*
Ronnie materialized from the ether, already anticipating the comfort of Lucifer’s office—the closest thing she recognized as feeling like home. His door was halfway open when she arrived. He sat at his desk, so she pushed in with a brief announcing knock.
Ronnie exhaled in relief when his familiar aura seeped into her. As one of the three remaining originals, he held his own little corner of hell. Instead of being generic day-to-day blahness, it radiated a lived-in vibe that came from millennia of occupation. As she got far enough inside to see the rest of the room, she froze, all coherent thought evaporating. Lucifer wasn’t alone.
“It’s not… Maybe? Mikkel?”
Lucifer stood. He crossed the room, coming to a stop in front of Ronnie, still looking at the stranger. “Weren’t you leaving?”
“I’m going.” The guest glanced at her before moving to the exit.
It wasn’t always easy to tell the difference between an angel and a demon. But a real angel, one who served order instead of looking for the loopholes which allowed chaos, carried a different aura—a smooth glow instead of a kaleidoscope of fractured light.
And the arrogant man walking out of the room was more distinctly angel than anyone Ronnie ever met. The situation, on top of the last twenty-four hours of her bizarre life, perplexed her. Who was he? Angels in hell weren’t unheard of, but they disliked hell’s methods, so visits were rare. She watched him leave. With his dark hair, light eyes, and an obvious disdain for the most powerful demon in existence, he was sexy and compelling and—
“If you’ll stop swooning, I can kill that fucker. Right here and now. Draw your sword.”
The vicious words in Ronnie’s head, filled with hatred and venom, gave her pause.
She stared at the door long after he walked through it. What was that about? A painful rhythm beat against her skull—a jackhammer against bone.
“Sis?” Lucifer’s kind tone drew her out of her fog. He nudged her to follow him on his way back toward his desk. The large chair hissed a little with forced airflow when he lowered his large frame into it.
Ronnie wasn’t actually his sister, but he’d used the nickname as far back as she remembered—all of three months or so—and it always warmed her inside.
“We’ll kill Mikkel later. It’s fine. Vengeance has waited this long.”
Weird. But the voice was a forceful reminder of why she was there. She dropped into the chair across from Lucifer’s desk. The entire room shared the auburn sparks of his aura. Like aloe on a fresh burn, the residual power soothed the ethereal and emotional sensations lingering on her skin and chased away the tension of her bizarre yesterday.
He studied her with orange eyes—his one inhuman feature. “You’re a mess.”
“Thanks. You don’t look so hot either.”
Stupid voice. It didn’t shut up all night, making sleep almost impossible. And she still didn’t know where it came from. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, using the ambiance of hell to find her center. It didn’t help as much as she wanted.
“Ronnie? What happened?”
Ronnie still wasn’t sure. “I was in a fight yesterday. With a cherub. And I thought I was going to die. Or something. Can one of those things kill me? And I didn’t know what I was going to do. Except then I fought back. I don’t know how. There was this voice. I mean, I guess it was there before I got to the cherub, but not much before. It wasn’t me, but it was in my head. Maybe. I heard her whisper. And then I knew what to do. Like I was fighting, but it wasn’t me, and—” The words tumbled out in fragments as she tried to make sense of them.
“Stop.” He unfolded himself from his chair, springs squeaking as he stood. He moved to her side of the desk and leaned against it. “How did you manage to get a black eye?” His thumb slid over her cheek.
The memory of the smack rushed back. The bruise should have vanished by now “He hit me.”
“Wow, you’re a bit of a whiner, aren’t you? Move over, let me drive.”
Disorientation blurred the edges of her thoughts. It was similar to the sensation during the fight yesterday. The impression she wasn’t quite in control.
She pushed back, and her world swam into focus again. “Did I mention this voice in my head? It’s loud. I’m pretty sure it’s not me, but maybe it is. I’m having a hard time ignoring it. I don’t think it’s normal to have a voice living in my head. I mean, that makes people crazy. I’d rather not be crazy. I already don’t remember my past. What if this means I’m mental? Does insanity come after amnesia?” Why was she rambling?
“Because you’re terrified and woefully underequipped for this life. I know a solution to that.”
“Uriel.”
Her full name. He only used it when things were serious. She clung to the force of that single word and used it as a focal point to ignore the background noise in her skull.
“Slow down and start from the beginning,” he said.
It took strength to talk and suppress the strange voice at the same time. “Ari got a ping on a cherub, and she let me have it so I could practice. There was this guy all decked out in gold and expensive clothes. And he attacked me. Full-on punch throwing, kicking, and some seriously scary kung fu shit. I don’t think I want another assignment like that.”
“You did great. No. Wait. That was me.”
She ignored the mental taunt.
“It sounds like you did fantastic.” Lucifer ran his finger over her bruised cheek.
The throbbing ebbed as he pulled the pain away from her. Lingering traces of his aura mingled with hers and made it easier to think.
She concentrated on the sensation, letting it fill some of the cracks in her psyche. “Except, you know…the voice, the fighting back, everything about it that wasn’t status quo.”
“He wanted me. You don’t want me. You don’t even know what I am.”
Great, the voice in her head, that sounded like her, was keeping secrets from her. That was sane. Not. They were having a serious conversation when Ronnie got home.
“Because that’s so much saner than just listening to me.”
Lucifer tilted his head to the side, watching but not interrupting.
Ronnie’s story spilled out again. “Ari said it happens, though. Why didn’t you warn me they fight back sometimes? And then it was like I knew things I’d never been taught. How to fight…” Something she couldn’t quite grasp flitted at the edge her mind.
“It’s okay.” Lucifer’s hand rested on her neck, holding her head in place as he looked her in the eye. “You’re all right now?”
“Well, you know, except the whispering. This voice in my head won’t shut up. And it’s ranting about vengeance and death—it’s possible mine is at the top of its list. That angel guy who just walked out of here certainly was. And how did the cherub know I was a demon?”
“You’re all right. That’s what matters.”
He avoided her questions, why? Ill-ease coiled inside, making her muscles tense. “Maybe, but I would have preferred it go smoothly, like it’s supposed to. And Ari texted me last night. She said I was in trouble for leaving and not coming back yesterday, even though it was an out-of-town capture.”
“Raphael?”
Ronnie nodded.
He reached for his phone receiver. “I’ll take care of Raphael. How’s it going otherwise?”
“Well…” It ate at her to nag about the problem, but updates were non-existent since she arrived at Ubiquity. While she knew three months was nothing in the grand scheme of eternity, she was starting to worry she’d never figure out who she was…before. “Have you made any progress on figuring out how to get my memories back?”
Lips drawn into a thin line, he studied her for a moment before replying. “I actually think I have an idea, but it’s too early to tell. I’ll need to talk to some friends. For now, take today off. You bagged a cherub more than a thousand miles away. You’re not expected back in the office yet, regardless of what Raphael sa
ys. Who, I’m dealing with now.”
She hesitated with an unspoken question. She didn’t want to come off as a complainer—especially with him already brushing her off—but she had to know.
He paused with the phone halfway to his ear. “Yes?”
She traced the toes of her shoes over the random cluttered patterns on the carpet. “Why are we hunting cherubs? Like really why, not the reasons preprogrammed in my head.”
The sympathy in his eyes evaporated, and a cold edge lined his retort. “Because it’s the natural order of things. They should exist in heaven or hell, not roam the earth with no direction. Heaven wants to prove it’s doing a better job than hell, and hell fights back. It’s always a numbers game. Go home, get some more rest. Get back to work tomorrow.”
She flinched. The answer didn’t surprise her, but his delivery and shift in mood left a dull ache in her chest. “Okay.”
“Company rhetoric. That’s not like him.”
“Good point, voice.” The doubt that bled through her was disconcerting. Lucifer was her guide and mentor. She should be able to trust him. She tried to ignore the way dismay fed the voice, and concentrated on erasing her physical form. The world faded as she became ethereal, and milliseconds of sweet silence flooded her thoughts as she phased back to Earth. It didn’t last long enough. In a single second, Lucifer’s office was gone, and she was surrounded by the small box she called her apartment. Tangible again, reality rushed back.
Chapter Four
Being allowed to take a physical form gave agents a choice—stay in heaven or hell, or live on Earth. Even though their physical forms came with limitations their ethereal bodies didn’t, most of them chose to live here. Feeling meant a lot more than existing in the ether.
Like so many of Ronnie’s Ubiquity colleagues, her studio apartment was in the middle of a little Tennessee suburb. Not the fanciest place on Earth, but it was on Earth, and that was what mattered.
With a sigh, she flopped onto the mattress on the floor. Worn cotton sheets caressed the portions of her back her tank top left exposed, sapping some of the heat from her skin. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the small stack of breakfast dishes in the nearby sink or the armful of clean laundry draped over the orange chair next to her.
She hopped to her feet. Screw this. She didn’t have to be at work, and there was no way she was wasting a day off by lying in bed and drowning her sorrows in music.
“At least you’re not always boring.”
She almost smacked the side of her skull to shake the noise away, but inspiration struck before the self-induced headache. It was an insane idea, but she was already hearing a voice, so this couldn’t be much worse. She strode into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Dark eyes, almost red, stared back. Yup, that was still her.
“What do you want?” She didn’t know why she was talking out loud. It could obviously hear her thoughts. She guessed the action made her feel less crazy.
“Out of your head.”
That made two of them. “Is that an option?” Could she evict voices from her skull? Maybe that was some kind of therapy she didn’t know about. That would really be all kinds since mental health knowledge wasn’t necessary to her job.
“As if I know. I haven’t been up here any longer than you have.”
If the voice was Ronnie, she was kind of bitchy and very not helpful.
“I’m not you, and I’m not the voice. I’m Metatron. I’m His voice.”
The words clenched in her gut, and bile rose in her throat. Great. Ronnie wasn’t just losing it, she thought she was possessed by an original angel. One of the first four created. She wouldn’t let it—her—know the impact it had on her. “Like the bad guy from those stupid transforming robot movies?” Ari loved those things.
“That’s Megatron. I’m Metatron. Which you’re already aware of. I can read your thoughts. You’ve figured that out, haven’t you? And you’re not insane. Well, maybe you are, but I’m not a symptom of that.”
“All right, not-me. Then how do I get rid of you?”
“Just like I know what you do, I don’t know any more than that, beyond my past life and knowledge. All I remember is someone—”
The voice choked off, and a sharp stabbing pain rocketed through her gut, as if Ronnie was stabbed. She doubled over and clenched her stomach, but nothing was there. The pain ebbed and then vanished. “Was that you?” It was harder to speak than she expected.
“I died. Then I woke up in your head. That’s all that matters. It’s a bit fuzzy for me, but the more time you’ve spent here, tangible, the more I’ve seen of your life.”
Was she a product of Ronnie’s magic-fed education, then? Something evoked by lessons of the originals?
“No. I’m Metatron. Pay attention.”
At least if Ronnie was going to lose it and fall into some kind of past-life reincarnation fantasy, she picked someone powerful to model herself after.
The voice made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh. “Don’t believe me, then. I may not have answers now, but you’re a little dim about the world around you, so I assume I’ll extract them before you do.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. Then we’re separate and both happy?”
“My form, everything except this core of me, was destroyed. The odds are good only one of us comes out of this intact.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly. Any other questions? Want to talk about the weather next?”
She wanted to stop indulging a voice that may or may not be her, all but threatening to destroy her if it found a way.
She was mostly broke until payday, but she had a couple extra dollars for coffee, and then maybe she’d go visit her one friend outside of work.
“You’ve got friends? Poor bastards.”
She’d ignore that. Only partly because admitting she heard a voice was crazy. She was pretty sure letting it ruin her free day was another step toward insanity.
Half an hour later, iced coffee with extra chocolate and whipped cream in hand, she stood in front of a building a few blocks from her apartment. On the outside, it wasn’t much to look at—a single glass door amid of an entire block of them.
The only thing to make this one stand out was the church’s name: First Angelic Non-Denominational Church of Faith. She told Izzy a dozen times the name was clunky, but he swore it was appropriate. And apparently it had been that way for over a century, so it must be working for him at least a little bit.
The main chapel was to the left of the entrance. Izzy’s apartment was up the stairs on the right, which was where she headed.
Izrafel was one of the fallen. Falling meant an angel or demon surrendered their ethereal power and became mortal. Some fell because they no longer believed in what we did. Others reached the point in their personal evolution where they wanted to do and be more. They experienced so much as ethereal beings, they opted for mortality and a chance to learn and grow as humans.
Ronnie met Izrafel her first week on Earth. She wandered into his chapel and found it the most comforting place she’d ever been. Well, not as much as hell, but it was close.
His door flew open seconds after she knocked, and Izzy grinned. With his messy brown hair and the ability to successfully rock a muscle shirt and pair of skinny jeans, he looked like those guys who graced covers in the romance section of bookstores. This, oddly enough, wasn’t the reason single mothers flocked to his sermons. He was also a genius with kids.
“Izrafel?”
A waver of recognition rushed through Ronnie but vanished again just as quickly.
He grabbed her coffee and took a long drink before setting it on a table against the wall just inside the doorway. Hands free, he wrapped her in a giant hug.
Ronnie squeezed back with a smile and a muffled greeting. “Morning.”
“Hey, angel.” He let her go and stepped back. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
She loved the nickname. No one but Izzy considere
d them all to be the same, just calling different places home. She faked a cough. “I called in sick.”
He laughed and nodded to the couch. “I didn’t even think you got sick days over there. I hate to rush you, but I’m almost on my way out the door. Talk while I finish packing?”
She chuckled. Of course he was still cramming things into a suitcase when he was supposed to be leaving.
“Where are you going this time?” She dropped onto his couch and immediately sank several inches into the soft, worn upholstery. She loved Izzy’s apartment. Bookshelves stuffed to overflowing lined the walls, and more books decorated the floor. And coffee table. And kitchen counters.
When he was an angel, he was gifted with only the knowledge he needed to do his job. As one of the fallen, he craved as much information as he could hold in his skull.
His voice carried from the bedroom. “Fiji. Researching coconuts.”
She relaxed further at the hint of a joke in his tone. He was a religion scholar. When he wasn’t discussing faith with his congregation, he traveled around the world, searching for the foundations of beliefs. What do coconuts have to do with that? He’d tell her when he was ready and probably less pressed for time.
“Speaking of your research…” She needed to ask now before she lost her nerve. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but she was about to imply she was going insane. She forced the question out. “Have you ever come across any mention of sane people—or not-sane people—hearing voices? Who claimed they were dead angels?”
The rustling in the other room stopped, and he stuck his head out of the door, eyes narrowed as he locked his gaze on her. “What? Who’s hearing voices? You?”
She winced. Crap. He did think she was crazy. “A friend?”
“Shit.” He dragged a duffel bag and suitcase out of the room, set them by the front door, and then kneeled in front of her. Her peered into her eyes as if he hoped to uncover something hidden in their depths. “How long have you—”
The blare of a horn drifted up the stairwell and through the window.
He hopped to his feet and offered her a hand up. “I’m sorry, angel. Cab’s here.” He furrowed his brow and studied her for a moment longer. “If the plane tickets were refundable, my trip would wait. I don’t think I’ll have internet or cell service where I’m going, but I’ll only be gone a week or so. We’ll talk as soon as I’m back, I promise.”
Uriel's Descent (Ubiquity #1) Page 3
