The energy of the trapped angels grew heavier, suffocating. I had to get them out. Release them from their prisons. But how?
Bracing myself, I stepped across the sandy threshold and went to find out.
Chapter Twenty-five – Faking It
Wind whistled through the abandoned buildings. Sand blew across my feet. My fingers trailed over the tops of the white marble statues. Ironically, most were of angels, like you’d see in a garden.
Or a graveyard.
An angel graveyard.
I shuddered.
A part of me denied this was happening. That any of this could be real. This was purgatory—as everyone kept reminding me—and God enjoyed sick jokes.
Maybe the City of Lost Angels was a figment of my imagination like the deserted town of Eden I’d seen on my first trip here. Maybe the forest was a fake.
Maybe this version of Luc was too.
I snuck a glance his way. He stood on the partially buried steps of a gothic church, so old, the thick pillars supporting the overhang were wrapped in dead ivy and splitting in multiple places. At the top of the entrance, jutting out over the stairs like a figurehead on the prow of a ship, was a large black-winged angel carved from stone. His face was passive, almost peaceful. His arms opened wide, beckoning us inside.
Luc looked at me. I nodded for him to go on without me. I’d had enough of churches.
He climbed the steps and disappeared inside.
I continued along, weaving in and out of dozens of statues, pillars and slabs of concrete engraved with strange sigils. When I touched them, the sigils glowed. My magic hummed a song, and with each touch, picked up another chord to add to the melody. The wind lifted my hair, teasing it around my face.
Laying my hand on a large stone, I focused my magic.
Break.
The stone stayed firm.
Open.
Zilch.
I channeled harder, squeezing my eyes shut and gripping the stone with both hands.
Release.
The tiniest of pulses tickled my palms. A heartbeat? I pressed my hands tighter to the stone, straining to feel it again. Nothing. Either it had disappeared or I’d imagined it.
Pressing my hands against the cold stone once more, I redoubled my efforts.
Release!
Another pulse, almost too weak to sense, but the magic, the energy, was there, struggling to reach me as hard as I was to reach it.
A familiar tickle. The warm rush of knowledge. The pulse and I were connected.
“Mom?”
I hung on, ticking off the seconds, then minutes in my mind. The shadows grew thicker, the night closing in on me, but there was nothing more from the stone.
Maybe I had imagined it. Or just wanted it so badly, I created it.
I hung my head, released my hold. The wind caressed my cheeks, softly.
When I lifted my gaze, I saw the sigils come to life. They glowed in the dark, a jagged trail lighting a path back to the crumbling church.
“I feel you,” I murmured to the angels. “I hear you. You’re not lost any more.”
The wind rose and died as if the angels issued a collective sigh.
My bones ached from the weighty magic. While I stood there racking my brain for a solution and wondering how the hell I’d managed to end up here, a fireball erupted inside the church.
Flames burst from the openings and lit up the night. And then, without warning, they disappeared.
It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure it was real. “Luc!” I ran toward the church, following the lighted trail. As I neared, the building morphed into Immaculate Conception.
Immaculate Conception with a Lucifer figurehead and a couple million years’ worth of abandonment? Leave it my purgatory to play mix and match.
“Luc?” I called as I climbed the stairs two at a time. “You in there? Are you okay?”
“He’s…indisposed,” a familiar voice said.
Zayfeer stepped from the shadowed entrance, sword drawn and glowing. “And it’s time for you to go back to jail.” He gave me that smug smile. “There’s a nice little prison cell waiting for you in Heaven.”
Boy, I’d had enough of this guy and that damn smirk.
I stood my ground and prepped my magic. “Then you’d better call in reinforcements, because I’m not going willingly.”
The smile widened. “Thought you might say that.”
Behind him, shadows moved. Big shadows.
Angels.
Archangels.
Four more swords appeared, all glowing with heavenly light and illuminating the faces of the warriors holding them.
Gabriel.
Michael.
And a couple I didn’t recognize but could guess. Raphael and Uriel. I’d seen them in the war footage the Tree had granted me.
“Five against one?” I chuckled, hoping it sounded casual and unworried. My insides were shaking. “I must be one kick-ass witch if it takes all of you to bring me down.”