Clark passed out.

Michaela’s eyes locked on the Nephilim standing behind her, and she searched for a resemblance to Clark. She didn’t need to search far. The fierce, vibrant blue was all Michaela needed to know that Clark was a half-breed. A half-breed of a half-breed.

Michaela rose. All the limbs retreated, and the trees stilled. The ground gave one last tremble before it eased at her feet.

“You’re here to kill me too,” Michaela stated. There could be no other. She could not imagine a situation where a Nephil would not want to seek their revenge on her for all she had done to kill them off.

Iris St. James, Clark’s mother and Isaac’s dead wife, smiled kindly at Michaela. Iris motioned for the handful of Nephilim standing close behind her to attend to her son. Michaela recognized the Nephil from Lucifer’s building among the group. They swooped forth and gathered his limp limbs from Michaela’s feet. Michaela numbly watched them disappear into the now quiet and still woods.

“Don’t worry about him. When Isaac called to tell me Clark had found you, I was so happy. I’ve waited a long time for my son to come home,” Iris said. She stepped closer. Michaela smelled lavender. “I’ve also waited a long time for you, Michaela.”

“You’ve waited for me?” Michaela asked but spoke in the direction of the woods, waiting for another attack. But it seemed, for now, the presence of the Nephilim had quieted the Watchers.

“I have. I need you. We all do, so you won’t be dying tonight.” Iris reached across the tense space between them and pulled the dagger from Michaela’s loose grip. Michaela didn’t fight to keep it. She watched as Iris put the dagger into her thick, leather belt. “The Nephilim will take care of them.”

“Why?” Michaela asked. The adrenaline that had coursed through her veins only minutes before, now slogged, thick and viscous, slowing her thoughts and exhausting her body until she was on the verge of tears. She couldn’t take much more, and processing Iris’ words was a feat beyond her current capabilities. She certainly didn’t understand why a Nephil would need her, especially if it wasn’t to put her bone through her heart.

Iris stared at Michaela for a long moment. All around them, Iris’ Nephilim soldiers waged against the Watchers in a quiet battle of whispered words. They were children who fought their fathers, using the same magic of shadows and stars.

“Michaela, we want what you want.” Iris smiled kindly. Her long skirt shifted slightly in the easy wind. “We just want to go home.”

Michaela took a moment to consider the words. They should have sounded like madness, but instead they seemed almost reasonable. “I can’t help you,” she whispered.

“You can,” Iris answered. Her blues eyes winked. Michaela recognized the white blond locks that were braided down her back. Clark had pink, and Iris had some gray, but it was the same hair.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yet I already know you will.”

Michaela had no doubt the woman could see the future. Iris had clearly passed the gift on to her son. But seeing Iris now made Michaela want to fall to her knees and beg the ground to swallow her whole. If there ever was an end to this battle Michaela fought, it wasn’t tonight.

“I’ve had visions about tonight, Michaela. I know how this battle with the Watchers could end. You must kill Azazel or else you will die tonight.” Iris nodded over Michaela’s shoulder. “The water is just behind you, straight forward. You need to go now. Don’t stop for anything. Never stop running.”

The breeze brought a new chill that bit into Michaela’s skin. The Watchers and the Nephilim closed back in around them. Their magic snapped in the air, causing Michaela’s fingertips to twitch and a tremor to run through her heart. The trees and shadows had jagged edges that glinted in the night.

“Go,” Iris said again. “Don’t stop.”

The ground shook and the trees moaned. Michaela glanced behind her.

Run or die. Run or die. Run or die, they seemed to say.

“Go,” Iris whispered. Michaela turned back, but Iris was gone.

Michaela turned the way Iris had indicated and ran as fast as she could.

After a minute, the burning leaves fell behind her, and the air started to cool as she ran beyond the magic. But she didn’t run beyond the Watchers. Their footsteps echoed hers. She caught glimpses of their forms darting through the trees beside her. From within the depths of the shadows beside her came the sounds of breathing, hot and heavy. She wasn’t escaping.

First, they came as whispers. Michaela thought it was the Watchers forming magic again. A beat later, Michaela recognized the voices.

Simiel. Raphael. Uriel. Ophaniel. She heard them all. They called her name over and over. Their voices grew louder.

They called to her from the edges of the woods just beyond the dark edge of the shadows. Trembling uncontrollably, she drew to a slow walk as she scanned the woods. Her chest heaved from the sprint, but she kept her breath quiet, listening.

“Michaela, come!”

“Please, Michaela.”

“Come here. Help us, Michaela.”

“Help me, please.”

They repeated the words many times over, many different ways. The sound reverberated across the woods. Michaela turned in a circle, following the sounds that seemed to spiral toward her from every direction.

Her mouth opened, ready to call back on instinct. But she shook her head. It was only the magic. She remembered Iris’s words, and she took off again in an unsteady jog. She ducked under limbs and stumbled across the uneven ground.

“Michaela, no!”

She froze. No.

“Don’t let them do it! Please, Michaela! Save me!”

Zarachiel.

“Michaela, they are going to kill me!”

Violent shivers racked through her body, but she forced her quaking legs to move forward. Her Archangels followed her, dogged her every slow step. Their voices wove around and over each other’s. It took all she had to not give over to their pleas.

She kept going because she smelled the water. She almost heard its soft babble. If she could make it there, the voices would stop. She slapped the palms of her hands over her ears and staggered through the woods, focusing on the water.

“Michaela!”

Her name was a scream, ear splitting and totally commanding. The ground and the woods shook. Her name alone, in his voice, screamed in that manner, was enough to make the world quake around her.

“Gabriel?” Her hands fell from her ears and she spun in circles, her eyes straining to see through the darkness. “Gabriel!”

From the woods, she saw the Watchers eyes glinting back at her. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting his name again. Every cell in her body begged her to find him, but it was just the magic. He wasn’t out there.

“Michaela! Don’t let them hurt me!

The yell was even louder. She began to cry, the sobs confined behind her hand. Her heart demanded she run into the woods and search for him. Every bone in her body felt as though it broke, snapping in the direction of his voice, refusing to let her stand still. She fell to her knees and screamed in agony. She screamed long and loud, but his was infinitely more so.

“Michaela! Are you going to let them kill me?”

She bent over and wrapped her hands around an exposed root buried deep in the ground. Her body convulsed, but she held tight. “I can’t Gabriel. You aren’t real…”

“I’m real! Please believe me. Michaela, you’re the only one who can save me!”

“I can’t. I can’t.” She said the words over and over, but they didn’t help. She leaned her forehead against the root. For the first time since her fall, she began to pray. She prayed for Gabriel’s voice to stop.

“You owe me this. You are the reason I was in Hell! You didn’t save me then, but, please, come save me now!”

“I’m sorry, Gabe,” she said, her words still a prayer. “I’m so sorry. But I’m not coming for you.” Tears and mucus ran into her mouth in salty waves. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“Michaela!”

Every ounce of pain in his body, every ounce she had likely caused was clear in her name. Gabriel’s deep, rhythmic voice was reduced to near hysteria as he called for her again and again. She would have crawled to him if she had let go of the root. But she only shook her head and strengthened her hold. She closed her eyes and remembered the memory from Heaven she had told Clark about on their way to Kentucky. She thought of Gabriel’s smile and how his golden eyes had shined in Heaven’s air.

When it stopped, she was alone in the woods again, curled into a tight ball on the unmoving ground.

“It wasn’t real,” she told herself. “It wasn’t real. He isn’t out there. He’s okay.” Finally, she found the courage to lift her head. She sniffed and looked around to see that even the sky seemed less angry. Carefully rising to her feet, she steadied herself on a nearby slender trunk that thankfully didn’t try to beat her.

The cool updraft of empty air flowed across her face. Her eyes adjusted to the new form of darkness before her, and she saw that her feet were inches from a tangle of roots that led over the lip of a steep, almost vertical ravine jutting down to a shallow creek a hundred or so feet below.

She had made it.

“Michaela, it’s okay,” Gabriel spoke softly from behind her.

She pictured his soft, golden twinkling eyes. She remembered how the hard line of his jaw moved when he said her name. His solemn expression always softened, and she could glimpse the inside of him.

She had fought so hard to resist him moments before that she was exhausted. Her heart was empty and shattered, refusing to forgive her body for not rushing into the woods after his voice.

To her very core, Michaela was tired. She was tired of this fight. This battle. This war. She was tired of existing in a place where Gabriel’s voice could only be a lie, because he was cursed to Hell. To live another moment in a world she had likely destroyed was unbearable. She was the source of pain and hurt. Everyone she loved paid a high price.

Gabriel’s voice was just a trick. She smelled the hot, decaying stench on her neck. But she began to turn around anyway.

Because she was done.

And she was ready.

Azazel.

He stood a mere breath away, and he was horrible. Time in the water deep inside the earth had not been kind. The bones of his face pressed forth grotesquely. The sockets of his eyes sunk deep into his slightly sunken skull. His skin was gray and lifeless, like a stone monster high on an ancient cathedral.

His long arms wrapped around Michaela, hugging her close and pulling her from the edge so she had nowhere to go but into his arms. Pressing his shrunken lips against the side of her neck, he smelled the soft spot behind her ear; her stomach rolled in revulsion. Even as his hunger for her death poured from his fingertips, he ran his boney, wrinkled hands down her body, over her hips, and back up.

Michaela’s eyes went wide. Azazel smiled when he caught wind of her fear.

Then, he shoved.

Michaela stumbled, off balance, and pitched backwards over the roots. She crashed down the ravine, careening head over heels. She bit her tongue and lips, pouring blood from her mouth and down her throat. She didn’t have time to close her eyes.

Michaela dove feet first into the icy creek. Her body buckled unto itself in a horrible symphony of cracking bones. Her left knee shattered upon a razor sharp rock. Michaela tried to brace the remainder of the fall, but the impact broke both arms. The flash of pain was so strong Michaela’s scream was one of silent, gaping, empty agony.

Fingers dislocated from their joints as her whole body crashed on top of them. Her forehead banged off another rock, slicing her face. Her lungs clenched from the impact and expelled all the air she tried to suck back in with huge, painful gasps.

Azazel stalked the bank of the shallow stream, prowling like a mountain cat waiting for its prey. He probably hadn’t meant for her to fall directly into the stream, where he couldn’t finish her off. Michaela’s breathing turned into wet, slurping, shallow gasps. She closed her eyes and waited. He would eventually venture into the water and pull her out. She only hoped she was healed enough by then to fight him off before he whispered his killing magic into her ear.

Michaela opened her eyes to a commotion. Her head lolled to the side and she saw him.

Gabriel.

He landed right in front of Azazel, real and in the flesh, on the water’s bank. It wasn’t magic that conjured his voice, because he didn’t speak. He stood, backlit from the moon, with his wings outstretched like shining, gleaming tools of death and his face lost to the shadows. In his hand was an ancient scythe. Even from her distance, she could see the metal was laced with angel bone—her bone.

Azazel flicked his filmy wings out and leaped into the air. But Gabriel was faster. He grabbed the Watcher’s ankle, and yanked the angel back to the ground. Gabriel must have broken bones, because Azazel stumbled, nearly falling. He didn’t try to escape again. Instead, he smiled.

“Why am I not surprised to see you here, dear Gabriel? Although, I’m surprised you would expend the effort on such a filthy soul as hers,” Azazel said, his voice a scratchy hiss. He leaned closer, peering into Gabriel’s face. Michaela didn’t hear what the Watcher whispered to Gabriel, but the words made every muscle in Gabriel’s body rigid. His square jaw clenched, outlining every bone in his face as if he were a marble statue.

Azazel drew back, his smile long gone, and began to whisper. Gabriel didn’t pause. In a move so fast, so lethal, that Michaela barely saw, Gabriel swung the scythe up in an arc, plunging the point of the curving blade into the soft place underneath Azazel’s chin and pinned his whispering tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Gabriel stepped back as Azazel clutched at his face, struggling to grip the hilt of the short-handled weapon. His diseased body jerked, his wings grappling for balance. With one fierce kick, Gabriel sent Azazel stumbling into the water with a loud, cracking splash.

Gabriel stepped into the creek to stand over the Watcher. Azazel put a hand in the air as if he was begging Gabriel to stop. Gabriel only slapped the bony hand out of the way as he reached down and wrapped his long fingers around Azazel’s pale, skeletal neck. With his other hand, he grabbed the blade and yanked it free; the angel’s jaw gaped open unnaturally wide and crooked.

Gabriel drew back, and Michaela tasted the heady bloodlust in the air. He turned, his face grim, and walked toward her without a backwards glance to Azazel, who faded into a cascade of feathers. Gabriel’s weapon dripped blood as he walked, making soft splashes in the creek.

The last of Azazel’s floating feathers cast a warm light over Gabriel’s back. As he drew closer, the relief washed over her, and she eased back down into the creek, feeling the pull of unconsciousness. She smiled as he bent over her, covered in blood and rage. Her relief, her smile, slipped away. His eyes were furious and directed solely on her.

“What did you do?” he asked, his voice a raw crack in the quiet around them.

Michaela began to shiver in the icy stream. The pain from her healing bones, made her brain hazy, but she still recognized the hateful expression on Gabriel’s face. With a great effort, she raised her lesser damaged arm from the stream and reached for him.

He straightened until he was out of her reach. His rejection sapped her energy, and her arm splashed back into the water. As he turned and walked away, Michaela could only think of one thing.

His eyes were black.