Azrail's breath caught in his throat and his running footsteps faltered as Maia plunged a glowing silver hand into the chest of a creature and tore out its heart.
"Saints," he breathed, resuming his run and shaking with adrenaline.
His magic snapped through him as the snaking force of it bumped head-first into a stone, and Az scrambled to wrest control of it before it slipped away. His smoke could do little more than grab hold of someone, but what hecoulddo, as saint of the dead, was kill.
The others wanted to fix the circle's stones, but Az would be satisfied with their power going dead. Not dormant. Dead.
He didn't hesitate, didn't allow himself to second guess his actions, and drove his power up into the first stone like a spear. He went over everything he knew about the nameless saint, the Wolven Lord. It wasn't much; everything had been ripped out of the history books. Every account about him had been burned, scratched out of stone, and his temples destroyed. Az remembered walking through the one in the heart of Vassalaer, and the creeping sense it had given him.
Why erase only one saint from the saints tales?
Because they fear,a dark rumble moved through his mind. An answer. Not in his own voice.
"Can I kill this thing?" he demanded breathlessly, sweat running down his forehead as he sent his smoke exploding through the stone and into the crack.
No, the Wolven Lord replied.
"Great," Azrail gasped, but the saint hadn't said he couldn't damage it, so he pushed more power up through the ground.
But you can kill those,the saint added as a mangled arm breached the pure death Azrail had spread across the stone’s crack, pushing through the dark, smoky veil.
The beasts had come into this world through the cracks, as if it was a tear between worlds. If Azrail let death linger in that doorway…
He swore, more in surprise than fear, when the blackened arm became a shoulder, then a chest, with a grotesque head attached—too fae, too normal, with the same eyes Azrail could see in any of his people.
Please, please work.
He was close enough to see those eyes go dull, close enough to hear the empty thud as the creature fell into this world, its life drained from it.
Azrail exhaled roughly.
Eight more cracks, cub,the Wolven Lord said, wry but deadly serious in the same breath.
Azrail was out of breath, covered in sweat, and his head pounded hard enough to muffle his hearing. He'd only closedone.
"This could kill me," he said, and it was a serious worry.
It could kill your mate,the Wolven Lord countered, deep and throaty.
Well. He was a convincing bastard, Az would give him that.
And mine,the saint added.History is on repeat, have you noticed?
"Not the time," Az bit out as Maia dug her claws—longer than they'd been this morning or even a minute ago—into the arm of a creature reaching for her and ripped the entire limb off.
It howled in pain.
Az slammed his hands over his ears, the howl so loud it made his head throb with pain, but the sound had been undeniably human.Beastkind. The creature lashed out with venom-laced claws, but Maia didn't stop. She tore off its other arm and ripped out its heart, not missing a beat before she spun for the next beast, and the next.
"Holy fuck," Azrail breathed, faltering so badly that the others caught up to him, Ark giving him an assessing look.
"The cracks," Az choked out. "Get Bryon to seal them, stop anything coming through. I'm working on it, but it takes too much of my energy."
"You look ready to pass out," Ark chastised, but grabbed his arm and hauled him through the grass and into the stone circle.
The dark power of this place made Azrail’s bones freak, his teeth gritted against the alien pulsing. The whole place smelled of blood and magic.
Vawn and Jaro stood by the bloodied stone in the centre where so many people had been needlessly slaughtered, Jaro speaking in a low rush, almost ... pleading.