Uriel's Descent (Ubiquity #1)

by Allyson Lindt

  At least he took her seriously. The thought wasn’t as comforting as she wanted it to be. That just meant they might both be insane.

  Chapter Five

  Ronnie poured herself a cup of coffee from the breakroom pot. Normally, she tried to avoid the free stuff. Whichever demon inspired free work coffee did it wrong. And it was a demon; angels didn’t take risks, especially with something so important.

  Only at work for a couple hours, Raphael’s glares were already devouring her composure. It didn’t help the angel from Lucifer’s office was here. She wasn’t sure what he was doing, besides inhabiting a normally empty corner office. Ronnie caught glimpses of him several times, and the distraction, even if he was a sexy bit of angel, was still a distraction.

  One made worse when the voice in her head screamed bloody murder—literally—every time he was around.

  “Let me kill him and both problems are solved.”

  Nice. Not.

  “Hey, you’re back.” Ari’s perky enthusiasm dragged Ronnie out of her thoughts.

  Ronnie dumped a liberal amount of sugar in her cup and faced Ari. “I’m sorry Raphael gave you crap for coming back without me.”

  “He’s a big grumbly teddy bear when you’re not around. I handled him.” Ari turned toward the vending machines at the far end of the room and nudged Ronnie with her shoulder in the process. “Do you have any plans this weekend?”

  Trying to get her memory back—which, besides hounding Lucifer, involved a lot of mass-media consumption in the hopes something, anything, would be familiar. Wondering why she didn’t have any plans. Same old stuff. “Probably not.”

  “Want to go dancing?” The clatter of coins clinked in rhythm with Ari’s words, followed seconds later by the thunk of her candy bar rolling from its spot and dropping to the bottom of the machine. “I know the most perfect, epic place ever. I swear you’ll love it.”

  “Oh, yay. You can be one of the in crowd. A lifelong goal achieved.”

  Despite the sarcastic tone of the voice, Ronnie smiled. Being alone with her thoughts recently moved to the top of her list of least favorite things, and she loved music. “I’m in.”

  They snagged a table near the back of the breakroom, and Ari leaned in, voice low. “Have you seen the new boss man?”

  Ari must have answers about why the angel Ronnie saw in hell moved into a corner office this morning. She knew everyone. A flicker of unexpected giddiness tickled Ronnie. “Of course. Who is he?”

  Ari laughed. “Sorry. You’re serious?”

  “He’s a lying, vindictive, cruel asshole who deserves to die slowly and painfully.”

  The voice’s words sliced through Ronnie with the same impression of inky ribbons that filled her when fighting the cherub but this time with trails of blackness. It left a path of euphoria and vengefulness in its wake. She pushed the strange sensation aside. “Yes?” More things she didn’t know. Had she forgotten him or never been told? No, there was no way she wouldn’t remember him.

  “He’s Michael.” Ari looked at her with heavy expectation.

  “Told you so.”

  “Want to tell me more than that? Like how the fuck to get you out of my head?”

  “If I had that answer, I’d be gone already. Or, more likely, you would.”

  Why wasn’t Ronnie surprised?

  “So, he’s important?” Ronnie knew she shouldn’t have to ask. Everything about the conversation told her she should already know this, but since she didn’t, this was the easy way to find out.

  “Like the Michael. The Creator’s right hand. The original angel.”

  “Oh.” Of course. Another of the four originals—Lucifer, Gabriel, Michael, and Metatron. According to Lucifer, most demons and angels went their entire existence only meeting the one who named them. Lucifer took Ronnie under his wing. Another now occupied their office, and a third may or may not live in her head.

  “Important is kind of an understatement.”

  “Then why’s he here?” Ronnie’s sparse knowledge said Michael’s response to Ubiquity was: That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard, and I won’t be a part of it. So apparently he was smart, in addition to being attractive in a compelling way. No agent from the higher ranks worked for Ubiquity. They’d actually earned the chance to help people directly. And the originals… Gabriel and Lucifer’s schedules held more than she could fathom, so as long as things ran smoothly here, they stayed out of the picture. This Michael must be the same, right?

  Ari leaned closer, forearms resting on the table, and her voice dropped in volume. “I’ve only heard rumors. But supposedly, something very specific brought him back. Supposedly, something hell is doing.”

  Hell wasn’t doing anything. Except making Ronnie, and others like her, watch computer monitors all day. “Like what?”

  Ari clamped her jaw shut and scooted back from the table. “Nothing specific. Stuff. I don’t know.” The words tumbled out on top of each other. “I need to get back to work.”

  “Wait.” God damn it. Ronnie was on her feet in an instant and spinning to follow Ari out of the room. “What kind of stuff…?”

  Ronnie’s forward momentum stopped, and her question trailed off when she saw what—or rather, who—sent Ari scurrying away. Michael stood near the breakroom doorway, gaze locked on Ronnie. He cleaned up nicely. The short growth of beard was gone, he swapped out the tattered shorts for jeans, and the sleeves of his beige button down were rolled up to the elbows.

  And she was staring. She pulled her eyes away, cheeks heating. What was it about him? The aura of power he radiated? She wasn’t used to seeing it on anyone, even the higher-ups. Lucifer hid his, and she’d never met Gabriel. Maybe heaven was just flashier.

  “You.” His reply dragged Ronnie from her rambling thoughts. “I’m here because of you.”

  He was here for her? A loud hiss echoed through her skull, followed by a rush of electric inky streams filling her body.

  “I’ll destroy him now. Move aside, child.”

  The unexpected venom, combined with a surge of power inside her but not hers, stole Ronnie’s balance and ability to puzzle over whether or not Michael was being facetious. Though motionless, she stumbled, but caught herself before she fell.

  He furrowed his brow and reached for her. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Her body jerked away without her permission. With the snarled words, more black seared through her. Each new burst left her, though oddly disconnected from her thoughts, with a kind of euphoria convincing she could do anything. Was the voice trying to control her? She didn’t know what the sensation was, but she wanted it fucking gone. Now.

  If she turned her focus inward, she could almost see the dark strands weaving through her the same way a cherub intertwined with a human host. Why did she have something like that inside her? Was that Metatron? It didn’t matter. The feeling was foreign, threatening, and if she had to be honest, terrifying.

  Michael continued to study her, his frown deepening with each passing moment. As she poured half her concentration inward, tugging at the foreign threads of what she could only call power, the rest of her focus went into forcing what she hoped was a natural smile onto her face. “I’m fine. You’re not really here for me, right?”

  “Don’t you dare do this. Let me kill him, and then you’ll know what fine is.”

  The sharp tone steeled the voice’s words. A wave of weakness blanketed Ronnie, and she lost strength in her limbs, making her stumble again.

  “You don’t look fine.” Michael’s voice was heavy with concern.

  She’d be great as soon as she tucked the voice—or whatever, whoever, it was—far, far away.

  “Stop calling me the voice. Use my fucking name. Let me destroy that foul creature, and we can sit and talk about reaching a solution that benefits us both.”

  That was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. She might have rolled her eyes if she weren’t pouring so much energy
into not looking crazy while talking to Michael.

  A wash of inky black ribbons raced through her, more intense than before, and the edges of her vision swam, the walls dancing around her. Her world went black.

  * * * *

  Every few seconds, Michael glanced at the demon curled up on his office couch. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with her except… Right before she’d passed out, her aura surged dark and then almost vanished.

  It was still pale, but no more so than some of the other agents in the office. In contrast, before she noticed him in the breakroom, it was the same bright, shattered gold mixed with red and black he saw in Lucifer’s office. The fractured aura wasn’t the only thing that clue she hosted another entity. A lot of agents sparkled with that kind of chaos. The way it flared and ebbed was a strong indicator. Why didn’t anyone around here pick up on that?

  Michael tried to tell himself he couldn’t keep his eyes off her because he was concerned. There was more to it than that. He still couldn’t place it, though.

  Lucifer took a special interest in her. Why? He didn’t play favorites. The last time he took this kind of interest in someone was…

  A phantom pain echoed in Michael’s chest at the thought of Metatron, and he shoved it aside. Lingering on her memory didn’t do anyone any good. Metatron’s destruction hit Lucifer as hard as anyone. He could deny it all he wanted, but Michael recognized his own grief on his counterpart’s face that day so long ago.

  If Lucifer singled Ronnie out for a specific reason… She visited him in his office, but most denizens of hell did that eventually. If she was unique, did she know it? Would asking her directly do Michael any good? And why, every time he looked at her, did the desire to protect her from anything and everything wash over him?

  The leather of the sofa creaked when she stirred, and her eyes fluttered open, her red-eyed gaze taking a minute to focus before locking on him.

  “Are you doing better?” he asked.

  With Lucifer, the direct route to anything was a waste of time, but Michael couldn’t operate that way with everyone else. It was why he told her in the breakroom she was the reason he was at Ubiquity. Life was complicated enough without games and second-guessing motives.

  Her aura flared—a rich velvety red like a twilight sky with no stars. Her eyes rolled back for a moment, and then her entire glow dimmed to a faint smudge of brown. She took a deep breath and sat up. “Where am I?”

  Not quite what he asked, but it was a start. At least she wasn’t wobbling anymore. “My office. You passed out, and we don’t really have a protocol for agents getting sick…since they don’t. This was the only alternative I could come up with.” He couldn’t exactly take her to a hospital. Their physiology might be human, but because they healed in an instant from most wounds, things like needles didn’t agree with them.

  That and a lot of agents never got the heartbeat or body temperature thing down. Too hot, too cold, too fast, too slow—there was almost always something about them that wasn’t quite right.

  She rubbed her eyes and stood. “I guess that makes sense. I’m sorry. I’m probably keeping you from your work. I have work of my own to do.” Her aura flared again, muddying before flickering and fading, and she pressed her palm to her forehead.

  “It’s okay.” He was next to her in an instant, guiding her to sit. “Nothing we do can’t wait another few minutes, or even hours or days.”

  She gave a bitter laugh and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Right. Tell that to Raphael.”

  Desire rushed through him. To wrap her up in his arms. To trail his fingers through her hair and kiss her until the world stopped spinning around them. He pushed the impulse away. It wasn’t the images that disturbed him—he knew how to banish thoughts of lust. It was the other emotions. The urge to treat her differently. To abandon fairness and—

  He obliterated the impulses before they rambled further. “I’ll tell him personally. But not until we’re done here.”

  “You could have taken me home or something.” The corners of her mouth twitched up.

  “I wanted to have your friend do that. Ariel, right? But she said you kept wards on your doors only you could get past.” Another odd thing on his growing list. What the angel described was something only Lucifer did. Why would this demon know tricks like those?

  “Ari,” she corrected him. She stood again, this time without any incident, and raked her fingers through her hair.

  “Angels and demons don’t shorten their names.” A name was a job. It made a cherub into more. It was a thing of pride. Cherished by those who held one.

  Color was returning to her cheeks. “Of course they do. I don’t go by Uriel. Talk about awkward rolling off the tongue in about half the languages on the planet.” Her laughter was light and natural, like water over crystal.

  “What would you prefer I call you?”

  “Ronnie.”

  A heavy stone dropped into his solar plexus. That was what Michael called Metatron. A pet name, the only one Michael ever used. He couldn’t hide his grimace. “How do you get Ronnie from Uriel?”

  “I don’t know, I just do. How you do you get Bill from William?”

  “I don’t.” He had to know. She wasn’t lying about her name—it was emblazoned on her back, the large red tattoo-like sigil looking the way so many from hell wore their names. And her tank top showed enough of the symbol for him to recognize it. But too much of everything she’d said, the way her aura acted, what Izrafel… Something was going on.

  It was too bad he couldn’t tell if she would answer any of his future questions with lies. Like any angel, except for reading auras, his gift of seeing a being’s truths only extended to mortals. He didn’t need to be His will when it came to other heavenly beings. “It sounds more like it’s short for Metatron.”

  Her aura flared again, the yellow almost vanishing in a sea of black and red. She collapsed onto the couch, sinking into the cushions as the glow around her all but vanished. He was concerned she might faint once more, but she managed to stay upright.

  She intertwined her fingers so tight her knuckles turned white. “It sounds like a lot of things. Why would you use that word?”

  He had no idea what to make of her response. “It’s not a word, it’s a name.”

  “Whose?”

  There was no way she was faking this. She almost looked terrified. “She was one of the four originals. Yes, I said four.” It felt odd to add the qualifier. Metatron was all but obliterated from their history. Her betrayal was considered worse than Lucifer’s. Most were only created with knowledge of the three. Their curriculum was preprogrammed, so the moment they became an agent, they held all the knowledge deemed necessary to their jobs.

  Once upon a time, everyone knew the originals. Lucifer was His advocate, which was why Lucifer chose to walk away and rule in hell instead of staying in heaven. He was always looking for the other side of the story. Michael was His will; Metatron, His voice; and Gabriel, His vengeance.

  At the mention of a fourth, she didn’t even flinch. “I assume because there were four of you.”

  He raised his brows. “Most of you don’t know that.” He dragged his gaze from her when she squirmed.

  “Why not?”

  Not only did she know Metatron’s name, she was surprised no one else did? She just got more and more interesting. “They stripped her from the standard lesson plans after she was destroyed.”

  The sludgy gold aura leaked from her again, this time swirling and dancing around her instead of flashing and overwhelming. For a moment it looked as if she might cry. She rubbed her face and dragged in a few shaky breaths.

  He wanted to reach for her. Something. He’d never seen this before. Even when a cherub and host clashed, their auras didn’t muddy and fade.

  A knock echoed through the room, and seconds later the door opened a crack, enough for Ariel to peer through. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  All of
a sudden, the light around Uriel—Ronnie…that would take some getting used to—returned to the same red she displayed around the office, almost as bright.

  Michael didn’t know what to make of any of it. He returned to the chair behind his desk. “You’re fine. What can we do for you?”

  Ariel stepped farther into the room, leaving the door opened the crack she needed to fit inside. She shared a smile with Ronnie, but stared at her feet instead of looking at Michael. “Raphael said to come check on things.”

  “Is that all he said?” Dripping sarcasm flavored Ronnie’s question. “You’re sure it wasn’t something like I don’t care who she’s talking to, tell that demon to get her spoiled butt back in her chair right now?”

  Ari lifted her head long enough to glance at Uriel before turning her attention back to her shoes. “Maybe.”

  Office politics. Fantastic. He wanted to know more about what Uriel was thinking, but he didn’t think he’d get answers from her. Whatever was going on with her energy, he didn’t know if she’d hold up to more questions. He had confirmation enough—she was different. Even if Lucifer wasn’t favoring her, he did something unusual during her creation. It was another piece in a bizarre puzzle.

  He looked between the two women. “Uri—Ronnie’s not going back to work today, she’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “But—,” Ariel and Uriel echoed in harmony.

  He held up his hand. “I’ll talk to Raphael.” He looked at Ariel, and pinked flared across her cheeks when she finally made eye contact. “Make sure she gets home all right.”

  Chapter Six

  If Ronnie wasn’t walking a fine line between insanity and wondering what Metatron would assault her with next, she might have been amused by the almost tangible hero worship in the room. She was pretty sure Ari would have dropped to her knees and spit-shined Michael’s shoes with her favorite sweater if he asked. And she’d enjoy every second of it.