Apollyon stepped up to us. He reached out a hand as though to wipe up the tears on my cheeks. “There, there,” he said mockingly. Curling his fist around the front of Max’s shirt, Apollyon raised Max’s lifeless body into the air. I couldn’t breathe past my clogged up nostril. Every time my mouth opened to gasp, I thought I was going to throw up. Sound and colour no longer existed. Inside me, the mating link was crumbling. Desperate to try and hold on, I threw all of my magic at it only for the magic to brush up against nothing.
Apollyon shook Max’s body gently, peering at it with curiosity. “It’s worthless without a soul,” he said. His head turned towards the malachim and held Max up like a prize. “Anyone want a meat suit?”
Pink light flared around my palms. It bled into crimson and then threaded through with darkness. Apollyon angled his head down. “What are you going to do, Sophie darling?” he teased. My eye twitched. I could barely see or hear. I could no longer feel. But I would rip his essence from Raphael’s body if it was the last thing I ever did.
Apollyon dangled Max’s body in front of me. “If you want him back,” he said, “Come and get him.”
Thunder built in my ears until I heard them pop. At the same time, Max’s body convulsed. I screamed again. My first thought was that one of the necromancers had control of him. And then by some miracle, the mating link snapped taut and bright. Max’s arm shot out. He caught Raphael’s wrist and snapped it back. Apollyon dropped him.
Flowing to his feet in a move that was definitely very shifter, Max hammered a punch into Raphael’s gut that pushed the seraphim back a couple of metres. “Think about touching her again,” Max said, voice so very filled with mortal rage. “I dare you.”
I couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing. The pure joy that fluttered through me was laced with fear. How had this happened?
Cassie’s scream almost ruptured my eardrums, but it was the sound of Kai’s voice, his real voice, deep and rumbling, that made the world stand still. “Get these damned chains off me!”
It was a command that he himself ignored. Instead, he gritted his teeth and pushed out with a flood of angelfire that seared through the magic.
Kai and Max met in the middle of the courtyard facing Apollyon. “There are demons in Seraphina again,” Max said, his tone conversational.
Kai flexed his hand as though feeling it for the first time. His angel blade appeared in his palm, the blade bathed in an emerald green. “No staying behind this time,” he said.
They would have charged at Apollyon if Raphael hadn’t let out a groan that was so in keeping with his persona.
I crawled closer to Charles while the demons were distracted. The Ley sight slipped over me, and I saw it the moment the connection between Kai and Raphael solidified again. As soon as they made contact, all of the threads that had once fanned out from Raphael also snapped back into place.
Charles smashed his fist into the earth as the demon that had caught me tried to come at us again. He leaped over me with renewed vigour. All around me, supernaturals shrugged off their apathy like they were coming out of hibernation. One by one, the Nephilim regained consciousness.
Apollyon’s scream of rage and loss was a thing I would remember with glee for the rest of my life. Raphael mouthed a word. It must have been Angelical, because even though it was soundless, I heard a boom that rocked me in place. The demon tore from his body. Kai was about to stab it with his angel blade when Max whipped out and snatched the prize.
Lightning in alternating gold, blue, and pink cracked across Max’s hands. Though Apollyon was incorporeal, Max somehow managed to hold him. Max brought his mouth up to Apollyon’s ear, a predator giving its prey their last rites.
“Your mistake was coming after Sophie,” he said. And then he very slowly, methodically, ripped Apollyon to shreds.
Apollyon’s screaming could be heard all the way to the other end of Sanctuary. It was why they came rushing at us, the Nephilim rising in the air. The looks on the faces of the Nephilim guards said they did not appreciate being knocked out.
All Hell broke loose. Kai and Max stampeded through the demons, their faces lit with sickening joy as they unleashed violence. Kai appeared in front of one of the necromancers. He stabbed the man through the heart and teleported both of them away before appearing again alone.
Sensing that the tide was turning, the other necromancers slipped through portals and disappeared. The demons ran back to Hell as well. Supernaturals followed close on their heels.
The Nephilim wave came to a startled halt when they saw Kai floating in the air in front of them. He had a malachim by the throat, looking at it strangely. “This one doesn’t seem right,” Kai said. Of course. He was a healer at heart. He’d be able to see that some of them weren’t beyond saving.
“Kai!” I screamed. “Can you hold them?”
“With what?”
I scratched at my cheek.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Giselle said. “Why do we have to do everything around here?”
She erected a soul circle and Kai launched the malachim at it. Once inside, it was unable to get back out again. The ones that didn’t flee fast enough were caught by the other Nephilim for Kai’s inspection.
When the battlefield was cleared, there were twelve malachim in the soul circle. I approached it gingerly, wondering how long it might take me to transmute all of them. As the slow trickle of my alchemy built back up, the malachim inside me lapped it up. She was almost free.
All of it was pushed aside as Max appeared in
