The truck swerves, and I’m so disoriented that I might as well be upside down in a fish bowl. All I can see is the hellion I rode on bouncing in panic inside the truck cab. Luckily, it’s a large truck cab, but there are still far too many people and creatures crammed into it.
My disorientation settles enough for me to realize that I’m sitting on Beliel’s lap.
It’s not the same Beliel we left behind. He’s more weathered, beaten, and weary. Not to mention dried up, wingless, and bleeding. He breathes in a slow, painful rasp.
I see my surroundings in a way that my mind can’t quite comprehend right now. A white hand pushes through the open rear window. It grabs the flapping hellion and yanks it awkwardly through the window.
Behind us is an open truck bed full of confused and disoriented Watchers. Several of them look queasy as we bounce and swerve around debris.
Beyond the truck bed, a group of angels chases us through our plume of dust that spreads into the dawn sky. And is that my sister and her three scorpions flying beside us?
Shrinking in the distance is the dark shadow of the new aerie and its outer buildings. Before I can comprehend what I’m seeing, the windows of one of the outer buildings explode in a burst of fire and shattered glass.
The angels who had been chasing us stop, watching the fire. Then they circle back to the aerie to defend their home base from whatever is attacking.
The truck swerves left, then right, like the driver is drunk.
Beside me, I hear a cackling full of genuine joy. My mother is behind the wheel. She has a triumphant grin on her face as she glances over at me.
She looks back at the road just barely in time to swerve around an abandoned car. She must be going sixty miles per hour. That’s suicidal on these roads.
I push myself away from Beliel. I’d gotten used to seeing him with a fresh, hopeful face. Now he’s bleeding through his chest, ears, mouth, and nose. It’s hard to look at him, much less sit on his lap.
It’s awkward and dangerous holding my sword in such cramped quarters. I have to be careful in the swerving cab while putting the blade back into my scabbard.
‘Be careful, Mom,’ I say as she swerves again.
I crawl through the rear window and land in the standing-room-only open truck bed. There’s barely enough room for me, but I’m small enough that I can slip between two large warriors.
When I see their disoriented and drained faces, I don’t need to wonder why they’re not all airborne. Even the few who are flying hold on to the truck’s roll bar, looking like they need a little guidance. These guys clearly need a minute to adjust.
At this speed, the aerie is fast disappearing behind us.
‘Are you ready to go back and fight?’ It’s Josiah, the albino.
The Watchers answer with a general groan. It vaguely sounds like ‘yeah, okay’ if I’m being optimistic, ‘hell no’ if I’m not.
The overall impression is that they’re completely sick and in no condition to fight. I’m disoriented too but not sick to my stomach. They’ve probably never ridden with Mom before. Okay, maybe they’ve never even ridden in a car before.
‘You’ll feel better once we stop.’ I bang on the window. ‘Mom, slow down. You can stop the truck.’
She speeds up.
I bang on the window again and stick my head through to the cab. ‘Mom, it’ll be all right.’
The truck slows down and comes to a halt. Paige and her locusts fly past us, then swoop back to where we’re stopped.
The Watchers climb out of the truck, looking shaky on their legs. They unravel their wings and stretch them out, as though testing them. The rest land around us, looking not much better.
The dust settles behind us and over the Watchers. They’re quite a sight. Their partially feathered wings with their curling, splintered edges and their half-skinned bodies must be monstrous even in my mother’s imagination. I glance at Mom through the window, wondering what she thinks of all this.
My sister and her locusts do happy loop-de-loops in the air. Paige waves to me.
‘Report, Josiah.’ Raffe turns to Josiah.
Josiah stares at the Watchers with wide eyes. ‘After you left, a guard saw me, and we got into an argument about whether to put Beliel back in his cage. I couldn’t let that happen. If things went according to plan – and I can’t believe that they actually did – you would have all come out into a cage and been crushed to death.’
‘Penryn!’ The door of the truck opens, and my mother runs toward me. She enfolds me in a hug that’s too tight.
‘Hi, Mom.’
‘This ghost angel told me that you were inside that demon over there.’ She points to Beliel who seems on the verge of losing consciousness in the passenger seat. ‘He said that you might come out any minute. I didn’t believe him of course. That’s crazy talk. But still, you never know.’ She shrugs. ‘And look what happened.’ She squints at me suspiciously. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Mom.’
‘How did you get us out?’ asks Raffe.
Josiah rubs his face. ‘After my little argument with the guard, I took Beliel. But Beliel is big and heavy even in his shriveled state. I couldn’t fly with him, but I had to get him somewhere safe until you came back. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her.’ He points to my mother. ‘Or her.’ He nods to my sister, who lands in the trees with her locusts.
‘And how did you end up with them?’ I ask.
‘Your mother found out the cult sold you out,’ says Josiah. ‘And she and your sister trekked here to rescue you.’
I look at my mother, who is nodding as if to say, of course we did. Wiry gray now streaks her dark hair. When did that happen? For a second, I see her through the eyes of a stranger and see a frail and vulnerable woman who looks tiny next to the brawny angels.
I look at my sister up in a tree. She’s being carried by a locust the way I used to carry her from her wheelchair only a couple of months ago.
‘You went to the aerie?’ My voice wavers a little as I look back and forth between my mom and sister. ‘You risked your lives to rescue me?’
My mother gives me another too-tight hug. My sister twitches the corners of her lips up despite the pain it must cost her to move the stitches on her cheeks.
My eyes sting at the thought of the danger they faced to rescue me.
‘Paige has three large pets with scorpion stingers who can fly her out at any time,’ says my mom. ‘I told them they’d be in big trouble if anything happened to her.’
‘Oh.’ I look at Raffe with a watery smile. ‘Even the locusts are afraid of my mother.’
‘I can see why,’ says Josiah. ‘She came with a group of shaved-headed humans who were requesting safe passage marks on their foreheads.’
‘Amnesty?’ asks Raffe. ‘Uriel’s giving some of the humans amnesty?’
‘Just the ones who gave her up.’ Josiah nods toward me.
The muscles in Raffe’s jaw dance as he clenches his teeth.
Josiah shrugs. ‘Your mother somehow convinced those people to wander into the aerie after they received their amnesty marks. Uriel had to drive them out like rats. Your sister also distracted the angels by doing flybys with her three locusts. We all kept looking to see where the rest of the swarm was. While everyone was distracted, your mother set the place on fire. She is one fierce woman.’
‘Fire?’
‘What do you think caused that explosion?’ Josiah nods in appreciation. ‘I never would have gotten Beliel out if it wasn’t for all the distractions your family caused.’
Josiah gestures to the truck. ‘Once I convinced your mother that you were inside Beliel, she convinced me we needed to ride in this vehicle. It got us out, but I’m never going to ride in one of those metal coffins again.’
‘Amen,’ says Thermo, who still looks queasy.
Mom has a smudge on her forehead. It looks like ashes, but I know that it’s the amnesty mark. It looks just li
ke the smudges that Uriel’s soldier gave to the cult members who sold me out.
‘You’re not in a cult, are you, Mom?’
‘Of course not.’ She looks at me like I just insulted her. ‘Those people are all nuts. They’ll regret having sold you out. I made sure of that. If Paige eats someone, it’ll be someone outside their cult. It’s the worst punishment they can imagine.’
45
A groan reaches us from the passenger seat of the truck. We walk back toward Beliel and open the passenger door.
He’s in bad shape. There’s blood everywhere.
He opens his eyes sluggishly and looks at me. It’s a relief to see him with eyes in his sockets. I wonder how long it took to grow them back?
‘I knew I recognized your voice from somewhere.’ He coughs. Blood bubbles out of his mouth. ‘Been a long time. So long I thought it was a torture dream.’
How long did he spend down in the Pit, taking the punishment for an entire squad of newly Fallen?
‘I actually thought . . . I actually thought, once, that there might be hope,’ says Beliel. ‘That you might come back and figure out a way to take me with you too.’
Watchers gather around behind me.
Beliel’s eyes lift to look at them. ‘You’re all just like I remember. You haven’t changed at all. As if it just happened this morning.’ He coughs again, and his face scrunches in pain. ‘I should have made you all wait with me in the Pit.’
His eyes drift closed.
He takes a shuddering breath and lets it out. He doesn’t take another.
I look up at Raffe, then at Josiah.
Josiah shakes his head at me. ‘It was too much for him. He wasn’t doing well after you guys went through him. His healing slowed down, almost stopped. He was in no condition to handle so many coming through. I don’t think biological beings were really meant to be gateways.’