Amber Dan-Dwayne Spencer (romantic books to read .txt) 📖

says the book contains the key to holding back the night. It’s all kinda cryptic. It continues: ‘light and dark can’t exist together. Light casts out darkness; therefore, darkness waits for the light to exhaust itself before rising. In the depths of night mortal champions hold the principalities at bay.’ What’s a Principality?”

I didn’t have the answer, and nothing popped up in my mind’s eye. Everyone else fell silent. I looked up, and the librarian stood next to me. “A Principality is someone who is given charge over a province or territory.” She wasn’t smiling. “I don’t know what games ya’ll are playing, but you had better not have written in this book.” She whirled around and looked at the pages one by one. “I think your time with this volume has run out. To be more precise, I think your time has run out in this library. Please leave.”

Confusion filled me. She was kicking us out for getting a little loud when she just made everyone in the library turn and stare. Roger flipped through the next few pages and scanned what he could before a security guard headed our way.

Stoney grabbed Roger’s damp collar and pulled him away from the rare book section, passed the checkout desk, and out into the parking lot. All the while, Roger protested there was more left to read. “Get off me I need to read the next few pages,” Roger declared. “I’m going back in there.”

Stoney stepped in front of Roger. “Getting arrested would be a fatal error at this point on our search.”

Jimmy put his hand on Roger’s shoulder. “If you could have read the book without yelling, you could still be reading,” he scolded.

“Why could Roger see the prophecy in the book and I couldn’t?” I asked. “I’m supposed to be the prophet.”

“That wasn’t something prophetic,” Flower said, “It was a code. Think of it like a puzzle. Roger saw right through it.” She put her hand over Jimmy’s hand, resting on Roger’s thin shoulder. The both of them visibly calmed down. “Roger, where do we go from here? What did you read in the book?”

“I think we need to go to the cemetery. It’s where The Book of Uriel should be. I’d be certain if that harpy let me finish reading.”

A strange expression blazed across Flower’s face. “Get in the van. We have to go.”

Stoney said, “We don’t know the way to the cemetery. Which way do I go?”

“It doesn’t matter we need to leave now,” she insisted. “That librarian probably wasn’t all she seemed to be.” She closed her eyes and mumbled to herself, “I should have thought of it before.” Opening them, she said, “What if that librarian was a supernatural Principality, a sentry protecting a sacred artifact? A sentry’s duty is to sound an alarm. There could be scores of demons here any minute.”

Roger interjected, “But they don’t know where the thing is any more than we do. If they knew about this book… Well, it clearly describes where The Book of Uriel is hidden.”

“No, they don’t know its whereabouts,” Flower said. “Their knowing about it doesn’t mean they understood it. If they guessed the importance of this book, then it stands to reason… they had it watched.”

Jimmy asked, “Surely, angels can read—and it tells where to look for the other book—what’s stopping them from getting ahold of the important book and the talisman too?”

Roger’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Because they couldn’t read it any better than you guys could. My gift allowed me to read it. The angels don’t have our supernatural gifts.”

“Like I said,” Flower demanded, “let’s get out of here before Ishtar’s faithful shows up or it will be a replay of the Woodstock battle—only this time none of us will survive.”

“Drive behind the DX service station there’s a gravel drive-through. I saw it earlier, and I need to ask Josh for directions.” I said.

Stoney waited behind the station with the van, while I asked Josh how to get to the cemetery. The fallen angels weren’t the only ones who could put up sentries. Jimmy and Roger staked out the edges of the building just in case Ishtar’s cronies spotted us.

Minutes later I returned with the directions, “Head west down State Line Road. It follows the border between Arkansas and Missouri. I’ll tell you when to turn as we go.”

Jimmy raised his hand and called out, “We have company.”

Across the street, two black and white State Police cruisers pulled up in front of the County Library.

“That prince-a-harpy called the cops,” Roger sneered.

“Those may not be real police. We’ve already seen how they took over Sheriff Briggs,” Stoney warned. “They could be demons in disguise.”

I glanced toward the woods. There, standing in the clearing between the gravel and the trees, stood the little girl who delivered the news of Rose’s abduction.

Flower called out, “Everyone back into the van.”

Stoney had it moving as we climbed in. When he heard the doors slam shut, he put his foot down on the accelerator pedal and threw gravel back at the child-like demon. Staring through the back window, I watched as the child transformed into something subhuman. She cracked her legs into the awkward backward position that the demon’s bodies usually took on and lunged for the van at breakneck speed.

Stoney didn’t let up on the accelerator and continued to sling rock as he drove up on the concrete. Finally able to get traction—the wheels screamed—leaving black, stinky tread behind. The van catapulted up onto the road, careening from side to side to stay upright.

The demon-child chased on all fours. Her arms and calves extended, claws digging into the pavement, she advanced on the van. From the library’s parking lot, the State Police cars joined the chase. Sirens blaring, they raced behind the slathering blond demon.