Sins of the Warrior

by Linda Poitevin

  Behind Jen.

  A third flash. The police photographer muttered an apology and retreated awkwardly from recording the gore that had dried on her face and neck. The lanky frame of her staff inspector filled her field of vision as Roberts squatted before her. His hand covered hers, its heat near scalding. She flinched.

  “They’re going to move her now,” he said.

  His voice was gruff. Exhausted. A part of Alex wanted to apologize to him for what had happened, for adding to his burden. A larger, colder part of her recognized the ludicrousness of the idea. Her sister had died because of her. There were no words of apology big enough. She met his concern. Nodded her understanding.

  “I know it’s late, but you’ll have to come back to the office. We need a statement.”

  Another nod.

  Roberts stared at her for a long moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Then his lips went tight.

  “What the hell, Alex.” The words were raw, seemingly ripped from him against his will. “You brought your gun into a psych ward?”

  She looked past him, over his shoulder. Excuses—lame, pitiful, meaningless excuses—piled up in her mind. There was no one at the nurse’s station when I went by. I didn’t think. I was tired. I wanted to go home, but I had to come here for Jen first. I had to tell her I’d seen Nina.

  I didn’t think.

  A forensics member wheeled a gurney into the room. Someone unzipped a body bag, and the zzzzzzt grated through the room.

  I didn’t think.

  Invisible steel clamped around Alex’s throat. That was all that mattered. She hadn’t thought. And now Jen was dead. Holy mother of—

  A god that didn’t exist.

  She choked on a bubble of hysteria. Clamped her teeth together. Watched Jen’s lifeless body lifted onto the gurney, tucked into the bag, zipped away from sight. The coroner met her gaze, hesitated, and then wordlessly followed her sister from the room. Alex folded her arms over her belly.

  Roberts’s hand tightened on her arm. “You okay?”

  She nodded. Shook her head. Then shook, period. Tremors engulfed her, slamming her teeth together, rattling through her entire body. Muscles went so rigid that they screamed in agony. She heard Roberts say her name, his voice insistent, but she couldn’t make herself answer him because her jaw had locked shut. Roberts put his arms around her and called to Abrams to find a doctor. Footsteps thudded out the door.

  Faint alarm sounded in the back of Alex’s mind. Could a person actually shake to death? Then fresh hysteria bubbled. Maybe. But it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t. No, she was going to get to live with this—with what she’d done to Jennifer—for thousands upon thousands of years. Millions of years.

  Eternity.

  Jennifer’s head exploded across her vision again, and Alex jerked back in her seat.

  Ohgodohgodohgod…

  “Alexandra.”

  The deep, imperious voice shot through her agony like a hot bullet through—

  Fuck. She gasped, seized her sanity in both hands, and held on with every atom of her being as she stared into the glittering emerald eyes of the Archangel Michael.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  *

  If she’d still had her gun, Alex had no doubt she would have shot him. Twice.

  She stood before Michael, fists clenched, trembling from head to toe. Her head swam from her violent lunge to her feet. Roberts had risen with her, and he reached for her arm. She shook him off and stepped forward, toe to toe with the Archangel who dared invade her grief. With every fiber of her being, she wished for the feel of her pistol nestled into her hand. Wished it wasn’t zipped away into an evidence bag. Wished she could fire the instrument that had taken her sister’s life at the being she held most responsible.

  It didn’t matter that no bullet could hurt Michael. Or that he might not even let one near him. It mattered only that he would have known the level of her fury. Her contempt. Her utter lack of regard for who and what he was.

  Because then, maybe, he wouldn’t be standing before her in a hospital room while her sister’s body was wheeled away, asking for—

  “My help?” Alex snarled. “On what fucking planet do you live that you would think—for even a nanosecond—that I would help you? Oh, wait. I forgot. You’re from Heaven, where you don’t think. At least not about anything other than yourselves.”

  Roberts seized her wrist. She pulled free.

  “Get out,” she told Michael.

  “You don’t know—”

  “I don’t care. Just as you don’t care.”

  “I never said I—”

  “Fuck you,” she said. “Fuck you, Michael. And fuck all the others like you, and fuck Heaven and Hell, and fuck the one who—”

  “Stop.” His voice cracked out, as sharp as the retort of a rifle, and wings that had been hidden made a sudden, shocking appearance, half unfurled behind him. Those who still moved about the room froze in mid-stride, mid-sentence, mid-breath.

  Alex looked into the fury that glittered in the emerald depths of Michael’s eyes, eclipsing her own a thousand times over. Reminding her of the awful power she challenged. For a moment, she quailed, taking a step back, holding up a hand in apology. Conciliation. And then she remembered what she had become, the losses she would endure for eternity. She dropped her hand to her side. Fingernails bit into her palm.

  “Or what?” she asked, her voice soft. Flat. “You’ll kill me? Be my guest. We both know you’d be doing me a favor.”

  For the third time, Roberts’s fingers clamped over her arm. This time his grip was unbreakable. He leaned in and hissed, “What the hell is going on, Alex? Who is this?”

  Alex met the challenge in Michael’s gaze, his steel-jawed, silent command. She waited for the familiar surge of defiance but felt nothing. Felt empty, hollow. Finished. She shook her head. “It’s nothing, Staff. He’s leaving.”

  Michael opened his mouth to speak.

  “Now,” she said.

  “We’re not done, Naph—Alex.”

  She laughed at that. A short bark that held no humor and made Michael’s eyes narrow dangerously.

  “We’ve been done for longer than you know,” she said. “Now get the hell out.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “In!” Seth’s voice barked through the door.

  Samael pressed his lips together and inhaled a slow breath through flared nostrils. Then, pasting as pleasant a look as he could muster on his face, he pushed into the Appointed’s office. A shirtless Seth stood by the fireplace, scowling at the ministrations of the Fallen One changing his bandage.

  Samael glanced at the exposed wound. It was still red and inflamed, but the green ooze had finally dried up. He nodded approval.

  “That looks better.”

  “I didn’t ask you here for a medical opinion. Have you found her?”

  “It’s been less than a day. You can hardly expect—”

  “I expect you to do as I’ve asked. Without making excuses.”

  Samael set his teeth against the desired retort. “Of course. No, we haven’t found her yet. But I have found someone we can trust to look for her.”

  “Everyone should be looking for her. Including you.”

  The Fallen One unrolled a fresh length of gauze, his gaze flicking between them.

  “Leave that.” Samael jerked his head toward the door. “Come back later.”

  Curiosity turned to speculation, but the former Virtue nodded. Leaving his supplies on the low table before the fireplace, he retreated from the room in silence. Samael waited for the click of the door. Then he turned to Seth.

  “I don’t think you fully appreciate how tenuous our situation is at the moment,” he said. “Your position here is hardly cemented, Seth. If the Fallen sense weakness—”

  Seth vaulted the couch and backhanded him before Samael registered movement. From his new position on the floor against the opposite wall, he put the back of his hand to a
split lip and stared up into cold, black eyes. Bloody Heaven, the Appointed became more unhinged by the day. Bloody, bloody Heaven.

  Settling his back against the wall, Samael rested an arm across one upright knee, keeping a watchful eye out for any more sudden moves. “May I ask what that was for?”

  “I’m sick of your lies and half truths, Archangel. I took back my power for you because you said I would have Alex, and now you try to excuse your failure to give her to me.”

  “That’s not how the conversation went. I said you could have her, yes, but I never once said I would deliver—”

  “Semantics!” Seth spat. “You wanted a ruler? You have one. You want me to lead your war? You give me Alexandra Jarvis. You have three days. After that, if I’m still unable to cross the threshold between the realms myself, I will pull every single Fallen One out of battle and send them after her. Do I make myself clear?”

  Out of the father’s madness and into the son’s. Bloody, fucking Heaven. Lucifer would have laughed himself sick at the mess Samael had landed himself in. The sooner the Naphil died and they redirected Seth’s attention to where it belonged, the better.

  “Perfectly clear, Appointed,” he said. “You’ll have her in three days.”

  Her body, at least.

  *

  Seth stared at the door Samael had closed behind him, clenching and unclenching his fists, swallowing against a bellow of fury and pain and bewilderment. A tentative knock sounded—the Virtue attempting to return and finish nurse duty, no doubt, and he snarled at him to fuck off. Footsteps scurried away. Silence descended.

  Fear slithered into his chest, wrapped around his throat, tried to become panic. He was alone again. Alone with the ghost of his father and his own memories, feeling himself bleed to death in his very core. Seth gripped the hair on either side of his head and pressed fists against his skull. Damn it, what was happening? This slow unraveling of his very sanity, this relentless ache within him. Even as his physical wounds healed, even as he heard and on some level agreed with Samael’s lectures on becoming a leader, Seth felt himself coming apart. Felt the hollow in his core growing.

  He couldn’t lead. Not like this.

  Alex.

  It all came down to Alex. To the driving, all-consuming need to find her. To hold her and know her and be with her.

  And if Samael didn’t get that, then Seth would find someone who did.

  CHAPTER 13

  ROBERTS’S HAND APPEARED IN front of Alex’s face, a steaming mug of coffee in its grasp. She blinked, then extended an arm from within the folds of the blanket someone had given her.

  “Thank you.”

  Her supervisor grunted. He walked around the plain metal table and lowered himself into the chair opposite. “Joanne’s almost done typing your statement. It should only be another few minutes.”

  Alex nodded and returned to staring out the window beside her. Seconds ticked by, measured by the rhythmic drumming of Roberts’s fingers on the tabletop.

  Eyes burning, her gaze flicked to the wall of white boards lining Homicide. She should have stayed. Should have kept working on the files. If she hadn’t gone to the hospital tonight, hadn’t told Jen about seeing Nina—

  The echo of a gunshot reverberated through her skull, making her jump. Hot coffee sloshed onto her hand. Across the table, Roberts made to rise, but she shook her head at him and used a corner of the blanket to swipe at the spill. Then she made herself sip the coffee, gagging at its sickly sweetness.

  “You’re in shock,” Roberts said. “You need the sugar. Drink.”

  Funny how he said that as if she cared. As if she should, too. She thought about putting the mug down, but fighting with Roberts about it would require too much energy. She sat back and took another mouthful. Swallowed. Her gaze trailed back to the boards again.

  So many dead. So many hurting.

  Roberts cleared his throat. “So. You ready to talk about the…other stuff?”

  “Can we do this tomorrow?” Her throat ached from unshed tears. Unspoken grief. Bottomless, infinite despair.

  “He had wings, Alex.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I know.”

  “And he asked for your help.”

  More like demanded it, but whatever.

  “Who was he?” Roberts’s voice gentled, but it didn’t lose its edge of insistence. He wasn’t going to let this go.

  “Michael,” she whispered. “He was the Archangel Michael.”

  Silence. The audible sound of Roberts opening and closing his mouth. Clearing his throat.

  “I thought it might be,” he said at last.

  Alex didn’t think for an instant he was as calm as his tone tried to suggest. The interview room door opened and heels, the sturdy, sensible ones preferred by Roberts’s assistant, clacked into the room.

  “Your statement, Staff Inspector.”

  “Thank you, Joanne.”

  Papers shuffled in an exchange of hands.

  Joanne’s gentle touch descended on Alex’s shoulder. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  Looking up into the warm, motherly compassion of a woman who normally epitomized brusque professionalism, Alex nearly came undone on the spot. She gripped the mug, holding fast to the remnants of a toughness she wished she could abandon, but didn’t dare. First, because it had become such a habit that she didn’t know how to let it go anymore; and second, because she suspected it might be all that held her together. All that prevented her from following her sister’s descent into the madness she herself had once wished for. A madness that turned out not to be the escape she’d imagined after all.

  Unable to summon a smile, she instead unlocked one hand from its hold on the coffee cup and gave Joanne’s capable fingers a reassuring squeeze.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m just going to sign this, and then I’m going home to sleep. Thank you for coming in tonight to do this.”

  “Pfft.” Joanne waved away her words. “It was nothing. We’re a team here. We look out for one another. Which is why I’m sure the staff inspector will make sure someone drives you home when you’re ready.”

  Roberts’s mouth twitched at the thinly veiled command. “Of course.”

  Sturdy heels clacked away. The interview room door closed again, shutting out the ringing of a phone and the mumble of voices belonging to people Alex couldn’t see. People who had given up sleep and returned to work because of her sloppiness. Her stupidity.

  Abrams, she thought. And maybe Bastien. Joly would still be at home. Had anyone called to tell him about this latest incident? Not that it mattered. He would find out soon enough.

  Her supervisor slid the statement across the table to her. Alex uncurled from the chair and leaned forward to set the mug on the table. With cramped fingers, she accepted the pen and put its tip to the signature line.

  “You should read it over,” Roberts said.

  Her fingers tightened. Relive again, in black and white this time, the part she had played in Jen’s suicide? She scrawled her name, set the pen across the paper, and sat back, tucking the tremble of her hands into the blanket folds. “That’s it? I can go now?”

  “We haven’t—”

  She stood, letting the blanket fall to the floor. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

  Roberts stared at her, conflict in his brown eyes. Then he sighed. “I’ll get Abrams to run you home.”

  CHAPTER 14

  IT WAS THREE A.M. when Alex locked the apartment door and leaned her forehead against its cold, unyielding metal. Silence loomed behind her. Not the comforting silence of coming home, but the kind that pressed in, squeezing the air from her lungs, making her smaller, trying to push her into the floor. She sagged beneath its weight.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The wall clock in the living room marked the passage of seconds. The bundle of keys in her hand bit into her palm.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Through the windows overlooking the street came the wail of a siren and
the strident klaxon of a fire truck’s horn.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  The keys dropped from Alex’s hand. She pressed her palms over her ears, but the everyday noises continued to intrude. The clatter and whirr of the refrigerator motor in the kitchen; a truck rumbling by on the street. Overwhelmingly familiar sounds incurred by a life she was no longer sure she wanted to live…

  And one she couldn’t escape.

  Nostrils flaring, she turned from the thought to face the emptiness. The light from the ceiling fixture above her gave up halfway into the living room, leaving the corners in deep, impenetrable shadow. A liquid chill slid down her spine.

  Anyone could be in one of those corners.

  Stop it. Seth is gone. He’s not coming back.

  No one is coming back.

  She stooped to snatch up the keys she’d dropped.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  BANG.

  The crack of a gunshot dropped her to the floor. She scrabbled for her gun, instinctively, automatically. Fingers connected with an empty holster. Her heart stopped. Then she remembered. Her eyes closed.

  Fuck.

  There was no gun, just as there was no one hiding in the apartment. She was alone, and the shot hadn’t been real. It had been the sound of Jennifer dying all over again, imprinted on Alex’s brain, on her every fiber, for eternity.

  Beautiful, clever, funny, gentle Jen.

  Dead.

  Alex lurched upright and bolted for the toilet.

  A few minutes later, she lifted her head from the sink and stared her reflection’s hollow eyes in the mirror. Water dripped from her chin and trickled down her neck, wetting the t-shirt someone had given her to replace the blouse covered in blood and bits of Jen’s brains. Beside her, the toilet gurgled as it emptied, then refilled. She turned off the tap, swiped a hand towel over her face, and dropped it onto the counter. Then she headed for the Scotch.

  Bottle and glass in hand, she shoved aside the jumble of blankets on the couch where she’d taken to sleeping since Seth’s departure, poured a generous three fingers of amber liquid into the glass, and tossed it back in a single swallow. The liquor burned its way down her throat and into her belly. She waited a moment to make sure it wouldn’t go the way of Roberts’s oversweetened coffee, then sloshed more into the glass and set the bottle on the table. She leaned back.