The sudden intensity of her fear crawled up her throat, choking her. His eyes were boring into her, his smile maniacal and amused, and he wanted to hurt her. Kill her. Slash her to bits with a big knife and enjoy it. Her first instinct was to run, but she knew that was a bad idea. The cemetery was dark, the paths were gravel, tombs rising in all directions, creating a maze that was easy to get lost in. And Raphael was immortal, with powers she didn’t understand.
She would have to stand her ground, because despite the unnerving feeling of Raphael’s eyes on her, she knew that Gabriel was between the two of them. He would protect her.
He already was.
With a speed that made an involuntary yelp leave her mouth, Gabriel was on Raphael in a dark blur. The flashlight hit the ground, plunging her into darkness, but she could hear the sounds of combat, fists landing, grunts of pain, heavy breathing. Then Gabriel must have shoved Raphael backward, because she saw him bounce off a tomb fence in the light from a street lamp. Raphael landed on the ground and rolled onto his side, swearing.
Sara, stay back, she heard in that insidious whisper Gabriel used, that erotic and comforting display of connectedness. He was in her heart, he’d been in her body, now he was in her mind.
“Okay,” she said out loud, because it felt more natural to whisper the words than to think them. As soon as she spoke, she realized why he had urged her to stay away.
A beam of light shot forth from Gabriel, pinning a groaning Raphael on the ground.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she whispered, shocked and awed in spite of what she had already known. The white translucent light illuminated the entire pathway, leaving Gabriel through his fingertips in a straight line and smoldering as it hit Raphael. Marguerite was visible again in the vivid light, cowering away from Raphael on the ground, tucking herself into a one-sided fetal position, one arm and one leg stretched out toward Raphael. Sara squinted, wondering why Marguerite was leaning like that, and realized there were transparent shackles connecting Marguerite to Raphael. Her left leg and wrist were bound to his right.
That was probably the most disturbing thing Sara had seen yet, and she eased back, clinging to the tomb next to her, wanting more space between her and Raphael. More space between her and what she didn’t, couldn’t, understand.
Raphael writhed in pain under the assault of Gabriel’s light, but suddenly he shot straight up into the air vertically, Marguerite screaming and dangling below him, one of her sandals dropping off and hitting the fence of the tomb beneath them. She quickly righted herself and hovered next to Raphael, her arms crossed, head tucked in, shoulders slumped.
Raphael yelled in anger, “Gabriel, this has nothing to do with you. Leave and we’ll call it even.”
Sara watched Gabriel rise straight up in the air to stand in front of Raphael, graceful and masculine, his body tight with tension, hands in fists, voice strong and steady and confident. “It’s not a matter of anything being even. It’s a matter of doing what’s right. You know what can be done to a fallen one.”
“Yes, but if you do that to me, you have to do it to Marguerite, and you won’t. I know you won’t.”
Sara thought Raphael was wrong. Gabriel would do what was right, what was necessary. She felt it radiating from him, like the light from his fingers, a moral strength, a conviction of character, a decision. It awed and overwhelmed her to see him as he truly was, in his element, freed from the worry and torment of thinking he might have killed Anne.
He had forgiven himself and was prepared to do the right thing.
Sara’s fear eased, and she moved from behind the tomb to get a better view, to stand under the light of fallen angels.
Gabriel saw his advantage at Raphael’s words. Raphael thought he could hide behind Marguerite’s skirts, that Gabriel wouldn’t be able to punish her. But Gabriel saw no reason to protect Marguerite. She had chosen her path, she had killed innocent women, brutally and incomprehensibly, alongside Raphael. They had acted as a serial killing team. The violence and senselessness of their perversion of their power disgusted him so thoroughly that he had no qualms about vanquishing both of them. It was his responsibility to protect humans, to protect Sara, and he would do whatever was necessary.
So he used his power, allowing himself to unleash it entirely, to feel the true scope of all that he was for the first time in one hundred and fifty years. It channeled and flowed through him, all his energy, all his strength, all the goodness he had ever owned, and it rose up strong and right and sure and turned on Raphael. The impact was like a spontaneous combustion. The second Gabriel’s energy hit Raphael, the sky exploded with light, rippling out from the demon in glaring white rings, sending Gabriel’s own power rushing back over him, warm and intense.
With twin screams of shock and rage, Raphael and Marguerite fell to the ground, their bodies hitting hard, a cloud of air, dust, and light unfurling in all directions.
Gabriel dropped himself lower to get a closer look and he felt it then—the wave of sorrow, of human suffering, the release of the souls of Anne and Jessie and the other women Marguerite and Raphael had killed. It flowed over him like a humid rush of air, wrapping around him and immersing him in the pain, the grief, the tears, the magnitude of human agony.
Instead of trying to close himself off, or stagger under the weight the way he had always done, Gabriel stood straight as he hovered in the air, hands out, and accepted it, took the pain, took the pleas, and absorbed them into himself. Death was the beginning, not the end, and his responsibility, his guardian-ship, was to comfort, reassure, steer mortals in the direction of beauty and pleasure and contentment, to ease their human suffering.
He wanted to do that again.
Watch. Guide. Protect.
Sara was standing directly behind him, having abandoned her hiding place behind the tomb. She stared at him in wonder, eyes wide, cheeks pale, mouth open.
“What happened?” she asked.
“They’re dead,” he said, hoping that she could handle that reality. It had been necessary.
“Dead?” she whispered, her voice a little shaky, and she glanced down at the bodies. “How? And where’s the flashlight? I can’t really see anything.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Gabriel searched around on the ground and found the flashlight where he had dropped it, the beam pointing in the opposite direction of Sara. He went to her and put it in her hand, squeezing her gently. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“How do you know they’re dead?” she asked, pointing the light directly onto Raphael and Marguerite.