He nodded. “She wants me to bring you to her. We need to go.”
Go to my mom? She was the only thing in my head that I recognized. In the empty, echoing hallways of my mind, there was only her.
“Okay, take me to her,” I agreed. My thoughts were getting foggy again. I glanced at the room beside us where a huge fire raged. I shied back from it.
“There’s a fire!” I exclaimed softly. I had no idea how it had started, but it was spreading. It was dangerous.
Blackwood considered me carefully and nodded. “Yes, we need to get out of here. You go raise the alarm and wait for me outside. I’ll be there soon, and I’ll take you to your mother.”
I left Blackwood in the hallway, which was getting increasinglyhot and smoky, and ran up the corridor toward the double doors at the end.
As soon as I pushed through, a fire alarm screamed overhead. Some of the doors along the hallway opened, and other people looked out, dressed in white sweats and looking just as confused as I was.
“Fire! There’s a fire!” I shouted to anyone who would listen.
People gathered in the huge foyer and then poured out the doors into the storm. As soon as I stepped out, the chill in the air stole my breath, and I couldn’t see anything except for the orange blaze of the building. Snow fell thick and fast. It was freezing.
Above me, windows blew out, and a whooshing sound filled the air.
“Fuck—the oxygen in the operating room!” someone yelled, and then a boom sounded and the ground seemed to shake.
I fell to my knees in the gathered snow and covered my head with my hands. People screamed and cried all around me. I was too close to the blaze. I could feel it raging at my back.
I sensed the whole place was going to go up.
Cold soaked through my sweats as I stumbled up and slogged through the thick snow, putting more distance between the fire and me, watching more and more people leave the building.
A man appeared, coughing and covering his face with his sleeve. He made his way toward me through the crowd wearing a white lab coat with the name Blackwood embroidered on the lapel. Did I know him?
“Stay here, I’m getting my car. We need to leave.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, but he’d already moved away.
I glanced back at the door, where a man was just leaving, and something sharp clenched in my heart. The snow seemed to stop falling for a heartbeat. Even the fire faded for a second.
He was tall and broad, brooding in a way that was magnetic. Stubble wreathed the lower half of his face, and his dark eyes were piercing, even across the distance between us. He was huge. Imposing. Scary. His dark priest’s robes smoked as he left the blaze. With a background of fire and smoke curling off his shoulders, he mirrored a devil who’d come to claim souls for hell.
And he was staring right at me.
I stumbled back, falling against the freezing stone of the chapel wall behind me. My foot slipped on a metal bowl hidden under the snow, and I nearly fell.
The man walked toward me.
You know him,the voice of insanity said inside my mind.
She was right. Didn’t I know his name? It was on the tip of my tongue, but the damn brain fog made it hard to remember. He was familiar in a way that made my heart pound.
Lucifer. The light-bringer.
He walked right up to me, the crowd parting before him.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his deep voice sending shivers over me. His sooty hands closed on my face, cupping my cheeks and tilting my head back for his inspection. His gaze ran over my features, checking for injuries.
I just stared at him.
“What happened? Do you know?” he asked.
I shook my head slowly.