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“Your energy,” I said quietly.
It wasn’t fully angel yet, a tangible note of darkness weaving through it.
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he closed his eye. His power wavered, flickered, its quality oscillating between dark and light.
He had to be able to keep it entirely angelic while we made our way to the gate. Otherwise, we’d risk detection. Even with the chaos everywhere, the presence of demon magic wouldn’t go unnoticed, and it would become a priority over everything else for the other angels to check it out and take care of that threat.
“Azazel…” I bit my lip, worry lancing through me.
“I’ve got it,” he ground out. His face, that beautiful, tragically ravaged face, was set in such harsh lines, tension turning his muscles to steel.
Another breath, another heartbeat, and then the note of darkness vanished from his energy, leaving only the divine spark present in all angels’ power.
I heaved a sigh of relief, nodded at him, and opened the door carefully, peering outside. Everything was as I’d left it, the incapacitated guard still lying slumped against the wall with the dagger in his chest.
The next second, the clothes disappeared from the guard’s body, and I jumped.
“I know you enjoy seeing me in all my nude glory,” Azazel drawled from behind me, “but we’d draw a bit of unnecessary attention if I went without clothes.”
I pivoted toward him just as he pulled on the pants he’d summoned off the angel. Right. I’d known he’d have to pilfer someone’s clothing; Naamah had mentioned that.
All that adrenaline made me so twitchy. I’d only be able to relax once he was through that gate and out of Heaven.
When he’d donned the rest of the clothes and taken the guard’s weapons, we moved on, hurrying down the corridor and the staircase, past the still-unconscious guards, and toward the door. Azazel moved stiffly and walked with a slight limp—he likely had more severe internal injuries that he hadn’t disclosed.
“How bad is it?” I asked quietly just as we reached the door.
He shook his head, his gaze on the exit. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
“Can you fly?”
A brisk nod. “They didn’t touch my wings. Hadn’t gotten to it yet.”
I exhaled heavily. That had been one of the unknown variables we hadn’t been able to fully account for in our plan. Flying out of here was the best course of escape, but if they’d cut off his wings, that would obviously have been impossible. I couldn’t have carried him. We would have had to go on foot, and though Naamah had scouted a route for that as well, it would have courted the risk of discovery far more than flying.
I gritted my teeth and breathed through the pain in my chest at the thought of him being so injured. I wished I could make them all pay for what they’d done to him, but getting him out of here would have to do. It just wasn’t logistically possible to stab and kill everyone involved in his torture, not when I still wanted to be able to walk away from it all alive.
Azazel opened the door and cast a look outside.
The chaos hadn’t quite abated in the meantime. The sound of yelling and shouting still filled the air, the scent of smoke wafting around, the sky darkened by the clouds stirred up from the explosions and the fire.
A unicorn galloped past, its horn bloodied.
I grimaced as I slipped out after Azazel. Pointy bastards.
Scanning the perimeter, I extended my wings, and he did the same. A flicker of black flashed through the white of his feathers, and I shot him an alarmed glance. He shook his head and took a deep breath, closing his eye briefly as he clearly fought for control and composure.
His energy glowing with divine light, his wings sparkly white, he gave a single nod and then launched himself into the air.
I clenched and unclenched my fists and got ready. Come on, you already managed a vertical takeoff. You can do it again. Crouching down, I gathered my strength and then jumped into the air while beating my wings like my life depended on it. Or Azazel’s, really. It was that thought that gave me the power necessary to push myself, and I made it. A bit wobbly, maybe, but I was hurtling into the sky.
I flew over to where Azazel waited for me in a hover, and then I led the way to the gate Naamah had specified. It wasn’t the closest portal to this soul stable—in fact, it wasn’t even on Raphael’s compound, which had been a deliberate choice on Naamah’s part. Should word spread that the demon prisoner had escaped, the gates on or nearest the estate would be the first to be shut down.
I took the fastest route away from the compound, the buildings streaking past below us, and though there were other angels in the air, and more on the ground who could see us, no one paid us any mind. As long as Azazel kept his demon energy under lock and key, we’d appear simply as two angels among many, and in the general havoc and coming and going, our flying out of the estate didn’t even draw anyone’s notice.
After a few minutes of traveling over lush landscape bathed in eternal sunset, the outlines of another estate came into view, this one much, much smaller than Raphael’s. Nominally, it still belonged to the archangel, but it was managed by a seraph who wasn’t quite powerful enough to claim his own territory within Raphael’s domain yet. Naamah had explained it to me, along with a thorough description of where to find the gate.
She’d pulled some of her famous strings so that this gate, and the estate, for that matter, would be temporarily unguarded, its inhabitants drawn away on some pretense. It wouldn’t last long, though, so we had to hurry.
