Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(84)
Author: Cambria Hebert

The biggest damn batteries you would ever find.

My eyes snapped up toward Beelzebub and the invisible power barreling straight toward me, and I lifted my arms and pushed.

Everything around us slowed. Time might have stopped. I felt the breath that filled my lungs. I felt every single heartbeat that pumped blood through my veins. I felt the tremor that moved through Sam as he readied himself to shift and leap into the fight, and finally, finally I felt the irrefutable strength that I had always harbored deep within.

There was a great, sharp crack in the space between my nemesis and me, our power colliding. The final battle between us raged.

When I would have normally thrown my arm over my face and hunched toward the ground, I didn’t. When I would have screamed and flinched, I stood tall. I made no sound. I looked out over the souls, their forms solidifying. In fact, I actually caught the outline of a face, of the person that once owned the soul. It smiled.

A ripple tore through the air so forcefully I was knocked off my feet. My hair blew backward and ash from the ground stirred up around us. I watched as the powers—so great—fought for control, and I planted my feet once more, standing behind my best defense.

I thought of hope. Of love.

The power before me seemed to split Beelzebub’s in two, shattering it, and it fell like rain among us. And then my power—the power that came from within and fueled by the souls—barreled forward, knocking him over, slamming him into the ground where he lay motionless among the beings he dared to call batteries.

The souls quivered around him, rising up and almost blocking him completely from view. They seemed to look to me for approval, and I nodded, granting them whatever permission they sought.

Beelzebub was swarmed instantly. He began to scream; he began to choke and fight.

I backed away carefully. The sounds of whatever they were doing to him made my stomach churn. When I got toward the edge, my foot caught on a chain and I fell backward, but my momentary panic was cut short when warm, strong arms encircled me from behind. I glanced up and over my shoulder at Sam as he towed me gently against him.

“I got you,” he said, smiling.

I reached up to touch his cheek, my finger leaving a smudge of ash against his perfectly golden skin.

“This isn’t the Hallmark Channel.” Riley cut in. “And there’s a Prince over there being… eaten or something by an angry mob.” He pinned me with a stare. “What the hell did you just do?”

Sam’s arms tightened around me, giving me a little squeeze, and I knew he understood as well as I did.

“I used the power I always had and ended this war.”

We all looked back to Beelzebub, whose voice had grown hoarse from yelling and the sounds he made became more mottled and gurgling. He was completely besieged under the souls that could reach him. They were angry, angrier than I, and they finally had the chance to exact some kind of revenge.

I don’t really know what they did to him. I don’t understand how those without bodies could kill a man, but as I watched him die, I understood the power within us was the most potent kind.

Soon, his body went still, and the souls began to absorb it. As it disappeared, the spirits doing the absorbing grew a little brighter.

Beelzebub’s colorless soul drifted out of the melee and floated up, fumbling a bit like he was in a stupor.

“Quick!” I cried, yanking the backpack off my shoulders and dumping everything out onto the ground. “Put him in here!”

“Uh, yeah right,” Riley said with a dramatic eye roll.

I shot him a look. “In here,” I demanded.

Sam and Riley shot forward, each grasping at the soul and it slipping right through their fingers. He began to float higher, out of their reach, and I pinned him with a stare.

I wasn’t called the Soul Reaper for nothing.

I held up the backpack, pulling it open wide, and I stared at the soul, my gaze penetrating its empty depths until I found the core of its essence. It was dark and twisty, so perverse in nature that I actually lost my grip on it for a moment and had to take a breath and renew my concentration. But I did and then I pushed inside once more with my mind and took control, ignoring the attempts it made to force me out.

Come to me, I demanded. Come to me.

Against its struggles, it did as I instructed. It floated toward me until it hovered just over the opening of the bag.

Inside, I commanded.

It dropped inside and I quickly zipped up the bag, gripping it in both hands.

Sam and Riley were nearby, staring at me in shock.

“What?” I asked.

“Remind me not to piss you off anymore,” Riley said.

I snorted.

“Proud of you,” Sam mouthed and I actually blushed under his pride. Apparently I could be a total badass but still fall prey to girlish tendencies when my boyfriend paid me a compliment.

The soul in the bag began to struggle, making me forget my “girlish tendencies.” I might have beat Beelzebub and trapped his soul, but this still wasn’t over.

I stared at the souls and their indestructible binds.

“How do we break the chains?” I wondered, reaching down to yank on one. It didn’t budge. Sam’s hand wrapped around the chain below mine and he gave a hard yank. The chain broke and the soul burst free. It shot high up in the colorless sky, so high it disappeared. But then it dropped back down and hovered nearby. It twitched and kind of paced back and forth like it was confused.

“It doesn’t know how to get out. It doesn’t know where to go,” I said.

This was something I hadn’t thought of at all. I thought once I found the souls and set them free, they would all float up to heaven and be at peace. I should have known nothing was that easy. Especially not in hell.

“I have to help them crossover,” I said, looking up at the guys.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know what to do.” Riley shrugged.

“If only this job came with an owner’s manual,” I said wistfully.

Sam grinned. “How about we get them all free, then figure out what to do with them.”

I nodded and we all got to work trying to free the souls. Sam stopped in front of a black, twisted soul and frowned. “We shouldn’t release these. They’re already twisted. The minute we let them free, they’ll turn into demons that we’ll just have to kill.”

“Yeah, let’s only free the ones that look like they aren’t twisted.” I agreed and went back to work, trying to break the chains and failing miserably. After a few minutes I let out a frustrated yell. “I can’t break any of these. This is going to take forever.”