It was all fair game now, though. The place felt dead. Like the magic had been stripped from the realm completely. No life, no death.
Just nothingness.
I whispered, "We have to figure out how to get our daughter back."
14
Our breakfast with Cecilio and Mary seemed so long ago. "I'm starving," I said as we contemplated walking around the castle.
"Well, I've never been inside the gates like this, and I don't like it. I'm ready." Gabriel looked just as freaked out as he had in the River. "We aren't meant to be here." He shivered.
Michael was more stoic about it, but I could tell he agreed. "Okay," I relented. "Let's go."
We walked out of the gates and looked up at the giant stone wall. It was imbibed with magic to create a permanent ward. That was the only reason we had to open and close the gates with Lucifer's magic. They were far too large for any force to move them physically. The wards were too tied to the stones. And I wasn't sure if there was enough magic available to anyone, anywhere to recreate the wards with new ones. They'd been forged with the power of the Fall. That was a level of power I hadn't seen since.
"I never imagined I'd miss this place," Lucifer said. "I resented it for so long."
Well, that was news to me. I looked at him in shock. "What?"
He shrugged. "What did you expect? I went from the most powerful Archangel to the guy that punishes the sickos. It took a while to come to terms with my new lot in life."
"We reacted to the fall differently." His hand was warm and dry when he enveloped mine so we could travel back to the house. "I was eager to start our new lives as free angels. We had the whole world at our fingertips, finally."
I moved us to the house and immediately went to the kitchen.
It was nearly bare. Of course. We'd been in and out, back and forth for a while, randomly grabbing food out of the refrigerator and cabinets. We'd cleaned it out.
"I've still got some cash of Lucian's," Luc said as Gabriel peered over my shoulder into the empty refrigerator and moaned.
Gabe brightened up. "Pizza?"
Lucifer chuckled at his friend's eager expression and grabbed the house phone. "Sure."
He dialed the number still tacked to the wall beside the phone and ordered a few pizzas. I left the guys to it and went into the living room where I collapsed on the couch, then curled up into a ball after tucking the plump couch pillow under my head.
"Hey," Michael said softly. "You okay?"
"No." I rubbed my face on the smooth fake-suede of the pillow. "We are out of ideas."
My mind felt like it had been electrocuted. There was a bit of a buzz and a lot of sleepiness. Hope was a far-flung emotion.
"Okay," Lucifer said. He sat on the coffee table and looked down at me with a blank expression. "What do we know?"
"She's not human," I mumbled.
"Right, but you were right that we couldn't have taken her to Abaddon," Luc said. "What else?"
"She's the most powerful being Raphael knows of ever to have existed," Michael said. "And she's either on Earth somewhere or in his realm."
"If she was on Earth, we could get together a spell and find her," I said. "But she's not. He's not stupid enough to keep her here."
Michael lifted my legs and sat in the middle of the couch. Gabe sat on the end. I peeked at them both without moving my head.
"We need to get rid of his realm." Lucifer stood and paced. He did that a lot when he was worried. "How could we possibly get enough power to do it?"
I turned my face into the pillow. "We can't," I said. Not that they understood me.
Michael squeezed my leg. "Eh?"
"We can't. We've been over this. That much power doesn't exist right now." I sighed and twisted my body around to lay on my back and stretched my legs across Michael and Gabriel.
"What about Ariel?" Luc asked. "I have a body that can hold all the power she can send at me. She has all the power in the world but doesn't need it right now."
He was right. If we could get Ariel's power and put it in Luc, combined with our own it might've been enough to at least lock them out of the realm Raphael created. And once they were forced to stick to the realms we could also access, all bets were off. We could find them and get Ariel back.
Plus, once she didn't have power, he might not have any other use for her and give her up. That would've been great, too.
"We could try," I said. "Mary said there's already a spell for it. It wouldn't be like in Mexico, where we'd be trying a new spell someone invented."
"I'd say what harm could it do? But we've proven so far it could be a great deal of harm. What if taking Ariel's powers backfires on her somehow?" Michael asked.
My heart sank. That would be putting her in potential danger. "Let's consult with Mary."
We were an hour behind Mary, and it was already full dark. We couldn't go to her yet, so we decided a good night's sleep after filling our bellies would be a good thing.
"Come on," Gabe said. He stood from the end of the couch and held his hand out. "You and Lucifer are still not at your full potential from the change. Plus, Luc's ordeal in Mexico. You two go get in bed and rest. We'll go to Mary first thing in the morning."
I turned to Lucifer, and his face fell. "I was excited to get started."
With a giggle I had to force, I held out my hand. "I was too, but they're right. We need to recuperate before we do any
