Page 76 of Destined for Eternity
Chapter 26
Bartol
When he opened his eyes a few moments later, he found golden embers falling all around them. They felt pure and good to Bartol, but the demon screamed as each spark touched its body. Its skin was sizzling and smoldering as if acid dripped on it. The creature fell to the ground, grabbing clumps of dirt to rub on itself. That did nothing to stop the burning. It growled and cursed, rolling all about.
Had Zoe known what was coming and rigged her heart somehow? Bartol had wished her death more than once, but not like this. It was as if she’d planned her own suicide to save them. He could hardly comprehend her actions, and yet he couldn’t sit around any longer. Pulling himself together, he rose to his feet and jumped onto the demon’s back while it crawled around on all fours. The embers didn’t hurt Bartol at all, but his opponent’s melting skin was hot to the touch. It was all he could do to keep his grip and start extracting the essence again.
“That’s the last person you’ll ever kill,” Tormod vowed, voice reaching them from a dozen feet away.
He’d come out of his shock and was marching toward them with violent anger blazing in his eyes. With one final leap, the nerou arced his sword downward to strike the demon’s left arm, cutting halfway through it. The creature rose to its knees and lashed out with its talons.
Tormod easily dodged. Determination lit his violent eyes, and he started hacking away at the prince wherever his blade could reach. With each strike, chunks of the demon’s skin came off, no longer hardened like before thanks to Zoe’s light bomb. Bartol had to jerk left and right as the blows came down one after another. He was three-quarters of the way through at that point, and the essence was flowing into him faster than ever. There was no way he could stop now, but he adjusted his hold to around the creature’s chest instead of its neck and braced his feet on the ground. Occasionally, he still got caught by the nerou’s blade, but with so much power inside of him, he was healing more quickly than usual.
After a few minutes, the demon’s arms were stripped down to nothing more than bone and bits of muscle. There were also numerous wounds to its head, neck, and shoulders. With a disgruntled roar, it stopped trying to protect itself and started crawling away as fast as it could while Tormod followed, slicing at any spot on the creature’s legs he could reach. With its powers being robbed, the demon couldn’t defend itself as well as before. It kicked a foot out, trying to trip the nerou, but didn’t quite reach him.
Bartol pulled on more essence and started sending the load he’d withdrawn into the atmosphere. Zoe’s death and the demon’s revelation had been cold dashes of water on him. He couldn’t keep any of the power for himself, and he had to let it go fast before it influenced him. There was no way he could afford to have even an ounce left inside when he returned to his daughter.
Doubling down, he extracted and released with each breath until the process was in perfect sync. No longer did he even pay attention to what Tormod was doing, concentrating wholly on his task. Finally, he reached the bottom of the power well where only trickles remained. The skin of the demon had turned paper thin, making his job even easier. Tormod cut and diced like a crazed man. The nerou was angry that he’d been used, and he reveled in the opportunity to take it out on the prince.
Bartol snatched the last piece of evil essence and released it into the air. “I’m done.”
“I’m not,” the nerou said, rage in his voice.
As the prince slumped across the ground, unmoving, Tormod didn’t let up his attack. Bartol had to dodge the sword strikes and grab the young man by the shoulders. “It’s dead. You can stop now.”
Tormod’s chest heaved. “He said…I’m a spy, but I didn’t mean to be. I would never…”
“We know that,” Bartol reassured him.
He dropped his sword. “How did I not know?”
Raguel came forward, covered in blood from the battle. “It was not your fault, but we’ll need to rectify that problem right away.”
It was then that Bartol realized the fighting had stopped. Dead human hosts and their body parts lay everywhere, as if the compound had just experienced a zombie apocalypse. Only a handful remained alive and moaning on the ground from their injuries—the few who the demons didn’t kill while inhabiting them. While he’d focused on one target, his father had been forced to handle the rest.
Bartol’s shoulders slumped. “My apologies. I’d meant to help you with the others sooner.”
The archangel shook his head. “Do not be sorry, son. The one you killed was a hundred times more difficult than the rest put together. I would not have thought you capable of such a feat, but you have proven your prowess more than I imagined.”
There was pride in his father’s eyes.
“Thank you.”
Lucas joined them. “It’s good to see this one didn’t make you lose your mind like the last powerful one.”
“I have a daughter to consider now,” Bartol said. He’d kept Sybil and Cori in his mind throughout the fight. It had made a major difference compared to the battle in London.
Raguel smiled. “It is amazing how having offspring can change a person so irrevocably.”
Jeriel marched toward their group and stopped next to Tormod. “Someone needs to pull the excess demon essence out of him right away.”
“You heard?” Bartol asked.
“The three of you were too busy to notice there was an impenetrable shield around you for the last fifteen minutes of the battle,” the archangel replied. “We could not intercede, but we witnessed everything.”
How long had they been fighting? As Bartol ran his gaze around the area, he found there were nerou and nephilim already cleaning up. Just as in Alaska, many buildings were destroyed, small fires burned, and there were dead and injured scattered everywhere. He’d been so absorbed with his role in the battle that he’d had no idea what had gone on around him.
He frowned. “Who put up the shield?”
