Page 41 of Camael
The angel's arms locked around her waist like steel bands.One powerful thrust of those midnight wings, and they were airborne. Before she could blink, the French Quarter sprawled beneath them like a war zone waiting to happen. The first sign of trouble came at Jackson Square.
A pack of lesser demons had cornered some tourists. They were all claws, fangs, and bad intentions. The Dark Warriors hit them like a SWAT team from hell. Black leather and sharp weapons made short work of the ugly bastards.
"This is just the appetizer," Amelia muttered as they soared over Decatur Street. "The main course is gonna be worse." She wasn't wrong.
Canal Street had become ground zero for supernatural warfare. Angels carved through demon ranks with flaming swords while Dark Warriors created kill zones with brutal efficiency. The Rowan sisters had set up on opposite corners. Their magic kept the humans inside and turned entire city blocks into demon purification zones. Their mates moved like shadows around them as they eliminated anything that got too close to their females.
Blood, ichor, and magic painted the pavement in abstract patterns of violence. The smell of sulfur and ozone hung thick in the air. It was punctuated by screams that were both human and decidedly not. "There!" Amelia pointed toward the riverfront as something massive shifted beneath the surface of the Mississippi. "I’m getting a real bad feeling about this."
Camael banked hard. His wings cut through the night as they approached the water's edge. The malevolence hit her like a physical blow. It made her magical core recoil in protest.
The Mississippi had gone darker than a demon's soul. Its waters moved with unnatural purpose. Things breached the surface that belonged in the deepest pit of Hell. They weretwisted masses of eyes, teeth, and tentacles that made regular demons look like therapy pets.
"Well, shit." She checked her arsenal as Camael set them down near the water's edge. "Lucifer decided to bring out the collector's edition nasties."
Sarah's voice startled Amelia. Her head swiveled, and she saw the female safely behind Abraxos, her angelic shield. "I didn't get to tell you that he’s trying to restore pre-Creation chaos."
“Good to know,” Amelia called out as a wave of hellspawn hit them. Camael's Sword of Light carved through their ranks while his Angels of Retribution fought with desperate precision. Unfortunately, the corrupted river kept birthing more.
The thing that erupted from the Mississippi's depths next made Amelia's magical core do a hard reboot. Picture a great white shark after a nuclear accident and an orgy with a giant squid and Cthulhu's uglier cousin. Its primary body stretched longer than a city bus. It was covered in overlapping plates that looked like rotting iron mixed with decomposing flesh. Dozens of eyes blinked where a face should've been. Four massive tentacles, each studded with hooked barbs that dripped black ichor, whipped through the air while a forest of smaller ones writhed beneath.
A maw big enough to swallow a Hummer opened beneath those eyes. It was lined with row after circular row of teeth. They were all spinning in opposite directions like the world's most fucked-up garbage disposal. The stench coming off it was worse than the Quarter during Mardi Gras.
But the true horror was the way it moved. It was too fast and smart. Its attack on Sarah was precision-targeted chess while everyone else was playing checkers. Those tentacles came at her like guided missiles. They forced Abraxos into defensive positions while smaller demons – ones that lookedlike demented piranhas with way too many legs - shot past him toward her books.
"They're trying to destroy the knowledge!" Sarah's cry galvanized Amelia into action.
Power exploded from her hands as she channeled both light and shadow through her grandmother's crystal. The demons went up like flash paper. The cost of using so much was immediate. Blood ran from her nose like a faucet.
She couldn’t stop. She had to drive that thing back. Unleashing that power nearly broke her. Light and shadow poured through her like rivers of pure force. It took a major effort to remind the powers of their natural harmony. To her utter relief, the Mississippi began to clear as ancient power burned away Lucifer's influence. Demons caught in the wave transformed as their darkness found balance with light.
The last thing Amelia saw before consciousness fled was Camael's face. Pride and fear warred in those ice-blue eyes as she channeled power that should have burned her to ash. Then darkness took her, and she knew no more.
CHAPTER 15
The moonless sky swallowed all light as Camael raced across New Orleans with his unconscious witch in his arms. His warrior's instincts were screaming as blood continued to drip from her nose. It was staining his battle-worn shirt and tearing at his heart. Every second counted. Her breathing was shallow, and her skin had gone clammy. Using that much power had nearly burned her out from the inside.
Behind him, explosions lit up the riverfront as his Angels of Retribution finished what Amelia had started. Her hybrid magic had carved through the opposition like a tsunami through a coastal village, decimating Lucifer's forces. She had fundamentally changed something in the magic around the Mississippi. The river's waters now sang with a harmony he hadn't heard for far longer than he could recall. But none of that mattered if his witch didn't survive.
His wings cut through humid air fast enough to create sonic booms as he vectored toward the mansion. Rami's voice crackled through his earpiece as he coordinated the cleanup efforts. The male was handling shit like theprofessional he was. It left Camael free to focus on getting Amelia help.
"Jace!" The roar ripped from his throat the instant his boots hit the mansion's east lawn. The grass was still scorched from their previous battles. "Get your ass out here NOW!"
The Native American healer materialized in the doorway like he'd been waiting. One look at Amelia's limp form and his expression went granite-hard. "Get her inside. My gear's already set up in the medical room." Setting up a place where he could do his work was the first thing the healer did after helping Amelia the first time.
Camael didn't waste breath responding. He shouldered past Jace and took the stairs three at a time. The mansion's halls were quiet. Most of the refugee angels had been moved to secure locations run by the Dark Warriors. They’d been traumatized by the attacks on the mansion. No one could deal with calming them while needing to hunt down the assholes responsible. Those that remained were prepared to fight with them. At the moment, Camael didn’t like how empty the place felt. It echoed how he would feel if he lost his witch.
Camael’s eyes went wide when they caught sight of the state-of-the-art trauma center that was inside the room. None of the emergency equipment and monitoring systems had been in there when they’d left earlier. The stark fluorescent lighting cast harsh shadows over gleaming steel instruments as his boots stomped across the floor. He carried Amelia to the bed at one side. The sharp scent of antiseptic distracted him from the ache in his heart.
"Put her there." Jace gestured to the bed he’d been headed for. Camael tried to tamp down his anxiety when the healer conjured his staff. It was bad if he needed the equivalent of acrash cart. "And then back the fuck up. What I'm about to do isn't exactly standard procedure."
Camael's growl would have made lesser beings piss themselves as he laid Amelia on the bed. "What do you mean, not standard?"
"I mean, she's got more power running through her system than a nuclear reactor. And it's eating her alive." Jace's hands moved through the air as he began weaving healing magic. His staff vibrated and started humming. "The human body wasn't meant to channel the energies she has been. Not like that. I've got to stabilize her before her magic tears her apart."
"Then do it." The words came out more snarl than speech as Camael stalked the length of the medical wing. His massive frame radiated lethal tension while his ice-blue eyes never left Amelia's still form.
Jace's hands moved with practiced precision as he assessed her condition. The healer cursed viciously, making Camael want to smash something. He braced himself for bad news. He could see corruption spreading through her system like black ink through water. "There's necrotic tissue forming," the healer informed him. “The power overload is killing her cells faster than I anticipated.”
