Aside from Ionis’s constant whining, the next two days were completely uneventful. Fury and Reuel made it to Oregon with no issue, and in the times Ionis and I had to wait for them, he shopped while I scoured the memories of the blood stone.
The four of us met up at the airport in Manila around lunch on Thursday. Even Fury’s and Reuel’s checked bags arrived on time—a miracle all by itself.
“Now what?” Ionis asked, throwing his rucksack onto the ground beside the baggage carousel.
“Unav.” Reuel pointed toward a sign advertising a restaurant.
“We’ll eat soon, but I’d like to try to secure a charter to the island before we get too far from the airport.” I looked around for an information desk.
“Now we’re going to fly?” Ionis asked.
“It will be short, and I fear warping this close to the gate might set off some supernatural warnings that we might be here.”
“Flint had planned to rent a helicopter through a company called Helifleet Aviation. They might do charter flights,” Fury suggested.
“Do you have a number?” I asked.
“No, but I can google it.” She pulled out her phone. After several taps, she held the phone to her ear. “Hello?” She caught my eye and pointed toward the outside door before starting toward it.
“Go with her,” I said to Reuel.
Reuel followed Fury outside. As they neared the door, I noticed an information desk. “Ionis, I’ll be right back.”
“Sure. Leave the little guy to defend all our possessions in the world. Great idea,” he said with a smirk.
“Good point.” I picked up my sword’s case and carried it with me. When I neared the desk, the eyes of the small man behind it widened in question.
I waved. “Hi.”
“Hello,” he said. “May I help you?”
“I hope so. I need to charter a helicopter to one of the islands. Can you recommend a company?”
“I will be happy to. One moment please.” He began to flip through what looked like a Rolodex on his desk. After a second, he stopped and pulled one from the file. “This company is very good. Where are you going?”
I accepted the card. “La Isla del Fuego.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. A charter flight to la Isla del Fuego is impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“Yes. The airspace around the island is closed. Too many planes and helicopters go down there.”
“Go down, like crash?”
“Yes. Crash.”
“Why?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I’m afraid no one will fly you there.”
“Well, shit.”
“Sorry.”
I dismissed the apology with my hand. “Not your fault.” Beyond the desk, Fury and Reuel came back in. “Any luck?”
She shook her head. “They said helicopters can’t be taken to the island.”
I jerked my thumb toward the help-desk guy. “He said the same thing.” I turned back toward him. “How about a boat?”
“That would be possible, but it would be a long journey. There is a plane that flies into Dumaguete—”
“No more planes.” I didn’t want to risk checking the sword, but that did give me an idea. “Thank you for your help.”
The man bowed his head slightly.
Fury and Reuel followed me back to Ionis. “What if we fly?” I said, quietly.
“You just said you didn’t want to fly,” Fury said.
“I don’t want to fly in a plane.”
Reuel’s head tilted like he was considering it.
“What do you think? Could we wait till sundown and go?” I asked.
“You mean fly like…?” Ionis began to flap his arms.
“Sure. Why not?”
Ionis put his hands on his hips. “Because I don’t want to.” Ionis enunciated every word. “It’s a thousand degrees outside.”
Fury looked intrigued. “It will be cooler when the sun goes down, and much cooler at a higher altitude.”
“What about all her stuff?” Ionis gestured to the bags on the floor.
I looked at Reuel. “Can you manage the bags if I carry Fury? We picked up a harness in Oak Ridge.”
He nodded. “Now about that food…”
The sun set in Manila at 6:13 p.m. In the six hours we waited for the sun to make its descent, we ate Filipino food for lunch, Thai food for Reuel’s afternoon snack, and seafood for dinner. The dinner joint had a view of the harbor, so we stayed there until the sun went down.
I was holding Azrael’s blood stone in my hand, lost in his memories once more as I looked out over the bay.
“What is it with you and that thing?” Fury asked, plucking a piece of pineapple out of the remains of her fruity drink. “You’ve been treating it like a security blanket since we got to Oregon.”
I dropped it beneath my shirt again. “I keep rewatching Azrael’s memories. The trials where they learned about Nulterra, the Battle of Antioch, the day they connected the spirit line to Nulterra. I’ve rewatched almost everything from the past millennium. Hell, I even watched Robert Oppenheimer speak about the atomic bomb.”
“Sounds like you’ve been thorough. Learn anything new?” she asked.
“Not really, but the Nulterra stuff is much more interesting after what Moloch told us about Ket Nhila,” I said.
“The Bad Lands?” Ionis asked, translating the language. “So glad I don’t have to go.”
“Nulterra is designed to trap souls there and keep them in anguish for as long as possible. It makes sense that trapping them would be easier if the Bad Lands are an illusion that’s familiar.” I looked at Fury. “And Moloch said the Bad Lands would depend on you.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I think it means we need to start preparing for your worst nightmares.”
“Meh,” Ionis said, nudging her shoulder. “Fury’s not afraid of anything.”
I hadn’t thought so either. I waited for a while to see if she’d fess up to any fears. She didn’t.
“When will it be safe for us to go?” she finally asked, dodging the unspoken question altogether.
The sun was casting a golden hue over the waves. “Soon. The last thing we need is to make national headlines in the Philippines.” I raised my hand to flag down our waitress.
“Yes?” she asked when she reached us.
I pointed out across the bay to where a peninsula free of buildings jutted into the ocean. “Can you tell me what that place is?”
She looked in the direction of my finger and squinted. “Far out there where the mountains are?”
“Yes.”
“Mount Palay. The Palay National Park.”
“Can we drive there?”
“Yes, sir. It will take about an hour.”
“Thank you, Thania.” I pulled out my wallet. “How much do we owe you?”
She left when I’d paid our bill.
“What are you thinking?” Fury asked.
I tucked my change back into my wallet. “I’m thinking we should catch a taxi out to that beach. If it’s a national park, it should be deserted this time of night. We can fly to the island from there.”
“It’s weird that the airspace is closed around the island,” she said.
I picked up the last shrimp on my plate. “The guy at the airport told me lots of planes and helicopters crashed there.”
“Sounds like the Bermuda Triangle,” she said.
“Bizarre for sure.” I popped the shrimp into my mouth, then washed it down with the last of my beer. I sat back in my seat and took a deep breath. “If I eat anymore, you’ll have to use me as a raft to float to the island.”
“Where will we stay tonight?” Ionis asked. “Or has anybody thought that far ahead yet? I vote for somewhere with air conditioning.”
Fury turned on her phone’s screen. “I’ve been looking at this place called the Lazi Beach Treehouses.” She turned it around so I could see it. “Looks like they have one treehouse available tonight that sleeps four.”
I scrolled through the pictures on the website. It was a two-story structure with a thatch roof. On the ground level was a shared bathroom with an outdoor shower concealed by bamboo. Upstairs were two bedrooms that led out onto a shared deck. One bedroom had twin bunkbeds. The other had a king.
My brain immediately went to the sleeping arrangements.
“May I see?” Ionis asked.
I handed him the phone. “Looks good to me. Where is it in relation to the gate?”
“A two-hour walk maybe,” she answered.
“Two hours?” Ionis made a gagging sound. Then his head jerked back while perusing through the pictures. “Fifty dollars a night for the whole thing? I might have to move to the Philippines.” He turned the phone around. “Does it come with the girl in the bikini?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fury, can you book it online?”
“I think so. Let me check.” She took the phone back from Ionis.
Across the table, Reuel was finishing his banana dessert. “You about ready to go, big guy?”
He shook his head.
“We can’t put it off forever, Reuel.” Ionis swiped a finger full of whipped cream off Reuel’s plate. “My ass wants to go home.”
With a huff, Reuel shoveled the rest of the pudding into his mouth.
“Done,” Fury said, putting the phone down. “And I let them know we might be arriving late. How long do you think it will take to get there?”
On my phone, I opened an app Azrael had told me about to calculate distance as the crow flies—or in our case, as the angel flies. “Looks like it’s about four hundred and seventeen miles to the island. If we travel at a hundred and twenty miles per hour—”
“Why so slow?” Ionis asked.
“Because Fury’s a human.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re not like most humans,” he said.
Fury smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It should take us about three-and-a-half hours in the air.” I looked at my watch. “So elevenish, roughly.”
“I’m going to have to fly with my legs wrapped around you for three-and-a-half hours?” Fury asked.
I grinned. “You want to get there, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but my thighs aren’t made of steel, Warren.”
That wasn’t what I remembered.
“I’m kidding. I have a tandem harness in my bag. You won’t have to hold on at all.”
“Thank God.” She stood and put on her rucksack. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
I got up. “Let’s go.”
An hour later, our taxi driver dropped us off at a beach club that had been closed for hours. Not a soul was in sight. Still, I sent my powers out into the night. Nothing.
“Reuel, you getting any signs of life out here?” I asked, trusting his ability to sense the living more than mine.
He turned in a slow 360-degree turn. Then he shook his head. “Nanta.”
“All right.” I still didn’t like our position so close to the road. Someone would be stopping by at some point to check for after-hours trespassers, like us. “Let’s make it fast though.”
I dropped my stuff onto the sand. Taking out my sword, I strapped it to my back. Then I pulled the military-grade harnesses from the bag and tossed one to Fury with a pair of clear goggles.
Fury put on her harness, then strapped her rucksack on over her chest, fastening its waistband strap behind her back. “Will this be too much for you?” she asked me.
“Nah.” I held up my own rucksack. “Reuel, can you carry this?”
He nodded, and I tossed it to him. His back was so large that his own backpack didn’t impede his wings, and he was able to wear mine on his chest. Then he picked up Fury’s gun case and the case holding the cuffs.
“You’re not going to hold those for three-and-a-half hours, are you?” Ionis asked, putting his bag on backward as well.
Fury reached into the middle pocket of her bag and pulled out two bungee cords. “Here.” She tossed them to him.
He bungeed the cases to either side of my rucksack.
Fury pointed at him. “Are those things secure?”
He tested the tension on one of the cords, then gave her a thumbs-up.
I finished securing my harness. “We ready to do this?”
Fury came over and stood directly in front of me, and I hooked my harness to hers. She tied her ponytail into a knot behind her neck, so her hair wouldn’t smack me in the face all the way to the island. “How will you know where you’re going?” she asked.
I tapped my temple. “Built-in GPS.”
She smirked. “Sure.”
I looked over at Ionis, who was double-knotting his shoes. Beside him, Reuel looked like a giant tortoise with two shells. “Ready?” I asked.
All three of us stretched our wings, and white light illuminated the beach. “We need to fly dark,” I said, dimming my own wings.
They did the same, and the three of us lifted into the air.
I hadn’t done much flying on Earth, but it was wildly different than flying in Eden. The wind on my face was cold, and my eyes watered wildly until they completely dried out. I regretted not bringing goggles for myself.
And while Eden got dark when its two suns went down, it was never completely impossible to see. Earth was a different story. Out over the water, far away from land, we were all but flying blind.
Still, there was something therapeutic about sailing through the air. The freedom. The rush. Even the chill in the air to remind you you’re alive.
Even Fury had relaxed in her harness and was letting her arms settle on the rushing wind. I bent so my mouth was close to her ear. “You doing all right?”
She reached up and grabbed my forearm. “Better than all right. This is amazing.”
I smiled. “Want to get a little closer?”
She nodded.
I brightened my wings just enough to see the surface of the ocean, then I dipped down far enough so Fury could trail her fingers over the water.
Through the wind and sea spray, I heard her laugh.
Then I heard something else…the crackle of static in my ear. My heart swelled. “Iliana?” I asked silently.
“Warren, it’s Samael.” Samael was the Angel of Death who guarded the spirit line and the Eden Gate.”
“What’s up, Samael?”
“I thought you were headed to la Isla del Fuego?”
“I am.”
“Then why are you flying toward Vietnam?”
Shit.
I pulled my arms in and pressed the night-glow button on my watch. We were headed due east.
“You a little distracted out there?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Shut up, Samael.” I took a hard left, nearly doubling back to where we’d come from.
Reuel and Ionis slowed as Fury and I passed them. Ionis held his hands up in question. Reuel just laughed and shook his head. Fury angled her face toward me. “What are we doing?” she shouted.
“Getting back on course!”
I felt her laugh against me. “What about that internal GPS of yours?”
I thought about making some excuse, but I couldn’t think of one more plausible than the blood was rushing away from my brain the more she squirmed against me. So I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re back on course now. I’ll keep watch in case you start wandering again,” Samael said in my head.
“Thanks,” I grumbled.
I began counting islands. We would pass over four major ones before la Isla del Fuego would be in sight. But I recognized the island as soon as we were over Negros. In the distance, I could see a glowing purple haze.
I tapped Fury on the shoulder, then pointed it out.
“That’s it?” she shouted.
“I’d bet my life on it.” I looked back at Reuel and Ionis, who was looking exhausted, and made an exaggerated pointing motion up ahead.
With the end in sight, I picked up speed. Fury grabbed onto my arm again, and I wrapped my other arm around her stomach. “You OK?” I shouted.
She nodded, angling her face again so I could see her smile.
I bent my wings into the wind, sailing even faster. When we were over the island, I slowed as we reached its center. The eerie purple glow grew brighter as we approached, but the sky was too dark to see our reflection in the salt mirror.
“Can we get closer?” Fury asked.
I descended toward the gate, then stopped and hovered far above it. Reuel and Ionis stopped on either side of me.
“Nulterra,” Reuel said, his voice filled with awe.
“I expected it to be more sinister and spooky,” Ionis said.
Maneuvering my arms around Fury, I blasted the circle with my power to try and open it. The “no” sign burned bright neon purple against the dark landscape. It lit up all our faces.
Ionis laughed and nodded his head. “OK. That’s impressive.”
“Shh,” I said. “We don’t want to disturb the locals. They aren’t exactly friendly.”
“Then maybe you should kill the lights,” Ionis said.
The lights were already beginning to fade.
“I almost want to try to get in tonight,” Fury said.
My arm was still around her waist. “I know it’s hard to wait, but we could all use a good night’s sleep.”
“Amen,” Ionis said. “Have I told you how much I hate flying?”
“Only about a thousand times.” Fury looked back at me. “I’m ready if you are.”
We flew south to the southern tip of the island, an area called Lazi. I cruised past what appeared to be a man-made beach and a small resort. Fury tugged on my arm, and I bent so I could hear her. “It was past this place. I saw this resort on the map.”
“How much farther?” I asked in her ear.
“Half a mile, maybe.”
I slowed as we approached a dim light on the shoreline. “Is that it?”
Her head bent. “I think so.” A second later, she nodded more definitely. “Yes. See how it’s built in a semicircle?”
I scouted the shore for the most inconspicuous area. Then I set down on a rocky beach shrouded in darkness about two hundred yards past our destination. The only light was the distant gleam of the stars.
“Anybody know where we are?” Ionis asked.
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “The place where we’re staying tonight is just back there.”
“Hallelujah.” He pushed his rucksack off his shoulders and let it fall to the ground with a heavy thud. “I hope they have a masseuse on staff.”
I unhooked Fury’s harness from mine, and she immediately loosened the straps across her chest. “How was your first flight?” I asked.
She pulled her arms from the harness and pushed it off her hips. “Who said it was my first flight?”
Disappointment hit me like a kick to the balls, but I refused to show it. “Oh yeah?”
“He took me once when I was younger.” She looked at Reuel. Then her jaw immediately dropped with shock.
When I looked over, I immediately saw why.
The case containing the blood stone was gone.