Chapter Four
I didn’t see them.
But I couldfeelthem.
“Heaven found us,” I said miserably, both to convince myself of the terrible truth and to explain to my friends how I’d fucked up their lives.
Through gritted teeth, Azrames spat, “But the wards—”
“Are demon wards,” Silas countered. “If you want to fight angels, you’re better off with something angelic.”
The air in the house had gone razor-sharp, thin as a blade and just as merciless. The walls groaned; the windows bulged inward as if some great, unseen pressure was trying to force its way inside. The floor beneath me shuddered, rattling the wineglass shards at Azrames’s feet.
Then the sound hit. The rattling, screaming blast passed through time and space as it ripped through the very fabric of my being.
It was deafening. A roar of wings, thousands of them, beating against the sky in an unseen hurricane. But it wasn’t just wind. There was something else underneath it—trumpets, blasting from nowhere and everywhere at once, high and shrill like the bones of the earth itself were cracking.
“Who is it?” I asked Silas. “Do you know these angels? Can you reason with them? Can you—”
Another blast of sound, this one so painful that it snapped my sentence in half. I covered my ears. It didn’t help.
Nia sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers clutching the couch as if she could hold on to reality itself. Kirby was frozen, pale, mouth slightly open. I didn’t think they were breathing.
Azrames only stared at the door. His jaw was clenched, his fingers twitching at his sides. His power should have roiled from him, the way it had in battle before. But something was stopping him. Something bigger.
Another blast and we scattered to the floor, braced for an earthquake. In tornadoes and hurricanes and acts of God, one was told to curl into a ball and cover their neck with the back of their hand. I just hadn’t expected the act of God to be so literal.
Silas stood perfectly still.
His golden eyes were locked on the front door, unblinking, unreadable. Not a muscle twitched; not a breath moved his chest. Like he was bracing for a blade that had already been raised.
Then, a tremendouswhomp—not just a knock, not a pound—the bowing door itself.
I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. If this was it, I didn’t want to go out a coward. Years of joking about God striking me down, about smiting the unrighteous, about praying for the rapture suddenly weren’t so funny.
“Don’t insult our warding,” Az said.
“Is your pride worth the gamble?” Silas spat back.
I scooted closer to Azrames, hating that this was how it was about to end. Hating that I wasn’t with Caliban in my final moments. And knowing that even with my last breath, I chose Hell.
The lock groaned. The wood cracked. Something was trying to push through, and for a horrible second, I was certain it would.
My heart hammered against my ribs. “They can’t get in, right?” I said. “Right?”
Silas exhaled through his nose. “We need to move.”
“And be even more exposed?” I practically choked on the response.
Azrames flung his arms around Kirby and me. I extended a hand and tried to pull Nia closer, urging her into our huddle should the roof collapse.
“Darius!” she shouted.
“He’ll be safe,” Azrames promised.
The next hit shook the entire house. The walls trembled; the overhead light swayed. The front door buckled, but it held.
The warding was working.
