The blades slipped from her cuffs. Lily smirked. “Ass…”
Michael was fascinated by those things. The cuffs around her slender wrists were only three inches wide and yet the blades were at least six inches long. He stepped forward, curious. “How do those work?”
Lily glanced down. “Huh? Oh this. Remy is the resident weapons expert. He’s a genius actually. The things he can come up with.” She lifted her wrist so he could get a closer view of the blade. She pointed out several fine breaks in the steel. “I don’t know the mechanics of it, but the blade simply collapses within itself when it’s not in use. See.” She flicked her wrist, and the blade sank down, disappearing into the cuffs. Then she moved her hand again, and the blade shot out, quickly opening one layer after the other. “Comes in pretty handy, don’t you think? The silver is reinforced with Inconel—a type of metal used in aerospace. It’s super strong and does the job.”
“I imagine,” he responded drily.
“You ready?” Rafe called, growing impatient.
She sighed. “Sure. Let’s do this.”
Michael backed off.
Rafe launched himself at Lily with a set of deadly looking daggers. She moved with him, blocking each slice of his hand with her forearm. On and on they danced in a mixture of martial arts and knife play. He saw how deadly this form of fighting was. They took turns missing blocks so he could see the kill shot or at least what should have been a kill shot. Moving fast, the knife would either hit the throat or the chest.
Lily dropped and spun around, knocking Rafe’s feet out from underneath him. She brought her blade to Rafe’s exposed chest. “No matter what, you have to stay on your feet,” she explained. “Minions are trained the same way we are. Once they get you down, you’re done for. You die.”
Rafe knocked her arm away. “Thanks, Lily,” he muttered.
She spared him a cheeky grin and stood up. “Blades are the deadliest weapon against our kind. For the most part, the minions don’t have the type of blades we do, but they are just as skilled with a knife.” She retracted the daggers and brushed off her knees. “Minions love to slice and dice.”
“Why can’t I just shoot them?” he asked, only half-serious.
“Because your bullets won’t stop minions, and they’ll barely make a difference on possessed humans,” announced Remy from behind them.
Michael whirled around. He hadn’t heard the man come in. Did they all move like ghosts? It was creepy and a little annoying.
“Unless you have my bullets,” continued Remy. “Then you will do some major damage.”
That got Michael’s attention.
Rafe handed the blades over to Remy, who held them up. “Notice the engravings. They’re holy symbols.”
Michael had seen the markings on Lily’s blades but hadn’t had a flipping clue what they were. Remy ran a finger over the first symbol. “This is the Chi-Rho. It is the earliest cruciform symbol.” It looked an elongated P with an X drawn through the middle. He then slid his finger over more scratches in the silver. “This is a holy symbol against possession.”
Upon closer inspection, Michael saw it looked like an X with a diamond on the top.
Remy slid his finger over another design—two crosses upside down and crossed.
Michael frowned. “Isn’t that Satanic?”
“No,” Remy replied. “It’s a symbol of death. These are two Latin crosses that represent death in battle.”
He didn’t understand how pictures were of any significance. “What’s the last one? It looks like an arrow or the middle of a peace sign.”
“Another death symbol.”
“These different symbols are all very powerful,” explained Remy. “You can even say magical in the sense that they pack a punch if created correctly. Any silver reinforced with Inconel, then marked with these symbols in water that is blessed and fire that is pure, will deliver a death blow. It’s a bit harder to get all these markings on a bullet, but it’s doable. These symbols are also deadly to us…keep that in mind. We get stabbed anywhere with these, the silver will eat into us. It won’t heal like a normal stab wound. You get hit with these blades, you’ll need to get the hell out of Dodge fast. And you’re going to be in for some pain.”
Michael slid a glance at Lily. There was a bored look about her as she stared at the wall. “So if I load a gun with those kinds of bullets, it will kill a minion or a Fallen?”
“Shoot a minion in the heart or a deadhead in the head, you will take them out,” answered Rafe. “But a Fallen will not go down with just a bullet, no matter how powerful it is. That is why you cannot solely rely on a gun. Eventually you will face a Fallen, and no gun or amount of special bullets will save your ass.”
Remy snickered. “If you use a semiautomatic assault rifle and shoot them enough in the head, I’m sure that will do the trick.”
Lily winced. “Ew…”
“Yeah, good luck getting a Fallen to stand still and let you shoot them multiple times. That is likely to happen,” added Rafe.
Remy continued to smile good-naturedly. “You gotta shoot fast, my brother.”
“The Fallen aren’t just going to stand there and let you shoot them,” Lily elaborated. “Their reflexes are quicker than ours. By the time it takes you to pull out your gun they’ve already snapped your neck. They’re extremely fast and strong. It takes nothing for them to rip your head off your shoulders.”
Oh shit.
“Anyway, back to the important training.” Rafe brushed past Remy.
Lily went back to her spot on the mat. “Their strength isn’t the only thing you have to worry about. Some of them have retained their angelic powers. Remember Baal?”
He nodded. How could he forget? Not like he saw a guy burn metal and skin with a single touch every day.
She held up her arm and quickly removed the white gauze. The skin of her upper arm was soft and smooth, but as his gaze fell upon her forearm he tried not to show any reaction. He seriously hoped he didn’t.
The skin was a bright cherry red, and it stretched around her forearm. It looked like a birthmark now instead of the blistering burn he’d last seen. She flipped over her arm, and he could clearly make out the impression of fingers. “Jesus.”
“Baal obviously has an affinity for fire. His touch can burn anything. I imagine he brought down entire cities in his heyday.” She shrugged. “Hurts like a bitch, I’ll tell you that much.”
He swallowed and looked away. It didn’t seem right she was fighting a creature who could do something like that to her. “Can all of them do that?”
“No,” she said. “Only the oldest ones seem to have retained some of their powers. We know a few can bring death with a single touch, while others can still heal.” She saw the expression on his face. “You don’t want to know how we found out who did what.”
“Is there anything else I should know about these things?” he asked.
“All of them have the ability to influence humans. It’s a compulsion even we can feel. We aren’t as susceptible to it though.” She picked up her coffee, staring down at it. “All it takes is a whisper or a single word from them. The compulsion is that powerful. I guess angels used to use their ability as sources of inspiration. Not so much anymore.”
His first response was to dismiss what she had just told him, but then he remembered the stuff he had seen. Each time he heard something crazier than the last, it became a little easier to accept. Slowly but surely, he was becoming immersed in this world.
He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Michael didn’t have much time to dwell on that. Rafe called him over and began his training with a hellish warm-up that included burpees, suicide springs, and a ridiculous amount of squats.
Then he got his ass handed to him on a silver platter.
Not once and not twice, but over a dozen or so times—and all before lunch. Rafe had started off with grappling, and Michael felt like he had been blindsided into a street brawl. Between the painful takedowns and
