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I shove the thoughts aside and continue to my destination. I stretch my neck, rub out the tight knot of muscle. When I arrive at the small churchyard, I walk straight to Shemhazai’s statue and look up at the giant figure of the demon. No angel here. I meet his eyes. The artist who created him was a gifted man. I wish he hadn’t been quite so talented because those eyes bore into me, challenging me, taunting me, always furious with me.
I disappoint him, I have no doubt. But I am not here to please this beast.
I set the hammer down on the ground, resting its handle against my leg, and reach into my pocket to retrieve the ring. The usual wave of nausea is absent as I flick the tiny latch and open it to find the still-red wisps of hair inside.
Elizabeth’s? It is from Isaiah’s time, and the man was obsessed with both her life and her death.
“I denounce you,” I tell Shemhazai. If only it were so easy. “I denounce you and all you stand for. And I set my family free of you.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance. It’s like I’m in a fucking movie and the director has just given the cue. I don’t care, though. I don’t care about any of that bullshit right now.
Instead, I dig into the small cavity of the ring to scrape out all those wisps of hair so fine they’re almost like touching air. I let the wind take them, carrying them away from him. Away from me. From all of us. Does Elizabeth, from her place beyond this earth, see it? Does she feel it? Does she hear the words I whisper, setting her free?
Once the depression is empty and it is just a ring, I drop it onto the broken altar. Rain picks up when I lift the sledgehammer.
Now to the business of why I truly came here. In the distance beyond Shemhazai, the sky flashes brightly, charged by lightning.
“I’m done,” I tell him, raising the hammer over my head. “You’re done.” I bring it down hard, aiming for the demon’s knees. The blow vibrates through me but only particles of dust break away from the statue. I haul the hammer up again. “I’m stronger than you.” I smash it against his knees again. “I’m not cold, unfeeling rock like you.” I strike again, the sound of the hammer crashing against stone as if timed with the next strike of lighting, the roar of thunder as the storm approaches. I keep bringing the hammer down again and again and again, until his knees have crumbled to hollows, his shins shapeless, the middle part of his sword gone now.
I don’t know how long I work, how long I beat at the statue. I damn the giant slab of stone as rain pelts my face, electricity charging around me, thunder drowning out the curses I scream at the demon.
But no matter what, no matter how long I work and the force with which I smash the hammer against it, he keeps on standing, broken but tall, and his face, his eyes, keep on staring. So, I climb up on the rubble I’ve brought down onto his altar that is stained with the blood of the innocent. He is so fucking huge that I balance precariously as I haul the hammer over my head and smash at his face. His eyes. His evil.
I am so focused and so angry, the storm so loud that I don’t realize I’m no longer alone. When I feel the tugging at my waist, the frantic pulling on my arm, I am startled to look down and find Willow there, her face one of utter panic, her hair matted down her back and sticking to her face as rain comes down in sheets.
“Azrael!” She screams over the roar of the storm.
My muscles burn with the effort I’ve exerted, the hammer a heavy weight above my head. I look up at the statue’s face to tell him off. I’ve obliterated one eye, and a part of his head is caved in.
“Azrael, come down from there. Azrael!”
I hold the hammer at my side and look down at her lovely face once more, then back to his hateful one.
“You won’t touch her. She is not for you,” I tell him as Willow’s hands curl into the waistband of my jeans, and I drop the hammer and climb down.
“Azrael, we need to get inside.” She glances up at the statue, her forehead creased with worry, that cross carved so viciously into her sweet, lovely face.
I jump down from my place and wrap my arms around her, lifting her, carrying her away, shielding her from him. I meant what I said. He will not touch her. She is not for him. She is for me.
