by Sawyer Black
“Henry?” Recognition spread across the woman’s face, and she jumped up, bending to grab his hand.
Henry drew his head away and rolled his eyes down to keep her in sight.
She pulled away and looked up, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “Thank you for what you did for me.” Her Spanish accent fit her throaty voice in a sexy blend that surely reduced men to putty. Demons, too. Henry knew he’d heard her voice before. “I can never repay you,” she gasped. "Que Dios siga tu bendiciendo.”
Aela cleared her throat. “And what did you do for her?”
“Fuck if I know.”
The woman stepped back, smoothing her dress and tossing her hair back. “He saved me from an eternity in Hell.”
Henry rocked back as if she had slapped him.
Boothe’s wife.
“Maria?”
Henry stopped, looked back, and saw the fog parting, lit by brilliant light. And from that light, walking in a glide so light across the grass she might as well have been floating, was a woman with long dark hair. She was beautiful. And judging from the way she looked down at Boothe, and then up at Henry as if he were a monster, he knew in an instant who she was.
Henry spun, his eyes darting into every shadow and hiding place. “Where the fuck is he?”
Randall sighed. “Pouting.”
“What do you want with my husband?”
“I want to rip his dick off. How’s that?”
“Why would you want to do this?”
“Oh, I guess he never told you how I saved you?”
Her eyebrows drew down. She looked over at Randall, but he shook his head and looked away. “He said you sacrificed. You became a monster in exchange for my freedom.”
“My daughter is in Hell because of him.”
“No, Henry.” Randall drove his hand through the air like a knife. “Your daughter is in Hell because of you.”
“Still giving me that old bullshit? He fucking tricked me, and you know it!”
Maria’s hand rose to her throat, eyes widened in horror. “He tricked you?”
“You’re God damned right, lady.”
She turned to Randall. “He tricked him?”
Randall’s shoulders lifted into an uncomfortable hug. “That’s not entirely accurate.”
“Ooh, that man.” She sneered in anger. She straightened her shoulders and smoothed her dress. Her face grew cool, and she raised an eyebrow before turning around and striding away. Her bare feet barely denting the brown grass.
Randall swept his arm at her departing back. “You should probably follow her, Henry.”
He jumped to it, jogging to catch up, and heard her muttering under her breath. Henry kept his distance. She dodged around a growing collection of dry bushes.
They had begun to form a pattern. Lines and curves. The grass became neat stone pavers, and Maria led him through a gap between a row of hedges that extended away to either side. They entered a sheltered garden, and Boothe stood facing the corner with his hands behind his back.
Ramiel and Aela crowded in behind him. Henry slowed to a stop next to Maria.
Maria stepped to the side and tipped her head at her husband’s back. “There he is.”
Henry wanted to charge over and drive his claws into the angel’s kidneys. Pull his head back and tear out the asshole’s throat using only his teeth. Grab him by the—
No. I fucking need him.
“Boothe,” Henry said. “I hate myself for even thinking it. For not coming over there and tearing your fucking arms off, but I need you. Goddamnit, I need your help, and it makes me sick to my fucking stomach.”
Boothe didn’t answer. Maria sighed in disgust. "Hace como que la virgen le habla.”
Henry shook his head. “What?”
“He is ignoring you.”
“No shit, lady.”
Boothe shifted his weight, but he didn’t turn around, remaining silent.
Maria crossed her arms. “¿Ya estamos otra vez?”
Boothe shook his head. “Lo siento.”
She looked at Henry, cocking her hip and pointing at Boothe’s back. “Tiene una hueva que no puede con ella.”
“What?”
“He’s lazy.”
Boothe spun around. “¿Te puedes tranquilizar, por favor?”
Maria squared herself and put her hands on her hips. “¡No me grites! Todos los hombres sois iguales.”
Henry looked from one to the other and threw his hands up. “What the fuck is going on?”
“They’ve been doing this for months,” Randall said.
Henry looked at the fallen angel squeezing between the dry hedge and Ramiel’s shoulder. “Why?”
Randall shrugged. “That’s just what their love looks like.”
Boothe spread his hands. “¡No puedo creer que pienses eso!”
Maria nodded. “I do. I really do.”
“¿Es que no podemos hablar de esto como adultos?”
“Did you trick him to save me?”
Boothe threw up his hands and looked at Henry. Begging for help. Searching for any way out.
No fucking way, buddy.
Boothe dropped his hands and his shoulders fell forward. “Yes. I tricked him. It was the only way to save you.”
“Then no. We can’t talk about it like adults.” Maria turned and marched toward the garden entrance. They each slid out of her way, and Boothe’s love disappeared into the mist.
“I like her,” Henry said.
Aela grinned. “Me, too.”
Ramiel nodded like a sage. “A strong woman is a blessing.”
Boothe raised his hands. “All right. All right. What do you want with me?”
Henry smiled. “Just one last thing.”
Chapter Sixteen
Boothe placed a hand against the Tree while keeping the one hand in his pocket. His head hung in defeat. “Adam and his father are in Heaven’s custody.”
Ramiel stood looking into the sky, his sword across his shoulders. His wingtips dug trenches through the dirt as he turned side to side, scanning the horizon. Randall and Maria continued their game. She had his queen on the run.
Aela sat nestled in the twisted roots, looking at the Forgotten swelling out of the mist, bag hugged to her chest.
Henry crossed his arms. “So, let’s go get ’em.”
Boothe sighed. “We can’t just ‘go get ‘em,’ Henry.”
“Why not?”
“Because … The father is going to Hell. Adam will be killed following a hearing.”
“Let’s get there before that, then.”
Maria clucked her tongue. “They’re going to kill that poor boy, Walden?”
“Walden? Your name is fucking Walden?” Henry laughed.
Boothe ignored Henry, twisted his head to look at his wife under his arm. “He’s not a poor boy, Dear.”
“Fuck that!” Henry shouted. “He is just a boy. He’s the sweetest, most gentle—”
“Tell that to people he’s killed,” Boothe interrupted.
“Oh, I guess you’ve never killed anybody.”
Boothe turned and put his hand over his heart. “But I’m not a sweet, gentle little boy, am I?”
Randall slid his queen behind his bishop. “He is a weapon. Not a boy. He has the weight of destiny upon him, and he is a danger to God and all of reality.”
Maria’s knight moved to trap Randall’s queen in the corner. “A small boy has the power to kill God?”
Boothe waved her question away. “Of course not. It’s the man he will become that has Heaven worried.”
“So, teach him,” Henry said. “Keep him in custody and show him the right way to live.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because there are other forces at work here, Henry. This isn’t just a parent trying to shout louder than MTV.”
Randall took Maria’s bishop. “Prophecy has a way of coming true.”
Maria pushed her rook ac
ross the board with a smile. Randall’s queen went into her pile. He clutched his hands into fists and growled in frustration.
Boothe pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting in pain. “Henry, I am so sorry.”
“Finally,” Maria said. “An apology.”
Boothe ignored her barb. “You have every right to be angry, Henry.”
“Angry?” Henry shook his head. “I don’t even know what angry looks like anymore.”
“Be that as it may, you must understand that I didn’t know you when I made the deal to turn you. To trade one soul for another.”
“You didn’t trade one soul for another. You traded my daughter’s soul for another.”
“But to the ledger, it doesn’t matter. It was a wager. And you were a pawn.”
Maria slid a pawn of her own forward, exposing Randall’s king to her queen waiting in the wings. “Check.”
Randall balled his hands again, wincing with a hiss.
Maria smiled in satisfaction and looked up at Boothe. “What is the boy’s destiny?”
Boothe spread his hands. “He is supposed to go to Hell to save his mother.”
“Why is his mother in Hell?”
“She broke the rules, Maria. She fell in love with a demon, and they had a child. Patently against the rules.”
“Why is love always against the rules.”
“It’s not the love. It’s the product of love.”
“Sex?”
“No,” Boothe groaned. “The boy, Maria. A child was created with the power to tear Heaven apart. If he falls into Lucifer’s hands by rushing in to save her …”
“So, get his mother out of Hell.”
“What?”
“If his mother is not in Hell, the boy has no reason to go there, and he won’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Randall avoided Maria’s queen by sliding behind his remaining rook. “That is probably something they have already considered.”
She bombed his rook with her other bishop, then leaned back with her fingertips hovering over the board, tapping out her excitement. “That’s Mate.” She looked up at Boothe from under her eyebrows. “Is it?”
“Yes, it’s Checkmate.”
“No, silly. Is it something you’ve considered?”
Henry stood bathed in shock.
How could I have missed that?
He looked into Boothe’s eyes and pointed at his own chest. “I was gonna take him there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was going to take him to Hell to rescue his mother. Him and his father.”
“You were going to take that shape-shifting liar and his demon spawn son into Hell?”
“They were going to help me find my daughter, you fuck! That’s all I’ve been doing since I met you. Making deals.”
“It doesn’t matter, now. I can’t get you into Hell.”
Henry nodded with half a shrug. “I didn’t know you ever could. Besides, I know somebody else who can get me there.”
Randall jumped from his stool. “It is Checkmate.” He threw his hands up and stomped off, shaking his head. Maria smiled and lowered her hands into her lap.
Boothe narrowed his eyes, ignoring Randall’s outburst. “You were going to convince the pastor to send you through a portal?”
“Maybe.”
“Henry, they’ve positioned themselves since you’ve been gone.”
“Positioned themselves, how?”
“Pastor Owen has moved into the Lucius estate as the mayor’s official clergyman. The Burg Spires Church of Hope has closed, and they have moved an army into the Forgotten.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, Henry. But his power has grown.”
“All the more reason to save Adam.”
“All the more reason to kill the boy and keep him out of the pastor’s hands!”
Maria slapped her palm on the chessboard. “Enough!” She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at her husband. “Walden Boothe. You will help save this child.”
Boothe looked at the ground. “Even if Henry's idea wasn’t fantastically insane, I can’t get to Earth anymore, either.”
Henry wanted to punch the defeat right off the angel’s perfect face. “Why not?”
“I guess you could say, I’m on probation.”
“Better demon than you are an angel, huh?”
“Henry, it is your fault that I’m in trouble in the first place.”
“Oh, give me a fucking break!”
Aela shot to her feet and spun to face them. “This is ridiculous!”
She pointed, taking both Henry and Boothe in with a wavering finger. “You two are the vilest, most disgusting … cheating, pathetic liars I’ve ever seen. Who cares who tricked who? Who’s in trouble and who’s angry?”
She tugged her bag over her head and slung it to the ground. Tears spilled from her eyes, and Henry’s guilt rose to choke him. He wanted to crawl away. To get out from under her accusing stare.
She pointed to the Forgotten. “My grandfather might be dead. My city overrun with Ravagers while they kill everybody I’ve ever known. Betrayed by a man I might have once loved if things had been different. And I saw that little boy look at Henry with love. Not calculating or complaining. Not trying to make a deal. He loves you, Henry. And you’re sitting here arguing over who’s been cheated more?”
She shook her head. The ugly disappointment in her eyes appeared to be dancing.
“That boy healed the Dreaming Tree. The thing that keeps the city alive and gives its people hope. If it had died, we all would have gone with it, and there would have been nobody to receive us into Heaven. When somebody from the Forgotten passes, they’re simply gone. Don’t you understand how terrifying that is? When you walk across the very stone where God slept, and you realize you’ll never get to sit at His feet, that you’ll just cease to exist as if he woke up and forgot all about you? That’s worse than Hell.”
She sighed, spread her arms, then let them clap against her thighs. “Everything my grandfather ever said, and Adam was the first thing that made me believe that salvation was possible. Adam and Henry.” She wiped her eyes and bent to retrieve her bag.
“Sister Gladys always told me men were too dumb to hear reason when it came from a woman’s mouth.” She pointed at Maria. “I never believed men were that simple, but this woman just gave you the solution to everything. Get to earth. Make the pastor send you to Hell. Save Adam’s mother and Henry’s daughter. Leave Adam here with us so he can heal Solitude. Maybe even all of the Forgotten. Why would you deny any of that?”
Henry felt proud, even though it wasn’t his place. Abraham had raised a good woman, and Henry was pleased to know her, even if he was just, in Sister Gladys’s words, a dumb man. He turned to Boothe and spread his hands. “How about it?”
“I told you, I can’t get back to Earth. They let me get you, then you took off with the kid, and that was it, I was put on probation.”
“Where can you get to?”
Boothe raised his eyes to the sky and tipped his head. “I can get you to Heaven.”
Maria smiled from behind her hand. “Checkmate.”
Chapter Seventeen
Henry stepped through the portal and bumped into Aela as she froze, staring up at something with her open mouth. Henry couldn’t blame her, but he still grabbed her by the upper arms and moved her out of the way.
Ramiel followed behind him, his face impassive. Maria came through next, then Boothe, stepping out and releasing the portal’s energy to sizzle away in a swirl of white fire.
Aela looked at Boothe, her face slack with awe. “This is Heaven?”
A broad set of white marble stairs led up to a building of glass that rose into the clouds. Golden light from a bright sun beaming through the gentle fog at their backs gleamed off the mirrored windows. Pearlescent veins ran through the stone, twinkling with reflected light.
Boothe ran up the steps and turned with his hand on the tall glass front d
oor. “Not exactly. This is the lobby.”
He opened the door, and Henry pushed Aela up the stairs. Resisting feet made her stumble, but Henry held her steady.
Just the sun is probably enough to blow her mind.
He stared up at the floating clouds, their reflection rolling down the glass to merge with the swirling fog behind his silhouette. Horns poked above the head of his shadow.
He thought of standing on the Burg-Heartstone bridge. He expected the falcons, Chelsea and Leo, to descend in a screaming dive. Approaching his reflection with the clouds at his back was like falling into the bay.
Henry followed Ramiel through the door, pushing Aela’s resisting body into the bright interior. Maria’s heels clicked off the floor behind him, and the door swung shut on a silent hinge, blocking the wash of sunlight that sparkled off the granite floor.
“Okay,” Henry whispered into Aela’s ear. “I guess I definitely know how you feel.”
A counter on the far side of the room was blocked by a snaking line of … beings. Demons and angels. Humans and golls. Fairies flitting above the heads of everyone shuffling forward with their heads bent. Looking at the floor between their feet and keeping to themselves.
A glass wall over the counter with windows sliding back and forth, angels in matching yellow polos leaning out to wave over the next in line.
Henry shook his head. “Is this where the DMV got the idea?” His voice rang out to echo against a ceiling that seemed to be as high as the sky, and he ducked his head and covered his mouth in embarrassment. A demon with a gut and an ogre’s face lowered his book to gaze at Henry with raised eyebrows.
Henry waved. The demon shook his head and went back to his book. Cooking with Booze.
The clash of a lock boomed out, and a door opened on the side wall. Three angels in shiny business suits emerged, crossing in front of Henry without a glance. Groomed wings folded back like the shining parts in their hair. A female rushed out behind them, overtaking her male counterparts and leading the group across the lobby.
Henry looked back as the entry door behind them opened, and the lobby glowed with another dose of sunlight to dazzle Henry's eyes. Aela turned to watch a Tracker glide through with a human held in front of him, hands chained behind his back. Henry followed her astounded gaze, and the Tracker’s feet skimmed the shimmering floor as he ushered his human to the counter.