“I’ve been listening out for you.”

  “Listening?”

  “In a sense. When Lucifer showed up with Abaddon in tow, we assumed the worst, but I knew if anyone was going to make it back it would be you. So, I waited and listened, and I made sure when the day came that I felt your essence touch Earth again, I would be ready for you. And here I am… well, kind of.”

  “Wait, Abaddon didn’t tell you what happened?”

  “There are clearly a lot of things that we both need to catch each other up on. For example…” Micah paused. “Can I ask how there are so many demons here? I wasn’t expecting this.”

  “Rebels against Lucifer,” interjected Missolis. “We have pledged ourselves to the path of redemption, forsaking Hell and all of its corruption. As much as we can, at any rate.”

  “They helped me get out of Hell,” I said. “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I would’ve made it this far.”

  “Hell? How did you all escape?” Micah asked.

  “Lucifer opened a gate; he let all of the demons out. We were just lucky to be in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “This isn’t welcome news at all. We must get you out of there as soon as possible.”

  “Right,” I nodded. “Just tell us how to get to you.”

  Micah shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Sarakiel. I know that you are on Earth, but I don’t know exactly where. Without that information, I’m not able to open the way to Helena.”

  “But, you’re here, you must know where we are?”

  “It looks that way, but I’m not really there. This is a semi-solid projection—a trick of the Light.”

  Micah looked solid enough to me, but looking again, the way the Light behind him bounced off his skin and his hair… “Okay, what do you need?”

  “I need you to tell me exactly where you are.”

  “Where I… I don’t know where I am.” I scanned the darkness around the building we were on. “I’m in the desert, somewhere. I couldn’t even tell you what desert I’m in. Maybe the Sahara?”

  Micah’s face darkened. “If I don’t know where you are, I can’t get to you. I’m only able to project myself near your location because your resonance has drawn me to you. But I need to know where you are so that I can focus the portal on a landmark, and you can come through it.”

  “Micah…” I took three hurried steps toward him. “I don’t know… I have no idea.”

  “Think I may be able to help you with that,” came a voice from above.

  Like a dart, a silent shadow landed on the rooftop just off to the side of where Micah was standing. My chest lightened, and a warm rush of relief surged through me as the shadow coalesced to become Hekata. Gadriel. She was bathed in Micah’s Light, but she wasn’t afraid of it either.

  Micah turned to look at her, his cherub eyes widening. “Gadriel…” he gasped.

  “In the flesh,” she said, “finally.”

  “It is… so good to see you. I can’t even begin to tell you⁠—”

  “Save it,” she snapped. “I’m not here to have a heart-to-heart with a cherub.” She turned her dark eyes on me. “You wanted my help, I’m here to give it.”

  “You know where we are?”

  “I do. We are an hour in flight from the base of three pyramids.”

  “Egypt…” said Micah. “I will meet you at the pyramids, Sarakiel. If you leave now, I will be ready for you by the time you arrive.”

  Micah turned around and looked like he was about to walk back into the Light.

  “Wait…” I gasped.

  “Wait? For what?”

  I looked around me at the surrounding demons.

  “How big is that portal going to be?” I asked.

  The cherub frowned, as if confused by my question. “Big enough for you to get back.”

  “It needs to be big enough for all of us.”

  “All of… what?”

  “I made a promise to them. I can’t just leave them here—I have to take them somewhere safe, or they’ll die out here.”

  It was there that Micah had drawn his line. Yes, many of these demons were once angels in Micah’s charge, and yes, he’d had a fondness for those angels, but they were no longer those angels. Convincing him to allow an entire host of potentially dangerous demons into Helena was going to be a hard sell.

  “Sarakiel…” he paused. “Think of what you’re asking me to do.”

  “They helped me. I need you to bring them with us.”

  He lowered his voice. “They helped you because they had something to gain from it. I have to think of the safety of everyone at Helena.”

  “What of their safety? Lucifer dumped them all in a desert and left them to die. Helena is a bastion⁠—”

  “A bastion for angels,” Micah hissed. “I came here to get you. Can you imagine what would happen if I showed up with hundreds of demons?”

  “One hundred-ish,” I said. “I know what I’m asking of you, and I know I have no right to ask it, but they’re mortal now, Micah. Without food, water, or shelter, they’ll die out here—and that’s if the other loyalists don’t get them first. You’re the only one who can help these people.”

  Micah’s face darkened once more. “This is an army, Sarakiel. An army I’d be delivering right to Helena’s doorstep.”

  “Lucifer opened the gates of Hell… he has an army of his own. What do you think he’ll do once the surviving demons get to him? One by one, he’ll attack every single angelic bastion on Earth until there’s none of us left. We’ll need all the help we can get if we want to stop him. That means rallying every angel, every bastion, every demon willing to⁠—”

  “You don’t know…” he said, trailing off.

  Micah’s expression had changed. It wasn’t surprise, or shock, or even anger I saw on his cherub face anymore, but a kind of devastating sadness.

  “Don’t know about what?” I asked.

  Micah’s throat worked. He shook his head. “There… there are no more bastions. There’s only Helena.”

  “What? Wait, what are you talking about?”

  The cherub looked down at his feet, then back up at me. “Lucifer started destroying them almost a year ago. It only took him a couple of months or so to ruin almost every bastion we knew about; all but ours. We were able to hold him off, but now he has legions of demons at his back.”

  “A year?” I shook my head. “No, that’s not right. It hasn’t been a year.”

  “Maybe not for you, but it has been for us. You went up to Heaven a year ago, Sarakiel; a lot has changed since then. Not just for us, but for the mortals, too… you must have seen all the ash.”

  No.

  I’d known as soon as I’d seen it, but I had hoped so desperately that I was wrong. A year—a whole year in which Lucifer had run amok upon the Earth. With all the bastions destroyed, there was no one to challenge him as he turned his attention toward the humans he loathed so much.

  I didn’t want to know exactly what he’d done to them. That train of thought lead to Abaddon, and anxiety over his role in all of it. I was still holding tight to some hope that it wasn’t what it looked like, but then, why would he look so marked…

  Like it or not, it wasn’t the time to be asking questions. I had to swallow every ounce of emotion and stay firmly locked in Lightbringer mode, because it was clear Micah was growing more uncomfortable by the second. If Helena was the last angelic bastion on Earth, it was going to be difficult to convince him to risk it.

  Almost as if she had read my mind—or at least accurately read the sudden tension—it was Missolis who spoke next. “If Lucifer is the kind of angel I think he is, he will not abide your bastion to continue standing. He will throw army after army against its walls until they crack, like waves wearing down a cliff. He is patient, but he will see it fall one day.”

  Micah stared at Missolis, then looked back at me. “You must understand, I can’t simply allow a horde of demons into Helena. There are so few of us left, morale is at an all time low, things have changed since you left, Sarakiel, and not for the better.”

  “Micah, please. You know their names, their true names. Look at them. They rejected Lucifer, they rejected Hell. They wanted to get back into Heaven, hoping that by spitting demonism back into Hell’s face they could earn their redemption. This is their chance, and it’s our chance too.”

  “Sarakiel—”

  “I’m not an idiot. I know what I’m asking of you, but I’m also asking you to see the bigger picture. What are the odds that fate would deliver these rebels to you when you needed them the most? Imagine the boost to morale when the angels find out that actual demons are on their side!”

  Micah looked around at the demons waiting to hear his answer. There were more of them, now. They had all flown up to the rooftop to listen to this conversation, to await their fate. They weren’t interrupting, they weren’t yelling, or shouting, or trying to convince him to take them in. Not even Hekata had piped up, which was a surprise considering how vocal she usually was.

  They were simply waiting… as they had done in Hell all this time.

  What was a few more seconds?

  “Azrael is going to kill me,” Micah sighed.

  “Azrael will understand the tactical advantage we’ve just given her,” I said. “Can you take them all with you, or not?”

  Micah nodded. “When you reach the pyramids, there will be a portal waiting for all of you.”

  Missolis bowed her head. “We are grateful,” she said, “and we are ready.”

  “I should get back so that I can make preparations,” said Micah, “and, you know, warn the others.”

  “No weapons,” I said. “Trust me. They won’t hurt anyone.”

  Micah nodded once more, then the cherub stepped back through his portal. As he did so, the Light that had allowed him to project to our location snuffed itself out. I walked up to Hekata who seemed strangely calm considering all she had just witnessed.

  “You came back,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I told you to trust me.”

  “You were gone for a very long time. I thought maybe you had decided to rejoin Lucifer and the other demons.”

  “I thought about it. But then I came across many demons, corpses all, wings and limbs jutting out of the sand. The Lucifer I was told about would not have let his people die like this. He would have torn a hole in Hell’s wall and marched us all toward salvation at his side.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish you hadn’t had to see that, but I’m glad you’re not amongst them.”

  “As am I. But don’t think that this means I trust you, I still expect treachery; if not from you, then from the other sycophants we are about to join.”

  “She’s right… they will hate us,” said Missolis, coming up to us both, her eyes burning in the relative darkness around us.

  I nodded. “I know,” I said. “But we are each other’s best hope for survival. The angels will see that… if the demons do as well.”

  “I’ll make them,” said Missolis. “I won’t forget what you’ve done for us today, none of us will.”

  “I haven’t done anything except convince an old friend to let an army of demons into his house. He’s the one who saved our lives, though, only thanks to you,” I said, looking at Hekata.

  “Our mortal lives…” she added.

  “Right… we should get moving. And as soon as we get through that portal, I’m going to introduce you both to cake.”

  In unison, Missolis and Hekata asked, “to what?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The desert was cold at night, bitterly so, but it was worse for the demons. These were creatures that until recently were immortal and didn’t have to care about such trivial things like warmth, and sleep, and the need for water. My plan had been to spend the night somewhere dark and enclosed where we wouldn’t be so exposed to the elements.

  Instead, we were flying over the desert—a whole legion of demons led by a former angel.

  Hekata insisted the Pyramids of Giza were close. Maybe for her, that was true. For me and the others the trip felt like an age. A small eternity spent flying over a sea of dunes, and dirt, and the hollowed out remains of the small settlements we came across.

  In all this time, I hadn’t spotted a single human, nor had I encountered signs of them. No lights, no fires, there weren’t even aircraft in the sky. It was dark and eerily quiet… but the pyramids themselves eventually came into view, and it was then that I regained some hope.

  Each of the monolithic structures was brightly lit and visible for miles. There were city lights nearby, twinkling in a manner that mirrored the stars floating overhead. Finally, civilization. Finally, humans.

  They’re not all dead.

  It was a morbid thought, and it came entirely on its own. I hadn’t wanted to concede to the idea that they might all be dead; those actual words hadn’t crossed my mind. But I had clearly been considering the thought, and it made me shudder.

  “There,” said Hekata, her voice shrill against the wind. “We are close, now.”

  I relayed the message to Missolis, who looked like she was faring a little better than the rest of the rebels at her back. Many of the demons we were bringing with us couldn’t fly and were being carried by those who could. That set-up had been manageable in Hell, where muscle fatigue wasn’t a problem. But it was a problem now—and a big one, too.

  These demons were exhausted.

  We couldn’t get to Helena soon enough.

  “I think I see it,” said Missolis, pointing at a spot of light beyond the pyramids, away from any city lights and roads. It was a shimmering bubble in a sea of darkness, and even from this distance, Missolis was straining to look at it directly.

  I nodded. “Remember what we talked about,” I said to her.

  Missolis nodded. “I will. And my demons will behave.”

  “I know. Come on.”

  I dove towards the light, which by now I could tell was clearly a source of true Light. In fact, as I neared it, I started to pick out figures standing near the bubble. There were angels, at least six of them, Light bouncing off their armored rose-tinted pauldrons, chest plates, and weapons.

  Dammit, Micah.

  I had asked him to make sure there weren’t any weapons present, but he had clearly been overruled by Azrael, who stood at the front of the group of assembled angels. She was difficult to miss with her dark hair and her glowing sword of pure Light. I asked Hekata to stay behind me as I swooped closer to the ground, aiming to land directly ahead of Azrael and the rest of the angels.

  Behind her was the portal Micah had built for us. It was a dome of semi-circular Light that danced, and sparkled, and shimmered. Inside the Light I saw Helena—a familiar courtyard of stone, and vines, and flowers. It was still day over on the other side of the portal, and the sunlight only served to intensify the colors coming through from the other side.

  Such vibrant green, and rose red, and blue.

  It felt like home… until Azrael demanded I take no further steps toward her. She had her sword in her hand, but she wasn’t holding it in a threatening manner.

  Still, I raised my hands. “It’s me, Azrael,” I said.

  “I know who you are,” she said after a pause. Her voice was sharp, and curt, and though she looked every bit how I remembered her, there was something different about her. There weren’t any scars on her face or any marks that I could see, but there was a kind of tiredness to the Warrior’s eyes that was hard to miss.

  One by one, and then very quickly, the demons I had brought with me all this way began to land behind me. Azrael and her angels watched them all, eyes rapidly darting from side to side. The angels were stoic, though, and while they too had weapons drawn none of them raised them against the demons.

  This was a show of force, a warning maybe.

  At least I hoped that was all it was.

  I swallowed hard. “If you’re here, then you’ve spoken to Micah?”

  “Micah waits on the other side of the portal,” she said.

  I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there. He had to be. “Are you going to let us through?”

  Azrael’s gaze lowered, and she tightened her gauntleted grip on her sword. “You convinced Micah, but I am not so easily swayed. I wanted to see this army of demons for myself.”

  “This isn’t an army. We’re refugees.”

  “Which is it, then? You convinced Micah that this army was going to help us drive back Lucifer and his sycophants. Now you claim it is not an army, that you are refugees. All I see are demons.”

  “Well, hello to you too,” said Hekata.

  I turned to look at her and urged her to stop talking with my eyes. “Azrael,” I said, “you don’t know what we’ve been through. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I know you don’t trust them, you probably don’t trust me, either. But I’m begging you. Let us through, give us shelter at Helena, and I promise you they will fight against Lucifer.”

  “I don’t buy it. Demons rebelling against their master? Impossible.”

  Hekata spat on the sandy dirt. “Lucifer is not my master,” she snapped. “I have no master, angel.”

  Azrael didn’t look the least bit pleased with that outburst. She looked ready to raise her sword and bar our entry, but Missolis intervened, coming up between Hekata and me and placing a hand on my shoulder.

  “We are the first rebels, Azrael,” she said. “We rebelled against God, and for breaking Her rules we were broken and cast out. Then we rebelled against Lucifer’s banner in Hell, rejecting his ideals and his goals. And when Lucifer arrived to break us all out of our eternal damnation, we rebelled once more, choosing not to go with him and the rest of our kind and instead throw ourselves at the mercy of angels.”

  Azrael’s eyes darkened. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

  Missolis smiled at her. “I don’t expect you to be impressed,” she said. “I know what it’s like to be a Warrior. To be filled with a kind of righteous purity that burns in your chest like a white-hot flame.”