“Did you hear me?” Henderson asked. “I said, I think we’ve found Emmanuelle.”
Roberts’s door crashed open, and Michael plucked the cell phone from her fingers. Alex surrendered it without argument, Henderson’s words ringing in her ears, drowning out whatever Michael said to him now. We’ve found her…we’ve found Emmanuelle.
Words of satisfaction. Of hope.
For everyone but Alex.
She held onto the chair’s armrests with aching fingers. If Hugh was right, if Emmanuelle had been found, it was over. Heaven would no longer need her. Michael would have no reason to continue protecting her. She would be on her own again, with no one to stop Seth from coming for her. Taking her. Binding her to him for all eternity…
In Hell itself.
She struggled for air, trying to remember how to breathe, as cold, quiet terror unfurled in her chest. She’d thought she could handle this. Thought she would be ready when the time came, that she had come to terms with the idea. She’d been wrong.
She’d been wrong, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
A hand settled on her shoulder and she jumped. Then, slowly, she turned her gaze up to meet the farewell waiting for her in Michael’s emerald eyes.
CHAPTER 29
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” ALEX stared at Michael, unable to process what he’d just told her. What did he mean, go with him? Go where?
Somewhere in the background, she was aware of Roberts watching in dumbfounded silence. Of other faces gathering on the other side of the window.
Michael gave her an impatient shake, fingers digging into her shoulders. “What’s not to understand? I need you to come with me to Vancouver, Alex. To speak with Emmanuelle.”
“But I thought—once we found her, I thought I was done. I thought—” I thought you were going to leave me. She couldn’t make herself say the words.
Silence. Then Michael’s fingers brushed back the hair from her face and tipped her chin up. Impatience gentled to compassion in his green gaze.
“It’s not time yet,” his voice was gruff. “I still need your help, so I get to protect you for a while longer.”
Relief and gratitude collided in Alex’s chest. Get to protect you. Not just I can, but I get to. Her chin wobbled. Fiercely, she blinked back tears. She would not lose it. Not here, not in the office with everyone watching.
Hell, not at all, if she didn’t want to go over the edge permanently. She sucked in a steadying breath.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Emmanuelle and I…” Michael trailed off, glancing at Staff Inspector Roberts. “How much does he know?”
“More than he thinks,” Alex said. “And more than he’d like to.”
Michael extended a hand to her. “May I?”
Frowning, she placed her hand in his. The office around her shifted, shimmered, and dissolved into an indistinct mass. A nothingness made of somethings she couldn’t quite grasp, possibilities that moved further out of reach when she tried to see them. A tremor of disquiet slid down her spine. She pulled back instinctively, but Michael held fast.
“Don’t let go,” he warned.
Alex stared at the blur around them. The hairs along her arms stood on end. “Or?”
“You’ll disintegrate.”
Her fingers gave an involuntary twitch and his grip tightened.
“I’m serious, Alex. I’ve made your energy vibrate faster than that of the world around you. Not quite the level of my own, but close. If I lose physical contact with you, the results will be catastrophic.”
She sucked in a quick breath. She wondered what the definition of catastrophic might be, but decided she’d rather not know. “Is this…?”
“Heaven? No. I can’t increase your energy to that frequency. You wouldn’t survive, even with your immortality. This is…between.”
Between. The word fell into the stillness around them, swallowed. Alex shivered. No, this nothingness couldn’t be Heaven. Hell, maybe, but not Heaven.
“Limbo, actually,” Michael said, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Or at least, near to where Limbo used to be.”
Lovely.
Trying not to cling too hard to the hand holding hers, Alex straightened her shoulders and firmed her jaw. Between, near where Limbo used to be, wasn’t somewhere she cared to remain for long.
“You wanted to tell me about Emmanuelle,” she said.
Michael’s face took on a granite-like quality above her. For several heartbeats, he said nothing, staring over her head. Then he sighed. “Emmanuelle was—is—my soulmate. We didn’t part on good terms.”
Her hand twitched in his again, and her mind twisted in on itself, trying to follow two disparate lines of thought at the same time. The Archangel Michael—Heaven’s greatest warrior, fierce and focused and possibly the only thing holding together the angelic forces right now—had a soulmate? Had once loved someone?
And what the hell did he mean, they hadn’t parted on good terms? How not good? Was this why Emmanuelle kept company with mortals who had turned their backs on Heaven?
Alex held up her free hand, as much to stop her runaway brain as to ward off anything Michael might say. She scowled at him. First things first.
“Define not good.”
Michael’s hard gaze met hers. “Emmanuelle saw no end to the dispute between her parents. No end to the war. She foresaw their destruction of one another, and rather than stay to watch their decline, she left. I accused her of running away. She accused me of choosing my loyalty to the One over our connection. We haven’t spoken since.”
Alex’s jaw went slack. A terrifying sense of déjà vu gripped her chest and made it hard to breathe. “You mean the woman…angel…being”—she waved her free hand impatiently—”whatever the hell she is—”
“As the daughter of the One, she is a god in her own right.”
“Whatever,” she snapped. “It doesn’t change the fact she ran away from her responsibility just like Seth did, and now you’re proposing she take over Heaven and lead the angels against him in war. How in bloody fucking hell is that supposed to work?”
“I don’t know,” Michael snarled back. He made a visible effort at control and the fingers crushing hers eased their grip. “I don’t know. But when I say she’s our only hope, I mean it. Without her, we’re done. We have nothing else.”
Alex dropped her gaze to the hand holding hers. That grip, the strength of his fingers, the warmth of his skin, was all she had in this place. The only concrete thing in the nothingness of between. The only thing holding her in existence. She would disintegrate if he lost his hold on her, he’d said. Her hand went limp in his. She would disintegrate, dissolve, disappear to where none of this would be her concern, none of it would matter…
To where Seth could never find her and she would never have to face an eternity of all the losses she had suffered.
You’ve done enough, her inner voice whispered. Done enough, given enough, lost enough. If you stay, you can’t win. You can’t beat Seth. You can’t trust Bethiel to kill you if you don’t find Mittron. This might be—will be—your only chance.
She began a slow pull away from Michael’s touch. Then, with freedom a heartbeat away, when only their fingertips still touched, her feet settled back onto the carpeted floor of her staff inspector’s office and Roberts’s harsh voice intruded.
“Detective, I asked you a question. Who the hell is Emmanuelle?”
CHAPTER 30
“I’m sorry.”
Alex continued throwing clothes into the duffle bag on her bed. She didn’t respond to the Archangel behind her. Couldn’t, because her throat was too full of the pain of unshed tears to allow room for words. Wouldn’t, because she was just too angry.
“I know what you wanted to do,” Michael pressed. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t allow it.”
She should have moved faster. Then he wouldn’t have guessed her intention. Wouldn’t have been able to take her ou
t of the place between in time to stop her. She blinked hard. Damn him to hell for not letting her go when she had the chance—probably her only chance—to escape.
“If I didn’t need you—”
She whirled and threw a balled-up sweater at him. “Fuck you!” she snarled. “And fuck what you need. Do you realize what you’ve done to me? Do you have any idea what my life will be like for all of eternity? Eternity, Michael. I will lose every single person I have ever loved or cared for, I will live forever with those losses, and Seth—Seth, Michael—will force me into Hell with him. He will force me to be at his side and in his bed, and I won’t be able to do a goddamn thing to stop him. Nothing.”
Michael closed his eyes on an emotion she couldn’t read. A muscle flickered in front of his ear. For a heartbeat—a single, tremulous, daring to hope heartbeat—Alex wondered if she might have made him understand. If he might reconsider. If he might—
Green eyes opened again, and then Michael strode to the bed, stuffed the sweater in with her other clothes, and zipped the bag shut. He held it out to her, his black wings unfurling with a thousand snicks of battle-ready feathers. “We need to go.”
*
They landed in the Downtown Eastside alley where they’d met Henderson once before, back on the night Seth had gone missing and they’d found him in the company of Lucifer. Alex had wanted to go straight to the apartment, but Henderson had been so evasive about the idea that Michael had suggested the alley instead. Arriving after dark, in a neighborhood where most inhabitants were under the influence of one mind-altering substance or another, would be the best way to ensure no one noticed them, he’d said. And Henderson would know exactly where to find them.
Alex would have preferred just about anywhere else, given the memories attached to the location, but she’d known Michael was right, and so she’d swallowed her arguments. And Henderson, bless his heart, didn’t give the memories much room when they did arrive. Alex hadn’t even cleared the cocoon of Michael’s wings in the dank alley when strong arms enveloped her in a bear hug and lifted her from her feet, duffle bag and all.
“Damn, but it’s good to see you,” a voice rumbled beneath her cheek.
“I might say the same,” Alex mumbled into his coat, “if I could see you.”
Henderson chuckled and set her back on her feet. But he didn’t release her, instead holding her at arms’ length, hands clamped over her shoulders, studying her by the faint light coming into the alley from the lamp-lit street.
“Better?” he asked. Then he promptly pulled her in for a second hug. “You have no idea how many gray hairs you’ve given me these last few weeks, Jarvis. I swear to God, you’re the worst person on the planet for returning phone calls.”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“I know.” Hugh gave her a final squeeze and then released her. She braced for the barrage of questions, but the Vancouver detective looked past her at the waiting Michael and shook his head. “Later. I’m in a no parking zone. We should go.”
“To…?”
“My apartment, of course.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want us there.”
“I didn’t want you appearing out of thin air. I don’t think Liz’s nerves are quite up to that just yet.” Henderson took the duffle bag from her and started toward the street. Alex fell into step beside him.
“Liz?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Henderson took a set of keys from his pocket and pressed a fob. A nearby sedan gave two chirps and flashed its headlights. “Elizabeth Riley and I are living together.”
*
“You and Riley,” Alex muttered for the tenth time, watching the ascension of numbers on the elevator panel. “How did I not see that one coming?”
Hugh gave her a sideways look of exasperation. “Maybe because you’ve been, I don’t know…otherwise occupied? Christ, Jarvis, it’s not like we were dating or anything. How could you see it coming? We didn’t see it coming.”
She grunted. “Still. I should have noticed something. There had to have been signs.”
And it would have been so much better if she’d had advance warning. Time to wrap her head around the idea. Henderson and Riley. Laid-back but highly effective cop, and uptight, highly irritating shrink. Talk about oil and water. She shook her head. Henderson was right: She couldn’t have seen it coming if she’d tried.
The elevator door slid open and Henderson put a hand out to hold it aside. “After you. Apartment—”
“I remember,” she interrupted, stepping into the hallway she and Seth had so often traversed when Henderson had taken them in just short weeks ago. She stuffed her fists into her pockets. Seth had been caught in a tug of war between Heaven and Hell, with the fate of humanity resting on his choice, so it had hardly been a good time, but it had been…enough. Threaded through with a fragile hope, peppered with moments that drew them together and connected them. She’d seen his potential then. Believed in it.
Believed in herself.
A gentle hand in the small of her back nudged her forward. Michael, who hadn’t said a word since their arrival, his green eyes slanting a question at her. Are you all right?
She tried not to be bitter about his sudden concern for her well-being.
She failed.
“I said I’d help you,” she growled, “and I will. You can stop pretending I matter beyond that.”
He scowled. “I didn’t—”
The door to apartment 2016 opened, cutting him off. Elizabeth Riley stood in the doorway, wire-framed glasses framing a gaze even more knowing than Michael’s. Alex’s shoulders hunched. Hell. She should have known better than to come back here. Should have insisted on a hotel. She sucked in a hiss of air. Understanding flickered in Riley’s sharp blue eyes and she stepped back.
“Come in,” she said. “I’ve made coffee.”
Alex lasted less than a minute inside the door before she snapped.
“Stop it!” she snarled at Henderson, who was taking her coat from her shoulders while Riley moved serenely from kitchen to dining room, carrying a tray.
Riley and Henderson both froze. Michael’s gaze narrowed.
“Just stop it,” Alex said again. She pulled the coat back over her shoulders and ran a shaking hand over her hair. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?” Elizabeth asked.
Did her voice always have to sound so goddamn reasonable?
“This.” Alex waved at the room. At Henderson, at the coffee tray, at the apartment transformed into a home by Riley’s presence. “Any of it. I can’t sit and make small talk. I can’t drink coffee. I can’t be here.”
“Because of the memories?” Hugh’s voice was gruff. “I wondered about that. We can go out instead, if you’d—”
“It’s not the memories.” Alex’s gaze strayed to the door of the room she’d stayed in when she was here. The room where Lucifer had come to her as Seth. Where he’d—
“It’s not just the memories,” she amended. “It’s the normal. I can’t do normal, Hugh. I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not anymore. It’s best if you just tell me where I can find Emmanuelle so I can get this over with.”
“I wish it was that easy, Alex, but it’s not. We’re going to have to wait until she turns up.”
“What the hell do you mean, turns up? You said you’d found her.”
“We have a confirmed sighting, but—” Hugh broke off with a frown directed at Michael. “Didn’t he tell you any of this?”
Alex met Michael’s flat gaze. Tempting as it might be to let him take the blame, it wouldn’t be fair. She sighed. “I didn’t give him the chance. I had…stuff to deal with.”
At least this explained Michael’s insistence that she bring extra clothing with her.
“How long?” she asked Hugh.
“A day. Two. Maybe a week. Her movements aren’t predictable.”
“Her movements? You mean you’ve been tracking her?”
It was Hugh’s turn to s
igh. “Come in,” he said. “Take your coat off. Sit. I know nothing is normal, Alex, and I’m not pretending that it is. But if we have to talk anyway, it may as well be over a drink. Agreed?”
Across the apartment, Riley did an about-face and carried the tray back into the kitchen. Glass clinked against glass. She emerged again with four tumblers and a bottle of Scotch. Alex met the calm in her gaze, the understanding in Henderson’s, the wary stubbornness in Michael’s. She scowled, knowing she’d lost.
“Fine,” she growled. “But just one.”
CHAPTER 31
ALEX TOOK THE DRINK from Riley but declined an invitation to sit. Keeping her distance from Michael, who had taken up a post near the doors that led to the balcony, she paced the living room floor, waiting for Riley and Henderson to settle onto one of the sofas. Henderson draped an arm around Riley’s shoulders; she rested a hand on his knee. Alex shook her head.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the two of you together,” she muttered. “When did you decide?”
“When Liz came back from seeing you in Toronto.”
“Any particular catalyst?”
“Apart from knowing the world could end at any given minute?” Hugh shrugged. “I’ve wasted too many years schlepping around my personal baggage. The threat of Armageddon kind of changed my outlook.”
Alex watched the tender look her colleague slanted toward the woman tucked against his side. The threat of Armageddon. At some point, Henderson would figure out for himself that it wasn’t just a threat anymore. She didn’t need to tell him. Not yet. She took a swallow of Scotch.
“So. Emmanuelle,” she said.
Hugh shook his head. “I know, right? What are the chances she’d turn up here in Vancouver?”
“It’s not as much of a coincidence as you think,” Michael said, and all heads turned to him. His gaze met Alex’s. “In retrospect, I should have realized she was here.”
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