by Maya Nicole
As my eyes focused, I took in a sharp breath. It was her.
It was the woman from the grocery store. She was still dressed to the nines. She stared back at me as our eyes met. In the grocery store, hers had been blue, but in hindsight they had been so blue that they had to have been contacts.
"You're awake."
I just blinked back at her, trying to make sense of her black eyes. The entire iris was black. They were larger than normal irises, but still had the white surrounding them.
I brought a shaking hand to my mouth as everything started to click together. The sunglasses perched on her head. The eyes. The hair that was the same shade of brown as mine. The nose.
"You." It was the only word I could manage. I squinted, trying to imagine her with a scarf around her head. I had only caught a glimpse. But those heels. That voice. It all came rushing back.
"Me." She reached forward and tried to take the hand lying at my side but I pulled it onto my chest. I clutched the blanket to me.
She let out a small laugh. "I don't blame you." She stood and walked to the end of the bed and then back to the chair. She sat down, crossed her legs, moved her leg a few times, then stood again.
A tear slid down my cheek. Now was not the time to cry. But God damn it, this had to be Lily, Lilith, my mother. I wasn't sure what to label her. I took in several deep breaths. Where was my dad? My guardians?
"Are you scared of your own mother?"
It had seemed like an eternity since I had been awake. My eyes felt heavy.
I couldn't find words so I just stared back at her. Stared at how similar we were. I gripped the blanket tighter.
"You have no reason to be scared." She sat again and leaned forward. "I'm the one who’s going to save you."
"You abandoned me." I stared back at her, even though her eyes were freaking me out. I wouldn't let this woman intimidate me. "I'll take my chances with the angels."
She laughed again and leaned back in the chair. She stared at me for several moments and then her face softened and she almost appeared to not look like a psychopath.
"Leaving you behind was one of the hardest things I ever had to do."
I narrowed my eyes and made a disbelieving noise in my throat. "Is that why you kidnapped me and put me in a cage? Is that why you're here now?" My teeth chattered as I spoke.
I was sure my fever was spiking again. Where had the doctor and his assistant gone? How did Lilith even get into my place?
"You were an added bonus to snagging the archangel. John only put you in the basement because he wasn't sure what was going to happen to you. You are the first of your kind, after all." She stood. She certainly was antsy, like she had bottled energy trying to escape. "Your fever is increasing again and your angels are currently occupied dealing with my soldiers. They won't return for a while, if they return at all. The choice is yours."
"How did you..." I shook my head, not believing a word from her lips.
"You do know the 'gate' just refers to the ability to pass through the barrier between Earth and Inferna, don't you?" I shook my head. What was I supposed to think? A gate is a fucking gate. "Let's just say that I have figured out how to get demons through. Now," her voice lilted higher in excitement. "We need to leave."
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"You can stay here and always be mediocre, or you can join me and become the queen you are." Queen? Was this woman on something? It was possible she was tripping out on something.
"I have everything I need here."
"You don't need them. Why do you think four men are in love with you?" I couldn't stop my face from displaying my shock at her words. "It's in your blood. It's the same way I sucked your father in. The same way I sucked John in. You can have as many men or women as your heart and body desires."
I shifted in the bed, my muscles protesting at the small movement. "I'd rather die."
A phone rang from a leather handbag sitting next to the chair. Her grin broadened and she reached inside it and pulled out her cell phone.
"Perfect timing." She pressed a button on the screen and held it away from her to video chat. "Are your tasks complete?"
"They are. I sent four of my best to meet up with the others with enough demon serum to take down an army of angels. I'm also ready to move in on the girl at your command, my queen." The voice was gruff.
"Let us see the girl." Lilith waited for a moment before turning the phone towards me.
It was a dark blur of people and blue lights before whoever was holding the phone adjusted the angle and it was pointing at a large tank behind a bar. Inside were women with mermaid tails and shockingly blue hair.
"Don't," I managed to choke out, a sob lodged in my throat.
"I'll call off my men if you come with me. Otherwise, I'm afraid there's nothing that will help them."
I shut my eyes. I didn't have a choice. I couldn't just let everyone I loved die or be gravely injured. "Call them off and I'll go."
"You heard the girl. Stay on standby though, just in case she tries anything," she said into the phone before hanging up. What would I try? I was sick and could barely throw a punch. "Get dressed. I will wait for you in the living room."
She exited the room, leaving the door open behind her. I slid from the bed, and on shaky legs, changed out of the pajamas I was in. I pulled on a pair of loose jeans and a t-shirt. I spotted my blazer in a heap on the floor and picked it up, feeling the weight of my cell phone in the pocket.
I took it out and my fingers brushed a folded piece of paper. The note Olly slid in my pocket during the final stared back at me and I slipped it into my bra before tapping open my cell phone. I figured that Lilith was going to take my phone or search me at some point, so I quickly typed out a message to my dad.
It was a trap. Lilith is here. This is all my fault. I'm sorry. I love you. Tell Tobias, Asher, Olly, and Reve that I love them too.
I hit send and then deleted the message from the thread just as Lilith came back in the room. She narrowed her eyes and snatched the phone from me. She threw it across the room, hitting the brick wall, causing it to shatter.
I flinched and she grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin.
"Let's go."
"But I need my shoes!" Before I could even move to grab them, she was pulling me towards the door.
As we entered the living space, my eyes immediately landed on Dr. Hughes and Diane sprawled out on the floor. I yanked my arm, but despite her petite size, she was stronger than ten men.
The front door opened and two abnormally large men stepped in and one picked me up. They looked like those men that flipped logs and pulled airplanes. Lilith went back into my apartment as I was loaded into a black SUV with limo tinting on the windows. I stopped struggling, my head hurting again. It was no use anyways.
I had made my decision to save the ones I loved.
Chapter Fourteen
Tobias
The day had been a complete and utter disaster. There had been a lot of disastrous days lately. I could really go for a vacation from it all.
The night before, I watched Danica have sex with Reve. Really good sex with Reve.
Yeah, it bothered me, but watching them together turned me on. If he made her happy, it seemed I was going to have to accept it or, well, I wasn't sure what other choice I had. She was headstrong about what she wanted.
The demon seemed to be normal, if that was even possible for a demon. If we didn't know he was a full-fledged demon, I would have never guessed. Instead, he struck me as some overly inked biker. The part that bothered me the most was he could go invisible. Who knows how many times he'd watched us with Danica.
I was a bit jealous.
On top of the Reve situation, Danica was in a funk over what she was. I can't say I blamed her. I had wondered about it for months and so had Asher. The only one who seemed to push the idea of Lilith being her mother out of his head was Oliver. He'd much rather see the glass half full than half em
pty.
We landed in the middle of a loading dock outside an abandoned mall and stood in a line, looking at the dark building in front of us. I felt a chill sweep over me as a breeze gently blew.
I hoped Danica was all right without us with her. I had never been so scared in my life as she had stumbled out of my classroom, her nose gushing blood. When we got to her, she was already lying face down in a pool of red. When we had touched her, she felt like she was on fire.
Not how you want to see your girlfriend.
Oliver and I had taken her to the infirmary. We were told to go back to class to complete the final. I had refused to leave her side. Sue was already pissed that Michael had firmly told her that I was allowed to have a relationship with Danica. But me refusing to go back to my classroom to finish the final? That had tipped her over the edge.
I'd worry about my suspension later.
"What should we be looking for?" Oliver broke the silence that had descended over our small group.
"Depends what we're up against," Reve answered from somewhere near Lucifer. Before we left, he decided to stay invisible as an element of surprise.
I still didn't completely trust him. He could have done something to Danica without us knowing. He could have been working for Lilith.
"Are we all clear on how to kill demons?" We all said yes in some shape or form. None of us had been specifically trained in killing demons. Apparently the risk of demons coming through the barrier to Earth was an impossibility.
Or so everyone thought.
Lucifer was scanning the area. For what, I wasn't sure. "This way. They came through over here." He was all business as he marched towards a chain link fence surrounding the building.
We followed like well-trained soldiers. We all carried swords we had grabbed from a weapons cache angels kept in the city. It hadn't been used in centuries.
To incapacitate a demon we needed to behead them or rip out their heart, then burn the body. The problem was that different demons had multiple heads or hearts in weird places. They might also be heavily shielded.
We squeezed through a hole cut in the chain link and made our way to a side door off a loading dock. The place was completely deserted and quiet, with graffiti covering the walls and trash thrown about.
The light was fading fast; it was nearly seven in the evening. We entered a large room that looked like a gutted section of the mall. The light coming in through skylights overhead cast eerie shadows across the floor. In the middle of the room were giant holes leading to the bottom floor of the mall. At some point, there had been a railing around them.
"Should we wait for the others?" I asked as we looked down into the darkness of the first level. Lucifer had called in reinforcements; they would be arriving soon.
Just as he started to answer, a low growl came from the darkness. My eyes searched in the direction of the sound and six beady red eyes looked back. The growl came again and this time a few more joined.
My heart rate quickened. I wasn't sure what was growling. I had a clue but didn't want to admit to myself what it was. I studied demons, but I certainly wasn't an expert.
"Is that a dog?" Oliver took a step closer to the edge. "Nope, definitely not a-"
The cement beneath his feet gave way and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. I saw a flash of white as he fell and then all hell literally broke loose.
Those six red eyes? It was a fucking hellhound, except it was so unlike anything I'd studied that I was doubting if I had any business even being a Demonology teacher. It looked more like some kind of prehistoric dinosaur with spikes running along its three spines. Its three tails lit up with fire, sending light around the darkened recesses of the lower level. Then the thing split and formed three separate hounds.
Reading about demons is one thing, but seeing them in person is something else entirely. It felt like an out of body experience staring at a beast that had just split itself into three.
We all jumped down to the bottom level to find Oliver already fending off a humanoid-looking demon. It opened its mouth to reveal a circular ring of sharp teeth and a long tongue that lashed out to grab his wrist. It looked similar to a Demogorgon from Stranger Things.
He let out a scream and Asher swung his sword, cutting the tongue off, sending black blood across the floor. With one swift move, he took off its head. The loud, high-pitched screeching sound it made had me wanting to cover my ears.
"Stay close, these are some of the worst," Lucifer warned us. We were standing in a tight half-circle. "If one of them gets you alone… well, just don't let it get you alone. Stay in pairs. Don't let them surround us."
"We need to take care of this hellhound first. If it stays separated long enough each hound will form three bodies again and continue to split. It's a multiplier." Reve took his sword that Lucifer was holding for him. All I could see of him was the sword he was holding and his hand.
We made quick work of the hounds, taking their heads off. It was more difficult than I thought to remove a head. The movies made it seem so easy. We had no time to rest though because several other creatures zeroed in on us.
I glanced over at Lucifer, Olly, and Asher who were stabbing the ground. It looked like a million spiders were descending upon them. Lucifer's wings came out and he flew towards a woman that looked like a normal woman, except for her black eyes and the spiders pouring from her skin. She managed to jump at the last minute before his sword could connect with her. She disappeared into the darkness.
I managed to take down a demon that had the head of a man and body of a scorpion, but as the head flew, something from its tail hit my right arm, right in the middle of Charlie's face. At first, I just thought it was a splatter of dark demon blood it left behind, but then it started to burn and smoke. I wiped at it with my left hand, which was stupid, and I dropped to my knees as a burning sensation spread up my arms. It was eating away at my flesh.
Flashes of white from up above caught my eye as other angels arrived to help. The screeches from dying demons hit my ears, but I was struggling to move out of the way of the melee.
Arms took hold of me from behind and I was dragged backwards. It was Reve.
He stopped on the other side of an old set of escalators and sat me against the wall. The action was happening out of eyesight. If Reve was on the other team, I was a dead man.
"I have to cut it off." My eyes went wide at his words and I vehemently shook my head, words refusing to come out. "Just the flesh that has been touched. If I don't, it will spread and we'll have to cut off both your arms. If I don't do this you will die."
I looked at him pleadingly and then down at my arm where my tattoo was already destroyed by whatever the black substance was.
I shut my eyes and then nodded.
"I'm sorry I have to do this." He sounded pained at the thought of cutting into my flesh.
I could hear the shouts and sounds of demons on the other side of where he had dragged me. I kept my eyes shut and then he began to cut.
I woke as my body was jostled against a muscular chest. The smell of sulfur and ash was in the air and I opened my eyes to find Reve's face staring down at me.
I lifted my arm that had been cradled against my chest. Whatever it had looked like when he carved off the decaying flesh was now healed to a flawless new patch of skin. I could only see part of Margie's face. My children were gone.
The sense of loss was overwhelming and I clenched my eyes shut.
"Oliver was able to heal your arm. I'm sorry about your tattoo. I know how much they can mean." He spoke low, so only I could hear. I knew the others were near from the sounds of their feet shuffling on the floor as he made his way across the dark mall. "I'll fix it for you."
"How?" I managed to get the word out and a hiccup came after. I looked at my arm again. It might have been healed, but the whole thing looked like a layer of smooth scar tissue.
Angel tattoos were a complicated and painful process that involved several passes with a tatt
oo gun. When I had gotten mine back in the sixties the wait list for the one angel tattoo artist was several years long.
"I'll do it, if you'll let me." I grunted as he stopped and set me down. He took my elbow to steady me.
I glanced around at the twenty or so angels. Some looked worse for wear, but it seemed there were no casualties on our end. Asher and Oliver were walking several feet ahead of us with Lucifer in between them.
Lucifer reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He stopped abruptly and stood staring at his phone for several seconds before he took off running towards the exit.
Danica.
We took off after him, seeing him launch into the sky just as we came out of the door. As soon as we were far enough outside, Asher grabbed me and we shot into the sky too. He was a perceptive bastard, knowing I was still recovering from whatever that demon had hit me with.
We landed outside Asher's building and rushed into Danica's open door, nearly falling over each other in our haste. The first sight that greeted us was the doctor and assistant laying sprawled out on the floor. Oliver rushed to them.
Both of his hands lit up as he put one hand on the doctor and one on the assistant.
"Don't overdo it, angel baby," Asher said, stepping into the hallway leading to Danica's room.
I followed, with Reve behind me. Asher braced his hands on the doorframe, stopping us from rushing forward. Lucifer was on his knees by the side of the bed, his hands on the empty mattress.
"Lily... Lilith took her." Lucifer's voice shook. He gripped the sheets in his hand.
Asher stepped into the room so we could take in the scene. The room looked how we had left it, except instead of Danica on the bed, there was a crescent burned into the sheets.
Lucifer stood, clenching his fists next to his sides. Asher and I looked at each other and backed up towards the door. We felt the temperature jump at least ten degrees in the room.