Bob grinned. “You probably don’t. I suppose you’re looking for Lucifer.”
“The elevator malfunctioned,” I said. “You should get that fixed unless you’re trying to scare people to death.”
“You’re the only one in Sheol, we could scare to death, my dear.” He smiled.
“It wasn’t a malfunction.” Bob put down his utensils and removed his napkin. He wiped his mouth. “Lucifer has rerouted all initial contact to me.”
Was Lucifer getting too many Jehovah’s Witnesses at her door?
“So, you’ll have to convince me it’s something worth her time,” Bob said.
“It’s Michael,” Nash said.
Bob’s mouth tensed.
“We have a source who says he’s looking for Lia,” Nash said.
Bob stood and approached Nash. “Is that so? Michael. He’s a feisty one. Follow me.” He smoothed down his suit jacket and strolled past Nash through the door.
We followed Bob to the elevator. The doors slid open, and we stepped inside. Bob reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. He tapped the elevator control panel. Below the buttons was a keyhole.
“Newly installed,” Bob said. “It’s the only way up past my floor.”
A whole floor! Each floor of this place could house ten midsize apartments. My house could fit inside one floor of Lucifer’s skyscraper three times.
Bob turned the key, and the elevator bucked upward as if resuscitated.
My fingers played across my palm. Couldn’t Michael wait until I killed my parents’ murderer? I could face him after that, after I did what I needed to do.
The elevator doors opened. A mild, burning odor weaved through the air like someone had blown out a candle in front of me. We followed Bob down the hall and into one of the many rooms that stood in a line down the hallway.
I recognized this room, the same room where Lucifer told me my birth mother sold my soul to her. The white sofa was the same one Nash and I sat on. I remembered Lucifer’s long nails as they bit into the back of the chair she stood behind.
A clone secretary nosed the corner of the room. A bun pulled back her dark hair. Her long legs ended in black heels. She turned as we entered the room and approached us with a wide grin. “Can I get you anything?”
“Coffee,” Nash said.
“Never mind that.” Bob put up his hand. “Tell Lucifer Nash needs to speak with her about the Archangel Michael.”
The secretary blinked. “Michael.” Her smile remained, but her face tensed. She hesitated, perhaps hopeful Bob would say more, but when he didn’t, she moved along and shut the door behind her.
Nash sat on the couch and put his arm across the top, the way he sat when we first went to see Lucifer.
“Nash…” I frowned.
“What?” He looked at me as if I had the results of a cancer screening.
“Can I sit there, where you’re sitting?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “You want me to move?”
“How can I sit there if you don’t move?”
“You could still sit here.” His lips curled into a smile.
My face warmed. Definitely flirting. Should I flirt back?
“Scoot over.” I nudged his shoulder. Not flirting.
He moved over to where I sat last time, and I took his seat, but that subtle change didn’t put me at ease.
The door opened behind us. My skin crawled like it wanted to run away from my bones.
Lucifer entered. She was dressed in a tight, red skirt with a fitted black, business blazer. The heels she wore had her towering over Bob.
The secretary scurried in behind her and handed Nash his coffee. She clasped her hands together and bowed her head toward Lucifer. “Can I get you anything, Morning Star?”
“Leave.” Lucifer waved the secretary away.
With that smile, Lucifer didn’t look worried that this conversation involved Michael, but Lucifer could put on a damn good performance when she wanted to. A smile didn’t mean a thing.
She sat across from us in one of the padded, leather chairs. She crossed her legs. Her featherless wings fanned out on either side of the chair. “You have something to tell me about Michael.”
Bob stood not far from where Lucifer sat. What I couldn’t read on Lucifer’s face, I could read on his. His brows knit together, and his face slumped into a frown.
Michael was not a good topic for them.
Nash opened his mouth to speak when one of the clone secretaries with the wide smiles came in. Her heels tapped across the marble floor as she approached us.
“Morning Star.” She bowed to Lucifer. The smile plastered on her face spoke that she wouldn’t be in trouble for interrupting the Devil’s meeting, but that was far from the truth. “31,855 souls funneled in an hour ago.”
Lucifer narrowed her eyes. “We received our quota this morning.”
“I know, your Greatness, but 31,855 more were received after the original quota.”
“I’m busy. Offer them the standard contract.” Lucifer waved her away.
“We have, but 28,111 have refused it.”
Lucifer’s eyes darkened, and her lips curled. She stood. “Then, throw them into the Pit!” Her voice bellowed. A voice echoed behind hers like she wasn’t the only one who spoke, but another deeper voice repeated her words.
Goose bumps erupted on my skin, and a chill settled so deep in my bones, I would never be able to shake it.
Since I met her, in all the times I thought of Lucifer, knowing she was the Devil, my heart had not shuddered at the thought until that moment.
The secretary still smiled, but the corners of her lips twitched, and her eyes spelled alarm. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead.
Nash, who was sipping his coffee, gulped down his last swallow.
Lucifer smoothed out her skirt and sat back down. She sighed. “Pick out one third of them and make them the offer again. Call their names one by one in earshot of the others. It’ll have more effect. The others will wonder why they haven’t been chosen. They’ll panic and beg to take the deal. If they don’t, chuck them into the Circles.”
The secretary nodded and left the room. Her heels hurriedly clicked down the hallway.
Lucifer turned back to me. The way her face became so calm so fast sent a colder chill down my spine. I saw why she had a reputation for being a good liar. I bet she would have made an amazing poker player.
“Peter isn’t letting people in like he used to,” Lucifer said.
“Peter?” My voice shuddered. That surprised me.
“The gatekeeper to Heaven, my dear,” Lucifer said.
“Oh, right,” I said.
From what I’d read in Nash’s library, Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Jesus gave him the Keys to Heaven. “I knew that.”
Nash took a loud sip of his coffee. He was usually a quiet drinker. Was he signaling for me to shut up?
I didn’t plan on saying too much more anyway. I didn’t like how my voice wavered. It made me sound weak and afraid, and I didn’t want Lucifer to think I was afraid.
“We have a problem.” Nash put his coffee down on the table. “We hunted a fallen angel this morning. She told us that Michael has his eye on Lia.”
Lucifer smiled, but didn’t show teeth. She settled back in her chair, and the bones of her featherless wings crackled. “I thought this might happen. Where’s the angel?”
“She’s in Sheol,” Nash said.
“Good.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” I asked, not able to catch my words before they tumbled out.
She glanced at me. “You might need to make Michael fall.”
I gulped. I didn’t need another angel in the way of my getting to Raphael. I felt remorse for the others. I would feel none for him.
“You are strong, stronger than when I met you, but you will need help.” She spoke to me, but she looked at Nash. She made it his responsibility to protect me.
�
��She can’t.” Nash leaned in. “You and I know that, Lucifer. You can’t ask her to do something you know is impossible.”
Lucifer laughed. “I can ask, but it’s not worth my time. My interest is in Raphael. I can’t have her killing herself going after Michael.”
She didn’t want me to attack Michael, but if he attacked me, I’d be on my own. Killing him was my responsibility, not hers.
Nash settled back against the couch. Relief and worry painted his face. He expected Lucifer to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. Fight Michael herself maybe.
Did he think the Devil would stick her neck out?
A dark thought crossed my mind.
“Could Michael and Raphael be working together?” I asked.
Lucifer squinted at me. “I doubt it.”
“Then why is he after me?” But I already knew. Raphael wasn’t the only one who needed to be stopped.
Lucifer clicked her fingernails together. “Because, my dear, he wants to destroy you before Raphael can use you against him.”
THREE
NASH drove fast. I wanted to talk to him about what Lucifer said to us. The Archangel Michael had his eye on me because he wanted to kill me. Not a pleasant thought. But Nash took the turns at such high speeds, I couldn’t bring myself to start a serious discussion while he drove like that.
At this rate, it wouldn’t matter if Michael was after me, I would die in a car crash.
“Slow down!” I screamed.
He slammed on the brake, and my seatbelt cut into me and knocked the breath out of my lungs. It took me a moment to catch my breath again. “Nash, what the f—”
“She’s not doing anything about it.” He gripped the wheel.
“She asked about the angel,” I said. “Maybe she plans to question her.”
“That won’t do any good if she can’t stop Michael. She expects you to do it. We have to get home.” Nash pressed down on the accelerator, and the car zoomed ahead.
He slowed down a little, but still sped along. He didn’t look at me. His mouth formed a hard, thin line. His eyes focused in front of him. I hoped he was looking at the road and not looking past it, lost in his thoughts.
I wished I could have spoken with Lucifer first. She wasn’t the most delicate person. I could have sat down with Nash and explained it to him in his own home where he wouldn’t have to drive after the news.
I knew this wouldn’t be quick and painless, but I didn’t need to add another warrior angel on the list of angels that wanted me dead. I had taken the wings from angels who would be happy to see me in the Seventh Circle of Hell, but never an Archangel.
I remembered the first Archangel we tried to take down: Uriel. That hadn’t gone too well. I feared for Nash’s life that day.
Today, Nash feared for mine.
Or at least I hoped he did. It could also be that he feared Lucifer. If he failed to protect me, there was no telling what she would do to him.
He pulled up to the house, and I jumped out of the car.
Nash didn’t say anything to me. He went straight to the front door and walked inside. I hurried after him into the house.
I was ready to tear him up for driving like that and shutting me out when he should have been talking to me. I was the one who should have been panicking, not him. My life was in danger. He stole my anxiety and made it his own.
“Nash, can we at least talk about this?” I asked. I wanted him to say something to me, anything that might bring me hope. Raphael was an Archangel, and he was after me too. I didn’t get what was so much worse about Michael. Well, besides the fact that Raphael wanted to use me while Michael wanted to kill me.
But either way I was screwed. Raphael wouldn’t let me live past his agenda anyway, not if he didn’t need to. The thought of me touching him and taking his wings would scare him too much. Even if he needed to keep me alive, I’d be a prisoner for the rest of my life.
Was Michael the angel who told Mary that she would give birth to the son of God? Or was that Gabriel?
Gabriel. He tossed Adriel’s sword into the Pit, all because Adriel had helped me. His eyes were so empty when he did that. If Michael was anything like Gabriel, maybe there was reason to worry.
Paranoia hit me like a boulder rolling down a steep hill. I had experienced it before, many times. I never knew when it would hit me, but every time it did, something bad would happen.
I felt it right before my parents died, before the day I nearly drowned in the school pool, and the day I met the Devil.
Warmth suffused my back as if someone stood right behind me, whispering in my ear what was to come. Only I couldn’t hear it because the message wasn’t in words but in feelings.
It happened more often now. The only trouble was I didn’t know what to connect it to. I didn’t know what or who it warned me against.
Nash marched down the stairs to the armory. He opened the door and gathered weapons in his arms. He pulled the weapons down from the wall and piled them onto the table by the door.
He went back and forth from the wall to the table. The angel weapons hung against the back wall. I helped harvest those weapons, not for the weapons themselves, but to lure angels to me so I could touch them and take their Grace away. I wondered where the fallen angels were now.
“Nash, can you please stop for a minute and talk to me?” I pleaded. My voice cracked. At first, I wanted to talk to him for the sake of my own curiosity and my need to be comforted. Now, it was more about grounding him.
“What’s there to talk about?” he asked. “Michael is after you. We need to train.”
“I don’t understand. What makes Michael, a single Archangel, any more of a threat than Raphael and his entire army of angels?”
Nash stopped and looked at me like I had grown two heads. His tone grew grave. “Michael defeated Lucifer single-handedly after taking on an army of demons without breaking a sweat. That’s why she’s too afraid to do anything herself. If he comes for you, we won’t be able to stop him. I won’t be able to stop him.”
I remembered once again, as I had many times, that I was in a world where I didn’t know all the rules. What was more, I didn’t understand the complexity of Nash’s feelings for me, but I did know something. He wanted to protect me.
I put my hand on his arm. “It’ll be okay, Nash.”
“You should be scared. You don’t sound scared.”
“You want me to be scared?”
Nash turned to me. His dark eyes hardened to black crystals. “I don’t want you to have a reason to be, but I want you to be scared when you should be. Being scared might keep you alive. Being scared might make you fight harder. It might make you think clearer. It could mean the difference between life and death. So, yes, I want you to be scared.”
“I am,” I said. “But we’ll beat him.”
“Maybe, a slim maybe, if we stay on top of this.” He moved the weapons to the table and packed them away in a bag.
He shut me out again, focusing on something physical. Something tangible, something he could control. But I could tell his mind couldn’t let go of an image of me. Was he thinking of my death? Was he playing out all the many ways we could fail?
I drew him away from his task, placed my arms around his neck, and hugged him. It took a moment for him to realize I wasn’t letting go.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in. His breath warmed my neck, pushing the cold away until it receded in ripples across my skin. Goose bumps erupted in the places he didn’t touch, but they made me appreciate the warmth more.
I was glad I was the one comforting him. It had pushed the apprehension to the back of my mind. On the way back to Nash’s car, after we left Lucifer’s skyscraper, there was a moment when I thought I might cry. I wanted so badly not to cry. I wanted to feel strong.
Nash had given me something I didn’t know I needed.
Before Micah and Alexandria Hebert adopted me, I dreamed my mother or father or anyone who might love me would sh
ow up and whisk me away from the strangers who could never be my real family.
But I didn’t want someone to save me. I wanted to save myself. If someone else was my hero, I would survive the situation, but if I was my own hero, I would survive the world.
“What’s going on?” Chandra stood in the doorway of armory. I wondered if she still wanted to be in Nash’s arms.
We dropped our embrace and put space between each other. Nash cleared his throat. “We talked to Lucifer.”
Adrianna, Tom, and Kiran wandered in.
“What did she say?” Adrianna asked.
“Not much,” Nash said. “We’re on our own.”
They all wore their training attire. Chandra wore a tank top, tight pants, and arm bracers. Kiran strapped his sword to his side. The hilts of Adrianna’s daggers protruded from their sheaths. Tom wore an old t-shirt and jeans and carried his short sword. They assumed whatever Nash had to say meant they would have to fight.
“He’s coming to Sheol?” Kiran’s shoulder twitched as if a chill settled there.
Nash nodded. “He wants to get to her before Raphael does.”
If he doesn’t, Raphael would use me as a weapon to force Michael’s hand into closing the gates of Heaven to humans. Michael’s mission was noble. I cringed. Had I called my murder noble?
“But we won’t let that happen,” Nash said. Those were the words I wanted to hear from him. “We’re going to fight him. We’re going to up our training starting today.” He motioned to the pile of silver weapons on the table.
Adrianna shook her head. Her eyes were distant as she spoke. I never saw a look of hopelessness in Adrianna’s eyes, not even when Kiran, Nash, and Chandra had to pull her into the Circles to save her life. “Michael can’t be hurt by Arcadian Steel.”
“That’s a rumor.” Nash looked at me as he spoke. He tried to reassure me that I wouldn’t die by Michael’s hand. “All angels can be cut by Arcadian Steel. Michael can be hurt just like the rest of them.”
My eyes darted back and forth. “But how can he come here?” I asked. “Bob warded Sheol, right?”
The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Page 28
