She screamed as the electricity danced through her body, over muscle, into bone, under skin. Some of her feathers caught fire and she slammed herself frantically into the walls of the cavern, trying to put out the flames.
Ramuell stumbled away from her and I blasted him, too. The nephilim roared in pain, writhing in the dirt, and an answering cry came from its brethren in the next chamber.
“Yes,” I said, and blasted her again. Her screams became louder and more terrified, and I kept on hitting her with the same spell. “Yes.”
I started to laugh, and as I laughed and hit Ariell again and again I felt something twist inside me. I knew it wasn’t me that gloried in the terror of another.
“Show yourself, Evangeline,” I said, and curled my hands into fists, trying to stop the maniacal flow of magic.
She deserves to suffer for what she has done, Evangeline said, and her voice was inside my head, my blood, my muscles and bones. My fists uncurled of their own volition and magic flowed through me, from me, to torture Ariell. The angel arched on the floor and screamed as electricity burned her up from the inside. She clawed at her skin, just as Antares had done, and the flesh fell away in thin ribbons as she tried to get the magic out.
“Stop it!” I shouted. I was nothing but a puppet to Evangeline. “You have no right to murder her for your own vengeance.”
It is your vengeance as well, Granddaughter. She is responsible for the death of your mother, of your friend.
She was right, and part of me did want to kill Ariell and Ramuell for that. But defending yourself in battle wasn’t the same as cold-blooded murder. Like I’d told Gabriel, I was supposed to be the good guy.
Ramuell started to rise and white fire poured out of my palms, setting the nephilim aflame. He screamed in torment and the cavern was filled with the stench of his cooking flesh.
“We can’t kill them!” I cried out desperately. “It’s wrong!”
Wrong? Evangeline’s voice was cold and furious. Wrong? It is wrong to punish those who took me from Lucifer, who would have murdered his children in cold blood for their own aims, their own petty lust for power? It is wrong to punish those responsible for the deaths of my grandchildren, who destroyed my direct line so utterly that you are the last survivor? It is wrong to punish those who murdered your mother and who would murder you the same way? No, my granddaughter. It is not wrong. It is wrong to show them mercy.
I struggled to close my fists, to shut off the flow of magic. I wanted to capture Ariell, to have her brought to Azazel for her crimes. I didn’t want to be an instrument of murder.
But Ramuell, I thought to myself. Ramuell, I wouldn’t mind killing. If I killed him, Katherine might be set free.
“No,” I said out loud, and as the conviction in me grew I felt Evangeline in my mind, grasping for control. “No. I’m not like them. I won’t be a monster.”
And then I heard Beezle’s voice in my head saying, “Concentrate, concentrate,” and I did. I thought of the little match flame inside me, the one that was blazing like a bonfire at the moment. I thought of Evangeline, lurking in my blood. I knew I wouldn’t be able to shut off the flow of magic while she was inside me. But Gabriel had said my will was strong. That was how I’d overcome the spell he’d put on me, the one to make me compliant.
So instead of trying to shut off the flow of magic, I used my will and my strength to turn it inside, to find Evangeline inside me and chase her out. The electricity that sparked from my fingertips reversed course, flowing back through my veins. I screamed in agony as it tripped through my blood, a hunter seeking its prey. I could no longer keep myself aloft and I fell to Earth in a tumble of wings and bones. I heard something crunch in my leg and nearly went blind from the pain.
Evangeline screamed, Granddaughter, what are you doing?
I could feel her inside me, shrinking away from my power, trying to make herself smaller and smaller. The electricity burned through every inch of me, leaving no cell unturned as it searched for Evangeline.
She burrowed into a corner of my mind, but my magic wanted only one thing. I heard her screaming as it came for her, and her screams were my screams as the magic devoured me to find her.
Then I felt something in my head pop, and a moment later a gush of blood came from my recently broken nose. My magic cut off in an instant. The bonfire lowered to a match flame again, and I opened my eyes to see Evangeline standing before me, not as a ghost or a memory, but a corporeal being. Her face was alight with fury.
“How dare you?” she shrieked, pulling at her hair like a madwoman. “How dare you? I have waited eons for vengeance, waited eons for a vessel with the strength that you have.”
I sat up and swiped at my nose with the sleeve of my sweater. I could taste the tang of dirt and my own blood in my mouth. “Yeah, well, I’m not your fucking vessel, am I? I’m Madeline Black, daughter of Azazel, and of Katherine Black, and I will not be used by anyone, not even you, Grandma.”
She howled in frustration, scraped her nails along her cheeks and left rivulets of blood. I rolled my eyes at her and assessed the latest damage to my very-human form.
Every part of me hurt. I flapped my wings and used them to level myself to a standing position, floating a few feet above the ground. I didn’t want to put any pressure on my left ankle, as it was definitely broken.
The smell of rotten barbecue permeated my abused nose and I spun in a circle, suddenly remembering Ariell and Ramuell. They were both unconscious. Ariell’s skin looked boiled, but her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Most of her wings were burned off. There were just a few white feathers, gray now from smoke, clinging to a twisted cartilage frame. This, more than anything, made me feel sorry for her. She looked so small and pathetic without her wings.
Ramuell was a shapeless, blackened hulk. It seemed he had tried to curl himself into a ball to put out the flames and more or less melted in that position. Somehow the monstrous thing still breathed.
So, I had my two villains—and one crazy Lost Mother—and no way to contact anyone or to transport them to Azazel. Well, I did have my cell phone, but it was in my jacket pocket at the bottom of the underground path. And I doubted I could get a cell signal in the Forbidden Lands anyway.
“Hey,” I called to Evangeline, who had fallen to the ground and was pounding it with her fists. “Hey, crazy lady. I need you for a second.”
She looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed and insane. “And why should I help you, betrayer of my blood?”
“Cut the drama,” I snapped. “I’ve got to get in touch with someone to pick up these two losers, and I don’t know how to do it. You’ve been manipulating my magic all this time, so you probably know how to do some long-distance communication, right?”
Her eyes widened, and then she started to laugh, a mad witch’s cackle.
“Okay, whatever,” I said, and that was when Ramuell tore out my heart.
I didn’t have any time to feel pain. My soul snapped its tether and floated away from my shell the instant the nephilim’s claws burst through my ribs. I saw my broken body thrown aside. The nephilim screamed in triumph and ate my still-beating heart while I watched. Then he went to Evangeline, scooped her from the ground and bit off her head. I heard her soul fall screaming into his gaping maw.