Free Fallen Souls by Linda Foster Page A

tore her gaze away
from the gory sight of Adrian burning alive and took a deep breath,
trying to slow her heart. His followers were roaring in disbelief,
and her attention went to them; their eyes were wide with fear, and
they were backing away from the angels who encircled them. They
already knew, she realized. They’d seen what awaited them in
Hell.
    And now Adrian was taking them there
with him. As they deserved.
    The land began to shake,
and suddenly the soil beneath Adrian crumbled. It was going to
swallow him whole, she realized with horror. He was actually going to go to
Hell. He screamed, then, his charred face drawn up with shock as
the ground fell away. He spread his still-burning wings, attempting
to gain leverage as he clawed at the ground to keep from falling,
but those once-glorious extensions were now nothing more than bone
and a few feathers. And the land underneath him was collapsing
faster the more he struggled against it, like quicksand. His
struggle was in vain.
    After several painful moments of
struggle, he slipped out of sight, and Kali turned away from the
gruesome scene, cringing.
    It was over. Her heart broke for the
angels that would be cast out with him, and even ached for Adrian.
Thousands were going to pay the price for his greed, and yet she
felt sorry for him. Not for the monster he had become, but for the
angel she’d once thought of as her friend. The angel that would
never again be able to return to Heaven. He thought he was superior
to the humans, but in the end he would burn for all eternity
alongside them. And what would become of him?
    She had seen the human souls that
escaped from Hell, and what they changed into after being locked
away down there. Would Adrian turn into one of those mindless
demons she had hunted down? Or something … worse? She closed her
eyes and let out a shaky breath as a tear slid down her cheek.
Suddenly the Heavens opened, and rain poured down on them, as if
the Heavens were weeping with her. For a moment she wondered if
they were. She opened her eyes and lifted her gaze, letting the
cold rain wash away her tears.
    Then, the moment she began to walk
away, she felt something grab a hold of her leg, and a searing hot
pain shot through her. She cried out in agony, the skin on her
ankle feeling as if it was melting away. Whatever had grabbed her
dug further into her flesh, tightening its grasp, and she didn’t
have time to react before it jerked her backwards, wrenching her
toward the hole that had opened up around Adrian. She screamed, but
it was cut off by the terror swelling in her chest as she dug her
nails into the ground. Her eyes shot up in time to see Michael’s
own widen with fear.
    “ No!” he shouted. He ran
for her, desperately trying to reach her, and Kali’s arms went out,
tearing at the dirt, and trying to grab hold of anything. But the
unknown weight continued to yank her backwards, toward the hole in
the Earth. Michael was too far away to reach her in time, she knew
without looking again. That knowledge shot chills up her spine, and
sent her heart into overdrive.
    She looked down into the
hole at her feet, and saw to her horror that the object wrapped
around her ankle was Adrian’s still-burning hand. He stared up at
her from below, leering with what was left of his face. No! she screamed in her
mind, stricken with panic. He had grabbed her, she realized in dull
shock, and was trying to take her with him. She was going to be
trapped in Hell with him, his followers, and all the souls she’d
sent back there. She was being ripped away from the Earth, but
worse, she was being torn from her true home forever. After
everything she had done to save Heaven … if he took her down into
the ground, she would suffer the same fate as he and his
followers.
    Her gaze flew back to Michael’s
outstretched hand, but it was too far for her to reach. He couldn’t
save her, but watched with pain and sorrow as she slipped down,
down, and finally let go of the