Kobal
Caim swooped low with her as the other angels stirred from where they’d been thrown onto the floor. Having been farther away from the burst of power River emitted, my followers were already regaining their feet. Most of the hounds stalked protectively in front of them.
Onoskelis speared a púca before taking to the air as Caim landed behind my followers. The demons closest to him drew their weapons and advanced on him. Caim held River closer against his chest and stepped away from them. His wings unfurled as he prepared to take flight again.
“No!” Corson shouted and he pushed his way through the demons toward Caim.
“Leave him be!” Calah bellowed. He palmed the demons’ heads as he shoved them out of his way.
“Caim!” Lucifer shouted. He switched course to fly back toward the fallen angel.
Caim stared at Lucifer as all around him the demons tilted their heads back. They grinned at Lucifer while they gestured with their hands for him to go at them.
“What are you doing?” Onoskelis demanded of Caim as she hovered above him.
“What must be done, whatshouldbe done, and you know it,” Caim replied. “This insanity must be stopped.”
The clattering bang of the next seal falling echoed throughout. The ground rose in a wave that nearly knocked me off my feet. Traveling faster with each new seal it brought down, the crack ran up the front of the eighty-third seal as the ouroboros rose out of the remains of the eighty-second one.
The hood of the ouroboros unfurled from the sides of its diamond-shaped head. Its red, forked tongue flicked out to taste the air. The one-hundred-foot-long and twenty-foot-wide, green serpent hungrily eyed its prey from its black eyes.
Every fifteen feet across the ouroboros’s back, another snake tail curved out of its flesh. At the ends of those tails were rattles that went off all at once as the ouroboros struck a púca and swallowed it whole. Two of the tails on its back were in the process of regenerating as the ouroboros consumed its own tails when no other food was available.
Lucifer glanced between the falling seals, River, and me. I could feel his fury as his wings battered the air and a throbbing vein appeared in his forehead. He turned and dove toward Caim, but a wave of swords clashing together over Caim’s head blocked Lucifer before he could get close to River.
With a shout of frustration, he pulled up and spun away from them. He soared toward the ceiling before fleeing from the seals. The other angels followed behind him. They left the rest of the craetons behind to be slaughtered by the palitons or the escapees from the seals.
“Go!” I shouted at my followers as Phenex and Crux fell in beside me.
We had to get out of Hell before it completely fell apart.
***
River
“Give her to me!” Kobal commanded when he caught up to Caim.
The angel could have gotten away a lot faster if he flew, but he’d told me he didn’t dare take to the air when he had no idea where Lucifer was. On the ground, we were sheltered by Kobal’s followers and the craetons looking to flee the creatures emerging from the seals. In the air, there was nothing to protect us.
“You’re badly wounded. I can get her from here faster,” Caim replied. I suspected he also feared one of the demons might try to kill him if he no longer held me.
“I’ll never be too injured to protect her,” Kobal growled. “Give her to me.”
Caim was right, but I was too weak to protest, and I really didn’t want to. If these were going to be my last moments alive, then I preferred to spend them in Kobal’s arms. Caim slid me into Kobal’s waiting arms. He cradled me against his chest, his mouth brushing over mine in the briefest of touches, but his love for me radiated through the kiss.
The hole in the center of his chest had closed, but blood coated his flesh. I loved him more than I’d ever believed possible. The idea of anyone hurting him made me want to murder whoever had done it, yetIhad done this to him.
When he adjusted his hold on me, I briefly saw over his shoulder the destruction I’d wrought on the seals as a wave of bizarre creatures trailed behind us.
“Lo-look at what I did,” I stammered out.
“Not you,” he stated. “Lucifer created this.”
“Maybe Lucifer was the reason behind this, butIunleashed it.Myabilities did this.”
Kobal’s nostrils flared when he glanced down at me. “It’s not your fault.”
I knew he was right, but a part of me blamed myself for the destruction that had been unleashed here.
