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“Abaddon,” I said, squeezing his hand.
He didn’t move. He didn’t even look at me. He was standing perfectly still, head bowed, his eyes fixed on some unseen point below us.
I reached for his face with my hand, but a howling specter came screaming out of the wind and grabbed hold of my wrist. It could not hold onto me for long as it went streaming past us, but it was enough to keep me from touching Abaddon’s face.
“He is ours!”screamed the wind.
“You cannot have him back!” came another voice.
I tried reaching for him again, but every time I did, the wind itself seemed to push me away from him. Worse, it was pushing us both towards the edge of the bridge. And because all that wasn’t bad enough, I had also just spotted the creature Abaddon had mentioned earlier.
The thing that was stalking us.
It was monstrous. A long-bodied, four-legged shape that seemed to be made entirely of shadow, with far too many eyes of burning gold all blinking at different intervals. An uneven number of wings lined its back, sticking up at odd angles, but they were not fluffy—in fact, they made Abaddon’s scaly set look absolutely angelic in comparison.
What had once been covered in feathers and skin was now sharp bone, a few tatters of its shadow-like skin hanging on to them like cobwebs. It roared when it saw me looking; its mouth a void, filled with teeth that were just as jagged as the mountains we had left behind.
“Abaddon!” I screamed. “Don’t listen to them!”
The thing behind us hadn’t figured out the Light bridge yet, but I didn’t want to stick around to see if it did. I had to get Abaddon moving but it was no use, he couldn’t hear me. I didn’t know what was going through his head, but if it was anything like what I had just experienced, then someone—or something—was attacking him where he was most vulnerable.
His guilt.
Every moment we spent on the bridge was another moment closer to us both plummeting into the infinite dark underneath us.
If the thing behind us didn’t get to us first.
They wanted Light. They craved it. So—knowing that Abaddon would greatly disapprove—I did the only thing I thought I could do. Unfurling my wings and sending a pulse of Light into the space between us, I made myself into a beacon.
My entire body began to shine and shimmer with cascading Light, warm Light, the Light of the cosmos; the thing that animated angels. I’d meant to distract them long enough for him to break free, but instead of attracting them, my Light had had the opposite effect.
They screeched and seemed to burn away, as if the Light was fire to their twisted forms. The few that remained let the wind take them, cursing us as they went. I squeezed Abaddon’s hand again, and his mouth fell slightly open, his lips parting.
He was no longer looking through me, but directly at me—. I saw my reflection burning in his eyes, a shimmering pillar of golden fire that had ignited the very bridge we were standing on. Abaddon’s grip tightened around my hand, his eyes narrowed, coming back into focus.
“Sarakiel,” he said, breathless. “You brought me back…”
“I did,” I said, “And now we have to run.”
Abaddon perked up, glanced back the way we came, and when he saw the creature that stalked the bridge behind us—illuminated now, its shape plainly visible against the Light of the bridge it had finally dared to step on, he nodded. “I broke my own rule,” he said, “I looked back.”
“Not the time for levity,” I said, “Run!”
I tugged on Abaddon’s hand and the two of us started running. It seemed like an impossibly long way ahead of us, despite how far I felt we had already walked. The creature behind us growled, snarled, and instantly gave chase. It had been seen, now; we were aware of its presence. It didn’t need to stalk anymore.
Now, it could just chase.
And it wasfast.
The winds still buffeted us on both sides but the Light between my wings was bright and strong—strong enough to illuminate the path in front of us, allowing us to dash across it at speed. But I wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever—I could already feel my power beginning to putter out.
I needed to conserve some of it if I wanted to see this whole thing through, but getting across the bridge seemed like a far more pressing need.
So, we ran, arms pumping, lungs burning. I looked back once more and saw that the shadowy beast was gaining—and fast—the bridge behind it collapsing as it ran, absorbing the little Light that powered it.
“Sarakiel!” Abaddon roared. “Thebridge!”
Looking ahead, I realized with horror that the same thing was happening underneath our feet. I could finally see the end, it was close now, but the bridge’s Light was fading quickly, it was already starting to feel less solid. I felt like I was taking little leaps just to keep from going through it.
