by C. L. Coffey
“By what?”
“Abaddon?” I offered.
“The college should be safe from Abaddon and another attack from the Fallen. I consecrated the grounds.”
“What? How?”
Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, but the waitress chose that moment to come over and collect our plates. When she left, Gabriel looked at me. “Let’s take this conversation to go. I’ll be right back.” He stood, moving over to the bar to pay.
The college was now . . . holy?
What the hell?
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I thought churches were consecrated grounds.”
We walked back to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Or at least that was the direction we were walking in, this time, on the northern bank of the river.
It was dusk and there weren’t as many people out as there were a couple of hours earlier, but there was still enough foot traffic around that I was conscious of our topic of conversation.
“They are,” Gabriel agreed. “And now, so is the college.”
“But why?” I quickly shook my head. “No, I mean, I get why. I guess I mean, why now? And how?”
“I wanted to do it when we started there. With so many nephilim, I was sure it would only result in one of their Fallen parents visiting and there would be trouble.”
Looking over at him, I frowned. “Why didn’t you do it then?”
“Ursula wouldn’t allow it. She was adamant that it was unnecessary and that the nephilim offered places at the college had also been living with their human parent.”
I scratched at the back of my head. And I wasn’t the only one frowning. “How is she finding us? Not me, because I came to her, but the others? You said you were in America tracking us down and yet you’ve also said it’s near impossible to tell who’s a nephilim. So how is she doing it?”
Gabriel didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at me.
Stopping, I grabbed Gabriel’s arm. “You don’t trust Pinnosa?”
“I have the same questions as you, and when I asked Ursula, her answers weren’t . . .”
“But she’s a saint. Saints became saints because they were the epitome of decent humans, right?”
With a sad sigh, Gabriel continued walking. “Free will, Kennedy.”
“Should I not trust her?”
This time, Gabriel gave me a sideways glance. “You mean, you do?”
“But she’s still a saint.”
“Lucifer was an archangel.” Gabriel tucked me close to him as we walked under a bridge, the path becoming narrower. “And she wouldn’t be the first saint to decide to take matters into her own hands,” he muttered, so quietly, I wasn’t sure I was supposed to have heard him.
When we came out on the other side and the path widened again, I looked over at him. “Why would you consecrate the grounds? Isn’t that going to hurt us?”
“Fallen angels cannot walk on holy ground without being in pain. With the campus being consecrated, they wouldn’t be able to get much further than the gates without needing to leave. Nephilim are safe because you’re half human. Think about it, how many churches have you been in?”
A lot.
Being in any of them hadn’t caused me pain. Well . . . except for the time Leigh-Ann attacked me, but that hadn’t been because of the church. “Then why wouldn’t she have allowed that before she started recruiting nephilim to the college?”
We turned left, moving away from the river. It took me a moment to realize we’d walked down this road on the way to the Thames when we’d arrived. Sure enough, the further up the road we walked, the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral came into view.
“Consecrating the grounds requires an angel, of which none have ever been to the college before,” Gabriel explained. “I offered when we first arrived, but Ursula pointed out that the college had stood there for several hundred years, so I didn’t question it. Until the Fallen attacked the college.”
“Is that what the wards are? Because you only asked Ursula yesterday about the wards, and we’ve been everywhere but the college campus.”
Gabriel gave me a sharp look. “You did hear that then?”
Busted.
We crossed the road and walked over to the cathedral. Instead of using the main door we came out of, Gabriel took us around the side to a smaller door.
Without even needing to use a key, he opened it.
“Do churches just leave their doors unlocked, or are you special?” I asked as we walked inside. The building seemed to be empty now—which made even less sense for the door to be left unlocked.
Instead of heading towards the stairs that led up to the dome, Gabriel simply closed the door, took my hand, and in the next second, we were in—I looked around—Gabriel’s small bedroom.
“I consecrated the grounds before asking Ursula for permission.”
Turning my head back to Gabriel, I couldn’t help snorting with laughter. It wasn’t because I found it funny, so much as I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You don’t trust her.”
Gabriel moved away from me, walking over to the window and staring out, and I joined him. Back here, it was still bright and sunny. Going from dusk to early afternoon was slightly disconcerting, but not as much as the fact that Gabriel didn’t trust the dean of Hellfire Academy.
“Not putting a ward up when she could struck me as odd, but honestly, I still can’t see what her motive for that was.” Gabriel admitted.
“World domination from your own personal army of nephilim.”
Although I was kind of joking, Gabriel didn’t smile. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t think Ursula is after world domination, but I do think she has some goals and motivations she’s not sharing.”
“We just need to tread carefully?” I asked.
Gabriel didn’t respond.
Although my final exam was on the Monday, Gabriel said we would return to London on the following Friday evening. Greenwood Prep would be officially breaking for summer.
Pinnosa said she wanted to loosen restrictions on campus since she’d been very strict about only allowing students to leave on Friday if they were making their own way home, or Saturday if parents were coming to collect them.
Even though my last exam was on Wednesday, the nephilim still had their special gym classes as normal. It wasn’t something that bothered me since I was still eager to learn as much as I could, especially after the recent encounters with the Fallen. Plus, what was left of the senior class had moved onto weapons, which made our stamina improving tasks more interesting when we could watch the seniors play with knives.
But it was also why Gabriel didn’t want to head back to London until Friday once all the classes were officially complete.
After the morning gym class, I hurried back to my room, passing Leigh-Ann on her way out. With Ty in the same class, she had taken the opportunity to pack her things, and now that he was free, she was spending her afternoon with him since I wouldn’t be around.
“I can’t believe you’re going back to London,” she said as she paused by the door.
“I can’t believe your parents are allowing you to bring Ty home with you tomorrow.”
Somehow, Leigh-Ann’s parents were very open to the idea of Ty spending summer break with them. From the way Leigh-Ann had to muster the courage to ask, I was sure they were going to give her a very hard ‘no’ in response.
If only they knew he was the son of Beelzebub . . .
“I can’t believe you’re choosing to stay here.” Leigh-Ann shot back. She winced. “Sorry. I was just hoping you would come home.”
Sighing, I closed the door. “I don’t know how long me and Gabriel will be gone. You know I want to come back with you, but if we can find out more about the Watchers, then maybe we can stop your prophecy from coming true. And you haven’t had another dream since your dad changed into a woman.”
“That’s not quite how it happened,” Leigh-Ann said, her eyes going wide. “He changed into a complet
ely different person.”
I nodded. “But unless you let me tell Gabriel about your dad, and why I want to go spend the summer with you—”
“It’s fine.” Leigh-Ann shut the door and leaned against the wall, pouting. “The more I think about it, the more I’m sure I was just mistaken. My daddy is a senator, and he’s not even coming to pick us up tomorrow. He’s sending someone to take us to the airport. Momma said she was sure he’d be in D.C. for most of the summer, anyway. I just really wanted you to come and relax on the beach with us.”
“Because third-wheeling with you and Ty sounds so appealing.”
“You two are getting along now though, right?”
While he was annoying most of the time, Ty and I were usually buddied up in gym class. And it turned out he wasn’t that bad.
“Don’t worry, we’re bestest of best friends,” I said, deadpan.
Leigh-Ann just rolled her eyes. “Will I see you before I leave?”
“Most likely, from the sounds of things.”
The whole time zone thing was a pain to work out, but from what I could gather, we were currently seven hours behind, which meant it was 7:00 p.m. in the UK. Gabriel said the soup kitchen closed at 9:30, and we were going to try to catch Siobhan at the end of her shift. It would only take an hour then, surely?
“I think we’ll be back by dinner.”
Leigh-Ann threw her arms around me. “Just in case you decide to spend the night with Gabriel in London.” And then she pulled back to wink at me before sauntering out of the room.
Laughing, I hurried around my room, getting changed and retying my hair back so I could hurry down and meet Gabriel. Despite Leigh-Ann’s goodbye, I wasn’t taking an overnight bag with me.
But I did have my purse with the dagger in it.
Gabriel was in the gym, still straightening it up after our last class when I got there. He was just finishing up with pulling the mats into a pile when I walked in. Straightening, he gave me a bright smile. “Are you ready?”
I nodded and walked over. “Yes.”
Then, we were back in St. Paul’s Cathedral at the bottom of the stairs leading to the dome. At least there weren’t over five hundred steps to walk down again. This time, the church was empty, lit only by what seemed to be emergency lighting.
“Where is everyone? I whispered as I looked around.
“It’s after hours,” Gabriel told me as he led me to a side door instead of the main one. “After Evensong, the church closes to the public for the day.”
“Evensong?”
“Evening service with choir.” Gabriel pushed open the door, and we both stopped in the doorway to stare at the rain that was coming down like a hurricane.
“It doesn’t rain in London as much as you think,” I said, mimicking Gabriel.
Gabriel gave me a sideways glance. “I didn’t say it never rained.” He looked up at the clouds before looking back at me. “Wait here.”
With no further explanation, he ran out into the rain and disappeared around the other side of the building.
Letting out a long sigh, I leaned against the door frame and stared out at the rain. It was so heavy that water was bouncing up on the slabs which paved the ground around the cathedral.
While it had never crossed my mind to check the weather before we came, we could easily have zipped back to Greenwood to pick up a jacket. Where had Gabriel gone?
Although it was pouring, there was little wind. The sky was a mottled dark gray, and it looked like there should be a thunderstorm raging above, but no lightning lit up the sky and the only rumbling came from passing traffic.
There was also a distinct lack of people around. The few that were, weren’t milling around to look at the cathedral like they had been when we’d last been there. These people were sprinting by, trying to avoid the deep puddles covering the ground.
Finally, Gabriel reappeared. Above his head was an enormous umbrella with the British Flag on it. He looked like a model as he strode across the courtyard towards me.
“We should be able to flag down a black cab when we get to the street,” Gabriel said as I joined him under the umbrella. At the puzzled look I have him, he smiled. “A taxi.”
The umbrella was big enough to cover us, although it almost seemed too late for Gabriel, whose hair and clothes were soaked through. If he’d waited to see if the rain would ease off, I would have suggested we walk, seeing how well the umbrella was protecting us from the rain.
We hurried over to the road, hardly passing anyone as we did. But flagging down a taxi was impossible. Every one that went by didn’t have the light on.
“What about the bus? Or the Underground?” I pointed to a display with a giant map of the area.
Seeing where I was pointing, Gabriel led us over, quickly scanning the map. “It looks like the bus is direct.”
I was getting excited about riding on a London bus, but as we waited at the stop, Gabriel managed to flag a taxi. It wasn’t until we were in it, driving down The Strand like we were a piece on a Monopoly board that I wondered how Gabriel was going to pay for it.
My question was answered when he pulled out a wallet, extracted a bank card, and used it to pay the driver. I had no idea you could pay for a taxi with a card. Not that I’d used them often, but on the rare occasion I had, it had been cash only.
We were dropped off directly outside the main doors, and we dashed over, into the entrance to the Soup Kitchen.
The entrance was small with a poster board covered in all kinds of notices, and below us, the worn wooden floor had footprints all over it. The door opened and a man walked out. As he did, the entrance filled with sounds from inside.
As we stepped out of the way to let the man pass, I glanced inside. There were dozens of tables, most of them seated at least one person. A wonderful spicy scent drifted out; they were serving some kind of spicy.
The man walked out without giving us a second look.
Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when no one paid much attention to us walking along the wall to the serving table at the far end of the room. Gabriel moved straight towards a woman at the end. “Good evening, I was hoping you could help me. I’m looking for Siobhan.”
The woman was tall with a long face, a lip piercing, and short blue hair. She’d had a welcoming smile on her face that evaporated the moment Gabriel asked the question. Her eyes narrowed. “We don’t have someone with that name volunteering here, and even if we did, I wouldn’t share that information with you.”
“I understand,” Gabriel said, nodding his head. “But this is quite important. We will happily sit here and wait with as many witnesses as needed—”
“It doesn’t matter how important it is, we don’t have someone here with that name.”
“Irish? She might be using a different name?” I asked.
The woman tightened her grip around the spatula she was holding. “Which part of this aren’t you understanding?”
Gabriel gave the woman a small smile. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel grabbed my sleeve and gently tugged me away from the table.
“She’s not told us anything.”
“And so she shouldn’t.” He let go of me and we walked towards the door. “If Siobhan is working here, even under an assumed name, she’s no longer part of an angelic House, which means she’s in hiding. A strange man turning up at a place of work, asking for a kid? She did the right thing.”
What he was implying suddenly dawned on me. Even if I was there, we could have been anyone. “Why would she be in hiding? Has she fallen?” I did a doubletake as I realized what Gabriel had said. “Wait . . . a kid?”
“The cherubim’s vessels are of teenagers. If she’s volunteering here, she probably looks eighteen.” We stopped in the entrance, and Gabriel pulled the strap off the umbrella, poking it out of the door to open it before we stepped out into the rain. “As she is no longer part of a House, she’s considered a rog
ue angel. We would never hunt them down, but leaving that House means you’re leaving a certain protection.”
Teenagers? Cherubim were teenagers? I was barely paying attention to anything else Gabriel was saying. No wonder that woman didn’t want to just give her up to a grown man.
Gabriel stopped, looking up and down the street, probably for a taxi. “If the other archangels and I are hunting down the Fallen, it’s nothing compared to the number of Fallen doing the same to us. With a House, there is a place with wards to return to. Protection in numbers. Rogue angels only have themselves, and depending on what rank they were, they won’t know how to fight.”
I looked up at him, frowning. “You mean you guys know that the Fallen are after you, yet you’re not doing what you can to protect yourselves?”
“Angels, the lowest rank, are messengers. They’ve never needed to know how to fight because they don’t protect humans. The cherubim used to be our warriors, but when they came to earth, they lost that privilege.”
“That seems like a very strange privilege.” I scratched at the back of my head. “Since when is protecting yourself a privilege?”
Letting out a long sigh, Gabriel turned back to me. “Sometimes, when your world is very small, you just do things because it seems right at the time, and you trust the person who’s giving the orders. It’s only when you step outside of that and you experience other things that you come to realize what you thought was the correct way of doing something, isn’t.”
Was Gabriel losing his faith? When I tilted my head to the side, staring at his face, he gave me a small smile and turned his attention back to the road.
“What do we do now?”
Instead of answering, Gabriel pulled me backwards, just as a large truck drove past, splashing water where we had been standing. “I don’t know,” Gabriel replied after checking me over. “I suppose we can ask David if, whoever it was he spoke to, would be willing to reach out.”
