luxurious, somehow laws-of-gravity defying home?”
He smiled, but his eyes were full of sadness and regret. “I used to have a very large family.”
He didn’t expand. I wondered if he meant a wife and kids, or if he was talking about his angelic parentage. But, I’d asked enough invasive questions for one day. "Come. We have to get to the edge of the wards," I said. "Any chance you can lift them for a few minutes while we disappear?"
Cecilio shook his head. "It would take hours to stop them all and hours to put them back. Faster to walk."
"Okay, then. Luc and Mary in the middle." I led the way this time.
It was nice that Gabriel and Michael had carved a path in for us, but this time I knew where we were going. I was more powerful than all of them, and I needed to get to the River. It was time to take charge.
The walk was shorter, as most of the path carved on the way in was still there. The vines were still broken and leaves pushed aside. The undergrowth already threatened to take the path over again, but all in all, it was easier.
Of course, demons continued to harass us, but they came one or two at a time, so it was nearly laughable. Like being attacked by a toddler. More annoying than dangerous. As we walked, I considered everything.
I'd read Vincent's aura and killed him pretty quickly. What if I'd moved too soon or too rashly? Did he have more to say?
And who had sent the words to Cecilio? It could've been Vincent himself. "I haven't heard of an angel or demon making it to the River before," I mused.
Gabe was closest to me. "Yeah, but I've also never heard of a soul like his being held in Elysium, so this is a time for firsts."
"I guess." I blasted a vine out of the way, then sent another bolt of energy toward an approaching demon.
"Has anyone checked on Jellybean since we started all this?" I asked. "Is he acting as crazy as the rest of them?"
"He was fine when we left the house," Gabe said. "We can pop in and check on him before we go to the river." Gabe walked beside me for a while but shuddered. "Do we have to go to the River? It's so creepy."
I laughed and pushed at his shoulder. "You're so silly. They're just souls."
"I hate it there," he said under his breath.
"It's not like you have to go often. And if Vincent is in the limbo area, we've got to get him out of it and away from possibly entering Purgatory."
While all the demons were freed from Abaddon, the souls were piling up in Purgatory. I knew that, but there was nothing to be done for it. We had all our Fallen wrangling demons and trying to at least keep them invisible.
The souls that were in Abaddon were another story. I had no idea where they were. Hopefully still in Abaddon, but if they figured out how to get out, they'd become ghosts on Earth. We tried to keep ghosts to a bare minimum because, in this day and age, technology made it too dangerous to have a rogue specter roaming around.
I guessed the cat was out of the bag now, though. Humans knew all about demons. If we could get enough magic, maybe we could reset it all. Change the course of what happened.
Humans were supposed to make their choices without absolute knowledge of what came after. They weren't supposed to be scared into submission. They were supposed to choose to be good, to be noble and honorable on their own. Not because they were terrified of Abaddon.
But now they knew. It was all changed.
I hacked more vines away and increased my speed. We had to hurry. Once again, I tried to move with magic, but Cecilio's wards were too strong. He'd spent years layering them on. Even we would've had to work hard to get past them. Like he said. It was faster to walk.
"They appointed me caretaker, did I tell you?" Michael asked. "When Raphael went rogue, his responsibilities were reassigned." The plane that housed the River was technically the same as the demons while invisible on Earth, but it was sealed off with stronger magic than any of us had. God had been involved with it.
Only a few were able to access it at all. That made it all the stranger that an angel's soul