Free Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee Page A

said grimly.
    Still ill news, but at least it was but one of seven. Surely it took the opening of all the seals to completely devastate the world.
    “When I heard of an angel who had come to Hellsgate,” Baraqiel went on, “I thought it might be the thief, fled to where other angels might hesitate to follow. But then it sounded asthough she had been enslaved by a demon. That almost roused me to raise the battle cry. If I had—even if we arrived to find her already freed, a war host isn’t so easily stopped.”
    “There will be war, then?” Kenan asked.
    “The princes of Hell are ever-ready for battle,” Lilith said.
    Baraqiel said, “Some of the archangels, as well. We hope neither will hear of this. But there’s trouble being brewed between our realms. Someone bestirred that mob to come after the poor angel you’d been keeping here. If she had been killed…”
    Kenan felt the vertigo of having ventured into waters deeper than he’d expected, with no ground to be found beneath his feet. “It may be too late,” he said. “I heard one of the demon-horse lords was bridled.”
    Kenan had never thought to see dread on an archangel’s face, and never wanted to again.
    “One of the Horsemen may ride, but there are still six seals left,” Lilith said. “We can still stop this from turning into outright war between Heaven and Hell.”
    “We have to find the thief first,” Baraqiel reminded her. He spread his wings and took to the air.
    Lilith stayed a moment longer. “Be wise, incubus. Meddle not with angels,” she said with a twist of her lips, and then she too flew away.
    Kenan slumped back against the table, shaken by the encounter. He knew he should do something about the ruin of his house but couldn’t muster the energy. He let himself slide to the floor instead, brooding over the loss of Jahel, and slipped into dark dreams about meeting her from opposite sides of a battlefield.
    * * *
    “Kenan?”
    He leapt to his feet and whipped around to see Jahel standing at the back door.
    “You’re back!” He went to her and pressed her to him fiercely, ignoring his bruised body’s protests. When he drew back, he took in every detail of her face, wondering at how he could have already forgotten how lovely she was. No, he had remembered, but she was even more achingly beautiful actually standing before him.
    She was looking about the wreckage of his home with horror. “Was this because of me?” She touched his face. “Are you hurt badly?”
    He ignored her questions to ask his own. “Why are you here? You were supposed to give the soul back to the girl.”
    “I did return it,” she said.
    “And you didn’t stay to guard her?”
    She looked away. “To what use? I failed before.”
    He embraced her, as much to hold her as to comfort her. “You took a soul from a demon, and gave it back to the mortal it belonged to,” he said. “You’ve done more than any other angel.”
    She smiled despite herself. “What do you know of angels’ feats?”
    “I know that angels rarely venture even once into Hellsgate,” he said. “You’ve done it twice now.”
    Her face grew grave again. “Kenan, I came back because I still need your help.”
    He had been hoping for different words. He tried for lightness. “Not another soul?”
    “No,” she said. “When I first came here, I didn’t come by myself. I didn’t know the way. I was searching for the path when I ran into Gidon, and he told me he could guide me to Hellsgate. And he brought me here. But I don’t know what happened to him, and I can’t leave without knowing he’s well.”
    He wondered what mortal would have agreed to take an angel into Hellsgate. But he was hardly one to question. He, a demon, had gotten caught up in Jahel’s quest. “Gutter-wing, I don’t make a practice of rescuing people who can’t survive in this city.”
    “You’ve already started,” she said. “You rescued me.”
    What wouldn’t he do for her?
    She must have