Page 64 of Far From Center
Chapter 27
Nyalla satand watched as Gabriel paced their small cell. He’d wanted to heal her, but she worried that if one of the angels came back and found her uninjured, they’d realize Gabe wasn’t quite as human as they’d thought. He wasn’t ready to fight either of them right now. And she wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to completely regain his powers. Part of her wished that they could escape on their own, rather than having to wait for Sam to rescue them, but she was worried if Gabe was pushed to fight before he was ready, they’d kill him.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure why they hadn’t killed him already. She was the one they were using to blackmail Sam. Gabe was just another mouth to feed. Although from watching Sidriel interact with them, she got the feeling the angel liked the idea of having Gabe locked in a room, unable to do anything to escape.
“I don’t know if I can stand being cooped up in here for days,” Gabe muttered.
“Tired of my company already?” she teased.
“I’d rather have your company while walking along the beach, or jet skiing, or scuba diving, not in a tiny windowless room with nothing but hard floor and walls, and a plate of fruit and bread.”
He placed his hands on the metal door. A light glowed around his fingers and he frowned. “I can see the locking mechanism. Normally I’d just teleport us out of here, or make the door vanish, but since I can’t seem to do that right now, I think I can unlock the door and get it open.”
“Then what?” Nyalla stood and walked over to him.
“Then we get you safely back home. I make sure the Tear is never recovered. Then I take care of Tura and Sidriel. All in good time, of course. Getting you safely home is the priority.”
“But are we even in Aruba anymore? Do you have any way of knowing where we are? If there aren’t any people around to ask, or we don’t know the language, or there isn’t any kind of recognizable landmark, how will we know where we are and how to get out of here? I don’t have my passport with me. You don’t even have a passport.” She was rambling, their predicament starting to sink in. Her bruises hurt, her mouth kept bleeding, she was tired and scared. If she hadn’t been with Gabe it would have been worse.
With him, even with him deprived of his angelic powers, she felt safe.
“We have to be on Aruba or close to the island. Tura and Sidriel are probably searching for the Tear as well as the angel you captured. Both are in Aruba, and they’ll want us close enough that they can check on us from time to time. There’s a sort of angelic radar that can tell when we teleport, but we have to be paying attention and actively ‘listening in’, so to speak. I doubt with everything that’s going on among the angelic host if the Grigori are paying enough attention to catch these two, but they’ll not want to risk it by excessive teleportation or using that skill to move over large distances.”
“Well then they’re stupid. Once Sam gets here, she’ll tear this island apart looking for me. It’s not a big island. She’ll find us.”
Or not. They still hadn’t found that girl that went missing years ago.
“There.” The door gave a squawk noise, and Gabe pushed. Light streamed through the crack and into their room. The angel gave them a moment for their eyes to adjust then pushed the door all the way open, They hadn’t been in a bank vault after all, but some sort of bunker built into the side of a hill. Outside was rock and a canyon that dropped down into a huge field of cacti. Nyalla joined Gabe at the door and saw nothing but rock, sand, and the scruffy plants all the way to the horizon.
It didn’t matter that they didn’t know where they were, because the few bottles of water in the room behind them weren’t enough to take them far. It wasn’t particularly hot out, but the air was dry.
“You wouldn’t happen to have your cell phone with you?” Gabe asked.
Nyalla pulled it from her pocket and showed him the blank screen. “I think Sidriel fried it. He seems to know enough about human technology to make sure I didn’t call anyone for help.”
“Mine is in some back alley.” Gabe surveyed their surroundings. “You’re the expert at being human, how long do you think we can travel on the food and water we have?”
“Half a day? Maybe a whole day. Somebody built this bunker, and I doubt they would have placed it too far from their house. Plus, if we’re still in Aruba, we’ll have to hit either the ocean or a city in a few hours. The island is only sixty-nine square miles in size.”
“Aren’t there those people who think the apocalypse is going to occur any day now? They tend to build these things in remote areas. If that’s what this is and we’re in Venezuela, we could be days from any town.”
“If this was a prepper’s bug-out spot I would have expected there to be food and water stockpiled here.” Nyalla looked inside the small room. “I don’t think this is somebody’s end-of-the-world sanctuary. I think it’s a bomb shelter. People built them back in the fifties and sixties when everyone was afraid the Russians were going to drop a nuclear bomb on the U.S. If that’s the case, then we’d be close enough to a town for people to get out here before a bomb hit.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Gabe took a few steps forward and stopped. “Well, that was a short trip. Look.”
Nyalla shook her head. “Look at what?”
“It’s warded. Sidriel has been either working with a sorcerer, or buying magical items from one. I’m assuming if we trip the ward, it will set off an alarm. I doubt it’s lethal because he wouldn’t want to kill you in case the Iblis wanted further proof that you’re unharmed.”
“So we trip it and he comes back for us?”
“Yes. But I think I’ve got enough angel power to get us through a weak spot undetected,”
“There’s a weak spot?”
He grinned. “There’s always a weak spot. Go grab what food and water you can carry, just in case we’re in for a long walk.”
She did as he said, and by the time she’d returned, he was standing near a steep and rocky descent. “Figures. Why couldn’t the weak spot be near the path?”
