Earth Angel (Falling Angels Saga) (16 page)

“I am not trying to trick you,” she replied, continuing to look me in the eye, her expression unreadable.

Can I trust her?

“Do you know where I’m going?” I asked, lowering my voice although there was no one around to hear.

She nodded slowly. “You are going to hell,” she said gravely, “to deliver
The Book of Calls
to Beelzebub in exchange for Guy’s freedom.”

My turn to nod. “That’s right. Why would
you
, an angel, go along with that?” I folded my arms across my chest.

“The demons want us to be divided. That is how they weaken us. They pit us against one another and then they conquer. I do not believe the demon, Beelzebub, will honor his word. You are a mortal; you will have a much better chance at success with me by your side.”

I didn’t like the way she called me a
mortal
, but I let it slide. “That’s true,” I replied, keeping my arms folded across my chest.

“I was searching around back for a way in. The back door is unlocked.” Without waiting for me to respond, she moved back into the shadows, heading for the rear of the house.

I was left standing in the dim glow of the streetlight, looking like a fool with my arms folded across my chest.

“Are you coming?” she called from the shadows.

I followed her into darkness.

It was even darker in the back yard, the only light coming from a night light inside the house. Roxanne was standing on the concrete steps holding the rear door open. “Come,” she whispered urgently.

I still wasn’t sure if I could trust her, but what she had said was true. I’d have a much better chance against Beelzebub with a powerful angel, a demon fighter, by my side. I wondered if there was another reason she had come along. I wondered if she was in love with Guy and was hoping to win him back.

She didn’t act like it. It seemed that she had never been in love. But how can you be betrothed to someone for so long without feeling at least a tiny bit of love? I wondered if we were in competition for Guy’s heart.

The back door led into the kitchen where the night light burned, plugged into a socket on the kitchen counter. The house hadn’t been open for some time. The air was thick with a musty odor that reminded me of my grandmother’s house after she died.

Through the dim light, we could see the kitchen had been cleaned out. The cupboards were left hanging open, and bare. A soft hum emanated from the refrigerator. Aside from that, the house was eerily silent.

“There’s a door at the end of the hall,” I said. “It leads to the basement. The Hell Gate is there.”

I recalled the last time I was in the house. I had been attacked by Robin, the dog who was Señora Marisol’s familiar. I had tossed Sam’s
throw me
ball into the basement. The dog ran after it, and I slammed the door shut behind her. That’s the only reason I’m still alive. A shiver ran through me when I remembered what had occurred that night.

She can’t still be down there, can she?

I was about to find out. We were heading down the hall towards the basement door, when someone stepped from the shadows up ahead and shined a flashlight into our eyes.

“Gotcha!”

I fumbled for the crucifix.

“What are you doing here?” snapped Roxanne.

“I should be asking
you
that question.”

It was the voice of a man, and not that of a demon shining the light in our eyes. I squinted into the shadows to get a better look. From the shape of him, he seemed fat and not very tall.

“Stop shining the light in my eyes,” Roxanne demanded. Even when she had been caught breaking into a house, she seemed smug and arrogant. “I work for the real estate company.”

“Yeah? Well, so do I. I’m the guy the real estate office hired to keep you vandals out.”

A night watchman
, I thought.

“Look at me,” Roxanne demanded. “Do I
look
like a vandal?” Of course she didn’t. She was gorgeous, dressed in black. Me, on the other hand… “I was sent here by the real estate company. Stand aside and allow me entry into the basement,” she commanded.

There were several moments of silence where I was sure the watchman was going to call for backup. And then, “Yesss,” said the watchman, his voice soft and slurry as if he had been hypnotized. I knew Roxanne had done the mind melding thing on him.

“You will not remember that we were here,” she added.

“Okay.”

The watchman shifted the beam, shining the light on the basement door so we could see clearly.

“Hurry,” she whispered. She began moving quickly for the basement door. I was right behind her. We needed to get through the Hell Gate before the spell wore off.

We entered the basement doorway and shut the door behind ourselves. Roxanne flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs. A single bulb lit somewhere below us in the basement.

“That was a neat trick,” I said as we headed down the creaky basement stairs. “What is it?”

“It is a form of glamour. All angels can do it. We call it Angel Eyes.”

“Harrison can do it,” I said. We reached the bottom of the stairs. The basement was totally empty and swathed in creepy yellow light.

“Harrison? Harrison is Neph,” she said with disgust.

“Okay, I guess he is. But he can still do that Angel Eyes thing.”

She was quiet for several moments. “You are certain of this? You have seen him do it?”

“Yes. He used it on my mother last night. He said he needed to come into our house and look for a gas leak, and she let him in, no questions asked.”

“Interesting.”

I had never seen a basement that was totally empty before. It made the shadow-filled room seem even more creepy. Even though the basement was empty, I recognized the door that Armando and Señora Marisol had appeared through.

That’s it! That’s the gate,” I said breathlessly. “Although the last time I was here, it had strange writing and symbols around it. And there was an altar over there,” I added pointing. “And there was a hexagram drawn on the floor.” A slow churning began in my stomach as I realized I was about to enter hell.

We approached the non-descript door. Roxanne ran her fingers along the door jamb, and said a brief chant in a language I didn’t recognize. Suddenly the writings and drawings I’d seen on the door earlier materialized, shimmering in a fiery golden glow.

“Is that how you remember the door?” Roxanne asked. I could hear the trill of superiority in her voice.

“Yes, that’s it.” There wasn’t any golden light when I saw it before, but I wasn’t going to tell her that, and allow her to feel even more superior.

She began reading the writing around the door out loud. Of course, I had no idea what she was saying since I didn’t know the language. I got the feeling she was doing it to show off.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“It says,
Here lay the gates of hell. Enter if you dare
.”

Cautiously I turned the door knob. The door did not budge. “It’s locked.”

“It is a Hell Gate.
You
will not be able to open it. Stand aside.”

I was starting to get my fill of Roxanne’s superior attitude. The way she said
you
was the same way she had said
mortal
and
Neph
. Still, I bit my tongue. I needed to get through the Hell Gate to rescue Guy. That was all that mattered. I wasn’t going to allow her funky attitude get in the way of what I had come to do. I stepped aside.

Roxanne moved in front of the door and breathed in deeply. As she exhaled, she began to glow. The silvery angel wings appeared, and she was once again engulfed in a ball of glowing light. “Gates of hell, I command you to open and allow me entry.” Her voice was booming, her words echoing throughout the basement.

We stood before the door, waiting for it to swing open. Nothing.

Roxanne stopped glowing. Her wings disappeared. She stared at the door with contempt in her eyes. I think she was embarrassed. “Obviously there is a secret password,” she said imperiously.

“Obviously,” I replied, adding a hint of sarcasm to my voice.

She moved closer to the door, squinting at the writing. She began mumbling to herself. I moved in as well. I took a hair pin from my pocket and stuck it in the key hole.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m trying to see if I can pick the lock.”

“Hmph!” She snorted out a burst of dismissive laughter, and went back to studying the writing around the door.

I started fiddling with the lock. The lock picking thing didn’t work the last time I tried it, but I wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction by letting her know I had failed at it before. After a few minutes I thought I heard a soft click.

I froze. Gingerly I removed the hair pin from the keyhole. “I think I got it,” I whispered. Slowly I turned the knob.

“That is impossible. You cannot open a Hell Gate with a…” The door swung open. “…hair pin.”

“I did it!” I was beside myself with joy,
and
the fact that I had finally shut her up.

“Well… you can’t…” She was totally flummoxed. “It had to be
my
incantation. The… uh… response was delayed.”

“Uh-huh. Just count your lucky stars that you’re travelling with a
mortal
,” I said as I did a happy dance. “You’re pretty fortunate to have me around, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied icily, although I don’t think she meant it.

The Hell Gate was open. Looking through to the other side, all we could see was a black void. It was as if we were about to step into outer space.

“Ready?” I asked with a hint of excitement.

“We should walk through together. The gate may be random. If we do not enter together it may separate us, leaving us in different sections of hell.”

“Divided,” I whispered.

“Exactly.”

We looked each other in the eye, grasped hands, held our breaths—okay, maybe I just held mine—and walked through the gate, entering hell.

We were standing on a snowy mountain trail. It was a scene right out of a ski brochure, with sunny skies above and snow-capped mountains all around us.

“This is hell?” I asked. We were high up on the trail, a stiff wind beating against us.

“This visual is meant to disorient us. You were expecting heat, so we are shown cold.”

It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. We were in a beautiful winter landscape, but it was very, very cold. We needed to start moving, if just to warm up. “Which way do we go, up or down?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. It was a long, winding trail, and we couldn’t see very far in either direction.

“I am not sure. But I am certain whatever direction you choose, it will be perilous,” responded Roxanne. I knew it was an insult, a slam at me being mortal, even though her expression remained neutral.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said and rolled my eyes. “Up we go.” I took a few steps in the snow. It was soft and crunchy beneath my feet.

“Why up?” Roxanne called after me.

“Because this landscape was meant to disorient me, right?” I called back as I continued up the trail. “I think hell is hot, I see cold. I think hell is down, so we should go up.”

There was a momentary shift in Roxanne’s expression. My response had surprised her.
Good. Maybe that will shut her up.
“Yes. That makes sense,” is all she said. She started up the trail after me.

The air grew colder and thinner as we continued upward. I was starting to tire, but I knew I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t show weakness, not to Roxanne or the demons who I was sure were watching.

“Look,” Roxanne called, pointing to the ridge just above us. There was an old stone and rock structure, like something out of
The Lord of The Rings
. “It is an ancient watchtower.” As Roxanne stared up at the structure, a darkness seemed to come over her.

“What’s the matter?” I asked with a nervous lilt.

“I am not sure. But we need to keep moving.” She moved ahead of me on the trail, walking at a brisk pace. The high altitude was making me even more tired. I was finding it hard to keep up.

“Why are you moving so fast all of a sudden?”

“Must you ask so many questions? Keep up!” she snapped.

I didn’t respond. I had had my fill of Roxanne, but I saved my breath and kept walking. It was nearly time to give her a piece of my mind. I figured I would do it as soon as we stopped moving and I caught my breath. However, by the time we reached the watchtower, I was too tired to talk. I was drenched in sweat and exhausted.

The watchtower didn’t appear to be something that had been built. It was a rock formation on the flat peak of the mountain. Someone had strategically stacked stones around the structure creating a fortress from the wind with three stone-columned entrances.

There was dead grass on the floor of the tower. As soon as we were inside and out of the wind, I sat down heavily, and then lay back. It was like falling onto a soft bed. I closed my eyes and breathed in the thin air.

“This feels so good. I could lie here all day.”

“What do you know of sin?” I opened my eyes to Roxanne standing over me. Her eyes were serious. I could hear the wind whistling outside.

“What kind of question is that? I’m not perfect, if that’s what you mean. But that doesn’t give you the right to judge me.” The time had come to give her a piece of my mind.

“We don’t have much time,” she said urgently. She looked toward one of the columned entrances and then back at me. “I believe we are about to be tested by the three beasts.”

I bolted upright, my eyes bouncing between the three entrances.

“The beasts represent the three types of sin: Self-indulgent, violent and malicious. Which do you have the most experience with?” she asked.

“I’ve never been violent or malicious, so self-indulgent, I guess.” I got to my feet as tendrils of fear snaked into my belly. “What are the—”