A powerful wind rushed through the chamber, traveling down the passage and carrying with it the stink of brimstone and transformation.
Malachi continued to smear the angel blood upon the wall, dropping the still partially filled bowl to the cave floor when finished.
“But now it’s time that I said good-bye.”
The blood sigils had begun to glow with a thrumming black energy—the shapes growing steadily larger, colliding with others and eventually merging to become a single piece of expanding darkness.
Francis could do nothing but watch . . . hold in his insides and watch.
A black portal grew steadily larger upon the wall, an annoying hum of expended magick cutting through the ruckus of the crumbling cave. He thought about maybe using his intestine as a lasso, preventing the elder from escaping, but had doubts about his aim.
Malachi chanced another glance over his shoulder before ducking into the passage to be swallowed up by the bottomless darkness that had manifested there.
So much for that, Francis thought as the cave convulsed fitfully, the walls crumbling, the floor shifting violently beneath him, knocking him back to his side.
For a moment he imagined his situation couldn’t get any worse, but then he noticed the rope of bloody intestine—his rope of bloody intestine—cooling upon the rubble-covered floor.
That isn’t good.
And the crazed Hellion emerging from its hiding place, drawn again by the smell of his exposed insides.
It was totally fucking awesome that life—what little he had left of it—could still manage to surprise him.
The Hellion lunged, opening its cavernous mouth to take a bite from his intestine.
Is it my large or small intestine? the former Guardian angel wondered, before deciding that it truly didn’t matter.
He looked into the beast’s horrible maw, at all its teeth and its fat, sluglike tongue, and hoped that the monster got the nastiest case of food poisoning from him.
Francis watched as the Hellion’s snout dipped down; the front razor-sharp-looking teeth were about to close upon the slimy, dirt-covered piece of flesh when the floor beneath the creature suddenly disappeared, and the beast that was about to nibble upon him was gone.
It was like something out of a classic Warner Bros. cartoon, and Francis actually managed to let loose with a barklike laugh that just about ended his life.
Consciousness leaking away, he watched through dimming eyes as the remaining sections of floor around him continued to fall away, the ground beneath him eventually disappearing as the walls of the cave collapsed, exposing it to the outside world.
To the hell outside.
Francis was falling, the sudden sensation of weightlessness triggering a treasured memory of the last time he’d flown.
Before his fall from grace.
The mountains of Hell were crumbling all around him, clouds of dirt and debris being sucked up into the swirling maelstrom that his broken body had now become part of.
And to think he actually believed he was going to die under the teeth and claws of a Hellion. It just went to show how one could never be sure about anything.
Except that he was finally going to die.
Buffeted and deafened by winds, Francis found himself accepting his fate, letting go as his body drifted upon the currents of air choked with the remains of Hell’s former landscape.
He found that he could no longer breathe, and gave in to the darkness, calling it to him with open arms and minimal regrets, wishing only that he could have seen her again—the beautiful Eliza Swan whose memory had been stolen from him till now.
And sorry that he hadn’t earned the Lord’s forgiveness, even though he’d tried so very hard. He would have also liked to have seen Remy again, but since the son of a bitch never came to his rescue, he could go screw himself.
The sound within the vortex went from cacophonous to silent.
And then Francis sensed that he was no longer alone.
He struggled to open his eyes, and in the eye of the storm a familiar figure floated.
Lucifer was as beautiful as he remembered, and Francis was surprised to see the Morningstar gliding toward him on wings blacker than the darkest nights.
There was a smile upon the Morningstar’s beatific face, and Francis believed that Lucifer actually remembered who he was.
And that he was happy to see him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eliza stroked the face of the man who appeared dead, sensing through the tips of her fingers that there was still some life left inside him.
He was holding on for something, and she seemed to know that.
The far corner of the room lit up as if in the midst of a lightning storm, and she looked up to find the monster who had taken her standing in front of an open closet door. The flashes of blue light were coming from inside it.
Memories that had been denied her for so very long suddenly rushed in to fill their places.
This was what Pearly had wanted to save her from—why Pearly had left her, and taken her memories. And now she understood how much he really did care for her.
The light from the closet grew even brighter, more violent, as crackling bolts of electricity shot from the doorway, their intensity driving the monster back.
Eliza thought briefly about running, but then looked at the man lying on the couch. The man called Adam. How could she leave him there, alone with the monster? And she most certainly couldn’t manage to take him with her. So she resigned herself to staying.
“Don’t you worry,” she told him again. “I won’t leave you.”
She knew exactly who he was, and could feel the pain of the life he’d led.
Her own family carried a similar guilt, descendants from Adam’s bride—Eve. But the Daughters of Eve had chosen instead to accept the first mother’s sin and her punishment, and channel their guilt into efforts to do good upon the world. Eliza’s mother, and grandmother, and great-grandmother before her had always believed that God accepted this, and gave them the special gift of longevity so they could continue their work for as long as possible. Even Eliza believed this as she left the protection of her family to spread happiness through her music.
But there were forces that wanted to silence her songs, and others that wanted her—needed her—for something that still remained a mystery.
The lightning was abruptly replaced by complete darkness, as if the storm had passed, and the closet was filled with liquid night.
Eliza watched as the monster crouched at the threshold, peering into the solid shadow, cautiously moving closer, then plunging its many arms into the undulating wall of black. Her captor screamed, tossing back his head in agony, but it did not stop its search.
“I have you!” the creature finally bellowed, and Eliza saw the muscles tense on the monster’s pale back as it yanked something from the thick pool of shadow, something covered in layers of ice and frost.
Eliza was fascinated by the frozen shape lying on the floor of the apartment, and although she couldn’t ever remember feeling so frightened, she found herself cautiously moving toward it.
“I thought I told you to stay put,” the monster snarled, extending one of its frostbitten arms toward her. A surge of invisible force erupted from its fingers, hurling her backward, where she hit the couch and rolled to the floor, her old glasses knocked from her face.
Stunned, she lay there, watching as the monster knelt beside the shape. The ice was beginning to melt in an expanding puddle on the hardwood floor.
“Master,” the monster spoke softly. “I have you.” It was running its hands over the object, and where it touched, the ice fell away in clumps to reveal a man.