End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days 3)

Raffe looks back at me, and I see a spark of interest.

34

We half drag, half fly Beliel’s cage off the torn grass toward an outer building that’s out of sight of the main hotel.

‘Do we have any reason to believe it’ll work both ways?’ asks Josiah.

‘I was hoping you guys would know,’ I say.

‘There are ancient stories of hellions jumping out through very powerful swords,’ says Raffe. ‘But there’s never been a reason to jump into the Pit.’

‘You mean to tell me that I discovered a talent of your beloved swords that even you guys didn’t know about?’ I pull as hard as I can on the cage bars.

‘You seem to bring out new and unimagined dimensions from both me and Kooky Bear.’

‘Pooky Bear.’

‘Right.’

I step over a hole that someone must have crawled out of.

‘Come on. Say it, Raffe.’ I give him a half smile. ‘I love it when you say Pooky Bear. It’s just so perfect when it comes out of your mouth.’

‘She might kill you in your sleep one of these days just so she can get rid of that name.’

‘Can’t she have a new name now that she can be with you again?’

‘You were her last solo wielder, so she’s stuck with the name until she gets a new solo wielder.’

I keep expecting him to ask for his sword now that he has his angel wings back, but he hasn’t. I wonder if he’s still annoyed with her for showing me his private moments. I can feel Pooky Bear’s yearning to be held by him, but I don’t say anything. This is one fight I should stay out of.

We set the cage down behind the outer building. It’s quiet and deserted here.

Josiah shakes his head but is no longer arguing against the idea. He’s right. We all agree that it’s a terrible plan. But when Raffe asked him to come up with a less terrible idea, he didn’t have one.

Now that it’s time, my hands tremble as I pull out the sword.

My mind searches frantically for a better plan, but I can’t think of one. We could run away now that Raffe has his wings. But he’s on trial as much as I am. They won’t just let us fly out of here.

If Raffe loses this trial, I die. I’m not sure what will happen to him, but it’s clear what will happen to me. But if Raffe could win this trial by contest and take control of the angels, he’ll take them away. And it’ll all end.

Is it worth the risk of losing Raffe to the Pit and having him trapped there?

I bite my lip, not willing to answer that question. I’ll probably pace a ten-foot-deep trench in front of this cage while waiting for him to come back.

‘Do it,’ says Raffe. His wings are closed tightly along his back, and he stands rigid, ready for the worst.

Before I can get sappy, I nod to Josiah. He unlocks the cage door, and it swings open with a creak. The two hellions from the Pit back as far away from Josiah as they can.

Hopefully, they know how to use the sword to get back to their world. We just need to catch one for Raffe to ride on.

Beliel also backs away to the far end of the cage, looking like a shriveled zombie. ‘What are you doing?’ He watches us suspiciously.

‘Come on, creepy hellions. You want to go home, don’t you?’ I croon, sticking my sword into the cage.

The Pit hellions creep slowly toward me. They watch the sword greedily, sniffing as if trying to sense a trap.

As soon as Raffe moves toward them, though, they bolt back into the farthest corners of the cage, hissing. I don’t know how to make the creatures travel through the sword if they don’t want to.

‘They’re afraid of you.’ I put out my free arm in front of him. ‘Get behind me.’

I step into the cage. I raise my voice and make myself sound like I’m talking to puppies. ‘Come on, ugly squat-faced things. You want to go home, don’t you? Mmm, home.’

They creep cautiously toward me, watching Raffe carefully.

‘I’ll open the doorway to your home as soon as you let me hold your hand.’ I have to keep myself from cringing away at that thought.

‘No!’ says Beliel. His eyes are fierce, like he’s just realized he’s in a nightmare that he can’t wake up from. ‘Get away—’

I grab the nearest hellion.

It grabs my forearm back, sinking its claws in. Pain pierces through my arm, but I hang on.

At the same time, Raffe jumps in and grabs the other hellion.

Then total chaos breaks out.

With an intensity bordering on panic, Beliel shoves Josiah out of the way and tries to leap out of the cage. Raffe’s hellion freaks and tries to rush the cage door, flapping madly.

I instinctively swing my blade to stop Beliel’s escape and end up skewering Beliel’s side.

As he roars, Raffe’s hellion leaps onto my sword.

It slides down the blade with Raffe gripping its leg. It disappears into Beliel.

And Raffe, still hanging on to its leg, disappears right after it.

Before I can blink, the hellion I’m holding dives down the sword as well, dragging me with it.

At first, I try to let go – Raffe’s the only one who’s supposed to go into the Pit – but the hellion still has a grip on my arm. In the split second before the hellion lets go of me, my hand slips into Beliel, and I’m falling.

I clench so tightly that I almost pull the hellion’s arm off.

We slam through Beliel’s body, and the breath gets knocked out of me. For a painful split second, the shock of going through the barrier almost tears me off my ride. But I hang on, tortured by the idea that if I’m jarred loose, I could end up in an even worse place than I might be going.

We fall through a darkness that seems endless.

I turn to see Josiah’s stunned face staring down at me through a fast-closing tunnel.

I shut my eyes, convinced that there are some things we humans aren’t meant to see. Josiah’s shocked face burns out of my mind as only one thought begins to dominate.

We are going into hell.

35

This isn’t the same as the last time I went into Beliel’s memory. This time, it hurts.

Every cell in my body cries from the pain of it. Hopefully, it’s because my physical body is actually going on the trip along with my mind.

Just when I think my eyes are going to pop from squeezing them shut so tightly, we slam onto the ground.

My stomach clenches, and my chin and chest sting where they hit the ground.

No wonder the hellions were so disoriented when they landed on Angel Island. I feel like I just got rolled as flat as pizza dough and slapped onto the ground.

I also feel like I’m baking in an oven. A very stinky oven cooking rotten eggs.

I force myself to roll over and open my eyes. There’s really no time for recovery when you’ve just landed in hell.

The sky – if it is a sky – is a cracked purple black with darker blotches. The weak light throws a purple cast over the hulking shadows above me.

Edging my vision, there are faces looking down at me.

I’m not really sure what I’m looking at. They remind me of angels, but I don’t think they are. They also remind me of demons, but I don’t think they’re those either.

Their open wings look mangy, and what’s left of their feathers look like dried leaves on a dead tree. The exposed parts of the wings look cracked and leathery. The wing bones are splintered, sticking out painfully through the edges of the wings. Many of the bone splinters have curled into a sickle shape, not entirely unlike Raffe’s demon wing blades.

The thing that shocks me the most, even though it probably shouldn’t, is that one of these guys is Beliel. It shouldn’t surprise me since I did jump into his memory – or a world in which he has a memory – or whatever. So of course, Beliel would be here.

But he looks different. For one thing, his wings are neither the demon wings I’m familiar with nor his original feathered wings. They’re half dark and h

alf still covered with tufts of sunset feathers.

I guess since I’m physically here, I might have jumped in time and space, but that’s too much for my brain to handle without exploding. Besides, I don’t have time to think about it.

When my eyes adjust to the purple light, I see that Beliel stares in my direction with empty sockets.

Beliel is blind.

It takes me a second to convince myself that it really is him. He has deep lash marks across his cheeks and nose. He’s been whipped in the face. He also has gouge marks around his eye sockets.

The others don’t look much better. One of them has half a perfect Greek-god face and another half that looks like it’s been chewed off. Without their injuries, I can tell that they would have been perfect specimens, just like any other angel.