“Then open your eyes,” the voice retorted. “Look at me.”
He sagged to the floor.
“Bloody Heaven, Seraph.” The voice’s owner dragged him upright again. Sheer surprise at the address accomplished what pain could not. Mittron’s eyes flew open. A hand patted his cheek. “That’s better.”
He stared at the burnished, mahogany-dark face inches from his own. “You—what—Samael?”
“You recognize me. Good. I wasn’t sure you would in your current state.” Samael drew back, wrinkling his nose. “For the record, you reek.”
Footsteps thudded somewhere down the corridor. Mittron’s visitor shot an impatient look in their direction. “We need to make this quick.”
More words issued forth from Samael’s mouth, but they became lost in the growing volume of whispers. Mittron put his hands to his ears, trying in vain to block what originated within his soul. Trying to focus.
“What?”
Samael pulled his hands away.
“Limbo. You broke Caim out. Can you do so for others?”
The whispers—
“Damn it, Seraph. Can you or can’t you get others out of Limbo?”
“How many?” he mumbled.
“All of them.”
The voices dropped to murmurs.
A door clanged. The heavy footsteps drew nearer. More than one set. Cursing his ownsluggishness, Mittron wrestled with Samael’s question, seeking its purpose. Was such a thing possible?
“Why?” he asked.
“Suffice it to say I need to raise an army, and they’re the most likely recruits. If I can get them out.”
Mittron shook his head. His brain smashed against the inside of his skull. “Even if you could, there’s no telling what you’d get. Some of them have been in there for millennia. Their minds—”
“I’m willing to take the chance. Can you do it?”
“Why should I?”
Samael held up a clear glass vial filled with an amber liquid. “Because I can stop the pain,” he said. “Temporarily for now, with this. Permanently if my plan succeeds.”
“Permanently—you’ll kill me if I help?”
“If all goes well, I won’t have to. But yes. If necessary, I will do what your enemy will not.”
Mittron stared at the vial. He fought to still his tremble, to block the voices so that he could think for one moment more. What Samael wanted—opening Limbo and releasing the Fallen imprisoned there—it would be the ultimate betrayal of the One who had created him.
Another door clanged, closer this time, and the guard who had gone for help gave a shout.
“Hey! Who the hell are you? How did you get in—”
A betrayal of the One whom he had wanted nothing more than to serve for eternity.
Booted feet broke into a run. Samael glanced toward the approaching men. His wings spread wide, filling the cell. He looked at Mittron. “Well? I need a decision, Seraph.”
The One who had instead chosen to judge him and sentence him to this.
Mittron reached to grasp Samael’s arm.
Chapter 41
Mika’el looked around from his post at the window as the door opened without invitation. He raised an eyebrow at Verchiel. “Let me guess. Another problem?”
“Is there ever not?” The Highest Seraph slumped into one of the wingback chairs on the other side of the desk.
Mika’el’s other eyebrow joined the first. Verchiel didn’t slump. Ever. Nor did she chew on her lip the way a dog worried a bone. “I doubt the news will improve with waiting.”
“There’s been an attack on the woman.”
“The Naphil?” He became alert. “Was she harmed? Was it Samael?”
“She’s fine. And it was Mittron.”
“Mitt—” He gaped. He couldn’t help it. He paced the floor between window and desk, then turned and retraced his steps. “How in all of Hell did he find her? And why attack her?”
“As far as we can tell, he wanted to goad Aramael into putting him out of his misery. The One’s Judgment has been most . . . effective.”
“And Aramael?”
“Resisted temptation.”
Thank the One for that. Mika’el traversed the floor again. “Where is everyone now?”
“Mittron was taken into human custody. Seth and the woman were taken to a hosp—”
“Seth! How does he fit into this?”
“He was with the woman. He was injured trying to defend her. Nothing serious, just broken ribs and a concussion. The woman sustained superficial lacerations.”
“So everything is under control, then.”
“Not quite. Mittron has disappeared.”
“I thought you said he was taken into human custody.”
“And locked in one of their holding cells,” she agreed. “And now he’s gone. The guard saw someone talking to him and then—in his words—poof.”
“Poof? As in he simply disappeared?”
“Apparently so.”
“We’re sure it wasn’t one of ours?”
“They found a black feather in the cell.”
Samael. First his interest in the Naphil and now Mittron. What in Hell was the former Archangel up to?
“I’ll assign someone to look for him,” he said. “Was that all?”
“Not quite.” Verchiel pressed her fingertips to the crease between her brows. “Seth appears to have healed himself.”
His eyes narrowed. “Healed himself how?”
“One minute he was injured, the next he was fine.”
“Without taking back his powers? That’s not possible. The doctors must have been wrong about their diagnosis.”
“X-rays confirmed it.”
“And Aramael didn’t—?”
“No.”
“Bloody Hell.” He spun on his heel and crossed to the window again, turned, and started back.
Verchiel dropped her hand. “Will you please stop pacing!”
He halted mid-stride. Glared. Then dropped into his chair with an aggrieved sigh. “Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe he’s reclaimed a portion of his powers. Have you checked with the One? She would know better than we do.”
“That would be the third thing I came to tell you. She refused to see me.”
“She—” He stared at her. “She has never refused to see anyone. Ever.”
“I know.”
An eternity ticked by. At last Mika’el roused himself, pushing out of the chair again. “I’ll speak with the One,” he said, crossing to the door. “But, Verchiel, if this isn’t the Appointed’s own doing . . .”
Verchiel folded her hands into her robe. “If it’s not Seth’s doing,” she finished his thought, “then we have a bigger problem than protecting the Naphil.”
* * *
Aramael stepped in front of the door, blocking Alex’s exit to the waiting area.
“Move,” she growled. “Or I will cause the biggest scene you have ever witnessed.”
“Alex—”
“Now, Aramael.”
He held his ground. “Something isn’t right about this. We both know it.”
She did. But she’d be damned if she’d discuss it with him. She squared her shoulders and met him stare for stare. “Now.”
Gray fire flared in his eyes. Then, in stony-jawed silence, he moved aside. Alex brushed past. In the emergency ward waiting room, Seth stood, tall and impassive, beside windows still boarded over from the shooting the night before. Her step hitched. She stopped. He remained unmoving, waiting. With a steadying breath, she crossed the room. She didn’t skirt the issue.
“How?” she asked simply.
“One of the Fallen. Not by request.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
His gaze didn’t move from hers. Didn’t so much as flicker. Yet she knew without a shadow of doubt that he lied to her. Deliberately. Her throat contracted. She looked away. She ran a trembling hand through her hair. Tomorrow. Tomorrow they would sit down
and figure things out. Look at their options. Make some decisions. Tomorrow, but not tonight.
Tonight—she closed the space between them, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest—tonight they just needed to go home. Seth hesitated for half a heartbeat, and then folded her close. Held her fiercely.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered into her hair. “And I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop him.”
They stood that way until Alex extricated herself and wove her fingers through his. Together, they left the hospital.
Aramael didn’t suggest that he go with them.
Chapter 42
Alex slid her gun’s lockbox back onto the closet shelf and, with the same care that had guided all her movements since she’d left the bed, quietly closed the door. Just her coat to put on now and she could leave, be gone before—
“Stay.”
She jumped. Closed her eyes. Gathered herself. Then she reached for the coat she’d laid across the hall table. “You know I can’t,” she told Seth.
“I know you choose not to.” His voice was flat. “I heard your supervisor tell you not to come in today.”
She shrugged into the gray wool coat. “I have work to do.”
“With your soulmate.”
“Damn it, Seth, can we please get past this ridiculous jealousy? For the last time, I chose you, remember?” The cell phone at her waist vibrated. She glanced down, saw Jen’s name on the display, and hit Ignore. One fight at a time was enough.
Buttoning her coat, she scowled at Seth. “Look, I’m sorry I need protection from a Fallen One I’ve never even met, and I’m sorry Aramael is the one who has to protect me. Hell, I’m sorry any of this is happening. Armageddon, your mother, the Nephilim—I’m sorry about it all. But I can’t change it and I can’t make it go away, and sooner or later we’re just going to have to deal with it. You are going to have to deal with it.”
“The way you’re dealing with it?” he snapped, his expression turning as dark as his eyes. “You spend your days with the one being I know you still have feelings for, and even when you’re with me we’re not a real couple. Every time I touch you, you pull back. I know here”—he tapped his head for emphasis—“that it’s because of Lucifer. But here?” His hand dropped to cover his heart. “Here, I know how strong the connection between you and Aramael is, and yes, I doubt. I chose you, too, Alex. But I sure as Hell didn’t choose all of this.”
Hot tears spilled over onto her cheeks, burning the tiny cuts inflicted by Aramael’s wings the day before. She dashed them away with one hand and reached for the doorknob with the other.
“Neither did I,” she told him.
* * *
Samael sprawled on the park bench beside Mittron, arms extended along the back, legs outstretched across the sidewalk so that pedestrians had to go around him. He sent a sidelong glance at the Seraph, who sat with hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Eyes closed, Mittron inhaled deeply. He brought the mug to his lips and sipped at the scalding liquid. The tremble in his hands was half what it had been scant minutes before.
Mittron looked over. “Whatever you gave me, it’s good.”
“You expected otherwise?”
“I haven’t been thinking clearly enough to expect much of anything lately. This makes a nice change.” Mittron took another sip of coffee. “So. You want to take over Hell, do you?”
“I’d like there to be a Hell when all this”—Samael waggled the fingers of one hand—“is over.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lucifer isn’t what he used to be, Seraph. The idea of wiping mortals from the planet consumes him to the exclusion of all else, including the survival of his followers.”
“And this has changed how?” Mittron asked dryly.
Samael grunted. “Maybe you’re right. Now that he’s this close to achieving his goal, however, I’d rather like to know I’ll survive.”
“He’s close? How close?”
In a few clipped words, Samael brought Heaven’s former executive administrator up to date on what had happened in his drug-induced absence: Seth’s choice of the Naphil, the Nephilim army waiting to be born, Lucifer’s obsession with fathering a child to lead that army—and his complete lack of interest in whether any of them, including himself, survived the war yet to come.
Mittron was silent when he finished. Then, “Former Archangel or not, the Fallen will never follow you. You’re not strong enough.”
“Not me. Seth.”
“Seth! But you just said—”
“I said he gave up his powers. I didn’t say he couldn’t get them back.”
“And why would he want to do that? He gave up everything to get rid of them, and he didn’t make the decision lightly. He’s right where he wanted to be. He has the woman.”
“Not if I can convince him otherwise.” Samael withdrew the next of Lucifer’s journals destined for Seth’s hands and laid it on the bench between them. Mittron’s eyebrows went up.
“That’s your plan? You’re going to convince him with a book to take back his powers and overthrow Lucifer?”
Samael grinned at an elderly woman forced to maneuver her walker onto the rough grass to get around his feet. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to judge a book by its cover?”
Mittron set down the coffee and picked up the leather-bound volume. He flipped through a half dozen pages, then looked up at Samael. “Lucifer’s journal?”
“One of a thousand and eleven at last count. Six millennia of history as seen through the eyes of the Light-bearer himself. A rather ugly read, if you ask me.”
“I still don’t see—”
“A son should have the opportunity to know his father, don’t you think? Especially when they have so much in common, such as an obsession with the females in their lives. Females who insist on choosing the good of an entire race over the ones who worship them.”
Speculation narrowed Mittron’s eyes. “You think you can turn Seth from the woman? After he gave up all that he did for her?”
“I know I can.”
Mittron closed the journal. “Even if you succeed, we’re talking about Lucifer. There’s no guarantee Seth will be strong enough to take him on—with or without an army. Or that Hell will survive if he does.”
“Perhaps not. But I can guarantee neither it nor we will survive if we don’t at least try.”
“So you’re choosing between the lesser of two evils and you want me to join you?”
“Unless our fearless leader has a sudden change of heart—and I wouldn’t hold my breath on that—yes. That’s exactly what want.” Samael raised an eyebrow. “So what will it be, Seraph? Take a chance on my plan, or return to your Judgment?”
Mittron took a swig of coffee, staring out across the little park.
“Tell me what you need.”
* * *
Aramael frowned as Alex joined him beside her sedan. “Are you—?”
“Don’t.” Her throat aching, Alex brushed past him and went around to the driver’s side. Seth’s gaze bored into her back from his vantage point in the apartment window, but she refused to turn. She didn’t trust herself not to break down if she did. “Just get in.”
“Alex, if there’s—”
She rested a gloved hand on the car roof, holding on for dear life to the door handle with her other. Steeling herself, she looked across the car into Aramael’s concern. His caring. Her knees trembled and she locked them so they couldn’t fold beneath her.
“Can you leave?” she demanded.
Can you go away forever and take all of this with you? The pain of having known you, the agony of still doing so, the heartache that you’re inflicting on the man I’m trying so hard to love? Can you please—please—break this connection between us before it destroys me?
Aramael shook his head slowly, sadly, responding to all her questions, spoken and unspoken. “You know I can’t.”
Her breath slid down h
er throat like a thousand shards of glass. She wrenched open the car door. “Then no, Aramael. There’s nothing you can do. So get in, shut up, and leave me the hell alone.”
Chapter 43
Alex gathered up the scattering of messages. Two from the Internet techs looking to clarify the list Roberts had given them; one from Riley, giving her an office location in case she wanted to stop by—at least doing so was a suggestion now and not an order; and one from Roberts ordering her to his office.
She eyed the coffee room longingly, and then, suppressing a sigh, shed her coat and scarf and dropped them onto her chair.
Roberts’s door stood open. She tapped on the door frame. “You wanted to see me?”
His back to her as he stared out the window, her supervisor waved her in. She took a seat and frowned. Hadn’t Roberts been wearing that same suit yesterday? Had something else come up after they’d sent her and Seth home from the hospital?
She opened her mouth to ask. He spoke first.
“There’s a press conference in Ottawa tomorrow afternoon.” Roberts let the blinds fall back into place with a metallic clatter. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned and leaned back against the window ledge. “The federal health minister is announcing a country-wide implementation of the same measures we used here for the SARS scare in 2003.”
“SARS! But we quarantined—” Alex broke off. “You’ve got to be kidding me. They want to quarantine pregnant women? That’s their answer to this?”
“No. That’s their attempt to contain things, at least for a while. It will apply only to women in their first trimester. Beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be much danger. World Health is recommending the measures be taken globally as a precaution while they work to isolate the virus.” Roberts held up a hand to ward off her pending outburst. “Our hospital incident night before last wasn’t an isolated one, Alex. Demonstrations are springing up at clinics across the globe and ten more women—that we know of—have died giving birth to those babies. People need to believe we have a handle on this thing, or we’re going to lose any chance at control.”
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