Of Light And Shadows

Chapter Forty One...

"Jia? Hey, can you hear me shortstack?" Something warm touched Jia's cheek as her eyelids fluttered.

"Jia, look at me." Another voice like liquid gold. Lucifer. She opened her eyes to find him and Mammon leaning over her where she lay on a plush sofa inside Lanthia's gorgeous little cottage. Asmodeus and Desiree hovered near the sofa arm with concerned looks on their faces and Sellik and Evander stood behind Mammon and Louie where they knelt in front of her on the floor. Lanthia appeared with a tray of steaming mugs for everyone.

"Louie?" Jia mumbled, and his shoulders sagged with relief as her eyes found his at last. She was vaguely aware of Beelzebub following Lanthia into the room with a tray of cakes in his hands as she struggled to keep her focus in one place for long.

"Lanthia called for us when you fainted. What did you do, doofus?" Mammon asked gently, tugging Jia's sleeve to get her attention.

"The ley lines," she said hoarsely. "I followed the ley lines."

"You can't follow ley lines," Mammon frowned. "It's possible to see them and manipulate things using them but you can't actually travel through them." He turned to Lanthia. "Can you?"

"I hadn't thought so until now. But Jia certainly did travel through them. In fact she followed our ley line and managed to cross to an intersecting one all from her position beneath our moon gate." The Witch leaned down and pressed a gentle hand to her forehead. "I think she exhausted herself and fainted. There's no sign of fever or injury. A good cup of tea and a cake is what she needs."

Lucifer helped Jia sit up gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her steady as she swayed where she sat. Mammon raised an eyebrow at the contact but kept his comments to himself, reaching instead for an iced bun before Bee could scarf them all down.

The first sip of tea was hot, but nice. It tasted strange but not in an unpleasant way. She found herself wondering which herbs in the enchanted garden had been used to brew it.

When she felt better she set the cup aside and passed a hand over her eyes, remembering the pulsing lights and the speed at which her soul had travelled across the realms without needing help from anybody else.

"There was another moon gate," she said softly. "In the Demonic realm."

"You weren't in the Demonic realm," Asmodeus frowned. "You were in the back garden."

"In body, perhaps," Lanthia interjected. "In soul she was elsewhere. Jia, I had no idea how far you'd gone. How did you do it?"

"I'm not sure. I was following the pulse like you said and when I reached the edge of the wards I sensed Jezebeth's magic so I sort of...followed it. It led me down the ley line to where the two joined so I kept going." She remembered the shadowy figure in the moon gate and the thunder clap as they collided. "I think I knocked her loose."

"You did what?" Lucifer asked, his brow furrowing. "How?"

"I sort of...tackled her with my consciousness. I was going pretty fast so I thought if I went faster I could knock her right out of the moon gate and stop whatever she was doing." She smiled at him sheepishly.

"It worked," Desiree said, shooting her a look of appreciation. "You could've killed yourself by being that idiotic but what you did got rid of whatever was restricting the wards. We managed to expand them right to the edges of the city."

"Oh, that's good." Jia felt abruptly ravenous as she reached for the plate of desserts and bit into a wonderfully sweet lemon pastry. "So what does that mean for the Vampires?" she asked, glancing at Evander as she chewed.