She put her hand on his face. "Here is where the child is. This will not be easy," she whispered. "God be with you."
She let her hand fall and watched us through sleepy eyes. "What are you waiting for?" she yelled. "Go!"
We jumped and grabbed hands. The woman had a presence that would make anyone jump to obey her. Gabriel took us to wherever she told him to. When I opened my eyes, we stood in the middle of a field of green. Trees swayed in the distance, but I only had eyes for the man standing in front of us.
Raphael.
He looked as shocked to see us as we were to see him, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "Where is she?" I yelled.
He staggered back a few steps and put his hand over his heart. "I'm sorry, my old friends." Michael lunged for him, but Raphael dodged him. "It's for the greater good."
He disappeared, leaving us standing in the middle of a field. "Where are we?" I whispered.
Gabe took my hand. "Ireland," he said. "Still the Earth realm."
"Why did we come here? Why not where Ariel is?" I cried. "How is this happening?"
"She must've been here when Mary connected with her," Lucifer said. "Let's go home and regroup."
Gabriel gathered me in his arms and took us home, landing us in the living room again.
Joel followed a few seconds later as we stood in the middle of the room and stared at each other in dismayed shock. "When Michael grabbed Raphael's shirt, this fell out." He held out a key.
I gasped. Lucifer reached out and snatched the key from Joel's palm. "How?"
Joel shrugged. "I don't even know what it is, only that it feels horrible. Pain radiates from it."
"Well, it would," I snapped. "It's the Key to Abaddon." My heart sank as I realized the implications of Raphael having this key. Things kept getting worse and worse.
Joel's jaw dropped. Michael leaned forward, studying it. Gabe's arms tightened around me.
"Explain," Gabe said.
I tapped his hand, so he'd let go of me, then took the key from Lucifer. "We've searched for this thing for centuries," I whispered. "Since the death of Christ."
Studying the heavy iron key, I marveled at it. Talk about a Relic. "Raphael having it is confirmation of all of our suspicions and fears," Lucifer said. "Raphael wants to open the gates of Abaddon and release Hell on the Earth Realm."
7
Joel was a damn social butterfly in Heaven. He'd recruit more help. With Lucifer and I both nearly powerless, we needed all the help we could get. Michael and Gabe couldn't handle all of it alone.
The three of them left to notify Heaven of the latest on the Raphael search and demon hunting.
We sat on the back porch to wait for them. "Do you think she's something more than human?" I asked.
Luc shrugged. "I don't know. I hope so."
"If she's not, when all this is done, we can't bring her back to Abaddon." The thought made my heart ache.
"Why can't we stay here with her?" he asked. "We could take turns in Abaddon taking care of business, and Gabriel and Michael would certainly help."
I considered the possibility. "We'd have to move constantly."
He agreed with a grunt. If we stayed in one place in our ethereal bodies, we'd have demon hunters all over us constantly. Something about our magic had shifted and changed when we Fell. It was detectable now by the human hunters. They couldn't find angels, but they sure as shit found us easily enough. It was one reason Fallen and higher-level demons no longer spent any significant amount of time in the Earth realm. Humans didn't need us to tempt them into sin. They handled it on their own just fine.
"God doesn't get involved. But he wouldn't have allowed this baby to happen just to punish us by taking her away," Luc mused. "He sees some reason for all this, something to make it worthwhile to allow Raphael to continue this course."
"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I didn't think she was anything but human."
