Page 47 of Demon Apathy: Sunderverse

I held my breath.

“Damn me!” Drevan exclaimed when Sage was but a few feet from the asphalt. “That’s not Jophiel.”

In the next instant, Drevan blinked out of existence.

Sage!

I saw red as he hit the blacktop.

Except… he didn’t.

He never hit the ground, and suddenly, he was rising instead of falling. I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. My heart hammered as he made his way up. Light bounced off the glass surface of the building across the street. I squinted to see better.

A rhythmicthud, thudfilled my ears. The air around me seemed to whirl and shift. I rubbed my eyes, and when I next opened them, Sage floating in front of me, Drevan behind him, a massive set of black wings beating behind him.

“Blasted boy!” Drevan exclaimed as he let Sage go.

Sage landed inside the balcony and fell to his knees. He grunted then started whimpering like a lost puppy, while all I could do was stare at Drevan and his magnificent wings thudding behind him, their lustrous feathers reflecting the light, each one looking like a sharp blade. They were blue-black, the exact color of his hair. The wingspan was at least twenty feet from tip to tip, maybe more.

My mouth went dry. If before he had been beautiful, with those wings, he was… exquisite, menacing, breathtaking… godlike.

With immense grace, he placed one foot on the railing, then another. His wings stopped moving, then disappeared with a slightwhoosh. He teetered on the edge for an instant, then jumped to the floor, landing next to a still-whimpering Sage.

“Well, that was unfortunate,” Drevan drawled.

I snapped out of my shock and let my anger rise to the surface.

“Unfortunate? Is that all you can say?!” I kneeled at Sage’s side and took his hand in mine. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He shook his head, his entire body trembling as if he’d been left out in the cold all night.

“You broke him,” I snapped. “You fucking broke him.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine. Nothing a strong drink won’t cure. Maybe I’ll go inside and get him a—” he stopped cold.

I glanced up to see what had halted his nonsense and found both Jenna and Benjamin standing on the other side of the glass door. They looked pale and wide-eyed as if they’d just seen a flying Nephilim, which clearly they had.

Fuck me!

—I think we’d better get out of here, Drevan said inside my head right before he planted a hand on my back and we dissolved into nothingness.

17

Mystomachdroppedaswe dissolved. The feeling was awful, like being on a roller coaster while sick with a stomach virus. Throwing up my guts and dying sounded like acceptable outcomes, though the latter seemed way preferable.

I grasped at nothing as I fell, my hands batting aimlessly in the air. I started to scream, but before I managed, my feet were planted firmly on the ground, and the plummeting feeling disappeared. As I swayed on my feet, an arm wrapped around my waist, holding me steady. I blinked, desperate to clear my blurry vision. A humming sound filled my ears. It felt exactly like the time Phenog saved us from Jophiel, except a million times worse.

A gentle voice whispered in my ear. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

By degrees, my vision and hearing cleared. Or maybe they got worse because multicolored lights were dancing before me like laser beams, and a loud cacophony of sounds rode the air while drums seemed to beat in my chest.

“We are at Hades. It’s all right,” Drevan said.

I scrambled backward. “What?! No! What did you do?!”

“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t be silly. Pay attention. NotinHades, butatHades. It’s a nightclub. Look around.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, whirled me around, and made me face what turned out to be a crowded dance floor. For a moment, I thought I hadn’t left Benjamin’s party, but as my mind cleared, I realized I was in a very different place.