Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Okay,” I say, looking Lucas in the eyes. My head slowly moves up and down, and I taking a deep breath trying to calm myself. “The blood bond is off,” I say to Drea. “I’m trusting you not to lead me into a trap. You have to trust me too.”
She bites her lower lip, thinking it over, and actually looks scared. “Okay, that’s fair,” she finally says.
I nod and turn my attention back to Lucas. “Good. We should go.”
Lucas holds my gaze, unwavering. “Are you sure about this?” he questions.
“We can’t delay the inevitable,” I start, taking a small step closer to him. “Paimon killed Julian and almost killed Juliet. He’s hurt us enough. This has to end now. Waiting just gives him another chance to hurt us and those we care about.”
Lucas takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. He knows I’m right. As much as he doesn’t want to put me at risk, he can’t deny what I’m saying. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“The scarab,” I say. “I need it.”
“Scarab?” Drea questions, and I just shake my head, wanting to keep Osiris a secret for now. I still haven’t decided to trust her yet, and the best case scenario as she opens the rift, and then just dips out, protecting herself and leaving me to fight her enemy for her.
I close my eyes, mentally calling out to my familiars. Binx relays a message to Scarlet, and I can sense them all coming out of the house to join me. Scarlet carries the scarab in her mouth and I take it from her, slipping it into my bra. It’s a bit uncomfortable, but it’s the next best thing since my leggings and a T-shirt don’t have pockets .
“What do you need to open the portal?” I ask.
“If I can tap into the Ley line, I don’t need much. I came prepared, of course”, Drea tells us as she takes a pink purse off her shoulder and dumps the contents onto the ground. She has a small Mason jar full of herbs, and I recognize the smell as soon as she opens the lid. It smells like herbs needed for astral projection, which isn’t that far from creating a portal. I take off Scarlet‘s collar, letting her shift into hell hound form. Drea looks up, smile on her face.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen one,” she says, not phased by the terrifying side of my hell hound. “Don’t know if I recognize this one or not,” she says. “Where I was kept, we weren’t allowed to have pets.” She’s acting as if a hell hound is a perfectly normal animal to have. But I guess if he grow up and hell, it is.
She pours the herbs in a circle on the ground and plants her hand in the middle of the circle, closing her eyes. She chants in a language I don’t recognize. Judging by the look on Lucas his face, he doesn’t recognize it either. It’s not Enochian, the language of the angels. Demons must have their own language and the next time I see Lucifer, I’ll ask him about it.
The energy thrums around us, and I reach up, putting two fingers on the scarab, able to feel it through the fabric of my T-shirt.
Osiris, I mentally call out. Can you hear me?
Yes, he replies, voice echoing in my head.
Meet me in hell. Soon, I tell him as the energy starts to swirl around us. Drea closes her eyes and opens her mouth, allowing a tiny bit of her demonic energy to come out. A tendril of dark smoke swirls down, landing on the herbs and igniting them. Instead of burning upwards like most flames, the fire burns down into the ground, searing a hole into the Earth.
“This is it,” she says, standing back up and motion him down to the ground at a fiery hole no bigger than a sewer cover. “You’ve traveled by portal before, right?”
“Once, or twice,” I reply.
“You’ve at least flown via angel-air? So you know what to expect?”
“Yes,” I say, knowing how nauseous and dizzy you can get from traveling this way. It affects Lucas as well, but he recovers in just seconds. I haven’t traveled like this, since all of my powers have been unlocked, so I’m hoping it doesn’t make me sick. Because if we’re stepping directly into the halls of Hell, I definitely don’t have a second to waste.
I turn looking at my familiars, telling Pandora and Freya to stay here and protect Juliet. Binx and Scarlet come with us, and I grab Lucas’s hand, holding on tight as we step into the portal.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Everything swirls around us at a dizzying rate. I keep a tight hold of Lucas‘s hand and close my eyes, waiting for the spinning sensation to stop. It’s over, almost as quickly as it started, and when I open my eyes, I’m standing in a dark corridor of hell. I recognize it almost at once. We’re standing outside of one of Lucifer‘s moonlight arboretums where he grows herbs necessary for dark spells. It makes sense to have come back to this exact spot because we were in one of the green houses when we created the original portal.