“Mina! You’re whole again,” an older woman said. She had the Swiss cheese spirit form going on as well.
“She healed me! Took power back from the dark master,” the woman, Mina, said.
I held up my hands. “I didn’t do anything on purpose.”
The older woman looked at me and then inhaled. “You smell like him. Like that festering demon pustule, Apollyon.”
Well, it was clear my biological father was not loved in this realm, and I didn’t blame them.
“I—well, I…” I was scared to tell them who I was for some reason, like they might attack me, which was stupid because they were dead. What could they really do to me anyway? “I’m Apollyon’s daughter,” I finally said.
A dawning came over the older woman and Mina’s faces, and they both nodded. The other spirits shifted behind them anxiously. They were even less corporeal, and I wondered if maybe they weren’t strong enough to communicate with me.
“We know who you are, and we’ve been expecting you,” Mina said. “Your mother spoke about you.”
My throat constricted. “You’ve, you’ve seen my mother?”
They all nodded. “She can use his power sometimes. She speaks with us, tries to help us hide from him.”
The more I learned about my mom, the more I loved her.
“What’s going on?” Gage grumbled.
I quickly brought him up to speed.
“They’ve seen your mom? Have they seen Drea and the other Lumens?”
That was a brilliant question that I’d been too shocked to ask.
I quickly rattled off my friends’ descriptions and Mina and the old woman shook their heads. My heart fell, but a young teen spirit in the back, a boy, pressed forward. He opened his mouth to speak, and his voice was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear him. “I saw them. They’re in Shadow City, on the roof of the big nightclub building.”
The roof? Of course. Jacob and Dash can fly, so they would have gotten Marlow and Drea up to safety as well. They would have known that from a high vantage point they could see the whole city. They were probably even watching for us to arrive. Just like I knew they would never abandon me, they knew I would be on my way to join them.
“Thank you.” I reached out and touched his arm and a pulse of purple light went through me and into him, strengthening his spirit.
The other souls gasped, and I beckoned them forward. Clearly the mere act of touching them helped them, so I was going to try and do my best to give them a boost. What was a little energy exchange if it helped them not disappear?
After I’d touched each one and made them as strong and healthy as possible, I promised them I would come back to free them at another time. It was my purpose after all, I was just hoping that Aurum knew how to transport souls from the Netherworld to Tartarus, because right now I had no idea.
I took a step forward and dizziness washed over me. I stumbled, causing Gage to reach out and steady me. I engaged my strength angel marks and they lit and swirled white as a punch of energy returned to me.
“Whoa, whoa. What just happened?” Gage eyed the place the souls had been, but they weren’t there anymore because they’d already floated off into the distance.
I peered behind me and swallowed hard. “They were disappearing. Apollyon was feeding on them, and I strengthened them.”
Gage frowned. “But at what cost to you?”
It was a good question, one I hoped I’d find a good answer to, because my gut told me that what I’d just done was an appetizer for the main course when I’d set all of the souls trapped here free.
When the dizziness subsided, I stood taller. “I’m good, let’s get in there,” I said, nodding toward Shadow City in the distance.
Gage pinched his mouth shut and I could tell he was worried, but he didn’t voice his concerns. Reaching down, he started to pull the cloak off of the demon we’d killed, and I quickly caught on to what he was doing.
“Brilliant,” I said, and pulled the cloak off of the other demon as well. The material was strange, like a scaly leather. Mine was charcoal gray and Gage’s was a deep hunter green. I was pretty sure they were made from the hides of some long-dead demon, but I pushed the gruesome thought from my mind, not wanting to obsess over whose skin I was wearing. Once we had them fastened around us, with the hood pulled up, we set off.
We traversed the rest of the mountain in silence, but Gage stuck close, and more than once I felt his concerned gaze settle on my face. When we reached the base of the mountain, we headed in the direction of Shadow City, keeping a keen eye out for any demons.
“What’s the plan to avoid the two guards at the gate?” I asked Gage, peering across the distance at the faint moving blobs that were demon guards. The cloaks were a good disguise as long as no one looked too closely, but I didn’t think they’d fool the guards at the gate who were trained to keep lower demons out of Shadow City.
