The stone case shuddered violently, a flash of bluish light filling the chamber as it was struck from somewhere behind.
Slowly a figure emerged from behind the standing coffin of the Morningstar, dragging an enormous battle-axe crackling with the power of Heaven behind him. He was looking for damage in the surface of the stone case, not paying attention to anything else in the chamber.
Remy knew the figure at once, despite the Nomad’s haggard appearance. Suroth continued to walk around the case, unaware that he was no longer alone. The Nomad leader moved in closer to the sarcophagus, reaching out to run his hand over the surface, searching for any flaws that could be taken advantage of.
With a roar, he raised the Pitiless axe up over his head and brought it down upon the pall’s front. Again there was an explosion of sizzling blue, and the Nomad scrutinized where the weapon had struck.
It might have been a trick of the light, but Remy thought that he might have seen the beginning of a crack.
“Suroth, stop!” he bellowed, scrambling across the slippery surface, Pitiless pistol in hand. “This has to end now.”
The Nomad had raised the axe to strike at the coffin again but stopped, turning toward the angel.
At first Suroth appeared enraged, gripping the hilt of the battle-axe tighter, prepared to deal with the interloper, but his features softened as he recognized who approached.
“Remiel?” he asked, a smile forming on his haggard, blood-flecked features. “Can it be true?”
Remy stopped beyond the reach of the axe.
“It’s true, Suroth,” he said. “You have to stop this.”
The angel looked around, his wide, insane eyes taking in every bleak detail of the chamber in which they stood.
“Yes, you’re right. I have to stop this.”
With incredible speed and a roar of indignation, Suroth lashed out with the axe again, this time the wide blade causing visible damage in the surface of the great stone burial case.
Remy saw the wound appear as the blade struck, and reacted instinctively. This couldn’t be allowed to happen, no matter the cost, and he found himself raising the gun that he held tightly in his grasp. He listened to the chattering of the weapon, its promises to stop his enemy—all his enemies—forever and ever.
Remy fired the gun, hoping to injure the Nomad enough so that he would drop the axe and step away from the sarcophagus. The Colt Peacemaker roared like a lion, the muzzle flash illuminating the chamber in its celebration of violence.
But the unthinkable occurred.
As he fired, eyes squinting down the barrel of the weapon, Suroth moved, the arm holding the mighty axe placing the blade in the pathway of the bullet, deflecting the shot.
It was as if the Nomad leader had planned it.
The bullet ricocheted off the axe blade with a petulant whine, the shot then striking Lucifer’s pall close to where the previous blow had made its wound.
Suroth smiled.
“Thank you for the assistance, brother,” he said. “I’ll be sure to tell the Morningstar of your efforts.”
Tendrils of angel magick erupted from the Nomad’s free hand. The force lifted Remy from the ground and threw him backward against the nearby wall of ice.
The world exploded colorfully, and a curtain of black fell. Remy forced himself back to consciousness, listening as the gun begged him to fire again, to blast the smile off Suroth’s smug features, but he held back, hesitating to inflict any more unwanted damage.
“For millennia we stood on the sidelines, waiting with our decision,” Suroth said, eyes riveted to the break in the sarcophagus’ front. “He’d come to us—before the beginning of the war—knowing our feelings, our hurt over what was about to occur in the most holy of places.”
The Nomad leader turned the axe in his hand, deciding where he would strike next.
“He understood that we would not stand with him, but he told us that there would come a time when we would know who was right and who was wrong. And then it would become our job… our sacred duty to act on the side of right.”
Suroth’s eyes were suddenly upon Remy, holding him in place with their intensity.
“It’s time, Remiel.”
As if sensing Remy’s quandary, Madach launched his own attack, charging across the slick surface, sword poised, ready to strike.
The Nomad leader barely acknowledged the fallen angel’s presence, swinging the axe toward the damage already wrought in the surface of the coffin.
The sound of metal striking metal sounded in the chamber, and Remy was stunned to see that Madach had blocked the axe strike with the katana.
“No more,” he stated as Suroth withdrew his weapon with a growl.
“Can’t you see that I do this for you… for all who made the choice and have suffered for their decision?” Suroth stated, magickal discharge sparking from the tips of his fingers
Remy pushed off from the wall, raising the Pitiless Colt to fire. He had to take the chance; their options were dwindling by the moment. Pain was his latest foe, threatening to drag him down deep into numbing oblivion as he took aim.
“Get out of the way!” Remy screamed at Madach as he fired the gun. The fallen angel reacted, but not fast enough. The pistol discharged just as Suroth unleashed another blast of magickal fury. Madach was picked up and thrown viciously against the sarcophagus.
Remy couldn’t be certain, but he thought he might’ve heard the sound of multiple bones breaking upon impact.
Suroth gripped his shoulder as blood erupted from between his fingers. “I thought you, out of all of them, would understand,” the Nomad stated.
“I understand that this isn’t the way it should be,” Remy stated, still managing to stand while aiming down the barrel of the gun. “We need to get past this… past the horrors that we inflicted upon one another. It can never go back to the way it was.”
“But it can be made better,” Suroth urged.
Remy shook his head. “No, the war is over.”
The Nomad leader stood a little bit straighter then, removing his hand from the bullet wound in his shoulder.
“Not over,” he said, just as Remy sensed movement behind him.
The fallen prisoners of Tartarus spewed from the nearby tunnel mouth. Remy spread his wings, attempting to take flight over them, but there were many and they moved too fast. They gripped his ankles, his legs, pulling him down into a sea of them.
“Only a brief interlude before the final act.”
From between desperate, clawing fingers, Remy watched as Suroth moved closer to Lucifer’s pall, and to Madach lying broken before it.
The fallen moved like a single organism, preventing Remy from raising his arm and firing the gun. It wasn’t long before it was wrenched from his grasp, disappearing somewhere into the mass of them.
“It will be the dawning of a new angelic age,” the Nomad said, kicking away the samurai sword that the injured Madach was straining to reach. “The Creator surpassed by His creations—order brought to a universe in the throes of chaos.”
Suroth reached down, picking Madach up by the throat and hauling him into the air.
“He’ll be proven right,” Suroth said, pulling Madach in close to speak into his ear. “And the Lord God Almighty will be forced to bow before a new and glorious master.”
From beneath the overwhelming weight of the fallen, Remy watched as Madach’s hand fumbled at his back pocket, slowly withdrawing one of the Pitiless daggers that had managed not to be lost in their violent struggles.
Still dangling from the Nomad’s grasp, Madach struck, the arc of the blade directed toward Suroth’s throat. But the Nomad leader moved faster, the Pitiless axe dropping from his grip as he captured Madach’s wrist before the blade could bite.
Suroth twisted the dagger from the fallen angel’s hand, and tossed Madach away.