I’d forgotten I was holding the bloody sword. “You were turning into vampires.”
“And you killed us even though we’d done you no harm?” the woman said. “No wonder you have such a bad reputation.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry I killed you, but it was pretty likely you would have died in this war Azazel is about to wage. If you’ll come with us, I’ll take you to the Door once we get the other Agents out of here safely.”
“I don’t want to go with you,” the woman said. “I’m an Agent. I can take my own self to the door.”
“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” James said.
They both broke free of their ectoplasmic cords without my assistance, and floated upward through the ceiling.
“Well, that’s just great,” I said, kicking James’ body. “I’m sure the Agency is going to harass me for allowing their souls to escape.”
“I thought we’d agreed that the Agency was going to harass you no matter what you do,” Beezle said. “The bigger problem is this—how are we going to get fourteen sleeping Agents out of here?”
“Wake them up?”
Jude shook his head. “I already tried. It’s like they’re sedated.”
“And I’m sure we can’t do something easy, like make a portal out of here,” I said to Nathaniel.
“Not as long as we are on Azazel’s property,” he said.
“We can’t call J.B. for help, because the Agency people are being jerkwads,” I said, ticking off points on my fingers. “Lucifer is conveniently out of touch again. We can’t make a portal. What can we do?”
We all stared helplessly at one another.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” I said angrily. “We’ve found the Agents but we can’t get them home?”
“It’s only a matter of time before Azazel sends someone down here to see where we’ve gone,” Nathaniel said. “And I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go back upstairs through the army.”
“I agree,” I said, and then stopped.
Something was coming. I could hear it moving slowly through the outer rooms. The ground trembled slightly as it approached.
“Meeeeat,” it crooned.
“Oh, no,” I said.
We could probably hold off the nephilim. We might even be able to kill it. But that would cause a lot of ruckus and attract the attention of Azazel and his army.
“Come on, think of something!” Beezle said, flying out of my coat and smacking the back of my head. “Where are your Morningstar superpowers?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking at the tattoo on my hand. “It’s like those abilities have gone quiet since Lucifer disappeared.”
“You do not think the Morningstar is dead, do you?” Nathaniel asked.
“No,” I said. “But it’s like he’s a blank, like he’s gone under… ground…”
I looked down at the floor, and back up at Beezle.
“This is another snowman plan, isn’t it?”
“Meeeat,” the nephilim said, its voice louder as it approached.
“More like an earthworm plan,” I said. “Nathaniel, come help me. Samiel, you stand by the door and keep the nephilim from getting in here.”
I kneeled on the floor a little distance away from the sleeping Agents, my palms flat on the stone. Nathaniel joined me, looking dubious.
“You want to blast a hole in the floor?” Beezle said. “That’s your plan? Haven’t we spent enough time in tunnels?”
“If we can dig a tunnel off Azazel’s property, then we can take a portal out of here,” I said. “And it’s a better option than trying to fight our way through the soldiers upstairs while protecting all the Agents.”
“We still have to transport them out of here,” Jude said.
“Yes, but we’ll have a good chance of keeping them safe underground. If we get them all down there, then we can move them in small groups, leapfrogging down the passage. And we easily pick off anyone who comes into the tunnel behind us.” I looked at Nathaniel. “Okay, let’s do it.”
I summoned all the strength and will that I had, and sent a blast of power through the floor and into the earth beneath. Nathaniel followed suit, and the floor buckled underneath us before the stones collapsed. I fell about ten feet into the hole, the breath leaving my body, brick dust raining down on my face. Nathaniel peered over the edge, bemused.
“I do not know how you do it,” he said. “How can one person be so clumsy?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, getting to my feet. I was damned lucky that I was part angel or else I was sure I’d have a broken bone. I gave my belly a little pat and felt the reassuring answer of beating wings.
“MEEEAT!” the nephilim cried, and I smelled nightfire burning. A moment later I heard the sound of something heavy knocking up against a solid wall.
“You’d better start digging, rabbit,” Beezle said, flying down to my side. “Samiel’s put up a shield, but the nephilim is making so much noise that it’s sure to bring the rest of the house down on us.”
“We have to get to the woods that are across the road from the front of the mansion,” I said. “That’s definitely off his property. If we go behind the house, we’ll never get out. Gabriel told me that Azazel’s woods stretch on for miles in that direction.”
Beezle frowned at the packed earth, spinning around in all directions. He stopped moving after a moment and pointed.
“That way.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because we really can’t afford to mess this up.”
“Trust me,” Beezle said. “Do you think I would put future doughnut deliveries at risk?”
“True,” I said, and started blasting in front of me. “Go up and tell Jude and Nathaniel to start bringing the Agents down.”
Nathaniel floated down a few moments later with Chloe and two other agents held in a fireman’s carry. I had blasted about thirty feet of tunnel, and he brought them up and rested them just behind me.
Jude followed with two Agents, and I continued blasting as they went back and forth. I could feel tremors above me, and I suspected that some of Azazel’s soldiers had finally noticed the howling nephilim.
Beezle flew down with the update. “A company of soldiers came down to see what the nephilim was freaking out about. Fortunately for us, the nephilim was so crazed from being denied fresh meat that it turned on the soldiers. They’re duking it out as we speak.”
“Good,” I said, sweat pouring over my face as I blasted another ten feet of tunnel.
Samiel came up behind me.
I’ll help you clear the tunnel. The other two will move the Agents.
I nodded. It was faster going with Samiel’s help. Nathaniel and Jude had the tedious job of running back and forth, collecting Agents, dropping them off near us, then running back for the others.
On one of these trips Nathaniel said, “I created an illusion in the room to look like the stone floor was still there. It won’t fool Azazel, and if anyone steps on it, they will still fall into the tunnel, but perhaps it will hold them off.”
“Maybe they won’t go all the way into the room. If they see the Agents are missing and we aren’t there, then hopefully they’ll just go back upstairs to raise the alarm. Good thinking,” I said.
Nathaniel smiled briefly and went back for more Agents.
I don’t know how long we were underground, dirt and insects falling in our faces, laboriously moving a few feet at a time, but finally Nathaniel said, “That’s enough.”
I looked back at him. He was crouched low in the tunnel like Samiel and Jude were. I had only blasted a path maybe six feet high and a few feet wide, and it was a tight squeeze for anyone not pocket-sized.
“We’ve passed beyond Azazel’s property line,” Nathaniel said.
“So we can make a portal?” I asked.
He stepped close to me, put his hand on the dirt in front of me and said the words of the spell in an undertone. I was caged between his body and the dirt wall in front of me, and could feel the heat that emanated from him. I stood as still as possible and tried not to think about how close he was.
A portal opened before us, and I turned around, giving Nathaniel a little nudge in the shoulder with my hand so that he would give me some space.
“The Agents go through first,” I shouted.
The noise from the portal was deafening in the small space, like being closed up in an elevator with a running vacuum cleaner.
Samiel signed to me before scooping up Chloe.
I’ll go through with her. You push the others through one by one and I’ll catch them.
“At twenty-second intervals?” I said, trying to mentally calculate the time it would take for him to catch someone, lay them on the ground and turn around for the next Agent.
He nodded and squeezed past Nathaniel. I pressed up against the side of the tunnel, and he went through the portal.
“Jude, start passing them up to Nathaniel,” I said. “I’ll keep watch.”
Beezle flew up and landed on my shoulder as I pressed past Jude, looking anxiously back the way we had come. Jude and Nathaniel started passing the sedated Agents through the portal.
“What are you worried about?” Beezle asked. “Your earthworm plan worked. As unlikely as it seemed.”
“Yeah,” I said, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been too easy. Someone had to have figured out by now that we’d gone underground.
“This is the last one,” Jude called. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starting to feel like a badger.”
He went through the portal with the last Agent in his arms, and Nathaniel turned back to me, his hand outstretched.
That was when the roof of the tunnel blasted open.
18
IT WAS LIKE BEING INSIDE A TORNADO. NATHANIEL, Beezle and I were scooped up by a howling wind, spun in circles and slammed to the ground in the blazing sunshine.
We were in a little clearing in the woods surrounded by leafless maples. Snow had melted in patches and revealed green moss underneath.
I pushed to my feet, dizzy from being twirled like a top, and stared across the open chasm at my father.
He’d always appeared young and handsome, but while he hadn’t aged at all, his face was changed. He was pale as death, and long lines of grief were etched in his face. I’d have expected him to be surrounded by flunkies, but he stood alone. His dark eyes, the mirror of my own, were lit with flame.
“You killed my son,” he said.
“You killed my husband,” I replied, my fingers curled at my sides. I had desired this from the moment Gabriel had fallen into the snow, his lifeblood running from his body.
“I curse the day that I met your mother, that I allowed myself to be seduced by her,” Azazel spat.
“Oh, fuck you,” I said. “You were no damned innocent.”
Nathaniel had warily come to his feet beside me and was slowly backing away. At least he had the sense not to get between us. Beezle had flown up to a branch high above and watched us with bright eyes.
“You will suffer like none other,” Azazel said, and he flew toward me.
I didn’t bother to banter with him. I blasted him with nightfire.
He knocked my spell away easily, like he was batting away a softball, and landed on the ground in front of me. I slashed out at him with the sword and he shot me with a bolt of lightning that knocked the sword from my hand.
“Now you can no longer use Lucifer’s shield,” Azazel said, and he grabbed me by the shoulders, lifting me from the ground.
His hands were covered in flame, and I screamed as the heat burned through my skin like I was being branded. I kicked Azazel in the ribs with all my strength and he squeezed harder. I could smell my own flesh cooking, and my baby beat its wings in distress.
Azazel’s eyes went wide and he dropped me to the ground. I knew he’d felt the presence of the baby. I didn’t wait for him to get over the shock. I shot him in the face with electricity, aiming for his eyes.
He screamed, covering his face with his hands, and stumbled backward toward the pit. I struggled to my feet, my shoulders still burning. I could feel Azazel’s spell working through the layers of muscle down to my bones.
I blasted him again, and he fell backward into the tunnel.
“Madeline!” Nathaniel cried, and he tossed me the sword.
I barely caught it with my crippled left hand as Azazel flew up out of the hole again. I pushed out my own wings and rose to meet him.
He conjured a blue sword from nightfire and met my strike with his own. He slashed at me furiously, his anger seeming greater than ever now that he knew I was carrying Gabriel’s baby.
It was strange. The angrier Azazel became, the calmer I felt. I knew from long experience that when I was angry, I made mistakes. And I didn’t want to make a mistake. I wanted to see Azazel staked by my sword.
Maybe then my heart would be at peace.
I shot nightfire at him with my left hand while hacking with the sword in my right. He parried me easily, but his movements were becoming more frantic. I managed to slash open his forearm, and blood dripped on the hilt of the sword.
Another thing that I knew was that if your hands were slippery, it was harder to hold on to your sword. Azazel’s fingers slipped, and the nightfire sword tumbled away, disintegrating once it was disconnected from the source of its magic.
I thrust forward, thinking I had him.
But I’d never been that good at seeing all the angles. That was why Lucifer was always outsmarting me.
Azazel closed his hand over the blade—heedless of the fact that it laid open the skin there—and sent a pulse of magic through it.
It slipped under my palm, raced through my body in time with the frantic thrumming of my blood and covered my heartstone with a suffocating clutch.
I gasped for breath as Azazel grinned maliciously and let go of the sword.
“And so goes the least wanted child of my line.”
The blade fell away as I covered my chest with my hand. I couldn’t breathe. I could feel my heartstone being squeezed by an invisible grasp, and soon, very soon, it would burst.
And when it burst, I would die. And so would my child. The magic was an invader under my skin, and I rejected it with everything I had. I’d done this once before, when I’d thrown Evangeline from my body and undid her possession of me. I drew on that now.
“No,” I said, and grabbed Azazel’s bleeding palm, pulling him to me in one swift motion. “This you can have back.”