All Hell Breaks Loose (Razing Hell #4) - Cate Corvin
1
Melisande
The archangel who’d been dead asleep only moments ago moved so quickly he was just a golden blur.
His fingers fastened themselves around Tascius’s neck, digging into the Nephilim’s bloodstained skin. The sound of their snarls filled the air as Tascius latched onto Michael, and the archangel tumbled out of the sarcophagus, dragging his shroud behind him.
Azazel vanished and rematerialized around me in a cloud of smoke, drawing me backwards towards one of the towers and out of harm’s way.
“He’s going to kill him,” I hissed, trying to claw my way forward, but Azazel had reduced me to an ethereal mist. If the fight spilled over here, Michael wouldn’t be able to touch me, but neither could I move forward. “Azazel, let me go!”
“Unwise, Melisande,” he whispered in my ear. He still hadn’t entirely left his darker form behind. The acrid scent of lightning and ozone filled my nose, washing away the stench of the Pit. “You’re injured and have no place in this fight. He’s weak. Tascius will be perfectly fine.”
Easy for him to say; Michael’s wings flared wide, throwing out beams of light like the rays of the sun, the razors embedded in the tips of his feathers glittering dangerously.
I’d already lost one man to Satan today. I wasn’t going to lose one to an archangel, too.
“Belial, stop them!”
The Prince of Wrath was watching with amusement as Tascius managed to flip Michael over and pin the golden archangel to the floor. “Maybe I will, as soon as this idiot realizes Gabriel isn’t here.”
It hurt to acknowledge it, but it was all too easy to see how Michael might have mistaken Tascius for Gabriel. The son had taken on the father’s silver and moonlight glow entirely, and even worse… he gave off the same sense of power the archangels possessed.
If the transmutation Azazel had spoken of wasn’t already complete, it was very close.
Either way, I didn’t want Michael killing him before I got to see what he would become.
“Michael,” I called, bracing myself and trying in vain to pull against Azazel’s ghostly power. “He isn’t who you think.”
The two archangels continued wrestling. One of Michael’s wings slashed Tascius’s bicep, and blood slowly dripped down the corded muscles of my once-Nephilim’s forearm.
Michael’s golden eyes were completely wild, gleaming with rage and hate as he pressed the attack.
I gained an inch of ground, slowly but surely. Azazel sighed in my ear, clearly disapproving of my desperate need to be in the thick of things.
“Gabriel is dead. Belial captured him; he cut off his wings and had them gilded. I have them hanging over my throne right now. Then we tortured him. Tascius ripped off his head; I cut his body apart and stole his bones, and we burned his remains. Gabriel was cut to pieces and turned to ash.”
I kept my voice loud and clear, cutting through the sounds of their pained grunts. How much more obvious could I make it?
“He’s extremely dead, Michael.”
And there it was; some of my words finally pierced whatever wild rage had overtaken the archangel.
Michael finally tore his eyes from Tascius and flicked them towards me. He was sitting on Tascius’s chest, his hands still wrapped around the newer archangel’s throat.
“What lie is this?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“No lie,” I promised. “That isn’t Gabriel you’re trying to kill. His name is Tascius.”
Michael’s lips drew back over his teeth in a feral snarl, but slowly, ever so slowly, he looked down. Confusion and exhaustion finally overtook the hate in his expression. “The resemblance…”
“Is uncanny, yes. That would be a given, considering Gabriel is his father by blood.” I tried my hardest not to sound sour about it. After all, if Gabriel weren’t a total hypocrite, I never would have met Tascius at all.
Michael was still breathing hard, and he hadn’t moved off Tascius’s chest. His hair was tangled from the fight, making him look like a complete madman. “You say… Gabriel is dead?”
He was completely disbelieving. I supposed I would be too, if I’d just been woken up in the depths of Hell.
I felt myself gaining corporeal form as Azazel slowly relaxed, but his shadows never left me. Taking a few steps forward, I held up my hands, swallowing back a groan as the pain of my broken wing came back along with my natural weight.
“Yes, I promise you he’s dead. I don’t know how he put you down here, but he’s long gone. That’s my mate you’re trying to choke to death.”