Hell's Gift (42 page)

Shouts of ‘No’ echoed off the walls, and every angel, as well as Thoros and Abigail, sped forward to trap Murry before he could leave with Rhyan’s charge, but it was too late. The demon vanished and took Kendra with him.

“We have to get to Rhyan in Wrath before Murry does,” she said to Thoros, but the giant angel placed his hand gently on her arm to stop her from going anywhere.

“I searched for hours trying tae figure oot a way intae Hell tae save my friends. Tak’ me wi’ ye. I want tae help them.”

“It’s dangerous,” Thoros said.

“I ken,” Troy said.

“You may not ever get out,” Abigail stated.

“I understaund,” he replied.

Abigail’s eyes widened in surprise and amazement when she noticed the room full of angels had moved to stand beside and behind the gentle giant. “All of you wish to risk your heavenly eternity to save two angels and a human?”

Nobody stepped out of line or objected, so Abigail nodded, and was just about to pop everyone to Hell when Thoros cleared his throat.

“What? You don’t think it’s a good idea to have good on our side for a change?”

Thoros only shook his head and pointed to the arm barely sticking out from behind the big angel in front. Abigail took a step forward and moved Troy out of the way. Adam stood tall and unwilling to move.

Abigail shook her head. “Oh, hell no. You can’t go. I won’t be responsible for—”

“I’m not asking you to be responsible for me. I’m going to Hell to get my wife if I have to do something completely morbid in order to get there.”

“You would take both your son’s parents away from him? Rhyan told me about you. Do you really want your son to suffer the same way you have all these years? Stay here, Adam. For him. We will do our best to bring Kendra back, but there is nothing you can do to help her down there. She wouldn’t expect you to save her. She would want you to stay here and protect Ben. Don’t make the wrong choice and let him down.”

“Ben is at Kendra’s parents’ house with protection. Let me go,” Adam pleaded.

Abigail shook her head. “No. We need to leave. We are wasting precious time.”

“I can’t just stay up here and worry!” he shouted. “I will lose my fucking mind—”

Abigail looked to Troy. “I can’t let him accompany us. Have two of your men escort him and the child to a church. Have his mother meet you there. She is his guardian angel and he will need her strength to make it through this impossible time.”

“No! I’m going—”

“No, you’re not,” she snapped, and Adam went silent, his tears and trembling lip the only thing moving in the whole room. But she couldn’t allow it to happen. Her conscience wouldn’t let her risk damning an innocent soul. “You are going to stay in a church and worry, because that is what I would expect Rhyan to do if we were in your shoes and had a child that needed him. Don’t let this spiral you into depression; Murry will get control of you if you do. Be strong for her and your child. Pray for her, and for us. We’re all gonna need it.”

Chapter 53

Rhyan

Seeing Abbi safe and eager to help not only get herself out of Hell, but the Prince of Lust, too, was a feeling like none other I’d ever had. Repenting would probably take him ages, but at least he was willing to try. That actually counted for something in my book.

Tooka had flown me out of the cave and set me on solid ground with no clue where to start to get my last door. Just the thought of it being my last door, the last syde I would ever have to go through, made my heart swell to near bursting with clean, joyous pride.

I pondered my reasons for not having a door already.

Kindness: if I had to be kind to someone that was running at me while swinging a club through the air, ready to remove my head from my body, I couldn’t see how that was going to get me anywhere but thrown back into Gluttony, only headless. Calmness: I thought I was fairly calm, given the circumstances. Exhaustion probably had a lot to do with that. I was so tired, I could barely stand on my own two feet, but sitting down wasn’t an option I had. I knew I would never get back up if I did, so that thought kept me moving forward to a fate unknown.

“What was the other one Thoros mentioned?”

“Forgiveness,”
Isaiah said, responding to my thought.

“But I’ve forgiven Abbi of what she did. I’m certain of it. I’m not happy that she did it, but I have completely forgiven her, Isaiah. Why don’t I have my door?”

Tooka dropped from the sky and landed by my feet. All of the beasts were circling overhead, waiting to see if I could pass the last test. I knew most of them wanted it to happen, but some of them eyed me as if they were merely watching so they could report to different royalty—Murry maybe, or possibly even Lucifer.

“What is it, Tooka?” I said, then followed the movement of her head when she looked up to a particularly tall plateau, northeast of my standing point.

My stomach did a small flip and I bent at the waist to spew its contents, but only managed to dry heave. The bastard had his hand around Kendra’s throat, and the only thing beneath her was seventy-five feet of air and jagged, pointy rocks.

“Dear God let it be a hallucination or a fake Kendra. Please let her be safe and sound in her home. I can’t watch him kill her.”

I took a few heavy breaths and looked back up to the cliff. There was nobody there. Closing my eyes in relief, I stood and let my head fall back until it touched the top of my pack which was lashed back in place, on my back, thanks to Tooka’s thoughtfulness.

I heard Murry chuckle, then Tooka squeaked and hid herself behind my leg, clinging to my thigh like I could actually protect her against a demon prince with mega powers.

There was no way of knowing if the soft whimpering came from the real Kendra or a fake one, but I had to look. I couldn’t just leave her there with Murry if he really had her.

He was standing twenty feet away, with his hand in position to snap Kendra’s neck.

“She’s not real. Tell me she’s not real, Isaiah.”

“All of the angels at the Chamberlain home have gone off the grid. I have no idea what is going on.”

“Abbi and Thoros would have taken them to a safe place. Maybe Thoros masked them all so Murry couldn’t detect them.”

“That can’t be it. I can sense Thoros plain as day even when he has masked himself. There were twenty angels in the Chamberlain home a few hours ago. My attention has been focused on you for a while, so I haven’t a clue what has happened there. Hold on. Let me try something.”

“Okay.”
I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going, but I couldn’t change what had happened. I could only change what was about to happen.

“What do you think?” Murry asked.

I stared hard into Kendra’s eyes. She wasn’t begging that I save her. She wasn’t saying anything at all, and that worried me. The real Kendra would sacrifice herself for someone she loved, and I knew she loved me. But she wasn’t sacrificing herself for me today. I’d say she could when Hell froze over, but I’d already gone through the Syde of Pride. Frozen didn’t begin to cover that one.

“A charge for a charge sounds fair to me.”

“Let her go, Murry.”

“Rhyan, just go. Don’t let him win this one,” she said.

Murry laughed wickedly. “I can do that—If that’s what you really want.”

“Don’t play games, Murry. You know her safety is important to me. Let her go!”

“There is one small condition.”

“Be careful of what you say,”
Isaiah warned.

“What condition?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Simple, really; all you have to do is give up and I will take her back home to her husband and baby boy, and I promise never to hurt any of them again.”

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t see a way out of it. If I gave up, Kendra would get to go back to her mortal life and raise her child, a child that needed his mother, but on the other hand Abbi, Thoros and Josselyn would be stuck in an eternity of Hell, forever, and Lucifer would gain my pure soul and have access to earth. I couldn’t allow that to happen, but I couldn’t just stand there and watch him kill her, either. I needed a back-up plan.

The ground began to quake under my feet. I would have thought it was all part of the destruction of the syde, part of Murry’s plan to throw me off the mark, but the demon appeared just as surprised as I was. The maroon and dark-gray clouds started to swirl overhead from the sudden fierce winds, but I didn’t run. If Lucifer was coming to strike me down, I wasn’t fleeing from the fight.

“You won’t make it out of Wrath, angel. You aren’t strong enough to do what’s necessary to save your wife. I will make sure of that. Say the words and I will take Kendra home, or don’t and lose them all!” he shouted into the ever growing intense winds.

All the gargoyle beasts circled and squawked above me, looking for a place to land before whatever was about to fall from the sky, fell and dragged them all down to one hell of a rough landing.

The swirl of clouds formed a funnel, opening to a diameter of sixty feet or greater. I ducked and covered my head as bodies began to fall from the portal. I wanted to run and protect Kendra, but I knew if I got any closer to them Murry would snap her neck, so I just watched Murry carefully for any signs of weakness in his hold on her. All I needed was for him to get distracted and I could make my move.

The winds stopped and everything fell silent around us. I glanced up, unsure of what I might see, but found there was a hand outstretched by my head. I glanced up to its owner and discovered it to be Isaiah, and one glance behind him proved he hadn’t traveled alone. The other fifteen archangels formed a large semi-circle, and Abbi, Thoros, Troy and several members from the LOD made up the center.

“So nice of you to join me,” I said as I accepted his offer to help me to my feet.

He shrugged. “You said you needed a back-up plan.”

I took Abbi in my arms, hugging her fiercely.

“I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but we were too late. I’m so sorry,” Abbi cried.

“Shh, it’s not your fault.”

“Tick-tock, tick-tock, Rhyan,” Murry chimed in, then snapped his fingers. A huge clock appeared in the sky beside him, the secondhand ticking loudly every time it moved. “Precious time is being wasted and you have a decision to make. Will you continue on and take Kendra away from her husband and child or will you give up the quest and surrender your soul to Lucifer? A little birdie told me that I will get to keep you here, in my syde, to do with as I please, if you give up. It honestly doesn’t matter to me which woman you choose to save, but if you haven’t made a choice by the time the second hand reaches twelve, then I will make the decision for you. So, what say you, angel?”

I held Abbi tightly to me as my eyes frantically moved from the clock, to Kendra, then back to the clock again. I had fifteen seconds left, now thirteen. It was impossible to make a decision of that magnitude. Ten seconds.

“Murry, don’t do this.”

“Seven seconds, Rhyan,” he said with a sly grin.

“You already said I would never be able to earn the last door. Why murder an innocent for no reason?”

“Three seconds.”

I pushed Abbi into Thoros’ arms and started running for Kendra. “Murry, no!” I shouted, but his fingers were already in place under Kendra’s chin.

Everything was in slow motion after that. My steps pounded the dirt in time with the remaining ticks of the secondhand, but no matter how fast I was, it wasn’t fast enough. I watched as Kendra took in a jagged breath, then closed her eyes. The secondhand clicked to twelve and, as if on schedule, Murry jerked his hand, twisting Kendra’s head too far on her spine.

“Nooo!”

I’d heard the break. There was no denying what I’d seen, but my eyes, mind and heart didn’t want to believe it.

I fell to my knees and slid the remaining few steps, gathering Kendra’s lifeless body in my arms, clutching her protectively to my chest as if squeezing her tight enough would return her to me, unscathed and breathing. It didn’t work. Loving her too much didn’t work. She wasn’t coming back to me, to Adam, to her son. My fingers fisted in her hair and I cried. Even if I somehow won the war, I had still lost a very important battle.

Chapter 54

Sometime later I felt a hand touch my shoulder, but I clung to the limp shell in my arms even harder, in fear someone would try and take her from me.

“I’m sorry about Kendra, Rhyan, but this isn’t over until you’ve earned the last door and walked through it. Don’t let his actions take you to a dark place. If you give up now, everything you’ve accomplished up until now will have been for nothing. You mustn’t let Kendra’s mortal death lead you in any direction but forward. She would want you to end this, not give up.”

I sighed heavily and allowed myself to look away from one love up to another. “I don’t know how, Abbi.”

“You must forgive.”

I heard the voice in my mind and quickly looked to Isaiah. “Forgive?”

He nodded.

“Whom must I forgive?”
I asked, already knowing what his answer would be, but praying he would say another name, any other name than the bastard who’d just taken Kendra’s life from her. I couldn’t possibly be expected to forgive him after all he’d done to her, her husband, her family…to me. It was absurd to even consider it.

“You can do it, Rhyan. Release the hatred in your heart and forgive him. It is not your place to judge. Let God bear that burden and free yourself from the cage Murry has you locked in. You are in control of your fate. He has nothing left to stop you. The decision is yours, but we will be here when you need us. Choose well, my brother.”

A series of pops sounded and Lucifer stared down at me, the rest of his royalty in an obedient line at his back. I ignored the Prime Evil and the weight of his heavy stare, and I memorized the looks on the faces of his children as they realized their brother, Thoros, had sided with the opposing team. Damien and Fallis didn’t seem the least bit surprised. It actually appeared they wanted to cross to the other side. Velan was angry, and his hands trembled as if he’d had too much nicotine, or maybe not enough. The last one surprised me. Lameria held Josselyn by the rope that bound her hands together, but her tear-filled eyes weren’t focused on me; they were glued to the guardian angel at my back.