I pulled my gaze away from where dude was busting heads and put my hands around the hilt. “Uh . . . I’m not Arthur here. I’ve never done this.”
“You’re a Wraith, you’ll be strong enough. Just wait for me.”
I tensed, both hands around the hilt even as my gaze traveled back to TC as he head-cracked one of the larger ones. Oh, that was the guy in the Armani suit!
“Zoë!’
Oh! I looked down. Most of Jason’s chest was enveloped in the undulating green light. His skin was pale like bleached bone and covered in a thin layer of sweat.
There was an ooomph nearby, and I looked. One of the other meatheads had TC in a headlock. They moved about until finally TC reached around and grabbed the man’s—balls?
A howl sounded from him, and I winced at the thought that even Revenants could feel that.
“Now, Zoë!”
Oh shit! I yanked as hard as I could and was amazed at the resistance. With a yell, I pulled it out and staggered back. Wow . . . these things were heavy. And they’d been swinging them around like they were yardsticks. After a glance at the two of them, I bolted into the fray with TC, who was on his back beneath them.
I hacked at their backs and screamed.
And then I SCREAMED.
OPERA was a very quiet place when nobody was inside. Just us. Sitting on the floor in the center of the dance floor. Rhonda had Jason’s head in her lap and was taking in deep breaths. I sat down nearby, back to human form, the sword in my hand.
TC came over, limping a little, his coat back on. He leaned over and touched my shoulder. I felt an electric current—not the same as with Dags or Daniel . . . or Joe. Something more familiar.
And then he was gone.
Rhonda’s phone went off, and she pulled it from her back pocket. Looking at the display, she answered it. “Hey, Nick.”
Nick. Oh yeah. He’s with Joe.
“Yeah, they’re all gone. Zoë did a bit of her mojo, and they scattered. I don’t think she actually killed any of them, but they’re gone. Jason will be fine. Soon as he gets a good drink—parking lot? Be there.” She disconnected.
“Good drink?”
“He’s gonna need it in order to walk out of here. I’ve helped with internal, but Mephistopheles is gonna have to help. He needs to have blood to ground him.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pocketknife.
Getting squeamish, I waved at her. “No . . . no. Don’t do that. Just wake him and let him do that slash thing.”
“He’s unconscious,” she said, then hesitated. “I don’t have a way to ster—Oh yeah.” She ignited her left hand and held the blade inside it. After a few seconds, she pressed the knife into her wrist. Blood pooled fast, dark and red, and she let it drip over his lips. Within seconds, the magic in the blood brought Jason/ Mephistopheles to life, and he was moving, reaching up, and grabbing her arm, pulling it to him. I could hear him swallowing and felt the warmth return to his body.
I jumped up and dove behind the bar, searching the cabinets for linens. Finding a stack, I ran back around and helped her disengage her arm from him just as he blinked and sat up. Blood colored his lips, and he looked . . . a bit frightening.
Slashed, torn, bloodied shirt. Wild black eyes, the pupils dilated and covering his irises. His teeth—wow, his teeth looked long and sharp. His hair stood up on end.
I wrapped Rhonda’s wrist in one of the napkins while he wiped at his face. “Thank you. Both of you.” He looked around. “I lost?”
“Yes,” I said. “And TC helped me get rid of them for now.” I paused. “His name is Azrael, isn’t it?”
Jason nodded to me. “Yes. His given name. The one the Phantasm gave him.” He stood and helped Rhonda to her feet. When she nearly fell backward, he picked her up in his arms and carried her.
“Should you be doing that?” I asked. “I mean, you just got stabbed.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m nearly whole again.”
Rhonda’s phone rang. I moved closer to her and got it out of her pocket as we walked to the entrance and stepped out into the cold night. The van was right outside, and Nick was halfway up the stairs as I answered it. “Hello?”
“Zoë?”
I blinked. “Mom?”
“Where is Rhonda?”
“She’s in the van. What’s wrong?”
There was a pause.
“Mom, if you’re calling about Joe, we got him. And Jason’s not dead and Rhonda’s not a Revenant. We’re on our way back—”
“It’s Dags.”
Oh. Hell. “What?”
Another pause. “He’s gone.”
I relayed the news to Jason as he and Nick bundled Rhonda into the backseat of the van. I caught sight of Joe. He was still pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked sunken. Ill.
“He’ll be okay,” Nick said as he put a hand on my arm. His touch felt similar to Jason’s. But then it made sense, since Jason’s blood is what kept Nick alive. “His vitals are stable. He only looks bad.”
An IV connected Joe to a clear bag, and a small screen showed a steady heartbeat. “You gave him blood?”
“Not enough was taken to warrant that,” Nick said. “But he’ll be weak though back to his old self in no time.”
“Zoë.”
I turned to Rhonda. She was buckled in the seat I’d used on the way down. “Find Dags.”
“I will.”
The story from Mom was that Dags had left. None of the employees or guards had been told that he couldn’t go. He wasn’t a prisoner. So a redheaded woman had showed up, and Dags had gone with her.
Rhonda had been livid. “Do I have to tell them everything? Where would he go? I mean, doesn’t he know that they are out there looking for him?”
I had an idea I knew where he’d go and promised them I’d go and look. Nick promised to get them to the estate in one piece. I shifted into Wraith and jumped up into the air.
I suspected he’d gone to the shop to get that book.
When I arrived at the house, Tim greeted me. Steve was still noncorporeal. “Dags been here?”
“No.” Tim shook his head. “But there were some other people here about fifteen minutes ago.”
I pointed to the floor. “They got in here?”
“No, but they were snooping around outside. Even up on the porch. There were some loud noises, then they were gone.”
“Did you see them?”
“No.”
I moved from the kitchen to the botanica and looked for the book. It was still there, and I took it before running upstairs to grab an old messenger bag of mine. After I had that, I grabbed more clothes and stuck a sign on the door outside announcing that the shop would be closed on Monday.
Then I waited.
I was sure he was coming here. I called his cell.
No answer.
So I sat in the tea shop and opened the book. It was unreadable as usual, so I held it with my left hand and turned to page one.
I do not know if infinite wisdom would have these notes delivered to eyes worthy of understanding their purpose. I am only the scribe self-proclaimed to reveal a world the other planes have no knowledge of. And to recount the tragedies that befell me and my family.
I looked up and pursed my lips. Tim was there beside me, reading over my shoulder. “Who is this?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think this is technically a journal. Written by a First Born.”
Our lives began not upon the same day, but as the eons of time moved the Heavens to present our names at the time of our coming. Our father, Samael, had argued long for the want of children. Of a legacy to go forth into the future and carry the past to the present. The Seraphim wrought long a great storm of opposition but recanted when it was exposed that such a creature also bore fruit.
And was not our father equal to that of the Ethereal of Heaven?
Father often told us the story of our first sister. Such a happy event was foreshadowe
d with tragedy, as his beloved lover within the plane of touch was murdered. Lilith was destroyed utterly by the sons and daughters of man, stoned, then dismembered. And our father mourned long and wailed to the Heavens, demanding her return to him.
But Lilith’s soul rose to Heaven, and our father was alone. And so his first born was given life into the Abysmic pool of knowledge, a dark figure full of the anguish my father felt. She was not to be his pride or his joy, but to be his damnation, for he could not give her comfort or love.
He called her Sophia.
I sat up. Uhm. “If this is what I think it is—”
“You mean an accounting of the First Borns’ origins?”
“Yeah,” I looked at Tim. “Then Aether wasn’t the first born of the First Borns. Someone named Sophia was.” I frowned and looked back to the book.
Once this art was perfected, our father then created a multitude of children to go forth into the planes and seek out happiness. He brought me through the veils. I wrote each of their names just to keep a record of their coming. Hephaestus, Hermes, Mephistopheles, Re, Loki, Frejya, Sigyn, Brahma, Yamato, Erishkegal, Morgan, Dagda—so many of us through the centuries.
But none of those born would stay to comfort my father when the others departed. So enamored of the physical flesh were they that they soon strayed from our home, and I watched my father’s loneliness devour him. I talked to him, fed him, and pleased him in whatever manner was needed—and still he fell into darkness.
Until I was able to convince him to create not a child of shadow but one of light, and put forth enough love so that perhaps his light could reach Heaven and bring our mother back to us. He agreed—within the darkest heart. For if there be life without love, then there be damnation without salvation. Samael was full of loneliness, and in that despair of darkness brought forth his brightest light, a child of sun and frivolity, and he named him Aether to light the way—
I sighed and sat back. Even as I read, it was like being pulled into the story, of seeing them, the children as they were born. And again I heard the name Samael. They spoke that name tonight before fighting. Their father.
I made note of the names. Aether and Hephaestus and Yamato I knew. If Inanna had written this text, then she was there as well, witnessing the whole thing. But where was Azrael?
TC?
And what happened to the real oldest First Born, Sophia? I also wondered if I asked Mephistopheles about this, he’d tell me more.
Through all of the events of eons, my brother Aether could see the clearest, was the champion of our life in Abysmic glory. My father had reached contentment, and I alone noticed how he no longer watched his other children, who had now vanished into the folds of physical pleasure. Even I was barely a ghost within this existence. I could have gone to the physical plane and found that pleasure, indulged in that life. But I was too loyal to my own father, and would not leave his side.
What we did know was that our eldest sibling had touched upon the magic of one of Seraphim’s bastards, and upon that touch the two became as one. Sophia grew in power both in the physical and the astral once she learned of her abilities, and she tricked three of her siblings into burying themselves in the bodies of humans. Aether was the first. There they were locked in, unable to fly or to move from plane to plane. They did not possess or rule the same magic as Sophia did.
She used the weakest to threaten the strongest, forcing them into their physical bodies, until all of them were helpless and locked away in the physical plane. With that magic of the bastard, Sophia came into our home and murdered the servants in her search for our father. I was able to flee with him, taking the post of my father’s position so that Sophia could not use that as a trophy.
I knew what she was after. Power. The Abysmic throne.
It was then my father created the last of us, the vessel that would house his soul and one day depose the tyrant. I aided him in this—but father was so weak from the centuries, and his allies had turned their backs. My new brother barely survived. Because of this, I was unable to complete my task, and so I changed the words my father had commanded. But still the child was weak, so I suckled it, and took it into my arms as Sophia found us. She destroyed the shell of my father first, believing him dead.
For me it was the task of wet nurse as I took care of my brother under watchful eyes. And when he grew to maturity, I was kicked out of my home to roam the planes in search of a place to belong.
Soon I found the first of my kin and saw what years of human bodies had wrought. And so I too found a home within my first host. I chose a male as companion, so long resentful of being powerless as a female. And together we lived a happy and long life.
Of my brother Azrael, I have no knowledge. But to find him and release him from what has been—
The journal ended and I flipped pages. There was more—but that was all that translated. Hey, what gives?
“So,” Tim said. “Who wrote this?”
“I think Inanna—”
“The one that was here?” He looked at me with wide eyes.
I nodded. “Tim—it says that Sophia touched with a Seraphim’s bastard. Wouldn’t that mean—”
“That you’re a Seraphim’s bastard? No.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what that means. But who is this Azrael?”
I blinked. “Trench Coat.”
“No . . . fucking . . . way . . .”
“Uh-huh . . . and I just got the feeling that we’ve read something very important.” I grabbed the book and stuffed it in my bag. I knew then that Dags wasn’t coming. Something had happened.
27
THE entire estate was on lockdown when I got there . . . Lockdown for them, not me. I glided down (having hidden the book somewhere else) and sieved through and into the foyer and—
Had about a dozen men pointing guns at me.
“Wait!” came Gunter’s voice. He ran from the side and motioned for everyone to put their guns down. “This phreak is friendly.”
I glared at him and let him see the full Wraith.
He backed up, as did all the rest. I shifted back from Wraith (I was liking this!) and moved to the library. I didn’t need to head down as Rhonda, Mom, and Jason were seated inside. Jason was at Rhonda’s massively large oak desk, and Mom and Rhonda were on the couch. Mom looked at me. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” I looked around. “Where is Joe?”
“He’s upstairs asleep,” Rhonda said. “He’ll be fine, but he’s going to be a little groggy and grumpy. I’ve got him under guard. He’s not walking out of here.”
“Yeah, about that.” I moved to the coffee table and sat down, facing her. “You care to tell me how that happened?”
She glared at me, and I was all too aware that if something happened to him, she was going to blame me. Well, take a ticket. Get in line. “I didn’t think he’d leave. Why did he leave?”
“And your people said he left with Stella? Anybody tried calling her?”
“Yes.” Rhonda nodded. “She’s at her house, and I had some people stop by. She said she dropped him off at the shop.”
Which was where I was. I wondered if maybe . . . “Tim said he heard people outside just before I showed up. I’m wondering if maybe someone was watching the house and grabbed him right before I got there.”
“I think that’s likely enough,” Mom said. “I’m not as worried about him as I was with Joe. I know that Alice and Maureen will do their best to protect him.”
Only . . . Dags had said the girls weren’t really there. He’d been unable to sense them. Would they be with him if someone tried to remove the Grimoire?
Okay, now I was panicky.
I stood up and started pacing. “So—what do we do? Do you have a tracking device in him? Had you LoJacked him?”
“No, but don’t think I won’t do it in the future.” She sighed and stood up as well. “I’m gonna go check on Joe.”
I followed her, keeping a discreet distance. She never looked bac
k once as we moved through the bookshelf, down the elevator, past Gunter’s station, and into a wing of palatial rooms. I could hear the oh-so-familiar beep of a heart monitor before we came to the door. Rhonda paused only once before opening it and did not bother keeping it open for me.
I stood just outside, my head down. She and I had gone through so much together in such a small amount of time. But there were times in her life I knew nothing about. A whole life of luxury seeded with the grains of power and responsibility. I knew she’d been sent to spy on me and Mom, and I’d been angry at her. And yet through my own hatred she’d kept my Mom’s soul safe, while my split center had nearly killed the man I loved.
And my friends as well.
And now that she’s risked so much, here I am, taking the man she loves.
With a heavy sigh, I pushed the door open.
Joe lay in a soft bed, his chest bare and decorated with sensors, their wires hooked up to various machines that I didn’t recognize. She was taking care of him. Keeping him safe. And I was—
I was useless.
I stood by him, watching him breathe. He looked better, his color good. His neck had been stitched and bandaged where the Revenants had taken their fill and torn his flesh. I reached out and brushed a small strand of hair from his temple. Joe with the spiky, unruly mop. I remembered his kiss—I always remembered it when I looked at him.
“He loves you, you know,” Rhonda said from the window.
I looked up from Joe and looked at her silhouette. It was past three, and dawn would greet Atlanta early, at five thirty or so. I was exhausted—more than I would ever tell anyone. My muscles felt as if they had lead blood flowing through them.
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