I had to dig deeper.
“Torrent,” I called.
“We going in?” Torr wove through our god crowd and stepped up beside me, his lime-green eyes bright with eagerness.
“Yup,” I said. “Maybe I can find something in there.”
“Like what?” Jesus asked.
“I don't know, but it's worth a look.” I put on my mask and headed up the steps. “We'll be right back.”
The other gods could have joined us, but it would have put an unnecessary strain on Torrent. My Dragon-Sidhe senses allowed me to follow scent trails through the Aether, but I couldn't walk that plane of existence without Torrent making a tunnel of Internet through it. Otherwise, I just whizzed through it like any other traveler, and that wouldn't give me time to follow a trail. But together, Torrent and I were the perfect Aether-inspecting team.
Torrent took my hand as we entered the temple. It was a huge space for a tracing chamber. Usually, they were closet-sized rooms, but this one was, well, temple-sized. Marble walls soared up to a domed and gilded ceiling supported by pillars. It was alot of white and gold. Sort of cliché, if you ask me. As we headed for a wall, the reason for the size of the tracing temple became obvious. Angels popped in all around us, each one appearing in a different area of the temple. Tracing into the exact same space as another god at the exact same time had never been done as far as I knew. Usually, the Aether let you out where there was room. But if there wasn't room because a huge amount of gods came tracing into a small confined space at the same time, there could be disastrous consequences. The size of the temple ensured that didn't happen.
The arriving Angels gave us odd looks, but only for a moment. That was as long as it took Torrent to take us into the Inter Realm. We didn't actually move. A tunnel of Internet just formed around us, turning the world brighter and sharper. Beside us, a second tunnel also appeared. Or a stream rather. The appearance of that second vein of Internet, one that extended out into Araboth, told me that Torr had been there recently. There was no way he would open paths of Internet for Jerry.
I pulled off my gas mask and asked, “Jesus asked you to install Internet?”
“Oh, yeah. Just a few weeks ago,” Torrent said. “The Angels are thrilled.”
“Maybe not all of them are thrilled.”
“Huh.” Torrent cocked his head, a swath of platinum hair falling across his pale face. He pushed it away absently. “I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want Internet access. But then, Angels can be very traditional gods, and I am, well, not.”
“Very untraditional,” I said. “Just the way I like you.”
“Thanks, V.” Torr grinned. “You ready?”
“Yup.”
Unseen by those in the God Realm, Torrent and I stepped forward, toward a glossy, marble wall. We didn't touch the wall, as we would to trace, but walked right through it, our Internet tunnel preceding us. Why didn't we just use one of the tunnels of Internet already in place? Because this tunnel wasn't full of zipping, glowing lines of information, and it would be easier for Torrent to move us about in it.
Normally, it was best to not see the Aether. It's a realm of pure magic, where witches send their spells to manifest and gods pay a toll of memories to pass through. And until those spells manifested, or those memories were absorbed by the Aether as a form of fuel, they hung out there. Just floated about like boba in a cup of tea, waiting to be sucked through a massive straw. Images of money, love, and healing competed with mini movie screens playing snippets of god and fey lives. I tried my best to ignore them. Stare too long at that magical circus, and you might go mad.
Instead, I inspected Araboth's ward. And Torrent helped. We peered at the fog of magic guarding the Seventh Heaven, moving slowly along it. I looked upon it as a witch, a faerie, and a goddess, but Torrent saw it as a magical source code. And he could unmake that code if he wanted to. In the world of Gods, his was a fearsome power, but we'd done our best to keep it under wraps. If it got out, the other gods might come gunning for Torrent, just to ensure he never unmake their wards. Or them.
“Anything?” I asked him.
“No, it looks fine to me.”
“It's huge.”
“I hear that a lot.” He giggled.
“Artemis is such a bad influence on you.” I snickered.
“Seriously though. The ward extends over all the Heavens.”
“What?” I paused to look at him. “But each of the Heavens is ruled by an Angel. Azrael wards Shehaquim himself.”
“Yes, but he was a special case.” Torr gave me a grim look. “He got Shehaquim because of his father, and Luke would never have allowed Jerry to have access to his son's territory and Hell, via that territory.”
“So, all the other Heavens were warded by Jerry?”
“Yup. You can't keep out the supreme God.”
“I mean, there's that. But if the ward falls, then all the Heavens are open to attack.”
