“I’m sorry, Boaz,” Sebastian said, drawing our attention back to him, “but today one of us has to die. And it won’t be me.”
Sebastian extended his left arm. The wing on that side arose from his back and spread forward, as if tied to the motion of his arm.
With one lightning fast, sweeping motion, Sebastian guided his wing around the semi-circle of bodies. None of us could move, as we were al held captive by Heather’s wil .
I felt the sting of something sharp cutting into the flesh of my throat as the feathery extension passed by. I didn’t need to look to know that we’d al suffered the same fate.
Sebastian had just drawn our blood.
When his wing came to rest at his side, it was dripping with fresh blood. Heather stepped toward Sebastian, stopping about five feet away. She raised her arms straight out at her sides and let her head fal back, a blatant mockery of hanging on the cross.
Without hesitation, Sebastian swung the razor edge of his deadly wing across her throat as wel . She didn’t so much as flinch.
After the wing returned to its folded position at Sebastian’s back, he reached behind him and pul ed out the short, bloodied feather with one quick yank. He studied it for a fraction of a second before he slid his tongue along the length of it, smacking his lips as he savored the flavor.
Final y, he turned the feather sword in his hand to wield it like a stake.
When Sebastian turned to ful y face Bo, my heart jumped up into my throat. I recognized this moment. I knew it like an unshakable nightmare. This was the moment, THE moment, that I’d seen in my vision.
An indescribable fear, mingled with an overwhelming helplessness, rose up to choke me. The scene was only seconds away from taking place exactly as I’d seen it, only there was one problem. I wasn’t free to put myself between Bo and Sebastian. And if I couldn’t stand between them then the wrong man would die.
I began to fight against my invisible restraints as my eyes darted between the two men. But it was no use; I could barely move inside Heather’s powerful hold. As my mind raced for a solution, I struggled desperately to hold at bay the panic that threatened to suffocate me.
But then something amazing happened, something that would forever change the outcome of this ultimate battle between good and evil. It was so divine, it could only have come from one source. The God that Sebastian had boasted that he’d already defeated was pul ing the ace out of his sleeve.
Raising his chin defiantly, Bo flexed his shoulders. From the center of his back arose two enormous white wings. Like Sebastian, their emergence destroyed his shirt, leaving the tattered remains to fal silently from his shoulders.
I couldn’t quiet the soft gasp at the sight of him. It was as if the angel that he’d carried inside him al his life had burst forth from him to chal enge and to save the world around him. He was magnificent.
Bo’s skin turned a golden brown, the sheen of it glistening in the dim moonlight that poured through the hole in the roof.
It was as though a river of life had suddenly overtaken the dam that held it at bay. It flowed through him, flowed from him. It rushed over me like a warm breeze, teasing the hair at my temples.
Bo shook his shoulders and his wings trembled in response, as if they felt the power surging through him. Light glistened on the iridescent feathers making them appear as mother of pearl.
A confidence, a deadly assurance radiated from Bo. It shone from his eyes. Even though they were not turned toward me, I could see it. I could see it in the way the darkness itself seemed to recede from his gaze. I smel ed it in the unmistakable scent of triumph in the air.
Twisting his body, Bo reached around and did as Sebastian had done. He removed a single feather with one quick yank. As he held it in front of his body, the moonlight glinted off the blade-like edge.
Without taking his eyes off Sebastian, Bo waved his hand around the semi-circle and the invisible bonds Heather had restrained us with fel away, leaving us al to fal in weak-kneed heaps on the dirt floor.
As I watched Bo and Sebastian circle each other like two primal warriors, I fought to get electrical stimulus to the paralyzed muscles of my legs, stimulus that would al ow me to move. But somehow the connection was broken. It was as if the link between my mind and my lower half had been severed.
And then the battle began.
In a lunge that happened so quickly even my acute vampire vision could barely track it, Sebastian struck out at Bo. Bo darted left to avoid it, slicing the back of Sebastian’s neck as he passed.
Bo pushed Heather aside. She stumbled, but rather than coming back at him, she continued to back away as if to say This is not my fight. I’m only all in when I know I can win. I thought such an attitude was typical of the Prince of Darkness.
With a single flap of his wings, Sebastian leapt into the air and then fel on Bo, swinging his weapon in a downward stabbing motion. Bo dodged the worst of the hit, but the deadly feather stil grazed the skin of his chest, leaving a bloody streak in its wake.
Bo recovered quickly, sidestepping Sebastian and throwing himself into the air to twirl over Sebastian’s head like a graceful bird. Sebastian, in an attempt to anticipate Bo’s landing, spun on his heel and struck out with his feather in a single quick jab.
Sebastian overshot his real target, but his deadly weapon made contact with another. I heard Annika’s gasp of surprise as the feather tore through her chest and entered her heart like a knife slicing through butter.
Both Bo and Sebastian paused for a few seconds, each of them watching Annika as she slumped slowly over onto her face. The last gurgling sounds of her body were muffled by the dirt, but they reverberated through the silence of the room.
“Another victim whose death can be laid at your feet,”
Sebastian taunted.
Using Bo’s shock to his advantage, Sebastian turned and swept his feather through the air like a fencing champion, backing Bo away, step by step. Final y, when Bo ran into a wooden support beam for the barn, he raised his own feather and brought it down across Sebastian’s and then he danced quickly away.
Sebastian simply turned toward Bo as he moved away, fol owing him with his eyes until he stopped. With a sinking feeling, I recognized the position that the two men were in.
Bo was on one side of the semi-circle, Sebastian on the other and they faced one another across the expanse of earth that lay between them.
Sebastian took one step toward Bo and stopped. Bo matched him by doing the same. I knew that the two were literal y steps away from one of their deaths.
Closing my eyes, I said a quick prayer and I focused with al my might. I visualized my legs moving, coming under me, pushing me to my feet and propel ing me across the short space. I visualized putting my body between the two fighting angels.