Angel Exalted
Page 11
Ty’s initial response took a little longer to come through than Darell’s had. I’ll pack my bags.
That had me rolling my eyes. Ty had come with nothing but the gown he was wearing in the hospital. The thought left me a little guilty. I hadn’t even offered him a change of clothes or anything. I’m serious Ty. It’s dangerous here. The angels are going to actively start hunting nephilim, and you are top of the list. Darell is going to extract you and get you to the morgue.
I guess that’s one way to take care of the problem.
Unlike Darell, Ty was trying to be funny. And failing. I ignored his comment. I won’t be able to leave until after dinner. Wait for me there. Find Henry and tell him I sent you.
“How is Joshua?”
I looked up and found Sarah watching me with a smile on her face. “That wasn’t…” I slipped my phone into my pocket and shrugged. “He’s fine.”
“He hasn’t been here for a couple of days,” Sarah said. She moved to my side and looked at the pan of garden peas with a frown. “Angel, these are going to go mushy!”
After that, I was kept busy by my aunt, and then it was dinner time. My phone beeped once – a reply from Ty after my last message, but it went quiet after that. I tried to keep my attention on what I was serving, rather than the clock, but that was easier said than done. My internal clock meant that I knew what time it was whenever I thought about it. And during that hour, while I waited for the shift change, I thought about it a lot.
I sat at the back of the dining room, chasing my peas around the plate. I had been hungry earlier, but now I was on edge and my appetite had gone into hiding. All the angels, including Zachary, were seated in the dining room. Zachary was by the tree, and Michael was by the window. There was just one face missing: Paddy’s.
My gut was telling me there was going to be a problem.
The problem was going to be a several centuries’ old, five foot nothing, red-headed Scottish fighting machine.
I pulled my phone of out my pocket and sent a quick message to Darell. Which way do you plan on going?
Straight out the main gates. I’m leaving with Ty as though I’m leaving with Shane.
I stared at the response, still not feeling reassured. Do not go the back way.
With my desire to eat long gone, I announced to the table (though hardly any of the angels were paying attention to me), that I was finished. I collected my plate and left via the kitchen. The plate was left on the side as I took the kitchen door out into the back garden. At the edge of the building, I paused and looked around. I couldn’t see anything, but the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, like I wasn’t alone.
My intention was to seem as suspicious as possible, just in case I was being watched. With a final glance over my shoulder, I followed the path which weaved its way to the back, and the rather unused gate, because if I was going to be doing anything suspicious, it would need to include the entrance that no one used often.
It felt like I was still being watched as I opened the gate and stepped out onto the sidewalk. I closed the gate behind me, taking a moment to work out what I was doing. If Paddy thought I was doing something, like sneaking off to see Ty, she would probably follow me. Or at least, that was what I would do. Hoping I was making the right call, I hurried down the street, keeping close to the wall.
I didn’t really have a destination in mind. My aim was to lead Paddy as far away from the convent as possible. She didn’t have the same abilities as the higher-ranking angels when it came to transporting herself anywhere. She’d always had to rely on one of the archangels to help her out. The further away I was, in the opposite direction to the morgue, the longer it would take her to get back.
I found myself at a lookout point over the Mississippi, directly behind the St. Louis Cathedral. In the end, I decided to stay put. It was dark, cold, and anything resembling a tourist attraction had closed for the day. As a result, the area was deserted. I was sure if I sat there long enough, if I had been followed, it might look like I was meeting someone.
I wasn’t sure if luck was on my side or not when Paddy appeared, her sword already drawn. “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “Just enjoying the scenery.”
Paddy looked out over the water, before coming back to me. Although the far side of the water had some lights dotted about, there wasn’t much to see. “Of course you are,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “More like you’re here to meet someone.”
I shook my head. “Nope. I’m not here to meet anyone,” I told her, truthfully. “I’m just enjoying some peace and quiet by myself.” I stared at the woman in front of me and felt a wave of pity and love hit me. Her partner, the love of her exceptionally long life, had been taken from her. She had every right to feel hurt, angry, vengeful, and everything else in between. “Would you like to sit with me?” I asked her, gently patting the bench beside me.
“I want to know where the nephilim is that killed my husband.”
I stared out across the water, wondering what I could say that wouldn’t cause her anymore hurt than she was currently suffering. I’m not sure there is much that can be said. When my parents had died, I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone for weeks. Words had seemed empty and meaningless.
“Have you thought about returning to your House?” I asked her. The House she and Raphael led was based in Ireland. “I’m sure the angels there miss you, and not being in New Orleans might help too.”
“What will help is hunting down and killing that nephilim, all the nephilim, and the Fallen too,” Paddy spat at me.
I shifted in my seat and turned so I was facing her more. With the wind blowing my hair in the wrong direction, I reached up to tuck it behind my ears. The movement had Paddy reacting, raising her sword like I was going to attack. I held my hands out, palm open. “I’m just trying to see you,” I told her, continuing to tuck my hair back. Paddy didn’t drop the sword. “I’m not going to sit here and preach to you about how you should be handling things, because nobody really experiences loss the same way, but maybe you should consider speaking to someone. A grief counsellor?”
“Oh, yeah, great idea,” she snarled with sarcasm. “Hi, my husband, the Archangel Raphael, was murdered in cold blood by a fallen angel called Lucifer and an equally evil nephilim child. I’m sure that’s going to help me.”
“Maybe not going into that level of detail,” I agreed. “But I think you would be able to find someone you would be able to be quite open with.”
“Angel, the only thing that will make me feel better is exterminating all the Fallen and their insidious offspring from off the face of this planet.”
I stared at her, no longer recognizing the person in front of me. If I thought it would have made any difference, I would have told her that the best that would give her was a temporary release, and that the pain would still be there afterwards. But there was also the fact that even if it was only a temporary fix, who was I to stand in her way.
At least not when it came to the Fallen.
The nephilim, I was still adamant about. They needed to be addressed on a case by case basis. For that reason, I stayed quiet.
My internal clock told me more than an hour had passed since I had left the convent. It was time to head back. Or at least, hope that I had done enough to draw the attention away so that Paddy would return to the convent and I could go to the morgue. “Paddy, I’m going back. Would you like to walk with me?”
“Back where?” she demanded, as I stood.
“The convent,” I shrugged. “I should probably help out cleaning up after dinner. You can join me later if you want more air. I’m going to the morgue.”
Paddy shot me a look of distain. “Why would I want to go to the morgue?” She finally shrank her sword back down to dagger length and sheathed it. While I held my breath, she continued to glower at me. “I will do whatever it takes to find that nephilim, Angel, so if you get between me and it, that’s the last thing you will ever do.”
Not wanting to cause any more suspicion to come my way, I refrained from pulling my phone out and texting both Darell and Ty. Instead, I headed back to the convent to do exactly as I told Paddy I would do.
The uneasy knot in my stomach didn’t disappear until I re-entered the convent and spotted Darell talking with another guard. He caught my eye and simply nodded. I waited until I was in the kitchen and loading up the dishwasher before I allowed myself to have the physical sigh of relief that I needed.
That had been relatively easy. Now all I needed to do was work out where on earth, literally, Ty would be safe from the angels.
I finished clearing down the kitchen, and for good measure, I also swept the dining hall floor. I wasn’t sure if Paddy had really believed what I had said, and even though I couldn’t see her, I didn’t want to lower my guard and assume that I wasn’t going to be followed. I took the most direct route, keeping my pace even as I took the fifteen-minute walk to the large salmon colored building on North Rampart.
As soon as I got Ty out of New Orleans, I was going to focus on Paddy. I wasn’t sure how to help her, but I knew she needed it. Maybe I could convince her to return to the House in Ireland. Or perhaps even back to Scotland, where she had been born many centuries before. It wasn’t so much as getting her back to work, or even about trying to get her as far from New Orleans as possible. She had run that House with Raphael for quite some time. It should be like going back home.
Then again, maybe the last thing she needed was to return to all those memories. All I had to go on was my own experience with my parents. At the time, I had wanted to stay in their house, surrounded by all our things. With Sarah becoming my guardian, I had moved to Louisiana very soon after the funeral and it had left me feeling lost. But then again, that was me. I wasn’t Paddy.
She had spent three days in bed that wasn’t hers, and now she had no desire to return home. That was something that struck me as odd. Not at Paddy’s behavior, but at Savannah and Zachary’s. There was a House with no leader, and yet they were both still doing everything they could to take this one away. With each moment that passed, I was disliking the pair more and more.
It hadn’t been a long walk, and I hadn’t gotten the sense of being followed, but I didn’t let my guard down. Although it was late, the doors were still unlocked. I took that as a good sign and entered. The reception area was deserted: I hadn’t expected Henry’s bad-tempered secretary to still be there.
I let myself into the back where Henry’s office was located. I knocked on the door and poked my head in.
His office was empty.
I could almost hear the alarm bells ringing. Where was Ty? Had I made a mistake thinking I could trust Henry? He wasn’t a fallen angel, after all. He had left Heaven out of his own choice. That didn’t mean he still didn’t have any allegiance there at all. Raphael was still his family.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Ty’s number. It rang for ages, never going to voicemail. Okay, that didn’t mean anything… I hit dial again and returned to the corridor, jogging down it as I checked in each of the rooms.
At the end of the corridor was a set of stairs leading upwards. I followed them, ready to check the next floor. Upstairs, a different sound caught my attention. I dropped the phone from my ear, trying to work out what it was: water. Running water.
I hurried towards the source of the sound, finding a small bathroom. I stepped in, cautiously. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find. My hand dropped to my pocket, pulling out my blackened dagger, allowing it to grow to sword length. I edged forward, trying not to make too much sound from the rubber soles of my boots on the tiled floor.
The water suddenly turned off. I froze. At the same time, the door opened behind me and I whirled around. “Angel, what are you doing?” It was Henry, a perplexed look on his face as he watched me.
“I was looking for Ty,” I said, carefully.
“To do what? Make a modern-day remake of Psycho?” Ty asked from behind me.
I turned back. He was wearing a towel. “You couldn’t put any clothes on?” I asked.
With his one hand, he pointed behind me at Henry. “I would, only you’re standing between them and me.”
I glanced back at Henry. He had a pile of clothes in his arms which I had seen, but not really noticed. I shrugged. “I’ll wait outside,” I told them, walking past Henry, back into the hall. I leaned back against the wall and waited.
Henry followed me out soon after. “I know who he is,” he said, simply.
I stared at the Angel of Death but didn’t say anything. Silence overtook the corridor until finally, I sighed. “Is he going to leave here alive?”
Henry walked to the wall opposite, leaning against it as he mirrored me. “I hadn’t spoken to Raphael in centuries, but I never wanted that end for him.”
The door opened beside me and Ty stepped out. He looked over at the medical examiner with a frown. “Does that mean you’re just biding your time before you kill me?”
“I will admit I considered it.” He folded his arms and shook his head at us. “No, it is not my place to make that judgement.”
“Do I have to worry that you’ve called for backup so someone else can do the dirty work?” I gestured down the corridor. “A morgue has got to be a pretty good place to hide a body.”
Ty shot me a glare. “Can we avoid putting ideas in his head?”
“The ideas were already there,” Henry pointed out. He pushed himself away from the wall. “You’d think it was a good place, but in reality, there are too many cameras and too much paperwork.” He started walking down the corridor. “And no, I am not calling anyone else to do the ‘dirty work’ as you put it. Though I am curious as to what work you want me to do?”
I glanced at Ty, who was watching me warily. “I trust him,” I muttered before following Henry.
“That’s probably because he doesn’t want to kill you,” I heard Ty mumbled behind me.
CHAPTER NINE
Bittersweet Goodbyes
We ended up back in Henry’s office. He walked over to a small fridge and glanced inside. “Coke?”
“Why not?” Ty walked past me and to Henry who handed him a can.
“Now, are you going to tell me why you and the world’s most wanted nephilim are in my morgue?” Henry asked me after I shook my head at his offer. He pulled his own can out and opened it, knocking the fridge door closed with his foot.
I gave him a bright smile. “Cupid left. Zachary is in charge. Right now, he’s tailing my every move with that weird tracking system House leaders have on all their angels. Paddy is physically tracking me.” From the corner of the room, Ty started to choke on his drink. “That’s why we’re here. It was getting too risky in the convent.”
Henry gave me a look of disbelief, his eyes wide. “You took him into the House of Michael?”
“I mean, technically it hasn’t been the House of Michael for a few months now. More like the House of Zachary, but yes,” I agreed with a quick bob of my head. “Grace and Metatron came and announced that the new policy was to hunt down all the Fallen and all the nephilim, and Paddy has made it her life mission to find and destroy Ty. She knows I know where he is, and she has been following me.”
Ty set his can down on the side with a loud clunk. “Are you being serious right now? Paddy is following you and you thought you would come here?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “I told her I was coming here earlier anyway.” I turned to Ty with a frown. “You were not safe in that convent. Zachary has my angelic GPS switched on so knows where I am at all times. At least this place is neutral ground. It wouldn’t be unusual for
me to come here with Joshua. I’ve been here plenty of times already. Hopefully, it won’t bring about too much suspicion.”
“What’s the end game?” Henry asked me.
I raked a hand through my hair. “I don’t think Ty is safe in New Orleans anymore.” I looked over at the nephilim and gave him a sympathetic smile. “There are too many angels out for your blood, and Paddy is adamant that she’s going to hunt you down.” I turned back to Henry. “I was hoping either you or-” the words got stuck in my throat.
“Or?” Henry asked.
“Or-” Once again I couldn’t say the name. “Oh, for crying out loud!” I exclaimed, suddenly realizing what was preventing me from speaking. “I have got to stop making oaths.” I had sworn an oath to God that I wouldn’t mention Mama Laveau’s name. Seeing as it was an oath to God and I was an angel, breaking it would be very hard to do, and if I did, I would lose my wings.” My hand went through my hair once more. “There’s another like you,” I said, finally. “And I made a promise I wouldn’t reveal her, so now I can’t mention her name.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed as he shot me a look of irritation. “There’s only one person I know who would insist on that.” He disappeared without another word.
I stared at the spot where he had been and then looked at Ty. “I hope we’re talking about the same person, or this is going to get pretty awkward, pretty quickly.”
“I’d rather you didn’t joke about things like that when those things happen to be my life,” Ty grunted at me.
I started pacing back and forth, keeping my fingers crossed that I was right. Finally, after what felt like an age, but in reality was no more than fifteen minutes, Henry reappeared. He wasn’t alone. I let out a breath of relief at the sight of Mama Laveau standing next to him. “I might have known it was you,” she grumbled. “Henry and his cryptic mumblings.”
I raised my shoulders at her. “You’re the one who made me take an oath that I wouldn’t mention your name to anyone.” There was a small glimmer of satisfaction as I reminded her of that.