CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The tents seemed to go on for miles.
We’d waited for the cover of night to make our journey to the Flint Hills, and it was all too easy to find Lucifer and his army.
The devil wasn’t hiding, I thought as I gazed out at the endless campfires and torches.
There had to be hundreds, if not thousands.
The darkened hills almost looked like a sky full of strange, flickering stars.
“So many,” I muttered, trying not to let any fear show in my face.
“Mercy says he’s been garnering followers since the Fall,” Savannah said beside me. She made no effort to hide her dread, and I knew she was thinking of Matthew. I was thinking about him, too, and all the other people I needed to protect from this horde.
There were three of us hidden on the hill, lying flat on our stomachs high above the devil’s gathering forces.
We’d kept our rescue party small, since the entire plan depended on stealth.
I’d still brought weapons, though, in the likely event that something went wrong.
I had four knives hidden beneath my clothes and one small gun, which was loaded with holy bullets, of course.
We now knew that holy weapons were useless against demons, but having it made me feel braver.
And right now, I needed all the bravery I could get.
Savannah seemed to think this eerie gathering was made up of Fallen. But even from here, I could see things moving amongst the tents that were unmistakably demonkind. I thought of Narfu, and the creature that I’d almost run down on the road. A yar demon, Lucifer had called it.
I remembered Laurie’s theory when I’d told him about it. Now we know what snake boy has been doing in West Bengal. He must be getting them through somehow.
When I’d met with Lucifer, the morning we sat on the bench outside Adam’s, he had practically confirmed it. I’ve been … experimenting, he’d said.
His experiments must not have been entirely successful, if he was still determined to open the Gate. I scanned the sea of tents again and suppressed a shudder. If this was what failure looked like, I was terrified to consider what Lucifer would consider a triumph.
I must’ve shifted or let out a brief tremor, because Lyari’s face turned slightly, her hard eyes darting over at me.
When I’d texted her about our plan to rescue Thuridan, she had responded instantly, and she hadn’t hesitated when I’d asked her to come tonight.
As her silent question floated between us, I shook my head as if to say, Nothing, I’m fine.
I knew that if I tried to say the words out loud, Lyari would hear the lie.
The truth was, I wasn’t fine. I still didn’t feel normal after the encounter with Michael.
I was on edge, yes, but I’d been on edge my entire life.
This was different. Ever since I’d been hit with that blast, I could feel something inside me, lurking beneath my skin, running through my veins.
The need to be in constant motion had worsened.
Even during quiet moments—especially in quiet moments—I fought the urge to fidget.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” I muttered, trying to ignore the anxious flutters in my stomach while I continued to stare down at all the lights.
“The kings are fast, but with this much ground to cover …” Lyari’s expression was grim, and I knew it wasn’t just because of the daunting numbers spread out before us.
She wanted to be down there, too. Looking for Thuridan and actively doing something to help him.
But the faeries had decided to split up so one could stay with me.
We’d left Seth and Gil in the woods, far from here, in case we needed backup.
Seth had proven to be an advantage with tech, and when it came to Lucifer, it was best to prepare for anything.
Savannah shifted, and I looked over at her again. Her fingers were curled into the dirt and she’d closed her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There’s a spell on the land,” she murmured, her brows furrowed in concentration. “I can’t quite …”
Once again, there was movement in the corner of my eye, and I turned the other way. Laurie knelt next to Lyari. The edges of his dark hood fluttered in the wind, and I caught a glimpse of the tense lines around his mouth as he said, “I found him. Let’s go.”
As we stood, I looked around for any sign of our fifth member. “Did you text Collith?”
Laurie shook his head. “No. My phone died.”
I pulled my own phone out, but the screen was dark. I frowned and held down on the button again. Nothing happened. “Mine, too,” I muttered.
“He didn’t respond to my summons,” Laurie said.
Something fluttered at the back of my mind. The sense that I was missing something. I turned to Lyari with a distracted twist to my lips. “Will you text Collith?”
“I will send a message, but there’s no time to wait for him,” she said curtly, pulling her phone out. A moment later, she frowned and showed me the screen. Dead.
I shifted toward Savannah, but the necromancer was already giving me an apologetic look. “I left mine with Seth and Gil. I didn’t want to risk losing it,” she told me.
Shit. There was no way to tell Collith that Laurie had found Thuridan.
It was the first hole in our plan, and there were probably more, I thought grimly.
My adrenaline kicked up a notch. Lyari was right, we couldn’t wait.
Besides the fact that we needed to stop Lucifer, I’d also seen what he did to his prisoners.
Of course, there was a small possibility he was treating Thuridan like a king. Maybe Thuridan wouldn’t even want to come with us, like Damon hadn’t wanted to leave Jassin.
But we couldn’t take that chance.
Savannah stayed behind, as planned. We stole down the hill, and at the bottom, I tried to calm my heartbeat.
When we reached the outskirts of the camp, I realized it hadn’t all been tents I’d seen from above—there were buildings, too.
These soldiers had been here long enough to erect small structures.
A smell stung my nostrils, and I grimaced. The latrines must’ve been nearby.
A few steps beyond the reach of that smell, we encountered the first demon.
I froze, a lightning bolt of terror striking my chest. Laurie was concealing us from sight, I reminded myself, trying to get my feet to budge. Only the thought of Lyari and Laurie seeing me standing there, frightened as a child, helped me find the strength to keep moving.
The demon walked on two legs, and it towered over us as it passed.
The creature’s skin looked like crusted earth, as if its body had been encased in volcanic rock.
But the scaly texture ended at its neck, where it just began to look like charred flesh over a hairless skull.
The demon had no nose, only two slits, and its jaw was elongated.
Fangs jutted beneath an overbite. Its milky eyes roamed the rows of tents, as if it could sense us.
I averted my gaze and hurried after Laurie and Lyari, trying to move as quietly as possible.
The next few minutes were hell. Laurie led us through the maze of rows of tents, stopping every now and then to look or listen. Sometimes we had to wait for a creature to pass. The deeper we got into camp, the louder it became.
I searched for any glimpse of Collith, but there were only more demons, more Fallen creatures that were loyal to Lucifer.
At one point we passed a werewolf, and not even Laurie’s illusion could fool its sharp nose.
The second we saw the creature go still, its ears perked with interest, fear exploded in the air.
The three of us stopped breathing, and I cursed my own heartbeat again, knowing it was about to give us away.
But the wolf’s head jerked in the opposite direction and it took off running, howling at the top of its lungs.
The sound made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
I shot a glance at Laurie but he just smirked and led us away again, moving so quickly that I almost tripped over a clump of earth.
We weaved through the shadows again, and adrenaline pulsed in my ears.
Eventually Laurie stopped and gave us another signal.
“There,” he said under his breath.
Finally. Relief blended with the adrenaline.
I leaned over and followed Laurie’s gaze.
Beyond the two tents we were hiding between, there was another torch-lined row.
One of the tents was obviously bigger than the rest, and two demons stood guard.
Torches crackled on either side of them.
The guards looked like boars, but their arms were humanoid, the biceps bulging beneath pale, smooth skin as they stood there with gleaming weapons that looked like glass axes.
“We’ll lead them away,” Laurie said, glancing at me.
I nodded. In the next breath, I grabbed his arm to stop him. “If Lucifer chose that species to guard Thuridan, there’s a reason,” I warned.
Laurie pressed a hard kiss against my surprised lips, and then he sifted.
He reappeared across the path, directly behind one of the demons.
Lyari cursed and stepped into the open, as if to follow him.
The boars reacted to them instantly—they could see through Laurie’s illusion, I realized with horror.
They were also wearing thick armor, so Laurie and Lyari didn’t waste time trying to fight.
They just ran, and the boars instantly charged after them, their excited squeals echoing through the night.
Seeing my chance, I ran across the path and slipped through the unguarded tent flaps.