by C. L. Coffey
Despite trying to keep the surprise from my face, I felt my eyes go wide. “Let’s not jump to killing people. Tell me who it is, and we can try to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve someone dying.”
“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Of course I did. “Leigh-Ann—”
“No,” she said, firmly. “You have to promise. When I tell you, you’ll understand why. But you cannot tell anyone. I’ve not even told Ty.”
Just her asking me this was telling me that the first thing I was probably going to want to do was tell someone.
But there was sheer terror in Leigh-Ann’s eyes.
“I promise.”
Her answer was so quiet, I wouldn’t have realized she’d spoken if I hadn’t seen her lips move.
“You can tell me.”
This time, I didn’t hear her answer.
“I didn’t . . .”
“It was my daddy.”
My brain seemed to freeze along with my body. Very slowly, my head turned towards the desk at the end of her bed, and the photographs of her family on there. Senator Sinclair’s ridiculously handsome face smirked at me. “Your . . . dad?”
“It wasn’t tonight, but it was before.”
I opened my mouth then closed it when I realized I had nothing to say. Leigh-Ann was having a dream—a prophecy—about an impeding demon attack on the college being led by . . . her father? Still bewildered, I moved back onto the couch beside her.
How long had I gone without oxygen when she’d been choking me?
“Tonight it was a woman, but I didn’t recognize her.”
“So she wasn’t you mom?” I asked, half-joking.
Leigh-Ann whipped her head around. “I know a lot of people don’t like or trust politicians, but my daddy is not evil. And neither is my momma.”
I held my hands up. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.”
Leaning forward, Leigh-Ann’s head dropped to her hands. “His face wasn’t clear before Easter break, but when I ended up in the church . . . it was him. And tonight a woman I don’t recognize.” She grabbed at her hair, frustrated. “Why is my daddy trying to destroy the college? He was the one who wanted me and Harrison to come back.”
“Okay.” I leaned over and gently pulled Leigh-Ann’s hands from her hair, encouraging her to look at me. “I’m sure it’s a coincidence or something. I know we’ve been over it before but tell me everything you remember about the dream.”
Leigh-Ann shook her head, and then, with a defeated sigh, shrugged. “At first, it’s like I’m watching a film. Someone has a drone and their filming from the air, and it comes sweeping in over the campus. It’s nighttime, and the church is on fire.”
“It has changed.” My eyes going wide. “Last time—before the college was attacked—it was the college that was on fire and not the church.”
“And the college still got attacked and people died.”
“But Harrison didn’t.” I slowly tried to remember the previous vision. “You were trying to save Harrison from something in the school. Last time, when you woke up in the church, you said you were trying to . . .” I shook my head. “The coffee shop was the next one. And it was a man in front of the school. Then it changed to the church when you were trying to get out to warn people. Your dad was there then? He was the one who warned you about Abaddon?”
“It was daddy, but he’s never said it was Abaddon. He was the one warning us about the demon—that’s what I was repeating out loud. The other part was like a voice over. It was all in Latin, and I don’t think Dean Pinnosa’s Latin is right. I think she’s forgotten some of it, like she said, or she’s filling in the blanks.”
“But she sent me and Gabriel to a place which, honestly, it was nice, but it was not the place I’d expect to find a big bad fallen angel. Only, he was there. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“But how could Daddy possibly know Abaddon?”
That I didn’t know. “You go to church every Sunday. I assume you do when you’re back with your parents. Angels and fallen angels are quite a big part of the bible.”
“Actually, they’re not,” Leigh-Ann muttered. “It’s just that some of the popular Old Testament stories have angels, and they’re the ones people remember. But my daddy doesn’t know any Latin. I asked him when we went home.” She absently rubbed at her elbow before frowning. “What if it wasn’t a coincidence?”
“Abaddon? Or your father?”
“Last night, when you told me what happened in Manhattan, you told me Gabriel said Heaven didn’t know if Abaddon was dead or alive because he’d been in hiding for thousands of years. You mean to say that at that moment in time, I had a vision, Dean Pinnosa incorrectly interpreted it and then at a, what? Billion to one chance, happened to find him in Kansas?”
Okay . . . that was an insane coincidence.
Leigh-Ann turned her head, watching me carefully. “It wasn’t my daddy who said Abaddon’s name. Or whatever it was that I heard. It was a female voice.”
I stared back at her, trying to work out what she was trying to tell me. “You think the female voice was . . . Pinnosa?”
Very slowly, very deliberately, Leigh-Ann nodded.
“You think the saint who has been rounding up nephilim to build up her little hellfire army to fight against the Fallen wants to set the college on fire to become a literal Hellfire Academy—?”
“We asked her what I was saying, and she never mentioned Watchers. Then, when we told her Gabriel had translated it differently, she comes up with Abaddon’s name and sends you two to him. What if she already knew Abaddon was there?”
Pushing the covers to the side, I got up and walked over to the small refrigerator in the corner of Leigh-Ann’s half of the room. I crouched down and pulled out a bottle of water, taking a sip to ease my irritated throat. And then I took another as I mulled Leigh-Ann’s suggestion over.
“She’s a saint, Leigh-Ann. They’re people who have been granted immortality by Heaven because of some incredible deed they did that benefited mankind. Sending the Archangel Gabriel into a dangerous situation which very nearly ended up with him dead? That doesn’t coincide with the behavior of a saint.”
“I don’t know what my visions mean.” Leigh-Ann grabbed the ends of her hair and started fiddling with it again. “But something inside of me reacts to some of these things—like a gut reaction, but stronger—when I try to interpret what I’ve been seeing. Something that tells me I’m right. And that thing is telling me there’s something up with Dean Pinnosa. When she told me you’d gone on a mission, I honestly didn’t think you’d come back.”
Which would explain the hug when I saw her.
“You said your dad was the one who really wanted you and Harrison back at college. If you’re saying your dad is involved and Pinnosa is involved . . . taking Pinnosa out of the equation, your dad could know something and was trying to warn you. But if you really think Pinnosa would do something to hurt an archangel, then your dad . . .”
“I know.” Leigh-Ann wiped at the tears on her cheek. “And I want to believe there’s an innocent explanation about it too, but that same feeling I have about the dean, I have about my daddy. I think they’re both up to something.”
“Together?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. Leigh-Ann didn’t know anything more than I did about that. “Let’s say, theoretically, that you’re right. Both of them are working together. It could be innocent. They were warning us about the Watchers. That’s what Gabriel said, right?”
Leigh-Ann nodded. “Beware the Watchers.”
“If Pinnosa is a saint, and she has connections that help her find nephilim, maybe she already knows about the Watchers. Maybe they’re both trying to protect us from them?”
“That Italian guy you and Gabriel went to see said the Watchers were nephilim, right? It would make sense that Dean Pinnosa might know what the Watchers are. Maybe her translation was off like she said, or maybe she knew more about them and didn’t want to t
ell us because they’re more dangerous than we think? I know that guy said they were good, but that was years ago. What if they’re not? What if that’s why I’m having visions warning of them?”
My fingers tapped the side of the bottle as a sinking feeling came over me. I walked back over to her couch and sat down heavily.
“Kennedy? Are you okay?” Leigh-Ann rushed to my side, taking my bottle and setting it on the floor before I spilled it. “What’s wrong?”
Blood pounded in my ears. What if . . .?
Even though I had just sat down, I was back on my feet. “Go stay with Ty for the rest of the night. I need to talk to Gabriel.”
“Now? It’s four in the morning.”
I didn’t hear the rest of what she said because I ran out of the room. There was a tightness in my chest as I ran for the back exit, and the closer to Gabriel’s on-campus apartment I got, the more restricting it felt.
At Gabriel’s door, I didn’t even look for a light when I started hammering on it. In no time at all, Gabriel opened the door wearing a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. Although his hair was ruffled, he didn’t look sleepy.
As soon as he saw me, his eyes went wide. “Kennedy? What’s wrong?” He stepped past me, looking back up at the main building before pulling me inside. In the light, his gaze dropped to my neck. “Kennedy?”
“What if it’s me?”
Frowning, Gabriel led me over to his couch and sat me down. “What if what is you?”
“Your friend—David—he said that females in that bloodline didn’t survive past infancy, not that they couldn’t.” I looked up, my gaze settling on Gabriel’s worried blue eyes. “What if one did? What if it’s me?”
“Kennedy.” Gabriel said my name like he was scolding me.
I shook my head. “I’m serious. Leigh-Ann had another vision, and I woke up with her on top of me, trying to strangle me again. Each time she’s warned about the Watchers, she has tried to kill me. And then Pinnosa sent us to the middle of nowhere Kansas where she happened to know Abaddon was. What if that was because she knows what I am—she knows about the nephilim and has people tracking them—and she was trying to save the school by having him take me out. And before you say anything about you being there, you’re an archangel. You’d be able to handle yourself because . . .” I waved my arms, gesturing vaguely at him. “Whereas no one would blink an eye if the inexperienced nephilim got caught in the crosshairs.”
Most of that came out in one big breath, and given the way Gabriel was staring at me, it was entirely possible he hadn’t understood what I was saying.
Gabriel sat down beside me, angling his body to face me. “You’re not a Watcher, Kennedy.” He gently brushed his fingers over my cheek. “And I admit I wouldn’t have said this before, but you’re not evil either.”
“But what if I am? Lucifer used to be an angel, didn’t he? And then he became the biggest evil ever.”
“Lucifer made a choice. He was gifted with something that every single being on this earth and in Heaven was gifted with too.”
I stared blankly at him. There was something we all had in common?
“Free will,” he supplied. “The angels that fell did so by their own choice. As does every human who does an evil deed.”
“You make that sound so black and white.” Sometimes a person did something because they were desperate, not because they wanted to.
“You are not evil, nor are you a Watcher.”
“What about Ty?”
Gabriel reached for my hand. “Nor is he. But don’t you dare tell him that. I think a little fear of archangel will keep him on the straight and narrow.”
I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working. My chest still felt like it was being stepped on. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
A small smile appeared on Gabriel’s lips. “And that’s why I know you’re not evil.”
“Then why does Leigh-Ann keep attacking me?”
“If I recall, she attacked her previous roommate too. I think you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the fact that she keeps attacking you concerns me.” Gabriel reached out for my throat, but his fingers never touched my skin. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
Gabriel got up and walked away.
I followed him, pausing in the archway to his small kitchen to watch him make me a drink of hot water with honey and lemon in it. Once finished, he walked over, handing me the mug.
“You keep these ingredients around?” I blew on the steaming liquid.
“I like the drink, regardless of whether I have a sore throat—which as a rule, angels don’t suffer from since we rarely get ill.”
My gaze dropped to his abdomen. “How’s your cut?”
“A couple more days and it will be gone.” Gabriel reached for my free hand and took it, leading me back to his small living room. He sat down on the couch beside me but didn’t let go of my hand. “I still don’t know what Leigh-Ann’s visions mean, but why would you think you’re a Watcher now?”
I took a sip of the drink he’d made, my mind going blank. I hadn’t been prepared to come up with something, so I wasn’t telling him about Leigh-Ann’s father, and I really didn’t want to lie.
“It changed. The man is now a woman.”
“Dean Pinnosa?”
“Leigh-Ann said she didn’t recognize her. I just . . .” I frowned. “Leigh-Ann never said Abaddon. She said something which sounded like exterminate, and Pinnosa translated it to Abaddon.”
“Exterminans?” Gabriel asked.
I wrinkled up my nose. “I think so?”
Gabriel’s lips thinned as he stared at me. Finally, he got up and walked over to the window, staring out into the slowly brightening morning. “It means to banish or to expel. There have been writings which refer to a text where it talks of the Destroyer, of Abaddon.”
“So, Pinnosa was right?”
Gabriel raked a hand through his hair. Somehow it softened his disheveled look. “I don’t know.”
Setting the mug down on the floor, I walked over to him, peering into his face. “You don’t.”
Looking away, Gabriel sighed before turning back to look at me and shook his head. “We didn’t get the opportunity to watch Abaddon for long. But he seemed to know we were coming, hence the welcome party.”
“Then why that look on your face?”
Gabriel was worried.
“I think Ursula knows more about the locations of the Fallen than she’s admitting to,” he said. “I think she’s known where Abaddon has been for some time, and when she heard Leigh-Ann say exterminans, she put the two together. They just don’t necessarily add to four.”
Folding my arms, I couldn’t stop my frown. “You think it’s a coincidence.”
Stepping forward, Gabriel put his hands on my shoulders. “I think you don’t need to worry about it. It’s not something that Heaven would approve of but bringing the nephilim here and giving them the chance to let their humanity win out over their Fallen blood is a good thing.”
I shook my head. “I don’t buy it. There’s something you’re not saying.”
“And for good reason, but it’s not something you need to worry about. I’ve asked a question, and when I get an answer, I will act on it accordingly.” His expression softened. “Go back to bed.”
Rubbing at my upper arms, my gaze dropped to my bare feet. “Can I stay here?”
Gabriel’s inhalation of breath was sharp and loud. “Kennedy—”
“It’s nearly dawn, and we’ll be up soon anyway. I just don’t want to be alone.”
His hands left my shoulders. “What about Leigh-Ann?”
“She’s uh . . .” I rubbed at the back of my neck. “With Ty.”
“If that’s what you need,” he said, hesitant.
For the longest time, I’d been the one forced to look after someone else. It wasn’t that I needed help right now, but for the first time, I felt like I neede
d something.
Without thinking, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Gabriel’s waist. He didn’t object or hesitate.
Instead, his arms wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tightly against him. “I don’t know what these visions mean, but I do know you’re not evil, Kennedy. I promise you that.”
Chapter Eighteen
Finals were almost over, and summer break was closing in at an alarming speed. Gabriel had thankfully announced that his classes would be graded based on his observations rather than an exam, but the other professors hadn’t been as generous.
Reaching for my coffee, I went to take a sip, only to find my mug was empty. “Anyone else need a refill?” I asked the table.
Simultaneously, everyone lifted their heads from their books and picked up their mugs to examine the contents. Harrison, Cash and Leigh-Ann all responded with a yes.
Gathering up their empty mugs, I carried them over to the counter.
Even though most of us only had one or two exams left, everyone was still studying hard. Most were either studying in the library or their rooms, despite it being Saturday. The coffee shop had a steady flow of people coming and going with to-go orders, but hardly anyone stayed.
At Leigh-Ann’s request, we made a corner table our study group location, so in between orders, Ty could come study with us. Considering his only class seemed to be gym, most of his ‘studying’ seemed to be of Leigh-Ann.
I also couldn’t refuse the person who replaced the phone I broke with another one, despite my protests.
“You guys drink this stuff like it’s water.” Ty took the dirty mugs from us, then loaded them into the small dishwasher.
“I blame Pinnosa. She’s the one who made it free.”
Ty rolled his eyes. “Yeah, apparently free coffee is enough to make everyone forget they’re not allowed off campus.” He set his forearms on the counter and leaned forward. “Do you think she’s putting something into the coffee to drug everyone into submission?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Do you have a tinfoil hat hiding back there?”
“Just saying.” Ty pushed himself back off the counter and turned to look up at the clock. When he turned back, irritation was written all over his face. “Couldn’t you have waited ten more minutes? The other guy starts then.”
