Skulduggery was about to remind Gabe, once again, that he couldn't fly, and therefore 'slipping past them in flight' would be even more difficult than the Archangel was imagining. He barely had a chance to start getting the words out, however, when Gabriel snatched him up and took off anyway.
The expression 'there one moment and gone the next,' which Skulduggery had always considered somewhat of a hyperbole, didn't even begin to describe what just happened. It was like he blinked and suddenly they were about halfway up the mountain, and there was absolutely nothing Skulduggery could do but trust that his friend had everything under control.
After living for over four hundred years, he thought he'd experienced everything there was to experience. Angel flight, he reflected, was something very few people probably got to experience - and certainly no one from his own world. Despite everything, there was a small glow of pride.
He didn't feel Gabe falter, but he did feel the Faceless Ones taking advantage of it. Their immediate presence slammed against his bones with the force of a speeding car, and then the Archangel's grip vanished and Skulduggery was falling. He just barely had the time to solidify the air surrounding him before he crashed down into a shallow pit outside one of the larger buildings carved out of the mountain itself.
Cushioning the impact was all that had kept his skeletal frame from flying apart. As it was, Skulduggery blinked away the painful haze to discover that his right arm had, once again, snapped out of its socket with the blow.
... At least the arm had remained intact this time. With a short groan, Skulduggery dragged himself over to it, jammed it painfully back on, and turned to find a pile of rubble a short distance away, dust drifting over the ruined stone like smog.
"Gabe?" he called out, staggering to his feet. "Gabe?" For all the hopelessness Skulduggery had felt these past days, the foreboding disappearance of this last hope struck him more harshly than he'd thought it would. Perhaps he really was coming to believe this version of his friend was real.
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The expression 'there one moment and gone the next,' which Skulduggery had always considered somewhat of a hyperbole, didn't even begin to describe what just happened. It was like he blinked and suddenly they were about halfway up the mountain, and there was absolutely nothing Skulduggery could do but trust that his friend had everything under control.
After living for over four hundred years, he thought he'd experienced everything there was to experience. Angel flight, he reflected, was something very few people probably got to experience - and certainly no one from his own world. Despite everything, there was a small glow of pride.
He didn't feel Gabe falter, but he did feel the Faceless Ones taking advantage of it. Their immediate presence slammed against his bones with the force of a speeding car, and then the Archangel's grip vanished and Skulduggery was falling. He just barely had the time to solidify the air surrounding him before he crashed down into a shallow pit outside one of the larger buildings carved out of the mountain itself.
Cushioning the impact was all that had kept his skeletal frame from flying apart. As it was, Skulduggery blinked away the painful haze to discover that his right arm had, once again, snapped out of its socket with the blow.
... At least the arm had remained intact this time. With a short groan, Skulduggery dragged himself over to it, jammed it painfully back on, and turned to find a pile of rubble a short distance away, dust drifting over the ruined stone like smog.
"Gabe?" he called out, staggering to his feet. "Gabe?" For all the hopelessness Skulduggery had felt these past days, the foreboding disappearance of this last hope struck him more harshly than he'd thought it would. Perhaps he really was coming to believe this version of his friend was real.