Page 100 of A Serpent in the Garden

Nothing could have prepared me to hear him speak. It sounded like a perverse sort of glory, like unspeakable radiance, a flame in the dark, like everything good and horrible in the entire world refined and condensed into a single, unearthly voice. It left every hair on my body bristling and had me trembling against Finn. “Unhand her. Release her from your thrall.”

They all sound that way. I felt Remy’s hatred boiling up my throat. It’s by design. You were made to cow to them.

“No.” It sounded as though Finn were smiling. “I think I’ll keep this one.”

I felt my heart might burst with Remy’s loathing when my streaming eyes found Luceric’s carved face, though I had little time to fully appreciate the brilliant gold skin, the flowing dark curls and crystal blue eyes, before something fell from midair, landing piggybacked upon Luceric’s shoulders.

A flash of steel, a spray of gold. The angel roared and threw Valic off, but not before a Hell-forged blade had opened a gash along the side of Luceric’s throat.

I knew another jolt of double fear, mine and Remy’s, when Valic hit the ground beside us. It was too hard a thump, too big a quake, but he leapt to his feet in an instant, the earth cratered where he’d fallen. Whip-fast, another javelin streaked past, plunging into Valic’s shoulder to a spurt of blackish red blood.

It knocked him off his feet again, but I never saw him hit the ground. A fountain of flame burst from Finn’s lifted hand, so dazzling I had to slit my eyes against it. Wing ablaze, Luceric let out a howl of pain that rattled my teeth. Another flash of flame from my left seemed to hit a wall of solid air, as if Luceric had, like the children before him, yoked the winds to push back against it.

“Is this wise, boys?” he asked. “If it’s war you’re after, war you’ll get.”

“He may be an angel, but he’s only a scribe who’s never been in a fair fight,” Finn said, his lips against my ear. “He’s not a warrior and I’ve been wielding fire all my life. He can’t hold off the flames for long.”

He couldn’t; they were creeping closer even as he tried to duck out from beneath them. His wing was crumbling into a drift of snowy ash.

“Are you all right?” Finn called, when a dark shape vaulted up beside us.

A ragged wound shone with light on Valic’s shoulder. Blood gushed from it, hot and tarry, but he hardly seemed to notice. His eyes were trained on something I couldn’t make out as the ground quaked beneath my feet. “Incoming.”

A white flood was making its way toward us from the church. The humans, coming for a closer look? They ought to have run screaming in the opposite direction, back to their pretty little houses.

He’s calling them, Remy said. He’s calling on them to help him, he must know the rule about killing living humans, that it’ll make us hesitate—“Finn, hurry up, watch your flames, they’ll be on us soon,” he added aloud. “The last thing we need is a pile of barbequed humans.”

Luceric had noticed the demonic lilt in my voice. “You’re helping demons, child?” he asked through a grimace, as if in mourning for my soul. He reached through the flames to loosen another javelin from his quiver. “It never ends well for servants of the dark.”

Three quick flashes of silver as Valic’s blades hissed past my shoulder. Each found their mark in quick succession, one two three, landing in Luceric’s thigh and gut and chest before he could elude them.

The air glittered with embers. Flames gorged on feathers, tendrils of fire inching closer to Luceric’s left wing folded behind his shoulder. He ripped the blades from his body, bright blisters of gold blood opening on his white robes, and hurled one back at Valic, who dodged in time, but when he stood, a thread of blood had opened on his ear.

Before Luceric could take aim at me, a rope of fire coiled like a snake around his wrist and brought him to his knees. The fury in his eyes transfixed me.

“Her blood will be on your hands should she die,” he said to Finn, though he didn’t look away from me. “Are you willing to risk an eternity in your damned wood? The seraphim won’t spare her.”

Maybe it would be as easy as Finn claimed, I thought, when he chained Luceric’s other hand in flame. I almost believed it might be, until I heard the far-off rumble of keening. I assumed it must have been coming from the slow white tide of humans, that they were screaming.

“Finn,” Remy yelled, my voice high and thin. “Get her out of here.”

Remy and his brothers cursed as one as the air turned into a furnace. A howling wave of flame and steel fell upon us from the heavens, shapes growing sharper and sharper as they tore closer, streamers of smoke trailing behind them. Bald heads, eyes like vipers, scales glinting in the firelight. The seraphim were garlanded in flame, but now there was a circle of fire around us as well, lifting higher and higher as Finn’s hand lifted, too. Through smoke and swirling flame, I saw the points of fiery golden swords orbiting ten feet above our heads.

The air tasted black, ashen, choking me with every breath I sucked in. “Finn!” Remy’s voice was muffled as his brother pressed me into his chest.

The ravenous crackle of flames, Finn’s firm voice in my ear. “We’re not blinking.”

“You promised—”

“I lied.”

“There’s too many, they’re going to kill us, you fucking idiot, not just her but the both of—”

“Then do something about it. How long do you think she’ll have before they breach my fire? You don’t want her to die, do you?”

Dull thuds as more of Valic’s knives found their marks. I threw a panicked look over my shoulder. Luceric yanked at the chains of fire and Finn’s flames had devoured both the angel’s wings. The wall of flaming celestial swords were piercing the demonic fire. It looked like the mouth of Hell, the Hell that humans had imagined.

A sudden spill of ice poured through my veins. It wasn’t my choice to do so, but I groped blindly at Finn’s waistband, yanked loose the blade that hung there, and plunged it into his thigh. The instant his grip loosened, I was off.