Page 16 of When Monsters Fight
I released my hold on the power and opened my eyes. “We’re nowhere close to the relic piece.”
“Then we get moving,” Kabiel said. “You can scry at various intervals.”
“What about you?” Gabriel asked Jilyana. “Can you help find the relic piece, considering you have one inside you? Will you sense when the other one is close?”
“I…I don’t know. I couldn’t find the pieces in the church.”
“You were searching for them?” Kabiel’s tone was sharp.
Her eyes flew wide. “No. I mean…I didn’t sense anything. Not until Rue brought them to me.” She looked to me. “I wasn’t searching for anything. Honest.”
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. “They were hidden by runes at the church.”
She dropped her gaze. “Yes, that would explain it.”
“So can you help locate the relic pieces?” Gabriel asked.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I suppose so. I suppose I might be able to sense if they were near.”
She could be a compass just like me. But then, had itbeen necessary for me to come? No, Lucifer had askedmeto do this. To complete the task Shem would have done.
“We can always use the extra help,” Gabriel said with a tight smile. “You’ll let us know if you sense the relic piece.” It wasn’t a request.
“Of course,” Jilyana said. “I’m here to help. To atone.”
Dammit, were we being too hard on her? Every word out of her mouth was saturated with a sincerity that made it hard to doubt her.
“Let’s get moving,” Gabriel said. “We’ll check the drop first.”
“Be on guard,” Kabiel said to his team, then to Gabriel, “We’ll lead.”
The watchers moved forward, and Gabriel took my hand once more, his fingers warm and firm around mine.
There was indeed a dip ahead. Not just a dip, but a huge bowl cut into the rocky terrain that stretched out into the distance and had to be at least a hundred feet deep. But it was the contents of the bowl that drew my attention—red and orange swaying fleshy projections that looked like they were alive. They reminded me of something I’d seen in a book on biology a long time ago, the tiny projections that jutted out of cells…Cilia. Yes, the bowl was filled with thousands upon thousands of cilia swaying in a phantom breeze.
“What is that?” Matarel asked in a hushed voice. “They’re alive?”
“Yes,” Jilyana said. “They are, and they all have an aura…So many auras.”
Something else moved within the bowl. A shadow…a silhouette. No. It was a large serpentine creature, cutting a zig-zag path through the projections, which parted to let it through.
“Do you see that?” Jilyana asked.
The serpent came to a halt in its meandering and slowly turned its body to point in our direction before raising its worm-like head.
It was far below us, but there was no doubt in my mind that it had seen us.
“It’s spotted us.” Gabriel’s grip on me tightened, and tension spiked the air. “Back away. Slowly.”
The flutter in my chest was now also in my head. I grabbed Gabriel’s arm to steady myself just as the serpent leapt from the pit.
Right at us.
Chapter 10
The serpent arched toward us, growing larger by the second.
Kabiel yelled a warning, and Gabriel shoved me with his whole frame, desperate to get us out from under the serpent’s shadow.
