by V J J Dunn
“Oh, please, I can take two measly demons,” she assured the angel. “Go help them. They need you a lot more than I do.” She glanced toward the Remnants who were struggling to keep up with the horde’s attack.
“Unless you want to take care of the water and I’ll go fight with them,” she offered, knowing full well it was the worse of the two options, as far as Metatron was concerned.
Allie knew he was aware she was playing him when he growled. His forest-colored eyes darted from the well to the Remnants and he looked so conflicted that Allie almost gave in to him. But they needed to stop the water poisoning, if only to keep the substance from possibly reaching The City.
Finally, Metatron sighed. “All right, little warrior, but be careful. And don’t forget—”
“Use my senses,” she interrupted with a shooing wave. “Yeah, yeah, hurry up and go!” With that, Allie turned and rushed to the well. They’d wasted precious moments deciding what to do.
The demons were lesser, like Bebarr had been, and she easily dispatched both of them once she was close enough. It didn’t skip Allie’s notice that she could have easily escaped from the demon when he’d kidnapped her if she’d been able to move.
There were several empty containers scattered around and Allie frowned as she peered over the side of the well, staring into the dark depths. She wondered how much poison they’d managed to dump into the water, if it was enough to eventually reach the Gardens and City. It hadn’t just been here, in Guwahati; back in Chengdu, there had been a lot of empty containers on the ground before they’d stopped the demons.
She knew she needed to hurry back to help the others, but she also wanted to know what it was they’d dumped into the water. She squatted to examine a container, then picked it up and sniffed it. A frown crossed her brow when she couldn’t detect an odor, other than the slight mustiness of the clay pot.
Back in the Old Age, there were a lot of different types of poisons — stuff that would kill insects, others that would kill rodents. There was even stuff that would kill plants. She remembered there had also been a lot of controversy over the poisoning of the planet by plastics.
She was aware there were lots of ways to poison something, but she wasn’t familiar with any of them.
But Allie figured Abba would know what it was. Obviously, she snorted to herself. She decided then to take one of the containers to Him. If it was something that could harm the Gardens and City, He needed to know right away.
While they were still under quarantine, she told herself again that there wasn’t really a worry of infection; not a single Remnant had any sign of the disease. Even though it was against Abba’s orders, Allie decided it was worth the risk to break quarantine so she could talk to Him.
Transferring directly to the Throne Room would be the best option, because there was less chance of running into a human, the only beings capable of being infected.
It irked her to know that humans were so… delicate. Even the Remnants. They might be warriors, might be extremely long-lived in their new bodies, but all it took was a microscopic bug to destroy them. She wondered why Abba hadn’t made the new bodies immune to such things.
But then she remembered that, instead, Abba had rid the earth of disease. The pestilence in Kingston was all Lucifer’s doing. Yet another reason to despise the douche.
She knew sitting there thinking about all of it wasn’t getting her back into the fight any faster, nor was it getting the poison sample to Abba. Before she could even straighten, though, a voice startled her.
“Finally, alone and unprotected.” Allie looked up and her heart clenched.
Lucifer.
He, too, was alone, with no demon henchmen accompanying him. She wondered if she could take him in a fight. When he laughed, she wondered if he’d read her mind, even though she knew he didn’t have that ability. That power belonged solely to Abba.
Once again, she was struck by his beauty. Sandy hair with golden streaks, delicately defined bone structure, eyes that were eerily similar to Abba’s but without all the colors of the spectrum, maybe just half. Still, that’s eight million colors…
She shook herself out of her thoughts and stood, frowning when she realized she had to look up at him. Of course, the jerk had made sure that he was taller than her. Even Abba didn’t do that; He always presented Himself as the same height as the humans. But then Lucifer was always the show-off and one-up-man. Vain beyond comprehension.
It was what had caused him to rebel, after all… thinking he was better than everyone else, even Abba.
Allie crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at him. “‘Sup, evil dude?”
Surprise crossed his beautiful face at her insolence, and she knew he was expecting her to cower and grovel. Not gonna happen, douche canoe.
Lucifer collected himself quickly. He straightened even taller as he scowled at her. “You will not be so cocky in the very near future,” he threatened.
“Alessandra!” Allie turned to see Metatron looking her way. Zad, too. Both angels were swarmed by demons and the fallen, unable to come to her, but each looked like they’d sacrifice their sword arms to be able to do so. She watched as Charo started running toward her, dodging combatants as she leapt over bodies.
Nick was in the middle of the fight and looked as frantic as the angels to come to her. She wanted to reassure her husband, but before she could answer him, Lucifer whispered in her ear. Allie didn’t even realize he’d gotten so close and grimaced because she hadn’t been using all her senses like she was supposed to be doing.
“I told you I was going to make you cry, Mistress.”
His smooth voice caused shivers to course over her skin, and not in a good way. More like the way the sound of a hissing snake caused hairs to stand on end.
“That time has come.”
The Reign of the Lion series continues with Book 3, The Gathering, available for pre-order now!
The sound of dripping water greeted Allie when she awoke. She frowned, unsure where she was, what was happening. Or, rather, what had happened.
She forced her eyes open and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. She was in a surprisingly well-furnished room. The furniture was made from dark wood, beautifully carved. A huge desk with a comfortable looking armchair sat in one corner with bookcases along the wall that ran alongside the desk. There were tall lamps with lampshades made from colored panes of glass standing at each end of the desk. Allie frowned, trying to remember what the glass panes were called; it was a decoration from the Old Age.
Stained glass… like they had in churches.
There was a huge door on another wall, also made from the same dark wood and intricately carved. She frowned again, trying to make out the depiction within the wood. It, too, was familiar, something from the Old Age like the lampshades.
She scanned her memories and then it dawned on her… they were scenes from Dante’s Inferno. Back when she’d been a kid in Belize City, she had seen some paintings on display in a window of an art gallery and her neighborhood friend Carlito had explained the depictions of Hell, which had terrified her at the time.
Why anyone would want such terrifying images carved into a door was beyond her, but then again, Allie knew she wasn’t in The City, where everything was centered around Abba and His gloriousness. The frown returned when she realized that, for all she knew, she could very well be in Hell herself.
She looked away from the door and turned her head to examine the opposite side of the… bed, or whatever it was that she was reclining on. Her frown deepened into a scowl when she saw Lucifer sitting in a chair not an arm’s length away.
The first fallen angel and baddest of the bad — and the most beautiful of them all — grinned at her. Regardless of his incredible and unfathomable attractiveness, Lucifer always seemed slimy. Creepy. For good reason, obviously.
“Ah,” he crooned, “the Mistress has finally awakened.” He stood then and spread his arms out.
�
�Welcome to my home. I do so hope you enjoy your stay, since you will not be leaving. Ever.”
Available for pre-order on Amazon now!
Check out VJJ’s other books!
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Unanswered Prayers Book 2 in The Tapestry Series
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