Page 100 of Death Trap

“It should be me,” I said to him. “I should go in alone and face him myself.”

Eli blinked in surprise. “What? No, Jade. We’re doing this together.”

“All of us,” Marla chimed in.

“But Azrael won’t be expecting me. He thinks I’m still trapped in Hell.” Or at least, he should. There was no way to know if he’d made a quick pit stop before coming here. Actually, there was no way of knowing if he was here at all.

A shadow emerged overhead and crawled along the marble steps until Styx’s grand polished stone face was shrouded in darkness. Peering up at the fluffy clouds that always surrounded this alternate dimension, I noticed every one of them turning gray and angry, like a storm was blowing in from somewhere unknown.

“He’s here.” Simon’s whisper made a chill race down my spine.

Guess that answered that question.

Eli glanced up at the darkening sky, and his expression hardened. “It appears this plane doesn’t think he belongs here anymore,” he said. “You were right, Jade. He’s Falling. He’s turning into something evil.”

Lightning flashed behind the clouds.

Marla didn’t wait a moment longer. She hurried up the steps, her heels clicking against the marble. When she reached the top, she waved for us to hurry up.

“I don’t want the apocalypse as much as the next person,” she called down to us. “I have a niece out there still, and I don’t want to see her anytime soon. This is all our fight. Come on.”

We all climbed the stairs. Simon held the door for us as we walked into the giant entryway.

Once inside, I gasped at the sight before me. Normally full of light and pristine in appearance, the modern decorated entrance to Styx resembled a high-end hotel lobby or office building in New York City, but now, it looked as if a tornado had been unleashed inside. The steel chandelier was in a heap in the center of the floor, the marble cracked underneath it. Every piece of artwork was torn and tossed off the walls. Many of the columns had collapsed, pushed over, or—if they were still standing—bore giant cracks down their middles.

Dust covered everything, even clung to the air like a thick, chalky cloud. It made me cough, stuffing up to the back of my throat.

Simon was suddenly at my side. “He’s destroying Styx just by being here,” he said, sorrow in his voice.

On the other side of the room, something else fell and crashed onto the floor, stirring up more dust.

Simon was right. This plane was falling apart because Azrael no longer belonged here. Wasn’tallowedhere. And so, he was disrupting the natural order of things.

The longer he stayed, the more destruction he’d cause without so much as lifting a finger. How long would it take before his poisonous presence leaked into the afterlife, where the spirits dwelled, like Wyatt, Marla, and Lisa. Imagining what he could do when he actually started changing things made my stomach turn sour.

As I stared at the scene in front of me with my thoughts running wild, anger stirred inside me. I might not have liked it at times, but the afterlife was my home. This—Styx—was my place of work. It was where my first memories were after my death. Seeing it nearly in rubble and hearing the sadness in Simon’s voice pissed me off.

“Let’s keep moving,” Eli said, directing us toward the hall of elevators.

When we passed Maryanne’s desk, I wasn’t surprised to find it cracked in two pieces and the secretary nowhere in sight. My only hope was that she, along with the rest of Styx’s staff, had managed to get away when things got ugly.

While walking up to the gold elevator at the very end of the hallway, my power cascaded along my bare arms, becoming stronger and stronger the closer we got. When we reached the doors, the light emitting from my skin flooded the dark corridor, as if the Archangel part of me was not only a bit more stable without the reaper side holding it back, but it was also anticipating the fight ahead.

My head, on the other hand, wasn’t as confident.

I stared at my warped reflection looking back at me through the gold doors. How many times had I done just this, hoping this wouldn’t be the time Azrael finally decided to give me the axe for messing up? Little had I known then that his plan against me had been a lot more elaborate and a lot more devious.

It looked like our relationship had come full circle.

This was where I’d started. And this was where it was all going to end.

On cue, the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

When the instrumental jazz music spilled out of it, I ground my teeth before stepping inside.

Azrael had brought back the jazz elevator music.

What a colossal prick.

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