“I feel like we’re not alone,” I said, dropping my voice so only they could hear me. If someone had followed us, I’d rather they not know they’d been caught sneaking up behind us.
Azazel frowned and looked out at the stony expanse, his eyes narrowed, but he finally shook his head. “I don’t feel anything. That doesn’t mean much; I’m expending as little energy as possible, and I don’t feel it’s worth looking harder. All of it will be necessary to open the doors, but we can take on anyone who follows.”
I glanced back out. Nobody would be stupid enough to go in the Between just to kill one of us.
Maybe they’d get lost and die in there. The thought cheered me a little.
“I’VE GOT YOU, ANGEL.” Belial strode past Azazel, walking up a dry creek bed. I felt bad for riding on him for so long. He could reassure me I was the weight of a flea all he liked, but I was covered in weapons from head to toe, and that couldn’t be comfortable pressed against his shoulders.
Tascius strode ahead on Azazel’s orders, lighting the way, while Michael brought up the rear with Haru.
Azazel walked at Belial’s side, close enough to touch me.
“I didn’t think to ask the why of this place, but why would someone create the Between?” I asked him. “What’s the point of keeping the memories of the gods in some nightmare dimension?”
He glanced up at me, his violet eyes shining with the lightning-like light inside him. “Although it’s possible to use it as a path, that was never the intention behind it. It’s a reliquary of sorts, a little like the memory-rift in the Fields of Asphodel, only infinitely more powerful and dangerous.”
I shivered at the thought of the memory-rift and what it had shown me. And that had only been a small taste of what the End Days had been like. “Who created it, though?”
Azazel shrugged one shoulder, reaching up to touch the feather under the silver skull pin. “Nobody knows. I’m not entirely sure it was created by someone, rather than that it just is. But this place is… it is endless.” His eyes were shadowed as he looked up the mountainous ridge we climbed. “And it preferred to gather strong emotions or places of worship. What you’ll see in there are memories of the old times. Times from before humanity wrote their first accounts of the gods. Times of chaos and insanity, when they walked the earth openly in all their power.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My human brain had barely been able to comprehend the existence of the Horsemen, or Wormwood, or the plagues. Death and rising again had opened my mind quite a bit, but if Azazel thought these gods of the old times were terrible… well, I still had a lot of mind-opening to do.
Fear trickled down my spine, but I pushed it away. I wasn’t going to let empty memories drive me away from this path. “How will it know we want to go to Irkalla?”
“Intention.” Azazel’s shadows touched my leg as he walked alongside us. “It might not have been made for it, but it’s still a side effect of the magic there. If you keep one place in mind while traversing it, the Between will begin to pull on that intent, bringing up memories as well as bringing you closer to the place it’s revealing.”
“And that means we’ll see memories of Irkalla the further we go into it.” How horrible would those memories be?
“They can’t hurt you,” Azazel reminded me gently. “As long as you don’t get caught up in them. If you see anything, close your eyes and look away. It’ll vanish soon enough.”
“How bad could it be?” I asked with false bravado, but Azazel didn’t answer.
Not a good sign.
Eventually the ridge opened on the base of a steep ravine, high in the mountains. I slid off Belial’s shoulders; it was full of mist, the path barely visible, but even I could see a lion of his size wouldn’t make it through.
He became a human again and we gathered in front of the mist. It reached out and brushed outwards, almost like fingers trying to touch us.
“Pluto’s Gate is through here.” Azazel’s eyes were veiled. “Stay to the path, Michael first.”
Michael stepped in without a backward glance, his sunlight dampened by the mist, but he was clear enough to follow.
I did glance back. The sensation of malice was faint, but perhaps I’d been imagining things. After all, I was about to walk into a place even Azazel didn’t want to go. Anyone would be subconsciously stressed out by the implications of that.
There was nothing there, of course, but I couldn’t shake my misgivings.
I ended up behind Azazel and in front of Belial, the pair of them keeping me on the path. On occasion I ducked under a rock outcropping or tripped on slick stones and moss underfoot, but the walls were so narrow it was easy to catch my fall.
After the dryness of the desert, the mist and moss were a strange sight. I inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of actual green growing things, but there was another strange smell on the wind, something almost spicy.
Azazel turned in time to catch me rubbing my nose. “You smell the residual magic. We’re close.”
“It was shockingly easy to find,” I muttered, stepping over a large slippery stone.
With his face in profile, I caught his tight smile. “Because it doesn’t need to hide. No one with sense comes here.”
The sky ahead was dark, like a storm was rolling in. I squinted, but it was impossible to make out the storm clouds through the mist overhead.
Moss began to grow denser, dripping off stones, trailing through our hair. Beads of moisture had settled in Azazel’s dark curls, and I found myself wiping my palms on my pants every time I touched a stone. Eventually it didn’t matter; my pants were slick too, and the beads on my forehead were mist, not sweat.
The sky grew darker and darker. “Is it night already?” I whispered to Azazel. For some reason, it felt wrong to speak aloud here. Goosebumps had risen on my arms.
“No.”
The pebbles underfoot suddenly gave way to smooth, paved stone. We all gathered close together, but I stayed in the back between Tascius and Azazel, not wanting to risk the Spear touching someone.
Wind touched my cheeks. I raised my face, expecting the soft patter of rain, but instead the breeze just tore apart the mist as we walked over the stones.
My heart skipped a beat as the mist fell behind us, unable to withstand the wind, and revealed where the ravine ended.
The sky wasn’t dark from storms or nightfall.
There was a stone arch before us, extending into the sky, so enormous it blocked out the sun. Only faint slivers of sky were visible on either side of it, and a pair of ebony doors were set within its confines.
“Pluto’s Gate,” Azazel said reverently. “The door to the Between.”
24
Melisande
The doors towered over the mountains around us, doors meant for giants instead of demons. Deep runes were inscribed in the ebony, glinting with tiny flashes of color.
“These are the gates for the gods,” I whispered, craning my head back to look up. They seemed to go on forever. “How will we open them?”
Azazel just glared grimly at the doors. “With magic.” He strode forward, almost close enough to touch the carved ebony, and turned around to look at all of us. “It’s not too late to turn back. This is your last chance to turn around and do this the wise way.”