His gaze settled on Lucifer, seated in a chair beside the One. A glow enveloped the two of them, binding them together.
“Light-bearer!” Mika’el’s voice started as a low growl, rising to a shout at the end.
The glow wavered, settled, intensified. Sword high, he sprinted forward, driven by rage and hatred. His unfinished business with Lucifer was about to end. Here. Now. To—
“Mika’el.”
He pulled up short, nearly running over the Highest Seraph as she stepped in front of him and placed a hand on his chest. Her calm radiated outward, countering his own turbulence. He sidestepped, trying to shake her off; she followed.
“Mika’el,” she said again.
Her gentleness sliced through his fury, hobbling it. Hobbling him. He stopped trying to evade her and stared beyond, at the two seated before the blown-out window. She, the One, upright in her chair, eyes closed and face in deep repose. He, her Light-bearer, leaning forward, fingers entwined with hers. And around them both, that light. Emanating from each of them, encompassing them, tying them together …
Shutting out the rest of the universe.
His heart contracted. He was too late.
No.
He stepped forward again. Verchiel held firm against him.
“It’s what she wanted, Mika’el. What we told her we would give her.”
Mika’el shook his head, trying to reclaim his anger, needing it to hold at bay the grief clawing at his chest. His Creator, their Creator, the mother of them all, was leaving—and he hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye. Hadn’t told her how much he loved her, would always love her.
“She knows,” Verchiel assured him softly.
He didn’t want to listen. Fear—and the yawning emptiness looming inside him—demanded that he intrude, that he tear the One from the Light-bearer and insist that she stay and watch over her creations. That she finish what she had started. The weight of Heaven itself pressed down on his shoulders, his to bear when she was gone. His to lead in war, to watch over and protect, to hold together in her absence. He flinched from the enormity of the task—and from the part of him that silently raged against her for having left it to him.
But he said nothing, did nothing, because Verchiel was right. They had promised this to their Creator. Promised that they would let her go, that they would manage, that they would be all right without her. He released his breath in a long hiss.
The light from the two bodies surged, pulsed, struggled to merge. The look of concentration on Lucifer’s face became fierce, then panicky. His own light glowed bright, but the One’s began to fade. Beside Mika’el, Verchiel inhaled sharply.
Something was wrong.
“He’s killing her!” He wrenched his sword free of its sheath again and started toward Lucifer.
“No.” Verchiel caught his upraised arm, her hand surprisingly strong. “No, Mika’el, it’s not Lucifer. It’s you.”
Me! But—
Comprehension kicked him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Of course it was him. He was the one holding on, unable to let go. The One knew he’d lied about managing without her. Just as she knew he doubted, knew he resented, knew he was nowhere near ready to let her go.
She knew, and in that knowledge, remained tied to Heaven. To him.
For a moment, a brief, wholly selfish moment, he hesitated. Lucifer had begun a conversion to incorporeal energy that he most likely couldn’t stop. He would cease to be an issue for Heaven, no longer be able to interfere with the mortal race or rule over the Nephilim army he had created. Why not keep the One with them, then? Why not save her from this so that she could continue ruling, at least until they were ready to lose her? Until he was ready.
Words spoken by the One a few days before whispered again through his mind. “Loss isn’t something you’re ever ready for, my Archangel. It’s something you survive.” He shook his head at them, and his breath caught, harsh in his throat. But deny them as he might, they found a reluctant echo of truth in his heart.
His Creator was right. He would never be ready to lose her. None of them would, because the very concept of losing her was simply too big, too impossible. But the struggle to come to terms with it was his, not hers. And tying her to him, to them, because of his own shortcoming would be the ultimate betrayal of her love—and his own.
Lifting his head, Mika’el looked into the struggling glow around his Creator. A Creator that wanted—needed—to be more, to be whole again. Grief trickled into the vast hollowness that had become him. He studied the One, burning her every detail into his memory. He breathed in her presence one last time. And then he whispered the final words of release.
“I’ll miss you,” he said.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the light around the One’s form gave a sudden surge, burgeoning outward to touch that of Lucifer. It meshed, merged, grew so bright that Mika’el raised a hand to shield himself from it. But he didn’t look away. He would not miss this last moment with her. He could not.
Eyes watering, he stared into the growing brilliance, watching the two beings within merge until one was indiscernible from the other. One that he loved with all his soul, the other he had detested just as much—if not more. Two halves of a whole, the yin and yang of the universe, united again at last.
The light flared outward … and was gone.
But Mika’el swore he felt the brush of the One’s fingers against his cheek as it passed.
Chapter 74
Alex watched Seth’s advance across the office. Her brain screamed at her to run, but her feet were rooted to the floor. She schooled her features into a calm that couldn’t be further from truth and cleared her throat.
“Seth,” she said again. “What are you doing here?”
“I gave you what you wanted,” he said. He spread his hands wide and smiled, oblivious to the weapons trained on him. “Your world is safe. From me, at least.”
“I know,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And now it’s your turn.”
“My turn?”
“To give me what I want,” Seth said, coming to a halt in front of her, mere inches away. “What we both want.”
What we—? The question died unformed as she tipped back her head to meet the black void of what had once been his gaze. Her innermost self went still. She’d forgotten what his power looked like. No. Scratch that. She’d never seen his power look anything like this.
“Now that I have my power back,” he continued softly, “I can make you like me.”
Apprehension dug its claws into her shoulders. “I don’t understand.”
“Immortal, Alex. I can make you immortal, so we can be together always.”
All around her, hands holding weapons wavered and then steadied. At her side, Roberts took a step forward, scowling. She put out a hand, stopping him, and regarded Seth. He couldn’t be serious … could he? Was it even possible?
“You need to clear the office,” she told her supervisor.
“There’s no way—”
“Staff. This is between me and Seth. You can’t do anything.”
“There is no goddamn way—”
“You heard the lady,” Seth said.
His voice held a dangerous edge that made Alex’s fingers dig into Roberts’s arm. The entire room seemed to wait. Roberts turned his head away from Seth and dropped his voice to a bare whisper. “Do you really think he’d … ?”
She wanted to say no. Wanted to believe the man she had loved was incapable of violence. But this wasn’t him. This wasn’t her Seth. Not anymore. This was the divine being from the Vancouver alley that she’d tried to save …
And failed.
“Just go,” she told her staff inspector. “Please. I’ll be fine.”
Roberts’s struggle with angry denial played out across his face. “Damn it, Alex—”
His arm ripped from her grasp as he lifted from the floor. He flew past and slammed against the wall of his office, ten feet awa
y. A collective gasp ran through the office. Alex stepped forward to go to her supervisor’s aid, but a single word stopped her in her tracks.
“Stay,” said Seth.
She obeyed, afraid of what he might do otherwise. Heart hammering, she watched Roberts put a hand to the back of his head and bring his fingers away covered in blood. He scowled and climbed to his feet.
“I’m not leaving you with him, Jarvis.”
Still blinking at the speed with which her supervisor had been tossed back—had Seth even moved?—Alex opened her mouth to argue. She snapped it shut again as, one by one, pistols held in trembling hands throughout the office turned to point at their owners’ skulls. Fingers curled against triggers. Panic rolled through her, and she whirled back to Seth. “Don’t!”
Seth stared past her at her supervisor. “It’s not up to you, Alex. It’s up to him.”
“They’ll leave, I promise. Just—don’t.” She looked over her shoulder. “Staff, please.”
Roberts’s gaze held hers for a moment longer, his eyes wide with shock, sharp with denial. Then his shoulders sagged. He nodded.
“Put your weapons away,” he ordered, his voice hoarse. “And clear the room. Alex, we’ll be—”
“The building,” she interrupted. “Clear the building.”
Thank God it was Saturday, with so few people at work.
“I can’t—”
Raymond Joly’s weapon came up again, this time to point at the head of the administrative assistant who had taken shelter beside him. The woman’s face lost all hint of color. Sweat broke out on Joly’s forehead in his effort to redirect his hand, but to no avail.
“The building,” Roberts agreed, his face as white as the assistant’s. He limped forward from the wall to join the others, pausing at Alex’s side.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked. Then, turning his face away from Seth, he mouthed, “ETF?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t risk it. Wouldn’t risk it. If Seth could exert the kind of control he’d just demonstrated, not even the highly trained Emergency Task Force could do anything. And if he spoke the truth about making her the same as him, making her—God, she couldn’t even think the word—then there was no telling what kind of power he’d have to bring to bear to do so, or what havoc such power might wreak.
“I’m sure,” she told Roberts.
The slow sickening of his expression told her his thoughts had followed hers. He understood the risk would be too great. Anguish filled his face. His throat worked with the effort to speak, but in the end he simply gave her shoulder a squeeze and followed the others out of the office, taking his cell phone from his jacket pocket as he did so. His voice, gruff and authoritative, floated back to her as he gave instructions to clear the building.
And then there was only Seth.
Alex lifted her eyes to the awful emptiness of his.
Deep within her, her soul whispered a name.
Aramael.
Chapter 75
Mika’el stood shoulder to shoulder with Verchiel in shared silence. The space that had been occupied by the One and Lucifer was now empty—bereft and oddly expectant at the same time. As if it couldn’t make up its mind whether the Creator was really gone or had only wandered away for a moment and would return. Much like the hole in Mika’el’s soul.
He squared his shoulders. “You’ll have to advise the others,” he said. “They’ll have felt her leaving.”
“Alone?” She cast a startled look at him.
“I need to ready the Archangels.” He realized he still held his sword clenched in a near death grip and shoved it back into its sheath. “And an army. The Hellfire will come down soon if it hasn’t already.”
Her hands twisted into her robe. “Of course,” she said. “Because it’s just us now. You and me, leading all of Heaven.”
He stiffened, hearing a note in her voice that he didn’t like. Verchiel went to the One’s chair and ran her hand over the back of it. She gazed out the window. Mika’el waited, bracing for what he suspected would come next. The Highest didn’t disappoint.
“It won’t work,” she said. “We’re not strong enough to fight a war and still hold all of this”—she waved—“together.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Not yet.”
Verchiel heaved a sigh. “We have to talk about it, Mika’el. She might be our—”
“I said not yet.”
“Then when?” She turned to him, annoyance creasing her brow. “It could take us weeks to find her. We haven’t heard so much as a whisper from her for six thousand years—or about her, for that matter.”
They’d been watching for her? His mind answered the question even as it formed. She was the daughter of Heaven. One of its biggest losses—and greatest regrets. Of course they’d been watching for her … just as he himself had meticulously avoided doing so. He stalked past the Seraph, headed not for the door and the waiting throng, but for the glassless window and the eminently more manageable concerns of war. Verchiel’s voice followed him.
“I know this is difficult for you, but at least let me begin looking.”
Grief, guilt, and utter despair wrangled for the upper hand in his chest. He stepped through the floor-to-ceiling window and into the gardens.
“Mika’el!”
Unfurling his wings, he left her behind.
Her, but not the memories of Emmanuelle.
Chapter 76
Striding into the war council chambers, Mika’el unsheathed his sword. He laid it across the table with the others. Six Archangels fell silent. Six sets of eyes watched grimly. He didn’t prevaricate.
“What you’ve heard is true,” he said. “She’s gone.”
There was a collective inhale, and then chaos.
A dozen questions came at him in what seemed to be a single breath, battering against his ears, his skull, his already bloody heart. Resting his hands on the table, he dropped his head, waited for the accusatory voices to die down. They ended with a single harsh question rising above the others.
“Why in bloody Hell didn’t you stop her?” Raphael demanded.
Mika’el lifted his head to glare at him. “Because she wanted this. It was the only way she could stop Lucifer.”
The others blinked at him.
“She took him with her?” Azrael asked. “He let her?”
“Yes. To both questions.”
Another jumble of voices ensued. Again he waited. Again one voice rose above the others.
“So that’s it. Hell’s ruler is gone. The Fallen are on their own,” said Gabriel.
“No.” Aramael pushed back his chair and stood, his hands fisted. “No, they’re not. Seth will take his place.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Mika’el said, “but given Seth’s lack of cooperation so far, yes, it’s possible he’ll step into the void.”
“Not possible. Definite. I know him better than you do, Mika’el. He’ll feel we forced him into this, forced him to give up Alex. He’ll be bitter and angry, and this will be his way of getting back at us.”
“Even if you’re right, it changes little. We’ll still be fighting the same war whether Seth is a part of it or not.”
“Except the Fallen,” growled Aramael, “will have a leader.”
And we won’t.
The former Power didn’t speak the last part. He didn’t need to. The words hung over the table all the same, stark and unforgiving in their truth. Drawing himself up to his full height, Mika’el glowered at him, hating that he was right but still refusing to consider the possibility raised by Verchiel. He would not—could not—go there.
“Then we’ll just have to work harder at remaining united,” he snapped. “Starting now. With us. Any objections?”
When no one spoke, he raised an eyebrow at Aramael. Scowling, the other took his seat again. Mika’el nodded.
“Good. Then you each know what you’re to—” He stopped as Gabriel, the only female among their company, clear
ed her throat. “Yes?”
“What about the Nephilim?”
“What about them?”
“The babies have all been born, and they’ve all disappeared. Do we just leave them out there like that, or—?”
Mika’el understood what she was asking. For a brief moment, standing there in the One’s profound absence, he had wondered the same thing himself. He’d also reached a conclusion. He let his gaze travel the table, meeting each of the others’ in turn.
“The One might no longer be here,” he said quietly, “but her legacy lives on in us. All of us. We uphold her ways, is that understood?”
Slowly, one by one, the Archangels nodded.
“Then as I was saying, you know—”
A chair crashed to the floor as Aramael surged to his feet again. Mika’el sighed.
“Now wh—?” He stopped midword as the other Archangel grabbed his sword from the table, scattering the others—and their owners—in all directions. Mika’el leaned across the table and seized Aramael’s wrist, holding him fast.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
Ferocious eyes fastened on his, and Aramael wrenched his arm away. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Alex needs help.”
Chapter 77
It took every particle of self-control Aramael possessed to remain at the war council table and not bolt to Alex’s side. His whole being vibrated with her need for him, resonated with his desire to respond to her summons. But with Mika’el scowling that way and Raphael’s narrowed eyes grimly daring him to so much as twitch, he didn’t dare. Getting into a fight with another Archangel—or several of them, for that matter, would only slow him down.
Gripping the tabletop with one hand and his sword in the other, he repeated his words, “Something is wrong. She needs help.”
She needs me.
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