Page 91 of Legacy of Chaos

Deathly quiet. Not even the things in the fog made noise.

Then, a sound broke the silence.Drip. Drip. Drip.

Blood. Dripping off railings and pipes to the blood-drenched deck, where a dozen gouged chunks of demon flesh quivered like small boulders on a game board. A massive, mangled wing, its feathers strewn about, dangled from the roof of the superstructure.

“Gabriel!”

The angel stood near the far railing, his sword in hand. It was no longer aflame and the tip rested on the deck. The weapon looked too heavy to hold as he stared vacantly down at the body at his feet.

“Is that…a head?” Cyan skirted a bloody object.

“I think it’s Hutriel’s,” Stryke said.

Sure enough, as they got closer to Gabriel, it became obvious that the one-winged, headless body belonged to Hutriel. A couple of yards away lay the Land Rover-sized severed head of the demon that had chased Hutriel to the helicopter pad.

“What happened?”

Gabriel looked up, blood matting his hair and streaking his armor. “That thing…ripped him apart.”

“Stryke!” He wheeled around. Cyan gestured into the distance as the security team and the three DART agents came to a sudden, shocked halt at the top of the ladder.

The fog thinned, folding in on itself. Dim, filtered light seeped through the evil veil. Creatures no longer writhed and screamed in the mist’s depths, and the sea below no longer thrashed. Within a minute, the fog was gone, and a cloudless blue sky lit the platform.

Yes.

“Taran,” Stryke shouted. “Check on the comms system and get StryTech on the line. I want all non-essential and injured personnel off this thing.”

“I can’t wait to get back,” Cyan said. “I’m going to stuff my face full of pizza and drink an entire bottle of wine.”

That sounded good to him too. But asking her to join him right now didn’t seem appropriate. He might not have great social graces, but he did know one didn’t ask someone on a date while standing on the blood-soaked site of a massacre.

“Gabriel,” she said, turning to the angel. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“What?” Gabriel looked up, startled as if he just realized where he was. “Oh. Hutriel.” He looked back down at the body. “Don’t be sorry. He was going to kill you all.”

With a wave of his hand, the corpse rose into the air, its severed noggin with it. A moment later, Gabriel and the dead angel were gone, blinked back to Heaven or wherever they were going.

Hutriel had planned to kill everyone on the platform?

He and Cyan exchanged apprehensive glances as the DART trio jogged toward them.

“Did you see Hutriel’s neck?” he asked.

She leveled a troubled look at him. She’d seen it.

A clean cut.

As if made not by a demon’s claw or teeth but by a sword.

Chapter 22

Most angels re-entering Heaven popped out in the same place.

The Sun Terrace, a round, golden-tiled platform that floated over the crater of a crystal volcano. From there, if you weren’t stopped by security forces, you could flash to anywhere in the realm you wanted to go.

Gabriel had hoped to flash home before reporting to Zaphkiel, but as luck would have it, a Throne named Petulas was waiting for him, a Ligorial in his hand.

“Zaphkiel expected you back days ago,” Petulas said, holding out the metallic silver bracelet for Gabriel to slip into.

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