Demon Breathing Down My Neck

Chapter Twenty-Two: Sneaking Into Heaven

Once we're safely through the portal, the first thing I do is strap rainbow gags over all of the bawling babies except Malik. I press my finger to my lips and sharply shush him. Should I telepath? Opening up our minds here might be dangerous...

Malik musters up enough energy to press his bloody hands against my brilliant wall. He gasps with trembling lips, "Wh-wh-what is this place?!"

Strange, eerie growls echo through the puffy, dark clouds of smoke. The vast fields of floating, gray mist swirl around and around. The air is hot and humid, coating my already sweaty skin with more layers of droplets. The overpowering stench of a rotten, burnt beetle carcass forces its way up my nostrils. We float in the midst of gloomy walls of smog that smear together in the far distance. Fluffy pillars of smog blur into one another.

I spread my arms wide. I whisper to him, "This is as close as one can portal to heaven itself! Well, technically, it's not your universe's heaven. It's the one that I snuck into in my own universe! I'm not sure if any of your deceased relatives would be here. But the only thing that matters is that God is!"

Malik stares at his hands as they burst into bloody cuts. He lets out a wild scream, then refocuses on me when the cuts heal. "Heaven?! This isn't heaven!"

"Shhhhh!"

Malik's eyes bulge out of their sockets as he stares at the shadowy figures swerving in and out of the smoke. "It's true! You're taking me to hell like Big Baby said you would!"

"Lower your voice! We still have to sneak past all the monsters to get to the gate!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I CAN'T HEEEEEEEELP IT, IT HUUUUUUURTSSSS!"

I strap a rainbow gag over his mouth as well. "You can't talk to me unless you whisper!"

A crawling roar echoes somewhere far beyond us in the murky cloud banks. Great. They heard him. A bunch of crackly roars answer back the first bellow.

I turn to Malik. He's only one old enough I can really talk to. "Hang on! This is going to be horrible, but it will be worth it when we get there! You might feel like you're losing your mind, but hang in there for me, okay?!"

He nods, the need to scream reflecting intensely out of his eyes.

"I have to take you to see God, because I seriously doubt I can do anything to help you! You're being healed by the same angel power I have, yet whatever they did to you keeps slashing you open!" The faint roaring goes closer. "We have to go!"

The crackling growls grow louder and louder. Skinny, swerving shadows appear flying together in the distance. I make sure the kids are strapped tightly against the walls of the bubble. The only place to go is up! We get to heaven or we die. Same thing as last time, except this time I have company. The snotty angels should at least take the kids even if they make me find my own way back!

I flap my wings so intensely a whirlwind forms. The wind generated by my blurring wings catches the gray smoke and swirls into a tunnel around us. It's like flying through the center of a tornado. The growls grow closer and closer behind us.

I peek back down the very long hole we're poking in the smoke layer. An enormous thundercloud, sparking with lightning, is chasing us. Black, snakelike shadows with bat wings dart forward within the cloud bank, gaining on us rapidly. The thunder booms rumble louder and louder behind us. Soon, it's exploding in my ears so much that I can't hear anything else.

My heart gets caught in my throat. I don't see how the storm dragons can hear so well over the ruckus of their wings! I have a sneaking suspicion that they detect sound in a way that we don't...