Drea pointed at him. “Tatum’s a flyer who can open portals. She could easily fly to safety and open another portal home. But she won’t if one of us stays back and gets injured. Your inability to cooperate with the plan could actually get her killed.”
And that’s why Drea was our leader.
Gage’s beast was partially to the surface. Drea’s redress had clearly angered him, but they also made sense.
“Fine. I’ll go through if things go sideways, but you better make it home, Tate,” he growled.
“I will.Withmy mom,” I told them all.
Now that I had all of their agreement to safely flee the scene if things went crazy, it was like a weight had been lifted from me.
Turning around, I took in a deep breath and imagined the cemetery in New York City. It was hopefully a non-busy place to put an open portal for the next half hour or however long this took. I would open it and then fly up to my mom and hopefully use her power to stabilize it and keep it open. I was encouraged by the fact that I’d been able to keep the portal into Whole Foods open by myself when Gage got the groceries. Granted, I wasn’t fighting for my mom multiple feet away from the portal, like I would be now, but it was something. Maybe my power was growing.
I gave myself a little pep talk:Breathe, concentrate, you can do this.
The mausoleum popped into my mind then, the tiny stone room where we’d hidden to listen in on Apollyon and Arthur’s conversation. It was the perfect place to hide a portal.
Pulling on my power, my marks swirled and glowed, and then without even needing to close my eyes like I normally did, the portal began to open. It was the size of an orange first and then grew to a basketball, before finally widening to an opening over six feet tall. The familiar stone walls of the mausoleum as well as the four sarcophagi came into view, and I grinned. I’d only had a few training sessions with Aurelia, and not yet learned or mastered many of the portal making skills, but clearly I was in the “good enough” category.
B- for me, and I’m happy with that!
I yelped as a figure suddenly stepped in front of the portal, and I nearly closed it until I recognized her.
Indigo.It was as if my thoughts alone had conjured her.
She stepped through, hair a wild mess, her under eyes lined with dark circles. I wondered when she’d last slept.
“Indigo! What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise.
“Your dead friend Skye got a message to me through Gage’s psychic aunt, Vera,” she huffed, as if she’d run here. “I needed to be here and help you hold open a portal?”
Who knows how Skye knew where we’d be. At the moment I certainly didn’t care. Sweet relief washed over me. As annoying as Skye was sometimes, that girl always had my back, and I was forever grateful.
“That would be great. We’re about to go save my mom.” I indicated the tower beyond.
She nodded, looking around the Netherworld a little uneasily. Then she planted her feet and rubbed her hands together. “We got this. Just connect with me and then I’ll join with the portal so that no matter how far away you are, you can feed me energy like refilling a battery and it will stay open.”
I frowned. “Where did you learn that?”
“Skye,” she said.
Marlow and Drea were both grinning. I think we all missed our brunette Angel Gang member. I owed her, big time.
Gage cleared his throat and Indigo looked at him, her eyes widening a little at his beastly appearance.
“I took care of the bodies,” was all she said, and Gage nodded.
Friendship goals.
“Okay let’s do this!” Lifting the hem of her shirt, Drea pulled two light weapons from the tattoos on her midriff.
Marlow, Jacob, and Dash pressed their palms to various parts of their bodies and followed suit.
Gage made fists of his monster hands and his face shifted into that of a beast.
“I’m coming, Mom,” I muttered.
Indigo reached out, keeping one hand inside the portal as if touching New York, and then I connected our energies and began feeding her my power.
