Asa

by Alisa Woods

  A small smile lit Ariel’s face, and she immediately set about exploring, captured by the reflective black face of Molly’s TV mounted on the wall. Her place wasn’t huge—it would be small for three women, two babies, and a teen angeling—but Ariel was inspecting every cranny.

  Molly was caught off guard by a sideways hug from Eden. She still held Eva on her hip, and the baby was settling as Eden rocked her. “You did this,” Eden said.

  Ren stepped up to them, bouncing Ralphie. “The question is—what do we do now?” She tipped her head toward Ariel, who had picked up a small cat figurine from the collection next to the TV and was turning it around and around, amazed.

  What would they do about Ariel? Or any of them, really?

  She was out of a job, pregnant, with two more expectant moms and two babies to look after… but at least they fit in the human world. Ariel needed little in the way of food, but how would a girl with magical black wings and keen skills with a blade even exist in the real world?

  “We’ll figure it out,” Molly said, trying to sound confident. “All I know is we’re sticking together, okay? We’re The Sisterhood. And Ariel’s part of it.” The girl had moved on to poking at the TV screen like she thought it was a black pool hung on the wall.

  “Well, we need a better name than that,” Ren complained, but it was with a broad smile.

  “We don’t need a name; we’re family.” Eden’s smile was almost as big.

  Family. Molly’s throat was suddenly occupied by a lump that seemed too big to fit there. She cleared it with a cough. “That’s right. We’re sisters. And family sticks together.”

  Eden’s smile mellowed a little. “Might be rough when we have the babies all at the same time. But afterward… well, I’ve been watching babies since I was ten. All I’ve ever wanted was…” Her eyes glassed with tears, and she swept a gaze across all their bellies, plus the two little ones they were holding.

  Five babies. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Molly’s mind went sideways with that.

  “…a big family,” Eden finished.

  “Well, we’ll definitely have that!” Ren grinned. “Even without the hot men.” Her smile faltered a little, but then she brightened again. “I’m sure I’ve totally lost my job at the hospital, being gone for four months. But there’s always a shortage of nurses. I’m sure I can get something else. The only problem is…” She glanced around at Molly’s apartment—it wasn’t much, but it was downtown, where the rents were high. She could only afford it on her big corporate salary as an accountant at the law firm. “It might not be enough to support all of us.”

  “I can get something, too,” Molly said quickly. She hoped. “I mean, maybe I could even get some accounting work from home. Or something.” She sucked in a breath. “We’ll make it work.”

  Then they all looked at Ariel at once. She had moved to the window, parted the vertical slats, and was peering out. Molly had an impressive view of the dumpsters for the apartment building next door, but Ariel was staring with her mouth hanging open at all the wonders of the human world in the full glory of the morning sun.

  “We’ll make it work,” Molly repeated with a pointed look for their adopted angeling sister. Because if they couldn’t make it work for Ariel, what in the world would they do with their own babies?

  Eden and Ren nodded their agreement.

  Now that Molly thought about it, having Ariel around to help them navigate the insanity of raising baby angelings in a human world was crazy Good Luck.

  Good Luck. The kind she’d never had before.

  Maybe this was the beginning of something amazing. “In the meantime,” Molly said, clasping her hands together. Gah! They were back in the real world! It was almost like a dream. “I know this place that delivers the most amazing Chinese food.”

  Ren’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God. I think I might kill for that.”

  Eden laughed, a short chirping sound that Molly hadn’t heard in the entire time she’d known the woman.

  “I’m on it.” And Molly hustled into her micro-small kitchen, looking for the order form and that spare hundred dollars she had stashed away for emergencies. Thank God she still had a regular landline in her apartment, left over from the previous tenant. She’d have to get more cash, a real phone, groceries, diapers… and holy crap, what kind of formula do you feed to baby angelings?

  Breathe, Molly scolded herself. One step at a time. You’ll figure this out.

  She set to work.

  Chapter Eleven

  Micah looked death was no longer whispering in his ear.

  “You ready for this?” Asa would take the women out of this place regardless, but he wanted Micah fully on board, or this would not go well. Plus, Asa was still trying to stick to the original mission, no matter how much this had gone sideways—namely, convincing Micah to turn on his father. If Asa secured Micah’s lover and child, if he could guarantee them safety, then Micah should be free to do what was right—for everyone.

  They stood outside the nursery, a rack of breakfast trays stacked next to the door. Micah’s battle armor was freshly conjured sans the blood from the fight before, and whatever wounds he had sustained were no longer apparent.

  “I need time to… explain myself,” Micah said, roughly.

  Asa gave him a pinched look. “You’ll have time to say goodbye once we’re in the human world.”

  “It’s not just goodbye.” Micah dropped his gaze. Asa could see the tension in his jaw working. “We had a… disagreement… the last time.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Don’t tell me Ren’s going to fight us on leaving.” Asa knew the gorgeous redhead—Molly—was the leader. She could convince the others to go, no matter what lover-spat Micah and Ren were having.

  Micah looked up. “No, I’m sure she’ll want to leave. That was the cause of our fight. But I’m also certain she’s still angry with me.”

  “She’ll get over it.” Asa grabbed the pushcart of breakfast trays and nodded to the door for Micah to open it. “We’ll feed them first. You can have a moment during breakfast to explain how you were an asshole before but you’re fixing it now.”

  “By leaving her.” Micah’s brown eyes flashed, and Asa knew this was a tripwire.

  “By saving her. And her baby, Micah. Your baby.” He sighed. “See it from her point of view for one fucking minute, okay?”

  “I am trying!”

  Well, you suck at it. Asa kept that inside. “I know you don’t want to lose her. I get it, okay? I really do. I’d slay a hundred shadowlings to protect the woman I love. But you can’t slay an angel. Not alone. And you don’t want that battle coming down on Elyon’s Regiment while Ren and the baby are still here. We can keep them safe; you’re outnumbered a thousand-to-one here, not including a very pissed off angel.” He couldn’t believe he had to talk Micah into this again—it seemed obvious to Asa that anywhere was safer for the women than here, but he had the advantage of having lived through this particular nightmare already. Losing Ellie, thinking he could protect her all by himself, entertaining a fool’s fantasy of them having a life together, beyond the immortal realm, just the two of them and the child he would raise as his own… Asa gritted his teeth and spoke through them. “This is the only way, Micah.”

  He reluctantly nodded and placed his hand on the door of the nursery, a forlorn look on his face.

  A moment of sympathy spiked through Asa. Had someone told him—before he lost Ellie—that he had to give her up to keep her safe, would he have been strong enough to do it? Could he have torn himself away? He was still of the light then, so maybe. Sacrifice was expected of a light angeling. But Micah had lived in shadow his entire life. In Truth, Asa was asking something he wasn’t sure even he could have managed, even in the light.

  “Elyon is still involved in the vow orgy,” Micah whispered—not to Asa, to himself. “Terah is keeping watch. She’ll let me know if he calls for me. It is the perfect time. It is the only time.” It was almost a mantra.
r />   How often had Micah repeated it, talking himself into this moment? He waved open the door with magic and stepped through. Asa shoved the cart inside and followed, closing the door behind him.

  Micah took five steps inside the nursery… and stopped. Asa looked up, scanning the room for the women. They weren’t on their cots. Maybe in the tent/shower? There was no sound of water. Could they be mingling with the cohort of children at the far end of the room? That seemed… odd.

  “They’re gone.” Micah’s voice was a whisper.

  “They can’t be—” But Asa stopped. Because human souls sang to every angeling, even when they were in shadow, and there definitely weren’t any humans in the nursery. “Holy shit.” Had Molly somehow engineered an escape? She was smart and determined as well as lovely. But how? How in magic had she managed it?

  “Elyon took them.” Micah seemed to sway.

  “What? Why would he do that?” Asa shoved past the breakfast trays and grabbed Micah by the shoulders. The man’s eyes were glazing at some unseeable horror.

  “He must know,” Micah choked out. “He must have discovered…” The horror just grew.

  “Discovered what?” Asa shook him and was tempted to smack Micah’s face just to bring him out of whatever nightmare was swallowing him whole.

  Micah’s eyes found Asa’s, but he still seemed only half in the world. “That I loved her.”

  Asa grimaced. “Why would that matter?”

  Micah’s mouth worked in a fury but at first made no sound. Then he shoved Asa away and shouted, “You don’t know him!” He was trembling.

  Asa’s eyes went wide, trying to imagine what horrors Elyon was capable of—it was a darkness in which he didn’t want to dwell.

  Micah pressed both fists against his forehead, agony writ on his face. Then he tried to scrub the expression away… but it was still there. To Asa, he said, “He gives me no choice but to choose one. To mate. To bring them with child. Then I’m forbidden… I’m not supposed to visit. To love. It is the highest betrayal. He’s already destroyed… the others… I tried not to…” Micah was choking on the words, strangled by them. He couldn’t get out any more.

  But it was enough. Asa understood—or at least he could see why this was a box of pain for Micah. How his visits—his love—had to remain secret. Elyon was easily depraved enough to use the women—for fuck’s sake, the babies—as blunt instruments to destroy any trace of light inside his own son.

  And Molly was swept up in that… It hit him like the palace collapsing on his head. He promised to rescue her, protect her… just like Ellie… No, no, no. He refused to believe she was lost—not until he saw it with his own eyes.

  “Are you sure Elyon took them?” Asa demanded. “You said he’s been swept up in an orgy…”

  Micah’s tortured, vacant expression suddenly sharpened. “Where else could they be?” he snapped.

  Asa had no idea. Then a rumbling sound from the far end of the nursery captured both their attention. The cohort of angeling children were stomping their feet in some ritual way. What in all the realms…

  “I don’t know.” Asa dropped his grip on Micah and pointed to the young angelings now taking flight, a vortex of feathers and arms and feet. “But they do.”

  Together, he and Micah took to the air, swooping over the cots and landing in the midst of the children’s game, whatever it was.

  “I am Micah, son of Elyon!” Micah cried at near angelsong level. The power of it pulsed through the vortex of flying bodies. The children startled, stopping mid-flight, some dropping to the floor. “Where have the mothers gone?” he demanded.

  Silence. Some were terrified, mostly the younger ones. Even the eldest ones were still children. A few narrowed their eyes, calculating.

  One small one, a girl, finally stepped forth. “Ariel took them.”

  “Ariel?” Micah didn’t seem to know who that was.

  “She learned to travel from Devon,” the small one said, getting nods from her cohort-mates. “We all saw her. She took them away.”

  What? But Asa’s hopes lifted—maybe Molly had actually escaped.

  The blank surprise on Micah’s face had frozen it.

  Asa grabbed him by the shoulder. “Is this possible?”

  Micah blinked. “The children do not learn how to…” His gaze locked onto Asa’s. “They’re taught just before vows. Devon must be the one making them now. It’s possible he could have…” He swept his gaze back to the cohort. “When did Ariel take them?”

  The girl shrugged. “Earlier.”

  Asa added, “It had to be after the last meal. They were here then.”

  Hope rushed back to Micah’s face. “Then they’ve made an escape!”

  Asa hoped that was actually true. He glanced at the wary but mostly wide-eyed faces of the children. He couldn’t think of a reason for them to lie about this. Not to someone as close to Elyon as Micah. Then again, they had witnessed his lovemaking with Red—maybe they reported that to Elyon. Still… Asa allowed hope to bloom in his chest.

  But there were too many eyes and ears on them at this moment. “We must go,” he said roughly to Micah.

  “But we should—

  “Now.” Asa grabbed harder onto his shoulder and twisted, dragging Micah with him and reappearing outside of the nursery. Micah shoved him away and stumbled back. The only reason Asa managed to force the travel was because Micah was caught unaware.

  But now that they were alone… “Think, Micah. The cohort belongs to Elyon. We can’t have them know any more than they already do.”

  Micah squinted but quickly nodded. “No, of course, you’re right.”

  Asa rubbed the back of his neck. “Ariel—this angeling child—couldn’t have taken all three women and two babies without their cooperation. That means they’re in the human world if that’s what happened. Did you have some destination you promised Ren? Some place she would head to first?”

  “Just a… a fantasy I told her.” He was stammering. “A mythical place that doesn’t exist.”

  For the love of magic… what kind of lies had he been telling the woman? “Well, she obviously felt it better to take her chances without you.” It was unnecessarily harsh, but he was tired of Micah’s childishness. Plus it rankled too close to home.

  Micah was glowering at him now. “Maybe Ren would return to her home.” His voice was tight, but he was back on point. “I know where that is.”

  “Then let’s go.” Asa stepped closer to clasp a hand on Micah’s shoulder again. “There’s no time to waste—as soon as your father finds out…”

  “He will hunt for them.” Micah gave a sharp nod and twisted, bringing Asa with him.

  The next moment, they were in a small, human apartment. The sun was setting outside, bathing the walls in blood-red light and black-striped shadows from the slats of the window. Asa stepped away from Micah, who immediately called out to Ren, but Asa could already sense the place was empty. Human souls hummed nearby, above and below and on either side of the tiny space—but none were Ren and her child. Or Molly—he was sure he would recognize the shining beacon of her Virtues. Plus there was Eden and the two babies—such a cluster of bright souls would be immediately obvious.

  “Not here,” Micah clipped.

  Asa rubbed his temple. “What about Eden’s home?”

  Micah shook his head fast. “She belonged to Elyon. No one knows where he stole her from.”

  Stole. But of course, he did. “He’ll come after her.”

  Micah’s jaw worked. “I cannot imagine his Wrath at finding her gone. He has several, one in each of the nurseries, but she was his favorite.”

  “Hold one… there are more nurseries?” Asa’s mind boggled for a moment, but there had to be more. Elyon’s forces grew every day. He couldn’t sustain that from just one nursery with a couple dozen angelings.

  Micah gave him a look of disgust. “Does Razael not keep the mothers of his children separate?”

  “Razael does not
have a harem—together or separate,” Asa threw back. “Because such things are the province of angels like Elyon.”

  “He is not the only one with a… harem, as you call it.” Micah rubbed a hand across his face. “But that matters not. What’s important is finding Ren and the others before Elyon.”

  Asa nodded. “They’re not here, and we don’t know Eden’s home… that leaves Molly. Do you know where she lived?”

  “No, but I know the one who fathered her child.” Micah grimaced. Somehow that look squeezed tight on Asa’s chest. “I’ll return.”

  Before Asa could respond, Micah twisted and disappeared.

  Asa stood alone in the small apartment, feeling awkward next to the human furnishings. He’d spent enough time around humans it wasn’t a complete surprise to him—the apartment where he’d battled some of Elyon’s forces, with Razael at his back, using one of the human scientists as bait, was similar. He’d helped drench the carpet with the blood of shadow angelings that day, dealing a blow to Elyon that they’d hoped would dissuade him from the war. But it hadn’t. And when he had an unknown number of nurseries providing fresh angeling blood to be spilled, all while gaining support from the Winter Court and the other dark angels, it was a nearly hopeless task to stop him. The slim hope they had lay in Micah turning on his father, leading him into a trap. For that, it was imperative they find Ren and their baby—they were leverage.

  Molly was unnecessary to that plan. And yet… he could easily see the fiery redhead taking things into her own hands, orchestrating her own escape. And rescuing the others as well because she was filled to brimming with Virtues. And with the child she carried, she was also full of life in a way that made his mouth ache. Made him wish for a moment outside of this madness, outside of the war, when he could simply be with her. Just revel in her goodness for a while.

  Not that he deserved any such thing.

  Asa drifted to the window. The view wasn’t much, but in the distance, he could see the towers of downtown Seattle. The humans had their device in one of those towers—the device tipping everything and driving this beastly war. He sent up a small prayer that Molly was safe… and that she would forgive him, having to rescue herself. Had he acted sooner, she wouldn’t be in the danger she is now. A danger she scarce may know of. If it were possible for them to find her… Elyon would not be far behind.