“Can we capture him and bring him to Azazel?” I said, coming to Gabriel’s side.
“Yes. I can restrain him.” He furrowed his brow and blasted Antares again. The demon collapsed to his stomach, panting, seemingly spent.
Gabriel mumbled to himself and conjured what looked like a pair of blue-lightning handcuffs out of the air. The cuffs crackled with electricity. He strode forward and reached for Antares’s arm, which was tucked underneath the demon’s chest.
Again, I felt something was not right. Again, I was a whisper too late. “Gabriel, wait ...”
Antares came to his feet with a roar and a maniacal grin filled with razor teeth. He plunged his clawed hand into Gabriel’s stomach and then pulled it out again, covered in gore and gripping what looked like a little nugget of the sun. The rock shone like daylight in Antares’s blood-covered fist.
Blood bubbled out of the half angel’s mouth as he folded up like a paper fan and collapsed to the floor. I screamed in horror and grief, and all the magic came blasting out of me in a wave, all focused on the creature that had harmed Gabriel.
Antares couldn’t move quickly enough. Electricity danced over the demon’s skin, searing away the red flesh. It smelled like really bad barbecue. He dropped the shining rock and it skidded across the floor, rolling under the refrigerator. Antares clawed at his skin, howling and tearing off shreds of muscle down to the bone, trying to get my magic off and out of him.
I ignored the furious demon and ran to the refrigerator, dropping to my stomach and peering underneath. The rock was just underneath the lip at the bottom of the refrigerator.
I closed my fingers around it and nearly dropped it. It was jagged and small enough to fit inside my closed fist but it was as hot as a coal from a roaring fire. Smoke swirled from my closed fist, and the smell of my own cooking flesh was added to Antares’s.
I crawled to Gabriel and knelt beside him, lifting his head to my lap. His face was chalk white but that wasn’t what scared me. When I laid my hand on his face, he was colder than stone.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,” I moaned. I covered the hole in his stomach with my hands. I could feel the blood pumping out between my fingers. “Oh, God. Just hold on, Gabriel. Hold on.”
“The outcast is dead,” Antares hissed.
I looked up at the demon with furious eyes and gave him another blast of magic for good measure. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing.
“Gabriel,” I said, my tears falling on his face. “Gabriel, can you hear me? What can I do?”
He opened his eyes. There were no stars, no meteors, just the empty blackness of deep space. The heart of the universe.
“You ... have ... to ... get ... me ... to ... Lord ... Azazel,” he said, and then closed his eyes again.
“Oh, no, no. You stay awake, Gabriel. Do you hear me? You stay awake!” I screamed.
A snide, cold voice came from the doorway. “What has happened here, Madeline?”
I looked up. Nathaniel stood in the doorway, goldenhaired and dressed in a Burberry coat and scarf. Disgust was etched on his features. I realized that Antares was gone—again. He must have done his disappearing act into a portal while I was concentrating on Gabriel. Apparently there was no amount of pain that could kill Antares’s instinct for self-preservation.
“Nathaniel, you have to take Gabriel to my father,” I said, pulling my hands away from the wound. I realized I was still holding the daylight rock and I opened my palm. There was a jagged circle branded on the skin. “Antares took this out of him. I don’t know what it is.”
The angel looked revolted. “It is a piece of his heart-stone. If the thrall dies, it is none of my concern. Lord Azazel sent me here to protect you, and I find you not at home, but out doing the precise thing he has ordered you not to do.”
I could not believe my father wanted me to marry this ass**le. I strode across the room and slapped him across the face. He looked shocked, holding his hand to the place where I’d hit him.
“Gabriel’s life is slipping away. You are the only one here who can open a portal. Take him to my father now,” I shouted.
“If you were not Lord Azazel’s daughter, I would kill you for that insult. I am not going to touch a half nephilim, and no fiancée of mine should be touching him either,” Nathaniel said haughtily.
My magic swirled up, hot and angry, and I knew that my eyes must have changed, because Nathaniel took a half step away from me. “You ... will ... bring ... him ... to ... my . . . father. If he dies, or if he even suffers a moment longer than necessary because of you, then believe this—I will ensure that you bleed every single day for the rest of your very, very long existence.”
He looked at me for a moment, and I saw the fear flicker across his face. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Believe it, scumbag,” I said, and as I spoke my power grew and grew, pushing until I felt that my skin was all that was holding it inside me.
Nathaniel seemed to consider; then he held out his hand for the stone. I placed it in his palm without a word and he grasped my hand with his free one.
“Know this, Madeline Black. I only do this as a favor to you, because you are my betrothed. But in the future, you will cleave unto me as your husband, and it is my wishes that will be obeyed.” His eyes were frosted with ice.
“We’ll see about that,” I said, and yanked my hand away.
He strode to Gabriel and lifted the half angel under his shoulders and knees. Gabriel did not stir. I could barely see the rise and fall of his chest.