Unholy Pleasures

Holle

Key Eighteen: Holle:

It's quiet down here. Too quiet. But that wasn't going to last for long. Everyone in the City and the Tower can tell that something bad is happening. Up until now, it's been taking its sweet time to happen. The question is how long before the first signs start to surface? Well, we're about to find out the answer.

You all sit around and not notice a thing. But it's there, trust me. It will only be a matter of time before you can feel it too.

Max

She's been tracking where Lenalee goes as of late. Less of the dead haven't been taken to their assigned final destinations. So far, nobody has noticed. Max and Linda didn't know how much longer that would last. The twins resolved to get to the bottom of this.

Max looked at the screen with a confused look on her face.

"What is this?" she asked herself. The activity log listed locations that weren't on the route. She managed to tag twenty-five of them in all. She put them all together into one text document. Max plugged in each one into the map. Each time she did, a location for an abandoned church came up. On the surface, it would be nothing. Just an answer to where Lenalee had been going. Max decided to ask the girl. Not accuse her of anything. Just gently talk to her.

Her email notification went off on her computer.

"Hm? What's this?" she asked. Max clicked on the notification. Her inbox popped up on the screen. There was only one message waiting for her. Max clicked on it. She read through the message. At first, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Just a report of what was going on in their branch of Heaven. Max felt her eyes glazing over.

But then something caught her attention.

The first word of each paragraph was bolded and bigger than the rest of the words. Max scrolled back up and started reading again. She had to read each word about two or three times. The angel's eyes widened as she put the pieces together.

"Linda!" she shouted. She got up and ran out of her office. This just changed everything.

Grace

Drip.

Grace looked up at the sky. It started to rain out of nowhere.

"Uh oh!" she said. The rest of the angels looked up. Wait... Rain? Where did it come from? Grace began to panic as she ran.

"Grace?" Kit asked. The angel didn't turn around. She pushed herself to keep running. The boy ran after her.

"We have to get out of this rain!" she yelled. They didn't have to ask. Grace shut her eyes as she ran.

"But where are we going to go?!" Kit shouted. There was no shelter in sight. The sand became wet slush at their feet and ankles. The blowing winds didn't help either. The drops felt like little daggers on Grace's cheeks. A little bit of blood escaped on the cheek.

She tried to look around through the rain. The thickness made it harder to see. She couldn't even tell if the boys were still following her. She didn't have time to look around. The sand made it much harder for her to run. It was a struggle to remain standing. Grace had to shield her eyes as she kept walking.

Suddenly, Grace fell over face first. She tried to get up but it felt like an invisible weight was pushing down on her body. She breathed heavily as she tried to get up. So many thoughts flashed through her head. Was this going to be the end at last? She couldn't die but was this going to be an endless cycle of drowning and dying? The drops of rain felt like tiny knives on her bony little back.

Suddenly, a hand held her face down. Grace tried to look up. She only got a view of somebody looking down at her as they held her down. Only one thing floated through her mind.