Page 109 of Bellamy

“Yes,” Penemuel answered. “You and Asa were the only ones who didn’t know. For obvious reasons. We couldn’t allow Asa to suspect the truth, and with you being his right-hand man, we couldn’t trust you either. It’s rather fortunate you left when you did. Belphegor discussed killing you once we retrieved Light Bringer from the celestial realm. No loose ends.”

I placed my hand on Phoenix’s thigh as my sternum clenched. I had been so close to losing him. Lust softly whined at the thought.

“Why come to us with this?” Alastair asked. “If you wanted to stop it, why not go to Asa instead?”

“And face Belphegor’s wrath?” Penemuel shook his head. “I’d be going right into the lion’s den, and there’d be no making it back out. My strength lies in my intellect. I’m not much of a fighter. I weighed my options and decided this was best.”

“How much time do we have?” Lazarus asked.

“Two days. Belphegor plans to use the power of the harvest moon to weaken the veil concealing Lucifer’s cage.”

Two days. Less time than I’d expected.

“Damn harvest moon,” Raiden said. “It usually happens in late September or in October. But the fucker had to come prematurely.”

Castor choked on a laugh, then pressed his lips together, waving his hand back and forth. “Sorry, sorry. This isn’t funny, I know. But goddammit, Ray. Maybe work on your phrasing next time.”

“Huh?” Raiden slowly blinked at him. “But the moon’s comin’ early. Its big ass will be illuminating the sky like a bat signal.”

“Illuminating is a big word for you.” Castor smirked.

“Your face is a big word.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, Raiden.”

“Two days doesn’t give us much time to gather our armies,” Alastair said. “It’ll take two days at best for all of them to even assemble here.”

Lazarus stood from the armchair and stepped over to the window. The sun shone on his white hair and brought out the gold threads in his pale eyes. “Call Envy and fill him in. He and his ice dragon prince need to return to Echo Bay as soon as possible.”

“I’ll call him.” I pulled my phone from my pocket.

Keeping his gaze fixated outside, Lazarus said, “Tell him to bring the best warriors in the ice clan. Belphegor won’t have a large army with him since he can only trust a select few with his plan. He also won’t be expecting us to intervene, so we’ll have the element of surprise on our side. But we’ll need skilled fighters to face him and the other fallen angels. Vepar and Purah aren’t the only ones. Raziel and dozens of others still follow him.”

“They all know the truth as well,” Penemuel said.

Alastair grabbed his phone. “I’ll inform Baxter and Sirena.”

Lazarus nodded. “And I’ll ready warriors from my army.”

“What about Kon?” Castor asked. “Should one of us hit up Krave and tell him?”

“I’ll go this evening to fill him in,” Alastair responded. “But I won’t ask for his assistance. This won’t be a large-scale battle where we need numbers on our side. Our mission is to stop Belphegor from releasing Lucifer. That’s it. The vampires and the hunters will sit this one out.”

“The hunters too?” Mason asked. “Storm won’t be too happy about that.”

Storm was one of Mason’s closest friends, a human hunter he’d known for the past few years.

“Thor has his orders,” Alastair responded, never calling the hunter by his nickname. “The hunters will patrol their assigned areas as usual while we deal with this.”

“I should return to the celestial realm.” Lazarus looked at Penemuel. “You’ll be accompanying me until this is over. I can’t trust you not to run back to Belphegor, and I certainly can’t trust you to fight with us on the battlefield.”

“I’m not allowed in the heavens,” Penemuel pointed out. “I’ll either be killed on sight or thrown into a prison cell.”

“Both of which you rightly deserve.”

“The professor can stay here,” Clara said. “I’ll whip up one of my awesome warding collars to prevent him from leaving the property. Will that appease you, angel boy?”

Penemuel cocked his head. “A collar?”