Page 40 of Serendipity

Terror. She was shaking with fucking terror. I moved around the chair, standing in front of her, blocking her view of the angel with the huge white wings.

“She belongs to us,” I growled, lifting my gun. Then I shot him in the chest.

Serendipity gasped, but the angel just looked down at his chest. It didn’t even leak any blood.

“Your stupid mortal weapons won’t hurt me. I will repeat. Give me the woman. She belongs to Uriel.”

I dropped my gun onto Serendipity's lap and pulled out my long bowie knife. “You fucking hard of hearing? She’ll never belong to him. She. Is. Mine.” I launched myself at the angel, and for the first time in a very long time, let the Horseman take over me completely. It was a weird sensation, like a pale mist coating my body, filling me with power.

The angel took a surprised step backwards, fear on his face for the first time. Yeah, that's right fucker. Not so immortal faced with a fucking Horseman of the Apocolypse, are you?

“This can’t be possible! We did not know Lucifer had chosen.” He tried to pull his fancy ornamental sword from his hip, but I was fast and made for bringing down angels. I was on him quickly, my knife slashing at his throat. He moved backwards, well trained as one of Heaven’s legions should be, but not fast enough. I whet my blade with angel blood. His sword came down, but I danced away, aiming low and scoring another shot to his side. The angel hissed, becoming more enraged. I grinned, the blood crusted to my face cracking.

“You seem to be leaking, your Eminence.” Fuck, this was better than fucking. This was everything.

This made the bitter, dark life I lived totally worth it. This is the moment I was reborn for.

I spun again, feinting low, but slashing him across the face. When it came down to it, nothing I did would kill the angel. Only one thing could kill an Angel. The Sword of St Michael. But I could make him hurt. I could make him regret coming into my house and trying to take what was mine.

My hand moved faster than my eyes could follow, though the angel had his sword up now and was swinging just as wildly to block my hits. But my knife was a close range weapon and he couldn’t get his sword high enough to get a good hit in. I’d be down if he did. I was starting to bleed ribbons of bright red blood from the various slashes, but none of them big enough to be mortal.

Finally, I got a good shot into his stomach, dragging my knife upwards until the barbs got caught on some ribs.

The angel gasped and stepped away. “The child is an abomination. The Father won’t let this rest.”

“Oh, I think you would be surprised what the Father would allow, Livinius,” a new voice said, and I spun again, stepping back towards where Serendipity stood at my back.

“Archangel Michael,” Livinius said breathlessly.

The new Angel, the motherfucking Archangel Michael, was equally as big as the one with my knife lodged in his gut. But he felt so, so much bigger. His power made my skin crawl, made the Horseman run and hide back in my body like a scared kitten. Shit. Fuck. Shit fuck shit fuck shit! I bared my teeth and stood over the woman. If I let her die, then Cain and Sol would die with her. They wouldn’t be able to take that again. They’d only known her a couple of days, but they’d tied her fate

to theirs.

I grabbed both my gun and the one Serendipity had. I held them out, but the Archangel just laughed.

“Relax, Horseman. I do not want your consort. Though it amuses me how fate has brought you together. The cause of the Great Fall, and the instruments of the End of Days. It is like the beginning met the end, and I love the irony of that.” He looked past me to Sera. “Ah, you have always been a predicament, Child of the Fallen. Nurturing another Child who should not be. Causing another to fall.

Fate is nothing if not cyclical. But I believe, as Hope Jones would say, you have been much sinned against already in your life. There will be no more interference from above. Be careful of the zealots of Uriel. Lucifer’s Fallen are working at eliminating them, but they will want the child. He has worked them up into a frenzy that can only perpetuate evil, and you will have to bear the brunt of that.”

He gazed disapprovingly at Livinius, who looked like he was about to shit his white pants. “The Father is here. I would start practicing your prostrating, Livinius,” he said in a low, disapproving tone that made my knees turn to water. Livinius poofed out like the chicken shit he was. The fucking Archangel Michael turned his gaze back to me. “Until we meet again, Horseman.”

Then they were both gone and I was alone in the room with the woman. She was sobbing on her knees, though I had no idea at what point she’d fallen from the chair. Wetness fell on my cheeks too, and I swiped through the single tear tracks on my cheeks, glad no one was here to see them. But standing in the presence of such immense power was painfully wonderful. Or wonderfully painful. I turned to the woman, putting my hands under her elbows, pulling her to her feet with gentle hands. She felt insubstantial, and I kept my grip on her tight.

“Are you okay?” My voice was rough, even mean. For once, I hadn’t meant to be gruff.

She said nothing, continuing to tremble and cry beneath my hands. Fuck.

I followed my instincts and pulled her to my chest. She buried her face in my chest, and her cries turned from soft to full body-wracking sobs. Shit. Did I just make it worse? I went to move away, but she clung to my shoulders like I was the last port in the fucking shitstorm of her life.

“It’s okay. We’ve dealt with fucking psycho angels now. Some shitty mobsters in cheap suits will be nothing. It’s okay,” I repeated but it didn’t seem to help. I tilted her head back, until she was forced to look at me.

Then I kissed her.

Gently at first, but then with increasing pressure, until she was clinging to my lips with the same intensity that she was clinging to my back. I traced the crease of her lips with my tongue, bit her full bottom lip roughly until she whimpered. I consumed her, breathed her into the empty cavity in my chest. Then the doors opened and Solomon rushed in, Cain and Judas so close behind him that when he slammed to a stop they ran into his back.

I jumped away from her like she was poison.

I glared at my Brothers, the other Horsemen, until they moved out of the way and I could step out into the war zone. I was more confident surrounded by dead bodies and bullets.

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