Grace and Glory

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  “But because you love him,” he said quietly.

  I nodded. “I can’t...” Inhaling sharply through my nose, I tried again. “I can’t even think about what it will be like to use the Sword of Michael on him, even if it does work.”

  A couple of moments passed, and Peanut asked, “What are you going to do? Don’t answer that. You already know what you have to do. You have to find him.” He reached out, placing his hand over mine, where it rested on the gray-and-white marble. His hand went through mine, leaving a wave of goose bumps behind.

  “I know.” And I did. “But if it doesn’t work—if I do it and it kills him—”

  “If that is what happens, you know, deep down, it will be the right thing. It will hurt like Hell. It will hurt worse than getting electrocuted, and I would know. But Zayne...he shouldn’t be bad. That’s not who he is. He’s rare. He’s a good guy. Like too good for you.”

  I laughed, because it was true.

  “But you have to try, Trinnie.”

  I started to respond as I glanced down at where his hand was over mine. It was no longer sunken into the marble. It was above mine, like normal, and I must not have gotten enough sleep, because I swore I could... I could feel his hand. That was impossible, but there was a cool touch that really felt solid. Tangible. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his.

  “You need to find Zayne. You need to take care of him,” he said, and for a moment, he was fully corporeal. It was almost like he was any living, breathing person sitting next to me, and he didn’t look...like Peanut to me. His skin was almost...luminous, and his eyes were too bright, almost as if there was a white light behind them. “And then, after that, you need to stop the Harbinger. If not, none of this will matter. Not now and not even upon death.”

  7

  Hours after my conversation with Peanut, I still had the jitters. Even as I hit the streets with Dez later that afternoon and well into the night, I couldn’t shake the feeling. It wasn’t that Peanut said anything I didn’t already know, but there was just something about the way he said it.

  Or about him that was just different.

  But seconds later, he’d been back to his bizarre yet normal self.

  Rubbing my right hand, I resisted the urge to kick a nearby trash can as Dez and I came to an intersection. At this point, it felt like we’d walked every block in the city. I also fought the urge to check my phone, which I had been doing every ten minutes it felt like.

  I’d tried getting ahold of Cayman that afternoon, calling the number he’d texted from, more than once, but there’d been no answer. Based on how everyone first reacted to the news about Zayne, I figured that was not something I needed to text. But he hadn’t called back. He hadn’t even returned my text.

  Of course, my mind immediately had gone to the worst-case scenario. Zayne had somehow found Cayman, did something fallen-angel terrible, and I was going to be sad, because I liked the dumb demon. Layla was going to be really sad, and then Roth was going to want to kill—

  Dez’s phone rang suddenly. “It’s Gideon,” he told me as he answered. “Talk to me.”

  Please. Please let there be some lead. Anything at this point, even if it was just some kind of rumor. There had been no sign of Zayne—not from us or any of the Wardens who were also combing the city for any sign of him—and not only that, I hadn’t felt a single demon the whole time I’d been out here, not even a Fiend. There’d been less in the city since the arrival of Gabriel, but I at least always felt one.

  “What? Yeah. That could be something,” Dez was saying, turning around while I forced myself to remain silent. “We aren’t too far actually. We’ll check it out.”

  “What?” I demanded the moment he lowered his phone. “Has Gideon learned something?”

  “I don’t want us to get our hopes up, but he did hear a strange call go in to the police,” he said.

  “My hopes aren’t up,” I lied. They totally were. “What kind of call?”

  “A man just called in, saying he saw a man getting beat up by an angel.”

  I blinked once and then twice. “That...that could definitely be Zayne.” I paused. “With hopefully a really good reason to be beating someone up.”

  “Or it could be someone drunk or high,” Dez replied. “Gideon said he’d be surprised if the cops even do a drive-by of the park to check out the call.”

  “Where is the park? You said it’s close?”

  Dez turned to his left. “Just about two blocks down—”

  I took off running in that direction, his curse blistering my ears. I didn’t slow down. Dez was right behind me. We crossed the blissfully empty intersection, my heart jumping around as the brick walls of the park came into view. I kept running until I saw the entrance.

  The entrance was closed—gated from the ground to the ceiling of the stone archway.

  Swallowing a shriek of fury, I backed up toward the edge of the sidewalk just as Dez arrived. The wall was maybe nine or ten feet.

  Doable with a bit more room. Glancing into the street behind me to make sure it was empty, I rushed out to the middle.

  “Trinity—” Dez started.

  Pushing off the ground, I ran hard toward the wall, arms and legs pumping. Muscles throughout my body tensed. About four feet out, I launched myself off the ground, rising into the air. There was a moment where I felt like I was flying. Weightless.

  I’d judged the distance right.

  Sort of.

  I cleared the wall and went right over it.

  Crap!

  Preparing myself for a hard landing, I hit the ground below on both feet. The impact vibrated up my legs and throughout my hips, and along my spine. That kind of fall would’ve surely broken a bone or a spine in a human. If I was in tiptop shape, it wouldn’t have even fazed me. I, however, was not in the best of shape, so the landing stung. A lot. But all the important bones were intact. I rose from the crouch just as Dez came over the wall, his landing way more graceful and light than mine. Without even looking, I knew that meant he’d shifted into his Warden form.

  There was another curse from behind me as my sneakers pounded off the stone of the pathway. Following the solar-lit walkway, I raced past the kind of trees that reminded me of Christmas, bursting out into a brightly lit clearing. The sound of running water from a huge fountain seemed to move in the tune of my pulse. Beyond that was... I squinted.

  You have to be kidding me.

  There were like a million steps on the other side of the fountain, and even though I could make out the shape of them, they were nowhere near as lit as this area. Damn it all to—

  “Stop!” Dez shouted.

  Skidding to a stop, I looked down to see I had almost walked into a lumpy mass on the ground. A lumpy mass that was definitely a body.

  “Damn,” I whispered, jerking back a step.

  It was a man on the ground. I couldn’t make out what he was wearing, because of the...the blood that was coming from—I squinted. Oh. A whole lot of blood had poured out from where his eyes had been.

  My stomach twisted. “Does, um, it look to you like his eyes were, like, burned out?”

  “Yeah,” came the curt response. Keeping his wings back, Dez knelt and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s dead.”

  I really didn’t think that needed to be confirmed.

  “This doesn’t mean it was Zayne,” Dez said before I could even voice my fear. He lifted his head toward me. “Some demons can change their appearance. You know this.”

  I did. “But why would a demon change their appearance and give themselves angel wings?”

  “Because they’re messed up like that? Fool someone into believing they’re seeing an angel when in reality they’re seeing a nightmare come to life,” he answered. “Let me see if I can figure out who this poor soul is.”

  Looking around while Dez gently tur
ned the guy on the side and went for a wallet, I took a deep breath and held it. My eyes burned. So did my nose and my throat. I wasn’t going to cry. Nope. Crying solved nothing. Dez could be right. A demon could’ve done this. It didn’t have to mean it was Zayne.

  Because if it was, and Zayne had already taken a life, then was he already—

  The air behind Dez rippled.

  I cocked my head to the side. It could be my eyes. They were exhausted.

  A moment later I knew it wasn’t my eyes.

  The sudden awareness of a demon—a very powerful demon—hit me as static charged the atmosphere.

  “Dez! Incoming!” I shouted, already moving. I leaped over the body, putting myself between the portal and Dez. The air stirred around me as Dez rose, spinning around.

  A hot, fetid wind blew my hair back from my face as a huge, hulking form took shape in the space in front of me. For a moment, I thought it was a Hellion or Nightcrawler, and while those two things wouldn’t be something anyone should be glad to see, I was. I felt an answering pulse of grace. It tangled with all the anger and the desperation, and erupted into a need for violence.

  But the second the demon took complete form, I knew it wasn’t a Hellion or Nightcrawler. The demon was something I’d never seen before.

  Its skin was milky white and the body hairless. The bullet-shaped head was...well, it consisted of one crimson red eye, two quarter-size holes I guessed were a nose and one giant, round mouth full of rows of tiny shark teeth.

  It looked like a giant worm—a giant, muscular worm with two arms and two legs.

  “What in the world is this?” I asked.

  “A Ghoul,” Dez snarled. “Flesh eaters. They also like to eat souls. Definitely forbidden to be topside. First one I’ve seen in real life.”

  My gaze dropped, and I wanted to bleach my eyeballs. “And why are demons always naked?”

  The Ghoul opened its mouth and garbled grunts and high-pitched squeals came out.

  “Sorry.” Dez’s wings unfurled. “I don’t speak demon-worm.”

  The sounds rose and then...then became words—mushy-sounding words I heard perfectly clear. “We are here for the nephilim.”

  I rolled my eyes. They must’ve been sent by Gabriel. I guessed he wanted me under his tender, loving care until the Transfiguration. “Trueborn. The appropriate term is Trueborn.”

  “We do not care,” the Ghoul replied, and before I could question the “we” part, the entire left side of its body stretched and sort of plopped out another Ghoul.

  “What in the actual wide world of fu—?” I snapped my mouth shut as another popped out of the right side of its body.

  “I think they left the replicating thing out of the textbooks,” Dez commented.

  “You think?”

  The one to the right of the main Ghoul went right at Dez. He was fast, spinning out of its grip. The other two came toward me.

  I had my iron daggers on me still, but my grace was pushing at me. I wanted to use it. I’d moved past the idea of only using the grace in a worst-case scenario, having realized what I’d been taught and trained had been far more of a hindrance than my eyes.

  But the problem with that was I didn’t have a bonded Protector any longer. I couldn’t pull strength to avoid the weakness that followed after using my grace. My nose would most likely bleed, possibly drawing more demons my direction even though it hadn’t the night before.

  But not using my grace right now was okay.

  I was more than happy to get stabby.

  Pushing the grace down, I unsheathed my daggers. Adrenaline kicked my senses alive as the Ghouls charged me. Anticipation licked through me, my muscles tensing. I knew to keep a distance between us so they didn’t end up outside my constricted line of vision, and I waited until the last possible moment and then spun around, kicking out. My sneaker caught the Ghoul in a very unmentionable place. It shrieked, doubling over as I popped back up.

  The other Ghoul moved disturbingly fast, reaching for me with hands the size of my head. I dipped under its arm and whirled, slamming the dagger into the center of the Ghoul’s back, right where the heart would be. Jerking the iron out, I waited for the burst of flames signaling its demise.

  The Ghoul turned around and opened its mouth, roaring straight in my face.

  “Whoa.” My eyes watered. “Your breath...”

  “The head!” Dez shouted, landing behind a Ghoul, and wrapped one arm around its neck. “You got to separate its head from the body.”

  My lip curled. “Ugh. Gross.”

  The Ghoul in front of me popped out another Ghoul, and I groaned. “Oh, come on.”

  As Dez jammed his clawed hands into the side of the Ghoul’s throat, I looked around. Spotting the ledge of the fountain behind the Ghoul, I shot forward.

  Ghoul Number 3 had recovered from my low blow—sort of—and shuffled at me. I hit the ground, kicking out and sweeping its legs out from underneath it. The Ghoul went down hard as I shot up and ran. Jumping on the four-foot ledge, I spun around.

  “Oh my God!” I shouted, pointing toward the entrance. “Look! So much tasty flesh!”

  The stupid Ghoul in front of me turned in the direction I pointed. Flames erupted from Dez’s Ghoul and the smell of a busted sewer line hit me as I launched off the ledge. Landing on the back of the Ghoul, I wrapped my arm around its neck as its arms started pinwheeling. A meaty fist hit the side of my head, but I held on, shoving the dagger into the side of its throat, just under my arm.

  Rotten blood gushed out as I pushed in, dragging the dagger across its neck while it thrashed. The dagger hit the spinal cord, and boy, did that take all the arm muscle I barely had. As it wheeled around, I saw Ghoul Number 4 rushing Dez like a linebacker.

  The second I felt the head go loose, I used my knees and spring-boarded off the ghoul. I landed a few feet away as the body in front of me burst into flame—

  “Eek!” The head I held caught fire. I tossed it away from me, shuddering.

  A heavy hand landed on the scruff of my neck, and for the second time in two days, I was lifted into the air. The only difference this time was that I wasn’t bedazzled by who was holding me.

  Just really grossed out.

  The air in front of me started to warp, and my heart dropped. Oh, Hell, no—it was not going to creepy magic pop me out of here.

  Reaching back with one hand, I gripped the arm that held me, pulling my legs up toward my chest and then swinging them out and back. I slammed my feet into the midsection of the Ghoul, breaking its hold.

  I fell, twisting at the last moment to land on my hip. That poor bone had just about had it. The pain in my hips slowed me down as I rolled onto my back, groaning.

  When this was all over, I was going to be in the record books as one of the youngest people ever to need a hip replacement.

  Before I could even get onto my feet, the Ghoul appeared in my line of vision. Pushing back on my elbows, I kicked out. The Ghoul caught my ankle.

  “Dammit!” Sitting, I started to swing on the arm with the dagger as he pulled me toward him. The air charged with electricity once more.

  This Ghoul wasn’t as dumb. He saw the move coming, and promptly lifted my entire body into the air. He shook me like a rattle. My grace sparked to life once more, and this time I didn’t stop it. If I did, this punk was going to take me through some portal, and I was sure wherever it ended was where I didn’t want to be. The corners of my vision turned white—

  Without warning, the Ghoul let go and I dropped to the ground like a sack of lumpy potatoes. Landing first on my shoulder and then my ribs, I grunted. At least I hadn’t dropped my daggers. So, win?

  I was also going to need rib replacement if that existed. The grace retracted as I planted my hand in the grass and started to push up.

  Something rolled past me. Something b
ullet-shaped and white. It smacked into the ledge of the fountain.

  It was a Ghoul head.

  Dumbly, I watched it catch fire as I let out of a tired breath.

  “Thanks, Dez,” I said, this close to lying down and taking a breather.

  “That wasn’t me,” Dez replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

  The corners of my lips turned down as I stared at the scorched cement of the ledge. The smell of an overused Porta-Potty receded, and a different scent washed over me—a fresher, crisp scent.

  Wintermint.

  My heart stuttered.

  Slowly, I rolled to my back and onto my other side, looking up. The first thing I saw was bare feet. Somehow they were clean. I had no idea why I noticed that, but I had. How were his feet still clean? Had he just been flying around this whole time? My gaze lifted, and as close as he was now, I realized that the pants were the same kind of linen that the Throne had worn, a linen that looked incredibly well tailored. I kept looking up. The stomach and chest were still bare. Then I saw wings, gloriously white wings streaked with grace, spread wide and blocking out everything beyond them.

  Zayne stood above, staring down at me with eyes that were too blue to be real, too cold to be his.

  “Zayne,” I whispered.

  He didn’t move. “That thing was going to kill you.”

  My heart started hammering. “Probably. Eventually.”

  Zayne tilted his head. “I couldn’t allow that.”

  That was good. That was more than good actually. Relief started to creep into me—

  “If you are to die,” he continued, “then it seems only fitting that it should be by my hands.”

  8

  Well.

  The relief and rising sense of hope was short-lived, crashing and burning rather spectacularly.

  “How romantic,” I muttered, ignoring the aching hollowness those words caused.

  “You think?” he asked in a flatly apathetic way that was both unnerving and impressive. “After all, you said that I died because of you. Shouldn’t you then die because of me?”