He didn’t need to add what that meant. Abaddon had been wrong, and there had in fact been a seventh person attending the sickening rituals. One whose identity the Lord had chosen not to reveal.
“It could have been a life-sized puppet. Maybe they only put it in place for the rituals,” he proposed in a weak voice despite knowing deep in his heart that this wasn’t the case.
The rock in his throat crumbled somewhat when he spoke, but it kept restricting his breath as the cold interior threatened him with its shadows. But he needed to be strong for Gabriel. Peeling his shirt away from sweaty flesh, he looked to the left, down a corridor leading around the ritual space, to where all the children would be held in cells prior to being sacrificed.
“No. I’m sure I remember it moved its eyes. The person had a cloak that obscured their body, and horns, and wings of black feathers like the ones on the statue upstairs!” Gabriel’s voice rose to a high pitch as he approached the empty seat.
He froze in the middle of the room as if the proximity to evil turned him to stone. His breath quickened, and he covered his mouth, staring at the alcoves. Abaddon’s eyes had also gotten used to the dim light by now, and as he focused on the niches, his stomach dropped in terror.
Small skulls stared at them with empty eye sockets, but the dimmed glow of lamps attached to the walls revealed that each lay on a bed of bones, and that there was a shiny plaque beneath each of the compartments organized into three groups of six.
Bile pushed at his throat, and Abaddon bent over, releasing blood to the floor.
Bright spots shone behind his eyes before he realized his vomit wasn’t red.
Gabriel was at his side in an instant, stroking his back, but his own fingers trembled. “This is sick…” he choked out. “Is the unholy nature of this place making you ill?”
Abaddon made himself stand straight despite the whirring in his head, because it was Gabriel who needed support, not him. He had come here to strike down those who perpetrated all this evil. To tear out their eyes, open their stomachs, pull out their stinking guts, and have locusts feed on the innards for all time.
Still, he shivered when his gaze moved past a torch that held a lightbulb instead of fire, and stopped at the two empty niches to the far right side of the bone display. They might be unoccupied, but the names of the children they’d been meant for had already been attached to the wall. And if Gabriel’s torture hadn’t ended on torment symbolizing ‘life,’ he wouldn’t have been here stroking Abaddon’s flesh.
The boy looked in the same direction, suddenly fragile against Abaddon. As if his body was unable to handle all the vileness in the air. “I was meant to be just that. A stack of bones sacrificed to… you. Or the lie about you they believe in.” But as he took a step toward the plaques, Abaddon sensed the grip of Gabriel’s hand weaken, and dashed forward to grab the boy as he fainted.
Abaddon fell to his knees, but the pain of abruptly clashing against stone was nothing in the face of Gabriel’s agony. This boy didn’t deserve any of the suffering he’d endured. He was a good person. An innocent like all the other children who succumbed to the cult’s hunger for power over a supernatural being. But he was now here to smite them one after the other, and if that mysterious seventh member still walked the earth, nothing could protect them from Abaddon’s wrath.
His torso stung as if it had been stabbed for each of the dead children, but he fought through it and stood with a low roar, lifting Gabriel’s prone form in his arms.
Enough was enough. They shouldn’t have come here.
16
GABRIEL
The statue’s eyes settle on Gabriel’s small, naked form, shining with indifference to his torment. Its dark robe looks solid and impenetrable, as if it had been carved in dried lava, its face hidden behind a simple mask. Gabriel cries up for help when Martinez pulls him back into the abyss, but not even a feather on the statue’s wings moves to save him.
He is all alone.
He grabbed at air in a desperate attempt to escape the torture, but instead, he managed to close his fingers on silky long hair, and Abaddon’s scent was an instant infusion of relief.
“It’s okay,” Abaddon said, pulling him close, but while Gabriel was afraid of what unholy pictures the vaulted ceiling might hold, the fresh scent of spring filled him with reassurance.
They were no longer underground. And Abaddon was carrying him away from the pyramid.
Gabriel felt too weak to stand, his mind still broken by the extent of cruelty he’d seen in that basement, and his own memories of torture flooding back. But at least now he knew everything, and Abaddon’s mission was bigger than him and his need for revenge. The celestial creature who’d offered him tenderness and protection wasn’t here for Gabriel, and ultimately needed to end the cycle of evil perpetrated by The Keys to the Deepest Pit.