Returning to Evie’s, I started to open the shop’s front door when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Movement at the end of the street where the fog obscured the view. A flash of light and a flicker of gold.
Deep, repetitive vibrations ran up the sidewalk under my feet, thud…thud…thud. The buildings shook from the force.
Great. Not only had I dreamed myself into a horror nightmare with a creepy deserted town and possible chainsaw murderer, I’d invited Godzilla as well.
I always rolled my eyes when the innocent heroine in the movie ends up alone in the woods or an empty alley and the first thing she does is yell, “Hello. Who’s there?” Funny, though. My first instinct was to do exactly that.
Pressing my lips together, I pinched myself in an effort to wake up. Nothing happened.
I squinted at the fog. More flashes of light. More sparks of gold. Angry lightning danced in the clouds overhead. I bit my lips and the pinching continued at a more frantic pace.
Whatever it was, it was getting closer and neither my brain nor my magic was happy about that. Even though I technically didn’t seem to need to draw air in and out of my lungs, my chest heaved as I rattled the doorknob of my shop. Of course, just like in the horror movies, it was locked.
Running down the block, I discovered the same was true for every shop. The alley between Evie’s and my neighbor’s building beckoned to me. It seemed like the only hiding place.
“Don’t go in the creepy alley, Amy,” I commanded, even as my feet moved of their own accord.
A thick fog met me at the entrance. Like the tendrils of magic that had snaked out of the pit in my shop reaching for Luc, these twined around my ankles, massaging their way up my calves. A shiver of revulsion ran over me. At the same time, my magic reached out a hand.
Wake up! I smacked my fist into the bricks of the building. Pain shot up my arm and my knuckles bled, but nothing changed. Once more I had that nagging feeling this was no dream.
Fine. I wheeled around to face whatever was coming. I’d gone head-to-head with Lilith, queen of Hell and lived to tell the story. Godzilla and chainsaw massacres were small potatoes compared to that bitch.
The figure that emerged from the fog was neither a T-Rex on steroids nor a Hollywood movie monster. He was an angel, thirty foot tall and dripping gold from the crown on his head to the hilt of the sword in his hand. The blade of the sword looked like crystal, shimmering and giving off light that burned from within.
Greaaat. My favorite. A self-righteous angel with a bee up his butt.
The angel’s eyes blazed an unnatural orange, as if reflecting fire. The tips of his wings were tinged with the same color. He towered as tall as some of the buildings, slicing at those in his way as he stalked me. The sword destroyed brick and wood, mortar and metal, as it left a trail of fire in its wake.
So need to wake up now.
The angel let loose a mighty roar, deafening me and uprooting those buildings still standing. Clamping my hands over my ears, I sprinted across the street, dodging falling debris and raining fire as I headed for the courthouse.
Except it was no longer the courthouse in the center of Eden’s downtown square. The neoclassical structure that mimicked the U.S. Capitol Building in D.C. had morphed into the gothic edifice of Immaculate Conception—the church where Cephiel played priest.
Pure instinct drove me, nothing else. If the shops on my street were locked, I had no reason to believe the church was any different. The pounding magic inside my chest trumped logic and spurred me on anyway. As I ran, I kept my eyes on the church’s front doors situated at the top of a set of wide stairs. The fog around the perimeter of the square swam toward me, blurring my vision until I thought I saw the figure of a woman standing on those stairs.
Her back was to me and she wore a long, flowing cloak like mine that painted the concrete steps a dark blood red behind her. As if she felt my stare, she turned her head to look over her shoulder. Our eyes met, locking on one another. My pulse skipped.
“Mom?” I whispered.
Her lips formed a tremulous smile…or maybe that was my imagination…and then the angel’s voice roared through the square again and she crumpled on the steps, disappearing inside her cloak.
Adrenaline rippled down my legs. I pumped my arms and shot across the street. I don’t know how I knew that was my mother—she’d left Emilia and I right after I was born and all I ever had was a single snapshot of her—but I knew it was her, just like I knew this was no simple dream.
No longer whispering, I shouted, “Mom!”
I hit the narrow stairs and tripped, pitching forward and scraping my hands and knees on the concrete. Scrambling up, I ignored the sting of the wounds and ran hunched over toward the cloak.