No offense, but can we pause the chat and get the show on the road?
“As you wish.”
Luc felt the warm brush of Metatron’s hand over his brow. His frozen body immediately began responding to his commands. Sitting up too fast, he felt dizziness overcome him. Blinking at the light in the room, Luc finally got a good look at his old acquaintance. Metatron had always been the formal one, the quiet one, the observer of life. His strict adherence to the rules and his constant drive to be the epitome of angelic perfection were what had made him the perfect choice to act as the voice of judgement.
As he sat there staring at Metatron, Luc suddenly felt the immortal strength leach out of his body. Weakness was something he’d never felt before, and definitely not something he liked very much. He was now subject to the passage of time, physical ailment, and injury. Glancing down at his bare chest, Luc watched as the blackened veins on his chest retracted and his sigil disappeared as though it had never been.
“Well, Morningstar, or I suppose I should just call you Luc now, welcome to the human race.”
“Thanks...don’t take this the wrong way Metatron, but I’d like to get to Halja now, if you don’t mind,” Luc said pointedly.
Smiling wryly, Metatron replied, “Always the impatient one.” He waved Luc forward to stand beside him. “As you wish.”
Rising, Luc stood beside Metatron and placed his hand on the angel’s shoulder. He only had time to take one deep breath before they disappeared in a blinding flash of light.
Chapter Thirty
Katia crept quietly down yet another steep stone staircase. Maybe this one would lead her to the dungeon and her brother. The back of her neck had been prickling non-stop since she had arrived. Halja was impressive in a super creepy way. Hallways twisted and turned, circling back on themselves like a nightmare labrynth. Fear snaked up her spine as she pressed on. She was the new kid in the Devil’s playground — she hadn’t been invited to play, and didn’t know the rules of the game. She had yet to meet up with any demons and was keeping her fingers crossed it would stay that way. Katia was terrified, but for some reason she knew in her heart that she would succeed. Her brother would be freed, and she would return to Luc.
Katia had just reached the landing and taken one step into the next corridor when a crossbow bolt slammed into the wall inches from her head. The battle instincts she’d skimmed from Amir kicked in and she dropped to the floor, rolling and grabbing for the pistol strapped to her leg. As she swung back up into a sitting position, she fired one of the charmed rounds directly into her assailant’s head in one smooth movement. Her senses took a moment to catch up with the superhuman speed with which she’d managed to dispatch her demonic attacker, but when they did she found herself on her feet staring down at his face. Red eyes open and unseeing, a trail of blood seeping from the bullet wound in his forehead. His blue skin was turning a mottled gray that matched the stone flooring like some kind of hellish chameleon. Before today she’d never thought she’d have the stomach to kill, but when the time had come Katia hadn’t flinched. Her eyes flicked to the side and she saw the crossbow lying on the floor. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to get a look at what had almost lodged in her head, Katia reached up and wrenched the bolt out of the wall. Much like her rounds, these bolts were charmed. Along the shaft were the words in nomine diaboli. In the name of the Devil. Katia needed no translation, and it was clear that these bolts had been charmed to slow down any immortal that had the audacity to breach the Devil’s lair.
Footsteps echoed from somewhere down a far corridor jerking Katia out of her head and into action. The sound of the gun firing had given away her position. Keeping the weapon in her hand, Katia took off down the hallway at a run; the sound of her boots hitting the stone floor pounded in her ears. Katia swept her gaze back and forth across the hallway as she moved. Attention on high alert, she began to pass large barred metal doors at varying intervals. Dried blood caked the mortar between the stones on the floor. A hissing noise and the occasional burst of heat blasting down the hallway told her that she was nearing a boiler room. As she continued farther into the prison area hands began to reach toward her through the barred doors. Blackened and torn skin, blood dripping from open wounds, the prisoners called to her, begging for release from their own personal hell. Katia slowed her pace peeking in at the haggard and drawn faces as they looked out at her with false hope. Her brother wasn’t here.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she walked past. This was the ultimate test of her willpower, her heart told her to release them from their cells but logically she knew she only had time to save one — her brother. Suddenly, a pair of very small hands reached out through the bars of one of the cells. Katia's heart constricted in her chest. A child. Surely even Satan wasn’t able to claim the soul of one so young. Katia’s breath caught as she turned to peer through the bars. Tears prickled behind her eyes. Children. Three of them. They clung to each other tightly, their faces dirty and gaunt.
“My God,” Katia whispered as she walked toward the cell slowly. The children couldn’t have been any older than ten or twelve. Katia moved as though she were in a waking dream.
“Save us,” they said in unison, their voices
