Page 58 of When Monsters Fight
It was the adrenaline of the past few hours still rushing through my veins, leaving me hyperalert and focused. Everything looked sharper and brighter. Even the gray light that filtered in through the windows glittered with motes of dust.
The walls were gray stone and hung with patterned tapestries, and despite the misty chill visible through the windows, it was warm and cozy inside.
“You made good time,” Lucifer said, rounding a cornerto take us up a flight of worn stone steps. “I was worried you’d be felled in the outer circles. The eighth is especially brutal.”
“We entered through the seventh,” Gabriel said.
“The circle of souls. Thanatos’s domain.”
“We met him. He helped us.”
“He’s a decent sort. Visits from time to time but keeps his cards close to his chest.” She shoved open the door at the top, and we were in the room from my dream. She moved quickly away from me as I entered, as if she was afraid I’d accidently touch her.
My scalp prickled. Something wasn’t right here—more than her sudden aversion. Wait… “Why haven’t you asked me for the relics?”
“I assume you have them.” She drew her sword from its holster and propped it against a chair. “Why else would you be here?” She unbuckled the holster, shrugged it off, and rolled her shoulders.
“Youassume? You can’tfeelthem?”
Her mouth tightened. “Do you have them or not?”
Unease filtered through my veins. “Why can’t you feel them?”
She made a sound of exasperation. “Because they were shielded from me byhim. To prevent me from calling them to me and breaking our deal.”
“God hid them from you?”
“Yes. He promised I would be made whole when I’d proven myself here.”
“But he didn’t tell you how, did he?” Gabriel said. “You don’t knowhowto reforge the Morningstar, do you?”
“Reforge? I don’t want toreforgeit. I need todestroyit. I need to be whole. That’s the only way I can help you. The only way I’ll have the power to fight off the Dominion andreopen the gates to heaven. Wemustfigure out how to destroy the pieces.”
This couldn’t be happening. “You don’t know…”
She growled softly. “No. I do not know.”
“But you told me…you…”
“I told you to bring them to me, which you have. Thank you. And now we will figure out how to release the power and make me whole.”
Silence fell, thick and pregnant with disappointment. We’d come all this way…all this fucking way.
“And how long will it take to figure it out?” Gabriel asked.
She pressed her lips together and shrugged. “I…I don’t know.”
My limbs were suddenly heavy. My people were in danger. My world dying. I’d risked my life, and the life of the watchers to get the relics to her, and she didn’t know how to use them?
I swallowed against the bitter tang in my throat and locked gazes with her. “I’m done here. I brought you the relics. You figure out what to do with them. We have to go back to our world…our people need us. Jilyana has a relic shard inside her. Draw it out and we can go.” I held out my relic piece, and she shrank from it. “Why aren’t you taking it?”
Her dark eyes gleamed with sorrow. “I can’t. I can’t touch it. Another condition. Another obstacle. He created a watcher to connect to the relic. One who was bound to it so that I would not be able to take it.”
Shemyaza…
“It sounds like a punishment,” Kabiel said. “Not a test.”
Her left eye twitched. “His tests were always vicious,” she said without bitterness. “It was his way.” She turned hergaze on me. “But if that watcher is dead, thenyouare the only living connection to the Morningstar relic. You can help find a way to make me whole. I can’t let you go. Not until we figure this out. But I swear to you, once I’m whole, I will use Soul Reaper to open a door back into your world.” She indicated the sword propped up against the chair. “We’ll leave together and stop the Dominion.”
