Jose briefly glanced at J.L. before looking at Carlos. "Is it incoming? We gotta leave the church? You got another sanctuary on lock?"
"How bad, dude?" Rider asked, checking the magazine on his weapon.
"Whatever it is, bro . . . you know how we do. Spit it out," Big Mike barked, his nerves snapping under the pressure of anticipation.
Damali and Marlene hung back. Marlene closed her eyes and Damali hugged herself.
"Give the man some space," Damali said, her quiet voice strangely cutting through the din.
All eyes went to Damali as Carlos strode down the center aisle toward the altar, battle bulking as he went.
"Hehad a reason," Damali shouted behind Carlos. "Baby, don't you go up to that altar and reverse your entire life in a fit of rage-you hear me! Not now! I need you, this team needs you! If the Light let it happen, the Almighty had a reason. Have faith."
"What reason could be good enough to allow a Philadelphia city bus to crush an old man-a priest!" Carlos yelled, becoming hysterical as he spun on Damali and pointed toward her and then slapped the center of his chest."My father-seer!Compasi�n , Jesus!"
"Oh, God, no," Juanita murmured as team members all slumped, hung their heads, and wept.
"This is why Inever make snap decisions in a fit of panic or passion," Lucifer said with a smug, dangerous half smile as he regarded Sebastian.
Sebastian watched blood andgore drip from his Dark Lord's hands as he palmed a small replica of the earth for a moment and then tossed it to Sebastian.
"It . . . it . . . was irrefutable information, milord," Sebastian said nervously, and then quickly caught the energy globe as it slammed against his chest, cracking bone. "We siphoned her mother-seer . . . and-"
"Andforgot that during the end of days," Lucifer said evenly, "angels are particularly afoot, trying to throw us off the trail of their heirs, using devious and diabolical ruses that I must confess often rival my own. If you had walked the earth to and fro as long as I have, you would have known."
The Unnamed One's eyes burned with black Hellfire, but his form remained normalized. Rather than the huge beast that he could turn into when thoroughly enraged, he was still just majestically tall and athletically proportioned by human dimensions and standards. There were no bat wings, cloven hooves, horns, or spaded tail yet. He was still wearing a business suit as he slowly rose from his throne.
Sebastian dropped to his knees with a plea for mercy in his eyes. His Dark Lord's response was to walk over and grab a fistful of Sebastian's sweaty hair to yank his head back.
"The only reason I have not given in to my first impulse to rip out your spine and feed it to my favorite Hellhound, Cerberus, for coming down here and attempting a bargain with me for power enough to match Vlad-by trying to pawn off faulty information as your wager-is because this was the treachery of an archangel. Had it been a normal angel, your ignorance would have offended me . . . but Uriel and I go way back in our disputes. I should have known his hand was involved in this when I first granted you an audience."
"Master of all that is evil . . . I meant no disrespect," Sebastian whispered, trembling, his knees frying on the searing cavern floor.
"Of course you didn't. But as we are all well aware, the road tomy door was paved by good intentions. Didn't they teach you that the moment you came toHell! "
"Yes, and I'm so-"
"Don't say the wordsorry . . . it will tempt me to peel your flesh away from your bones, very, very slowly. But I cannot give in to such diversions of pleasure during this time in the empire . . . as well as the fact that losing a good necromancer is a blatant waste of resources, regardless of how worthless, otherwise, your sniveling carcass may be." He slapped Sebastian's face hard enough to splinter his jaw as he released Sebastian's hair from his grasp and paced back to his throne, and then knit back Sebastian's jaw with a glare. "And you can thank me for your life and your healed jaw now. I need you to be able to speak in order to cast your spells, so even that I have returned . . . am I not merciful?"
"Oh, most merciful . . . thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you."
"Then get the hell up and stand like a man and a true councilman and taste the sample I left on your face."
Sebastian scrambled to his feet and touched the bloody print his master had splattered against his cheek, unsure of what to make of it.
"Separate the parts of the blood signature of the old priest for me! Whatever does Lilith teach you on council? It contains the memories; DNA of generations, anything you want to know about a human is in the blood!"
"Yes, sire!" Sebastiansaid, bowing, but clearly still not understanding.
"So that your ignorant condition does not get the better of my rage, I am going to simply assume that you are too overwhelmed by my presence to properly think," the Devil said coolly. "Take this information back to Lilith. Tell her that had I listened to your foolish proposition to release the pale horse early in this battle, I would have played right into the hands of our adversaries-thereby effectively making it possible for them to replenish their armies by it being their turn to break the fifth seal so that their martyrs and saints could return." He leaned closer to Sebastian as he spoke through lengthening fangs. "And bevery sure to tell that bitch that I said to never send one of her minions to me so ill-informed or I will have to come to her council to conduct basic training . . . something that I do not have time for at present.Something that none of you would want."
Terror-stricken, Sebastian's gaze sought the blazing floor. "A mistake like this will never happen again, I assure you. I thought I had taken every precaution and that every potential loophole had been sealed . . ."
"But you were battling an archangel," Lucifer said coolly, sitting back in his throne and regarding his manicure of threatening talons. "Didn't you notice which sanctuary they chose to retreat to? They fled to a house of Uriel, and that sanctuary was like a citadel to Vlad's army . . . you must watch not only where our enemies advance, but to where they retreat. That isbasic war strategy,Sebastian ."
Furious but introspective, Lucifer leaned his head back for a moment and closed his eyes, making a tent with his fingers before his mouth. "It was a perfect ruse, if I do give credit where credit is due . . . sending multiple pregnancy fragrances to perfume the air and to confuse our troops . . . putting a false vision into the mother-seer so that our demon siphon of her human mind would collect the wrong data-in the event that their side was irreparably breached-fully knowing that our demons could not siphon the silver-reinforced minds of the Neterus."
He nodded and stood, beginning to pace as he ripped the energy globe from Sebastian's grasp with a black charge and reset it in its normal hovering position in the air just before his throne. With a quick flick of his index finger, he made it begin to spin slowly on its axis again.