Page 39 of All's Hell That Ends Well

I didn’t know him well enough to guess which way he would lean.

We’d arrived at the gate, where Haniel waited as instructed. Gilarion took his leave, and I cheerfully waved at Haniel, who glowered at me in turn.

This would be fun.

He powered up the gate, and we stepped through.

This time around, it was night as I set foot in New York again. The gate was the same we’d used that fateful day of Lilith’s murder, obviously, and it spat me out in the same spot, right where everything had gone down.

I wasn’t prepared for the lash of trauma that hit me.

My lungs seized, my breath stuck in my throat, and my limbs trembled as my eyes swept the area. Familiar, and yet not, for the landscape had changed considerably. The buildings were new. Some of them shorter, others taller, than what had stood here before.

They would have had to rebuild everything.

As my gaze tracked over the surroundings, memories from eight years ago overlaid what I saw in flashes of pain. Phantom flames licked over the trees. The ghosts of hellhounds chasedscreaming people through the street. The flutter of hundreds of wings filled the air, amid the scent of smoke and blood. I could taste ash on my tongue, hear the clang of weapons, the screech of tires.

I was so caught in the visceral recollection of that day long past that Haniel’s hand on my shoulder made me whirl around and nearly plant a dagger in his chest. He blocked me at the last second.

“Whoa!” he said and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “No need to stab me. I was talking to you, but you seemed zoned out, so I tapped you on the shoulder.”

“Sorry,” I muttered and sheathed my dagger again. “This place brings up bad memories.”

He regarded me for a moment, then nodded. “Right. You were there that day.”

“Unfortunately,” I said with a sigh.

My gaze flicked to the spot on the sidewalk where the angels had attacked Lilith. I swore I could still see the glint of the blade in the sunshine as the lead angel swung the sword for her neck.

I shivered and turned away, my heart clenching.

Behind us, the New York Public Library rose, its facade lit up in the night. They’d rebuilt it, too, and apparently they’d stuck to the original design. It looked as if it hadn’t ever been destroyed.

Cars drove past on the street, the sound of honking echoing over. Late-night pedestrians hurried down the sidewalk, and a bus was just turning the corner. The streetlamps bathed everything in perfectly ordinary light.

My brain couldn’t quite make sense of how remarkably normal this scene was. How everyone here was just going about their day—or night—and how this world had somehow kept moving.

Such resilience. This capacity to bounce back from disaster and tragedy. Half of New York had been wrecked eight years ago.And yet here they were, the people, the city, looking for all the world like they’d never experienced the near apocalypse.

Somehow, to me, it seemed like it had only happened yesterday.

Was this what immortality was like? To have no sense of time any longer?

With another sigh, I turned to Haniel again. “All right, first off, I need a map.”

“A map?” He raised both brows.

“Yeah, so I can mark the areas I’ve searched already.” I squinted at him. “How much do you know about what I’m doing here?”

“His Grace told me, under an oath of silence. You’re looking for her reincarnation.” He jerked his chin at me. “You can speak freely.”

“Great, this will make things easier.” Clapping my hands together, I said, “Let’s pilfer an old-school paper map!”

I spread my wings, making an oblivious human passing us do a weird impromptu evasive maneuver to not collide with my feathers. Of course, the guy had no idea why he’d just done a slalom dance, since we were still invisible to him and anyone else.

Lifting my eyes to the dark sky as I prepared to take flight, I inhaled the scent of the city, and it hit me then, the fact that I had all five of my senses now, that I could experience Earth through smell and touch and taste in addition to sight and sound—for the first time since that night I’d followed Azazel to Hell.

Out of all the advantages that being a demon gave me in my new life, this might be one of my faves.

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