"Drink this," he said. I cracked my eyes to peek at Lucifer drinking from a chalice. He grimaced and made a hissing sound. It must've tasted horrible. I refocused my attention on the magic and flow of energy.
Screams and yells, low guttural grunts, and insane babbling pulled me from my focus. Without warning, the woods around the property exploded with demons. I threw up a ward as fast as I could and only a few made it to the house. "I warded us!" I yelled over the cacophony.
Michael and Gabriel dispatched the few demons racing toward the balcony easily enough, but more and more began to pound against the ward I'd thrown up. It wasn't difficult to keep them out, not as it had been in Abaddon. "What happened?" I yelled.
"Something went wrong with the spell," Luc said.
"Instead of calling your powers, we called your demons!" Cecilio looked at the animalistic and humanoid demons throwing themselves against my ward with wide eyes. "What do we do?"
I grinned. "What we do best."
Lucifer sighed and walked to the balcony fence. He leaned against it. "I wish I could help."
"If you could help," I said as I began throwing balls of energy at the crowd. "We could send them all back and lock them in."
He sighed and watched forlornly as Michael, Gabriel, and I destroyed whole groups of demons at once.
But something changed. The goblet on the table clattered to the floor. I whirled to see what the noise was and found Mary and Cecilio staring at it with shocked eyes. "Who did that?" I asked.
They both shook their heads. "Nobody," Luc said. "It fell on it—" He stopped talking and grabbed his throat. "Luc!" I screamed.
It was all I could do to keep up the ward as I rushed to Lucifer's side. Fear threatened to make me give up the attempt at keeping the demons at bay. "Don't let go of that ward, Lilith!" Michael said. "You're the best one at making them!"
“Cecilio is good too,” I quipped back.
"I'm good, but I need to figure out how to fix him," Cecilio said. He and Mary knelt beside me and put their hands on Luc. I put my palm to his head and ignored the demons, focusing only on saving him and keeping the ward up.
"He's being drained," I said. "The spell. You've got to break it."
Cecilio shook his head. "It's not that easy. It's designed to run its course. When the liquid in the goblet is done inside him, the spell will be done. That's all we can do. We wait."
"There has to be something more," I said. "A reversal."
He shook his head. "All we can do is wait."
I split my power and shoved it into Lucifer. "Use this," I urged, but he was unconscious. Every few minutes, his body would twitch or jerk and make me want to scream in frustration.
"How's it going with the demons?" Cecilio called to Michael and Gabriel.
"They're not getting through, but it's like more and more are being called," Gabe said. "For every one we kill, three more appear."
"At least this will help pull some of them from the rest of the world," I muttered. "We can't even call the angels to help because of all your wards."
Cecilio grimaced. "This is why I usually refuse to interfere with the workings of angels."
"Call your dad," I said. "Or mom. Whichever is the angel. Can they get in here easily?"
Cecilio shot me a dark look and Mary tsked at me. "No," Cecilio said. "They have a harder time than most.”
If I wasn't terrified this could kill Lucifer while he was already vulnerable without his magic, I would've been very interested to know who Cecilio’s parents were. But it wasn't important. Not now.
Luc gasped again, and I renewed my efforts to save him. He was still being tugged on somehow like something was eating at his life force.
And he burned from within. His skin was nearly too hot to touch. Of course, I ignored it, but a human would've been scalded. I was amazed to see Mary and Cecilio still touching him.
As fast as it began, it all stopped. The sounds of the demons quieted. I looked up at Michael and Gabriel. They were still shooting energy and magic toward the ward, but it wasn't so hard to hold it up. "Did you guys get most of them?"
"They've stopped coming," Gabe said. "The ones that were there are still trying, but there aren't new ones."
