A hard lump dug into her tailbone, and she probed the cushions behind her. Her hand closed over the barrel of her spare pistol. She’d forgotten to lock it away before leaving the apartment. Damn, but she was getting sloppy.
She pulled out the gun and stared at it. Then she tossed it onto the table beside the bottle, snorting at her naiveté. She could sleep with an entire arsenal, and it wouldn’t do her one iota of good if Seth decided to come for her.
Her gaze rested on the pistol. Cold curiosity whispered through her. Tilting the glass, she turned her wrist outward and traced a fingertip over the forearm that had been laid open in the fight for Aramael’s life and her freedom.
No trace of injury marred the skin, but what did that prove? The room had been filled with the energy of angels. Maybe that’s what had healed her. Maybe Michael had been wrong and Seth had failed. Maybe she could still—
“Trust me,” a deep male voice drawled, “it won’t work.”
Alex froze. In an instant, her every cop instinct leaped to life. She tuned into the presence looming behind her, gauging his distance from her. Her own distance from the weapon she’d just set on the table.
Her chances of reaching it before her visitor did.
“I said it won’t work,” the voice repeated, punctuated by the rustle of feathers.
Alex’s hope died.
An angel. Or a Fallen One. Either way, she didn’t stand a chance of moving fast enough, and even if she did, the gun would be useless against him. Her fingers tightened on her glass. With her free hand, she reached to switch on the lamp at her side. Then she looked over her shoulder to the figure beside the window. Tall and brooding, with tattered gray wings rising above him, their dishevelment marking him as Fallen.
Alex could think of only one reason for him to be here.
She waited for the fear to kick in. The terror at having her worst nightmare come true. This was it. Seth had found her. He’d sent someone to bring her back to him. He intended to claim her as he’d promised.
But as the wall clock behind the Fallen One ticked off the seconds, only a flat, cold calm settled over her. This might be it, but damned if she couldn’t summon so much as a whisper of hysteria. Too much had happened in the last day. The uniforms, Nina, Jen. She had nothing left. No reaction. No energy to care.
She studied her uninvited guest, meeting his gaze with an assessing one of her own. Well. If she couldn’t escape him, and she wasn’t going to fold in on herself, only one option remained. She raised her glass.
“Drink?” she inquired.
The Fallen One crossed his arms and rested a shoulder against the window frame. He surveyed her with a mix of annoyance and interest. “That’s it? An angel appears to you, and all you do is offer him a drink?”
She moved the glass in a half-hearted wave of dismissal. “Sorry if my lack of shrieking offends you. It’s been a week from Hell, and I seem to be fresh out of hysterics.”
Her visitor scowled, and she swallowed a snort. Had she really just apologized to a Fallen One? And referred to her week as one from Hell? Maybe you’re losing it after all, Jarvis. Christ, maybe you’ve already lost it.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Too bad immortality couldn’t make her immune to headaches.
“Do you not want to know why I’m here?” Irritation threaded the Fallen’s voice.
“I’m pretty sure I already do.” She downed her drink and reached for the bottle. She looked askance at her guest.
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
She sloshed more liquid into her glass, then slipped the boots from her feet and leaned back again. Time to get down to it. She closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled.
“So,” she said. “I was right to think he’d come after me.”
“You knew Samael would send for you?”
Samael? Alex cracked open one eye, a ripple of interest disturbing her calm. “Who the Hell is Samael?”
“He was Lucifer’s right hand.” The angel shrugged. “Presumably he’s now Seth’s.”
That made her open the other eye. She studied him, noting again the air of neglect. The shabbiness. “You don’t know?”
“I’m not from Hell.”
“Well, you’re certainly not from Heaven.”
Disheveled wings gave an irritated shake. “And you’re an expert on angels and Fallen, are you?”
She ran fingers through her hair. They snagged on a dried bit of something, and with a shudder, she dropped her hand to her lap. Damn, she needed a shower. She scowled at the Fallen One. “Wherever you’re from and whoever sent you doesn’t matter, does it? You’re still here to take me to Seth.”
Genuine surprise flickered in the zircon-blue eyes. “What in all of Creation would Seth want with a Naph—”
He broke off. Stared. Then he rubbed the back of one hand along his jaw. Slowly. Thoughtfully. “I’ll be damned. You’re that Naphil? The one who struck down the Appointed with an Archangel’s sword?”
He hadn’t known? Then why was he here? Why had this Samael sent him?
“I asked you a question.” The Fallen’s gaze took on a dangerous glint.
Alex’s muscles tensed. Regardless of who’d sent him, if he had connections to Hell, he might not react well to knowing she’d tried to kill their precious Appointed. An insidious whisper filtered into her mind: Maybe if you tell him, he’ll kill you instead of taking you back there. Maybe you won’t have to live for an etern—
Cruel fingers sank into her shoulders and yarded her to her feet. The Fallen One shook her with a force that snapped her head back. Pain streaked through her skull, and the glass of Scotch flew from her grasp.
“Answer me, Naphil!”
Fear flared, driving a response past her lips.
“Yes! Yes, I’m the one with the sword.”
“How? No human can wield the sword of an Archangel.”
“I don’t know. He—Aramael gave it to me. He was dying. I had no choice but to use it.”
Another shake, another jolt of pain. “You’re lying. Aramael was a Power, not an Archangel.”
“He was promoted. After Heaven found out Caim’s murder wasn’t really his fault, that Mittron planned the whole—”
This shake made her teeth slam together.
“Mittron?” His breath scorched her cheek and spittle sprayed her lips. He shook her again. “You know about Mittron? Where is he?”
Alex twisted against his hold, but he paid no attention. “I don’t know. He disappeared from his cell after he attacked me and—”
“What cell?”
Shake. Alex’s head swam. An unexpected and very human instinct for survival struggled to the surface, surprising her with its strength. She shoved against the Fallen’s chest.
“Stop it! I can’t think when you’re shaking me, and I won’t be able to talk at all if I pass out.”
The Fallen’s hold tightened for a second, then he thrust her away, watching as she toppled to the floor and sprawled at his feet.
“Everything,” he said though clenched teeth, towering over her. “I want to know everything you know about him.”
CHAPTER 15
“It didn’t go well,” Verchiel said. A statement, not a question.
Mika’el dropped into the wingback chair in front of the Highest Seraph’s desk. Bracing an elbow on the padded arm, he rubbed his hand over his temple and along his jaw, then rested his cheek against his fist. Creation help him if he didn’t feel more tired after a three-minute encounter with Alexandra Jarvis than he did after a full day of battle with the Fallen.
“No,” he growled. “It didn’t.”
“She refused?”
“She didn’t give me the chance to ask.” He shook his head, knuckles digging into his cheekbone. “She’s beyond reach, Verchiel, and well beyond any inclination to help us. Seth may have made her immortal, but she still has the fragile mind of a human, and too much has happened to her at the hands of the divine.”
Verchie
l’s lips tightened. “More than you know,” she said, sliding a sheet of parchment across the desk. “Our timing may have been somewhat poor.”
Mika’el stared at the buff-colored sheet for a second before he took it. He scanned the spidery scrawl of a Principality’s incident report, destined for the Archives. His blood turned cold. “Her sister?”
“Half an hour before you got there.”
“Bloody Hell, Seraph—you couldn’t have found this out before I barged into that hospital room? No wonder she reacted as she did. How did we not know this?”
“Internal communications aren’t what they used to be. We’re doing our best, but with so many at the front…” Verchiel shrugged. “Some things are bound to fall through the cracks.”
Mika’el resisted the urge to crumple the sheep of paper and hurl it across the room. Or to burn it right in his grasp. He dropped it onto the desk instead, then raked his fingers through his hair. He wanted to rail against the Highest for allowing such an error, but in all good conscience, he could not. Not when he knew she spoke the truth. And not when internal communications wasn’t the only branch to show signs of slipping. Gardens went untended and hallways unswept; books in the library had remained unshelved for more than two weeks. With all but a handful of angels on the front line, the entire realm wore an air of neglect.
It was one more irritation that sat like a grain of sand in his shoe.
He leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
Verchiel cleared her throat. “What do we do next?”
“Honestly?” he asked wearily. “I have no idea.”
He sensed her startlement and waited for the objection he knew hovered on her lips. The building’s emptiness closed in on him.
The Highest Seraph rose from behind her desk with a rustle of robes. He listened to her cross the office and heard the quiet click of the door closing. For a moment, he thought she’d left. A part of him wouldn’t have blamed her. But the swish of fabric heralded her return to the desk.
“I don’t think I can keep this up, Mika’el. Not without someone to lead us. Not without hope.”
The weight across Mika’el’s shoulders bore down another notch.
“Well, you’ll have to, Verchiel, because I sure as Hell can’t do it alone.”
Hands slammed onto the desktop with a crack of sound that made his eyes snap open. He found the Highest Seraph scowling—actually scowling—at him, her pale blue eyes crackling with fire. She leaned forward.
“When,” she demanded, “will you get it through your obstinate head that we cannot do this together, either? We’ve tried, Mika’el. Damn it, we’ve tried everything, and still the realm crumbles around us. Without a god to rule it, Heaven is lost. We are lost.”
Mika’el pushed out of the chair. Fingers locked behind his aching head, he paced the open floor between Verchiel’s desk and the bookcases lining one side of the room. The idea he’d been wrestling with since he’d looked into Alexandra Jarvis’s torment crept back into his mind, dark and forbidden.
Ice brushed against his soul. What he thought…what he considered…
He flexed his tightly folded wings and spun to face the Highest.
“I’ll talk to Alex again.”
Verchiel frowned. “You said she’s beyond reach.”
“She is. In her current state.”
The Highest’s slow blink devolved into a gape as she registered his intent. “You would interfere with a mortal? You can’t be serious.”
“Alexandra Jarvis isn’t mortal anymore.”
“That’s semantics, and you know it. Regardless of what Seth did to her, she is still human, and the Cardinal Rule—”
“The Cardinal Rule isn’t going to find Emmanuelle.”
“Think about what you’re suggesting, Mika’el. The One—”
“The One is gone, Verchiel.” The words came out harsher than they needed to. Harsher than he’d intended. Mika’el swung away from the startled disbelief in the Highest’s gaze, the accusation. He slammed a hand against the window frame, splintering the wood, struggling to contain the fear-laced fury coursing through him.
He knew the risks. Knew that Heaven itself might deny his return if he broke the most sacred of the One’s laws. He sure as Hell didn’t need a Seraph lecturing him about it—any more than any of them needed to be faced with this decision in the first place. Flexing wings that ached with the need to unfurl, he turned back to Verchiel.
“The One is gone,” he repeated. “And you’re right. You’ve been right all along. We cannot do this on our own. We need Emmanuelle, and so I will do whatever it takes to get her.”
“Within the laws, Mika’el.”
“No, Highest. Not within the laws. If we’re going to save Heaven, save the world, I cannot be bound by laws.”
Silence sat like a great chasm between them, a chasm between him and the rest of his kind. Between him and the Heaven that might not be able to welcome him back.
But at a least Heaven that would still exist.
He hoped.
CHAPTER 16
ALEX SQUEEZED HER EYES closed, gathering the thoughts scattered about her brain after the violent shaking, trying to make sense of the Fallen’s appearance in her living room and his intense interest in the angel responsible for her involvement in the affairs of Heaven. Still seated on the floor, she scooped back the tumble of her hair and peered up at her attacker.
“You knew Mittron?”
Cold fire glowed in the blue eyes. “I’m asking the questions, not you.”
“And I’m trying to figure out what I know that might be important.”
“All of it,” he snarled. “It’s all important.”
“Maybe. But it will make more sense if I can put it into context. It’s what I do.”
The Fallen frowned. Alex struggled to her feet and sagged onto the arm of the sofa. She ignored the shakiness of her limbs, the quiver in her belly.
“I’m a police officer,” she explained. “An investigator. I might be able to help you put the pieces together, but only if I know what those pieces are.”
Her attacker’s frown became a glower, and she steeled herself against a flinch as his hands curled into fists by his sides. He didn’t move against her, however, and so she waited—and watched—while he considered her words. At last he gave a grunt and a short, sharp nod of tacit agreement.
“I am Bethiel,” he said. “Of the Principalities, keepers of the records of Heaven and Earth. A long time ago, I discovered evidence that someone plotted against Heaven. I suspected it was Mittron, but I wasn’t sure until I confronted him. He forced me—”
Bethiel looked away and swallowed hard, convulsively. A half-dozen emotions flitted across his face: hatred, fury, contempt.
And a hollow, haunted fear that sent a chill down Alex’s spine.
“He forced me into Limbo,” he finished, his voice harsh.
“When?”
“Three thousand years ago.”
“So you knew about Aramael and me.”
“If you were the soulmate Mittron arranged, yes.”
“Am.” Alex’s voice was husky. “I am the soulmate. Apparently it’s not something that goes away. Not even when one of you dies.”
If Bethiel felt any sympathy, he didn’t show it.
“Mittron,” he repeated. “Tell me about his imprisonment.”
“He attacked me in an alley. He was trying to provoke Aramael into killing him, but it didn’t work. He was taken into custody—”
“Human custody? Impossible.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t have his powers—or his wings. And he was completely baked.”
“Baked?”
“Stoned. On drugs.” She grimaced. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he has a good life.”
“It doesn’t,” he growled. He paced the living room, wings twitching irritably. “If he is without powers, how did he escape?”
“We don’t kn
ow.” Alex took a deep breath. “But a black feather was found in the cell.”
Her would-be attacker spun on one heel to face her. “An Archangel took him?”
“Not one of Heaven.”
Bethiel’s eyes narrowed.
“Samael.” Part hiss, part snarl.
He resumed his pacing. Alex stood and edged away until the length of the sofa stood between them. A lamp parted company with an end table in the wake of his wings, landing with a resounding crash and scattering chunks of ceramic across the parquet floor. Alex flinched. Bethiel kicked aside the lampshade.
“Why?” he muttered. “What need could Samael have of him? Where would he take him?”
He didn’t ask the questions of Alex, but her mind turned them over anyway. Sluggishly, reluctantly. She didn’t want to get involved in Heaven’s mess again. She’d turned away Michael himself to avoid it. But her visitor raised questions that, as traumatized as it might be after the day’s events, her cop brain just couldn’t shut out. Why had Hell wanted Mittron? What could he do for them?
“Wait,” she said. “You said you were in Limbo?”
“For three millennia. Behind gates that could only be opened by the One or Heaven’s—” He went still, and something dark and ugly shadowed his expression. “Mittron.”
Alex’s brain worked furiously now. Samael, Hell, Mittron, Limbo. If Hell had wanted to beef up its ranks, what better way than to reclaim those of their kin who had been imprisoned? She shivered.
Did Michael know? Is that why—?
No. It couldn’t have been that, because she could no more influence the war between the angels and the Fallen than she could sprout her own wings. And it didn’t matter anyway, because her job was—
Her brain shied violently sideways.
Choices.
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