Taking a life was hard enough. Luce had hated himself every time he had needed to do so, and that was with veritable strangers. This act would take a heavy toll on his son. His fury for Gabriel mounted impossibly higher in that moment, burning through him in a blistering torrent.
He turned to Michael. The angel took in his expression, nodding without a word. Luce turned back to his Fallen. “Wait for word from me, but prepare for a fight. I can’t predict how Gabriel will respond to this confrontation.”
Remi stepped forward, slamming her closed fist to her chest in a salute. “We’ll be ready, my King.”
Luce laid a hand on her shoulder, then swept his gaze over the others. “Thank you...my friends.”
Then he turned and swept from the room, Michael slipping back into his familiar position at the King’s side.
Gabe stood in the middle of a wrecked hospital room, watching a young man fall to pieces. Foster wasn’t simply having an emotional breakdown; he was quite literally falling topieces.Long strips of flesh tore from any areas of exposed skin only to be quickly regrown.
Still, the violent wind whipping the hospital room continued to rip at his clothing and body. His t-shirt hung in tatters; his previously distressed jeans were now completely shredded. Gabe remained untouched in a small pocket of space he had shaped around himself in the nick of time.
“Foster,” he called out, trying to amplify his voice over the chaos, but the boy didn’t seem to hear him.
The fluorescent lights flashed wildly, one of them burned completely out with its pieces shattered on the ground. The candles were long since snuffed out. Violent waves of power sputtered out from Foster in inconsistent intervals as his body hit its limit, tried to burn off the excess, and then repeated the process.
Foster dropped to his knees on the floor, the center of the room cleared as the furniture had been flung to the walls. The hospital bed lay empty; the old woman’s body had disintegrated in a blinding flash at the moment of Foster’s strike.
The boy wailed, “What’shappening?”
Gabe moved towards him, the wind and power lashing at the fragile bubble he’d created. A particularly strong blast buffeted him hard enough to make him stumble, falling a few steps to the side.
“I didn’t anticipate her life force to be this strong!” Gabe called back to him, fighting against the windstorm to reach Foster’s side. He knelt beside him, pressing his palm to the wall between them. Foster lifted his head, but his arms felt too heavy to do the same. Gabe let his hand fall back to his side.
“Gabe,” Foster pulled air through battered lungs in deep, slow, rasping gasps, “what...is happening?”
“These rituals.” Gabe wrung his hands as he tried to find words that would not only explain, but hopefully comfort Foster as well. “They’re meant to make you stronger. Strong enough to bend the laws of reality and bring a soul back from the void.”
Cracks appeared in the plaster as waves of spiraling power demolished the room. Only the layers of wards to isolate their hospital room kept the power from spilling beyond this space. If not for the precautions Gabe had taken, the entire floor of the hospital would have been at risk of destruction.
“I didn’t—I mean, I knew a stronger connection and a stronger host were ideal.” Gabe raked his hands through his hair. “No one has done this before, Foster, you have to understand. I couldn’t know.”
“Gabe,” Foster pleaded, forcing his hand up to press it against the force field surrounding the angel.
The angel closed his eyes and lifted his hand to press back. “I knew your Divine blood was the key to surviving these trials,but the sacrifice was stronger than I anticipated. The energy she provided might be too much for your mortal lineage.”
“I’m…dying?” His voice was weak, laced with fear, and something in it gripped Gabe’s immortal heart with an icy fist.
“Not if you fight.” Blue eyes flashed open, as deep and fathomless as midnight tides. “Fight, Foster. Think of your mother. Draw on your power. Control this energy like you would your own.”
There was something wary and so very young in the way Foster met and held his gaze. Then he closed his eyes as he dropped his hand and curled his arms around his abdomen. Bending at the waist, so low his forehead almost touched the floor, the younger man began to scream, so raw and full of pain that Gabe winced to hear it.
He continued screaming as the wind reached a tumultuous peak, buffeting the window hard enough to shatter the safety glass. The storm blew outwards, and in the sudden silence, Foster’s agonized wails sounded twice as grotesque.
Gabe slowly approached the boy kneeling before him. The power surges coming from the young demigod were slowing; weakening. That was either a very good or very bad sign. Gabe dissolved his protective bubble and dug deep into his own reserves of power, resting both hands on Foster’s shoulders. He gave a concentrated push, sending tendrils of his own life energy out to bolster the younger man.
He cannot die, Gabe thought determinedly, and redoubled his push.I need you, Foster. Stay with me.
The screaming stopped. Or rather, it petered out into a mix of whimpers and gasps as Foster collapsed to the floor and began to convulse.
“No,” Gabe yanked him up, cradling him to his chest tightly. “You are going tolive, dammit!”
He gave a final, desperate jolt of his own energy to the other man. The world went a bit gray at the edges, and he worried for a moment that he had expended a bit too much. But then things stopped wavering on the fringes of his vision, Foster stopped trembling in his arms, and the world went very, very quiet.
Foster slumped against him where they knelt on the tile, and Gabe relaxed only when he felt the boy resume consistent, steady breathing.
“Am I…alive?” Foster’s voice came out as a croak, and Gabe leaned him back to smile down at him.
