Fire flashed out of Pride’s eyeballs as my flames consumed him. His grip on the knife was weakening, and I clasped his hand as my flames destroyed his body. We were both weakening, but he was doing it faster.
I pulled on Pride’s hand. The blade shifted and scraped against bone as I finally succeeded in tearing his knife from my heart. Now that the hole wasn’t plugged, blood spurted free of the organ and poured down my shirt.
Yanking the knife free of his hand, I spun it and plunged it into the black sinew of his throat. His mouth dropped as black blood spilled over us. His fingers, burnt down to the bone, clawed at my face and tore away my flesh, but I hacked at his muscle until half his throat was torn open.
Hanging on only by a few cords of muscle, I rested my hand on the other side of his head and pushed it down. I lifted the knife and slashed downward like it was a sword until the rest of his muscle gave way and his head toppled into the snow.
I didn’t realize his horse was so close to us until its ashes billowed over me, and Zorn skidded to a halt inches away from my feet. Zorn’s sides heaved from the exertion of his battle.
I knew how he felt, but this fight was far from over. Pushing myself up, I staggered to my feet and nearly fell, but a hand grasping my forearm steadied me. I looked at the bones encasing my arm before lifting my gaze to Lix’s face.
“Thank you,” I muttered, and more blood gushed from the hole in my chest.
“You’re welcome.”
Lix shifted his gaze toward where I last saw Bale. A chill ran down my back as I spun toward her. Death was close enough to unleash his power on them.
In the sky, golden-white light encompassed Raphael’s wrists, but the remaining griffith screeched as it soared toward him. Raphael darted back in time to avoid being taken out by the monstrous beast, but the delay would cost the others their lives.
Chapter Forty-Five
Wrath
I staggeredto Zorn and grasped his mane to pull myself onto his back. I bit back a groan as fresh blood spurted from my chest. Movement made it feel as if thousands of shards of glass were floating through my body, tearing apart my veins, and shredding my muscles.
My fingers twisted in Zorn’s mane as I nudged him in the side. Zorn bounded forward with the grace only a beast who was sure of foot could achieve. Bale and her friends were fighting their way through more craetons, but they weren’t cutting through them fast enough to avoid Death closing in on them.
Shax rested his hands on the earth again, and it heaved beneath his palms. The ground rolled as if a wave crested beneath it, a wave sweeping straight toward Death. Caim swung out his wing to push Fiora back as a craeton lunged at them.
The fallen angel used his other wing to plunge the foot-long spike at the top of it through the craeton’s eye and out the back of his head. With the craeton impaled, Caim used the tip of his other wing to decapitate it.
The wave hit Death as he was raising his hands to unleash his ability on Bale; it rolled beneath him and knocked him off his feet. His mount spun on Shax as Death pushed himself up from the snow.
Though he’d been intent on destroying Bale, Shax was much closer, and I recognized the glint of malevolence in my fellow horseman’s eyes.
“Shax!” I shouted, but it came out a garbled cry as blood sprayed from my lips. “Look out!”
Death lifted his hand, and as if he were holding Shax’s throat, he clenched his fingers together. Shax’s hands flew to his neck, and he clawed at his flesh as his yellow eyes bulged.
“No!” Corson bellowed.
In the sky, the griffith released a high-pitched screech before diving at Raphael with its wings flattened against its back. Raphael turned in midair to unleash a ball of life into the beast. It continued to dive at him, closing the gap to almost five feet before it exploded.
Blood and pieces of the monster rained down as Corson, Bale, and Wren carved their way through the craetons surrounding them. Lowering her shoulder, Bale shoved it into the chest of a lower-level demon and pushed it back.
Bale, Corson, and Wren broke free of the crowd and raced toward where Shax knelt in the snow. A grayish color replaced the bright yellow of his eyes; his skin was becoming more ashen as his hands stopped clawing at his neck.
Then his skin sagged as if he were a human who was rapidly aging from thirty to ninety. It hung off his bones as if it were about to slough off his skull completely. He remained kneeling in the snow until Death completely clamped his hand shut before throwing it open. Shax’s eyes rolled up and into his before he collapsed face-first into the snow.
“Bale, stop!” I yelled and spat out more blood as Death turned toward her.
* * *
Bale
When Death lifted his hands,I realized we’d done exactly what he wanted, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t get the image of Shax from my mind as my friend shrank into something different, something nearly unrecognizable. Something that looked as if it belonged in a crypt.
His head was still attached to his body, so there was hope we could save him. It was a small hope, but I adhered to it as I pictured slicing Death’s head off before hacking the repulsive monster to tiny pieces.
