FORTY-EIGHT

Soldier of the Lord

The healer’s body collapsed to the floor as the Silver Blood reared to strike again, his towering form casting a long shadow over the group. The beast carried a black sword in one hand and in the other a jagged club. As he raised the weapon into the light, its true form appeared. The wooden club was studded with the skulls of his victims, a grisly weapon that warned attackers of their fate.

Abbadon, his black wings outstretched and his claws dripping with the blood of trolls, rose to the challenge. He stood unafraid as the bull-headed Croatan roared toward him, the demon’s eyes blazing a furious color of red. The creature was nearly twice his height, and Jack crouched low to get a better leverage on him. He thrust his sword sideways through the bull’s throat, splitting his neck, the blood gushing and hissing as it hit the ground. He felt the club crash against his back, its jagged face lodging into his armor. Jack pinned the black sword to the ground, leaving the beast defenseless as he made his final push upward. He sawed the head off the demon, sending the mighty horned dome tumbling to the earth.

malakai’s face was a mask of disbelief. Then the body exploded as the Black Fire took another life. The creature who was Forsyth Llewellyn, the Dark Prince’s closest ally on earth, and the destroyer of the Covens, was dead.

“Everyone hold each other,” Abbadon ordered. The group linked hands, Schuyler grasping Abbadon’s claws. With her other hand she held on to Mahrus’s right wrist.

Abbadon’s strength lifted them up and out of the borderlands, through the glom, and back into the other side of the gate, back inside the pyramid.

Mahrus lay dying in Schuyler’s arms. His face was the color of ivory, like a beautiful marble statue.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god.”

The Venator’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked at her and smiled. “It is all right, my child. I am going home,” he sighed. “I am sorry I could not stay longer to help you on your journey.” Then his body was covered for a moment in a brilliant white light.

“This is not one of us,” Jack said, kneeling by the body of the fallen Venator and placing two coins to keep his eyelids closed. “This is not one of the Fallen.”

The Venators kneeled and crossed themselves before the body.

“Who was he, then?” Schuyler asked.

“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. But none of us recognized him. This is Raphael of the muses,” Jack said. “A soldier of the Lord. A true angel of Heaven. Catherine’s brother.

He must have survived the war only to find death on earth.”

His name was Mahrus Abdelmassih: the One Protected by the Lord, Servant of the messiah.

“So if he’s a true angel from Heaven and not one of the Fallen,” Schuyler said, “how did he get here? The paths between heaven and earth were closed with Lucifer’s Rebellion.”

Then she remembered what Catherine had said. The Gate of Promise was on a bifurcated path. One path led to Hell. The other one…

Where did it lead…

Could it be …?