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“He’s… dead,” I said.
“I did not want to do it,” said Helena.
I shook my head. “You had to. He didn’t give us a choice.”
Helena shut her eyes. Sighed. “The battle rages on,” she said, and she looked at me. “Get to Heaven. Do what you have to do. I’ll stay here and finish this fight.”
Micah came out from underneath the beacon’s light, his face bathed in it. He extended his hand toward me. “I can send you,” he said, though there was a sadness in his eyes, too. “I’m ready.”
I frowned. “Why don’t I feel good about this?” I asked, suddenly unsure about what I had to do.
“I’ll need to give you some of my power to get you into Heaven,” he said. “I can do it, but it will weaken me greatly.”
“Micah… why didn’t you say this before? I can’t leave you defenseless.”
“I won’t be. You have to do this. You have to get back to Heaven and see this through.”
I nodded. Micah may have looked like a young boy, but he was far older than any of us. He knew the risk he was taking and was determined to take it anyway; for the good of all of us. Helena would protect him as he regained his strength.
“It’s time, Sarakiel,” said Helena, a soft smile on her face. “I’ll see you in Heaven. I’ll see you at ho?—”
Helena was suddenly cut off. Her mouth began to fill with blood, her eyes tilted down, and there…therewas the golden edge of a sword of Light sticking out of her abdomen. The sword came back, and Medrion appeared as if out of thin air.
I screamed at him as Helena fell to her knees, blood spilling through the tear in her armor. Medrion, whole and seemingly uninjured, turned his hungry gaze toward Micah, who was out in the open. Before I could react, he’d grabbed hold of his collar, and roared in a voice that could’ve shaken the very foundations of the earth itself.
“Now, my angels!Now!”
I was about to surge toward him, but I had barely taken a step when I saw shafts of Light go shooting up into the night sky. They were all around us, coming up from below, from all over the bastion. The Light brightened, intensified. Medrion began to glow, his wings fluttered, there was a horrible, electrical buzzing sound like a generator powering up.
The shockwave that hit me an instant later was powerful enough to send me hurtling through the air, easily ten feet. I landed on my shoulder and rolled a few extra paces. When I turned my eyes up to look at Medrion, he was gone, as were all the shafts of Light that had erupted a moment ago.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SARAKIEL
All was dark and quiet in the bastion of Helena—all save for our beacon, which continued pulsating with Light and humming, unaffected by the events around it. I couldn’t get up. It was as if the world had gotten heavier all of a sudden.
I crawled on my hands and knees, fighting for every inch of movement, trying desperately to get to Helena who lay flat on her back, clutching her abdomen. She was still alive, butwhy wasn’t she healing herself?
“Helena,” I croaked. “Helena!”
She couldn’t look at me. Couldn’t, or wouldn’t, staring instead into the glowing orb hanging above us. Micah was nowhere to be found—he had been in Medrion’s clutches a moment ago, but both of them were gone.
“Micah?!” I yelled as I crawled, desperately trying to reach the dying Lightbringer. “Where are you?!”
I heard a thud, boots landing on the metal floor nearby. A moment later, someone had their arms around me. I was hoisted up and off the ground and spun around to face Abaddon. He placed a hand on my jaw and brushed his thumb across my bloody cheek. “You’re hurt,” he said, urgency in his voice.
“You’re alive?” I croaked. “I thought Medrion had…”
“It will take more than one deranged archangel to kill me.” He winced as he said it, clearly in more pain than he made out to be.
“Helena,” I said, pointing toward her. “I have to help her.”
Abaddon looked over at Helena, then scanned the tower. “Medrion?”
I shook my head as I quickly headed for Helena. “He’s gone, and I can’t find Micah.”
Another set of boots thudded against the tower floor. “What happened?” came Azrael’s voice. “Medrion’s forces all dropped dead, they look like they’ve been?—”
