“Why send those other minions disguised like her into my chambers, then?”

  “To make sure you weren’t going soft on me. I mean, at first, I wanted to see if I could placate you with a doppelganger of our little Sarakiel here. But you didn’t fall for it, and you got so angry. The way you tore that shade to pieces was, oof, like a work of art. After that, well, I just enjoyed watching you kill Sarakiel.”

  “You have to be the most inconsistent madman I have ever met,” I said.

  “Sarakiel, my dear, I’m not inconsistent. I am a—say it with me—liar. I lie, and I lie, and I lie. It’s what I do. I figured, if you’re going to be branded as a liar then you may as well fit into the role and do the thing.”

  I stared at him, eyes wide, my heart heavy. “You really aren’t at all interested in redemption, are you?”

  Lucifer shrugged. “What’s there to be redeemed for? More importantly, who’s there to offer any kind of redemption that I can accept? God is dead, and even if She weren’t, I’m sick of trying to get back into Her good graces. It’s time I was the one calling the shots for a change.”

  “You’re pathetic,” I snarled. “Even Medrion had more redeeming qualities than you do. At least he stood for something. You’re only in this for your own selfish gain.”

  The Morningstar rolled his eyes and pretended to check a watch he didn’t have. “Whatever. Look, no offense, but I’m getting really tired of hearing your voice. Abaddon, take care of this, will you? We’re on a schedule.”

  Abaddon’s jaw tightened and pulsed. “This is unnecessary,” he said.

  “Maybe to you,” said Lucifer. “Look, I’m seriously done talking, here—and you know me, I love to talk. You’ve done this literally a hundred times. I’ve watched you kill this angel in so many different and impressively creative ways, what’s one more?”

  “A frivolous display of violence. This isn’t my way.”

  “As long as she lives, she’s a problem.” Lucifer paused. “Wait… are you refusing my command?”

  “I am questioning your reasoning.”

  “You know I don’t pay you to question anything.”

  “Pay me?” asked Abaddon, his eyes narrowing.

  “It’s a human expression. Point is, just kill her already. That’s an order.”

  I still had that Light shield in my hand, only now I didn’t know whether to point it at Lucifer or at Abaddon. Abaddon hadn’t moved, but I knew how quick and how deadly he was. If I wasn’t ready to defend myself against him, I would’ve been dead before I knew it. Lucifer, on the other hand, was so insanely powerful I doubted if either of us would know we were dead unless Lucifer wanted us to.

  But the moment grew, and deepened, and Abaddon didn’t make a move against me.

  “Abby…” Lucifer said, putting on a face of mock disappointment. “Come on, now. Be a good boy and consolidate your position as the King of the Ashes. Do it for me.”

  I frowned. “Is that how you talk to him?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Not generally,” muttered Abaddon.

  “I’m not going to ask you again,” said Lucifer. “All I’ll say is, I have scores of demons waiting to tear you to pieces and take your place. All I have to do is say the word, and this place becomes your tomb, too.”

  I could feel the conflict radiating off Abaddon’s skin like heat, and I didn’t like it. Refusing to kill me should’ve been a no-brainer, the easiest choice of his life. But that was the Abaddon I knew, the Abaddon who had gone to Heaven with me and tried to right the mess Lucifer had made.

  This was a different Abaddon. He was the King of the Ashes, tortured, and scarred, and marked like never before. The things he had gone through, the things he had seen, the things he had done—I had no way of knowing just what this last year had been like for him, but none of it had been good.

  “I am an angel of my word,” said Abaddon. “You are not an angel of yours.”

  “You didn’t know that already?” asked Lucifer. “That sounds like a you problem at this point.”

  “You want me to kill this angel. I will not.”

  Lucifer’s eyes darkened. He clearly wasn’t someone who appreciated being denied. “Is that so?”

  Abaddon nodded. “I am going to take her out of here, and when she is safe, I shall return so we may continue this conversation.”

  “No. No, I’m afraid that doesn’t work for me. I mean, you’re ruining everything! You were supposed to kill her, thinking she was just another dumb test. And then I was going to show you her dead face and go nope, she’s the real deal, and you killed her. Congrats! Then there’d be nothing stopping you from truly taking your place at my side. Side note, maybe we would’ve become best friends, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  I could already feel the darkness pressing in around my Light. “Abaddon,” I said, “they’re getting closer.”

  “Do not stray,” he said. “Stay close.”

  “Just what are you planning on doing?” asked Lucifer. “And don’t tell me you’re about to gallantly save her and run off into the night. That would be incredibly dull and boring.”

  Abaddon took a step towards Lucifer, interposing himself between me and the first angel. “No,” said Abaddon. “First, I am going to tear your wings off… then I am going to run off into the night.”

  “Bold words. Stupid, but bold. You sure I can’t get you to reconsider? I’d hate to lose you.”

  “We are done, here,” said Abaddon. “I will not let myself be manipulated any longer.”

  “It’s cute that you think I manipulated you when we both know you’ve had the time of your life sitting on that throne. I watched you, Abaddon. Very closely. The things you’ve done? That won’t wash off no matter what you do. Trust me, dying here and now would be preferable to the life that’s waiting for you outside of these walls.”

  The darkness around us lunged, surging forward like a wave. I raised my Light shield and made the Light shining from between my wings burn even brighter and hotter. The darkness screeched, but it wasn’t deterred. It wasn’t long before shapes emerged from within the shadows; vicious shapes with claws, glowing red eyes, and lashing tails.

  One damnable creature leapt towards me, its body taking shape into something vaguely humanoid but almost entirely shrouded in shadow. Its claws gleamed against the moonlight. I raised my shield to protect myself, and when the creature made contact with the Light, it hissed and retreated.

  With my shield firmly held in one hand, I extended my other hand and manifested a glowing sword made of pure Light. I had hoped the lightshow would give the shadows a moment to really consider what they were about to do, but it didn’t. They came nonetheless, and they came screaming.

  Before I knew it, I was surrounded. These shadow creatures swirled around me like dark smoke, making it difficult to get a strike in anywhere that would count. Abaddon seemed entirely unfazed by the appearance of these shades. He instead advanced on Lucifer, one bold step after the other like he was on a mission.

  I didn’t have the time to focus my attention on what Lucifer was doing, though. I had to keep the shades at bay and stay close to Abaddon like he’d asked.

  Another shade lashed out at me, and this time it almost managed to make it past my guard. The momentary lapse allowed another shade to reach past my shield and drag its claws along my arm. I screamed from the sudden shot of pain, but with a quick thrust of my sword in return I was able to impale something solid.

  The way that creature shrieked as its skin sizzled and burned was satisfying enough to dull the pain I was feeling, but there were too many of these things to count.

  “Abaddon!” I yelled. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

  “Abaddon isn’t going to do anything,” said Lucifer. “This big oaf thinks he can hurt me, all of a sudden. He should know by now that he can’t.”

  Abaddon wasn’t deterred by Lucifer’s confidence. I felt him push away from me, his wings propelling him toward the first angel like a bullet from a gun. I turned around and followed, flaring the Light between my wings to try to keep the shadows at bay while I kept pace with Abaddon.

  Lucifer moved out of Abaddon’s way, his body swishing to the right to avoid Abaddon’s attempt at grabbing him. A powerful light pulsed, flashing into the space between both angels and sending the shadows scurrying into the deepest corners of the chamber we were in.

  Light didn’t usually affect me, but this was difficult to see through. I heard a scuffle, I could see vague shapes moving, cutting hard lines of shadow into the beacon shining right in front of me. I wanted to help, but I knew this wasn’t my fight.

  So, I waited with my shield held up and my sword at my side while the two angels in front of me did battle. It was a whirlwind of grunting, of whooshing, of whipping wind and brilliant light, but it didn’t last long. When the Light dimmed, only Abaddon remained. I could tell just by looking at him, though, that he was hurt. There were cuts and bruises all over his skin, his lip was bleeding, and he had a gash on the side of his head… but he was alone.

  Abaddon fell to his knees, sticking one hand out to stop from collapsing entirely. I rushed up to him, my Light dimming as I reached him. I took his bleeding face in my hands and looked at him. “Abaddon!” I breathed. “Are you alright?”

  He looked up at me, if only for a moment. Then he glanced down at his other hand. His nails were sharp, and black—like claws—and in the palm of his hand there was a pool of blood that also coated his fingers.

  “Yours?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t about to tell me he had been run through with a sword.

  But Abaddon shook his head. “His,” he said, and I remembered Hekata’s words, and my chest filled with something heavy and light at the same time.

  If he bleeds, we can kill him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Abaddon was weak, almost too weak to fly. Almost. Battling Lucifer had taken it all out of him, and he could barely hold himself aloft. I wasn’t exactly built to carry him around, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to try to keep him upright, to keep him flying, because if we stopped… we were dead.

  Once again, I found myself impossibly lost and without direction. I had never needed to wander the Earth, navigating by the stars alone… but it wasn’t like the bastion of Helena was pointed out on any maps.

  So, we wandered.

  Flying day and night and using my Light to keep my own body from giving up on me. Abaddon didn’t have the same luxury, though. Only Lightbringers had the ability to regenerate their Light like I could, and I was having to use it to keep him from suffering the effects of extreme dehydration too by giving him a portion of my own power.

  Nothing about this was easy, and with no end in sight, I was starting to get desperate… and Abaddon was starting to get heavy.

  I could tell he was fading. Whatever Lucifer had done to him was beyond my ability to fix. He needed rest, real food, water, and Light, and we weren’t going to get any of those as long as we were in the air hoping against hope that we would find the way to Helena.

  Abaddon all but lost the ability to gain altitude, leaving me to have to keep us both in the air somehow. I needed to land, but I knew Helena was in the water somewhere, and so we had made a move towards the water. There was nowhere to go, nothing but a sparkling blue horizon as far as the eye could see and the blazing sun over our heads.

  We were going to die out here.

  Or, at least, he was going to die out here—and there was nothing I could do about it.

  That’s when I felt it. A surge, a pulse of power that came from somewhere else. I wasn’t sure what it was, or who it was that had caused it. I could feel the ripple all the way across the water, a ripple caused by some kind of shockwave that moved through the air.

  Then I saw it.

  I saw her. She was dark, little more than a dart zipping through the sky at speed. For a moment, I thought I saw Gadriel—black wings, black hair, pale skin. There was something of her left in the demon who now called herself Hekata, but Gadriel wasn’t there anymore. What I was seeing was little more than a mirage, an echo of the angel I remembered.

  Then the echo yelled.

  “She’s over here! Whatever you’re going to do, Cherub, do it now!”

  “Gad…” I croaked. “Gadriel?”

  “Not quite,” said Hekata as she flew in close to me. Close enough that I could see her face, her wings, the scales along her arms. “You owe me one now, Lightbringer.”

  A flash of powerful Light erupted, and the sky behind Hekata tore itself apart. As the portal grew, so did the image I saw on the other side of it. A courtyard, walls, a tower—and Micah. He was standing there, his arms raised, his palms glowing gold and blue.

  “What are you waiting for?” Micah asked. “A personal invitation? Get over here, already!”

  Hope.

  It filled me, surged through me, invigorating my muscles and allowing me to give one final, desperate push to get both Abaddon and me through the portal and to the other side. Though we were in the air, the portal had appeared in front of us and it was anchored to the ground. As soon as I was through, my wings gave way, and gravity did the rest.

  We dropped a couple of feet, Abaddon and I thudding to the cold, hard ground. I was panting, gasping for air. Abaddon, however, was unconscious. Instantly we were swarmed by angels, and while at first I was relieved, it wasn’t long before I realized they were wielding Light swords and aiming them at me and at Abaddon.

  I rolled onto my back and put my hands up. “What is this?” I asked.

  “For you, just a precaution,” said Azrael, landing not far from where Micah was standing. “For him… an arrest.”

  “Arrest? He’s hurt! He needs healing, and food, and water.”

  “That monster has killed more angels and humans than…” she stopped herself from finishing that sentence. She lowered her tone; anger stained with disappointment. “He is under arrest,” she snarled, “and he can consider himself lucky that we haven’t run him through with swords already.”

  “Micah,” I said, “please, stop this.”

  Micah shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sarakiel. You’ve been gone a long time, and he has done some terrible things.”

  “Because Lucifer made him!”

  “Maybe so, but this is Azrael’s bastion. Her authority and her word are final.”

  Azrael nodded at some of the angels around her, and together they swarmed Abaddon, picked him up, and carried him away. He was too weak to put up a fight, too weak to resist. The Abaddon I knew would’ve made short work of these angels. This Abaddon… he couldn’t even stand on his own.

  I watched them take him, choosing to defer to Azrael’s leadership. Micah was right. This was her bastion, and I had no right to make demands. With Abaddon gone I was left with Hekata, Azrael, and Micah, the four of us standing in the courtyard in the shadow of the collapsing portal.

  Micah sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I was starting to think we’d lost you for good,” he said.

  “If you hadn’t found me, I would’ve been,” I said. Then I turned my gaze over to Hekata. “You saved my life. Again.”

  She shrugged. “Having a Lightbringer owe you favors can’t be a bad thing.”

  Azrael didn’t enjoy the sentiment, or the implication. “Are you hurt?” she asked me.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not hurt, but he is—and badly. I don’t know what Lucifer did to him, but he’s been fading ever since their battle.”

  “Battle?” she asked, angling her head.

  I nodded. “Lucifer was going to kill me. Abaddon stepped in and protected me, took Lucifer on in one-on-one combat. I don’t know how he survived.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe he didn’t.”

  “Didn’t?”

  “Maybe they planned this as a way to infiltrate my bastion, and we’ve just let him in through the back door.”

  “It’s not like that. I know it’s not.”

  “Because you believe in him? Sarakiel, the things he’s done—the angels he’s killed. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with, here?”

  “I know he’s done awful things, but Lucifer is⁠—”

  “—your denial will be the death of you,” she snapped. “If that’s what you want to do with your life, then fine. But don’t try to convince me that the things he’s done don’t matter, or that he’s somehow absolved. I don’t care who made him do the things that he did. He’s dangerous. The sooner you understand that, the better it’ll be for all of us.”

  Micah stepped in between us. “I think that’s enough arguing for one day, don’t you?” he asked.

  Azrael looked ready to go another round, but she backed off. I nodded. “I didn’t come here to fight,” I said.

  “After the portal by the pyramids… what happened to you? Where did he take you?”

  “To a temple, I think. It was dark, and there were shades all around me. Abaddon was there, sitting on a throne.”

  “The Ashen Throne,” Azrael put in.

  “I didn’t know it had a name.”

  “The name makes sense if you know how it had been built.”

  I didn’t even want to think of it, to be sure. I wanted to forget the throne, the ash, and everything else. It was clear Azrael wasn’t going to make that easy.

  “You said he and Lucifer fought,” said Micah. “What happened?”

  “Lucifer wanted Abaddon to kill me, but Abaddon wouldn’t—like I said. He refused, and then he attacked Lucifer. There was so much going on, I couldn’t help him. Before I knew it, their battle was over, Lucifer was gone, and Abaddon had blood on his hands.”

  “Blood?”

  “Lucifer’s blood.”

  “So, it’s true,” said Hekata. “He bleeds.”