by Rae Foxx
Lucifer brushed it off. "Eh, he's probably just overwhelmed trying to shore up the gate and walls," he said.
"Gabe, you wanna go city hopping with me again?" I asked before Lucifer could tell me to stay here. He could sit his ass here with Michael. "Luc and Michael, you two can stay here and try throwing power out farther and farther to try to lure demons here."
Luc's jaw worked like he was chewing back a retort, but he nodded curtly and disappeared into the house again. "Talk to him," I whispered to Michael.
Michael pressed a soft kiss to my lips and cupped my cheeks. "Be careful," he said. We disappeared with his hands still on my face.
We hopped from city to city all over the world for days on end. When we were exhausted, we'd return to the little house and catch a few hours sleep. Lucifer worked day and night, sending the demons brought by angels back to Abaddon. He slept in the living room, which they'd rearranged. Now the couch from my study was in there, too. Luc slept on one and Michael on the other. Word had spread among all the ranks of angels and they all knew to bring the demons directly here, to the living room.
After six days of it, we returned home to find Joel in our living room with Lucifer and Michael. "Just giving an update," he said when we walked in. "You have good timing."
I sat on the sofa opposite Lucifer and pressed close to Michael. "Go ahead."
"Raphael did have a few followers that have come forward. They have renounced him and given some information, but not much. If they aren't lying, it means he told each follower something different. We can piece a bit of it together, but we are missing a lot of information. He must have many more followers that have not denounced him."
"I want names," Lucifer growled. He may have been in his human body, but he was the Lord of the Darkness. The most brutally powerful Fallen in existence and one of the most powerful Archangels. Only Michael and Gabriel rivaled him, and they were on his side.
And Raphael, but unfortunately, he was not on our side.
"I can't give names," Joel said. "We only have suspicions. I won't have you torturing angels when you're not sure."
We'd been glad to get Joel on our side because he was a rule-follower and was unlikely to have fallen in with Raphael. Now, that rule-following was pretty damn annoying.
"What can you tell us?" I asked. "We need to sort this and find Raphael. It's more than just Ariel." My voice rose, fueled by my frustration and exhaustion. "It's the gates of fucking Abaddon," I yelled.
Joel held his hands up. "I get it. I'm not saying I won't help. I've got the name of a human. I'm following all sorts of angelic leads. I don't have time to follow human leads. But it seems possibly credible. But if you do anything evil to the man, I'm out. You'll be on your own and I'll use the resources of Heaven without you."
We exchanged a long look, Luc and I. "Agreed," he said after I gave him an old signal we'd worked out. I pursed my lips slightly. Not enough for anyone to notice unless they knew our code. If I'd flared my nostrils slightly, the answer would've been no.
"We will not do anything that might displease God," I said.
Joel seemed placated. "Okay. The woman's name is Mia Schmidt. She lives in Würzburg." He stood and looked at our exhausted states. "Good luck. I'll tell the angels to hold off on bringing any demons for the time being."
He disappeared, leaving us with a lead that could be a dead end. It could also lead us to our daughter. I jumped up, energized with hope. "Let's go."
We suited up before we went, strapping our holsters and handguns on again. No rifles, they were too cumbersome. Even Michael and Gabriel put weapons on. "We're dealing with humans," Gabe said when Lucifer teased him about it. "Can't be too careful. They're unpredictable."
That was the damn truth.
We joined hands and moved to Würzburg, where Gabe went into a small coffee shop to inquire. I followed to listen. The city was far too large for anyone to know our suspect directly, but Gabe managed to get a hold of a phone book. He spoke fluent German. I understood enough to get by, but wasn't fluent, not in this body. My magic would've helped me understand any language ever spoken or written, but I didn't have it flowing through me. I would've had to have actively used the little bit I could reach to understand the man behind the counter, and it wasn't worth the effort.
"Do you know how many Schmidts are in this phone book?" Gabe grumbled.
"Use your magic," I whispered.
He glared at me.
"What?" I laughed. "Mad you didn't think of it?"
"Yes." He pressed his finger to the page, and I felt his power surge. If any angels were in the vicinity, they would've, too. He did a modified version of a scrying spell, and his finger stopped on a specific number.
Double-checking the clerk was busy, Gabe ripped out the page of the phone book and set the book on the counter. "Danke," he called. The clerk waved.
"We have an address," Gabe told Michael and Lucifer when we walked out. I pulled out my cell phone and plugged in the coordinates, once again marveling at how technology helped us on a mostly magical quest.
"We can walk," I said. We could've popped in, but we weren't sure what we were going toward. Better to approach slowly with all our senses at full power. Not that it meant much for me and Luc, but for Gabe and Michael it did.
We walked about two miles to a small cottage on the outskirts of the city. Luckily, we'd arrived toward the edge anyway, since the city had to have covered a good thirty square miles easily.
A young boy chased a puppy in the front yard. As soon as I saw him, I knew.
"No," I breathed. "It can't be."
"I'll be damned," Luc said.
"That's important information to have," Gabe said.
Michael looked like he was going to be sick. "He made a Nephilim. God's going to kill him for sure."
"As if what he's already done isn't enough?" I asked.
"Maybe the birth of this child has convinced him that what he's doing, for whatever reason, is the right thing," Lucifer suggested. "I can vouch that the birth of a child makes you think differently."
He was right, but I hadn't realized he felt that way. It gave me hope for his future attitude, once we had our daughter back and everything fixed.
"Let's see who this child's mother is," I said. Walking toward the gate, I opened it easily. "Seems like there should be something stopping us," I whispered. The little boy noticed us and ran for the house. "He can't be more than four." Not that I was an expert on children's ages.
A pretty woman with long, dark hair came to the door. "Hello," she called in accented but clear English. "Can I help you?"
"Wait here," I told the men. "You'll scare her."
"Hello," I replied. "My name is Lilith." I considered giving a fake name, but as soon as the woman described us, anyone that knew us would automatically know who visited her. "Are you Mia?"
She stepped onto the porch with the dark-headed boy peeking out from behind her. Now that I got a close look at him, I saw Raphael all over his face and coloring.
"I am. What do you want?" She didn't seem hostile or suspicious. If she had any inkling of what was going on, she would've been, immediately.
"I'm looking for Raphael," I said flatly. "It's very important I find him."
Her face fell. "I'm sorry. Raphael hasn't lived here in many months."
Nodding, I pursed my lips and looked around the yard. "I was afraid of that. Would you mind if we asked you a few questions? It's a matter of life or death. I promise, we mean you no harm at all."
I laced my words with magic so that the woman would feel the truth of them. She nodded as she looked suspiciously behind me. "They are with you, yes?"
"Yes. The dark one," I pointed at Lucifer. He'd been in the sun enough to give himself a deep tan under his black hair. He always had tanned easily as Lucian. "Is my husband, and the other two are his best friends." Better leave out the polyamory part. "We're looking for our daughter, who has been kidnapped."
Mia gasped. "Oh,
no, please, do come in."
The front door opened into a tiny living room with open windows, letting the warm afternoon air in. It was a stark contrast from the last living room we'd visited, where the shades had been drawn for privacy. This woman didn't have a secret in her soul.
Too bad his father did. Mia gestured we should sit on her couch and one recliner. She perched on the edge of the coffee table with her little boy in her lap. "What can I tell you?" she asked. "How can my Raphy be involved with your daughter's kidnapping?"
"We believe he may have information that will help us, ma'am," Lucifer said. He put on his diplomatic face. "But we've been unable to track him down."
"He's been scarce for many weeks," she said. "He comes by on occasion, but his business keeps him traveling often." She gestured around the living room. "But his job keeps us in a comfortable home, so we cannot complain."
"I'm sorry," Michael said. "What is it that Raphael does?"
"He is an airline steward," she said. "He travels the world, flying on his wings, as he calls it." Well, at least that was partly true. He did have wings, could fly, and did travel the world. "He's working on his pilot's license, as well."
"Yes, that matches the information we have about him," Gabe said. "Has Raphael been acting out of the ordinary at all recently?"
She nodded. "Yes. We were married five years ago, a month after I turned twenty and Raphael was twenty-one. We were as the Americans call high school sweethearts. Then, a few months later, he disappeared for about a month. I was devastated."
"What happened?" I asked, filling my voice with sympathy.
"He returned and had a fantastical tale. He'd been in a car wreck in the United States while on an overnight and had temporary amnesia. When he got his memory back, he came home and not long after got me pregnant." She giggled and jostled the boy on her knee.
"But when he returned, he was different. I would've sworn his features changed slightly as silly as that sounds. But pictures of him looked the same. He acted differently. He became obsessed with research. He quit his job and took up the job with the airlines. He'd been a kindergarten teacher. He began researching in our bedroom constantly when he was here. I don't like saying these things out loud, but whatever accident he was in changed his brain. He wasn't the same man I fell in love with."
She was twenty-five now. That meant Raphael had come upon his Earth cycle roughly ten years after Lucifer and I had. When he was twenty-one, his human body died somehow. But instead of leaving his wife, like any angel would've and should've done, he returned to her. He either loved her or thought he'd found a good hiding place to do research.
"Mia, could we see his research?" I asked. "And when was the last time you spoke to Raphael?"
"It's been weeks, at least," she admitted. "I'm starting to worry. He usually checks in every time the plane lands and he gets the passengers off, but he's gone longer than he has since his accident."
She looked at Michael. "I'll go get it. He boxes it all up when he's not here." She stood and ruffled the boy's hair. "Go play outside but stay behind the fence."
He gave us a wide-eyed look and sprinted out the open front door. We didn't dare speak in the tiny house for fear Mia would hear us. She returned a few minutes later with a large box. "Sorry." She set it on the coffee table. "It's kind of a lot."
I felt Michael's power intensify and looked at him, wondering what he was about to do. "Wouldn't it be a good idea for you to go play outside with your son for a little while?" he asked Mia.
She nodded with a dreamy expression on her face. "That sounds lovely." She walked out the door, and Gabe jumped up to close it behind her.
We opened the box and immediately had answers. It was research on the origins of Hell. Abaddon. Michael reached in and pulled out several books. "These are supposed to be in the library in Heaven," he said. "They're angelic tomes."
I gazed at them in wonder. I hadn't seen any of the books from the Heavenly library since the Fall. I used to love reading them. They held so many secrets and answers to the world.
"Everything in here is somehow related to Abaddon." Lucifer ruffled through the handwritten notes. "He's been planning this longer than this one Earth cycle, though. He had to have been planning it when Lucian was born to place the spell on me as a baby."
"This has been going on way before Ariel," I whispered. "What made him do this?"
"And what are his plans?" Luc asked. "There's no telling what information he has that isn't here. This stuff isn't important enough. I think he probably took his important research with him. He didn't leave it here for anyone to find."
Damn. Fear filled my gut. "How close is he to succeeding?"
"Look at this," Gabe said. He pulled a small tablet out of the box. "It's still got a charge."
He scrolled through the recently opened apps. "He had a conversation with a man in the States. He claims to have something that will open the gates."
"Who is he?"
Gabe shook his head. "I don't know. He uses a screen name."
"Let's go. We'll find someone that can trace this." Michael took the tablet and pointed at the box full of papers and books. "Bring all that."
I looked out the window at Mia and the little boy. We hadn't even asked his name. "What about them?"
"There's nothing we can do for them. God is allowing the existence of another Nephilim, but he keeps his own counsel," Lucifer said, peering out over my shoulder. "Leave them be."
8
"Give me the tablet," I said as soon as we got home. "I was raised in the digital age. I'll find out who this guy is."
Five minutes and two social media accounts later, I had his name and basic info. He had most of his details set to private on his social media, but I was able to get his city and state. In another two minutes, I had to pay for one of those stupid information lookup websites, but I had his address and cell phone number.
"He lives in Maine," I read off my piece of paper. It had taken me all of eight minutes to get his address. They looked at me like I was a genius. Well, Lucifer didn't. He knew how to do this, too. He just smiled.
"Here we go, then," Michael said, standing wearily. "This is getting tiresome." I pulled out my phone and handed it to him. He consulted the map and we were off.
I chuckled and took his hand. This time we appeared in the man's back yard. "You got surprisingly close," I said.
"I've had lots of practice lately," he replied.
Gabe knocked on his door to no answer. With a trickle of magic, he unlocked the door and took a look around inside. "Not home."
I checked my notes. "He does patient transport at the Children's Hospital in the city.
Michael tapped his nose and took my hand. We appeared in a hospital corridor. Spotting a nurse's station, I motioned for the guys to wait at the end of the hall and walked up and gave them my most weary smile. I probably looked like any other worried parent in the place.
It helped that I was just as worried as all those parents. "Excuse me," I said softly.
The older lady gave me a sympathetic smile and leaned forward. "How can I help you?"
"I'm looking for Vincent Bird," I said. "He's a patient transport tech. He's supposed to be coming to get my daughter soon."
The nurse checked her computer and shook her head. "No, he's not clocked in."
I twisted my lips and clasped my hands on the counter. "I must've gotten mixed up about the time. What time does he come in?"
She clicked around and smiled. "Looks like he's on lunch. It's probably soon."
"Thank you so much." I gave her the most appreciative look I could muster and returned to the guys.
"Let's head to the cafeteria. He's on lunch."
"He may be in a break room or something," Lucifer said.
"Let's try the cafeteria first," I said. "Otherwise we might be SOL."
We hit the nearest elevator and went straight for the break room. Pulling out my phone, I found the hospital's security policy. "I
knew it," I whispered as we sat at a table in the middle of the floor so we could all have a view of part of the room. "Children's hospitals always have color-coded scrubs. Patient transport coordinators are light teal," I told my guys. "And here's his picture." Setting my phone on the table, I let them pass it around and look at his photo.
"I got him," Luc said seconds later. "At the booth alone."
We all surreptitiously looked around until we all had spotted him. "You three go wait out in the lobby," I said. "I'll wait here and follow him out. All four of us would be way too obvious."
We tiptoed around the hospital with one or more of us having eyes on Vincent, with Gabe, and Michael using various glamours throughout the afternoon until he went into an employee’s-only room. A quick walk by it showed me a few lockers as someone exited, so I figured he was probably getting his stuff.
We hit a bit of luck as he walked out of the building. We didn't have a car with us, so I wasn't sure how we'd follow him. "Hey, Vinnie, wanna get a beer?" Another man in light teal scrubs intercepted our man on his way out the door.
"Not tonight, man. I'm wiped." Vincent walked on out the door. "I'm going straight to bed."
We let him get to his car, way across the parking lot, before any of us spoke. "I vote we're in his living room when he walks in," I said.
"Agreed," Gabe pulled me into a hug. "I'm ready to get this figured out and sleep for about a month."
That sounded nice. My human body was wearing thin. Lucifer's had to be as well. They took us directly to Vincent's living room, and we collapsed on his couch to wait. I draped myself over the three of them.
When I was nearly dozing off, a door slamming jerked me back to full alertness. "Vinnie's home," Lucifer said with a gleeful smile.
We jumped up and whirled to face the doorway between the living room and kitchen. He'd come in the back door, through the kitchen. Luc and Michael flanked the door, leaving Gabe and me in the middle of the room to draw his attention.
