Demon of Darkness (The Hellbound Hellion #2) - Tansey Morgan Page 0,9

in places, exposing dark wood underneath.

The bed looked comfortable enough, but I had a feeling it would light up like a Christmas tree if I had a blacklight to shine on it. I was also sure there was a bullet hole in the headboard. I walked over to it, examining the mark. Yep. Confirmed, definitely a bullet hole.

This place was officially a toilet, but it beat sleeping in the back of a van; not that I thought I’d get much sleep.

I had talked a big game to Jericho about getting some rest, but the way my body was buzzing, I doubted if I would be taking it. I couldn’t help myself. Just thinking about where I was, where I had come from, and what had happened was enough to keep my brain constantly running on overdrive.

A few days ago, I had been in literal Hell.

Then I had been in Limbo.

Then God died.

And after escaping from the clutches of a crazy cult, now I was here, in a motel surrounded by angels, and worrying about another angel that was still missing. The fact that Dagon hadn’t caught up yet didn’t make me feel good. Yes, we had been driving almost non-stop since our encounter with Sabriel, but even Dagon should’ve been able to catch up to us if he hustled.

That he wasn’t here with us now meant he hadn’t hustled, either because he didn’t want to, or because he couldn’t. The second thought worried me more than the first. He had deliberately lured the Wretched away from us so we could get away from it. If he wasn’t with us now, it meant he either hadn’t been able to shake it, he had run into Sabriel again, or the Wretched had killed him.

I shut my eyes and shook my head.

I should’ve been the one to lure it away. I was the better flier. I was the Hellion, and once upon a time, I’d been the Seeker. I had let him make the decision for me, and I hated that. He didn’t know it yet, but the moment we crossed paths again, he was in for the slap of his life.

Heroic bastard.

I decided to risk the shower in my bathroom and wash the day off my body. In a place like this, there was no telling what would come out of those pipes, but I was pleasantly surprised. The warm water felt great against my skin—refreshing and revitalizing—and when I was done, I found a clean towel in the closet that only slightly smelled like a cigarette butt.

But even the shower couldn’t help settle my mind. I started pacing around the room, for lack of a better thing to do. At one point I tried the boxy, old television, but the picture was awful, and when it wasn’t, there was no sound, anyway.

An hour passed, maybe two. I had no way of knowing, not really. All I knew was, I wasn’t going to get to sleep anytime soon.

Finally, a thought crossed my mind, and I glanced at the door to my room. I hesitated for a moment, trying to convince myself against what I had suddenly had the idea to do. It didn’t take long for me to weigh the pro’s and cons of lying on the bed, trying to get to sleep by myself, over checking to see whether Arael was still awake.

He was probably just as tired as I was, and the last thing I wanted to do was keep him up all night talking to me. But the alternative was going to royally suck, and if he was anything like me, he’d also be finding it difficult to get to sleep.

“Misery loves company, right?” I said to myself as I headed for the door, tying my long, black, wet hair into a braid.

Outside, crickets were singing the night away. As I walked over to Arael’s door, I caught sight of Jericho working away at his van. He was working on the engine, a tool in his hand, grease on his face. I hoped he could get Shelley working for us again, otherwise we’d be stuck here, in a roadside motel that smelled like cigarettes and feet.

Arael, Zephon, and Jericho each had their own rooms, like I did. The rooms were cheap, and none of us wanted to approach the bunkmate situation, so we each got a bed to ourselves. I peered into Zephon’s room as I went past it, but the blinds were drawn, and I couldn’t see inside.