CHAPTER TWELVE #2
The words had no sooner left Collith’s mouth than the sky lit up with a brief, white flare.
It looked like a falling star. As I tracked its progress, I remembered what Laurie had told me back in Raas.
The Horn is one of the three holy items in this world, and it’s supposed to summon the Host of Heaven.
“We need to find it,” Laurie said now, his voice terse. “Wherever the Host is, you can bet the Dark Prince and his lapdog will be, too. Two birds, one stone. We kill the Beast and stop Lucifer from using the Host.”
I glanced at him, but Laurie was already on his phone, typing so fast that his fingers were difficult to track.
“How do you know the Host goes straight to the one who blows the Horn?” I asked, frowning.
“I don’t. But if Lucifer isn’t with the Host, he’s looking for it. Good, Sorcha’s already working on a location.”
“Did you just say Sorcha?” I demanded. “As in, Sorcha Cralynn?”
Laurie answered without looking at me, still typing on his phone. “She is my Whisperer, Fortuna. Who do you think has been supplying me with information all summer?”
“We’ll have to use the Door,” Collith muttered as we all watched the flare fade into nothing, leaving only a dark, smoking sky. Wherever the Host had landed, it wasn’t anywhere close to Colorado. I wondered how many people had seen the light.
My family was coming this way now—they’d heard Collith’s reply about the Horn.
The arrangements happened quickly. Cyrus and Ariel would stay behind to protect Emma, Danny, Damon, and Matthew.
Gil and Seth went to town to watch over the locals, including Bea and Gretchen.
Savannah had warned us that if Lucifer blew the Horn, we should prepare for a potential reaction of biblical proportions.
Not to mention we had no idea what Lucifer’s plans were if he got to the grave.
It just seemed like a good idea not to leave anyone we cared about unguarded.
I waited in the driveway with Collith and Laurie. Everyone was ready, but we still didn’t have a location. The Seelie King held his phone in his long fingers, keeping the screen where he could see it.
My skin was starting to crawl with agitation when his phone brightened with a new text. This time, he read it out loud. “The Anza-Borrego Desert.”
My mind worked quickly. “Damn it. We’ll have to wait until morning.
Unless Sorcha can give us specific coordinates, Laur, we’ll have to search the entire desert.
That’s a lot of ground to cover, even if we’re looking for a crater, or however it is that all-powerful angels land on Earth.
The fastest way to find them will be from the sky, and unless you’ve got a helicopter I don’t know about, we’ll have to ask for help from the dragons. And dragons—”
“—have shit nighttime vision,” Laurie finished, his jaw hardening. He lifted his phone again, and the screen cast a gentle glow over his features as he searched for something. “Sunrise isn’t for another ten hours.”
“The Dark Prince will have the same problem,” Collith said.
“The Dark Prince has demons and witches at his disposal,” I said grimly. “But we’d just be sitting ducks out there. We might as well meet back here in a few hours. I’ll go talk to Cyrus. See you soon, Laurie.”
I met his gaze and nodded, remembering the dark note we’d left things on.
I shan’t beg, don’t worry. Laurie’s expression was unreadable, but he nodded back.
I turned away, fighting the instinct to run.
There was nothing we could do until tomorrow, I reminded myself.
Even if I asked Savannah to do a location spell, I already knew she wouldn’t have the ingredients she needed.
We didn’t have anything that belonged to the Host. I walked the rest of the way with slow and controlled steps, trying to lay out the hours ahead.
It felt like the rest of the night went by in pulses.
Knocking on Cyrus’s door. Stepping inside.
Telling them about Sorcha’s findings, and the change of plan.
After that I returned to the loft, where I sat with Narfu for a while.
I explained to him what was happening, too, even if I wasn’t entirely certain how much the demon understood.
He stayed curled in his nest of blankets, and the sound of my voice seemed to lull him to sleep.
At least one of us got some rest. When I rejoined everyone else upstairs, I found them just as unsettled as I was.
The memory of that sound haunted all of us, and the threat of the unknown hovered over our heads.
Collith hadn’t returned, but Nym was here, and he was more troubled than usual.
He stared at the collection of clocks on the mantle and kept muttering under his breath, “Tick tock, tick tock.”
Eventually we drifted off, one by one. Emma squeezed my shoulder before she went to bed.
Damon and Danny told me to wake them if there were any updates.
I stayed on the couch, once again wrapped in the blanket that still smelled like Collith—apparently it was getting to be a habit.
But this time, it didn’t help me sleep. I stared at the window and waited anxiously for the light to return.
Hours later, I found myself standing at the edge of the desert.
Cyrus and Tabitha were small, dark specks in the sky.
It was almost six in the morning, and the world was just waking up.
Under normal circumstances, the sight of the sun rising over the dunes would’ve been beautiful.
Right now, I was too restless to take much notice.
Laurie leaned against the driver’s side door of an ATV, and Collith sat on the ground nearby, his knee drawn against his chest.
We’d gotten the rental and driven out as far as we could.
I hadn’t realized how big this place would be.
I’d looked it up on Google Maps last night, of course, but seeing it on a screen was vastly different than looking out at it.
The wind made my shirt flap against me, and I stared out at the rolling hills. “This could take …”
I trailed off, because it felt disloyal to Cyrus, somehow.
He was out there, at the crack of dawn, scanning miles and miles of land for any sign of movement.
He was actually doing something, while I stood here twiddling my thumbs.
A burst of impatience went off inside me, and it was all I could do not to run toward that barren waste.
“Easy, Firecracker,” Laurie said quietly. “Tabby is the best assistant I’ve ever had. She’ll find those dusty angels in no time.”
And then what? I wondered. How did this end? If we did get to the Host first, was it as easy as warning them about Lucifer and watching the angels go right back to where they’d come from?
“Do you think he’s out there somewhere?” I muttered, squinting at the horizon. There were still only two shapes against the sun, getting smaller and smaller with every passing moment.
“Without a doubt.” Collith’s voice was grim.
I knew he was right—it was why we’d come armed to the teeth.
Each of us bore a sword, and I’d also brought a stash of holy weapons.
There were several knives hidden beneath my clothes, along with one gun.
There were several more in the rental. Not that any of them would do much good against any of the things we were about to face, but at least we wouldn’t be completely defenseless …
only mostly defenseless. The thought made my throat tighten.
None of us spoke again until Laurie said, “They’ve found something.”
My heart leaped when I saw that Cyrus and Tabitha were coming back.
The three of us piled into the ATV and launched into the desert again, following the dragons farther and farther out.
The engine roared in my ears, and I held tightly onto the handle over my head as the vehicle bumped and lurched.
I kept one eye on the clock and one on the desert, constantly scanning the sand.
Laurie must’ve seen something I couldn’t, because he came to a slow halt. I glanced up at the sky, noting that Cyrus and Tabitha had begun to land, as well. As the dust around us settled, I followed Laurie’s gaze through the windshield. My heart lurched.
There was a lone figure off in the distance.
The three of us got out again, and Laurie and Collith took their protective stances on either side of me. We approached the naked, brown-skinned male, but even though he must’ve heard the engine and our slamming doors, he didn’t move from the rock he was sitting on.
Once we were close enough, the three of us stopped.
Silence descended again, and I couldn’t hide my awe as I felt the true depth of this creature’s power.
Laurie had been wrong about one thing, I thought dazedly, watching the figure finally turn toward us.
The Horn hadn’t summoned an entire host of angels.
It had only summoned one.
“Well met, Fallen,” the angel said solemnly. He scanned each of us before his golden eyes landed on me, and stayed there. “I am Michael.”