The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,151

was going to snap into multiple pieces. I just had to hang onto one.

One push wasn't enough, so I swiped at it a second time, sending the whole thing spiraling. In my hand, I felt Gabriel’s seal crack and weaken, so I pulled again. This time, a single piece snapped off. Like a tsunami, the winds of the corridor came rushing in, flowing so quickly to fill this vacuum that it pushed me back. Frantically, I made my private shield thicker, refusing to give in.

When the flow of aether hit Luke and his group, they felt it too. Someone screamed, and someone else tried to break free. Thankfully, there were still three "walls" left of this box. That meant that even if one of those humans did get loose, none of them were going very far. But in their panic, they clung to each other, all but trapping the one who wanted to run.

And Luke’s wall buffered them all from the majority of the force. I couldn't see the flow of aether, but I watched the effects as it slammed into this square that had been cut out of the corridor, filled it, and then leveled out. In a matter of a few seconds, everything was back to normal - except for the people we were trying to save. They still acted like they were living through the worst dream of their lives. Granted, they kinda were.

"Send them wherever you're sending them," Luke yelled back at me, still using angelic so he wouldn't scare them.

"You going to mind-fuck them now or later?" I asked.

"Later," Luke said, "because if anyone lets go, I'm not sure I can keep them from floating out."

Which was all I needed to hear. Since these were all college kids, and they'd all been at the same frat party, that meant I needed to send them to someplace close to Greek Row. One park sprung immediately to mind. It was beside an old cemetery, and too far away to be a good place to hang out, but also dark. Hopefully, that meant dark enough that no one would notice twenty-something people suddenly popping into existence in the middle of it.

With the location in mind, I pushed, sending every human in my general area there. I'd gotten pretty good at this recently, since I'd been shoving angels around for so long, so it worked. As a whole, the group simply winked out of existence - but so did Luke. Since he was connected to them, he got pulled along too. I yelped in surprise, and then did the only thing I could. I pushed, sliding through the corridor to the exact place I’d imagined, and then I stepped out of the veil to join them.

"Look at me!" Luke demanded. "Fucking look at me."

A few did, and he immediately started muttering something about how the party had gotten a little too wild and somebody thought it was a good joke to drug them. The problem was that three others were starting to wander away. I jogged towards them, calling out to get their attention.

"Hey," I yelled. "Hey, you, do you know where we are?"

Since I sounded just as lost as they were, the people looked back, and that was exactly what I needed. The moment their eyes landed on me, I started doing the exact same thing Luke was.

"We were at that Delta Phi party, and I think someone slipped something into our drinks. One second we were fine, and then everything turned crazy. We all saw things that were impossible, and somehow we ended up here. The drugs are still making us drowsy, but we’re going to get over it. We got lucky. Everything is going to be fine."

Like my words were the drugs, the entire group began to get woozy, and one guy dropped to his knees, then rolled onto his ass. The others staggered as if they were blackout drunk. I could only guess that it would stick, so I turned to the next group.

Thankfully, it didn't take long. We also didn't need to describe a whole lot. The trick was to catch their eyes, grab their aether, and twist. The insanity of the corridor would fill in the rest. What happened to these people was all a bad trip, and the deal we were making them was something they wanted desperately to believe anyway.

And when all of that was done, twenty-three people lounged around the dark park in various states of inebriation. Luke pulled his