The Blood Bracelets #2: Demon Born

Chapter Nineteen

Kael jolted upright, bits of brick and cement crumbling off him noisily. He peered through the haze of dust that had settled in the air and saw Rafael already standing, Seth beside him, and Michael rising to his feet while assisting Julius who had a deep, bloody gash down his shin.

Looking further, Kael realised they had fallen into the cells beneath the Halls. He tilted his gaze up to see the gaping hole in the ceiling, which was now just a pile of rubble at their feet.

'You see, Animas,' Rafael said, and his voice caught Kael by surprise; it wasn't edged with a growl, or with that familiar hot-tempered anger he usually displayed. Instead, his voice was hard like steel, cold like ice. The Angel looked to Kael with eyes of solid gold and said, 'This is why she must be killed.'

As Rafael stalked past him, Kael frowned. Fury could have killed them, could have burst through Michael's neck with her blood bullet, but she hadn't. Why? She didn't seem the type to spare people, in fact Kael was pretty damn sure she wasn't the type at all, and yet she had.

Kael rose to his feet as Michael followed Rafael, leaving Seth to take the job of supporting Julius.

'Why did the sanctuary ward not activate?' Kael asked as he caught up with Michael.

It was Julius who answered though. 'The gateway rooms are neutral ground. There are occasions where we need to transport demons through, such as into Alcatraz, and the only way to do that is by passing between the gateway rooms. Having the sanctuary ward in there would slow down these transportations.'

Made sense, he supposed. How he was going to combat the sanctuary ward when it activated, however, was a different question. He'd be rendered useless in a fight. 'Where will Fury be going to in the Halls?'

'The library,' Julius answered once more. 'It's the focal point of Lucifer's seal.'

Kael looked to Michael, who had dash of blood at his neck where Fury had dug her bullet into. 'Couldn't you and Rafael simply...fly up?'

'We do not fly, Kael,' Michael told him gently, in a voice he could only imagine Michael reserved for the students he taught while playing the part of an ordinary teacher. 'Our wings are protection, our defence, and as far as transportation goes we can portal ourselves between the Halls and our home, or open Doorways otherwise, but that is all.'

Since Kael didn't want an elaboration on the word "home", he didn't ask anything further. He and Michael caught up to Rafael just as he slammed open the door at the top of the stairwell, the bright light of the vestibule area flooding the threshold. The vestibule was just a plain, hexagonal room that connected the jail area to the next corridor. Glancing up, Kael saw the word Luella painted abstractly on the ceiling which he knew meant atonement or punishment in Latin.

Kael reached Rafael's side, and the Angel cast him an irritable side-long glance. 'You interfere in any of what Michael and I have been assigned to do,' he warned, 'and I will make sure you are banished to Purgatory, understood?'

Kael gave him an unwavering look. 'Then I guess I'll be moving to Purgatory, because I won't let you kill Taryn.'

'She isn't—'

A sudden boom surged through the Immortal Halls, making them pause. There was no force, no energy or wind; it was just a sound. Rafael pushed through the next door and they arrived at the main hall from under one of the staircases ascending to the mezzanine floor. Kael's eyes fell to the first two bodies he could see, blood staining the once pristine marble floor in stark streaks.

Rafael stalked ahead, ignoring the bodies, and Kael followed. From the corner of his eye he saw Michael momentarily reach down to the fallen Immortals and touch his index finger to their forehead, as if blessing them.