contained. Blood still trickled from a cut above his eye, and his left arm hung at an odd angle that suggested a dislocated shoulder. But pain wasn't slowing his anger.
“You knew you were going to lose,” he accused, voice sharp, edged with disbelief and rage. “We lost the Heart because of your damned deal, Cassiel. And now Hawk's dead.”
I recognized the tone. It was how Sean processed grief—by turning it outward, into anger, into action. It was easier to be furious than to acknowledge the hollow ache of loss. I understood the impulse all too well.
Cassiel's silver eyes flickered with something unreadable. “I had to take the risk.”
“Bullshit,” Sean snapped, taking a step closer to the angel. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “You gambled with his life.”
“No,” Cassiel corrected quietly. “Hawk was a loophole. And Asmodeus knew it.”
The implication hung in the air between us. Asmodeus had never intended to let Hawk live, deal or no deal. The realization did nothing to ease the weight of failure pressing down on my chest. We had lost the Heart. We had lost Hawk. We were failing at every turn.
Cassiel suddenly crouched, pressing his fingertips to the blood-streaked ground where Asmodeus had stood during their duel. His eyes flashed white for a moment, illuminating the dark corners of the church. “He bled,” he murmured, a note of surprise in his voice. “I can track him.”
I exhaled sharply, fingers tightening around the Heavenly Lash still coiled at my side.
The weapon hummed faintly in response to my emotions, a sympathetic vibration that traveled up my arm and resonated with the mark on my chest. My mind felt fogged with exhaustion and anger, but one thought cut through the haze with crystal clarity: End this.
Cassiel rose to his feet, his movement stiff with recent injury. He turned toward Sterling, who was still kneeling beside Hawk's body, one hand resting on his friend's forehead in a gesture of tenderness few ever got to see from the gruff hunter.
“You shouldn't be here for this,” Cassiel said softly. Not a command, but a kindness—an offering to stay with Hawk, to begin the hunter's rituals of farewell.
Sterling didn't respond immediately. He brushed a hand over Hawk's cooling forehead, smoothing back hair matted with sweat and blood. The silent farewell was an agony of its own to witness. When he finally looked up, his eyes burned with a ferocity that belied his age.
“Then finish it,” he said simply. The command of a general who had seen too many soldiers fall and couldn't bear to lose the war they'd died for.
With no further words, we followed Cassiel's lead, leaving Sterling to his grim task.
The angel moved with certainty, tracking something invisible to human eyes—the trail of Asmodeus's blood, he explained, burned like embers against the spiritual darkness.
It led us out of the church and through the surrounding woods, to a place where ancient stones stood in a broken circle.
The remnants of a temple, older than the church, older than the colonial settlement that had once stood nearby. A place where the veil between worlds stretched dangerously thin. The perfect location to break the final seal.
As we approached, I felt the mark on my chest pulse with increasing intensity, responding to whatever power waited within those weathered stones. The night around us seemed to hold its breath, as if the very air feared what was coming.
The air inside the stone circle vibrated with unnatural energy, making my teeth vibrate and my skin crawl.
Moonlight illuminated symbols carved into the cracked stone floor—an ancient ritual diagram that glowed like molten gold against the darkness.
At its center stood Asmodeus, the box containing the Heart open before him.
He turned as we entered, his perfect face splitting into a grin that was all predator, no humor. “You're late,” he said, voice carrying easily across the distance between us.
The blood from Hawk's murder still stained his hands, drying to rust against his pale skin. The sight of it hit me like a physical blow, grief crystallizing into rage so intense it made my vision tunnel.
“You're going to pay for what you did,” Sean growled beside me, the Colt raised despite knowing how little good silver bullets would do.
Asmodeus laughed, the sound like glass breaking.
“Am I? Or have I already won?” He gestured to the ritual circle, where the Heart pulsed with unnatural light, veins of darkness spreading across its surface like cracks in glass.
“The final seal breaks tonight, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.”
My jaw locked tight. Without hesitation, I uncoiled the Heavenly Lash, letting the weapon slide through my fingers to its full length.
At my unspoken command, the whip ignited with celestial fire, golden light searing through the oppressive darkness of the ruin.
The glow cast harsh shadows across Asmodeus's perfect features, revealing for a moment the monstrosity beneath the beautiful facade.
“Let's see if you still bleed, Asmodeus,” I said, voice low and dangerous.
The demon prince's eyes widened fractionally, the first sign of genuine emotion I'd seen from him. Not fear—but interest. Recognition. As if I'd finally done something that met his expectations.
We attacked as one, a coordinated assault born from countless hunts together.
I struck first, the Heavenly Lash singing through the air like a serpent of light.
Asmodeus dodged with inhuman speed, but the tip of the lash caught his sleeve, burning through fabric to score the flesh beneath.
Black blood welled from the wound, hissing as it contacted the celestial energy.
Sean followed immediately, no longer hampered by his dislocated shoulder—Cassiel must have healed it while I was focused on Asmodeus.
He wielded twin silver blades, each inscribed with sigils of banishment that glowed faintly in the darkness.
He moved with the fluid grace of a lifetime hunter, each strike precisely aimed at vital points.
Cassiel engaged from the other side, his movements a blur of supernatural speed.
His angel blade flashed like lightning in the dim light, leaving trails of brightness that lingered on my retinas.
His angelic strength matched Asmodeus blow for blow, force against force in a battle that cracked the stone beneath their feet.
But for all our coordinated fury, Asmodeus was merely playing with us.
His laughter echoed through the ancient stones as he parried Cassiel's thrust, ducked beneath my lash, and deflected Sean's blades with contemptuous ease.
He moved like water, flowing around our attacks rather than meeting them directly.
“Is this all you have?” he taunted, not even breathing hard while we were already gasping from exertion. “The marked one, the angel, and the Nephilim? I expected more.”
I changed tactics, cracking the lash toward his feet to disrupt his perfect balance. For a moment it worked—Asmodeus had to leap backward, directly into the path of Sean's attack. One of the silver blades sliced across his chest, cutting through his immaculate suit to the flesh beneath.
Asmodeus hissed, more in annoyance than pain. His hand shot out faster than human eyes could track, catching Sean by the throat and lifting him off the ground with terrifying ease.
“Bothersome insect,” he growled, all pretense of civility vanishing. His fingers tightened, and Sean's face began to redden as his air was cut off.
I didn't think. The Heavenly Lash responded to my panic, extending impossibly far to wrap around Asmodeus's wrist. Celestial fire burned where it contacted demonic flesh, and Asmodeus dropped Sean with a snarl of pain.
Sean fell to his knees, gasping for breath, but already reaching for the silver knife he'd dropped.
Cassiel took advantage of the distraction, driving his angel blade toward Asmodeus's heart. The demon twisted at the last second, taking the strike in his shoulder instead of his chest. Light blazed from the wound, celestial energy burning demonic flesh from within.
For a moment, Asmodeus's perfect mask slipped, revealing something ancient and monstrous beneath.
His eyes flared with golden fire, and the air around him distorted with waves of heat.
With a roar that shook the foundations of the temple ruins, he released a pulse of power that sent us all flying backward.
Table of Contents
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