Page 88 of Eclipse Born

“Those two against a church full of demons?” I ran a hand through my hair, already calculating how badly outgunned they'd be. “They won't last five minutes.”

“Then you need to go. Now.” Skye's tone left no room for argument. “I'll keep monitoring from here, but you need to move.”

Cade and I exchanged looks—no time for debate, no time for planning. Just action, the way it always ended up being in our line of work. Fight now, deal with the consequences later. If there was a later.

I turned to Cassiel, who was watching the exchange with that irritating angelic patience. “Can you get us there?”

The angel's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes suggested he'd already been planning our next move. “Hold on,” he said simply, reaching out to place a hand on each of our shoulders.

His touch was unnervingly cool, like stone that had never seen the sun. There was a surge of power that made the hair on my arms stand on end, a sensation of light bending around us, and then that’s was when I saw them.

Bodies. At least a dozen, sprawled across the ground in unnatural positions, their eyes burned out to leave nothing but charred sockets. Some still had their mouths frozen open in their final screams.

“Oh God,” Cade whispered beside me, his breath catching. His face had gone pale, making the shadows under his eyes stand out like bruises.

These weren't demons. These were humans. Possessed ones, judging by the sulfur residue, but humans nonetheless. People who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, their bodies hijacked and then discarded when they were no longer useful.

Cade's horror was etched into every line of his face. I could see his white-knuckled grip on the Heavenly Lash, the slighttremble in his fingers that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with rage. This was exactly what soulless Cade wouldn't have cared about—the human cost, the lives lost. The fact that he was affected so deeply now was both reassuring and heartbreaking.

Before I could offer any words of comfort, the sounds of battle reached us from inside the church—metal clashing against metal, inhuman screeches that set my teeth on edge, and the distinctive crack of gunfire that I recognized as Sterling's shotgun.

“We're going in,” I said, drawing the Colt and checking the chamber. Six shots, specially crafted bullets that could drop even the most powerful demons. Not enough, but it would have to do.

Cade nodded, his expression hardening into the focused determination I'd come to rely on. Whatever personal demons he was fighting—quite literally, in his case—he was pushing them aside for now. There would be time to unravel his complicated relationship with his own soul later. If we survived.

The massive wooden doors of the church were already partially broken, hanging precariously from rusted hinges. We pushed through into a scene straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

The inside of the church was a war zone. Pews were overturned or splintered, stained glass windows shattered to leave colorful shards across the stone floor. The altar had been desecrated, covered in symbols that made my eyes hurt to look at directly.

And in the center of it all, Sterling and Hawk stood back to back, surrounded by what had to be at least eight demons.

Sterling looked like hell warmed over. Blood matted his beard, and he was favoring his left leg heavily. But his eyes were clear and focused as he swung his enchanted axe in a wide arc,the blade leaving a trail of blue light as it separated a demon's head from its shoulders.

Hawk wasn't in much better shape. His face was a mess of cuts, and he moved with the careful precision of someone with at least one broken rib. His silver daggers flashed in the dim light as he parried a clawed strike from a particularly grotesque demon with horns sprouting from its forehead.

“Need a hand?” I called out, raising the Colt and firing two shots in quick succession. The first bullet caught a demon in the back of the skull, exiting through its forehead in a spray of black ichor. The second dropped another that had been lunging at Sterling's blind spot.

Sterling's head snapped up, relief flashing across his face before he covered it with his usual gruff demeanor. “Took you long enough,” he grunted, but the corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile.

The demons, momentarily startled by our arrival, recovered quickly and redirected their attack. Three broke off from the main group and charged toward us, their movements unnaturally fast, like stop-motion animation played at double speed.

Cade reacted first, the Heavenly Lash unfurling with a sound like electricity arcing through the air. The golden whip caught the nearest demon around the throat, the energy flaring bright enough to cast stark shadows across the church interior. The demon screeched as the lash tightened, its skin beginning to smoke and crackle with celestial fire. Within seconds, the flames had consumed it from the inside out, leaving nothing but ash drifting to the stone floor.

I took care of the second demon, the Colt's hammer falling with a satisfying click as I put a bullet between its eyes. The third got past us both, claws extended toward my face, butCassiel materialized beside it, his angel blade slicing through its abdomen with surgical precision.

But even as we dispatched these threats, more demons were pouring in through the broken windows and side doors. They moved with a kind of hive-mind coordination that sent chills down my spine.

“Where the feck are they all coming from?” Cade shouted over the chaos, his lash singing through the air to wrap around another demon's arm, severing it cleanly.

Hawk grimaced, wiping blood from his split lip as he drove a dagger up through a demon's jaw. “You really have to ask? This is what happens when you crack open a door to Hell!”

The accusation stung, but I couldn't argue with it. Cade and I had opened the demon gate. We'd been manipulated into it, sure, but the consequences were the same. These demons had been waiting, biding their time until Asmodeus called them to action. And now they were here, and people were dying because of what we'd done.

I pushed the guilt aside, channeling it into action. The Colt barked twice more, each shot finding its mark, but I was running low on ammunition and the demons just kept coming. There had to be at least twenty of them now, circling us like wolves around wounded prey.

“We need to get to the altar,” Sterling called, his voice rough with exertion. “That's where the seal is.”

“Easier said than done,” I muttered, my gaze tracking the masses of demons between us and our goal.

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