Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6) - Lan Chan (libby ebook reader txt) 📗

her head had been filled with an impossible goal that makes her soul susceptible. It won’t matter what protects her once she gives in.” He raised a brow at me. “What was it you said?” He did a perfect imitation of my voice. “At the end of the line, I’m glad it’ll be you and me.”

It took everything in me not to react to the knowledge that he’d intercepted my last message to Sophie. What else did he already know?

More than fear, an intensely dark hatred bubbled up in my throat. “Even if you kill her,” I ventured, “Azrael will claim her soul.”

Grey lightning cracked around Apollyon’s hunched figure at the sound of Azrael’s name. He emitted a sharp hiss that left no doubt about his feelings.

“Azrael will reap the souls of those who are worthy. But before this is done, your precious Sophie might no longer fit that description. After all, like great-grandfather, like great-granddaughter.”

Just when I thought I’d reached the tip of my hatred for him, Lucifer produced a thin glass vial from his sleeve and held it up to the light. My breath caught in my throat.

“What was that bargain you made?” he teased. “Blood for potion? I’m sure by now you know you’ve been swindled. Your blood is worth so much more than a piddly concoction. That half-wit mage gave it up pretty quickly when pressed.”

The grin he shot at Asmodeus could have melted butter. Lucifer tossed the vial in Apollyon’s direction. Despite my fervent hope that it would smash on the ground, the fiend caught it with a great deal more grace that his creaky body should have possessed.

“Go,” Lucifer commanded. “Reap them both. Take back what should be yours.”

As Apollyon squeezed himself back through the portal, Lucifer latched his attention to me once more.

“Do you know how your beloved got his name?”

Behind me, Rebecca squeaked. My chest lurched as her grip on my emotions snagged. Steeling myself, I shrugged. “Baby-names-dot-com?”

His chuckle was laced with hostile amusement. “Why don’t you do me the honour, Rebecca?”

Though I could feel the terror rattling through her, Rebecca stepped up to my side. In defiance of everything she’d told me, she clutched my left hand in both of hers. “When Kai was born, Raphael saw something special in him,” she said. “Everybody believes he was named for the crystal that bears the green of his eyes. But Raphael bestowed on him the name of those angels who gave their lives to help secure the earth dimension after the barriers were broken.”

For the first time, a vein in Lucifer’s jaw twitched. The image in the hanging mural changed to one of stark whiteness in which hundreds of thousands of angels broke ranks and charged against his army. What got me was that they weren’t angels bound to the heavenly realm. My bone magic showed me the Ley sight in which I saw they were grounded in the earth.

A cry lodged in my throat. “Guardian angels,” I breathed.

Rebecca nodded. “The malachim.”

The reverence in her voice was directly opposed to the scathing disdain in Lucifer’s. “Malachim,” he spat, “worthless animals. But my brother loved them. They were his emissaries to guide the humans. Every one of them slain but not unmade. Does Azrael watch over them?”

There was no need for him to answer. The image in the mural became a real-time depiction of Apollyon creeping through yet another portal. His destination bore the same red tint in the sky denoting the Hell dimension. He moved his awful gait in the direction of a mound of writhing demon bodies in the distance. Rebecca’s grip almost shattered the bones in my hand when Apollyon crept closer and the demon ranks parted to reveal a lone figure.

The world stilled around me, and I stopped breathing. My ears filled with the dying keen from demon throats as a black-eyed Kai tore them apart one after the other. Whatever had happened to him in that split second before I destroyed the dimension, his soul was no longer anchored in his body. He had become an empty, merciless killer.

The only bright side was that he wasn’t on Earth. Apollyon lurched towards him.

Unable to control himself except through blind instinct, Kai stepped up to Apollyon. The demon did nothing to move out of the way of Kai’s unwavering focus. Kai took a running start as Apollyon uncorked the vial of my blood. He shrugged off his tattered cloak and I almost threw up when his skin and bones melted along with it.

“No,” Rebecca wailed as Kai made contact with Apollyon in his true form. The demon possessed Kai. A swirl of blackest ink smoked from Kai’s bare chest even as he fell to his knees. The blood in the vial formed a ring around Kai’s neck, settling into a blackened tattoo of thorny vines. My brand keeping him contained.

As Apollyon used Kai’s body to push himself up, the demons around him fell to their knees. But they were inconsequential to his vision. Instead, he raised the spiritual embodiment of the vessel he had chosen. Hundreds of thousands of dark, winged beings of angelic grace twisted through the torment in the Abyss.

“Go,” Apollyon spoke in Kai’s voice. “Take away the things she loves.”

The mural image changed to show me the Reserve draped in the quiet solitude of night. Durin and Professor McKenna sat in the conference room, their heads bent in discussion. A guttural howl of a wolf sentry pierced the stillness. The last thing we saw before Lucifer snuffed the mural was thousands of twisted malachim converging on the conference room.

With a snap of Lucifer’s fingers, the mural disappeared altogether. “Do not fail me again.”

The dismissal rang in my ears, but it was smothered by the intensity of my internal wailing. The despair would have floored me if not for Rebecca fortifying my soul. And in the remaining depth of emotion, a spark ignited.

He thought so little of her. Lucifer was convinced that Sophie would fail. But misjudging humans