“After the events at Stonehenge, I went to seek her out. I wanted to know the exact spell she gave to Natia.” My voice croaks around her name. “She’d cleared out.”
“You suspect she gave her a different spell than what we asked for?” Zee asks with a frown. Meanwhile, Emi’s face blanks.
“The spell was meant to trap Ty in the Jar or in Archan, not Natia. She manipulated the spell and the wards.” Emi blinks, making my gaze narrow. She’s not responsible for the spell, but definitely the wards.
“So we track down and place Marsha into protective custody,” Zac says.
“She won’t be easy to find,” I reply.
“I will find her.” Archan’s deep rumble comes through the speaker. I glance at Aaden, then Zee. He’s back? That’s a big bonus. Perhaps we have a chance of preventing Hell on Earth.
“I’ll put out feelers in the community,” Lucifer’s smooth voice says. I blink in shock. We have Lucifer and Archan working together, plus Jed. Three primordials. Yesterday, Archan hadn’t even spoken to anybody. Lucifer had retreated to his own realm, trying to keep Hell on his leash, and Jed was running between us and Zac trying to maintain an open dialogue between us all. Today feels brighter, a little more hopeful, like the darkness has shifted to allow a shaft of light through the endless storm.
“We have contacts through SIP who we can ask to keep an eye out,” Zee says.
“Between us, we should be able to find Marsha within twenty-four hours,” Aaden says. I don’t argue, but I’ve known Marsha for a long time. If she doesn’t want to be found, then we won’t find her. This cave is warded against every and all magic, but it’s nothing compared to the hiding places she’s gathered over the years. No, they will only find Marsha Belk when she’s good and ready. We just have to hope she wants to be found.
“Unless we find anything before, let’s meet again at eight am tomorrow,” Zac says. “Anything to add, Archan?”
“No.”
“Lucifer?” Zac checks.
“No.”
“Tomorrow at eight,” Zac asserts before the phone clicks off.
“You said nothing about trying to find Marsha,” Zee grumbles.
“None of us were thinking straight in those first few days.”
“You wanted someone to blame,” Emi utters.
I cut a sharp look in her direction, my fists clenching. “Someone gave Natia the tools to sacrifice herself with. If she hadn’t had the help, she wouldn’t have succeeded.”
Emi’s chocolate brown eyes harden. “Natia was her own woman, who made her own decisions. Do not presume to know what is best for everyone. It was her choice to make, her life to give. You dishonor her memory by acting as if you had a better solution. Whilst painful, hers was elegant, a tribute to the woman she was and what her purpose here on Earth was.”
“There were other ways around it,” I grit out.
Emi arches an eyebrow and folds her arms across her chest. “Name one.”
I stand, my chair scraping back across the stone floor, lean over the table and slam my fist down. Aaden’s laptop jumps. “Any other way but getting herself killed by a god.” He stands and moves closer to Emi.
“The whole point was to save the man she loved and offer her gift of hope to the world. She wanted you to have a fighting chance,” Emi grits out. “All that power needed to be released, in the right way, on her terms. There are layers more complex and dangerous at work in this narrative than you can conceive. Natia might have been born to this life only twenty-odd years ago, but her eternal soul had man’s sins weighing on it. Her struggle could only end one way, and it wasn’t a long and happy life with kids and a white picket fence. That was never on the cards for the woman who was created by the gods to punish humanity.”
I scrub my hands down my face as Zee leans towards Emi. “She deserved a place in Heaven. Not to be obliterated.”
Emi sighs. “Agreed, but in the time she had and the tangled web she’d woven with oaths, it could only end one way. Perhaps with more time to plan, she would have found a different way. But they went for her throat when they took and threatened her family. In the end though, she saved everyone, including the hero of the story.”
Aaden wraps an arm around her waist and plants a kiss on her head. I study Emi, the question of whether she played a part in Natia’s downfall is clear now. Does that make her our enemy? Perhaps, but then Marsha, Lucifer, Archan, and Zac also become our enemies. Each one of them played a part in maneuvering Natia into a position where she felt sacrifice was her only way out. I glance at Zee, even him with his ties to her through his magic placed a pressure on her to snap those bonds. He wasn’t his own man; but her death freed him and left him with powers stolen from her blood.
No, I shouldn’t lay the blame at their feet. In the end, it was her heart-breaking decision to tear away the essence of what we are fighting for, and I guess it’s now up to us to continue this fight she left us with.
If there was an almighty higher being, he would have ensured her eternal soul passed on to Heaven. She’d suffered enough for everyone else’s sins. She deserved peace, what she got was pain and an ending not even the worst criminal suffers. In the end, the universe eradicated the purest soul from existence.
4
Chapter Four
