Chapter Twenty-Nine

The light went out when I stumbled up the stairs. I fell on my hands and knees, then flipped around and scrambled backward in horror.

There was nothing there. Just a dark stone staircase to nowhere. Without the light from the gate, it was pitch black in the demon’s cathedral.

Light from Reuel’s wings flooded the room.

“Warren?” Fury ran to me. “Warren, where’s Flint?”

Shaking my head, I still stared at the hole.

“Warren?” she asked again, kneeling beside me.

I looked around the demon’s cathedral. Torman was sitting on the Morning Star’s throne. Reuel was behind me, bandaging Anya’s neck. And Hannah was skipping down the center aisle.

“He—” I swallowed. “He stayed behind.”

Fury drew back. “What?”

“When the stone was unstable, he pushed me through the gate.” My words sounded like they belonged to someone else.

“Why would he do that?” Anya, wearing a gas mask, was on her feet now.

“He knew I was lying. He knew one of us would have to stay behind to destroy the last stone.” My body went limp on the cool stone floor, my empty scabbard squashed between shoulder blades.

Fury slowly sank down beside me in a daze. “You meant it. You were telling me goodbye.”

I nodded, my eyes burning. “He sacrificed himself for me.”

“Our dad’s gone?” Anya asked.

When I didn’t respond, Fury slumped over, burying her face in my chest as she cried.

I threaded my fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, Fury. I tried to—”

“Don’t.” She shook her head against my chest. “I know you didn’t choose this.”

I pulled her down and held her. Anya joined us. Then Reuel.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed there, but at some point, we all sat up and faced the stairs. Nulterra was gone forever, and with it, one of the bravest men I’d ever met.

Anya was sitting diagonal to me around the stairwell. “Do you want some good news?” she asked, her voice muffled through her gas mask.

“I’d love some,” I said.

She touched the sanctonite stone around her neck. It was still glowing purple. “I hear you were looking for this.”

Fury’s head was on my shoulder. “It seems Abaddon lied. Torman said the stones did not lose their power.”

I looked back at Torman, who was now sitting on the front osmium pew. “True?”

His expression was smug. “Are you really questioning if Abaddon would lie?”

“Fair enough.” I turned back to Anya.

She reached behind her bandaged neck and took it off. Then she dangled it toward me.

“What? I can’t…I mean, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Seriously? It’s only fair payment for rescuing me from Hell.” She pressed it against my chest. “Take it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. Thank you for saving me.”

I held up the necklace. “Thank you for this.”

Fury looked up at me. “Maybe sometime we can borrow it for Jett.”

I realized what she was saying. “Two babies. Only one necklace.”

Reuel made a humming noise to my right. Then he leaned to the side and pulled something from his pocket. When he opened his big hand, a second stone sparkled in his palm.

My eyes doubled. “Where did you get that?”

“Etred.” He smiled and handed it to me. “Akai nan enta.”

I laughed. “No. He definitely won’t need it anymore. Thank you.”

He gestured toward me and Fury. “Te aval omnes val makil pira eptom.”

And they all lived happily ever after.

I kissed Fury’s forehead. “Shall we get out of here?”

She smiled up at me. “Please.”

Sunlight on my face never felt so amazing.

The sky was blue. Jungle frogs were singing. And the light rainforest mist sprinkled my face. I breathed in deep letting the sweet jasmine fill my lungs.

We’d made it.

And even though I was technically dead, I’d never felt more alive.

Anya ripped off her gas mask and inhaled fresh air for the first time in four years. She faced the sun, closed her eyes, and smiled.

“What will happen to her now?” Fury asked, taking my hand.

“At some point, I think Anya will be heading to Eden. With Abaddon gone, the mantle of the Archangel should be hers.”

“That’s as it should be.”

Anya lay on the ground, rolled onto her back, and let her arms flop out at her sides.

Fury stretched on her toes and gave me a long, slow kiss. “Thank you, Warren.”

I held her hand over my heart. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Flint—”

She pressed her finger over my lips. “No more apologies. Flint made his choice. He’d make it again.”

I kissed her finger.

I put my arm around her waist. “Can you still see Sloan’s summoning power?”

Fury traced an invisible (to me) line across the ground. “Yep. As clear as if it were drawn in chalk.”

“Wonder if she’s mastered that all the way to Asheville,” I said.

“Impressive if she has.” Fury was staring across the gate as it closed. “What do you think he’s gonna do?”

My eyes followed her gaze. “Torman?” He was stripping off the top layers of his bloodstained clothes. “Who knows? Who cares?”

“Think he’ll stick with the dark side?”

I nodded. “Coming back from it isn’t that easy. Azrael’s the only one who’s managed to pull it off.”

“Torman is the reason we got out alive.”

“He got himself out alive. We only followed. Don’t forget that.”

Giggles made me turn my head. Hannah was chasing Reuel, her ethereal hair swishing as she ran.

“What is it?” Fury asked.

I pointed. “Can you see Hannah?”

She looked in Reuel’s direction. “Not anymore. I can see Reuel though. He looks like a crazy person.”

“Ha. Yeah.” I closed my eyes.

“You all right?”

“I just wish I could return her to her family.”

“You’re returning her to Eden. Ultimately, that’s even better.”

“You’re right. I guess I’d better let Eden know we’re back.”

She looked over to where Anya was sprawled on the ground. “I think I’ll roll around on the grass with my sister.”

“God, I wish I had a camera.”

“This is completely classified,” she said with a smile as she got to her feet. Then she jogged to meet Anya, joining her on the ground.

Turning my back to them, I touched my finger to my ear and called out to the Angels of Death. “Nulterra to Eden, do you copy?”

“Warren, is that you?” Samael sounded like he might jump through the airwaves.

“Yes, sir. Back on the ground on the Island of Fire. I need some help. Can you send someone to escort a soul to Eden?”

No answer.

“Samael?”

Nothing.

I tapped my ear. “Samael?”

A faint whistling sound overhead drew my eyes toward the sky. Like an incoming missile, the sound grew louder and louder until a projectile bent the tops of the trees as it tore through the atmosphere.

Samael landed in front of me so hard his boots—American-made—sank deep into the soil. “Warren.” He was breathless and wide-eyed, and for the first time ever, scruff covered his jawline and sweat dotted his brow.

“Hey, man.” I looked up again. “Where’d you come from?”

Samael embraced me. Something I don’t think he’d ever done before. “You’re alive.”

It took a second for my stunned arms to close around him. “Yep. I’m alive, and I missed you too.” I patted his back. “Everything all right?”

He pulled away and gripped my shoulders. “Everyone thought you were all dead.”

Smiling, I shook my head. “So little faith in the human angel.”

“Can you blame us?” he asked, bewilderment in his eyes.

“I guess it was Hell, after all.” I held out my arms. “But we’re back safe. At least most of us are. Flint…”

“He didn’t make it out?” Samael asked.

I shook my head. “He stayed behind to save us.”

“Cassiel knew someone would have to. She feared it would be you.”

“It should’ve been me.”

“No, Warren. This world needs you here.”

The urgency in his voice was troubling.

“Why? What’s happened?”

Samael’s eyes drifted past me. I turned to see what he was looking at. Hannah was chasing Reuel up a hill on the other side of the gate.

“Her name’s Hannah,” I explained. “The demons kidnapped her. Can you take her to Eden for me? I’m afraid being here will confuse her, and that little girl has been through enough.”

“She was in Nulterra?”

“Yeah. So take extra special care of her.”

He just stared at me.

“Warren!”

I looked back and saw Reuel standing on top of the hill. He was holding Hannah now, and staring at something beyond my view.

“Alis cak esta!” Reuel yelled.

“Come on,” I said to Samael.

Anya and Fury joined us as we walked to meet him. At the top of the hill, I froze when I saw what he’d found.

A gravestone.

Fury’s gravestone, chipped around the edges and covered with moss.

I laughed, just like I had in Theta’s vision. “Oh my god. They really thought you were dead.” I knelt down and traced her name with my fingertips.

Fury walked past me and knelt down to pull some vines away from the ground. “There’s one for Flint. Is his body buried here?”

I felt the presence of death in the ground. “He is.”

“Warren, your marker is here too. And Reuel’s.” Anya was pulling at the vines. “Hey, here’s mine.”

“I guess you weren’t the only one who thought we wouldn’t make it,” I said to Samael.

He looked dazed. Like he wanted to speak but couldn’t.

I stood. “I guess we’d better get word back to Eden that I’ve returned. Can you take—” His bewilderment gave me pause. “Samael?”

“Whatever happened down there…” Emotion choked him.

“What is it?” I asked as all the dread that had preceded this mission returned like a tidal wave.

“Warren, the spirit line is gone.”

I fell back a step.

“We’re completely cut off from Eden.”

“Iru?” Reuel asked, panic clear in his voice.

Torman dropped his head back, laughing at the sky. “I hadn’t even considered this! You used crystal water.”

Fury joined me, and I looked at Samael for an explanation. “It’s forbidden to use outside Eden for this reason,” he said.

“For what reason?” Fury asked.

“Because, in the same way it destroyed the darkness veil around Nulterra, it destroyed the veil that kept the spirit line blocked from the Morning Star,” Torman said. “He created the spirit line, and he has the power to undo it. That’s why it’s been off-limits to him all these many years.”

“Cassiel thought in his new human form, the Morning Star would be too young to breach.” Samael’s face fell. “She was wrong.”

I ran my hand down my face. Everything we’d put all our energy into preventing, we’d caused. I had caused.

With her hands on her hips, Fury shook her head and walked back to our graves. As she dropped to her knees in front of her headstone, I wondered if her thoughts were riding a similar wave as mine.

Earth. Iliana. Jett…everyone would be better off if we had died.

“Hang on.” Fury bent forward, tracing her fingers over her name. “How did they have these made and installed so fast?”

I looked down at Fury’s stone again. “And they’re already overgrown.”

“Oh wow.” Behind us, Torman laughed again. Harder this time, if that was possible. “You didn’t know?”

I turned to face him. “Know what?”

“Time doesn’t work the same in Nulterra as it does on Earth or in Eden.”

“What?”

“The Morning Star created Nulterra after the Thousand Year Prophecy. It was foretold that he would be destroyed after a thousand years, so the Morning Star created a loophole.”

Fury stood beside me, her face pale. “What are you saying?”

“The days are much longer in Nulterra than in this realm. It was how he bought himself more time.”

“How much longer?” Anya asked.

He shrugged. “Every ten years or so on Earth is only about a day in Nulterra. The time you must have spent in Ket Nhila must have been particularly distorted.”

I stopped breathing.

“Warren, we’ve been gone for almost two days.” Fury’s voice was hollow and distant in my ears.

“No,” Samael said. “You’ve been gone for over seventeen years.”

His words sank in as we all stood there in frozen silence.

Fury’s eyes flashed toward the ground and widened. They seemed to be following something across the grass and back down the hill.

“Hello?” I heard Sloan’s voice behind me.

Then I turned, and I saw her.

I blinked.

No. It wasn’t Sloan.

It was Iliana.