I shake my head. “Nothin. Whatever y’all are feelin’, it ain’t happenin’ here either.”
The guys share a look.
“So it’s not our gate and it’s not yours,” Delta says.
“Come on, we need to check the other one,” Echo announces, and then everyone spins and races for the safe zone just outside of the portal’s wards so we can shift again.
Just as we get there, Alder reaches out a hand, and I immediately place mine in his and then reach out to Delta, just in case her protective mates try to leave her behind. I know we’re goin’ to a different portal, but I haven’t heard anythin’ about it or the Guardians there, and I have no idea where it is.
I don’t get time to ask any questions before Alder pops us away from the familiar humid Georgia air. In the next blink, we’re gone from home, and we’re standin’ on a hill that’s just big enough to see trees with different colored leaves dotted everywhere below. I spot a clearin’ with old headstones sprinkled around the grass, a brick groundskeeper buildin’ off to the side of the graves, and I can even see a town in the distance, past another line of trees.
It would be pretty. Would be, if the sky wasn’t stained with a blood-red haze. If the town wasn’t on fire, fillin’ the air with smoke and screams. And if three bodies weren’t cut to shreds outside the groundskeeper buildin’, broken and bleedin’ all over the short grass.
We’re too late.
Delta’s demons shift in a millisecond after we do, and I hear the growls of frustration and pain as they take in what I just did. Devastation wafts through the group, and we all pause, not sure what to do first. It looks as though the town has been attacked, and the graveyard is quiet—eerily so.
“The Guardians?” Delta asks with a hard gulp, her gray eyes locked on the dead bodies of the three male demons below.
“Yeah,” Echo says thickly, his voice hollow as he stares down at them. I wonder if they were friends or if he just sees himself and his Guardians when he looks at them.
I have to divert my eyes from the broken figures outside the brick buildin’. Their bodies...it wasn’t a nice death. They’re torn and bloody, with horrible expressions on their faces that prove how violent and painful their end was.
“Where are the new Guardians?” Delta asks, her voice filled with shock and sorrow. “Shouldn’t the Hellgate have called the next in their bloodline to come and protect it right after these three were killed?”
Alder clears his throat. “It doesn’t always work like that...if there is a next in the bloodline to call, it would have, but the Guardians here didn’t have any next of kin left. They were the last of their bloodline. They never took mates to carry on their line. They’ve been hiring Outer Ringers to help them for decades now to help sustain the increasing power suck. This portal is completely unprotected now.”
Delta and I share an oh, shit look.
“So what do we do?” I ask, panic in my tone at his words.
How can we have a gate with no Guardians to protect it? How will we keep everyone safe if we can’t keep the demons with no respect for balance inside Hell?
Rafferty takes charge, his hand comin’ up to form a wicked lookin’ blade made entirely of ice. “We need to split up,” he says, his gaze hooked on the town in the distance where screams and loud booms are still fillin’ the air. He hands the ice sword off to Delta, and then quickly makes more for Crux, Echo, and then Flint, passin’ them off without a word as they take them.
“What’s the plan?” Flint says, all business, his skin rock hard and matchin’ the dark glint in his eyes as he clutches the weapon.
“Some of us need to go into the town to protect the humans. We have no idea what kind of demons broke through, how many, or what kind of havoc they’re spreading,” the blue demon says, his lips flattenin’ into a thin line.
“I’ll go,” Jerif immediately volunteers, and Delta shoots a worried look at him.
“Me too,” Flint offers, and I give his hand a nervous squeeze. This all just got very, very real, and it scares the piss out of me.
Rafferty nods and looks to Crux and Echo. “Your powers can be useful in the fight as well.