Page 7 of When Monsters Fight
I give Mira a nod, and she trails me out of the room.
Conversation breaks out as soon as we close the door. Mira stares at it, looking as if she’s tempted to go back in.
“Don’t.” I lightly touch her arm. “They need to make this decision themselves, each and every one of them. We don’t have the luxury or resources to be dragging any reluctant party across the wastelands. This way, anyone who agrees to come will make the effort to keep their own asses alive.”
“I know,” she says. “I just hope…I just hope they make the right choice.”
“Are you having doubts about leaving?”
“No.” She smiles up at me with tired eyes. “Leaving is the wise move. I just…I’m just so tired.”
“Me too. How about we make a deal? While out there, I watch your back and you watch mine.”
A little light enters her tired eyes. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
Sarq appears through a door at the other end of the corridor. “Bee, can I borrow you for a moment please?”
“Sure, what’s up?” I join him.
“I need to retrieve the relic Shemyaza hid here, and I’ll need your help to do it.”
Chapter 5
RUE
After leaving Sarq with instructions to retrieve the relic fragments, Jilyana and I headed out of the church and across the road to the forest.
“This is dangerous,” Jilyana said. “Opening the channel could attract monsters or any nearby celestials.”
“I doubt celestials will be a problem, and if any monsters are drawn to us, they won’t be able to get to us. We’ll make sure to retreat onto the church grounds.”
She was quiet for a moment before asking, “What do you need me to do?”
“Back in the city, you were able to channel the power and use it to take down the herald’s claw, but this time I need you to ground me. The relic inside you is connected to the Morningstar power, so I’m hoping that with you close by, I will be able to access a huge boost of energy in a short space of time without doing too much damage to myself.”
I’d done it on road to the church when I’d healed Shem, but healing and evolving were twoseparate things, and my gut warned me that I wouldn’t walk away from this task unscathed without Jilyana and the relic inside her acting as an anchor.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “I can divert some of your power through me and the relic to split it into two streams.”
“Yes, that will work. Thank you.”
She fell silent as we ducked into the canopy of trees. A prickle of awareness skated over my skin, and my pulse quickened in warning, a natural response to a threat—except the threat hidden in these woods was on my side.
“Kabiel, we need to talk.”
The leaves above rustled, and Jilyana moved closer to me, her hand shooting out to grab my arm.
“It’s all right. They won’t hurt us.”
The shadows ahead parted to reveal Kabiel. “I don’t have the answers you want, Rue. Not yet. No visions, despite your most generous donation last night.”
“I don’t need a vision. I know where the fourth relic shard is.”
Disbelief and a hint of suspicion narrowed his eyes. “How? How can you know that?”
“I dreamed it. It’s in Gehenna.”
Soft chitters filled the air around me, and a sense of panic bloomed in the atmosphere. Why were the devolved panicking?
