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Jezzie and Roth grabbed his arms and pulled him further back as they searched for injuries, sighing with relief when they found none.
“You’re lucky, they usually inject their victims with a paralytic venom at first touch that lasts just long enough to drag them under the soil to be buried alive before being eaten. But you seem fine, so yay!” Jezzie finished cheerfully.
“How do you—” Roth started to ask something but Jezzie cut him off.
“Nope, no more questions. Too dangerous, and I need to eat.”
“Wha—” Athon stammered.
Jezzie just lowered her brow sternly, and shook her head, so he shut his mouth and followed where she led.
Two hours later, countless monstrous creatures defeated, and a few cuts and bruises, the guys were leaning against a large boulder taking a break as she searched for the energy of a soul nearby. There, the faint trace of a shiver. Evil personified, poison and rot. But it was so small she couldn’t tell how far, or close it could be. Her eyes searched the flat land stretching out in the direction she could sense it. Nothing moved, the air undisturbed by even the smallest of creatures.
Jezzie turned to look back toward Athon and Roth, and caught a glimpse of oil slicked black fur and red eyes climbing up behind them, preparing to pounce. Just as she was about to shout a warning, she was tackled from the side, her body crashed to the ground hard, and went rolling in a tangle of limbs, fur, snapping jaws, and long claws. One wing stuck in the thick mud and slowed her down, flipping her up and over onto her feet and leaving the creature to slide a few extra feet away from her.
A quick look over her shoulder showed the guys battling against the other creature, who looked remarkably similar to the one before her, only smaller. Her attention focused back on her own problem pretty quickly as her opponent, having regained its footing, rushed at her with a burst of unnatural speed—even for monsters of this realm.
The fight was long and brutal. She spun and ducked and took every opportunity to run it through with her blades, until finally it fell to its knees, heaving as it clutched at its eviscerated torso. Behind her, she heard a whimper and the thumping sound of the other creature retreating.
Jezzie lowered her weapons, not all the way, she wasn’t stupid, at least not today, but low enough to maneuver herself close behind the fallen beast.
Something was different. Something was wrong. She sniffed the air, leaning in closer to the creature. She could hear Roth’s warnings but blocked him out. What was it? No! Surely not. How could it be? A soul inside the beast? Had it eaten one? If so, how was it still there? But it filled the creature’s entire body, it wasn’t contained within the stomach or bowels, even as faint and fetid as it was, as it would be if it had recently eaten a prisoner.
Bringing her blades up she tucked them under the creature’s chin, crossing them as she circled back to stand before it, careful not to take off its head. A little extra pressure tipped up its chin, so she could stare into the gaze of an evil the likes of which she’d never seen. So dark and twisted and utterly devoid of goodness she felt her stomach revolt. It sucked her in, pulled her under and into a world she couldn’t escape.
Images filled her head, horrific, unforgettable images ran behind her eyes like old home movies:
A child, so small, so helpless. So lost and alone. A child whose innocence was stripped away, who was beaten and used. Tortured and starved, subjected to every unspeakable thing. Broken. The hands of a man, the hands of the fucked up piece of shit whose outside finally matched their insides.
The creature groaned on the ground at her feet.
A woman slipped into her nightmare. But not to save the child, just another monster who deserved eternal pain. Light died in the child’s eyes. She got older, older than what they wanted, though still a child to the world. They needed fresh prey, but they couldn’t just let her go. She’d ruin everything. Death was their plan. And then . . . she was gone. Until she wasn’t. Until she sent them here to fester and rot, the Fallen they should have always been.
Jezzie’s body shook as she came back into herself. What the fuck was that? Nothing that immersive had happened to her before. She’d always chosen what to access, she’d never been forced to see into a person’s past. Her hands moved of their own volition, the blades sliding against each other. The monster with a soul’s throat opened up, thick red blood leaked out with the consistency of tar down its front. Her blades dematerialized, and she grabbed his face before his imminent corpse could hit the ground. She drew his soul into her, feasting on the last bitter remnants of its soul. A soul that should never, ever be allowed to live again. As she finished up she dropped him to the ground and wiped her blood stained fingers on her pants. It was then she realized she had an answer to the age-old question, well, her question anyway . . .
The question?
What could permanently kill a full-grown angel?
The answer?
Apparently, she could.
She was divine. So fucking beautiful. Roth watched her from the corner of his eye whenever he could as she fought the beast attacking her and when she brought it to its knees, he almost crowed aloud at her victory. She circled her foe with an agility and grace few warriors could master after such a brutal fight. The creature he and Ath had been battling ran off as soon as Jezzie’s bowed in defeat, but he barely noticed as he watched Jezzie size up her fallen opponent.
What happened next was like nothing he’d seen before, and he’d seen a lot. Jezzie swayed on her feet, though her blades held steady as she leaned in real close to the monster’s face—too close for his liking—her nose almost touching the cavernous opening that may have once been its own sniffer. Her eyes glowed a vibrant red, and Roth started to worry, his pulse spiked and adrenaline pumped through his veins. This time it wasn’t from the fight, but fear.
Beside him, Athon called her name. Nothing. He called again, louder this time. Still she didn’t step back or acknowledge him. Roth was two steps into a sprint to her side when she finally moved back, and in the space of a heartbeat three things happened simultaneously. The creature no longer had a head, Jezzie was sucking the last whispers of its impossible soul from its shuddering carcass, and a thousand new questions skipped with the elegance of a wrecking ball into his overloaded brain.
The one thing, though, which shoved him over the edge and had him pulling her tight into his embrace with the intent to never let her go, were the dual rivers of tears pouring from her eyes as her chest heaved with the silent sobs she held inside.
Chapter 37
Roth carried her in his arms as she pointed the way back to her home and the safety it offered. He refused to put her down until Tana gently reprimanded him with the reminder of her current state. Not just her emotional one, but her physical one too. She was covered in all manner of unknown substances and in dire need of a shower. So were they, for that matter.
“Roth, babe, we need to get cleaned up. Come on, we’ll be back before she’s out if we hurry,” Athon coaxed gently.
Roth hadn’t moved from the spot he’d planted himself, having watched Jezzie disappear behind the bathroom door.
