“Come on, Ully. If you keep dragging your feet, we won’t make it.”
“Alright. What’s so important about finding her anyway?”
“I’m her angel. It’s what I do.”
“Then you probably should’ve tried harder not to get thrown into Hell. You were of no help to anyone there.”
Toby didn’t answer, unwilling to admit just how much Ully’s words stung. He led them deeper into the jungle. The branches hurried to create a path for him, and he smiled at them. According to his angel memories, the trees were more than trees in Death’s underworld. They were alive.
“Thank you, trees,” he said as he walked. “Angel memories say …” He turned to see Ully several meters away, suspended in the air and battling branches that tried to grab his arms. “Trees! Stop!”
Ully was dropped to the ground at Toby’s command. He hurried back to the Immortal, worried he’d be hurt. Ully was unconscious.
“What’s gotten into you?” Toby asked the trees. “He’s my friend! Leave him alone.”
The branches around him darted around then fell still, as if watching. Toby knelt beside Ully and grunted as he rolled the Immortal onto his back. Disappointed to have their journey paused already, he looked around then back at Ully.
Something about the trees’ reaction to Ully bothered him. They’d cleared a path for him then tried to obstruct the Immortal. It didn’t make much sense. Toby rose and walked to the nearest tree, placing his hands against it. There were no angel memories about how trees communicated, but he willed it to speak to him anyway.
It didn’t. Frustrated he couldn’t help Katie while Ully was out, Toby started off again into the jungle, looking at each tree until he found one he thought he could climb. He leapt to the lowest branch, which slithered in his grip before it wrapped around him. Toby gasped as the branch picked him up then waited.
“Up, above the tree line,” Toby said, stretching towards the next one.
The branch obliged him and passed him upwards to another, which stretched him as far up as it could reach. Then dropped him. Toby yelped as he fell. Another branch caught him and lifted him upwards again.