Lucifer gave me a strange look. “Where’s the gate? You don’t remember?”
“Should I? I’m not a demon and never have been.”
“How odd.” He cocked his head. “And here I assumed all of your memories had returned to you.”
I glanced at Az. “The important ones did.”
“The gate is belowInfernal,” Az said quietly with a glance over his shoulder. His eyes met mine, but in his attempt to close himself off to Lucifer, I couldn’t read him, either. “It’s underground.”
Of course it was. The gate to Hell couldn’t be somewhere cheery, like the middle of Central Park or something. No doubt there were dog-sized rats down there, waiting to nibble on someone’s toes. It would be dark and dreary. The kind of place the clown fromItwould hang out.
So obviously that was where we’d have to go.
“After you,” Lucifer motioned toward Az.
When I made a move to follow, the King of Hell stepped in my path. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Um. Down into the creepy hellgate dungeon.”
He flashed me his teeth, and it sent a shudder down my spine. “You aren’t going through the gate. You’re to stay here. That’s the entire point of this deal.”
Heart hammering, I glanced over my shoulder at Caim. His face was impossible to read, just like Az’s. They’d clearly had a lot of practice at stuff like this. But how was I supposed to know what to do now? This wasn’t part of the plan. We needed to stick together if we wanted to have any chance of beating Lucifer.
“Aren’t you at least going to let me say goodbye to him?” I finally asked. “It’s bad enough you’re taking him away from me forever.”
Lucifer sneered. “I could make things easier on you, if you’d like. I’ve erased your memories once. I can do it again.”
I stiffened and took a big step back. “No, please don’t do that.”
“Then you’ll stayhere,” he said in a venomous growl before lifting his eyes to the demon who stood behind me. “Caim, you come. I won’t have you flying up to release the Legion until after Az has walked through that gate.”
“Sure,” Caim said with a shrug.
Lucifer turned his sharp gaze on Serena and Priyanka, who’d nervously stayed silent during the entire exchange. “The wolf and the fae stay here, too.”
With that, the demons strode purposefully out the door, leaving me and the girls alone beneath the elevated cages. This wasn’t good. While Caim and Az were strong, the entire plan revolved around catching Lucifer off guard. He no doubt suspected we were up to something. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so insistent to split us up.
“What do we do now?” Pri whispered, stepping up to my side to stare after the retreating demons.
“Cause utter chaos?” I tried.
Serena stepped up to my other side. “And how are we going to do that?”
I dropped back my head to stare up at the cages. The demons had started to get a tad agitated in the past few moments when they’d realized what Az planned to do. The cages were squealing, rocking angrily on the metal chains.
“Release the Legion. Lucifer will never know what’s hit him.”
29
“Sounds like a great idea, Mia,” Priyanka said. “But, um, the ladder’s gone.”
I held up Az’s ring. “I’m going to blast this at the ground so it will shoot me up to the ceiling.”
Serena and Priyanka stared at me with matching blank expressions. They seemed almost dumfounded by my words, and I couldn’t really blame them. In my head, it had made a lot more sense. I’d aim the ring’s power at the floor, and the force would shoot me up to the demons.
Hey, that kind of thing worked in the movies, right?
“Az would absolutely kill me if I let you do that,” Priyanka said flatly. “You’re more likely to break your neck than reach the cages. How the hell would you get down?”
