Page 8 of The River of Hatred

His eyes widen for a moment, before his face settles back into its usual placid lines, softening. “You don’t make me uncomfortable, Jessica.” His voice is gentle and he extends his hand towards me in a clear invitation to come closer so we can take to the sky and continue our journey.

I only manage to take half a step forward before we both freeze, Ithuriel’s head snapping a couple of inches to the left, like an eagle spotting prey in the distance, but his gaze isn’t focused on anything. I know what he’s sensing though – I feel it too. “Demons,” I gasp and twist to unsheathe my sword. I barely get to wrap my fingers around the handle before I’m flying through the air. My breath is knocked from my lungs when I land on the ground, two hundred pounds of angel on top of me. Plus however much his wings weigh. They have to be at least a hundred pounds. Since he protected my head with one hand, the arm of it holding some of that weight, I’m not a breakfast dish of pancakes with a side of fried egg, sunny side up, yolk spilled.

I hear plinking sounds like hale hitting a tin roof. My brain catches up with the new circumstances my body’s in and I focus on the angel on top of me; Ithuriel grunts and shudders, his teeth bared in a grimace of pain. A deep red needle, as long as my middle finger, is burrowed in the unprotected skin of his neck. I lift a hand toward it, but he stops me. “Poison,” he grits out, then shoves off, unsheathing a gleaming ornate sword.

I scramble up to my feet and take stock of the danger. Two grotesque creatures, each on four segmented legs, are attacking us with those red needles shooting out of multiple tentacle-like tubes. Their heads are featureless except for glowing crimson eyes; no mouths, ears, or noses. The creatures are aiming those tentacle guns at Ithuriel, who’s in the process of charging toward them, ignoring the quills bouncing off his gleaming armor. When he gets into striking distance, it’s clear that the tentacles are also prehensile, seeing as they’re now trying to wrap around his extremities.

Hissing out a couple of juicy curses, I run into the fray, finally unsheathing my sword. I swing and strike the tense tube holding the angel’s sword arm. I barely make a divot, despite the angelic steel, but it’s enough to shock the monster into letting go of Ithuriel’s limb. He uses the opportunity to slice the tentacle in half with a move that seems to take embarrassingly little effort and the creature emits an ear-splitting shriek.

The other creature recognizes me as the weaker target and turns those puckered appendages in my direction. I manage to duck in time to hear the spikes whizz past above my head, far too close for comfort. Clearly it intended to turn my face into an alopecic porcupine. Taking advantage of my position, I slice my sword into the bottom segment of the demon’s leg. While I manage even less depth this time, thanks to the armor-like plates protecting it there, the creature still joins its buddy in the orchestra of screeches.

I straighten to my full height just as a black meteorite shoots down from the sky, landing with a deep thump and a cloud of dust. Sariel swings an enormous dual-bladed battle axe, which I definitely didn’t see him carry before, and beheads the demon I just tested for an Achilles heel. Before the severed head lands on the ground, Ithuriel sticks his sword into the other demon’s head under its chin like it’s a giant cocktail olive. Once the creature slides off the blade and lands in a twitching heap next to its friend, my lungs decide it’s a good time to get the oxygen my rapidly beating heart is demanding.

“What took you so long?” I ask Sariel between gasping breaths.

He flicks the ichor off his axe as easily as if he was holding a steak knife. “I flew too high to notice anything was wrong.”

I rest my hands on my thighs and raise my brows. “How high can one fly in Hell anyway?”

The Fallen throws the axe in the air and it flips head over feet, or rather blade over grip, and disappears like it was never there. “Dunno.” He shrugs. “Eventually it feels like you’re flying up, but you’re no further away from the ground.”

Before I can wrap my head around that Groundhog Day fuckery, Ithuriel collapses heavily onto a knee and tips forward. I blink and Sariel is holding the angel’s shoulder, keeping him from face-planting into the bramble. “Woah, buddy. It’s nowhere near Halloween, way too early to put on a crown of thorns.” Ithuriel tries to react to the blaspheming with a disgusted look, but all he manages to do is appear drunk.

“We need to get the barbs out of him, he said they were poisoned.” I start carefully plucking them one by one.

“They are,” Sariel drawls. “If you weren’t wearing gloves, you’d be joining him for a nap. If you were stuck with a few, little mortal, the nap would be permanent. Howdidyou avoid that?”

“I had my guardian angel with me,” I mumble and he laughs, the sound far more cynical than amused. Once I clear enough spines, he helps me remove Ithuriel’s backpack and lays him down, making it easier for me to remove the rest. “What were those things anyway?” I ask the Fallen, Ithuriel now fully passed out.

“Disposable assassins.”

“Assassins are usually dispatched by someone.” I rummage through my backpack and take out the blanket I brought with me in case we find ourselves somewhere cold. Folding it a few times, I lift Ithuriel’s head and slide it under.

Sariel is quiet for long enough that I look up at him. He’s watching me trying to make the angel comfortable in his sleep with a lifted eyebrow and lips twisted in mockery. He seems to tear his gaze away from Ithuriel’s sleeping face to make eye contact with me. “Yes, that’s very astute.”

I roll my eyes and huff impatiently. “Who would send assassins after us? Why?”

He stares at me, his face slowly clearing of any mockery and humor. “I don’t know,” he admits. He snaps his fingers and a bedroll appears on the ground.

“You’re quite powerful.” I try to keep my voice free of any admiration that he could make fun out of, just an observation.

“Ah, well. Who’s your daddy and all that. Though,” he smirks, “give Lana a millennium or so and she’ll outperform my party tricks.”

“If you can summon anything through the ether, why would we need to hunt for food?” I pull out my own sleeping bag and dust myself off as much as I can before I sit on it.

“I can only summon things that are relatively close. I’m able to keep a few items near me in the ether, but it’s not a place that’s really compatible with life. A second or two is fine, if not healthy, anything more than that and living cells decompose.”

Ithuriel groans softly but doesn’t seem to stir. “He’ll be okay, right?” I chew on my bottom lip. When I turn back towards Sariel, I see he’s staring at the way my teeth dig into the soft flesh. I can’t forget for a minute that I’m in the company of the most sexual creature I’ve ever met. And I met some succubi and incubi.

“He’d be healed instantly if he returned to his ethereal form. But cut off from Heaven, that would take more energy than he can afford to dispense this early in our travels through Hell.”

“Will it be easier for him back on Earth?”

He huffs, though there’s no mockery in his gaze now. More like some reluctant… something. I’d say the affection one has toward a person they like, but reading a celestial creature isn’t as easy as reading humans born into their skins. “We’re still on Earth, just a different dimension, so to say.”

I flush and wave a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.”

“He’s gonna be a lot more in tune with Heaven in the human realm, yes.”

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