Page 22 of When Monsters Fight
“I have shields active…”
There was abutin there somewhere. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Many things. But now isn’t the time. We’re at the mountains.”
I turned my head to the peaks rushing toward us. Thanatos had been right—we’d been close.
The mountains were a mixture of hardpacked earth and pale blue rock, their summits lost in the churning purple clouds above.
They made a wall that stretched as far as the eye could see, and there didn’t seem to be any way through except over. But the higher we flew, the thinner the air got, and the pinnacles seemed out of reach, almost as if they extended into the stars.
We swooped down and along the barrier, searching for a breach, some way through, but the sun had almost set, and the world was bathed in a soft dusky hue.
It would be night soon, and if we didn’t find a way through these mountains, we’d be stranded here. Out in the open.
Prey for whatever stalked the dark.
Hope was dwindling when Kabiel called out in triumph from ahead of us.
“I see an opening in the mountains!”
We landed smoothly, and Gabriel carefully set me on my feet, his emerald eyes fixed over my head.
I turned to survey the gap Kabiel had spotted. Not a gate but a valley several feet wide, running through the mountain.
“That’s not a gate,” Jilyana said.
“It must be,” Asbeel replied. “Look at these markings on the stone and on the ground.” He pointed out the symbols etched into the rocky surface on the mountains at the mouth of the valley. “They’re ancient Enochian symbols.”
“Can you read them?” Jilyana asked.
“I think so.” He ran his fingers over the huge markings. “Before the fall, I spent much of my time in the ancient library with Penemue. We were…friends…”
Why did I get the impression that they’d been more than just friends?
“What does it say?” Gabriel asked.
“It says…Linger and beware the…hidden? I think that says hidden.” He frowned. “I’m not sure I’ve translated that correctly.”
Thanatos had warned us not to linger. “It’s the beware that bothers me. We should hurry through, then.”
Kabiel’s gaze dropped to my hand clasped in Gabriel’s. When had he taken my hand again? Or had I taken his, and was that disapproval in Kabiel’s eyes? Was he wondering how I could possibly be holding hands with someone else so soon after Shem…
No, that was just me.
My shame.
My guilt.
I tugged free of Gabriel’s grip and pretended to adjust my jacket. “Kabiel, you can lead. The rest of you flank me and Jilyana.”
We passed into the alley in formation, and a gentle prickle of energy washed over me.
“Did you feel that?” Jilyana asked.
My step faltered. “Yes.”
“Must have been a ward of some kind,” Gabriel said.
