He nodded, tightening his grip on the table’s edge against another wave of pain.
“And the rest of it is true, too? About Seth turning to Hell, and the Nephilim army? About the angels losing the war?”
Annoyance tugged at Mika’el. How in bloody hell had Alex managed to say so much in so little time? “There’s a great deal more to it than—”
“Yes or no, Mika’el.”
“Yes.”
Emmanuelle closed her eyes. “Fuck it to Hell and back,” she muttered. “I told her it would come to this. She was so blind, so damned shortsighted—”
“She was incomplete.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She gave up too much of herself in creating your father. She wasn’t strong enough to destroy him.”
“She—” Emmanuelle gaped at him. “You’re serious. But wait. The woman said Lucifer was gone, too. If the One didn’t kill him, then how—?”
“He went to her on his own. Helped her to bind the two of them together again, to become what she was before she created all of this.” Mika’el contented himself with a feeble nod at their surroundings, not daring to take a hand from the table.
“But not until after he’d created a Nephilim army to do his dirty work. A Nephilim army the One did nothing to prevent.” Anger made Emmanuelle’s voice a growl. She stalked to the back door and stared out the window. “Conflicted until the end, the two of them.”
“You’re right.” Mika’el’s consciousness began to unravel around the edges. He held on to it stubbornly. “But that doesn’t change anything. We still need you, Emmanuelle. Heaven and Earth still need you.”
Silence.
“And you, Mika’el?” she asked. “Do you need me?”
Light sparked behind his eyes and his fingers ached from holding him upright. Damn, he was losing ground fast. Too fast. “Can we discuss this later? I need…”
“What? You need what? To keep on being the hero? The mart—” Emmanuelle broke off as she glanced over her shoulder. She scowled. “Ah, Hell. Do you have the strength to get back?”
He nodded. Or rather, let his head droop in imitation of a nod.
“Then go.”
“The woman. You’ll look after her until I get back? Protect her from your brother?”
Emmanuelle’s face went tight. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t like that, but he didn’t have enough words to spare. He needed to leave. Now. But not before he’d secured her promise. He held her gaze, pushing back the shadows that threatened. At last she nodded.
“Fine.”
“Promise me.”
Silver fire flashed in her eyes.
“Promise me,” he repeated. Because it’s the only way I can be sure you’ll still be here when I return.
He swayed, overbalanced, began a forward plunge. Strong, capable hands caught him and lifted him upright. Emmanuelle’s lips pressed against his cheek.
“I promise, damn it,” she whispered. “Now go.”
*
Henderson was waiting in the hallway when Alex emerged from the bathroom. She brushed past his concern and opened the door on the opposite side of the hallway. He followed, watching in silence when she stooped to take a t-shirt from the middle drawer of the long, low dresser, turning his back when she moved to strip off the blood-soaked one. She balled up the soiled shirt and dropped it on top of a hamper. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she grimaced. Michael’s blood had soaked all the way through the material, leaving her looking like something out of a bad horror movie. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of returning to the bathroom for a more thorough scrub. Then she pulled the clean t-shirt over her head and slid her arms through the holes. No one cared what she looked like, least of all her.
She tugged the shirt over her belly and turned to Henderson. “Done.”
Without speaking, he covered the distance between them and wrapped her in a bear hug. Alex didn’t have the energy to return the gesture. A low rumble of voices filtered through the door from down the hall. Michael’s wasn’t among them.
“The others told me how close he came to getting you.” Henderson said, his voice rough. “You must have been—”
“I’m going to go to him.”
He went still. Then he thrust her away. His hands remained on her shoulders, and his mouth hung open. “To—you can’t mean—what the hell, Jarvis!”
He released her with an abruptness that made her stagger. He paced the spartan room. Dresser to bed, bed to closet. Back again. He rounded on her.
“No,” he said. “No fucking way in Hell am I letting him get you.”
Alex leaned back against the dresser—the only piece of furniture in the room apart from the single bed, a nightstand, and a wooden chair near the window. The room was devoid of art or photos, or any object that might hint at the life of its occupant. She scooped the hair back from her forehead.
“You don’t have a choice, Hugh. And neither do I. Seth is…”
“A class-A fucking prick? Yeah. Got that.”
“His obsession with me isn’t his fault.”
Hugh’s head snapped back as if she’d slapped him. He stared at her. “Tell me you didn’t just excuse your stalker because it’s not his fault.”
“That’s not what I—”
“For the love of God, Alex, you’re a cop. You know better than this. You’ve dealt with these goddamn mother—” Hugh bit off the last word and scrubbed both hands over his face. “Liz is right, isn’t she? You’re beginning to crack.”
An automatic bristle crawled up Alex’s spine at Riley’s name. Then she laughed. A half snort, half chuckle of wry amusement. “Honestly? Liz doesn’t know half of what’s going on in my head.”
“And me? Do I know half of it?”
She held her friend’s gaze. Saw his pain. Felt his confusion. Knew she couldn’t avoid it anymore. She closed her eyes. It was time to tell him what Seth had done. She gripped the dresser top on either side of her and took a deep breath. “Hugh—”
“Am I interrupting?” a new voice came from the doorway. The priest.
Hell and damnation. Alex winced. Not the best turn of phrase under the circumstances. She watched impatience cross Henderson’s face, soon chased away by a forced smile.
“Marcus. Of course not. Come in.”
Father Marcus instead leaned a shoulder against the doorpost, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black pants. Guarded, pale blue eyes glanced at Alex, then settled on Hugh. “Have you told her?”
“Not yet. We had—other matters.”
“Told me what?”
“Marcus…” Hugh trailed off.
“I have the scrolls, Detective Jarvis. I took them from the Vatican.”
Alex blinked at the priest, then looked to Hugh for confirmation. He nodded.
“They’re here. In this house. He’s been staying with Emmanuelle. Well, with his brother, who lives with Emmanuelle.”
Another blink. And a jaw-drop. Her gaze darted to the single bed beside Hugh.
“Not that kind of living with,” Hugh added. “Several of the bikers share the house.”
Heir to the throne of Heaven, living with a bunch of former Hells Angels.
Alex wondered whether anyone kept headache medication in the house. She held up both hands against further words from Hugh, then pointed at Father Marcus. “You. Start at the beginning. You were recalled to the Vatican. Why?”
“Because of my work translating the scrolls when they were first uncovered. There were three of us who worked on them together. Father Paul has since passed away, and Father James has advanced Alzheimer’s. I was the only one remaining outside the Vatican who knew what the scrolls contained.”
“They recalled you because they didn’t trust you?” She frowned.
“It was more of a control issue. They didn’t want word leaking before they were ready to take the scrolls public.”
“They wanted to release them? Why?”
“It was to be a strategic move.”
“Inflammatory is more like it. The religious nuts are already crawling out of the woodwork.” From the corner of her eye, Alex saw Hugh wince. She ignored him. “The information in those scrolls would be like putting a match to a refinery. What could the Vatican possibly hope to gain?”
The priest looked down at the painted floorboards. After a few seconds, Hugh answered instead.
“Control,” he said quietly. “By producing the only information on the Nephilim at just the right time, the Vatican would become the expert. The scrolls would stand as proof that the Church is the one true religion. People would flock to it.”
Alex stared at him. Then at Father Marcus, who still hadn’t looked up from the floor. Her fingers cramped in their hold on the dresser. She let go her grip and flexed her hands.
“Is that true?” she demanded.
Marcus sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. I love my Church, detective, but the truth is, the men who run it are still only men. Some of them don’t always make the wisest of decisions.”
“And others?”
“Others aided my efforts to remove the scrolls.”
“Well, thank bloody common sense for that,” she muttered. “So how in the world did you end up here?”
“My brother ran with the Hells Angels in California for almost twenty years. Three years ago, he suddenly turned up in Vancouver, a reformed man. Clean, sober, working as an accountant, and volunteering with a youth shelter in the East End. He’d found faith, he told me. Not in a church, but in his own soul. Him, and a group of others like him.”
Alex couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Marcus nodded. “Yes, it sounded like a cult to me, too, but despite my questions, I found no evidence of any such thing, and I couldn’t deny the change. Anyway, when I took the scrolls, this was the safest place I could think of. I’d never met this Emmanuelle until she and Timothy met me at the airport.”
“Emmanuelle met you? She knows about the scrolls?”
“Of course not. No one does. That was the point of my taking them. I told Timothy I was taking a sabbatical and needed a quiet place where I could be anonymous.”
“Anonymous. A priest living among bikers.”
“Play nice, Jarvis.” Hugh muttered.
Father Marcus’s lips curved. “It’s all right, Hugh, I’m a big boy. And yes, Detective Jarvis, I know it seems improbable, but”—he shrugged—“it worked. I kept a low profile, Timothy’s friends respected my privacy, and Emmanuelle didn’t ask questions.”
“Then you being here—with her—is just pure coincidence.”
“Or the divine hand of—”
“Spare me,” she growled. She pushed away from the desk and prowled the room, muttering as she passed Hugh, “Of all the gin joints in all the world.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Hugh responded. “Maybe it’s not a coincidence.”
“Oh, please. We both know the One is—”
“Still influencing events,” Emmanuelle’s voice interrupted from the doorway. “More than you can imagine.”
Alex stopped pacing to face her. Emmanuelle held her gaze, then swept an encompassing glance over Hugh and Father Marcus.
“If you gentlemen wouldn’t mind leaving us for a few minutes?”
To their credit, both men looked to Alex for confirmation. She nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said.
Without speaking, Father Marcus inclined his head and stepped past Emmanuelle into the hallway. Hugh stopped beside Alex on his way to follow suit.
“Marcus has questions,” he murmured. “How much do I tell him?”
Alex looked at the god waiting beside the door. “As much as he wants to know,” she said, pitching her voice to reach Emmanuelle. “There are no more secrets.”
CHAPTER 43
“BLOODY HEAVEN!” SETH SNARLED. “If you keep picking at me like that, I’ll be here for eternity.”
He shoved aside the Virtue’s hands and ripped the tattered shirt from the wounds that had already begun to heal over the fabric. The Virtue compressed her lips but said nothing. Her flat, garnet-red eyes looked past him, to where Samael stood in silence. Her gaze flickered, and she dipped her head in acknowledgement. Then, leaving the tray of supplies she’d brought on the corner of Seth’s desk, she turned and departed, closing the office door behind her.
Seth shot a venomous glare over his shoulder. “Giving orders for me again, Samael?”
The former Archangel’s mouth compressed. Seth took up the washcloth from beside the bandages and sponged roughly at his side. The wound that had plagued him for so long, the one inflicted by Alex, seeped fresh blood.
“You seem to have things well in hand,” Samael responded with a careful lack of inflection. “But I’m happy to call her back if you’d prefer.”
Seth hurled the bloodied rag at Samael’s head. It missed, landing against the window with a wet splat and leaving a crimson smear behind.
“Fuck you!” he growled. “And fuck this whole godforsaken place. I had her, Samael. No thanks to you, I found her and I had her. She was close enough to touch. I could smell her. Taste her. And then fucking Mika’el shows up, and some random female throws a fireball at the wall, and what the fuck happened?”
Samael looked away.
Seth’s jaw clenched. “First Alex’s whereabouts, then Zuriel’s death”—he watched Samael’s eyes flicker—“yes, I know about Zuriel. And now this. You’re keeping an awful lot of secrets from me, Archangel.”
“I’m your aide, Appointed. It’s my job—”
“What are you hiding from me, Samael?”
“I didn’t think it necessary—”
Seth’s fingers closed around Sam’s throat, lifting him from the ground and applying just enough pressure to ensure the other knew he was unimpeded by his latest injuries.
“I asked,” he said, “what you’re hiding.”
Sam swallowed. Seth held tight for a count of three, then loosened his grip a fraction. But only a fraction. He wanted his aide conveniently in hand in case Samael decided not to cooperate as much as Seth thought he should.
“Your sister,” Samael said. “The female is your sister.”
Seth dropped him out of sheer shock.
*
There was nothing graceful about Mika’el’s arrival in Verchiel’s office. Uncontrolled, definitely. Borderline catastrophic, perhaps. But not graceful. He sprawled amid scattered books and broken shelves, clinging desperately to the remnants of consciousness, hoping against hope that Verchiel was in residence.
Robes rustled near his head. A cool, soft hand brushed back his hair. “Dear Heaven, Mika’el!” Verchiel gasped. “What happened?”
Even if he could have found words to explain, he couldn’t have uttered them.
“Never mind. I’ll get help.” More rustling. A door opening. And then a bellow for assistance that shook the venerable old building to its very foundation and startled Mika’el’s eyes wide.
That had been the soft-spoken Highest Seraph?
A dozen pairs of feet came running into the room.
“Don’t move him,” Verchiel barked. “Not until we assess the injuries.”
Her voice drew nearer as she gave more orders. “Galadriel and Arkiel, clear away the rubble. Nariel, we need water and bandages. Tsekiel, send for Gabriel.”
Mika’el raised his head to protest. Verchiel’s hand, still cool but not so soft this time, pushed it back down and held him in place.
“Go quickly, Tsekiel,” she added, “and tell no one else of this.”
Irritation sparked at the Seraph’s highhandedness, then it gave way to a soul-deep gratitude for her calm presence. Her sureness. The simple fact that, for once, a decision was not his to make.
Gentle hands lifted him from the floor, carried him, deposited him carefully on a hard surface. With a sigh, Mika’el gave himself over to his kin and let himself slip—finally, blessedly—into the unconsciousness that would
allow him to heal. To return to Emmanuelle.
And to Alex.
CHAPTER 44
IN THE WAKE OF Hugh’s departure, Alex carefully put the full width of the room between her and Emmanuelle. It wouldn’t do her any good, but she found comfort in the space. Especially in view of her first question.
“Michael?” she asked.
Emmanuelle’s expression darkened. She stepped into the room and closed the door. “Gone. His injuries will heal faster in Heaven.”
“But he’ll be all right? He won’t…”
“Die? No. His immortality is intact.” Emmanuelle leaned against the wall, tucking fingertips into the front pockets of her black jeans and crossing one booted foot over the other. “You care for him.”
The hairs on the back of Alex’s neck prickled at the phrasing. For, not about.
“We’ve been through a lot together, so yes, I care what happens to him.”
Emmanuelle studied her. “He cares for you.”
Alex shoved away the memory of a spark. An unbidden awareness. She snorted. “Only as far as my usefulness to the cause is concerned.”
“Recruiting me to step into my mother’s shoes, you mean?” The dark head shook. “Not going to happen. I’d already be out of here if he hadn’t made me promise to watch over you until he returns.”
“You’re still needed.” Michael’s words echoed in Alex’s head. He’d known Emmanuelle would flee. Had used Alex to tie her here until he could talk to her. Convince her.
So much for he cares for you.
Alex swallowed a pang of disappointment she had no right to feel.
“This isn’t my fight,” Emmanuelle added. “It never was. I’ll keep my promise, but when Mika’el gets back, I’m leaving.”
She straightened away from the wall and reached for the doorknob.
“Is that what you’ll tell your friends?” Alex asked. “When they’re facing the Nephilim or the Fallen—or both—will that be your response?”
Emmanuelle’s hand tightened perceptibly on the knob. “You might want to remember who you’re talking to.”
Alex snorted. “Or what? You’ll strike me down? Be my guest, because you’d be doing me a greater favor than you can imagine.”
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