“Yup,” Beezle said. “I’m just like a regular person now, no special gargoyle X-ray powers.”

“You’ll never be just like a regular person,” J.B. said.

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” Beezle said.

“I wouldn’t take it as such,” J.B. said.

I ignored their byplay and reached toward the wall. I had a suspicion and I wanted to see whether it was valid. Nathaniel grabbed my wrist.

“Do not touch that,” he said. “You do not know what kind of effect it may have on a human.”

I shook my head at him. “I’m not sure it’s there at all.”

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at the substance coating the cave. “You think it’s an illusion?”

I nodded, and shook off his hand. I placed my palm on the wall of the cavern.

For a moment it seemed that my hand would become trapped in the fluid, which had the substance of craft glue. Then I put some will and some force behind it, and my hand passed easily through the wall, and the rest of me with it.

Nathaniel grabbed my other hand before I disappeared, and J.B. lunged for Nathaniel. All four of us slipped easily through the wall, which wasn’t really there at all.

I wished we had stayed put.

“So that’s a reptile-mammalian thing,” Beezle said. “It’s certainly…large.”

We were in a massive cavern, similar to the one where the nephilim had been imprisoned in the Forbidden Lands. At the far end of the cavern, blessedly away from us, was a gigantic creature coiled in a ball, sleeping. It had roughly the body shape of a lizard, the diamond-shaped head of a snake, and its body was covered in shaggy fur like a woolly mammoth.

Between us and the monster were piles of bones. Piles and piles and piles of bones, stacked higher than I would have thought possible.

“How long has that thing been here?” I breathed.

“It must have eaten everything that’s ever come through the passage for thousands of years,” Beezle said.

“Where’s Chloe?” J.B. said, squinting. “Are those bones?”

“I’m going to be so happy when you get your glasses back,” I said.

“There,” Nathaniel said, pointing toward the ceiling.

Three human-shaped cocoons hung there, suspended by thin strands of webbing. All three cocoons were wiggling, indicating that the person inside was still alive and trying to get out.

“I told you that once there was viscous fluid, there would be a cocoon,” Beezle said triumphantly. “Although I’ll tell you that I don’t want to know where it gets the thread for the cocoons from. That thing is already weird enough as it is.”

“Where did the other two come from?” I asked.

“It’s Jude and Samiel,” Nathaniel said. “Can’t you hear Jude?”

Now that he mentioned it, I could. The wolf’s voice was muffled by the webbing, but it was definitely him.

Chloe, Samiel and Jude were directly above the sleeping whatever-it-was. The monster didn’t seem to have been disturbed by our presence or our whispers, but that couldn’t possibly last.

“Well, at least we’re all together again,” I said. “I think the only option is for the two of you to fly up and cut them down. Then bring them back here and I’ll cut the cocoon off so we can get out of here.”

They nodded, and I bit my lip as I watched them fly away from me. I wanted my wings back. I was tired of watching everyone else do things I ought to be doing. I was tired of being carted around like a child when I could have been flying.

J.B. and Nathaniel had a quick, quiet conference as they reached the cocoons. Beneath them, the monster shifted in its sleep, grunting and snorting, and we all went still.

The creature didn’t seem like it was waking, so J.B. positioned himself next to one of the cocoons. Nathaniel cut the thread with his sword and J.B. caught the person easily. I saw his mouth move, reassuring whoever it was, and he flew toward me.

Nathaniel was right behind him. He stopped only for a moment to whisper something to the person who remained.

J.B. landed just ahead of Nathaniel. “It’s Samiel,” he said, laying my cocooned brother-in-law on the ground. Samiel was contorting inside the web.

Nathaniel put another person next to him. “Jude,” he said briefly, and went back for Chloe.

I bent close to Samiel. “Samiel, you have to lie still for a minute. I’m going to cut you out, and I don’t want to cut you.”

He stopped moving. I placed the blade at his shoulder and carefully used the tip to lift away the tightly wound thread. Then I sliced through on a diagonal from his shoulder to his hip, and hoped I missed all the major arteries.

Once I’d loosened the thread, Samiel burst out of the cocoon like the Hulk bursting out of his clothing. He looked wildly around, and J.B. grabbed Samiel before he could go tearing through the cavern. He made Samiel look at his face.

“Nathaniel’s getting Chloe,” J.B. said.

I repeated the procedure with Jude, who looked very annoyed once he emerged.

“Never even heard it coming,” Jude said. “I think it only makes noise if it wants to.”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Beezle said, and pointed.

We all turned. Nathaniel was hanging in midair, his wings flapping just enough to keep him there. He held Chloe in his arms, and she was deathly still. Very likely she had fainted inside the cocoon, which was a mercy given her intense claustrophobia.

The reptile-mammal thing had silently risen from its sleep and drawn its head level with Nathaniel. It watched the angel and his cargo with orange-yellow eyes, the pupils slit like a snake’s. Its mouth hung open, full of shiny fangs. Those fangs were only a few feet away from Nathaniel and Chloe. The monster and Nathaniel were both frozen in space, staring each other down. It was almost as if they were silently communicating.

“Get out,” I said to the others.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Beezle said, lifting off from my shoulder.

“No,” J.B. said, his voice strained as he struggled to hold Samiel in place. Samiel had gone wild as soon as he’d seen Nathaniel and Chloe so close to the monster’s head. “We all stay together.”

“Yeah,” Jude said. “Whatever you do, we’re in for it, too.”

“I was going to distract the monster so that Nathaniel and Chloe could get away, and then I was going to run down the passage,” I said.

“We’re not trying to kill it?” Beezle asked, hovering in the air next to me.

“I’m not going to try to kill anything that big or that old without magic,” I said. “Besides, I don’t need it to be dead. I just need for us to get away.”

“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey, over here!”

Jude and J.B. shouted as well. Jude even picked up a heavy bone that looked like a human femur and tossed it in the direction of the creature.

Neither the monster nor Nathaniel moved. I was again struck by the sense that they were somehow communicating. Or that Nathaniel was being…

“Hypnotized,” I said.

“Non sequitur,” Beezle said. “We’re trying to distract the monster here.”

“We can’t distract it, because the monster is trying to hypnotize Nathaniel,” I said.

Samiel broke free of J.B.’s grasp, which was inevitable. Samiel was amazingly strong, stronger than most supernaturals.

However, Jude was amazingly fast and grabbed Samiel’s ankle, pulling him back to the ground as Samiel tried to fly to Chloe.

Jude punched him in the face.

“Quit it,” Jude growled. “Do you want to get her back, or do you want her to be eaten?”

I want her back, Samiel said, and then he swung at Jude. The wolf was more than prepared, and grabbed Samiel’s fist.

“Then stop and think,” Jude said. “Or at least do what Maddy thinks.”

What the hell does she know? Samiel signed. She makes it up as she goes along, and the person she loved got stabbed to death. I don’t think Maddy is the best person to decide how to save Chloe.

I turned away from them. I didn’t want to see what else Samiel might say, what other truths he might reveal in the heat of anger. It wasn’t the time for hurt feelings. But it did hurt. I’d always thought Samiel loved me unconditionally, that he didn’t blame me for Gabriel’s death. I guess it just proved that, as everyone kept telling me, I needed to stop taking people at face value. I was the only person I knew who wasn’t any good at deception.

While all this was happening Nathaniel and the monster remained locked in their silent communion.

“Why is it taking so long?” I wondered aloud.

“Nathaniel’s resisting,” Beezle said. “That’s pretty impressive, considering he’s got no magic right now.”

“How can you tell?”

“If he wasn’t resisting, then it would be over by now. And since the monster wasn’t responding to us, it must be unable to get out of the spell until its victim is hypnotized,” Beezle said.

I looked at the monster, then at Nathaniel and Chloe, and I had an idea. “Are you willing to bet my life on that theory?”

Beezle looked uncertain, an expression I’d hardly ever seen on his face. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“J.B.,” I said. “Can you put me on top of the monster’s head?”

14

“NO, I CANNOT,” J.B. SAID.

“Cannot or will not?”

“It’s the same damn thing,” he said. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you do whatever you’re thinking of doing.”

“I want you to fly me up to the top of the monster’s head and drop me there, and then I’ll stab it through the eye,” I said.

“And now that I know your plan, I am definitely not helping,” J.B. said.

“I thought you weren’t going to kill it,” Beezle said.

“That was when I thought it was distractible,” I said. “It’s not, so I’m going to kill it. Or at least injure it horribly enough that it won’t be able to chase after us. And if you don’t fly me up there, Jacob Benjamin Bennett, I will climb up to the top of the monster’s head from its tail, and you can stand there and watch me.”