He swallowed. My words had worked. I'd never taken the skin off of someone in my entire long life. The thought was repulsive.
He stuttered. "I-I can't get her here with this magic wrapped so tightly around me."
"Yes, you can," Lucifer said. He'd been watching me with a smile on his face as if he enjoyed letting me work. He wrapped one arm around me. "I know you better than you realize. There's no way you haven't linked with her. Bonded. Tell her to bring the children and come here, now. If you do as we say, you have my word she and the children will not be harmed. I'll restrain Lilith."
Raphael looked from Luc to me and back.
Lucifer cocked his head. "You know I'm not lying. I wouldn't."
Raphael nodded. "And me?" he said boldly.
"You?" He had the audacity to ask. As if we'd do anything but kill him. "You're going to die, either way we go," I said in a girly, soft voice. "How you act now determines how gruesome your death is."
He looked from me back to Lucifer, then nodded behind us. "They won't let you torture me."
I looked over my shoulder to see the angels massed behind us. Michael, Gabriel, and Joel stood front and center with their jaws set and their arms crossed. They looked pretty damn pissed to me.
Joel held up one finger. "Yes, Raphael. Yes, we will. You are no longer an Archangel. You are no longer an Angel. You are a Fallen, and as such, you belong to Lucifer and Lilith."
His tan complexion paled. Raphael looked from angel to angel, but nobody gave him an inch. "You can't do that. I'm one of the original Archangels. I'm an Elder."
Lucifer leaned forward. "Not anymore. You're mine, now."
I giggled. "Fun, isn't it? Now, what'll it be?"
He swallowed and looked me in the eye. His insanity still floated behind his eyes, but fear overshadowed it. "Fine," he said. "I'll do it."
Raphael blinked several times. "She's coming."
"Get ready," I called over my shoulder.
I still controlled the flow of power, but our job wasn't done yet. Michael disappeared and as Mia appeared, her stomach swollen with another of Raphael's children, and my daughter holding one hand and their son holding the other, Michael reappeared with Mary in tow.
Throwing up another web, I wrapped Mia and both children in it. "Don't be scared," I called. "We won't hurt you."
I looked at Mary. "Do it!" I shouted. We had no time to waste. Ariel was incredibly strong, and right now she was waiting on Raphael or Mia to tell her to move or act before she did anything. But if she figured out what we were doing, we were all fucked. The power radiating from her was massive, nearly as much as we wrangled already.
An unheard-of amount. It scared me for her future. How would we teach her to use this much power? How would we raise her when she was so strong?
19
Mary reached her hand toward Ariel and plucked a hair from her head, then put it in a bowl in her hand. Michael waved his hand and the bowl floated in midair as a flame appeared underneath it.
Mary chanted. "Est in potentia moveri. Et quod corrumpere exercitum. Affer mihi magicae, ubi usus agam respectu boni."
Lucifer squeezed my shoulder, then walked closer to Mary. In my distraction, I didn't feel Raphael gathering up his and Lucifer's power. I should've expected him to try something, but I was so engrossed in seeing if it worked with Ariel that I let my guard down.
Rookie freaking move.
He blasted a wave of energy outward that surprised me. My grasp of the massive amount of power at my disposal faltered, and his cage broke. I focused everything I had on making sure Ariel's cage didn't. We had to have her power for the final step of our plan.
We no longer needed Raphael, though. We had what we needed. He could go.
I turned to him and smiled. "I promised myself I'd be the one to kill you."
I'd wanted to watch them do the spell to get Ariel's power and shove it into Luc. I was worried it would hurt Ariel somehow, but unless we destroyed Raphael's realm, we would always worry that someone could take her away and take her there. We needed to be able to keep her safe. Now that everyone knew how much power she had; others might try to get to her. To corrupt her or use her. We couldn't let that happen.
His realm had to go.
And now he had pushed the itinerary. I chuckled. "Not smart," I whispered.
Grabbing a bit of power from the flow, I lashed it out at Raphael. When the cage had broken, he'd lunged for his girlfriend and son. "None of that, now."
I wrapped the power around him and lit it on fire. He screamed as his skin blistered. He tried to lash out at me, but our combined power was still stronger than his with Lucifer's. I deflected his attempt to break my hold on him and walked forward. "I told you that your behavior would determine how you died. And you brought my daughter to me, finally. We can make sure she's safe and whole now. And your entire plan..." I sighed and held out my arms. "I know you can't enter Abaddon but let me tell you how it looks."
Bending over, I used the magic to lift him into the air and lay him on his back on an invisible table of air. I put my mouth next to his ear. "It's like it never happened. Abaddon is full of demons. All of them, back where they belong. And the humans don't know it ever happened."
He struggled against my bonds.
I looked down at him and considered how I might hurt him. He needed to suffer as I had while I worried about
