If he'd had a body he would've sighed, but I got the feeling.When I managed to break out of the box, I ricocheted into Raphael's head. I did get some information, but he expelled me pretty fast. As soon as I was free in Elysium...He went quiet for a few seconds.I got some perspective. It all went bad when my daughter was killed.
I was, of course, curious about that, but I pushed it aside.What else?
She opened the gates of Abaddon. Not Raphael. She was the one that managed it. She's so powerful, he thinks if he can keep her and train her, she'll be more powerful than you and Lucifer put together.
"What about Lucifer's powers?" Gabe asked.
I asked Vincent.
I didn't get anything about that. But there was one more thing about Ariel. He tested it. She was able to open Abaddon, but she can't enter it. She's got a real body, humanistic, but it's more than human. It's something new. She can't go into Elysium either. She can either go to the realm Raphael made for her or Earth. That's it.
Lucifer's jaw dropped. "So even though she's not human, we still can't bring her home."
"We will find a way to make it all work out. We'll find a way to create a million new realms if we have to!"
Do you know anything else that could be helpful?
Vincent said he didn't. He seemed very regretful about that, as well.
I pulled him out of me, and I'd been right. It was relatively easy to overpower him and expel his aura from mine.
Once he was a soul again, I blasted him with a bit of power and sent him floating into the sea of souls. "We can't take him. All we can do is leave him, then fix this mess..." I gestured vaguely to the souls piled up in the River that couldn't come through. "Once we have Lucifer's powers and Ariel back."
"Agreed," Michael said. Lucifer and Gabriel nodded.
"Come on. Let's stop by and check out Abaddon. See if there's anyone left in it." We walked out of the gates, which let us leave easily, but none of the souls could. Not unless we made it happen with magic. That was normally the job of the Fallen, but they were currently trying to make all demons invisible again on Earth.
The walk across the soft grass was eerie. Normally, this area bustled with activity. Upper Demons and Fallen going back and forth, souls in states of entry and exit.
Now there was nothing. No more demons ran out of the gates.
We entered to find vast emptiness in Abaddon. Our palace stood silent, empty. It was built so that some of it was on the outside of the gates, and that part was where Michael, Gabriel, and I shared a home. They couldn't come into Abaddon with the gates closed.
It was all fair game now, though. The place felt dead. Like the magic had been stripped from the realm completely. No life, no death.
Just nothingness.
I whispered, "We have to figure out how to get our daughter back."
14
Our breakfastwith Cecilio and Mary seemed so long ago. "I'm starving," I said as we contemplated walking around the castle.
"Well, I've never been inside the gates like this, and I don't like it. I'm ready." Gabriel looked just as freaked out as he had in the River. "We aren't meant to be here." He shivered.
Michael was more stoic about it, but I could tell he agreed. "Okay," I relented. "Let's go."
We walked out of the gates and looked up at the giant stone wall. It was imbibed with magic to create a permanent ward. That was the only reason we had to open and close the gates with Lucifer's magic. They were far too large for any force to move them physically. The wards were too tied to the stones. And I wasn't sure if there was enough magic available to anyone, anywhere to recreate the wards with new ones. They'd been forged with the power of the Fall. That was a level of power I hadn't seen since.
"I never imagined I'd miss this place," Lucifer said. "I resented it for so long."
Well, that was news to me. I looked at him in shock. "What?"
He shrugged. "What did you expect? I went from the most powerful Archangel to the guy that punishes the sickos. It took a while to come to terms with my new lot in life."
"We reacted to the fall differently." His hand was warm and dry when he enveloped mine so we could travel back to the house. "I was eager to start our new lives as free angels. We had the whole world at our fingertips, finally."
I moved us to the house and immediately went to the kitchen.
