“Yeah, yeah,” I said, landing in the cave.
There was no sign of Jude or the cubs, but I could hear the echoes of the kids screaming from farther down the tunnel. The pile of cameras lay haphazardly stacked close to the place where the ramp tipped down.
I pulled off my overcoat and made a makeshift bag in which to carry the cameras. My entourage came through the entrance and crowded around me in curiosity.
“Madeline, why are you wasting your time with these devices?” Nathaniel asked.
There was a funny note in his voice, an emotion that I couldn’t place that made me glance up at him. I didn’t see anything unusual. He was scowling at me, but that was pretty much his default expression when he wasn’t trying to make amends with me.
“Whatever is in these cameras—or whatever they are—is behind those weird ghosts that keep popping up all over the city,” I said, stuffing the last of the devices in my coat and tying the sleeves together into a handle. I double-knotted it to make sure that it would stay and stood up. “Let’s go.”
“What ghosts?” Nathaniel asked.
“I’ll explain later,” I said.
“Yes, you had better,” Gabriel said, peering back the way we came from. “Some of the rocks are starting to shift.”
“The horde is coming through,” I said.
As I ran down the long passageway toward Jude and the cubs, I retracted my wings so that I could maneuver more easily in the narrow space. I glanced behind me to make sure the others followed. They did, but all three were hunched and grimacing. Unlike Agents, angels can’t make their wings disappear at will.
We caught up to Jude very quickly. He was red-faced and sweaty and quite obviously at the end of his rope. The cubs still screamed, endlessly. Some of them were getting hoarse.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll lose their voices,” Beezle muttered.
“Hush,” I said, though I privately agreed. Nothing seemed to stop the children from wailing. They were hurting themselves, and, even worse right now, they were broadcasting our location to any monster who cared to find us.
Jude gave me a look that spoke his frustration eloquently. The cubs would not move forward unless herded. If left to their own devices, they would either stand still and scream or else walk into the wall over and over again like malfunctioning wind-ups.
“There are five of you and twenty kids,” Beezle said. “What now, genius?”
“We’ll carry the littlest ones,” I said. “We can herd the older cubs.”
From far behind us I heard the ominous crashing of rock.
“Hurry, hurry,” I said, scooping up the two smallest cubs.
It wasn’t easy juggling the kids and my makeshift bag, especially with Beezle firmly planted on my shoulder. I nudged two kids who looked like first-graders with my knees.
“Walk forward,” I said.
Miraculously, they obeyed. They still screamed, but they marched through the tunnel like little automatons. I looked at Beezle, who shrugged.
“Stop screaming,” I said loudly.
The cubs stopped abruptly, as if a switch had been thrown. The silence was eerie.
They all looked at me expectantly, except for the ones I had already told to walk forward. They had disappeared into the shadows ahead.
“Jude, go after those other two. You lead the column,” I said.
I looked at the cubs, then pointed at five of them in turn. “Walk forward.”
They obeyed, proceeding after their companions.
“Gabriel, you stay with them,” I said.
I ordered the other cubs forward in small groups with an angel walking behind like a grade-school chaperone. I handed one of the toddlers to Samiel, who nodded gravely at the little boy in his arms.
I shifted the little girl I held to my other arm so that I could carry the bag of cameras with my right hand. It’s not comfortable to grip anything for any length of time when you have only three fingers.
Lucifer’s sword banged uncomfortably on my back as I took up the rear position behind Samiel. The cub stared off into the distance over my shoulder. The bag of cameras smacked into my thigh and swung out again, over and over. Beezle’s weight on my shoulder felt like an anvil, especially when he started to snore.
“Gods above and below,” I muttered.
A zillion demons were after us, we were crammed into a tiny space with limited options for defense, we were trying to protect a bunch of helpless children, and my gargoyle goes to sleep right on schedule. No amount of peril would jeopardize Beezle’s naptime.
“On the upside, I might have lost a pound or two, what with all the stress and the walking and the not eating for hours.” I needed to find an upside before I cracked up completely.
We had just reached the portal entry when we heard the distant whoop of the triumphant demon horde. I pushed to the front of the column to open the portal, only to discover that the cubs in front were still trying to walk forward into the wall.
“Stop walking,” I ordered, and they immediately stopped. I frowned at Jude.
“I tried doing what you did, but they wouldn’t listen to me,” he growled.
That was a complication I didn’t want to think about, and in any event there was no time. The demons were coming, and their claws sounded like the approach of thunder.
I held my tattooed hand up to the symbol in the wall, and once more the portal opened. Jude went through first, and then I ordered the cubs through in their chaperoned groups.
Nathaniel approached me before his group was about to enter. He reached for the makeshift bag of cameras. “Let me take this for you. You will need your hands for defense if the demons appear before we are all through.”
I handed him the cub instead. “She’s heavier, and it’s more important that we get all of the kids through.”
He nodded, took the cub and disappeared into the portal with the others.
The last feathers of Samiel’s wings had just slipped into the portal as the demons emerged over the slope down the tunnel. I leapt into the portal behind the others, one hand holding Beezle to my shoulder—he still wasn’t awake—and one hand gripping the knot in my coat. I took a deep breath and tried not to think about the pain that always accompanied portal travel.
A few moments later I crashed on my face into the clearing. The cameras clattered to the ground as the knot came loose. Beezle awoke with a grunt and flew off my shoulder. The portal spun behind me.
Gabriel grasped me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet.
“You must seal the portal,” he said urgently.
“Seal it?” I said blankly.
“You must close it permanently,” he said. “The demons were directly behind us. They will pour forth from that portal if you do not seal it now.”
“But…” I began, but I didn’t need to voice what I was thinking. Wade.
I looked at the cubs, standing in the clearing like broken dolls.
Jude shook his head at me. “No.”
“You must close the portal,” Gabriel insisted. “We cannot defend the children if the demons come through.”
I knew what Wade would want me to do. I turned toward the portal, my right hand outstretched. Lucifer’s mark needed no guidance from me.
“No!” Jude shouted.
From the corner of my eye I saw Jude leap toward me. Samiel intercepted him and there was the sound of a scuffle.
Light burst from the palm of my hand, the blazing red light of the heart of the sun. The portal shrank rapidly. I thought for a moment that there might have been the gleam of tooth and fang emerging from the swirling mist, a glint of malicious eyes, but a moment later the portal was closed and the image was gone.