“And that,” Carlos said from the front seat, “is
Rolling her eyes, Juliana kept silent. Protesting would lead to another argument. Agreeing was exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do.
As she was staring out the window, Juliana gave a start. The normal sky wasn’t quite so normal any longer.
Streaks of purple cut through the sky like jagged clouds. The purple pulsed lightly to some unheard beat. Every pulse spread the streaks out like lightning made of molasses.
“Um, dad?”
“I see it.”
Though her eyes were glued on the heavens, Juliana’s peripheral vision caught the ground moving much faster beneath their car.
“We’re not stopping?”
“The sky is clear up ahead.”
“But what about–”
“Juliana,” her father said, voice firmer than she had ever heard it. “This city has come so close to taking away everything I hold dear. I’m not giving it another chance.”
“But my friends… Zoe…” Juliana bit her lip. The way Zagan and Eva had talked about Hell being brought to the mortal realm sounded much farther off than now. It hadn’t even been half a year. But if that was what was happening, driving away likely wouldn’t save them.
Her lip-biting turned to grinding her teeth as anger welled up within her. She was running away.
“Mom would go back.”
“Genoa isn’t here,” Carlos said softly, his speed only increasing.
Gripping the door handle with white knuckles, Juliana watched the speedometer pass one hundred.
Shaking her head, Juliana reached forward and pulled her father’s cellphone from the holder.
At the very least, she could warn Zoe and Wayne, both of whom were in his contacts list. To her surprise, the dean and Catherine were entered in as well. One of them had probably seen the sky and already alerted the others, but Juliana sent off a group text anyway. If they were asleep, maybe, just maybe her text could save someone’s life.
Turning in her seat, Juliana watched helplessly as the purple lightning-streaked sky shrank behind her in the rear window.
“This city is cursed,” Erich mumbled under his breath.
— — —
Staring at the inky blackness of nothing became tedious after a while.
Actually, it got tedious after a matter of seconds. There was no one to speak with, nothing to look at, nothing to do save for wander her own mind. Unfortunately, Nel felt that she was reaching the limits of even her own thoughts.
There were only so many things she could think about. After weeks and months of nothing but blackness for most of every day, Nel was starting to worry for her own sanity. She had already thought about everything she could think of.
Other augurs didn’t have to deal with an empty target under normal circumstances. There weren’t many things that could block out the scrying of an augur. In fact, apart from Ylva’s domain and a few higher-ups in the Elysium Order like Sister Cross, whatever Sawyer had done with her eyes was the only thing that she had ever encountered that could block her sight.
There were probably more things. Nel had only been an augur for a year prior to entering into Ylva’s service. The more experienced sisters had probably encountered at least a handful of things that could block out their sight.
For a moment, Nel wondered what the nuns did to occupy their time.
Shaking her head, she realized that she knew the probable answer.
Any long-term observation would have multiple augurs assigned to the task. They didn’t have to deal with such things.
Unfortunately for Nel, she lacked any companions to foist the responsibility off to. Any breaks she took to sleep, eat, or just stretch her legs would gnaw at the back of her mind until she returned to the altar.
What Sawyer did might have been permanent. In which case, she was entirely wasting her time. But there was a chance that he had to consume the remaining eyes that he had stolen to power whatever he had done. Or that it couldn’t be moved easily.
All she needed was a sliver. A slight glimmer of where he was. Even if he occluded himself immediately after, it would give Nel a starting point. A point where she could look around, find street signs or other landmarks. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to follow the disturbance around. If she got a good enough sense for what the disturbance was, Nel was hoping that she might be able to lock onto that. Even if she couldn’t see what he was doing, seeing where he was could have infinite value.
