Grounded ~Book Four of Winged~

Safe House

People come and go from Beleth's room getting our things together so that we can leave for this 'safe' house soon. Hell rumbles several times while Beleth stays by my as we watch the servants enter and leave the room. The rumbling seems to keep happening more and more frequently. The Angels must be close to breaking in. Someone knocks on the door causing Beleth and I look over wondering who is knocking when servants are just walking in and out the already open door. Dominic, Eli, and Belphegor stand with their own bags. They all look eager to leave Hell; to avoid the all-out war that will erupt as soon as the Angels break open Hell.

"I guess that's our queue, ready?" Beleth looks down at me and I nod slowly.

"Where are we going?" Dominic questions.

"Brazil." We all look at Beleth confused.

"Brazil? What's in Brazil that can keep her safe?" Belphegor speaks sounding quite confused. I look back and forth between Belphegor and Beleth confused, also wondering what is so special about Brazil.

"In Vale Do Javari, never fully explored, was a old, old temple that has been untouched for centuries maybe even a millennium. It is naturally heavily warded and isn't in complete ruins so it will provide shelter from the elements." Beleth explains.

"How did you find it?" Eli steps into the room.

"I've had people looking for it since before I died. A group of people who passed down their search to their kids and they passed it down to their kids and then on to their kids and so on and now they've found it." Beleth explains and his arm casually wraps around me and brings me closer to him.

"If It's heavily warded. How are we supposed to get into it? How is Trinity supposed to enter?" Dominic questions critically.

"The warding makes it invisible including anything inside of it, which is why it was so hard to find and the warding against Angelic and Demonic beings was temporarily canceled out for us until we get there and then we will add back a more selective warding so that we can come and go as needed. It is near Igarapé Beija-Flor." A silent conversation passes between Beleth, Dominic, Eli, and Belphegor before Beleth abruptly turns and waves a hand, summoning a passage.

"Let's go." Beleth takes my hand and leads me into the passage. Before I step in, I glance back at everyone else to see that they are also summoning passages and are stepping into them too. As soon as we step out of the passage it is extremely humid and it is warm. It's night time and very dark, but I can tell that we are surrounded my trees and plants because of the very little moonlight that is making it through the trees and plants. I hear a million insects and animals making noises from all directions. I hear something move fast from nearby and it causes me to jump and grab onto Beleth tightly. Beleth holds me tightly for a second before pulling away and tightly grabbing my hand, leading me through all the plants. I have a layer of sweat on me within seconds because of how humid it is and the warmth. I can kind of hear moving water near us, but I can't see any water source. Beleth stops walking and I also stop, looking around. In front of us I see a large old, crumbling stone building. There are vines growing all over it and plants growing out of the cracks in the stone. Beleth waves his hand and a bunch of torches along the building that I didn't see before in the dark, ignite to life. In the flickering light, I see that the stone of the building is brownish grey from how old it is and that in certain areas the stone looks greenish from moss that has grown. There are crumbling stone steps that lead up to a wooden plank door that looks like it could fall off its hinges if I just breathed on it.

"I'll clean it up for you." Beleth comments and leads me to the stairs. Beleth steps up first and I follow closely behind him. He goes up to the wooden door and opens the door, it sticks a little, but eventually opens in all the way. There are old candles burning already on the inside of the building. The building already smells old and damp. Off to the left is a small hall that leads to a room that looks like there is a wooden table in it, but that's all I can see from here. In front of us are a few steps leading into a large open room. There is a circle hole in the ceiling with broken glass on the edges where there must have been a skylight once upon a time; there are vines hanging down from the skylight. Directly below the skylight is broken glass on the smooth stone floor that looks like it used to have designs that are now very faded. There are old unstable looking benches, chairs, and tables scattered all over the room and many bookshelves that are mostly empty against the back wall. In the middle of the room off to both sides are doorways that lead to hallways. I step past Beleth and down the couple steps, into the large room. I walk to the middle of the room, underneath the skylight. The broken glass crunches under my feet. I look to the left and see that the hallway has five doorways in it and to the right is a hallway exactly the same as the left. Above each of the doorways is an intricate design carved into the grey stone.

"Whoa..." I barely realize that it escapes my mouth. I turn at the sound of footsteps coming into the building and see that it is just Dominic, Eli, and Belphegor with their bags. They also stasre in awe at this place.

Etheriel

We walk aimlessly through the forest and every once in a while, we pass a wondering soul. We walk in complete silence except for the sound of our footsteps in the grass.

"Are we close?" I question and glance at Zerachiel and then Azrael. Zerachiel stops walking and looks around. Azrael stops and looks at Zerachiel.

"You sense it too, huh?" Azrael questions Zerachiel and I tilt my head slightly confused.

"Yeah... Something is wrong." Zerachiel replies.

"What's wrong?" I question.

"We've gotten no closer to the exit. It's like the exit is moving as we do. We will never make it to there." Azrael looks around slowly.

"We're trapped here. There is no exit back to the mortal realm and there is no exit to Heaven..." Zerachiel says quietly.

"We're trapped...?"