“Let her go,” Aramael said again.
The man shook his head, his amber eyes glowing with an intensity that sent a shudder down Seth’s spine. Amber eyes that, despite the mania that had taken hold in their depths, he recognized. Aramael was right. It was Mittron. Fresh fury snarled through Seth. Damn it to Hell, would Heaven’s interference never end?
“It’s not that easy,” Mittron said. “We need to trade. You want her, and I want what you gave Caim.”
Aramael scowled. “Caim!” he spat. “I gave him noth—”
“Death,” rasped Seth. “He wants you to kill him.”
He felt the Archangel’s shock. His denial. He kept his own focus squarely on the wavering knife, willing it to stay still. A thin line of blood trickled down Alex’s throat. Something inside him shriveled.
“Do it,” he told Aramael.
“I cannot.”
“Yes,” he snapped, flashing the angel a venomous glare. “You can. And we all know it.”
Icy rage gathered in the other’s eyes. Glittered in them. “We all know what came of it, too,” he growled back.
“A little late to have discovered your principles, don’t you think?”
“At least I have them.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Alex’s mutter broke between them.
Seth switched his attention back to her in time to see her become a blur of motion. In the space of a heartbeat, before Mittron could react, she planted an elbow in his gut, clamped fingers over his wrist, spun on one heel, and pinned the knife-wielding hand behind his back. Practiced moves calculated to disarm and control a human.
But not an angel. Not even an exiled one stripped of his divine powers. A warning formed in Seth’s throat as Alex glowered over her shoulder.
“When you two are done with your pissing contest—” she began.
Mittron jerked free and whirled, his knife slicing toward her in a wide, graceful arc.
Chapter 37
Even as Seth’s shout rang through the alley, Aramael’s wings shot open, driving between Alex and her attacker. The knife slammed into unyielding feathers and Mittron staggered backward. Before he recovered his footing, Aramael reached one hand for the weapon, the other for the former Seraph’s throat. A vast ugliness rose in his soul as his fingers closed around both.
Manic joy lit the Seraph’s eyes.
“Yes,” he croaked. “Do it. I deserve nothing less after what I’ve done to you, to her. I deserve to die.”
The ugliness in Aramael’s core darkened. Seethed. About that, Mittron was right. No one was more deserving of death. All of this was the Seraph’s fault. He was at the center of everything: the breaking of the pact between Heaven and Hell; the failure of the eleventh-hour agreement; Alex’s near death—twice; Seth’s abandonment of his place at his mother’s side . . .
And Aramael’s own bond to a soulmate he could never hope to have.
Deep within him, the power of an Archangel began to build, mingling with the rage he thought he had left behind. He inhaled a ragged breath and crumpled the knife in his hand. He let it fall to the ground. Energy—fluid, glacial—coursed through his body.
Dangling from his hold, Mittron closed his eyes. His features went slack and almost peaceful. “Please,” he whispered.
No other word could have reached Aramael.
No other word could have stopped him cold.
He stared at the Seraph. Saw for the first time the agony etched into the lines there. The anguish. Slow understanding unfurled in him. The One’s intent hadn’t been to let Mittron live; it had been to let him live like this. With the same torment that he had caused so many. Inescapable, awful torment.
Her Judgment had been so much more than Aramael had assumed.
More, and infinitely worse than death could ever be.
He shook his head. “No.”
Mittron’s eyes shot open. Panic warred with madness in their amber depths. He scrabbled at the hand locked around his throat. “You must. I should die for what I’ve done. I need to die.”
“Which is why I won’t kill you. You don’t deserve to die for what you’ve done, Seraph. You deserve to suffer. I can do no worse to you than what our Creator has done, and I’m damned if I’ll do better.”
He released his hold. The Seraph dropped to the ground, sagged to his knees. He reached to pluck at Aramael’s leg.
“By all that is merciful, Archangel—”
Aramael backhanded the Seraph across the cheek, snapping Mittron’s head to the side. The wrecked, wretched angel toppled and lay weeping on the filthy pavement. Aramael stared down at him.
“I have no mercy for you, Mittron,” he said.
Turning his back on that which Heaven itself had already discarded, he found Alex still standing where she’d been when he blocked Mittron’s attack. Her sky-blue eyes stood out against the pale of her skin. Shocked. Wary. Appalled. He studied her, marveling at the strength that held her upright, that had let her become embroiled in a war between angels.
“Are you all right?” he asked. A dozen tiny cuts marred her face, seeping crimson. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. In battle, my wings—”
She deflected the hand he put out to her, and he followed her gaze to the figure propped against the wall a dozen strides from where they stood. Seth. Of course. How could he have forgotten?
“Go,” he said wearily. “He’s injured.”
Alex went.
* * *
Alex walked carefully away from Aramael and the keening man by his feet, willing her legs not to give out beneath her. Reinforcements were arriving en masse, heralded by feet pounding down the alleyway, the approach of a siren, the slam of car doors. She shut them out, crouching beside Seth and reaching to touch his cheek.
“Are you okay?”
For a long minute, he didn’t answer. Then, one hand against his ribs and blood trickling down his forehead, he lifted pain-glazed eyes to hers. “I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t strong en—”
“Shh.” She placed her fingers over his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”
He twisted his head away from her. Something darker than the pain clouded his face. “Because of him.”
Alex shivered a little at the bitterness underlying the emphasis on him. “He only did what he’s supposed to do.”
“Because I chose to be weak.”
She brushed his blood-matted hair away from the gash over his eyebrow. “You’re not weak,. You’re just mortal.”
He scowled. “There seems little difference at the moment.”
“Christ, Jarvis,” Roberts’s voice growled behind her. “What is it with you and alleys?”
She looked up at him, and his face went white.
“You’re hurt.”
She shook her head. “It’s superficial. But Seth—”
“I’m fine.” Seth made as if to rise, let out a hiss, and subsided, his glower deepening.
“The ambulance is on its way,” said Roberts. “What the hell happened?”
In as few words as she could, Alex summed up finding what she thought had been an injured man, concocted what she hoped was a plausible story about an attack driven by the influence of drugs, and prayed that it would be enough to satisfy the questions she saw in her supervisor’s eyes.
Silence followed her explanation.
“And your face?” Roberts asked at last.
Damn. She’d forgotten that part.
“Glass?” she hazarded. “It happened fast. I’m not sure.”
Roberts looked pointedly around at what had to be the only alley in all of Toronto that didn’t have at least one broken bottle in it. He looked at Seth, then back at her.
“I’ll see where that ambulance is,” he said.
Alex settled onto the dank ground beside Seth. She took his free hand in her own. Neither of them said anything more, and he returned none of her pressure on his fingers.
Chapter 38
“Typical that one of Heaven
would leave you in this condition.”
Head throbbing, Seth forced open his eyes against the glare of fluorescent lights. He closed them again when he saw the Fallen One at the foot of his bed in the emergency ward.
“Go away. I’m not interested.”
The Fallen One snorted. “Right. That’s why you’ve been reading those journals so fast. What are you up to now? Four? Five?”
“You know damned well it’s seven, because you deliver them as fast as I read them.”
“Just trying to be helpful.” The Fallen One dropped into the chair beside the bed. “So that was quite a performance our Aramael put on for his lady friend. Very impressive. Nothing like having a big, strong Archangel around to save you when your mere mortal partner is too weak to do so.”
Seth’s fingers clamped onto the bedcovers.
“Of course, it didn’t have to be that way,” the Fallen One added. “If you’d taken back your powers—”
“I could have saved her myself. I get that,” Seth snarled, jerking his head around to look at his visitor. Pain shafted through his skull. He inhaled sharply, and another jolt streaked across his ribs. He let his breath out in a slow hiss. “I know I could protect her better if I had my powers. But for what? So I can give her up and return to Heaven? I told you, I’m not interested.”
“Is that what you think?” The Fallen One propped his feet on the edge of the bed and tipped the chair back onto two legs. “Seth, Seth, Seth. You disappoint me. It’s not Heaven I want you in, it’s Hell.”
“My father wants—?”
“Lucifer has nothing to do with this.”
Seth stared at him, and then snorted. “You want to take on the Light-bearer? You’re not anywhere near strong enough.”
“No. But you are. Or could be.”
Shuddering, Seth remembered his short-lived attempt to stand up to his father in a Vancouver alley, when Lucifer had knocked him aside with less effort than he might have expended on a fly. “You overestimate my ability—and underestimate his. Even if I were interested, which I’m not, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“You would with my help.”
Seth stared at the booted feet beside him. The Fallen One’s proposal was ludicrous. Seth didn’t have so much as the slightest interest in it. And yet, instead of telling his visitor to go straight back to whence he’d come, he found himself asking another question.
“You and what army?” he asked. “The Fallen are aligned with him.”
“They wouldn’t be if they knew he planned to sacrifice them.” The Fallen One dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward. His voice became grim. “Lucifer’s obsession with wiping out humanity has taken over. He doesn’t care if Hell and all its occupants are destroyed in the process. He doesn’t care if he is destroyed in the process. If the Fallen knew—”
“Then why not tell them?”
“Because there would be a thousand would-be rulers vying for control. The infighting would destroy us as surely as Lucifer’s lack of interest will.”
“You could rule yourself.”
“I might have been an Archangel at one time, Appointed, but even if I remained so, I know my limitations. I’m no ruler.”
“And you think I am.”
“I think you could be, yes.”
“There’s just one flaw in your plan. I already have what I want right here.”
“You mean the Naphil?”
“Alex. Yes.”
“The woman who is even now at Aramael’s side instead of yours.” The Fallen One smiled. “Of course you have her.”
Seth glowered as his visitor rose from the chair, but before he could form a satisfactory retort, the Fallen One placed one hand over his forehead and the other over the ribs broken by Mittron’s elbow. Seth froze.
“A reminder of that which you were once capable of yourself,” said the Fallen One. “And what another might have done for you if he so wished. Consider it my gift.”
Agony seared through Seth. Arching against the bed, he clutched at the covers. “Bloody fucking Hell!”
He grabbed for the Fallen One but connected with nothing but his own ribs. His hand clamped in place, he fought for breath—and to push back the darkness hovering at the edge of his brain. Slowly the pain ebbed, receded, disappeared. Eyes closed, he probed his injuries with cautious fingers, increasing the pressure until he was certain.
The Fallen One had healed him . . .
. . . whereas Aramael had not.
Chapter 39
“This seems a rather extreme way of avoiding talking.” Elizabeth Riley’s voice contained a dry note. “Even for you.”
Alex finished tugging the T-shirt over her head. She settled it into place around her midriff as she turned to face the psychiatrist. “And so you tracked me down here to make sure I didn’t get away?”
“No. I tracked you down because I wanted to be sure you’re all right.” Riley indicated her face. “Those must sting.”
“Less so now that they’ve finished poking at them.” Alex peered at her reflection in the mirror over the examining room counter. She suppressed a shudder at the dozen or so cuts inflicted by Aramael’s wings. What kind of feathers were as sharp as razors? She turned away. “They look worse than they feel.”
“Are they from your attacker?”
“No.”
Riley waited.
Alex shrugged into her blazer, lifted her hair free, and reached for her coat.
Riley sighed.
“You’re not going to volunteer a thing, are you?”
Alex took her pistol from the coat pocket and slid it into the holster at her waist. “You really expected otherwise?”
“No, but I hoped once you—” Riley broke off and shook her head. “Damn it, Alex, you have to know that I’m not your enemy. I’m trying to help you.”
“Then go home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes,” Alex said. “You can. Your credentials far outweigh Bell’s. Tell the captain you’ve met with me, done all your mumbo jumbo stuff, and decided that I’m fine. Sound of mind, sane, however you want to put it. And then go home.”
“I would have already done that if I thought it was true.”
Alex slid her arms into her coat. “Meaning what? You think I’m nuts?”
“I think you’re under a tremendous amount of stress. I think it would help you to talk.”
At last Alex stopped and gave Riley her full, undivided attention. The Vancouver psychiatrist stared back implacably. Alex shook her head, feeling oddly sad, weirdly compassionate. She’d been in Riley’s shoes not that very long ago, she reminded herself. That place of knowing but not wanting to know, seeing but refusing to accept. A place most of the world would likely find itself in the days to come.
“Look, Riley, try to understand. The world as we know it is very quickly coming to a grinding, crashing halt. For reasons I can’t begin to fathom, I’m in the middle of it. Yes, it’s tremendously stressful. Yes, under other circumstances it might be helpful to talk. But right now, I can’t. I don’t dare. Because if I start looking too closely at my own mess—” Her voice caught, and she paused to swallow.
“If I start thinking about everything that’s going on, everything that’s already happened, and what’s still to come, I might fold. And if I consider what it might be doing to me personally?” She shook her head slowly. Shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll survive. So please. There are a lot of people who are going to need your help through this. I’m not one of them. It’s time to leave me alone.”
Riley’s blue eyes regarded her through wire-framed glasses for a long minute. Then Riley opened the door and stepped aside. “He’s in the waiting area.”
“I don’t want Ara—Trent, I want Seth.”
“That’s who I meant.”
Alex paused in the doorway. “He can’t be. Roberts said he had broken ribs and a concussion.”
“He did. He doesn’t anymore.”
Alex s
tared out into the corridor. She watched two paramedics rolled an empty gurney back toward the ambulance bay. She inhaled carefully.
“Right,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Alex.”
Again she met Riley’s wire-framed gaze.
“I understand more than you realize,” Riley said.
Alex walked away.
Chapter 40
“Ah, for chrissakes,” a voice above Mittron muttered. “What have you done to yourself, you idiot?”
Mittron twisted away from the hand cupping his chin, the disgust in the voice. No. Don’t make me come back.
The cell guard grabbed him again, harder this time, forcing his head one way, then the other, then thrusting him away with a sigh.
“Christ, your head is a goddamn mess. Wait here. I’ll call the ambulance.”
He tried not to listen to the man rise, or to hear the metallic clang of the cell door or the retreating footsteps. He wanted to stay in the dark place he’d found, where the voices couldn’t follow. But it was too late.
The cold of the concrete penetrated first, hard against body parts stiff from lying on it too long. The pain of his battered skull came next, a deep, throbbing ache where he’d beaten it against the bars of his cage as the drugs wore off and the voices returned. Beaten it rhythmically, mercilessly, until the dark finally claimed him. How long had he managed to escape? Not long enough. Nothing short of eternity would be long enough.
A whisper slid through his brain, heralding their return. All the souls lost so far to the Fallen, to be joined by billions more by the time Lucifer was done. And now, caged and without access to the drugs, he would have no choice but to endure. He lifted his head and smashed it down on the floor once, twice, again.
Strong hands seized his shoulders and hauled him to his feet, shoved him against the bars. “Would you stop that?” an irritated voice asked. “I can’t talk to you if your brains are scrambled.”
Fingertips tried unsuccessfully to pry open one of his eyes. Then the hand slapped his cheeks, once on each side, sharp enough to create a new pain that overrode the first. Forcing his arms up to ward off another blow, he mumbled an objection.
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