My right hand suddenly felt as though it were being squeezed between the fangs of a snake, and I cried out.
“What’s the matter with you now?” Beezle asked.
I glared down at the snake tattoo. “There are other ways of getting my attention.”
The snake writhed, as if to say, “I tried to be nice, but you weren’t listening.”
“And now I am,” I said. Warmth spread under the skin, starting at the head of the snake, and coursed up my arm. A minute later I knew what I had to do.
“I’m not at all certain that I like having you there,” I muttered.
It was very disconcerting to have an independent entity working through my body, especially an entity so closely aligned with Lucifer. But there was no denying that the snake tattoo had helped me get out of a sticky situation or two.
The snake winked at me.
Beezle tapped a claw on my head. “Are you talking to your hand? You look like a crazy person.”
I looked up from contemplating my unwanted parasite and found the other four staring at me. Jude’s rage seemed to have receded somewhat in the face of my strange behavior.
There was no point in trying to explain, so I just waved them all away from the rock that we were huddled around. “Stand back.”
Wonder of wonders, they all listened without asking why, backing away several feet. Maybe I should act like a nutcase more often.
I held my right hand in front of me so that the snake tattoo faced the sigil carved in the rock. Again, I felt an uncomfortable heat just under the skin, and I realized that the warmth pulsed from my heartstone to my hand.
This, then, was Lucifer’s power, so long dormant inside of me. I’d felt it once before, when I had taken Lucifer’s sword from Nathaniel, before I’d entered the Maze.
The clearing was lit by an intense yellow light. I knew that my eyes were blazing with the magic of the Morningstar.
The sigil on the rock glowed red in response, and a swirling vortex appeared inside the symbol. The vortex grew, sweeping leaves and branches and other detritus from the clearing inside it. I dropped my hand and beckoned to the others.
“Come on!” I shouted. “We don’t know how long it will stay open.”
Gabriel stepped in front of me, making sure that he entered the portal before I did. Samiel gave Nathaniel a dirty look when Nathaniel tried to get in front of him. He shouldered Nathaniel out of his way and Jude followed suit.
One by one they disappeared into the portal. It was pretty clear that they all considered Nathaniel a second-class citizen. It was equally clear that none of them considered me capable enough to be the first through the portal. Except, that was, Nathaniel, who knew firsthand just what I was capable of.
“After you, my lady,” he said, and sketched a little bow.
“I hate portals,” Beezle grumbled as I stepped forward.
I felt a moment of trepidation. We didn’t know where the portal went. And we could end up smack in the middle of a demon court, or a world that was toxic to humans, or who knew what else. But the trail for Wade and the cubs ended here, and there were no other leads to follow.
I went into the portal.
There was a tremendous pressure between my ears. My eyeballs felt like they were turning to jelly. Beezle squeezed his claws so hard on my shoulder that I was sure they would leave a mark. I closed my eyes and heard only the relentless, swirling wind of the vortex.
The pressure abruptly ceased as we emerged. I tried for a graceful landing but I’ve never managed one yet despite some recent practice with this mode of travel.
I barreled right into Gabriel, who stood in front of the portal. He caught me easily around the waist. Gabriel has some experience with my ineptitude with portals.
I sucked in my breath at the feeling of his hands through my coat. The heat of him penetrated through layers of clothing. Stars exploded in his eyes.
“Ahem,” said a gravelly voice close to my ear. “Before the two of you head into la-la land, you might want to remember that you have an audience.”
Gabriel lowered me to the ground, slowly. I didn’t look around but I felt my cheeks heating in embarrassment. I don’t like drawing attention to my feelings for Gabriel.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them there was a clean canvas of black, the stars muted by shadow, and he let me go.
Nathaniel emerged from the portal behind me, and I turned around in time to see it closing. Where the portal had been, there was another of the demon sigils carved into rock.
I finally took the time to look around. We were crowded in a low cave formed of a strange white rock that gave off a phosphorescent glow. The air was heavy and humid. Water dripped down the walls of the cave and formed puddles beneath our feet. There was only one exit.
Everyone looked at me expectantly.
“Oh, sure, I can’t go through the portal first but I get to be the one who makes the life-or-death decisions,” I muttered.
I went to the mouth of the tunnel that led away from the cave. The pale gleam of rock stretched from the cave, seemingly endless, and into dark nothingness.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“This is where the trail brought us,” Jude said. “We need to go forward.”
“Yeah, and if a pack of demons comes from the other direction, we’ll all be jammed up in that narrow passage,” I said. “There’s not a lot of room to fight in there.”
“For our enemies, either,” Gabriel pointed out.
“That means that there will be just as much useless slaughter for them as for us,” I said. “We might take out some of them but we’ll suffer stupid losses in the meantime.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Jude snapped. “Go back through the portal and go home and wait and hope that the demons give Wade and the cubs back to us?”
“No,” I said, frustrated.
I knew that we had to go forward. There was no other way. But when I looked down that tunnel I felt a powerful surge of foreboding.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I don’t want us to get stopped up in that tunnel. So we’re going to string out in a formation ten steps apart. Beezle will go first…”
“Why me?” Beezle asked. “If you’re looking for someone to take stupid chances, you’re looking at the wrong gargoyle.”
“Because you’re the smallest, and you can fly ahead and scout for us with the least risk,” I said impatiently. “I’ll follow at the head of the column.”
“No, you will not,” Gabriel said.
Samiel shook his head in agreement.
“You both have to get over this idea that I’m helpless,” I said. “Besides, there’s a small chance that any demons we encounter will back off if I show them Lucifer’s symbol.”
“And what if they do not, as you say, ‘back off’?” Nathaniel asked.
“Well, it’s not as though I’m powerless. We’re not arguing about this,” I said to Gabriel and Samiel. “I’m going first. Then Gabriel, ten steps behind me. Then Jude, Samiel and Nathaniel.”
I ordered them thus because I assumed if we ran into trouble, Nathaniel would turn around and run in the other direction and therefore free up some space in the narrow tunnel. I’d never seen any evidence that he was particularly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and he seemed to value his own skin above anyone else’s.
“If Beezle does run into anything, he’ll come back to us and raise the alarm. Don’t crowd up on me if it comes to a fight. Stay in your positions. We’ll have more room to maneuver and the demons won’t be sure how many of us there are if we’re spread out.”