“Yes,” I breathed. “You.”
And I reached up, grabbing his hair and pulling his head down until his mouth slanted over mine.
For a few mind-shattering moments, there was nothing except the fierce sensuality of his kiss and the scald of excitement I felt when he hauled me out of the tub. Water sloshed everywhere, soaking him and the floor as he picked me up and carried me over to the bed. He didn’t stop kissing me, and when he laid me against the silk-covered bedding, I was gasping for breath against his mouth. Then his body covered mine and his hands moved over me in ways that erased my prior relaxation, replacing it with tingling, pulse-pounding need.
That’s why a noise of sheer protest left me when he suddenly sat up, holding me down when I moved to follow him.
“Shh. Something’s wrong.”
His words and the harsh urgency in his tone turned my desire to fear. I let go of him, looking all around but not seeing anything. What was it?
Then a loud, very familiar snarling sound came from outside, followed by a hard thump above us that shook the entire ceiling from its impact.
“Brutus,” Adrian said darkly. “He feels it, too.”
“What is it?” I said, pulling the sheet around me.
Adrian leaped off the bed, grabbing my clothes and throwing them at me. “Something big is coming.”
I began pulling on my clothes without checking to see if they were inside out. “Another demon realm?”
Adrian looked at the wall as if he could see beyond it, and his body was so tense, it seemed as though one hard blow could shatter him where he stood.
“No, but if I’m right, it’s just as bad.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE WORDS WERE barely out of his mouth when the whole chapel began to shake. Brutus’s snarl turned into a roar, and I was suddenly hit with the same invisible force I’d felt when I thought I’d located the staff. In the next moment, a crashing sound reverberated throughout the chapel.
“Brutus, larastra!” Adrian shouted, grabbing me and pulling me toward the opposite wall with his body covering mine.
Before I could ask anything, wood exploded from the ceiling. Then another tremendous bash showered the loft with shattered stone tiles. A third bash caved in a section of the ceiling and revealed Brutus, who was using his great bulk like a battering ram. The tub overturned, spilling water everywhere, when Brutus’s fourth and final bash created a hole large enough for the gargoyle to fit through. Adrian shoved me at Brutus, yelling “Tarate!” at the gargoyle, before spinning around and running toward the entrance to the loft.
My right arm flamed with pain at the same moment that I saw something impossible: the eye-covered demon bursting up through the floor with all the power of his three sets of batlike wings. Brutus beat his own powerful wings and I was propelled backward through the chapel’s ceiling, gripped in the gargoyle’s mighty arms. Another rush of wings had me looking down at the chapel and campus from several stories up, and what I saw was equally awful and unbelievable.
Black funnel clouds were snaking their way horizontally through the buildings. The campus lights went out, plunging the area into darkness. Only soundless lightning flashing across the sky provided brief illumination, and it showed people spilling out from those thin, pitch-colored clouds. Wherever they went, screams followed, and ice and blood was left in their wake.
“Brutus, go back!” I ordered, realizing what was happening.
This area wasn’t being swallowed by a demon realm. Instead, it was being flooded by one. I didn’t know if the walls of the nearby realm had crumbled, allowing that malevolent, freezing world to spill out onto this one the same way water spilled out into nearby towns after a large dam had burst, or if a powerful demon had orchestrated the realm breach. Either way, Blinky had taken advantage and had used one of those leaked realm swaths like a series of supernatural stepping stones to walk right over the hallowed ground of his prison, and as I was well aware, Blinky was not in a good mood.
“Go back,” I repeated to Brutus when he kept flying me farther away. “Tarate, tarate!”
He only flew faster. I struggled uselessly, all the while cursing myself for not learning more Demonish, and cursing Adrian for ordering the gargoyle to fly me away. Why would he do that when I was the only one who had a weapon that could kill demons? It’s not like Adrian could’ve forgotten that!
Brutus didn’t slow down until I saw the tour bus below us. We’d parked it well away from the campus because we’d taken the smaller, less conspicuous new Mustang to the chapel. That meant the bus wasn’t near those dangerous realm swaths, and when I saw the Mustang parked next to it, I realized that neither were Jasmine and Costa.
Relief mixed with my seething impatience. They were safe, but Adrian wasn’t. As soon as Brutus landed and let me go, I began shouting orders to the gargoyle.
“Brutus, tarate! Get Adrian, now!”
Brutus chuffed and beat his wings, soaring up into the night. Hopefully, Adrian’s name and the Demonish word for go were enough for Brutus to understand what to do, but I wasn’t about to leave that to chance. I ran into the bus, so frenzied that I barely noticed Jasmine and Costa’s guilty expressions as they both leaped up from the couch.
“Give me the Mustang’s keys,” I demanded.
Costa pulled them out of his pockets far too slowly. “What’s going on?”
“Realm wall’s crumbling,” I said as I strode over and snatched them from him. “I gotta get Adrian.”
Jasmine grabbed my arm. “Wait, we’ll come with you. You can’t go alone, it’s too dangerous!”
“That’s why you can’t come with me,” I snapped. “Blinky is out, and with the realm bleeding all over the campus, there’s more where that demon came from.”
I shook Jaz off, ignoring her insistence to come with me and Costa’s urgings for me to wait. Then I ran outside, slamming the door on the Mustang and locking it. I’d just thrown the car into gear and hit the gas when a dark figure appeared right in front of me.
I slammed on the brakes when his face was revealed in the headlights, but still, I banged into him. Zach didn’t react in anger at nearly being run over. Instead, the Archon’s mouth quirked, as if I’d amused him by hitting him.
“Get out of the car,” he said in a pleasant voice.
I revved the engine instead. “Move away, Zach! You’re not stopping me from going after Adrian.”
“No, I’m not,” he agreed mildly. “But if you get out, I can get you there much faster and safer.”
I hesitated only a second before killing the engine and getting out of the car. Archons claimed that they never lied, and so far, that hadn’t been disproven. If Zach really could get me to Adrian faster, I wouldn’t waste any more time arguing.
And if he was about to prove that Archons could lie, then I’d find a way to make him pay.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Are we going to fly or something?”
I’d never seen him do that, but if a gargoyle could fly, an Archon should be able to. With another faint smile, Zach shook his head. Then he grasped my hand and pulled.
I fell forward into blinding light. For a moment, I felt like I was the one flying because my body was suddenly weightless, soaring and free. Then the light crystallized into colors and shapes. Warmth poured over me, soft grass teased my feet and, when I inhaled, the air was scented so heavily with flowers and flora that breathing it in felt like the world’s most extravagant aromatherapy treatment. I looked at Zach, and for a split second, I saw something bright and formless shimmering inside him.
Then it faded into his normal appearance of a young, attractive African-American man with close-cropped hair and deep, walnut-colored eyes. Another glance showed that we were in the middle of a vast, flowering field, with lush trees offering shade from the warm, radiant sunshine. Blue-tinged mountains cradled the horizon, and sparkling creeks wound through the valleys below. Everything was so beautiful, it looked like Zach had pulled me inside a Monet painting, but instead of being charmed, I was panicked.
“What is this? You promised to take me to Adrian!”
“And I will,” Zach replied, his faint eye roll adding, O ye of little faith. “He’s right through that door.”