"Sure, of course." He pointed across the street to a subway tunnel. "Take that train up five blocks, then it'll be fastest to walk the rest of the way. It's not far from here." He handed me the map and headed on his way.
Following just a few steps, I called out, "Thank you! But, sir, what's the name of the borough?"
The man turned his head to call over his shoulder, but his words were washed out by the sound of a cab honking directly beside us. I jumped and flinched against the sound. When the horn blaring stopped, I looked for the map-reader again, but he was long gone.
"Did any of you catch that?" I asked.
Three heads shaking was their only response. "Well, we can at least take his advice on how to get there."
Gabriel led the way across the street and underground to the subway. "Did you know, I once had an earth cycle where I helped build these?" he asked. "Since we always end up on opposite Earth cycles, I bet you didn't know that."
I chuckled and took his hand. "You're always so jealous that you don't ever get to be my mate on an Earth cycle. But someone has to protect us while we're human. I'll have you know we watch over you while you're here as well. I knew you helped build these."
"Then why couldn't you have gotten us where we needed to go?" Michael asked.
Gabe rolled his eyes. "Man, that was a long time ago, and I was underground, slaving away at the tracks. I wasn't in the planning committee."
Lucifer and Michael continued to tease Gabriel about his lack of knowledge after bragging about building them. I couldn't help but giggle at their brotherly camaraderie. It made me so happy to see Lucifer interacting with his friends this way. They hadn't done this for the last few centuries, though they used to.
Duty had begun to weigh heavily on all of us. With the exception of losing our daughter, this whole stuck on Earth thing might have ended up being good for us. All of us. Oh, and there was the whole Abaddon gates crumbling thing. That was worrisome.
When we got to the train, the doors were just closing. I sighed and looked at the schedule. "It's a half-hour. Can't we just teleport there?" I asked.
Michael nodded. "Sure. We can try. Come here." The terminal was fairly quiet considering all the traffic above us. We stepped against the wall and joined hands. "As soon as nobody is looking," Michael whispered. His eyes darted to the dozen or so people milling about. "Now," he said after about two minutes.
But nothing happened. I cracked an eye and looked over at him. He had a shocked expression on his face. "Again," he whispered. I didn't even bother closing my eyes this time.
We didn't move. "Let me try," Gabe said. He didn't bother to make sure nobody was looking, just closed his eyes and focused.
Nothing.
Son of a bitch.
"What's going on?" I asked.
We unlinked our fingers and huddled in a circle. "It's hard to disrupt magic like this," Lucifer said. "Can you still feel your link to your power?"
They both nodded. "Yes, it all felt very normal," Michael said. "As if it were going to work, no problem."
"Then something is blocking portal travel within the area. Again, powerful magic. Relic-needed sort of power," Lucifer said. "What is Raphael doing?"
"And why does he need Ariel?" I knew my voice sounded pitiful, but I didn’t care.
"Should we wait on the train?" Luc asked. "Have either of you lived here recently?"
They both shook their heads. "Let's try a cab," Gabe suggested. "Anybody have cash?"
I hadn't brought money. Hadn't imagined I'd need it.
"Yeah, it was Lucian's habit to always make sure he had a few hundred bucks on him just in case," Lucifer said. "I grabbed his wallet before we left."
"Let's go," I said urgently.
We walked up the stairs, and I threw my arm up like I'd seen others doing. Within seconds, a yellow vehicle parked at the curb in front of us. We piled in. Me, Luc, and Michael got in the back seat and Gabe ran around to sit beside the driver.
"Where to," the driver said. His silver hair glinted in the streetlights coming in the windows.
"Here." I leaned forward and unfolded the map. "We need to be dropped in this vicinity."
