Somehow, I made it across, and by the time I reached the other side, I was sobbing openly. My legs were wet bags rather than firm pylons.
I fell to my knees on the other side and clawed my way up the bank. The roaches slipped off my skin and scuttled back into their container. I rolled over onto my side, facing them. Sure enough, the writhing sea turned into a calm lake again. It didn't fool me, however. I knew if I touched the edge, that smooth silver surface would turn black and writhing.
I rolled onto my belly and pushed myself onto my hands, up to my knees. The stink of a thousand bugs clung to my skin. I was coated in goo and dead carcasses, but I couldn't bring myself to scrape them off. I didn't want to touch the mess. I didn't want to touch any of it.
Enough. I'd come for Sarah. She was still sitting with her knees wrapped up to her chin. Every now and then she looked over her shoulder with a look of terror on her face. Then she would cringe and swat away at something above her head. I thought I could hear an owl screeching, but I couldn't see anything. I remembered her telling that owls were a harbinger of death. Maybe she felt as though it was after her. Maybe she didn't even know she was dead.
I called out to her, but she didn't even look up. That couldn't be good.
I didn't know how, but the cane handle lay at my feet as though by some miracle it had left my hand as I'd leapt in the lake and appeared again on the other side. I didn't question it. I just picked it up and strode for Sarah.
I was spent by the time I reached her. There wasn't a single muscle that wasn't turned to Jell-O.
"I'm here to take you home," I said and fell to my knees in front of her.
She lifted her gaze to mine, but there was no recognition in her expression. Instead, her fingers crawled up her face to find her hair. Her fingers tangled in the mess, pulling at it, twisting it. Mad, no doubt. There wouldn't be anything left inside of her to reason with if I waited much longer. That was okay. I didn't have much left in me anyway. I wasn't even sure anymore why I was there.
I just wanted to lie down. I wanted to roll over onto my back and sleep. After all, I'd been through hell already. I deserved a rest. I flopped over onto my back, staring up. That was better. Something niggled in the back of my mind, telling me I was forgetting something.
I struggled for a moment, trying to pull at the thread of it, and losing sight of the last grasping piece. Didn't matter. I was out of that mess of bugs. That was all that mattered. There on the bank, I was safe.
Except for that incessant screeching. It was keeping me from falling asleep and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I twisted my head, trying to find the source. It wasn't coming from behind me. All that was there was a young woman, fighting off a very large owl with incredibly sharp claws intent on landing on her head. Once it landed on her shoulder and pecked at her eye. It looked painful. Good thing it wasn't me. I'd already been through enough with all those bugs crawling on me.
Even so. There was something about the owl. Something about that girl that told me I should probably care.
Someone hollered from across the distance. Calling my name. Sarah. Sarah, it said.
Sarah.
That wasn't my name. No. My name was Ayla. Sarah was the name of the girl sitting there and I had come here to get her out. I rolled over onto my side to face her.
"You have to get in here," I said, brandishing the cane handle at her. She ignored me and I had to crawl closer.
I tried to press it against her chest. I was sure that was what I'd been told to do. Just press it there, like so, and she could ride the portal. But I couldn't do the same. I would get stuck in there, so my ride had to be different. That was right. It was coming back to me now. I couldn't ride the cane handle or it would swallow me. I wondered if I had thought to ask how I was supposed to find my way out, and imagined that I had. Of course I would. It was Sarah who was the tricky one.
She fought me. Batting out at me, swiping at me. She landed a punch on my jaw and we ended up tangling on the bank together, rolling over and over each other. I saw one moment when the owl descended upon her again and she screeched and let flail with her arms. That left her open. I grabbed the chance. Pressed the cane onto her chest.
She let out a single sound that might have been a gasp and then she was gone.
The balmy sand beneath my side started to grow warm. I looked down. Sand was gathering into larger pebbles. Pebbles into rocks. Rocks into orange coals.
My entire body felt like it was on fire. I had to find a way off. There had to be somewhere, something to relieve the heat.
The lake. Of course. I ran for it, fully intending to plunge headlong into the icy water. I was mid-step, my hands over my head, preparing for a perfect dive when I remembered. It wasn't a lake at all. It was an ocean of insects. And I had just came from there. I skidded to a stop just in time.
"No," I heard myself say. "Not again. There has to be another way."
A heartbeat later, in the ocean was gone. The insects were gone. Instead, there was a very tall, looking man standing in front of me.
"There is another way," he said.
I looked up to see perfectly triangular eyebrows and blazing red eyes. His cheeks cast an ethereal glow that I couldn't mistake. And as if I had no imagination whatsoever, he wore a red pin-striped suit.
Lucifer himself.
CHAPTER 19
Everything in that moment clarified. I remembered everything as though a fog had lifted. There weren't any small realizations, or pieces of a puzzle coming together like you would expect. No. I just simply knew everything the way I knew I had red hair. The way I knew I had ten toes and ten fingers. The way I knew I had a mole on the back of my shoulder. There wasn't a moment when I had to learn those things. They just were always part of me. And so standing in front of Lucifer, I recognized him immediately. And I remembered.
Everything.
The mission I chose to take on all those eons ago for the good of the creator's universe, the shedding of my own wings when I knew it was those same marks of my divinity that kept me from helping the less fortunate. The scorn of the others, angels all, like Azrael, who saw no benefit to saving the more lost souls, those who wanted salvation but were outside the fringes. Souls not quite human but living human lives and outside the realm of paradise.
Souls like my grandfather, born a druid. Like Sarah, born a necromancer. Like Callum. Like Nicki. Souls very much like Lilith the day I decided to give up my wings to try to save her and the scads of angels who had foolishly decided to follow the angel in front of me now.
I'd failed to win them back. They wanted to be on Earth. They were done with Heaven. It had cost me my wings and my home, and I'd lived hundreds of incarnations, returning to purgatory over and over knowing I'd failed. I'd lived each and every one of those human lives with the complete knowledge of what I'd been, of what I'd lost, knowing how many incarnations I had left to suffer before I could even scratch the surface of the debt.
I'd grown tired and despondent, begging to be sent this time without my memory. I couldn't bear it. One more incarnation knowing what I'd lost, feeling so homesick I would have taken my own life if it wouldn't add another century to my sentence.
But the fast track. Azrael had known as the Angel of Death what I, as a lowly fallen angel from the Virtue choir, couldn't. That reapers gain lifetimes of payment. Nathelium, reapers of the supernatural essence, gained the grand prize--if they succeeded. Trouble was, they never did.
It was the cosmic riddle, set up by the Host of Angels who hadn't fallen, a way to punish those who tried to cheat their way through their penance back into Paradise. They offered the hope of return, knowing that the fast track could never work and that the fallen who tried would always fail and end up with the final punishment. Into the top of Azrael's cane they would go. Oblivion.
Osriel had tried, back in the cathedral when he'd tried to reap me. He'd come close, but he had failed because that last reap was always a
fallen angel, and it was impossible to accomplish.
For one long sweet moment, I felt superior. I should have felt fear, but I felt cocky. There was something about me that was different than him and it made me feel arrogant.
I knew it was because he hadn't merely fallen, but had been banished. He could never return. Never earn his wings or see Paradise. Then I realized I might never see it either. I had done irrevocable things and that in the end, we were the same.
Even knowing it all, and knowing that I would no doubt forget again as soon as I crossed the Threshold, none of it mattered. What mattered was getting Sarah home. She didn't belong here. She was better than this eternity. The only way to get her out was to deal with the devil himself. And he was vain.
"What's with all of the suits?" I said, looking him up and down and indicating the red pinstripes that covered his pressed suit. I was surprised at least to hear that my voice sounded confident and strong. "You and Azrael both seem partial to them."
He lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk. "You know me?"
"Of course I know you, kinsman."
"I expected as much," he said and strolled close to me. "An angel, even a fallen one, can't be in Hell long without knowing what they are and knowing it's not quite right. But that will change as you get used to it here."
He circled me as I stood there clenching to the top of Azrael's cane. Lucifer went round me three times, and I knew he would reverse direction and go around three more. It was part of his nature. Like fairies needed to count birdseed and rice, Lucifer had a terrible problem with OCD.
I wished he would hurry. I knew the clock was ticking no matter how fluid time really was.
He halted in front of me, a perfectly arched black brow lifted delicately.
"So you say Azrael is here as well?" he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "How delightful. What can I do for you?"
"Nothing," I said. "I'm just in and out." I crossed my mental fingers that he wouldn't mention Sarah. I hoped I could get her past him.
He tapped his teeth with the fingertip. "A fallen one deciding to make her way in to my realm? Must be a reason."
One more tap. I knew there would be two more and then another two sets of three before he was done. I groaned. Clenched, the cane tip in my hand. Too many seconds had already gone by. Hours in human time. I wasn't sure how long Sarah could hold on in there.
"I know all about the little task you set for yourself," he said. "Get in. Get out. Never come back. As though you're too good for this place. Better than me."
"I am better," I said. "You chose to betray your creator. I wanted to help his creations. There is a difference."
He snorted, so uncharacteristic for him. He was always so careful about revealing his true thoughts.
"You know what they say about good intentions..." he let the thought trail off meaningfully even as he spread his arms wide to indicate our location.
"Now here you are," he said it with glee. For a moment, the angel he once was showed through the facade that had slicked itself over his body, one built of resentment and hatred, and for that moment, he was even more magnificent than Azrael.
I clenched the cane tip. I could hear Azrael's voice in my head telling me not to tarry. I needed to get out. And soon.
"Get out of my way, Lucifer," I said.
He pointed at my fist. "Maybe that little necromancer in there doesn't want to leave." He jerked his chin at the top of Azrael's cane. "You want to take a soul from me? You want to steal her from me when she's rightfully mine? You must pay."
There it was. The bargaining moment. I slitted my eyes at him. I was ready. I was more than ready with the bargain.
"How about a trade?"
He shrugged. "The trade would need to be equal to or greater than what you're getting."
I hoped he would think what I had to offer was worth Sarah's essence. I had to believe it was.
"A fae mancer," I said.
His turn to look wary.
"You have a fae mancer?"
I grinned. "I will have."
"Done," he said.
"And a way out," I said, glancing at the lake I knew would transform the moment I dipped a toe in.
"Done," he said.
Before I could ask anything else, like what portal he meant, or what other way out, I felt a burst of heat rising up from the coals of the floor. I caught one last sight of his smirk before I was engulfed in a wall of flame. My scream was nothing more than a garbled emotional groan. I clutched the cane handle, terrified I would let go of it out of fear, and although the journey was short, I was sweating by the time I felt myself slammed unceremoniously and painfully back into my body.
Home. No more lakes of insects or burning coals. Just home where I had to do battle with a fae mancer and revive my best friend from death. No biggie, really. I could have laughed if my throat would listen to my mind at all. Instead when I blinked my eyes open, the wall of fire was still around me. It blazed high, roaring like the beat of a thousand wings.
Smoke tendrils lifted from the blaze all around me, fingering their way up through the cavernous crypt to find small crevices to squeeze through. I blinked against the heat, my eyes drying faster than I could water them. The heady scent of fragrant oils coated my palate when I breathed in. Everything was too hot. Everything was too dry.
I scrambled onto my hands and knees, twisting around on them as I searched for a way out of the center of the circle. I had to get to Sarah. I couldn't waste a single moment. But the fire didn't dissipate.
Confusion and panic had hold of me. Beneath the fragrant smell of holy oils, I could make out that smell of sulfur again.
There was no way through. He had tricked me . I wasn't in the crypt at all, I was still in hell.
I ran my hands over my clothes. The cane. Where was it.
A new wave of panic washed over me. What had I done with it? I hadn't dropped it. I couldn't have.
It took several blind moments of scrabbling around in circles to realize that I really was in the crypt again. The stone floor was too familiar, the rough edges of stones as I dug and clawed about was too real. Not like the drugged familiarity of Hell. Lucifer hadn't tricked me. I had to keep telling myself that because it had to be true. He had sent me home as promised, it was just that the place I had returned to, the body I had landed back into was still halfway between the realms. The smoke tendrils continued to rise around me, the fire kept blazing.
I could hear murmurings and shrieks in the back of my ears, residual effects of the realm I had just left. I shivered involuntarily. I was lucky to be out, but there wasn't time to rest on that victory. I needed to find Sarah. And I needed to get a hold of that cane handle. Could it be that Azrael had taken it back somehow, that as I had travelled back to the portal, it had returned to him as if by magic.
I was sweating. Fatigued. The very air seemed to sap my strength. I thought I could see a face through the flames. A shock of blond hair. So while I had returned to the crypt, so too, it seemed did Rory.
"You better hurry," he said. "She's not doing so well."
"I can't get out," I said, trying and failing to find an uneasy stand.
It took several attempts before I managed to get up without falling again. I stood in the centre of the flames, my gaze wavering on them, looking around with a harried gaze to catch sight of the grieving angel. I finally found it lying on its side close to the edge of the flame. It was glowing red. Catching heat from the fire. I leapt for it, grabbing it into both hands without thinking about how much it would burn. I expected it to blister my palms, but as it touched my skin, it went cold. The flames in front of me seemed to fall back just an inch, but enough I could see Rory much clearer. There was one narrow break in the wall. All I had to do was step through it.
CHAPTER 20
As if reading my mind, Rory leaned sideways into the opening. He smirked at me.
"You're taking your time," he said.
With a bracing breath,
I found an unsteady stand and stepped through. I swung my gaze left and right, searching for Sarah. I saw her lying where I'd left her except this time her chest was arching off the floor in spasm. Her limbs were throttling the floor of the cavern. I wasn't sure, but I thought her mouth was frothing red foam.
"Oh my God, Sarah," I said and sprinted forward. I fell halfway, not realizing how much exertion my legs had been through. They were spent. The muscles fatigued beyond what they could stand. I was vaguely aware of Rory standing next to me.
"Oh for heaven sake," he said. "Just toss it at her."
I'd never been much of a baseball player, and I prayed that the portal would know what to do with itself if I tossed the silver angel. With the feeling that there were others watching me besides Rory, I underhanded it up into the air, aiming it in what I hoped was a perfect arc toward Sarah. As it reached its peak, it lit up with a bright blue light glowing so radiantly, I had to squint to watch it. Steam came hissing out from it like a teakettle.
I almost laughed out loud in relief when I saw the portal land on her chest and the steam snake its way up into her nostrils. Success. I had done it. Even her limbs stilled as her chest lowered back onto the floor. I watched it rise and fall three times in rhythmic succession, my breath captured in my throat. Wake up, I wanted to yell. But I couldn't find my voice box. It was easy. Almost too easy.
I waited. Breath held. Rory seemed to be waiting as well. There was a tension in the air that was so electric, it could've lit the room.
I scrambled forward on my hands and knees, trying to reach her. I was close enough to see the pores on her skin, but as I reached to touch her, to slap her lightly on the cheek to wake her up, I realized I couldn't push my hands any further than the perimeter of her body.
"Protective circle," Rory said from behind me. I slipped a look over my shoulder to see him tapping his foot with his arms crossed over his chest. He was holding onto the rib bone Sarah had stolen from the nun's skeleton. It looked frayed and broken on the end.
"I couldn't exactly trust you to keep her here after the little stunt you both pulled." He shrugged. "So I made sure she can't leave. In fact," he said, looking sideways to the left. "I made sure none of you can leave until the spell is cast."
Rise (Reaper's Redemption Book 3) Page 14
