Sins of the Warrior

by Linda Poitevin

  A thin, mewling wail pierced the night.

  For a moment, time itself froze. Then Samael’s head whipped around, and he stared at Bethiel, silent until now. The former Principality grimaced at Mika’el and drew back the corner of a dirty bundle of rags held in the crook of one arm. A tiny, red-faced infant thrust out an angry fist and wailed again, stronger this time. Louder.

  “The child,” he said. “Born of the girl and taken from Qemuel.”

  “Bloody Hell,” Mika’el growled. “I forgot about it.”

  Samael found little comfort in knowing the Archangel was as startled as he was by the presence of the infant. So that was where Qemuel had been all this time: still following Lucifer’s orders. Despite himself, he hesitated, torn now between targets. While he hated to admit it, his chances of getting through two Archangels to the woman were slim in the extreme. The child, however…they might not fight as hard for the child.

  And if Seth followed through on that ludicrous idea of a new pact, the Nephilim army would be all that remained to Samael. His only hope of continuing hostilities. Of fighting his way back into the Heaven he so desperately wanted.

  Mika’el made the decision for him.

  “Take the infant,” the Archangel directed Bethiel. “Go with Emmanuelle.”

  From beyond the house came the guttural throb of multiple, powerful engines. Bethiel gave a single nod and launched into the air, and Samael turned his head from the sting of wind-driven sand. Well. That narrowed the options.

  Without looking in her direction, he shifted his focus to the woman in the sand. The Naphil it would have to be. His hand went to his sword and he straightened his shoulders. He would have to move fast, because contrary to his claims, no reinforcements would come no matter how long he fought. He’d been so sure of himself, so certain Mika’el would still be recovering from his battle with Seth, so desperate to keep his treason a secret…

  A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. He could have taken the Naphil from a wounded Archangel, but finding Raphael here had changed matters significantly. His only chance at getting her and getting out alive lay in the element of surprise.

  His gaze went again to the woman. He gauged the distance to her. Shifted his stance in the sand. Tensed.

  “Not this night, Samael,” Mika’el said. “In fact, not any night. Raphael?”

  Samael’s brother stepped forward. The earlier fire in his eyes had banked to a cold, slow burn, and his jawline had taken on a grim set. His gaze never leaving Samael’s, Raphael again raised his left hand to protect his immortality, his right to rotate his sword in silent challenge.

  Samael went still. The Naphil woman’s presence tugged at him. But six thousand years of deep, vicious hatred tugged harder. Mika’el skirted around him, and he heard the Naphil’s whimper as the Archangel picked her up from the sand. He stared into his brother’s golden eyes. He drew his sword.

  “You’re certain?” he asked, wondering what it would be like to strike down his own flesh and blood. Anticipating it.

  Raphael twirled his sword again.

  “To the death,” he agreed—and lunged.

  *

  Hands closed over Alex’s shoulders and pulled her up, away from the limp fragility that had once been her niece. For a moment, she considered fighting to remain, but what was the point? Nina—sweet, loving, gentle Nina—was gone. Alex had felt the last whisper of breath against her cheek as she held her. She knew she could do nothing more for her niece. Could offer her no comfort, no solace, no apology.

  The hands turned her.

  That it was Michael’s eyes she looked up into, and not those of one who had come to take her, meant nothing. That more sadness resided in the green gaze than she had ever imagined could exist…that meant nothing, either.

  “We have to go,” Michael said.

  Alex studied him. Should she agree? Disagree?

  Would either make a difference?

  Would anything she ever did make a difference?

  She twisted her head around and looked down at the soiled, blood-soaked blanket wrapped around her dead niece’s body. At the thin, bruised arm that had come free of its folds, skin paper-white and parchment-thin. At the long matted hair Nina had once taken such pride in. So many pains with.

  Oh, the battles that hair had caused in the mornings when mother and daughter had shared a single bathroom.

  Those didn’t matter anymore, either.

  “Alex.”

  A firm hand beneath her chin turned her head away from her niece. Made her look into the sad green eyes again.

  “We have to go,” Michael repeated. The clang of metal against metal sounded from the beach behind him. A shower of sparks outlined his head and shoulders.

  “Nina?” she asked.

  “I can’t take her,” he said. “Her energy is gone. There’s nothing left for me to—she’s just a—”

  Michael broke off and looked past her, his jaw flexing and his mouth pulling tight. Flint underscored the sadness when his gaze met hers again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But we have to leave. Now.”

  Alex sidestepped, evading his arms. Her chest tightened. She waited for the grief to envelop her at the thought of leaving her beloved niece here, alone on a beach, uncared for. Anger licked through her instead.

  Her gaze went past him to the angels fighting knee-deep in the encroaching ocean. Settled on the one with the black wings of an Archangel, but not the armor. Anger became fury. White-hot, all-consuming, absolute fury.

  Her hand went to the hilt of Aramael’s sword at her back. Blade drawn, she lunged past her protector, driven by the sheer, primal need for revenge. A strong arm encircled her mid-step and pulled her back. Feathers, still sharp with the edge of battle, sliced her skin. Alex struggled, not against the physical pain, but against the embrace itself.

  “Let me go!” she snarled. “I can do this, Michael. I can kill him! For Nina and Jen and—”

  “I’m sorry,” Michael’s voice rumbled above her head. “But this isn’t your battle.”

  Alex shoved harder, trying to free the sword. Kicking, flailing, beyond wanting to listen. Beyond being able to hear. Michael’s grip tightened. Fingertips settled against her temple. Warmth pulsated through her, beginning at the touch against her skin and spreading along her every nerve, smothering the rage. Changing the fury. And then…

  Nothing.

  Blissful, blessed nothing.

  *

  So. This was his answer, then. Seth stared down at the body rolling gently in the incoming waves. Sodden feathers swayed with the ocean’s rhythm. Faint phosphorescence clung to the broken breastplate. Seth had sent an emissary to Emmanuelle in good faith, and this—Samael dead and bobbing along the shore—was her response.

  This, and the taking of Alex from him yet again.

  A wave lifted Samael’s body onto the shore and then dragged it back again. Seth raised his head. Sand stretched as far as he could see, as deserted as the house through which he’d already passed. No sign of god, angel, or Naphil, though traces of all three presences remained.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled Alex’s faint scent, still carried on the breeze. Emptiness gnawed at his core. Emptiness and a cold, dark seethe of anger. He’d tried to be reasonable. Tried to bring peace back to Heaven and Hell. Tried to do what was right. All he’d asked in return was the woman he loved. The woman he needed as he needed breath itself.

  And all he’d received was insult.

  A veritable slap in the face from his own sister.

  The bitch.

  He looked down again at the dead Archangel by his feet.

  The fucking bitch.

  How dared she think she could take Alex from him? Did she really think he wouldn’t pursue her? That he wouldn’t know where to start?

  The fucking, arrogant bitch.

  “She belongs to me, Emmanuelle!” he bellowed at the wind. His voice echoed down the empty sand, and the night swallowed it. Loss s
lit him from belly to throat, and he staggered, caught himself, fought past the panic gripping his throat.

  “I’ll find her,” he whispered viciously. “I’ll find her, and I’ll take her from you, and then I will take away everything you’ve ever loved.”

  But how? How could he find her? Was she still here, in the city, or had they taken her further from him? Where did he even begin looking?

  The ocean rolled onto the shore.

  And then he remembered.

  He gave a sharp inhale, and with a last, brief glance at his former aide, turned his focus inward. He thought back to what seemed another lifetime altogether, pulling up details from his memory. Watching television, watching Alex, long conversations as she tried to help him relate to the human race. A low-slung leather sofa, a glass coffee table, the sweep of windows looking out onto a balcony and the city beyond.

  A time of falling in love, when potential had still existed.

  A place that was a mere thought away.

  With someone who would know where he could start looking.

  He closed his eyes. Felt again the carpet beneath his feet, the cool solidity of the sliding glass door against his shoulder where he leaned. Saw in his mind’s eye the city spread before him. Waited for the whisper of Alex’s footsteps to cross the room as she joined him.

  A muffled gasp broke his thoughts.

  Seth’s eyes opened. He stared at the woman in the kitchen doorway of Hugh Henderson’s condo, dishtowel clutched in one hand. Slight of build, gray hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, bright blue eyes behind wire-framed glasses, undeniably familiar. Seth’s gaze narrowed, then he relaxed. Of course. She was the one who had found him when his mortal transition had gone so wrong. The psychiatrist who had locked him in the hospital room until Alex had come to his rescue.

  He glanced around the apartment, noting the small, subtle changes. Cushions on the couch, a blanket folded over the back of a chair, plants arrayed in front of the expanse of windows. A photo of the woman and a man on the table beside him.

  Her…and Henderson?

  “Dr. Riley,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise to find you here.”

  Panic fluttered in the pulse at the base of Elizabeth Riley’s throat, and her gaze flicked to the dining room table between them. The cell phone sitting there flew off the table and smashed into the wall by her head. She flinched. Paled. Then straightened her shoulders.

  “It’s good to see you again, Seth,” she said. Her voice wavered but, to her credit, didn’t break.

  Yet.

  He shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “I have neither the time nor the patience. I want to know where Alex is, and I want you to tell me.”

  “I—I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since—”

  Elizabeth Riley broke off as a key scraped in the lock of the apartment’s door. Her head snapped around, and her mouth opened wide.

  Seth lifted a single finger, cutting off the warning before it left her throat. Across the room to his left, the door opened. Elizabeth Riley turned back to him, struggling for air, her mouth flapping soundlessly. Her eyes widened, then went dark with a terror that reached up from her very soul.

  Hugh Henderson stepped into the apartment.

  *

  “We’ll need formula for her.”

  Emmanuelle jerked out of her reverie at the sound of Jezebel’s voice behind her. No, not a reverie, because she hadn’t actually been thinking about anything. Hadn’t been feeling. Hadn’t been doing anything more than taking up space and air, too shocked by events to function. Lucifer and that poor girl…

  The memory of Alexandra Jarvis’s agony still resided in her chest, a hollowness that refused to subside.

  She pushed it away. Pushed her hair back from her face. Focused on Jezebel.

  “What?”

  “Formula. We need formula for the baby.”

  Emmanuelle followed her pointing finger to the tattered-looking angel from the beach and the filthy bundle of rags he held in one arm, both standing under the security floodlight their arrival had triggered. Disgust rolled off him, turning his zircon eyes cold and hard. Disgust for her father’s Naphil bastard. She shuddered as something slimy slithered across her soul, overshadowing the other’s distaste. Bloody Hell. Her father’s child, born of a human mother. Her half sibling. A Naphil. With eighty thousand more like it out there in the world.

  Humanity was toast.

  Unless—

  Jezebel cleared her throat. “There’s a pharmacy about twenty minutes back. I’m sending—”

  “No. We need to stay together so I—” Emmanuelle clamped her lips together. So I can protect you.

  “We need to stay together,” she repeated, looking over Jez’s head to where the others stood, half in shadow, helmets in hand, looking as lost and unnerved as Emmanuelle felt. Except they were unnerved by Emmanuelle herself, their collective fear pushing against her. Despite their earlier acceptance of events, the beach had taken its toll.

  She tightened her lips and then raised her voice. “No one leaves.”

  Jez crossed her arms. “She’s hungry.”

  Emmanuelle’s gaze went back to the rag bundle. A thin arm poked out, fist clenched, and the child wailed a demand. Her stomach rolling, she turned her gaze from it.

  “No one leaves,” she repeated, shooting a hard look at Jezebel.

  “You can’t be serious.” Jez stared at her. “Emmanuelle, she’ll die if we don’t feed her.”

  Emmanuelle’s lips compressed. I wish.

  “Unfortunately not,” she responded. Jez’s eyes widened and Emmanuelle sighed. “It’s not what you think it is, Jez. It’s not a baby.”

  “What the hell—of course she’s a baby! A hungry one at that, and I’m damned if I’ll stand here doing nothing while the poor thing wastes away.”

  In a huff, Jez pushed past, heading for Bethiel and the child, but Emmanuelle caught her arm and swung her around to face her.

  “It’s not a baby,” she repeated, unleashing the finest hint of her otherness. Her command. Jez paled. She swallowed hard. Emmanuelle reined herself in, guilt twisting inside her. Jez was a friend. She deserved better than to have the living daylights scared out of her by someone she trusted. All these people deserved better.

  But she didn’t have the patience to coddle them. Didn’t have the energy.

  She released her hold on Jez and stalked toward the house. Bethiel’s wings opened to block her path. She stopped in her tracks and paused before turning her gaze to meet his. She let another moment tick by.

  “You would do well to remember who I am, Principality,” she said finally, her voice soft but edged with warning.

  He met her stare for stare. “So would you.”

  Her hands formed fists at her sides. Another pause. Then she reached up, seized the offending wing, and applied just enough pressure to fold it against Bethiel’s back. A film of sweat broke out on the angel’s forehead as he resisted. The infant in his arms squawked a protest when his hold became too tight.

  Emmanuelle stepped past him, headed for the door. She halted with one hand on the knob. “They stay here,” she told Bethiel, jerking her head toward her friends. “No one leaves this house, and no one goes near that. And, Principality…”

  Bethiel’s chin lifted a fraction.

  “Just so we understand one another,” she said heavily. “I may not like who I am, but I’ve never forgotten.”

  CHAPTER 51

  SETH STARED DOWN AT the bodies on the floor. Elizabeth Riley lay on her back, sightless eyes turned toward the leather sofa, her body shattered in more places than Seth had thought she would survive, her features grotesquely twisted by the pain she had endured before her heart had given up. Beside her, Hugh Henderson curled into a fetal position, breath rattling in his throat. One hand clutched Riley’s lifeless fingers, the other was pressed against his own gaping belly wound that seeped blood into the already saturated carpet.

  The wound
that had finally given Seth the information he needed.

  He scowled at the memory of his own incompetence. As the son of Lucifer and the One, he’d expected more of himself. Expected to be able to crack open their minds and take what he wanted from them. He sure as Hell hadn’t anticipated a level of resistance that had required a…messier approach.

  He grimaced at the gore covering his hand and shirtfront. Not that it much mattered how he’d achieved his end. It mattered only that he knew where to find Alex. That he would have what belonged to him—as soon as he’d dealt with those who would keep her from him.

  Hugh Henderson gurgled at his feet, and Seth looked down again. For a brief moment, he considered putting the mortal out of his misery. Then he dismissed the notion. After the way Henderson and Riley had defied him, they’d deserved every bit of pain he’d meted out—and more. In retrospect, he was rather glad his mind-breaking idea hadn’t worked, because this approach had been infinitely more satisfying. He squatted beside Henderson and tilted his head to one side, regarding him thoughtfully.

  “To be honest,” he said, “I’ve half a mind to heal you so you can watch me take Alex and then live out the rest of your days knowing how you failed her.”

  Brown eyes, glazed with pain, didn’t react. Seth sighed.

  “On the other hand, why bother? Those days would be so limited. Between me bringing the war here to Earth and turning the Nephilim loose, you’d have a few months at most. It hardly seems worth the effort, does it? So there you have it. You get to die in peace.” He patted Henderson’s pale, stubbled cheek, and rose to his feet.

  With a lingering smile, he stepped across the dying man and strolled toward the bank of windows overlooking the city.

  “I’ll tell Alex you said hello,” he added over his shoulder, and then he stepped out of the human realm and into Hell.

  “You!” he snarled at a passing Virtue. “Bring me Samael’s second-in-command. We take the war to Earth!”

  *

  Verchiel dropped into the chair behind her desk with an audible thump. She stared at the red-haired Archangel across from her.

  “All of them?” she whispered. “They’ve all gone to Earth?”