The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,190

dose of heroin. They wouldn't be able to resist it. I had a feeling that more would come looking for their fix of the impossible. And yet, all of it was plausible.

That had been a little bit of insanity. Something crazy that sure looked like a miracle, and yet wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Because, as I’d heard so many times before, God worked in mysterious ways. Evidently, so did the Devil.

I checked on a few more people on my way to the door. I made sure to touch enough so that they would know I was real. When the legion had made this plan, they’d accounted for every single detail, and I was desperately trying to remember them all. This moment was nothing more than a very big piece of performance art because there was no other way to keep these people safe from angels.

After all, they said they were the good guys, and people believed them. There was no way to change someone's mind unless they wanted to see things differently. They had to be ready, so all of this? It was meant to prepare them. It was our way of training them to see that blind trust was just as dangerous as blind distrust.

Then, just as I reached the door, I changed my angle enough to slip through the veil and disappear from sight, knowing that someone back there had to still be recording. My only question was what they would call me when this hit the news tomorrow. Would the world see me as some kind of a guardian angel?

Or would they dare to call me what I really was?

43

Lucifer

The First Legion made our way to the only warehouse in town that fit all of the criteria for the angel's slave-holding pen. Standing in the corridor, we all looked up, trying to see if there was any sign of life in there. It was all dark, but not like normal. Everything inside those walls was hidden behind a shadow. There were no plants to give off a green glow, not even any wood outlined in shades of gray. The walls looked like solid slabs of obsidian, obscuring everything inside - and that was not normal.

But none of it descended into the corridor. Here, in the gap between the planes, everything was almost as it should be. Except for the wards. The boundary of protection extended all the way down here, proof that our group could not simply walk in. This was going to take a little more work than that. Thankfully, Sia had a plan. We just had to make sure these people were under cover before the storm hit, and the countdown was ticking.

"Okay," Nick said, looking around to meet all of our eyes. "Everything is going to happen very fast, and we have to be done when emergency services get here. When we’re ready, I'll call Uriel."

We all nodded, making it clear we knew the plan. "Then let's do this," I said.

As a group, we stepped through the veil and onto Earth. Above our heads, the sky was angry. Dark clouds swirled, seeming to grow thicker with every passing second. The wind had already picked up, and there was a feel of electricity in the air. Before we even made it to the edge of the building, the thunder began to rumble and the city storm warning sirens went off.

But when Bel reached for the door, he jerked his hand back as if burned. "Those are some anti-demon wards," he said, looking over at me.

As the only angel of the group, that meant I got to check it next. Bracing for a jolt of pain, I reached my arm out, but Ron grabbed my wrist before I touched the door.

"I think I got this," he assured me. "At least let me try before anybody else gets… Well, whatever happened to Bel."

"I got burned," Bel told him. "So be careful."

Ron nodded to show he heard, but he didn't bother responding. His complete attention was on a section of the corrugated metal that made up the outside of this building. While he stared, obviously doing some version of aether work that he and Sia had perfected, I made the mistake of looking back.

In the distance, a thin rope of clouds was reaching down to the ground. I knew they had names for the different types of tornados, but I had no idea what they were. Thankfully, this one didn't look very scary - not