"Oh, sorry." My magic must've concealed her from everyone but me. I prodded it and she came into view, slumped against the magical restraints. "I'm working on Ezekiel, though. Let me pop to the house and try to find Luc."
He wasn't there. I returned to Gabriel and Michael to find Michael gone. "Where'd he go?" I asked.
"To help Joel. I waited to see if you found Lucifer."
Fear filled my gut. "No, he wasn't there."
Gabe closed his eyes for a moment. "I can't sense him."
No. He wouldn't have left on his own. "I have to find him. Let Michael and Joel track Uriel. Here." I pulled out my phone, which beeped when it went down to one percent and forwarded him the picture. "Can you gather those ingredients?" Pointing to Genevra, I continued. "This one is pregnant so the unborn blood will be easy and more powerful being an angelic baby."
Gabe nodded. "I'll leave the ingredients here, then go to Michael. Check in when you can."
He pulled me into his arms. "Be careful," he whispered. "You're the heart of us, you know."
"I love you," I said, then he disappeared.
Now to find Luc.
Chapter Twelve
The only way I knew to find Luc was to blanket the Earth realm in magic again. It worried me to do it so soon after I already had, but without Luc in his ethereal body, I couldn't sense him.
Sitting on a clean bit of hay, I let my magic spread out again, sending the same call for demons to return to Hell. I sensed a few still in the Earth realm, probably some that had escaped Hell just since we returned the first wave. They were slipping out fast, even with all the ones we'd tasked with hiding the holes and cracks in the walls.
Lucifer's energy pulsed halfway across the United States, in Georgia. I sighed and hid Genevra again. Luc hadn't ported himself hundreds of miles away on his own. Someone had taken him, and if they'd been here, my magic had done its job, because Genevra was still there, untouched. Whoever took Luc hadn't known she was on the wall. That was encouraging, at least.
Appearing in the yard outside a small house as the sun slipped behind the trees, I sighed and walked forward. At least this one didn't have a magical ward over it.
Luc was inside, but something was wrong with him. Even though I couldn't sense his magic because of the spell on him, I could tell he was nearly passed out. What the heck?
I knocked on the door and jumped back when someone appeared to my right.
A low-level Throne angel lunged at me, but I ducked and whirled, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind him. He jerked out of my grasp and disappeared. Not at all deterred, I ran into the house. I hadn't even begun to fight.
The Throne followed me, but once I was inside, he stopped trying to fight me. Closing the door, he leaned against it and I got a good look at him. He was tall and lanky, with long, greasy hair.
Within seconds, I knew why he'd stopped trying to fight. The house was under a draining spell. It began siphoning my powers immediately. I threw a layer of protection over me, which slowed the process considerably. Now the spell was only able to take a trickle, not a flood. Ignoring the Throne, I walked through the house, looking for Lucifer. I found him on the sofa, unrestrained, but so weak he was nearly passed out. His head lolled back, and jaw was slack, though his eyes fluttered open and shut.
Turning to the weak angel, I glared. "Stop the spell now."
He grinned, looking triumphant. "Like you can stop me." Chuckling, he walked forward. "By now, your powers will be a fraction of what they should be, and you're no more powerful than I am. Some great and powerful leader you are," he snarled. "One simple spell has you cowering in fear. "
I arched one eyebrow and looked around the room. "Who is cowering? Am I cowering?" Looking down at myself, I made a comical show of turning in a circle. "Nope. No cowering here."
My powers were diminished, sure, and wearing by the minute, but they were leaving me far slower than this putz realized.
I split the flow of my energy, leaving half of it to keep me protected. I used part of the other half to lift the tall man into the air. "My power is fine," I said in a low, even voice. "And I can't help but wonder if killing you will stop the spell and release my husband."
"No," he whispered. "He promised me if I got you here, you'd both be weak. He told me to keep you here."
This wasn't someone on the list we already had. This guy was someone new. I didn't waste the energy to read his aura. It could safely be assumed he was vile.
Snaking a thread of power up his arm so he could feel it, I let it wrap around his neck several times like a constrictor. "Do you want to release the spell? Or should I test my killing you theory?" I asked.
He gulped. "I can't. If you don't kill me, he will."
My coil of magic tightened around his neck. "He's not here. I am." I cocked my head at him. "Last chance." Squeezing harder, I smiled as he gasped.
