“What?” she asked, gaping at us all. “Why? What’s going on?”

Ethan took her by the arm and steered her past us despite her protests. “We should listen to them.”

A second rumble reverberated, but this time the sound was very clearly a bestial roar.

“You both should start running,” Will said. “Just keep going until—”

“Will!” I shrieked, cutting him off.

A figure appeared out of the blackness behind Will—a female vir—and grabbed two fistfuls of the back of Will’s shirt and yanked him farther down the tunnel, her wings beating thickly in the narrow shaft as they disappeared. Rebekah screamed high and piercing as she flailed backwards, dragging Ethan Stone with her, and her lantern clattered to the ground. It took me the longest moment of my life to decide whether to protect them or run after Will, but I trusted Ethan to get Rebekah out of here. My Guardian needed me.

All around us in the tunnel, debris began to fall, small bits of rock and dust hit the floor. The sound of battle and thudding of bodies against stone made the tunnel rumble. Seconds later, chunks of rock tumbled from the ceiling. I stared in fear at the direction the humans had run.

“Ethan!” I screamed. “Cave-in! Get back this way!”

I could hear Rebekah’s piercing cries as Ethan struggled to steer her around. The tunnel roared and shook as the ceiling caved in from somewhere in their direction. I spun and headed for where Will had gone with the vir. At the very edge of my lantern light’s reach, Will shoved the demonic reaper into the wall of stone, his sword sparking against hers as she struggled beneath his strength.

“Move!” I yelled at him.

He tore away from the reaper, who was left in confusion, and darted farther down the tunnel and out of the way. I chucked the lantern at her head and she hissed and swung her sword to deflect the object. The blade punctured the small propane tank and it exploded. Fire engulfed her torso and she screeched and ripped at the flames burning away the flesh on her face. I called my swords, lit up the angelfire, and charged at her. She clawed through the last of the flames, her face scorched and raw and twisted with undulated rage. I lifted a sword and slashed it across her chest, splitting her skin and clothes wide open.

Will’s sword crunched through her rib cage and jutted out the front of her body. She gasped and moaned in agony, staring down at the blade. She looked up at me, blood dribbling down her burned chin. She snarled as his sword withdrew.

“Sammael knows what you’re doing,” she hissed. “He knows of your planned ascension.”

“Does he, now?” I asked. “He’s invited to the party, if he’s down.”

She made a hideous, brutish sound. “You will never see the ends of his armies. They blanket the Earth as a storm blankets the sky, but the sun will never rise again.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You demonic all think you’re Shakespeare. Really nice. Good-bye.” Then I took off her head and the rest of her burned up.

29

IT HAD TAKEN DR. MASSI SOME TIME TO CALM DOWN and speak in a reasonable tone of voice. She sat on the ground with her back to the wall while she devoured her sixth granola bar and we explained to her what she had seen. Ethan Stone returned after a short trek to check on the tunnel condition.

“The passage is completely blocked,” he explained and exhaustedly took a seat beside Rebekah. “We can only keep going. I’m sorry about the reaper. I’d hoped I’d be right about the daylight.”

I shrugged. “There’s no daylight down here.”

“She must have been waiting for us,” Will said. “Sammael knows Ellie is trying to ascend and if he knew where the Naphil has been kept, then it’s likely he’d have stationed demonic vir to intercept us. We’ll need to be more careful and prepared for anything.”

Rebekah began murmuring something and I had to face her in order to understand what she said. “Angels, demons, they’re real. I believe in God, but never monsters.”

Will stepped over to her and held out a hand for her to take and helped her to her feet. “This is the Holy Land,” he said. “We all believe different things when it comes to God.”

“We have to keep going,” I told them. “We have four hours to sunset and a lot more tunnel to navigate. And now we need to find a way out of here that isn’t the way we came.”

“This is the only channel into the city,” Rebekah argued. “The Sanctum has only one exit and that’s our entrance.”

I gave her a hard look. “There’s always a way out. These passages can’t all lead to nowhere.”

“What are you even looking for beyond that door?” she asked, turning to Ethan Stone. “What is in the Sanctum?”

He took a deep breath, knowing his answer would sound like insanity to her. “The Sanctum of Air Dara is where the last of the Nephilim is imprisoned. I’ve seen him.”

Dr. Massi didn’t say or do anything at first. Then she laughed. “Nephilim? The half-angel beasts God flooded the world to kill?”

“Not with water,” I added. “With angels like me. I am the human form of the archangel Gabriel. My brothers, sisters, and I wiped them out on God’s orders to cleanse the Earth. I kept one of them alive in the event that I’d ever need to ascend to my full angel form.”

“How are you an angel?” she asked, disbelieving. “You’re a teenage girl.”