Temper darkened his aide’s face. “And Seth just happened to be there?” he snarled. “You can’t seriously think this is all a coincidence. The One’s mark is all over this.”
Agony lanced through Lucifer’s chest. He felt certain that his very heart had begun to bleed. Wondered if it had ever stopped. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“It doesn’t—” Sam stared at him.
“Without proof, we cannot demand her forfeiture and if we move prematurely, we’ll be the ones forfeiting instead of her.”
“What does it matter? Either way, we go to war.”
“Agreed, but we go to war on our terms, not hers.” The black smear on Lucifer’s skin shrank and disappeared. He looked up at his nearly apoplectic aide. “I haven’t come this far only to see my plans for humanity crushed by your impatience, Samael. I don’t care what it looks like, I’ve made my decision. We wait until we have the Nephilim in place and we do nothing to jeopardize the agreement. Is that clear?”
Black wings opened with a thunderous crack and the papers stacked on Lucifer’s desk scattered in the draft. Lucifer narrowed his eyes, but the Archangel either didn’t notice the warning sign or chose to ignore it. Slamming his hands onto the mahogany surface, Samael leaned down.
“Fuck that,” he snarled. “I am done waiting. Done waiting for her, done waiting for Seth, and especially done waiting for you. We have ample cause to declare the agreement broken. You can do whatever you’d like with the mortals, but we are going to war.”
Lucifer stared at a drop of spittle clinging to his aide’s bottom lip. Slowly, wearily, he climbed to his feet and looked across at his aide’s fury. Then, without warning, he struck, shoving the desk with a single, mighty thrust across the room, Samael with it. The Archangel struck the wall with a grunt amid a shower of peppermints launched from their dish. Pinned, he lifted his chin as Lucifer stalked toward him, his startled gaze turning first wary, then sullen.
But not afraid.
Not yet.
Nostrils flaring, Lucifer reached across the desk, grasped his aide by the throat, and lifted him up and over to dangle in front of him, feet several inches above the floor. Samael clawed at the fingers cutting off his air, his eyes widening.
“I warned you, Samael,” Lucifer said. “So many times I warned you, but still you chose to ignore me. And now I have endured your insolence long enough.”
The former Archangel’s arms flailed as Lucifer threw him across the room. He crashed into one of the bookcases, splintering three shelves and sending their load tumbling to the floor around him. Lucifer followed.
His aide dragged himself upright, shock and uncertainty flickering across his face. “Lucifer, I—”
A backhand sent the Archangel staggering into another waterfall of books. Lucifer followed, relentless in his pursuit. Another slap split Samael’s cheek. A third and fourth, each delivered with measured but increasing force, transformed his eyes to pools of blood.
Samael scrambled to get away, scuttling across the floor on hands and knees, his wings dragging through the wreckage of the room. The stench of fear oozed from his pores to hang in the air, but still Lucifer didn’t stop. Following the Archangel, he delivered blow after punishing blow until Samael lay at his feet, weeping in agony, shattered beyond recognition, his wings in tatters.
Done at last, Lucifer crouched at his aide’s side. He rolled what remained of Samael’s head toward him. Blood seeped from the Archangel’s eyes, mingling with tears. Shaking his head, Lucifer wiped away the crimson trickles.
“I’m sorry it came to this, Samael, truly. But I need to be sure you’ve learned your lesson.”
Samael mewled a plaintive response.
“No.” Lucifer shook his head again. “No, there’s one more thing I must do to be certain. This will hurt, but you need to hold very still or I might make a mistake. Quiet, now.”
He plunged a hand into Samael’s chest. The Archangel arched and writhed beneath the new assault, a thin, high-pitched scream emanating from the gore that had once been his mouth. Lucifer reached deeper, deeper, until his fingers closed over a tiny sphere, hard as marble. He smiled.
Withdrawing his hand, he wiped the orb clean on a part of his sleeve not already covered in Samael’s body bits and held it up for his aide to see. The Archangel fell silent except for the gurgle of air passing through the fluids in his throat.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lucifer asked, admiring the swirl of light pulsing between his thumb and forefinger. “Hard to believe something so small can contain all you are, the very essence of your immortality.”
He looked down at Sam again, letting his smile fade. “You do know I can take it from you anytime I wish, don’t you, Samael? That I can destroy you with just a twitch of my fingers?”
He tightened his delicate hold by the slightest fraction and a whistling hiss broke from Sam.
Lucifer nodded. “You understand. I’m glad. Now understand this, Samael formerly of the Archangels.” He enclosed the sphere in his fist and terror shot through Sam’s eyes. “Understand that, while you might be useful to me, I do not need you. I never have. So if you ever so much as breathe discontent again—if you so much as think it, I will not stop. I will kill you.”
Rising to his feet, he dropped Samael’s immortality onto the floor. It rolled to a stop by his aide’s mutilated fingers.
“I’m going out,” Lucifer said. “When you’re done putting yourself together, make sure you clean up the mess. And get me more peppermints. You’ve ruined mine.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“Damn it, Jarvis, I’m not kidding,” Henderson growled. “I will arrest your ass in a heartbeat if you don’t get over here.”
“Hugh, what in God’s name is going on?” Elizabeth Riley hissed.
“Let me handle this, Liz. Just stay back. Jarvis, I gave you an order.”
Focusing on Aramael’s back, on the way his shoulders flexed and then stilled, Alex didn’t dare look up at the others. The cold in her settled deeper. He was waiting. The moment she moved from the door—
“I can’t. He’ll go after Seth.”
“If he so much as twitches, I promise I’ll shoot. Now move.”
“I know you’re trying to protect me, Henderson, but I’m not the one he’s after.”
Aramael’s shoulders tensed again and Alex frowned, an un-nameable something tugging at her mind. A question that wouldn’t quite take shape.
“For fuck’s sake, Alex,” Henderson growled. He sighed and reached for the handcuffs clipped to his belt. “Fine. Have it your way.” He waggled the gun at Aramael. “You. On the ground, face down, hands away from your body.”
Aramael didn’t move and a frisson of warning ran down Alex’s spine. If she didn’t put an end to this standoff, it was going to get ugly. No matter what Aramael’s reason for being here might be, he would never allow himself to be taken into custody. Couldn’t allow it.
Shooting a quick glance past him to where Henderson was beginning to look downright pissed, she pitched her voice low enough that only Aramael could hear. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
Aramael met her gaze over his shoulder. “I can’t.”
“Look,” she said through clenched teeth, “I get you have an agenda of some kind, but neither one of us needs the kind of attention you’ll bring if you’re taken into custody. Now get the hell out of here while you can.”
Not that having him disappear into thin air would be much better, but at least he wouldn’t be around for questioning.
“You don’t understand,” he said, gray eyes boring into hers. “I can’t.”
“You—” She stopped. Stared at his shoulders. Willed herself to see them there, rising beyond him, flexed, powerful, iridescent with their golden fire. But there was nothing. Her gaze moved to his again.
“Your wings,” she whispered. “Aramael, what happened to your wings?”
But even as she asked, she knew. Felt the answer come together in h
er head like the pieces of a puzzle.
“You can’t stop me,” he’d said, and yet he’d remained there, in the hallway, allowing her to block his access to Seth. Had remained solid, and present, and unmoving. Had done nothing about Henderson, or the gun, or the threat of arrest.
A tiny muscle flickered near Aramael’s ear, the only movement in a body that might otherwise have been stone. Winter’s barren chill stared back at Alex from his eyes.
“I need to see Seth,” he said.
“No.” Alex shook her head. The doorknob pressed into the small of her back. “No. You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
“I told you, I can’t.”
As if he hadn’t spoken, Alex looked past him to Henderson. “I’ll trade you,” she said. “Him for Seth.”
Henderson’s gun dropped several inches. The Vancouver detective gaped at her. “Come again?”
“I need to talk to Ara—him.” Alex tipped her head toward Aramael. “And I need someone to watch Seth for me until I get back.”
“Back from—watch—” Henderson lowered the gun to his side and stared at her as if she’d suggested they join forces in knocking off a bank. “Damn it, Jarvis, this isn’t some kind of negotiation here and I am not your on-call babysitter. I overheard Ara-whoever he is uttering threats and I am arresting him. And I’m taking Seth Benjamin into custody, and I’ll be questioning you, too. End of fucking discussion.”
Alex curled fingers into palms. “Remember when you spoke to my supervisor? To Roberts?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Remember what he told you about Seth?”
“Of course, but—”
She uncurled one finger and lifted it to point at Aramael. “He’s like Seth.”
“Alex.”
Aramael’s snarl made her flinch, but she held her ground, because she had to know. She had to find out what he wanted with Seth, to know if she was right about him hunting. And if he was, why. Which meant getting him away from here, alone, to answer her questions—any way she could.
Henderson’s scowl deepened. “Like him how? Connected to the serial killer case, you mean?”
“That—and whatever else Roberts said.”
Henderson hadn’t told her much about his exchange with her supervisor, so Alex could only guess at what Roberts had divulged, but the Vancouver detective’s reticence about the conversation—and the sudden gray tinge in his face now—hinted at a certain level of detail. She waited for him to process her words.
The Adam’s apple in Henderson’s throat bobbed as his thumb toyed with the safety on his gun. He stared, first at her, then at Aramael. At last he cleared his throat.
“You know how this sounds.”
Alex nodded.
“You know how your supervisor sounded. How Father Mar—” He broke off.
Father? As in priest? A priest who knew what, exactly? Alex bit back the questions. One thing at a time, Jarvis.
“I know how it sounds, yes.”
“But you still want me to believe you—to believe this.” He waved his handcuffs at Aramael.
“Just accept it’s possible. Let me talk with him.”
Riley put a hand on Henderson’s forearm and he started, looking down at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. An entire unspoken conversation seemed to pass between them before Henderson grunted. Riley looked mutinous.
“Ten minutes.” Henderson lifted his head to look at Alex. “You have ten minutes.”
“Alex—” Aramael began.
“Don’t,” she said. “I didn’t create this mess, Aramael. You did. I just bought you ten minutes of as much anonymity as you’re going to get. Whether you get more time or not depends on what you tell me. Either way, you’re not going near Seth unless you convince me I should let you. Got it?”
Her wingless soulmate’s mouth went tight. Frustration flashed through his eyes, but he nodded his acceptance and Alex reached for the knob.
“Shit,” she muttered. “It locked itself.” She raised a hand and knocked. “Seth? It’s Alex. I’m locked out. Can you open the door for me?”
Silence.
She knocked again, louder this time. “Seth? Open the door.”
No response.
Making a fist, she pounded. Hard. Harder.
“Seth! Damn it, Seth, answer me!”
Henderson joined her, hammering louder. “Seth Benjamin, open up.”
Still nothing.
“No way we’ll force it without a ram,” Henderson said. “Liz, get the manager. Tell him it’s an emergency and make sure he brings the—”
Aramael’s hand reached between them—Alex would have recognized the strong, tanned forearm anywhere—and shoved the door inward, sending it to the floor with a crash, frame splintered. A slack-jawed Henderson stepped away from the angel. Tightening her lips, Alex pushed past into the room. A second later she confirmed what they already knew.
“He’s gone.”
TWENTY-SIX
Seth moved through the streets with long, angry strides, his gaze flicking from one example of human devastation to another. He’d learned the word while watching the news with Alex the night before; she had explained it as the wreckage remaining after some kind of disaster. While the news had used it in the context of an earthquake on the other side of the planet, it was the word that came to mind as he viewed the world before him now.
Devastation.
Men and women of all ages stood in the street, sat against lampposts and brick walls, and sprawled among boxes and garbage like so much litter on the sidewalk. Studying each as he walked past, Seth saw no life in the eyes that followed his progress, no hope in the faces. A new feeling stirred inside him, something he couldn’t put a name to, but knew was the opposite of the attraction that pulled him to Alex.
Alex, who would be able to explain what it was he witnessed here. Alex, who had restored his ability to communicate again, sheltered him, taught him to trust—and then betrayed him.
Seth’s chest burned. He felt—he didn’t know how he felt. Didn’t know how to identify whatever caused this fire in him and left the sour taste on the back of his tongue. Alex would be able to help him identify that, too, of course, but she was otherwise occupied right now. With the man who had been outside the hotel room door with Dr. Riley. The man she had accused of being like Seth.
Seth hadn’t been able to see who she referred to, but her meaning had been clear and had supported his growing suspicions: if he was like Seth, then Seth was not like others. Not like the ones who had found him and locked him in the hospital. Not like the ones he watched on television or read about in the newspapers or books. Not like the ones he walked past now. Not like Alex.
Seth was something other. Something different. But what? And why did the knowledge make him ache inside, as if he had lost something vital, something he needed to complete himself? More important, why hadn’t Alex told him when he had asked? Why had she been about to hand him over to the ones he’d escaped while she talked to another who had come for him?
The churning at Seth’s center intensified. He scowled at the thousands of other questions stirring along the edges of his consciousness.
A scuff against concrete snagged his attention as a patched and faded man shuffled after him. An unfocused gaze met his, hesitated, then dropped to the sidewalk as the man veered to the left and crossed the street. Seth stared after him.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” a voice remarked from the shelter of a doorway.
Distracted, Seth looked around as a figure stepped from the shadows onto the sidewalk, his blond head shaking in apparent sadness. Apparent, because Seth would have sworn the sentiment wasn’t genuine. His gaze narrowed on the newcomer.
The man strolled closer, stopping a few feet away. His eyes, a startling, intense purple under the streetlight, settled on Seth. “Such a waste, when they fail like this.”
“They?”
“Mortals.”
The man nodded toward the street. “Humans. The One’s precious children.”
Seth shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. These are adults, not children—and who is this One?”
The purple gaze sharpened on him. “You still haven’t remembered, have you?” the man murmured.
A vague uneasiness crawled over Seth’s skin. Suddenly missing the comfort of Alex’s presence, he felt the urge to return to her. A nagging curiosity held him. “Do I know you?”
“Yes and no.” The stranger smiled, and a pure and steady light seemed to shine from his face. “I am like you.”
“Like me how?”
“Of another realm, another world. More than they have ever been or can hope to be.” The man indicated the street scene again.
“I don’t understand.”
Another smile. More light. “Then walk with me, Seth born of Heaven and Hell, and I’ll explain.”
Something in the stranger’s voice—or was it in the way his odd inner light turned cold?—made Seth uncertain he wanted to hear what this man had to tell him. Heaven and Hell?
He shook his head. “I need to get back. Someone is waiting for me.”
“A woman. I know.”
Seth scowled. “How do you know? Who are you?”
“I am Lucifer. Bearer of Light, ruler of Hell, former helpmeet of the Creator of All.” Lucifer’s purple gaze became wry. “And I’m not just like you, Seth Benjamin; I am you—or half of you, anyway. You’re my son.”
HUGH CAUGHT HOLD of Liz’s wrist as she made to follow Alex Jarvis and the stranger—Aramael—down the street. The psychiatrist opened her mouth to object, but he shook his head at her, focused on the cell phone against his ear. Waiting. Wishing he’d thought to do this as soon as he’d hung up from Alex’s supervisor yesterday.
“Okay,” the voice at the other end came back on the line. “I’ve got it here. It’s a sizeable file, though—you sure you want the whole thing?”
“I’m sure.”
A sigh. “I’ll have it copied and couriered to you tomorrow.”
Liz tugged at his fingers and he tightened his grip, shooting her a warning frown.
Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Page 17
