To Love a Celestial

Chapter Forty-One: The Power of Names

Deimos landed a ways off and both were unaware of what had occurred. They only knew the fighting had ceased. Azrael leaped from Deimos' arms and sprinted into the smoke and fire ignoring all protests from Deimos. She fought back tears as the smoke burnt her lungs. Raden couldn't be dead. Not now.

"STOP!" Deimos yelled. "We don't know what's in there." He stopped dead in his tracks behind Azrael who had frozen. Deimos had already spotted Raden but when he looked at Azrael she was wide eyed, staring at the body ahead. He leaned down. "It's not him."

She blinked her eyes rapidly and looked up at him. "What?"

"Look." Deimos pointed toward the middle of the group. Azrael followed and saw a tall figure standing over the body. Sword grasped tight, ready to swing again. She felt that her knees might give way.

"Raden?" She called out. The angel turned his head ever so slightly but enough for Azrael to notice. "Raden!" This time he turned to find who was calling out. As soon as Azrael saw his face, she bolted. Tears blurred her vision as she raced towards Raden.

Raden dropped his weapon just in time to catch Azrael. He wrapped her in a tight embrace as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. "I've got you. I've got you," he muttered over and over. The shock had overcome all his senses and at that moment nothing seemed real.

~~~*~~~

A large fire had been started to clean up the bodies of the dead infernal that littered the streets. The fallen soldiers of Ifera would be laid to rest at another time in honor of their bravery. The body of Merikh was tossed into the fire as the death angels stood around watching the corpse being destroyed along with any of the intentions Merikh had of destroying this world.

The portals that Merikh had opened were closed the moment of his last breath. Any infernal that managed to make it through drop dead in an instance. There wasn't an explanation as to why, and wouldn't be one until such magic could be studied.

Azrael sat among some rubble watching the fires burst into embers every now and again as a body was thrown in. She was tired of seeing dead and couldn't stomach joining in.

She noticed Raden quietly walking over and sitting next to her. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Are you doing okay?"

She nodded slightly but never broke contact with the fire. "He killed Arjan," her voice was scratchy as she spoke. The smoke had done quite a number.

"What?"

"She tried to stop him. He didn't like that she was getting in his way." Raden wrapped an arm around Azrael and pulled her closer. She rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes in exhaustion.

~~~*~~~

Two Gods had been killed. The four elements of supposed creation were now completely out of balance, and that would be detrimental to the universe. Raden had absolutely no clue what would be done now.

"Hey, Raden." One of the death angels noticed Raden walking towards them. The angel's face dropped when he saw the look of exhaustion mixed with worry. "What's going on?"

Raden sighed, "We have a bigger problem." They all perked up. "Arjan is dead."

"What!"

Raden rubbed the back of his neck. Which he always did when the anxiety got the best of him. "I know, I know."

"Do you know what kind of chaos this is going to cause? Not to mention the fact that now there's going to be a huge fight amongst the Gods of who will take their places."