Page 151 of Terror at the Gates

I was a privileged brat, and now my parents were dead.

Something brushed against my legs.

“Cherub!” I said, scooping her into my arms. I held her close, eased by her rhythmic purr. “I missed you.”

Coco smiled. “She was the best decision ever, right?”

“Truly,” I said.

An alarming cry erupted from somewhere in the family room. Coco turned, and we watched Gabriel throw the baby monitor as he startled awake. It took him a moment to get his bearings.Then he rose from the couch, swiped the monitor off the floor, and turned it down.

That was when he noticed me and smiled.

“Hey, baby girl,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hey, Gabe,” I said.

“Let me get Liam, and I’ll be back to hug you,” he said.

He headed down a hallway on the opposite side of the room while Coco and I found a place on the couch. Cherub curled up in my lap.

“It’s not like our apartment at all, is it?” said Coco.

“No…it isn’t.”

“Although I guess you’re used to these…nice things?”

“I think what we have is just as nice,” I said. “Better even.”

I’d spent a lot of my life in places like this, and it was where I felt the most exposed and uncomfortable. Our apartment wasn’t the best, but it was cozy, and it was where I could most be myself.

Fawna returned with my coffee, and Gabriel shortly after, carrying a bundled Liam. He had a bottle with him and a cloth tossed over his shoulder. He actually looked adorable.

“What’s got you smiling?” Gabriel asked.

“I just think you make a cute dad,” I said.

Esther would say the same, I thought, keeping the words to myself. I didn’t know how prepared he was to hear something like that, and I didn’t want to trigger him.

I sipped my coffee. It was bitter, but it made me more alert. Coco turned on the television and flipped through the channels.

“Wait,” I said. “Go back.”

She did as I asked and returned to the station that had caught my attention. It was a segment on the power failure.

“Officials have not confirmed what caused a mass outage across Eden last night. Footage shows a purple aura over a power station in Galant.”

The screen transitioned from the reporter to a grainy video. The only thing visible was the dark silhouette of pine trees against a violet-tinged light.

My stomach turned, and I set my coffee aside.

“We’re told this type of discharge is typically caused by high volts of electricity coming into contact with conductive air. Officials have not confirmed this as a cause of the outage but say last night’s storm likely contributed.”

All that sounded really scientific for something I knew wasn’t science but some kind of cursed magic.

That violet glow came from demons. Multiple demons.

I should have put two and two together. I thought back to the one I’d fought near the celestial shop and how it had been hanging out on the powerlines. Maybe I had found it while it was trying to supercharge itself and that was why the streetlights were out.

---