I watched as he continued to fight soldier after soldier. As he killed each one, a new one would pour from the portal. Hope planted itself in my heart. My dad could win this. He could.
Finally, he faced the Nephilim, who moved away from the bright (golden—thanks Evie, I get it, everything's golden) light. The portal shimmered and faded the closer the Nephilim came to my father.
"Let us end this," my father said, holding his sword forward.
I thought my father moved fast. But the Nephilim turned into a blur, moving at speeds the human eye couldn't even hold on to. Before my dad could even move, the Nephilim slammed a giant fist into the side of his face, knocking off his helmet.
I felt the blow in my own body, or at least that's what it seemed like. My dad flew backward, toward me, smashing into the ground below me. Half his face torn to shreds, broken, blood pouring out of flesh and bone.
I swallowed my own bile, tears sliding down my cheeks. The truck lurched forward, and I gripped the crystal box to keep from falling out.
My mom was leaving.
Without my dad.
I looked down at him again and saw his chest rise and fall, slowly, painfully, but he was definitely still alive.
"Scarlett, close the door!" My mother sounded desperate with tears in her voice.
But I couldn't be the good girl right now, doing what I was told, following the commands of others. I couldn't blindly obey. Not when my father was dying and needed my help.
It seemed hopeless, that much was true. A memory, unbidden, came to me. Of playing chess with my dad. His dark hair falling in his eyes as he moved the chess pieces around the board. I'd lost everything but my king. He still had an army. "I give up," I'd told him. "You win."
My dad smiled. "It's not over. If you persist, you can still tie the game. If you're left with no moves, then it's a stalemate. One can triumph over many, as long as she's too stubborn to lose." His grin was infectious, and I smiled back at him.
And I didn't give up. I used my one last piece on the board to tie the game.
Because I didn't give up.
As the truck moved again, I knew I had to make a choice.
Leave with my mother.
Or stay and help my dad.
I jumped off the truck. Maybe I couldn't win against the angel of death, but I could at least tie the game. One piece could still stop this.
I ran to my father and fell to my knees over his body just as the Nephilim arrived in a flurry of movement and rushing air.
The Nephilim raised a glowing sword and let it fall over my father's throat.
One cut and he would die.
I played the only move I had left to play.
I held out my hands.
And grabbed the blade in midair.
Chapter 4
Grey Blood
Pain.
Agonizing pain.
My attention flickered for a moment as I waited for the sword to slice through my body like warm butter.
But the Nephilim froze, as if in shock.
I held the blade as it cut through flesh, hitting bone. As blood covered me. As pain tore a new hole in me. I held the blade. This monster would not take my father from me.
I knew I couldn't last long, that I had to do something before my hands gave way to the bitterly sharp steel.
Everything happened in a breath.
I let go with one hand and tried to grab my father's sword, but the Nephilim lifted a powerful, armored leg and kicked me in the gut. All the air in my body rushed out in one near-fatal whoosh. My lungs cracked, and I flew into the night like a broken doll, limp and useless.
My body crashed to the hard dirt ground, and I tumbled across the field. I struggled to catch my breath, to regain my vision, to stay alive. Through a haze I saw the Nephilim ten meters away, soaring toward me with wings ablaze, sword smeared with my blood.
I couldn't move, couldn't think.
I had no pieces left to play.
I choked on my own blood as I prepared for death, knowing I'd failed my father.
But before the Nephilim could reach me, our truck crashed into it. The sound of metal crunching filled my head.
My vision blurred again, reality fading in and out. My mother. She'd come back. She could have left, could have saved herself, protected the weapon, but she came back.
I wanted to scream at her to leave, that dad was right, we couldn't win this one. It was too late. But she exited the truck, her small body coiled and ready to strike. She looked at me, her eyes moist. "Run. Scarlett, you have to find a way to run. I'll distract them. I love you."
I tried to sit up, to stop her, to tell her we would leave together, but a wave of dizziness and pain sent my mind tumbling into the past.
Another time. Another place. A hot pipe falling toward me. I was little, just a girl. My mother pushed me out of the way and the pipe hit her instead. She carried the scar to this day. She called it the scar of a mother's love.
And now my mother would sacrifice her life to save me.
Just as my father had.
My mother ran toward the Nephilim. I waited in horror to see her cut down by that bloody sword, her petite frame impaled upon it.
But something changed. She changed. Her body began to… bend, break, shift. As tears of blood ran down my face, I watched her, the woman who'd raised me my whole life, turn from a woman into something else. Fur formed on her once smooth skin, dark and thick. Her hands elongated into deadly claws. She shifted into a Lycan, something I'd thought only those under the authority of the Catholic Church and the Inquisition could do.
I had no time for shock. Disbelief. Questions. All of that would come later. For now I knew that she would lose the fight if I didn't help. As a Lycan—a werewolf—she had strength. Power. Speed. She fought the Nephilim, and I fought my pain and dizziness, willing myself to stand, to search around me for a weapon.