Hemah simply nodded.
“Touch me and hold on tight,” Gideon instructed flatly, extending both of his arms. “I will take us there.”
Without making a sound, we touched the Grim Reaper. His skin was as hot as the ghost’s was cold. It didn’t faze me. I take fire over ice any day of the week. I could feel Alana Catherine too. My heart beat loudly in my chest and adrenaline pumped through my formerly frozen veins. It was time to end the madness.
“We’re coming, baby,” I whispered. “Hang on. Hang on until we get there.”
In an explosion of blinding black magic we left the bowels of the forest.
We were headed to the final battle.
And the best men, women and ghosts would win.
It was possible. We all believed. Belief would take us there.
It had to.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From a distance,the crevasse looked identical to what I’d seen in Hemah’s memories. Normally, a crevasse was a fissure that formed in a glacier or a thick sheet of ice, but nothing about anything was normal on this plane. This crevasse was deep in the rocky ground. The stream was present too. We were no longer in the dark, desolate forest, but this area wasn’t much better. There was grass and a little bit of murky sunlight streaming through the sparsely leafed trees, but the overall feeling permeating the air was one of sadness and fear. Most of what I’d experienced on the Higher Power’s plane was tragic. I could only hope that when the true Higher Power took their rightful place, this plane would be filled with light and joy.
Only time would tell and we seemed to be running out of it fast.
“Low. Get low,” Gideon commanded tersely.
We hid in a tree line a few hundred feet away from the opening of the crevasse. Alana Catherine was so close I could taste it. My gut told me she wasn’t in great shape, but she was alive.
Alive was all we needed. Healing her would be my greatest pleasure. She was my baby. She was my world.
“I can’t tell if Uriel is in there,” Gideon whispered. “Can either of you?” He directed the question to Chamuel and Hemah.
“No,” Chamuel said. “But I can go in and check.”
I exchanged a glance with Gideon. His expression was grim. He didn’t like Chamuel’s suggestion any more than I did. If Uriel was in there and the ghost of Chamuel appeared, that could be deadly for Alana Catherine. If Uriel thought the gig was up, there was no telling what It would do.
“I don’t think that’s the best plan,” I said firmly.
“I agree,” Gideon said.
Candy Vargo pulled her toothpick out of her mouth and flicked it to the ground. “I do not agree. The plan is fuckin’ solid.”
I squinted at her and shook my head. “We might have only one chance to save Alana Catherine. If Uriel sees Chamuel and knows something’s off, It might go off the deep end. We can’t afford that. Alana Catherine can’t afford that.”
“True that,” Candy agreed much to my confusion. “But, if Uriel can’t see the ghost, it ain’t a problem.”
“I prefer that we go with the name Uranus until further notice,” Shitty Ritchie chimed in.
“Roger that,” Candy Vargo told the idiot. “If Uranus can’t see Chamuel, we can get the intel we need and then proceed with the extraction of our gal.”
Gideon wasn’t having it. His tone was clipped and furious. Risking Alana Catherine’s life any more than necessary wasn’t on his agenda. “And how would you propose making that work?”
Candy Vargo rolled her eyes. “What do I look like to you?” she hissed at Gideon.
“Is that a trick question?” he shot back, flatly.
I wondered the same thing myself.
“No,” she snapped. “I’m the Keeper of fucking Fate, motherfucker. I can render the ghosts invisible for a short period of time.”
