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She raises the knife and, in a blur, drives it through Hesediel’s breastplate. Holds it there while her sister screams.
Hadraniel leans back and looks over at me and Bill. Opens her arms, giddy at the kill.
Lowers her guard.
Hesediel’s arm moves. Just a few inches. Into a tiny space where Hadraniel’s armor has shifted, revealing a sliver of skin.
Hadraniel jumps up, pulling at her armor. Trying to get to where Hesediel hit her. She runs her hands over her skin. Looks at the palms and holds it up for us to see. No blood.
Hadraniel goes back to Hesediel and pulls out her knife. The blade breaks off in the armor. She throws the hilt into the dirt and walks our way.
She gets about ten paces before she falls over, choking.
Hesediel sits up, but can’t get to her feet. Bill and I run over. Get on either side and lift her up. When she’s standing on her own, she loosens the buckles on the sides of her armor, letting her ruined breast- and back-plates fall to the ground.
She puts a hand over her chest wound and comes back with only a little blood. She smiles at us through her burned face.
“It’s good armor,” she says. “And I’m a better actor.”
Bill and I help her over to Hadraniel, who’s tearing at the ground, trying to crawl away. Hesediel slips a foot under her sister’s belly and flips her over.
Hadraniel’s face is going from blue to black. She gasps for air. Clutches at her throat.
Hesediel unbuckles Hadraniel’s breastplate and pushes it away. Takes out her knife. Hadraniel is barely breathing. Her arms are limp. Hesediel bends and kisses her forehead.
She says, “Forgive me, sister.” And drives her blade into Hadraniel’s heart. The fallen angel lurches just once. Hesediel stands and slides the knife back in its sheath. When she looks again, Hadraniel is gone. Vanished like
all dead angels, good and bad alike.
Hesediel looks at me. Hands me the syringe with the raw, poisonous black blood I gave her earlier. I wasn’t sure she would use the thing.
I toss the syringe into the fire.
“Guess I interfered after I told you I wouldn’t. Sorry.”
“It was my choice. Black blood made Hadraniel what she was. It’s fitting it was her downfall.”
“You were her downfall. Not that rotgut,” says Bill. “In this world and the other, I never saw anyone fight like that.”
“I hope you never have to see it again.”
Me and Bill help her to one of the undamaged vans. We get her into the back, where she slumps against the seat.
The top floors of the mansion are roaring. A lot of panicked faces I recognize peer out of the windows on the bottom floor.
“Stay here with her,” I tell Bill.
“I’ll keep her safe.”
I get out my na’at and go into the burning house.
I COME OUT a few minutes later, alone. Except for Holly. That’s how Candy would have wanted it.
With the black blade, I start the only other undamaged van and leave it for her. She stands by the house and watches it burn like she’s expecting Norris, or Jesus, or Santa Claus to come out of the flames and make it all better. But no one does. After a while she gets in the van and puts it in gear.
Bill closes the door of our van and I turn us back to Hollywood, letting the mansion and hill burn itself to ashes behind us.
Hesediel dozes for a few minutes, then wakes with a start. She looks around the van, not sure where she is. When she sees Bill she relaxes back into the seat.
