The three of them spent the next few hours talking about work, life, hot vacation spots, and pretty much everything random. Gabe occasionally prodded Ronnie with a question he might as well have summoned from nowhere-ville. Things like: had she ever visited the Middle East, how did she feel about cherries, and did she prefer silk or wool?
The conversation was nice, but she didn’t feel any closer to answers when it was all over.
* * * *
Ronnie picked another green pepper off her pizza and added it to the growing stack on the side of her plate. Ubiquity bought lunch for the monthly staff meetings, a nice gesture. It made perfect sense too, since a bunch of borderline sensory junkies worked for them. What better way to willingly bring together a group of beings who found joy in the simple task of eating?
One by one, management called the names of the people with the top capture counts for the month. Five angels, including Ari, all ranked high enough to be recognized.
Ronnie had two problems with these assemblies—or rather, what they represented. Since this was only her third staff meeting, and she already recognized these flaws, she was curious how they escaped everyone else’s notice. First, if someone was last to the meeting room—as she was today—that person got the pizza no one else wanted. She eliminated another vegetable.
Her second issue tied back to the cherub in Gabe’s coffee shop yesterday. How many more were still out there courtesy of Ari passing them over? And if she was ignoring cherubs, how was she consistently getting top recognition? Ronnie already knew why no one was asking. Prying into was the system rigged meant deconstructing the one thing so many of them looked forward to. This job.
Not only that, but how was Ari getting so many legitimate pings? She averaged one every other day. Ronnie was lucky to identify one a week, and she was never wrong when she picked one to go after. Was Ronnie that bad at identifying them in the queue, or was Ari that lucky?
Not that Ronnie begrudged her the success. When Ari dropped back into the empty chair next to her, the congratulations were genuine.
“Thanks.” Her smile was flat. She tossed her reward certificate in the middle of the table and turned her attention back to her pizza.
A sliver of self-satisfaction trickled inside Ronnie. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who saw the ridiculousness in this ceremony after all. “At least you get free sugar out of it.”
The corners of Ari’s eyes tugged up, and she held up the gift card to a local ice cream parlor—the only real bonus to these events. “Good point. Want to go with me after work to spend this?”
“Of course.” Ronnie pushed aside the rest of her food. She wasn’t going to suffer through cold remnants of wilted veggies and weak sauce with the promise of desert nirvana waiting.
“Did you think any more about what Gabe said?” she asked.
Thought about it, was frustrated by it, and rolled the entire conversation over and over in her head until she was dizzy. There still didn’t seem to be a solution wrapped in his words. “I guess.”
“Is there anything else you can tell him?”
Ari never expressed interested in Ronnie’s missing memory.
Not that she minded the concern, but the out-of-nowhere bit of it caught her off guard. Maybe she was reading too much into it since no one really tried to help before. “Nothing.” It was hard enough to tell Lucifer she was hearing a voice. As kind as Gabe appeared yesterday, he was still mostly a stranger, and she wasn’t willing to share that much information with him.
“You care what he thinks? Or are you just worried he might be more interested in talking to me than you?”
Ronnie cared about not being labeled insane.
Ari drew her lips into a thin line as she studied Ronnie. “You’re sure? What about what happened with that fighter?”
“What about it?” The question set off more miniature alarms in Ronnie’s head. Ari told her the fighter stuff was status quo, and Ronnie didn’t tell her how she won the fight in the end. Or rather, that it hadn’t been Ronnie who fought back.
“Nothing.” Ari shook her head. “We should probably get back to work.”
Something was off about the conversation, but Ronnie couldn’t place it.
“Because you’re not trying hard enough.”
“Or nothing’s there, and a stupid voice is making me paranoid.”
Around them, everyone stood, tossed away their food, and broke into small clusters to chatter and try to waste another five or ten minutes before they logged back into the queue. Regret mixed with sadness twinged through Ronnie. Ari was just trying to help, same as Gabe. Telling them everything would increase the odds of that happening. So why couldn’t she bring herself to do it?
“I’m starting to wonder if you even need me here. You’d probably talk to yourself even without me around.”
She certainly wasn’t stopping Metatron from leaving.
“Ha ha. If only it were that easy.”
“So you do know more than you’re telling me.”
“I didn’t say that,” she replied. “Just that I know it’s not easy. Believe it or not, I don’t want you here anymore than you want me in your skull.”
Ronnie ignored the bitter taunt and the part of her that agreed, and made her way back to her desk. At least she had ice cream to look forward to after work.
Pings rolled into her queue one after another as soon as she logged in. Dud after false lead after not-even-close scrolled by. As she rejected each one, she wondered again how Ari and the other top performers landed so many captures.
Another ping. She hovered over the Pass button as she scanned the details. She jerked the mouse cursor to a neutral part of the screen as she continued to read and process. There wasn’t anything specific, but the undeniable tingle racing through her told her this was a hit. Score. She clicked the Capture button and grabbed her purse off her desk. Time to see the world.
She was far enough into her training; taking Ari with her was optional. A request she could make if the situation concerned her. The tingle humming under Ronnie’s skin demanded she do this alone.
Right before she phased, she sent Ari a quick text:
Off to Israel, back in time for ice cream.
Nervous apprehension flitted through Ronnie as her surroundings melted into narrow streets, towering buildings, and more stars than she’d seen in a single place. She stared up at the sea of black sprinkled with a gazillion sparkling white dots. So gorgeous.
It took her a moment to pull her focus back to the task at hand. Why was she here in the middle of the night? Or whatever time it was? She checked her phone: 2:00 a.m. Perfect. Not. Where was she supposed to find her target if most people were sleeping?
In the distance, a large shadow of a wall loomed over it all. A sob echoed inside her skull. Great, what now?
“It’s all… It used to be so… No. What happened?”
Her vision danced and swam. She still saw the cars and bikes lining the streets and the stone structures climbing toward the sky. But she also saw what was there before. The rolling hills, a smattering of adobe huts—
She shook her head to clear away the images, but they didn’t vanish. How did she know what was here before? It almost felt like a memory. Instead of drawing her out of the vision, it spiraled her further into the sensations and emotions. Her heart fluttered, and she turned down a side street without questioning where she was going.
“This past isn’t yours.”
Something irritating buzzed in her skull, but she needed to be somewhere. Of course it was hers. She grabbed more strands of the memory and tugged.
“No.”
There was no power, no resistance, behind the protest.
Ronnie wove through an alley, turning without knowing why or where she was going. She strode past a large brick structure, blocked off by a gate, and kept wandering. Fences and walls circled large portions of the area, but it was a simple task for her to shift to an ethereal form long enough to pass through.<
br />
Even in the middle of the night, warmth radiated from the sand, and caressed her skin. A hint of cool ran through it all but only enough to tease.
A tiny portion of her mind asked if being here, seeing this other past, was the key to unlocking her memories, but she couldn’t grasp the thought long enough to consider the truth of it. The flutter in her chest grew as she strolled farther from the structure, and her surroundings looked more like crumbled stone buildings. Still, fragments of what used to be superimposed, and amid the ruins, she saw houses and vendor stalls.
She turned another corner, and in her mind, saw the temple that once stood there. An abrupt stop, feet frozen, a sob rose in her throat. It wasn’t a sacred house of worship anymore. The decrepit walls barely reached her waist in some areas. Time eroded so much. The landscape was desolate. Empty. Abandoned.
“Leave. I don’t want to see this.”
Ronnie sank onto a nearby step—or what had once been one. Loss dug a hollow in her chest. Confusion churned in her thoughts, and doubt clenched in her gut. Nostalgia, joy, and agony rose inside. She dropped her face into her hands. What did she think she’d find here? And why did this place and its state of ruin grab at a jumble of emotions she didn’t understand?
Something vibrated against her leg, jarring her from the dreamlike state. She shook away the haze and grabbed her phone from her purse.
A text from Ari. Ice cream?
Ronnie rattled her head to clear away whatever was going on, and the present seeped back in. Right, she was there to find a cherub. Did she really wander that long? The stars faded from the sky as dawn crept in. She needed to get back home. There was nobody here. She’d wandered far enough off track that whatever registered in the queue was somewhere else, and she wasn’t knocking door to door or looking in windows for it. Apparently, she was about to have her first failed capture. She sent back a quick, Be there soon.
“It’s beautifully tragic, isn’t it?”
She jumped to her feet and whirled at the intrusion. The unexpected newcomer stood just inside the crumbling walls. He wore a black jacket and matching slacks with a white button down shirt, and topped with a kippah and tallit—skullcap and prayer shawl. In the predawn light, without the disruption of city lights, the faint glow surrounding him was distinct. Apparently she didn’t have to knock on every door near her GPS coordinates after all. She’d found her cherub. What she couldn’t find was the motivation to do her job.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, demon.” He tipped his head in a bow. His Yiddish was flawless. Wait, she understood Yiddish?
She stepped back, too much surprise cluttering her thoughts to decide what shocked her most. The cherub she took a few days ago knew what she was as well. That didn’t make sense. Supposedly, a cherub who popped into existence outside heaven or hell didn’t know anything except the basest survival instincts and a desire to experience everything.
“How do you…?” She trailed off, feeling silly asking her question aloud.
“Know what you are?” The corner of his mouth tugged up. “Your aura glows brighter than any one of the stars. I walk out here during the early hours when no one is around to stop me or care. You’re easy to spot in a ruin like this. I don’t suppose…” He turned his gaze to the sky. “No. That’s not appropriate to ask.”
She wasn’t surprised he saw her aura, but she didn’t expect him to be articulate about it. This wasn’t some random cherub who just hopped into the nearest body a couple of hours ago. He knew too much about living life in general. Like Claire in Gabe’s coffee shop, he was acclimated to his surroundings instead of rampantly licking everything that looked interesting.
Ronnie’s Ubiquity training tried to butt in and whisper she needed to take him, send him to hell, and move on. She was too captivated by the unexpected conversation. “I’m not easily offended. Ask away.”
His smile returned. “I don’t suppose you’re old enough to remember this place in its original glory.”
“I am. She’s not.”
More memories tickled her thoughts. Of waiting for someone. Of her heart hammering against her ribs and her stomach fluttering. It all vanished with a growl and a flash of nothing, and she blinked at the rapid shift in her mind. “No, probably not.”
“What a shame. It was gorgeous, I promise you.”
He was talking as if he’d been there. That made no sense. Cherubs didn’t start popping into existence on Earth until the last century or so. This wasn’t right. Except he knew things. He knew why she was here. And he was talking to her.
“Nice. You’ll spare him if he’ll give you answers? If not, then what? You’ll pout in a corner?” Venom filled Metatron’s words, but hurt and anguish lay underneath.
Ronnie shouldn’t know what Metatron felt, but emotions rocked under her skin, as if they were her own.
Ronnie’s fingers twitched at her side, and indecision pummeled her thoughts. She left Claire alone, but the queue didn’t send Ronnie to her. Then again, this stranger… What could he tell her? Was one failure really a big deal?
He nodded at Ronnie’s hand. “Please don’t.”
More ambivalence taunted her. His request didn’t make it any easier to take him.
He took a step back. “I know you’re supposed to eliminate us, but I’d rather stay here. You don’t have to tell anyone you found me.”
None of what he said made any sense. She knew on an intellectual level what the words meant, but couldn’t piece together why he said them. She could only think of one response. “It’s my job.”
“It is. But I’ve already chosen my path.” He gestured to his clothing. “Do you think taking that from me will change who I am?”
She swore she was missing a key piece of information in this conversation. At the same time though, he was right. The traditional clothing, the way he wore his hair. He already sought enlightenment and helped others find it. From his outfit, his preferred method of education was religion. Sending him to hell wouldn’t change that. “How do you know why I’m here?” she asked.
He closed the distance between them, stopping less than a foot away and locked his gaze on hers. “You should probably ask the person who sent you. I stopped doing training centuries ago.” He grasped her fingers between his and kissed the back of her hand. “Just promise me you won’t tell them asking was my idea.”
“I—” What was she doing? She had hold of him. A couple of seconds, and she could extract the stray cherub. Except the desire wasn’t there. Whether he spread the word with his followers or was a really horrible priest, he was doing more to help people delve into themselves than any angel or demon could. Was taking that from him worth getting a certificate of recognition at the end of the month? “I won’t.”
“Thank you.” He turned on his toe and strolled back into the ruins of the temple, across the dirt-strewn floor. He disappeared from sight past a wall on the far end.
What was that?
Her phone vibrated in her purse again, and she fumbled for the device.
You on your way or not? Ari asked.
Be right there. As Ronnie phased back to Ubiquity, she tried to stash the onslaught of questions but couldn’t. What was going on?
Chapter Eight
“I’m wounded you didn’t remember me.” Gabe’s low voice rumbled against Ronnie’s neck as his chest pressed into her back. He rested his hand at her hip, holding her close.
With every new touch, desire pulsed through her veins. How did she forget something like this? She leaned into him, memorizing the texture of his shirt against her bare shoulder blades. Her skin burned with exquisite agony for each new touch. It thrummed through her, beating in time with her heart.
“If I had a choice, you’d be the last thing I forgot.” Why did she say that? This moment, each sensation—it was all incredible, but there was a lot implied in that statement.
“Hmm…” The vibration tickled her skin. “You do have a choice.”
“If that�
�s true, why hasn’t someone told me?” She didn’t want to talk. She wanted him to roam her body. Glide under her clothes. Caress every inch of her.
“I’m telling you now.” He slid his hand under her tank top and rested it on her stomach.
A few inches higher, and he’d brush her breasts. Her nipples hardened at the nearness. “You could have told me before.”
“I didn’t feel like I had your full attention.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, rough and demanding, and spun her to face him. Dark hair, clean-shaven, Michael stared back, not Gabe.
Shock rolled through her. That hadn’t been Michael’s voice, though. She’d only talked to each of them once, but she knew… Didn’t she? She didn’t. She’d forgotten what each man sounded like. This had always been Michael. She only loved him. Only desired his touch. Need filled her. To sink back into him. To run her hands over his entire frame.
He rested a hand on the small of her back, the other cupping her cheek. “I swore I would move mountains for you if I had to.” He sought her mouth with his, and the feather light kiss rushed through her, making her head swim. It was gentle, undemanding, and all-consuming.
He broke away enough to trace his thumb over her lips. Each new caress tingled under her skin.
“That I would surrender everything—eternity, glory—all of it. For you… I lied.” His voice shifted to a quiet snarl.
“What…? No.” The words cut deeper than she expected. Were those tears pricking her eyelids? Why did that sting so much? Sharp agony tore through her gut. A physical pain, it might as well have been rending her in two. She gasped and choked on a thick liquid. Stepping back, she looked down. His sword was buried to the hilt in her stomach, dark red pooling around it and spilling over his blade and hand.
His gaze bored into her. “There is no redemption for what you’ve done. Never forget that.”
The edges of her vision blurred and faded, blackening as she sank to her knees. She didn’t know which hurt more, his words or his blade. Though the pain in her middle faded, the one in her chest throbbed harder.
Uriel's Descent (Ubiquity #1) Page 6
