As the laughter died down, Kyle asked the question Alan was already worrying over. “How’s Seraphim? Do you think she’ll be okay?”
Alan thought back to his exchange with the Death Angel the day before. “She’s the toughest person I’ve ever met. I think she’ll recover. The wounds she suffered, though … They were so severe, not even Danielle could heal them all. I’m not sure her wings will ever completely recover.”
Kyle let his eyes travel to the table’s wooden surface as he considered Alan’s words.
“Seriously, guys,” Artemis said as she downed the rest of her milk and patted a small bulge over her stomach. “This is the best invention ever. Who came up with the idea?”
Alan and Kyle exchanged looks and shrugs. “Some great mind we all owe our thanks to,” Kyle said.
Artemis nodded, satisfied with the answer. Without missing a beat, she changed gears and looked over to Alan as if she were still talking about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “Alan, you should probably go to Seraphim’s room. She’s trying to get out of bed and she’s going to fall if you don’t help her.”
---
“I can do it myself,” Seraphim said as she struggled out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Alan asked, determining whether or not he should help her. “You should be in bed, resting.”
Seraphim waved him away as she rose with a shudder of pain to unsteady feet. “Too much time has already been wasted. Gabriel is loose in the world. I cannot lie in bed and wait for him to make his move.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what you need to do. Your body needs rest to recover.”
Seraphim had retracted her broken wings into her back. Still, the damage the flames did to her body was undeniable. Soft, pinkish skin marked the places where Danielle had healed her, though the scar that crossed the right side of her face looked as if it would be a permanent reminder of her encounter. To Alan, her beauty was still intact; the passion in her eyes and the resolve in her tone were things that could never be replaced, and the leader of the Death Angels he’d met when searching for the celestial weapons was still whole.
Seraphim took a step forward, wobbled and would have fallen, had Alan not been there to save her. “See?” he said. “You need rest.”
Seraphim tried to pull away, but her attempt at standing on her own was feeble at best.
Alan helped her to her feet, supporting her left arm and shoulder. She wore a white gown Artemis had provided over the course of the night. Her weight felt like he was supporting a kitten instead of the leader of a supernatural clan of Death Angels.
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am. The best thing you can do now is to recover. I bet in a few more days, you’ll be healthy enough to go out again.”
Seraphim hesitated, thinking over his words. While she considered her options, Alan got an up- close view of the scar on her face—a thin line long enough to notice.
Seraphim must have caught him looking, because she turned her head away from him, a long lock of red hair hiding her scar. “All right, Alan, you win. I’ll rest. Only until I can walk on my own.”
“Deal.” Alan helped her to bed, the whole time Seraphim making sure he couldn’t see her scar.
---
Gideon packed everything he could possibly imagine he’d need during his stay at the Temple. Four large crates in varying states of fullness lay open on his workbench. He made a mental checklist as he shuffled through his belongings.
The angel was so used to being alone in his workshop that he muttered to himself out loud as he packed. “Let’s see, plenty of metal for the collars, soldering equipment, gloves, mask, my blueprints and notebook, wires, circuits ...” His voice trailed off as his mind searched for anything else he could be missing.
It would be a long trip; she’d said as much. Artemis had spoken to him again the night before and told him he was needed at the Temple.
Gideon was more than happy to accept the invitation. He’d never visited the Temple before, and he was eager to explore the many wonders it held.
Gideon was just a few items away from finishing his packing before he was off. In the space of a few minutes, he’d packed each of his crates, and the insides of the four containers had been filled to capacity.
Despite the crates’ appearance, the inventor was pleased with his packing skills. He hefted one on top of the other as he ran over his checklist for the hundredth time, when something tugged at the back of his mind. Something he was missing but couldn’t place his finger on.
“What else could I need?” he asked himself with a shrug. “I have all my work; I’m sure they’ll have food there. There’s something else I’m forgetting, but what?”
The answer hit him like a lightning bolt. For all of his brilliance when it came to inventing things, he paid for this gift in other mental areas. He shook his head with a laugh as he rummaged across his workbench for the one forgotten item.
Gideon’s hand made contact with his toothbrush lying in one of the few clean sections of his workshop. “There you are, you scoundrel.”
---
“Oh man, you look horrible. How do you feel?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Alan knew he should duck for cover as Danielle drilled him with a stare that would have put Medusa to shame.
Her hair was a mess, falling around her head in every direction, and her glasses were askew on her face, giving her the appearance of a bear just coming out of hibernation.
“I immediately regret those words,” Alan said, leaning over the counter of the kitchen, a room that was quickly becoming the hub for Temple activity. With two open hands, he offered the half-eaten cookie as a peace offering.
Danielle took it, scowl still firmly in place, looking as if it weren’t going anywhere for the next decade. “You’d look like death, too, if you’d expended that much energy healing people. I feel like I’ve been run over by a tank.”
“Nice use of the word ‘tank,’” Alan said with a grin. “Want something to eat?”
Danielle munched on her cookie, the sugar rush finally dissipating the scowl on her face. She plopped down into a chair next to the table. “That would seriously be great.”
“Coming right up.” Alan moved to the stove. “I’ll make you the best giant omelet you’ve ever eaten.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
“This thing will fill you up,” Alan said, then added as an after-thought, “It’ll be the size of a tank.”
Alan could practically feel Danielle’s reluctant grin. Instead of acknowledging his comment, she asked a new set of questions. “So what’s the most recent update since I’ve been out? Wait, how long have I been asleep? What time is it?”
Alan busied himself, cracking eggs and chopping toppings for the omelet. “You got me. Time in this place is a weird thing—there are no clocks or windows—but I don’t think you’ve been asleep that long. My guess is a full night, maybe just a bit longer.”
Alan added milk to his omelet mix and whisked it together in a large bowl. It was seriously amazing that the ancient underground Temple had things like a kitchen and a modern bathroom.
“How are Angelica and Seraphim?”
“Angelica is great. She’s up and around. I passed her in the hall a few hours ago, and she was on her way to help Michael. Seraphim’s a different story.” Alan paused, reminded of Seraphim’s ruined wings and the permanent facial scar that she was struggling to cope with. Didn’t matter to Alan; to be honest, he couldn’t care less about a stupid scar. He still admired the brave woman who’d saved his life.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s taking longer to heal. I’m not sure if her wings will ever be the same.”
“Gabriel is going to pay,” Danielle said. “The damage he did to her was like nothing I’ve ever healed. I repaired all I could, but there was still more.”
“No one blames you, Danielle,” Alan said as he mixed all of the omelet ingredients together in
the large bowl. “We blame Gabriel, and he will pay. Last I heard, Esther had captured the Fallen who were fighting beside Gabriel. Michael and Ardat are interrogating them now.”
“Ardat, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think we can trust her?”
Alan shrugged as he poured the contents of his bowl into a pan that he’d begun heating on the stove. His feelings on the subject of Ardat were still torn. “I don’t know. It’s hard not to believe she has her own agenda in all of this.”
“I know what you mean; she’s a hard one to figure out. Personally, I don’t think I can ever forgive her, not after what she did to Jacob.”
Alan flipped the omelet as his mind relived the incidents leading up to his mentor’s death at the hands of Ardat. So many feelings resurfaced when he thought about the past month’s events—fear, anger, pain, sorrow and a multitude of others. Before Alan could focus on one, Artemis interrupted him.
“Uh, hey, guys.”
“Hey,” Danielle said with a tired smile. “How’s it going?”
Alan plated Danielle’s steaming omelet and topped it with a handful of cheese. “What’s going on, Artemis?”
The little girl rocked up and down on her feet, heel to toe, her face a mixture of contained excitement and wonder. “So, remember that room with the weird noises when we went to go see all those pictures of the previous Four Horsemen throughout history?”
Artemis had said the words in one loud rush, and Alan placed Danielle’s omelet in front of her, thinking back to the dark room Artemis was talking about. “Yeah, it sounded like there was something breathing in there.”
“That’s because there was. I mean there is.” Artemis gave one of her trademark smiles. “Guys, there are puppies in the Temple. I love this place!”
Chapter Eighty-Five
They all waited on him to decide and the pressure stemming from his position weighed more heavily than ever before. History would change for good or for evil depending on the decisions he made now.
Michael paced back and forth for what seemed like the hundredth time, wishing the room was bigger if only to give himself more room to walk. His quarters in the Temple were the same as everyone else’s, but this didn’t bother him in the least. He preferred to live with his soldiers.
When the pressure of making a decision was this crucial, though, running or flying were the best ways Michael knew of to help him think. But the confines of the Temple made these intense forms of exercise difficult; thus, Michael was left with pacing from one end of his room to the other.
Ardat had confirmed Triana’s story. The other three Fallen members they’d captured were useless; they’d been recruited to Gabriel’s ranks just days before and had been privy to none of the information he needed.
The facts were clear. Gabriel was somehow stronger than anyone ever was, and he’d found a way to allow supernaturals to maim, and even kill, one another. On top of that, he might have had a spell to thwart fate itself. Michael shuddered at the notion of Gabriel possessing the ability to affect how the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were chosen.
No doubt they needed to find Gabriel, but they also needed to search for the source of his power and for who might be able to create the incantation for him. Because of this, Michael’s unknowns quickly multiplied from one to three.
A knock on his door broke him from his thoughts.
Michael stopped mid-stride as he glanced at the door, expecting the caller to be either Esther or Ardat looking to help in any way she could. “Come in.”
By the way the door eased open, Michael already knew he was wrong on both counts. This spoke of reluctance and a timid demeanor, things neither Esther nor Ardat possessed.
Finally, Kyle stepped inside. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know how much you must have on your mind.”
Michael smiled and waved him inside. “Please. There’s always time for friends.”
Kyle visibly flinched at being addressed as a friend. “Thanks, I … uh, I just wanted to let you know that I’m ready.”
A long pause filled the space between the two men as Michael reflected back on their previous conversation. Was he missing something? “I’m not sure I’m following you, Kyle.”
Kyle moistened his lips, and his eyes shifted to the ground beneath his feet as if there was something worth studying there. “It’s just that you’ve all been so accepting of me, even after I let myself be manipulated by Ardat.”
It was Michael’s turn to wince, and he was glad the young man’s gaze was on the floor. The more time Michael spent with the others, the more he realized how long of a road to redemption Ardat had in their eyes. It wouldn’t be an easy path for her to travel, to repair the damage she did to them, both physically and emotionally.
Kyle lifted his eyes. “I’m ready to help. I want to do something. Whatever it is—heck, even washing the floors or alphabetizing all the books in this place.”
Michael chuckled. “Thank you, Kyle. There are plans being set into motion that I’m sure will require volunteers. I’ll keep you in mind.”
Kyle’s face brightened as he ran a hand through his short, brown hair. “Thank you, Michael. I mean it; whatever needs to be done, all you have to do is ask. I don’t care if it’s dangerous.”
Then, something snapped inside Michael. Out of the echo of Kyle’s words, a plan formed. It would be dangerous, but it could mean they’d be led straight to Gabriel.
---
Alan looked at the three monsters that stood before him. Artemis had shown both Alan and Danielle to the same room where Alan had previously heard the loud breathing. Except this time, the room wasn’t dark. Artemis had placed torches along the walls, turning the shadows into bright beams of light.
The room was much larger than Alan would have guessed—a square space with stone walls. On each of these walls was a creature securely held in place with a steel chain the size of Alan’s leg. The chain connected one end to an anchor in the wall and the other side to each of the collars around the animals’ necks.
The closest things Alan could link the animals to were a mix of part dog, part wolf, and part sabertooth tiger, with bodies nearly as large as horses. Each was a different color: grey, white, and black. Short hair covered their forms, revealing well-muscled frames. Their faces were long with short, pointed ears and whiskers over large canine teeth. Their eyes looked more human than animal.
The three monsters watched Alan with deep penetrating stares and looks of recognition, if an animal was capable of such an expression.
Before either Alan or Danielle—who’d refused to be left behind and had powered down her piping-hot omelet—could stop her, Artemis ran to the closest animal. With both arms opened wide, she flung herself at the behemoth closest to her. The white-haired animal bent down to ruffle the girl’s brown hair with its snout. Despite this, the animals’ eyes never left Alan.
“Artemis?” Danielle asked in shock. “Are you sure you should be that close to the … the … animals?”
Artemis was in the process of measuring her hand against one’s paw. It dwarfed hers by more than triple. “Oh, yeah. They’re nice.”
“What are they?” Alan asked in a whisper, as if he somehow already knew the answer, as if he’d visited the room before and had met these beasts a dozen times in the past. They all looked at him, pushing him to find the answer, but he couldn’t.
“I don’t know,” Artemis said, grabbing the jaws of the creature and looking up inside the mouth as though she were a dentist. “It’s the weirdest thing. Some things I can remember from the past, some from the future; I can talk to some people in their heads, but then other times—like this—I have no idea.” Artemis looked back to catch Alan with a stare. “I didn’t even know what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was, remember?”
“How could you not know what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is?” Danielle asked. “That just seems wrong.”
“You’re telling me,” Artemis said.
> The girls’ exchange was only background noise to Alan as his feet guided him to the animal on the right wall, his imagination running away with him as the large animal dipped its head to him and winked.
A sense of safety came over him, and he reached out a tentative hand, which hovered in the air halfway between himself and the beast. Hold up, he thought. You don’t know what this thing is. It could just rip off your arm for a snack.
Alan stood like a statue as he weighed his options. The animal’s breathing came out in a string of solid breaths, and its smell reminded him of a dog that hadn’t been washed in a very long time, a strong odor that brought a tickle to his eyes.
Before Alan could move his extended hand either forward or back, the creature sat on its haunches and raised its own paw. One massive, padded mitt hit Alan’s own knuckles, then traveled back to the floor.
“Did you just fist bump me?”
Either Alan’s imagination flared up again, or the animal winked its left eye and smiled. Alan decided any animal who could throw a fist bump deserved to be pet, so he raised his hand, making contact with the creature’s right shoulder under watchful eyes and a lolling tongue. Its muscular body felt like a series of marble rocks under fur, though the animal’s black fur was softer than Alan had expected. As he scratched and stroked the animal, the beast bent into the motion; its huge head leaned down and pushed against Alan’s hand with its gigantic wet nose, somehow maneuvering his hand to the top of its head.
“Oh, you want a scratch between your ears?”
The animal ran its head back and forth under Alan’s hand in a gesture indicating “yes.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
Alan turned his gaze from his own animal to behind him where Artemis was being lifted up and down by the white creature, both hands wrapped around the animal’s collar that kept it secured to the wall. Her small shoes rose off the floor and down again as the beast raised and lowered its head.
The Complete Archangel Wars Series: A Shared Universe Series (The Archangel Wars) Page 33