Eventually, the coin began to grow warm. I used another tendril of magic to support it without it touching me. Heat began to radiate off of the silver circle until we all felt it.
"Everyone get back," I exclaimed. "I think it's going to blow."
Mia jumped up and pulled the kids back.
But the heat from the coin kept growing. "Luc, if I keep on, this explosion might be more than I can contain," I said.
He, Michael, and Gabriel conferred beside me and soon threw up a ward around the coin and me.
"Lilith, if it gets bigger, it might incinerate you as well," Gabriel said. "You're going to have to stop."
I couldn't step back through the ward or it might've severed my connection to the coin.
But he was right. The energy in the coin was going to explode, and I was the only thing in its path. "Get the kids out of here!" I screamed, no longer sure even the ward they'd put up would hold it. The angels would recover from any blast outside the ward, but the children wouldn't.
"I'll take them to the Academy," Joel barked. He pointed at someone and a female angel ran forward and put her arms out. Mia took her hand and her son. Joel held his hand out to Ariel. As they disappeared, I noticed Ariel trying to squirm away from him.
At least she'd be at the academy where the Nephilim could keep her safe. They wouldn't kill a child.
20
"Everyone scatter!"I yelled. The angels and Fallen took off, the angels going to hide behind Purgatory's gates and the Fallen into Abaddon.
All my focus was on keeping the energy in the coin from exploding. Somehow, it had flipped, and instead of me feeding energy into the coin, it was sucking the magic from us. "It's draining me," I said in shock. I didn't know how much longer I could hold on.
But nobody was around. I'd told everyone to leave.
I nearly jumped out of the ward when Lucifer's voice came from right behind me. "Hang on," he said. "I think the realm itself is eating the energy. I'm about to pull life force from the demons in Abaddon."
"Shit!" I yelled. "I told you to scatter!"
I looked over my shoulder, but as I did, the coin surged. I no longer had to hold it up with magic, it rotated in the air on its own, so full of might that it didn't need support.
"We're not leaving you." Gabriel held his hand out but couldn't go through the barrier of the ward. "Ever."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't help but love each of them.
"You can do this," Michael said. "You're going to have to cut the flow of magic and step behind the ward at the same time. I'm going to try to move us away the instant you step through, hopefully, faster than the blast itself."
"If I let go of this coin and the magic it's hiding, it will explode."
"We know. That's why you have to move fast." Lucifer held out his hand. "Come on, babe. You can do this."
I'd never been less sure of anything in my entire life. There was so much power flowing through me into the coin that I felt faint. I wasn't sure I'd ever felt faint before! What a mess we were in. And I wasn't sure it would work at all. After all this, that damn coin might end up on the ground good as new.
"Okay." I sucked in a nervous breath. "There's not anything else we can do. But please. I can't choose. But two of you have to go. If this blast gets me and whoever pulls me out of the ward, someone has to be alive to care for Ariel." I gave them the severest looks I could over my shoulder. "I mean it, and you cannot ask me to choose."
"Luc, you're her biological father," Michael said. "Go."
Luc walked around so he could look me in the eye. "I'll be close," he whispered. "And if it was for anybody ever created other than Ariel, I'd never do this in a million years." He held his hand out again but couldn't reach through to touch me. "I love you, Lilith. I've loved you since we were newly created, and I'll love you until the stars explode in the night sky."
"Shit, Luc." Tears streamed down my face. "Way to break my heart."
He shrugged. "I need you to try really fucking hard not to die."
I burst out laughing and as he disappeared, to go behind the gates, me laughing was the last thing he saw.
Michael and Gabriel took his place.
