by Elicia Hyder
I looked at the alarm clock I’d swiped from one of the staff bedrooms. “Five a.m.” Six hours of solid shut-eye. That had to be some kind of record here lately. I checked to be sure Fury was decent before I called out, “Come in!”
The door opened, and light spilled into the dark room. Lex stuck his head in. “Sorry to wake you.”
I shielded my eyes from the light. “What is it?”
“Rogan and Torman just pulled in, and Reese sent a message to say he and Shannon are going to stop and rest a few hours before driving back home.”
“OK. Thanks,” I replied as I sat up.
“We’re in the lobby when you’re ready.”
“I’m going to jump in the shower, so I’ll be up in a minute. Where’s Kane?”
“Asleep, sir.”
“Good.” I dropped my legs off the side of the mattress as Lex walked out.
Fury sat up behind me and laid her head against the back of my bare shoulder. “I feel like I’m never going to be caught up on sleep. Just one night it would be nice to sleep until I woke up on my own.”
“Stay here and rest for a little while longer. I’ll come get you if there’s big news.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
I took a quick shower and dressed quietly in the bathroom. When I crept back through our bedroom, Fury didn’t even stir. I took the stairs two at a time until I reached the lobby. Lex was at the desk, and Cruz was standing in the doorway to the main hallway.
“Morning,” Cruz said.
“Morning,” I replied.
“There’s coffee.” Lex nodded toward a pot in the corner.
I walked over and picked up a paper cup. “Where are our friends?” I poured a paper cup full.
“On their way down now,” Lex answered, turning one of the security-camera monitors toward me. On the screen was a fuzzy shot of the two angels coming down the staircase.
“OK.” I held up the pot. “Anybody need a refill?”
“No thanks,” Lex answered.
“Nah, I’m heading to bed as soon as Kane is up,” Cruz said.
I slurped the steaming coffee. “What did Reese have to say?”
“He said they arrived in Kill Devil Hills around two a.m. They slept for a few hours at a rest area, then headed back,” Lex said.
“Where did they drop off Dr. Jordan?” I asked.
Lex grinned. “Well…Reese thinks he dropped him off at the end of the road that leads to the house. He said he got out, opened the back door, and hoped for the best.”
I laughed, and hot coffee shot up my nose. My eyes watered as I coughed. “Shit, that’s funny.”
“Man, did you ever imagine we’d see the day that we were using ghosts as a messenger service?” Cruz asked, almost to himself.
Lex laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back in his office chair. “Freaks my shit out, if I’m being honest.”
The door opened, and Rogan and Torman trudged in. They were the visual definition of bedraggled. Rogan’s blond hair so desperately needed a wash that it was almost brown. His clothes were wrinkled like they’d been washed in a sink and wrung dry.
Torman’s clothes were straight-up filthy, and his shirt was buttoned wrong. His hair in the back was standing almost completely vertical. He was also missing a shoe.
My head tilted to the side. “What the hell happened to you two?”
“Don’t get me started,” Rogan said, shaking his head.
Torman’s hands were cuffed behind his back. “This is cruel and unusual, even for a bunch of angels.”
To be honest, I was a little surprised Torman had survived the trip. Though I was sure that was only because Rogan didn’t have means of killing him permanently.
“Come on. Let’s take him back to the secure cell.” I said.
“It had better have a shower,” Torman snarled.
It didn’t.
“We’ll figure something out.” I could smell them both from five feet away.
Rogan grabbed my arm. “Is Shannon here yet?”
“Not yet. You have a few hours’ reprieve.”
He sighed with relief. “Thank the Father.”
“Whoa,” Cruz said, pinching his nose as the three of us walked through the door he was holding. “What’s that stench?”
Rogan held up his middle finger without saying a word.
The four of us walked down the hallway. “How did you get back?” I asked.
“It took a couple of days, but we finally found someone to forge travel documents. Unfortunately, they were pretty shoddy, so I didn’t want to risk flying through one of the major airports if we could help it.
“A guy in Manila told us about an airline in Vietnam that has pretty lax security. But it added another day to our trip. We flew from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City, then all the way across the Pacific, where we landed at LAX. We have a friend on the inside there who works at the airport in customs.”
“That’s convenient,” I said.
“It’s by design. Cassiel and Samael have been working the past couple of years to get angels stationed in all the major airports to help us with issues such as this.”
“Smart.” Not that I was surprised.
“Still, we were detained for another day before we made it to Chicago. By the time we got there, we were broke.”
“I heard you stole the car,” I said.
He smiled. “Yeah. One of the company cars outside a Claymore recruiting office.”
I burst out laughing. “Jett didn’t tell me that.”
“Nice car. Had enough battery life to get us all the way here,” Rogan said.
Torman smirked. “Yes, and with a detour halfway to Knoxville.”
“Shut up, Torman,” Rogan snapped.
“Why would you take direction from an Angel of Knowledge anyway? It’s not like we know anything—”
Rogan squeezed Torman’s arm, buckling Torman’s knees. “I said, shut up.”
“Shh,” I said, pulling them apart. “The rest of this place is asleep.”
“He’s making me crazy,” Rogan grumbled.
“I can tell.”
I paused at the infirmary window and looked inside. Iliana was asleep on the second hospital bed. Jett was asleep in the chair. Taiya was, surprisingly, laying right next to Cassiel.
Weird.
Rogan took a step toward the glass. “How is she?”
“It’s bad. She’s going to die if we don’t figure out how to help her,” I said.
“Die?” Torman whirled toward me. “Angels can’t die.”
“Apparently the Morning Star has found a way. Do you know anything about an engineered toxin known as hydrogen necroxide?” I asked him.
Torman shook his head. “I’ve been in the same hole with you, remember? What is it?”
“Our friend Huffman…”
Huffman.
My throat thickened. I cleared it, then told him everything we learned from Huffman as we escorted Torman past the sleeping Claymore prisoners.
Inside the eight-by-ten cell, Rogan gave Torman a shove toward the mattress. He stumbled across the room and sat down. “Is that necessary?” Torman asked.
“Yes.” Rogan walked over and turned on the metal sink. He splashed his face with water, then dried it on his dirty shirt.
“Anyway, the poison is killing Cassiel.” I leaned against the concrete-and-high-Z wall. “And if we can’t reverse the effects, it might kill a whole lot more of us. Legion Nine, Claymore’s special-ops trained to deal with angels, have been issued about two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition containing the poison.”
Torman looked around at his accommodations. “Never thought I’d be thankful to be locked up.”
Cruz brought in a chair, and I sat down. “I might find you a more comfortable bed if you help Cassiel.”
“Me? What can I do?” he asked.
I leaned forward, balancing my elbows on my knees. “Tell me how to make crystal
water.”
Torman laughed. Then his head pulled back. “You’re serious?”
“Do I look like I make a lot of jokes?”
“You can’t. The only Angel of Life powerful enough to create it is the Morning Star.”
“Iliana is stronger than he is.”
Torman clearly hadn’t thought of that. “Technically, she should be able to do it, but it would be nearly impossible to pull it off outside Eden.”
“But it is possible,” I said.
“Do you know how crystal water is made?” he asked.
In the doorway, Rogan crossed his arms. “Would we have been in such a hurry to get you back here if we did?”
Torman scowled at him. “If you want my help, I suggest you lay off the insults.”
I turned toward Rogan. “You should leave us. I’m sure you’d like to shower and get some rest.”
Rogan appeared offended at having been asked to leave, but he didn’t argue. When he was gone, I closed the secure cell door and removed Torman’s cuffs.
He rubbed his wrists. “Thank you. I haven’t felt my fingers in days.”
“You’re welcome.”
His eyes were on my coffee cup. Reluctantly, I handed it to him.
He sipped it slowly. “What do you want from me, Warren?”
“We need your help. And if you get caught in the crossfire, you’ll need a cure for that poison too.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Would the Morning Star ever take the time to save you even if you were completely on his side?”
Torman just stared at me. He didn’t need to answer. “Like I said, it will be nearly impossible to make crystal water outside Eden. But yes, it can be done.”
“How?”
“You need human tears. A lot of human tears.”
“Tears? But there are no human tears in Eden,” I said.
“You forget that Eden isn’t some distant realm. Eden is here.” He spread his arms and turned his palms up, slowly gesturing around the room. “Eden is everywhere, just across the spirit line.”
“I understand that.”
“Tears shed here on Earth evaporate. They are drawn in and pressurized by the power of the auranos. The light from the Eden sun burns away all the impurities. Then the vapors are forced into condensation coils that empty into the life water fountain in Zion.”
“You mean suns,” I corrected him. “There are two.”
Torman blinked with surprise. “Oh. Of course there are. A new sun would have appeared when your daughter was conceived.”
My jaw dropped. “Iliana is the reason there are two suns in Eden? I’ve been there all this time and no one has bothered to tell me that?” My brain triggered memories of conversations in Eden.
Several angels had referred to her as the “Light of Eden.”
Even Cassiel had once said, “At least you always have a piece of her nearby.” She had gestured toward the sky.
Then there was the prophecy that had foretold her birth. It had called her the Daughter of Zion, light of the world.
And when Sloan became pregnant, Samael had told us, “All the angels can see her now.”
I’d thought they were all being figurative. As angels often are.
“Is Iliana’s sun the big one or the smaller one?” I asked.
“I’d imagine she’s the biggest star.”
Of course she was. “And the smaller one represents the Morning Star?”
“Not represents. It’s part of him. The Morning Star isn’t just a name; he is, even now, the light of Eden’s sun. His sun will remain as long as he lives.”
“Which is why using crystal water outside Eden reopened the spirit line to him,” I said as all the bits of information clicked together like Tetris pieces in my brain.
“Yes. The moment your girlfriend consumed the crystal water, it became a living entity. Its power opened a direct connection with the light of Eden, shattering the veils around Nulterra and the spirit line. Almost like knocking down a lead wall between two magnets.”
I sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe Iliana is the second sun.”
“They really didn’t tell you?” Torman asked.
I shook my head. “Once again, I think everyone has highly overestimated me.”
He smirked. “The Morning Star certainly hasn’t.”
I realized this was probably as close to a compliment as I would ever get from Torman or any of the demons.
“But back to your original question.” Torman cleared his throat. “All of that is to say that creating crystal water is an incredibly complicated process. And without the auranos, you would never be able to collect enough tears to create even a drop.”
“But a drop is all we really need to save Cassiel, right?” I thought of the tiny vial Fury drank in Nulterra that saved her life and destroyed the veils hiding the spirit line and the underworld.
“A few drops, probably, if the damage is as bad as you say. And you would need a few thousand tears to create them.”
I stood. “But there is hope.”
Torman rolled his eyes. “Humans and their optimism.”
“Say we somehow get enough tears, how do we duplicate the process here on Earth?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying another word until I, at the very least, get some water and something to eat.”
I frowned.
“I’ve been cooped up in a sedan since New Jersey, and if it’s OK with you, I need to use the facilities.” He nodded toward the toilet.
I could have gotten my sword from the safe, but a meal and a bit of privacy was a small price to pay to keep our association from turning hostile. Torman helping us willingly was what we all needed.
With a frustrated sigh, I stood and walked to the door.
“How’s it going in there?” Cruz asked when I closed the door behind me.
“It’s slow. Where’s Rogan?”
“Bathing in disinfectant, with any luck.”
Fury was coming down the hallway with Kathy and James when I walked out. The three of them were about to enter the kitchen, but I gestured them forward.
“Good morning, Warren,” Kathy said with a bright smile as they approached.
“You’re both up early,” I said.
They met me in front of the infirmary. “I know shift change is at six for the boys on duty, so I wanted to make sure Cruz and Lex got something to eat before they went to bed,” Kathy said.
I smiled. “That’s very thoughtful.”
“Well, I can’t assist much with angel business, but I can keep everyone fed.”
“You do a fine job of it,” James said, kissing her temple.
“Agreed.” I looked at Fury. “Couldn’t go back to sleep?”
She leaned into me. “Bed was cold.”
I squeezed her hip and nodded toward the glass. “Anybody know why Taiya is down here having a sleepover?”
James crossed his arms. “I woke up just after midnight and came up here to check on Iliana. I found them like this then. Jett said Cassiel seemed a little better with Taiya around, so he asked her to stay.”
Interesting.
“Why would Cassiel get better around Taiya?” Kathy asked.
“I’m not sure, but Taiya used to be part-Angel of Life. Perhaps some of her healing powers lingered,” I said.
“Sloan got some of her powers back,” Fury said. “So I think it’s possible.”
Unlike Iliana, Taiya had never had much control over her healing powers. It had been more like a healing aura that followed her wherever she went.
An aura that was now keeping Cassiel’s heart beating while everyone slept. My tuned ears could hear the heart monitor through the glass. “Wonder when Iliana treated Cassiel last,” I said.
“Iliana doesn’t look like she’s moved. Maybe she’s been asleep since I was down here,” James said.
“God, I hope so,” I said.
We
all walked to the kitchen. Inside, Rogan was at a table with a huge bowl of Lucky Charms.
“Rogan, if you can wait, I was about to make breakfast,” Kathy said, turning on the oven.
“Can’t,” he said around a mouthful of cereal. He swallowed. “But thank you anyway.”
“Suit yourself.” Kathy walked to the commercial-sized refrigerator and took out a pallet of eggs. She pulled a bag of something from the freezer before walking to the counter.
My stomach growled.
Rogan pointed his spoon at me. “Did you find out anything useful?”
I pulled out a barstool and sat down. “Torman knows how crystal water is created, but he refuses to answer any more questions until he has something to eat.”
“I can whip up some eggs and bacon in about eight minutes,” Kathy said.
“Thank you, Kathy.”
“What’d Torman say?” Fury asked from the coffee pot. She was pouring two mugs full.
She brought one to me as I parroted back Torman’s play-by-play of making crystal water. At the counter, Kathy chuckled.
We all looked over at her.
“Sorry.” Kathy was arranging what looked like white hockey pucks onto a baking sheet. “It just sounds like you’re making moonshine.”
James laughed as he carried a package of bacon to the stove. “You’re right. All except the human tears part. Heat, pressure, condensation coils…”
At the table, Rogan had stopped chewing. He was staring at me. “Have you ever drunk crystal water?”
Holy shit. I’d always joked that crystal water was the white lighting of the afterlife.
I swiveled toward James and Kathy. “Please, tell me everything you know about making moonshine.”
“You oughta talk to John,” Kathy said, opening the large box of eggs.
James placed a frying pan on a burner. “Yeah, my brother’s taken up illegal distilling since he moved out into the middle of nowhere.”
I really had no desire to consult with John about anything. “Can you give me an overview?”
James carefully laid strips of bacon across the frying pan. “I’ve seen his setup a couple of times. He basically cooks up the mash, lets it ferment for a few weeks, then heats the liquid till it evaporates into the coils. The liquor drains out into glass jars.”
Kathy cracked an egg into a glass bowl. “He’s going to go jail if he’s not careful.”