AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘So, what you’re saying is we’re going to be searching forever, huh?’
‘Yep!’ he quips, leaning next to me and reaching down to hold my hand.
There has to be a better way than just picking out books at random to see if they mention the portals. As my mind drifts for a solution, my eyes are unfocused until everything becomes a blur. A slight blue glow grabs my attention to my left. Turning to inspect it, a dark maroon color also shines on the other side of the room.
What the fuck is going on?
‘Rez?’
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I see two glowing books?’ I explain as I let go of Lynx while slowly moving toward the glow. Lynx follows close behind me. Without reading the spine, I grab the glowing blue book and hand it to Lynx before crossing the room to a nook by the door. I pull out the red book and turn to look for Lynx, but I find him and everyone else staring in my direction.
“What?” I ask, feeling a little self-conscious.
“Bestie, your eyes were glowing. Not to freak you out or anything,” Moni says, staring at me as she pulls some coffee out nervously.
I look to Lynx, and he slowly nods. It’s Murmur who comes over, looking like he's found another prize, though. I pull the book against my chest and throw out my hand to stop his advancement.
“Oh no!” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not doing any more training.”
My eyes start to feel really heavy, and I follow the urge to close them for a few moments and rub them with my palm. When I open them, Murmur’s looking like a dog that’s lost his bone. Speaking of dogs, Reaper comes running into the room and takes a running leap, landing in the pile of pillows where he begins rubbing against them. If I’m being honest, I’m a little jealous of him right now.
“You are right, at least for tonight,” Murmur tells me. “Tomorrow is a whole other deal. For now, tell me what happened before you came walking out of the stacks with glowing eyes,” he demands.
“Nothing really,” I insist. “Lynx told me that we had to go through all of these books to find the answer about the portals, and I thought we would be searching forever. So I leaned back and thought about how there must be a better way of finding the answer. My eyes unfocused, and then I saw these two books glowing. This one is a deep maroon color, and the other is blue.” I indicate the book in my arms as Murmur leads me over to the table and lays the book down on it.
There’s no wording on the dark gray spine whatsoever, and if you ask me, I probably would have never picked it up. Lynx brings over the book I gave him, and it’s a smaller white book with leather bindings that are tied to each other to keep the pages together. Once again, there’s no words or markings indicating what they are.
“So you have no idea what these are about?” Murmur asks me.
I scoff. “Do you? They don’t belong to me,” I point out and look around the room. Everyone has stepped away from their own books and has gathered around the table.
Murmur tips his head in my direction. “Good point.”
Lucifer grabs the gray book and flips it open. The front page has an inked illustration of some kind of map, but he flips the page before I can read any more of it.
I feel as if my skin is being poked by pins and needles as his eyes fly over the pages faster than I can track. Suddenly, he lays down the book and slams his hand down.
“There!” he says, pointing to a passage. I can’t make out the words whatsoever, but the longer I stare, the more ink swirls on the page, suddenly becoming legible, and I can read it. “It looks like there’s another portal we can use. According to this, by using that portal and this incantation”—he points to another passage—“it will open the portals back up.”
“How did the portals even close?” Moni asks.
Thunder crashes in the room, making most of us jump until I realize it came from Astaroth’s tail.
“Asmodeus,” he growls out. Chills run up and down my spine as I take in the Wrath Demon. I can feel the power rolling off of him as his jaw cracks with the force of his clenched teeth.
“As it turns out, he’s behind the closing of the portals. Although, I don’t know how he did it, yet. It takes a substantial amount of energy to block or even disrupt them,” Murmur says, and I give him a perplexed look.
“Trometh squealed like a stuffed pig,” Bez answers my unspoken question. “Too bad he didn’t last as long as one. I’ll have a new purple hide for my machete in a week’s time.” A cruel smile graces his smile, and goose bumps erupt along my skin.
Eww.
“Yes. We’ve never blocked or closed the portals before, but we’ve had to divert some energy off the portals a few… How long ago was it, Lilith?” Lucifer asks, but Lilith waves his question away, though the worry line between her eyes deepens. “The point is, it took all of us to do it, and it left us weakened for a few days before we were back to normal.”
“Shit,” Chester and Moni whisper.
“So, either Asmodeus is stronger than all of you, he has allies, or he has some special device to help close them. Does that sum it up?” Knots asks, leaning on the table.
I watch him for a moment and notice how the muscles in his arms are slightly shaking and he looks a little sweaty. Did he work too hard during training, or is his time here starting to affect him again? Shit! Was the shield I put on him not strong enough? I’m a horrible girlfriend. I quickly pull up my shield and apply a thicker coating, thanking the Fates that I don’t have to physically touch him now.
