"And where was the baby?"
"We thought with Constance's friends," Lucifer said. "But as soon as I had my memories and true self back, I knew there was no way Lilith and I, even in human bodies, could produce a human baby. We went back to get her, and she was gone."
Mary shook her head. "Okay. I'm trying to process this all as if it's new information. So, you figured out it was Raphael. Then what?"
"Um, we went searching for known associates and got the information we have from them. Raphael wants to prove to the world that Abaddon and Elysium are real by giving them irrefutable proof."
"Demons," she said flatly.
"Demons," Lucifer echoed. "Luckily, right now, they're not visible to most humans."
Mary nodded. "But how did he get the gates open? I know they weaken the longer you're away from them, but how did he manage it?"
Lucifer shrugged. "Even as weak as they were, it would've taken some insane power to do it. I'm not totally sure the True Cross piece he has would've been enough. Or if he used that at all. They were open. Not broken."
Lucifer's face slackened at the same moment I realized what he said. "They were open," I whispered. "Only you can open them. Nobody else in all of creation. There is no key, no magic, no spell."
"So it would be break them down or nothing at all?" Mary asked.
I nodded and stared at Lucifer with wide eyes. "He had Ariel."
Lucifer dropped his head to his arm on the table. "Ariel can open the gates."
Mary grunted. "Then she can also close them."
"I need my powers," Luc whispered.
"When did you realize you didn't have them?" Mary asked.
"When he appeared in Abaddon and tried to close the gates," I said. "He went into a bit of shock then."
He wasn't totally out of it yet. "He had Ariel, but she was older. About four, maybe a bit younger."
It was Mary's turn to look shocked. "I've never heard of that. Now, I have heard of a spell to steal the power from an angel, but it's been a while." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Where did I hear about that spell?"
Standing suddenly, she pulled her microwave cart away from the wall and pressed her hand to the wallpaper. Oh, cool, we were going to get to go to her hidden room. It was a treasure trove of angelic and demonic oddities. Probably nothing we could use now, but it was still cool.
We followed her through, leaving our mugs on the table.
"Feel free to look around, but careful what you touch. Some of these items are sensitive, and I don't know if they'll like you lot touching them."
Lucifer and I exchanged an amused look. Even though she'd known us for a little while now, she still viewed us as inherently evil. Nothing was farther from the truth. We wanted the same thing everyone else did, we just put fewer restrictions on ourselves to get it.
While she searched, I picked a bookshelf and browsed. A title caught my attention. It was handwritten on some sort of ancient leather.
"Can I look at this book on the Nephilim?" I asked.
"Sure," Mary's voice came from somewhere far away. She was deep in the apartment.
Pulling out the book, I held it and peered into the next room where Lucifer stood staring at the craziest-looking fish I'd ever seen. I wanted to ask Mary about them but didn't want to distract her.
There was an armchair in this room, so I sat down and opened the book.
And lost myself in the information. It was handwritten inside, too, and the flowing script wasn't easy to read.
From what I could tell, it was written by a Nephilim. A rare find. They'd been out of all known history for quite a few hundred years. "How long has it been since you've seen a Nephilim?" I asked as I tried to read the script.
Luc turned from the fish tank. "Before my last Earth cycle, at least. Not that I go looking for them."
A word at the top of a page drew my full attention. It was a passage titled Cambion.
The Cambion is the mortal enemy of the Nephilim. We have taken our divine mission seriously and have rid the world of them. We continue to wait and watch, ever ready to defend. The prophecy cannot come to pass.
Prophecy? "Luc, look at this." I read the passage out loud to him. "Do you know about this prophecy?"
He shook his head. "Maybe Mary does."
We tiptoed around the house looking for her. Michael was engrossed in studying a rock. "This thing, it calls to me," he whispered. "I can't figure out why."
"What?" Mary walked out from behind a bookshelf. "Oh, it's the stone David used to kill Goliath."
We all stopped in our tracks and stared at the stone. It was roughly the size of a baseball, and smooth with age.
"Really?" I asked.
Mary nodded. "Yes, but its power was used or stolen long ago. It's just a paperweight now."
That couldn't have been true. I put my hand over it as Michael held it and probed it with a bit of magic.
Nothing. It held no power of its own. Damn. It would've been nice if we could've used it.
Mary tutted. "Put the old rock down and look. I found it." She set a book on a small table and turned on a lamp. It was another handwritten volume but didn't look as old as the book on the Nephilim I'd been reading.
She turned a few pages, then pointed. "Here. It's written in a secret language the Nephilim used. It details how to steal the powers of an angel. I don't see why it couldn't have been used on a Fallen angel as well. But it says the angel must be in a vulnerable or unconscious state or it won't work."
"Maybe he did it while I was human and in utero," Lucifer suggested. "Or a
