Consciousness fractured again.
Faded.
Ended.
ELIZABETH DIDN’T KNOW how long she stared down at the man in her arms before her knees, pressed against the floor, began to protest. He’d opened his eyes so unexpectedly. Not a groan, not a murmur, not even a catch in his breath. Just those eyes. Blacker, deeper, and emptier than she’d ever seen. As if they opened onto a void rather than a person.
And then he’d been gone again. She’d spoken one sentence, a single reassurance, and then—nothing. A closing of eyelids as abrupt as their opening had been, and she once more faced the task of caring for an unconscious stranger.
She pushed herself to her feet and surveyed her guest in his makeshift bed on the floor, waiting for her breathing to return to normal. Morning runs and yoga aside, she was too old for this kind of exertion. She’d tried to get him into the actual bed, but when she’d nearly dropped him—twice—she’d resorted to building a pad out of blankets, rolling him onto it, and covering him with a spare duvet.
At least she’d managed to get him off her porch and out of the elements. She studied him, deciding her first age estimate had been relatively accurate. He looked to be in his early thirties, black hair, at least six two, and powerfully built. Even in his unconscious state, he had an aura of coiled strength about him that made her wonder what he would be like when awake.
A shiver of unease slipped down her spine. It wasn’t something she cared to find out on her own. Reaching for the phone on the bedside table, she felt her heart calm a fraction at the sound of the reassuring dial tone. She punched in a number.
“Sex Crimes. Henderson,” a gruff voice announced after the third ring.
“Hugh? It’s Elizabeth. You’re not going to believe what I found on my front porch.”
“WELL, MITTRON OF the Seraphim, are you satisfied with what you have achieved?”
The One’s words fell like small, hard pebbles into the silence that filled the Great Hall, sending ripples of movement through the gathering. Mittron swallowed, his throat tightening against any chance of responding.
Had the Creator’s voice ever been this flat? This cold? He shivered as a thousand eyes bored into him with shock and accusation and dismay. Only the One did not look upon him, and he felt the absence of her gaze as he would his own heart.
A door opened at the side of the vaulted space and Verchiel rushed in. Skirting the assembled angels, she hurried to the One, who stood by one of the soaring windows, shunning—as she always did—the plain, high-backed wooden throne from which she had once ruled the universe. The seat unused since Lucifer had left his place at her side.
The One took a paper offered by the Dominion and Mittron’s heart gave a tiny leap. Seth’s confession. Verchiel had found it, and now the One would understand. She would know why he had done it; know it hadn’t been he who betrayed her. His Creator scanned the letter. Not so much as a flicker of expression gave away her thoughts. His fingers grew numb from the bonds around his wrists.
The One handed the paper back to Verchiel. Mittron waited for her to look upon him, waited for her understanding to fill him. Her forgiveness to wash him clean. Instead, she closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the ceiling. Fresh panic trickled through him, stealing the oxygen from his lungs, the strength from his limbs. He locked his knees against their need to buckle. His brain screamed at him to say something, to defend himself, but his throat refused passage to the words churning within.
It was Seth’s idea. He wanted this, chose it. It was he who abandoned you, just like his father. It wasn’t me. I would never leave your side like they did. Never. I want only to remain with you, fight with you, rule with you as I should have from the beginning.
At last the One lowered her head and looked upon him. The sadness in her eyes cleaved his soul in two. He shook his head, denying the reflection of himself he saw here. The words in him descended into an endless babble.
I didn’t betray you I didn’t I love you too much better than Lucifer did better purer it wasn’t my fault it wasn’t—
“Mittron of the Seraphim, you stand accused of treason. Will you answer to the charges?”
Despair held him mute.
“Then you will kneel for Judgment.”
He tried to shake his head, to resist, but an unseen force gathered around his shoulders, weighed him down, and felled him to his knees on the stone floor. The gathered audience inhaled as one, waiting.
And then he felt her.
The full, unadulterated power of his Creator, meshing with his very existence. Exposing his every thought, his every memory, his every covetous desire. Exposing, examining…
Judging.
Finding him wanting.
Agony wracked his heart and tears coursed down his face. I didn’t mean it I’m sorry I’m so sorry…
The One’s presence withdrew abruptly. Emptier than he’d ever imagined it possible to be, Mittron collapsed to the floor and curled into a ball as the One began to speak. He tried to shut her out, tried not to listen, but her words reverberated inside his skull. Inside his very core.
“I find you guilty of treason, Seraph. You have betrayed both Heaven and Earth, and you have condemned the entire mortal race to unbearable suffering. I therefore sentence you to witness the consequences of your actions. You will live among the mortals you have failed and feel the agony of each and every soul lost to the Fallen Ones as if that agony were your own. Your suffering will be cumulative, and will continue as long as Heaven and Hell battle for dominion.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And, too, you will feel the pain your betrayal has caused me. Feel it, remember it, and never escape it.”
FIVE
Dropping a paper onto the cafeteria table in front of Liz, Hugh lowered himself into the chair across from her. “I’ve handed the file over to Missing Persons,” he said. “That’s the detective who’ll be handling it. I told him there was no point coming over here to interview Doe, and said you’d let him know if there’s any change.”
Liz glanced at the paper and then favored him with a jaundiced eye. “Could you not have found anyone else to take it?”
“Daniels is a good cop.”
“He’s a pig.”
“You know, for a shrink, you sure do have some issues,” Hugh observed dryly.
She arched a brow high above her wire-framed glasses. “Because I prefer to converse with people who shower more than once a month and don’t wear their breakfasts on their ties?”
“He’s not that bad. You’re just getting crotchety in your old age.”
“And I still don’t see why you can’t just handle this yourself. It’s not like it will take a lot of time to put out a bulletin.”
Hugh heaved a sigh. “Because unless John Doe is a victim of rape or a suspect in one, he’s not my problem. And no, finding him naked doesn’t count. Daniels will make sure his photo is released to the media today, and he’s already sent out a Canada-wide bulletin. Now stop being so bloody difficult and tell me what’s going on with Melanie Chiu.”
Liz compressed her lips. “Nothing new beyond what I’ve already told you. She still maintains she was raped, but she can’t give me any details.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Hugh reached across the table and helped himself to a carrot stick from Liz’s plate.
“Can’t. I’m certain she doesn’t have any conscious memory of what happened, although whatever it was has upset her deeply enough we have her on suicide watch.”
Hugh chewed the carrot rhythmically, then swallowed. “And you still think she’s six months along in the pregnancy?”
“The ultrasound confirmed it on Friday.”
“Any chance I can interview her yet?”
“You’re welcome to try, but don’t expect much. She’s still on the heaviest meds they can give her for the pain she’s in. And no, they haven’t figured out why she’s in pain, and no, I don’t think it’s psychosomatic. At least, not entirely.” Liz pushed the p
late of vegetables toward him and rose. “I’ll let Psych know to expect you.”
“You’re forgetting something.” Hugh held up the paper he’d given her.
Liz ignored the note. “I’m not forgetting anything. If something changes with Doe, I’ll call you and you let Daniels know.”
Tucking Daniels’s number into his shirt pocket, Hugh shook his head. “You don’t give up easily, do you?”
“Job requirement.” Patting his shoulder, Liz bestowed one of her rare smiles on him and then departed the cafeteria, sandals slapping against her feet.
VERCHIEL FOUND THE One in the rose garden, seated beneath an arbor, eyes closed and hands folded in her lap. She hesitated near a crimson-leafed hedge, loath to disturb her Creator’s moment of peace, but the One’s voice stopped her when she would have left.
“You’re not disturbing me, Verchiel. Come. Sit.”
Settling onto the arbor seat beside the One, Verchiel cleared her throat softly. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
The One’s eyes remained closed, but her lips curved upward. “I’m fine, thank you. Or as fine as one might expect, given all that has happened recently. What about the others? How are they?”
“They are—shaken.”
A tiny frown shadowed the One’s brow.
“I’m sure they must be.” Eyes as silver as the One’s hair opened to meet Verchiel’s. “And you? Are you shaken as well?”
Verchiel looked down to where her fingers twisted into her robes. “Yes. And worried.”
“Again? Why am I not surprised?” The One settled back against the bench. “What worries you?”
“You, One.”
Verchiel sensed the Creator’s gaze but couldn’t bring herself to raise her own to meet it any more than she could make herself breathe. She waited for the One’s response.
“My decision to allow Mittron to transition my son.”
“Yes. If you knew—”
“I didn’t know,” the One interrupted. “Not for certain. But I hoped.”
Her eyes flashed up to meet her Creator’s, and Verchiel’s jaw went slack. The One had hoped her son would—? A chill seeped through her, at odds with the warmth of the day.
“I don’t understand.”
“Something in Seth had changed. There was a weakness in him—a doubt—that would have made him an unacceptable risk within the agreement. I couldn’t allow him to continue, and I knew Mittron wanted him gone. I counted on it.”
An eternity dragged by as Verchiel digested the information. Weighed what the One said against what had been left unsaid. The risk—if the One had been right about Seth—of human annihilation versus the certainty of war. “And if Mittron hadn’t—?”
“Thankfully we need not go there.”
Still struggling to accept her Creator’s words, never mind all that lay behind them, Verchiel shook her head. “You judged him for something you might have prevented.”
“I judged him for his actions,” the One corrected, her face going hard. “Five thousand years ago, Mittron chose to retain his free will and begin a chain of events meant to once again bring war between me and Lucifer. He could have abandoned his plans at any time during those years. He did not.”
“And Seth’s letter? The fact he chose to abdicate his responsibility? That didn’t mitigate Mittron’s involvement?”
“It only proved I was right about my son’s weakness.”
Silence fell, broken only by the hum of hundreds of bees gathering pollen from the flowers in the arbor above them.
At last Verchiel looked back to her Creator. “And now?” she asked. “What now?”
The One sighed and rose to her feet, brushing rose petals and yellow pollen dust from her robes. “Now we prepare for war, Verchiel, and we wait for Lucifer to strike the first blow.”
ALEX THREADED HER way across the office to Roberts’s door. Tapping on the frame, she held up the note she’d found on her desk when she’d arrived for yet another day of not being permitted to do her job. “You summoned?”
He waved her in, not looking up from the paper in his hands. “Close the door.”
Alex’s heart gave a little kick. Hell. Was that a report from Bell? Their session this morning hadn’t gone at all well, ending with the shrink throwing her out of his office and telling her not to come back until she was ready to admit her issues—and to forget about returning to active duty until then. She eyed the paper Roberts held, wondering how bad it would be. Suspecting she hadn’t helped matters by telling Bell to go fuck himself.
She closed the door and leaned back against it. “If this is about Dr. Bell, I can explain.”
Roberts waved her to silence. “It’s not about Bell unless that sentence is going where I think it is, in which case I’d rather not know.” He laid the paper facedown on the desk and folded his hands across it. “Sit.”
Alex sat.
Her supervisor cleared his throat and stared down at his hands. “We haven’t talked much since you came back to work.”
“We haven’t had much reason. The files you gave me don’t exactly require me to seek a lot of direction.”
Roberts ignored the jab. “I don’t mean about work. I mean about what happened.”
Alex went still. “I didn’t realize there was anything to talk about.”
“There’s a lot to talk about, Detective. There just didn’t seem to be a way—or a reason—to bring it up.”
“And that’s changed how?”
Roberts picked up the paper and held it out to her. She hesitated, then took it and flipped it faceup. The air in her throat turned solid and the world faded to a buzzing in her ears.
It couldn’t be.
Alex stared at the photo in the center of the page. At the black, shoulder-length hair, the strong, stubborn chin—and those eyes. Those black, seemingly bottomless eyes. They were what convinced her, because she could never mistake them. Never forget them.
It couldn’t be him, but it was.
Seth Benjamin.
Aramael’s fellow angel.
Her savior.
Alex raised her gaze to the letterhead at the top of the paper and the words emblazoned in bold above the photo: Do you know this man?
She knew him all right. But what the hell was Heaven’s contingency plan doing in Vancouver police custody? She scanned the print at the bottom of the page. And how the hell had he ended up with amnesia?
“It is him, then,” Roberts said quietly.
Placing the bulletin on the desk between them, Alex sat back. “Yes.” Her voice came out as a bare whisper and she cleared the shock from her throat. “Yes,” she said again, stronger this time. “It’s him.”
“You never introduced us.”
“You never asked.” She hadn’t even been sure Roberts had noticed the angel’s presence, either at the church murder scene or at the hospital after Nina’s attempted suicide. Her supervisor had never mentioned Seth, and neither had she—part of their unspoken agreement not to talk about the surreal elements of that day.
Roberts grunted and sat back in his chair, leaning against one of the armrests. “I don’t think I wanted to know then,” he said, confirming her suspicions.
“And now?”
“You tell me.”
“Staff, I don’t want to know.”
Her supervisor passed a hand over his face, palm rasping against stubble to create the only sound between them while he weighed her words. “Can you at least tell me what this is about?” he asked at last, gesturing at the poster. “Why he’s there?”
“He’s supposed to stop a war.”
Roberts snapped upright. “Gangs?”
“Not on the scale you mean.”
Frustration etched between his brows, her supervisor slumped even lower in his chair than he’d been before. “Damn it, Alex, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what’s going on. None of what happened—nothing about that fucking serial case was normal. Hell, it wasn’t nat
ural. But the alternative—” He broke off and waved his hand again at the paper. “And now that. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I can’t very well call Vancouver and tell them I’ve seen the guy. I’d have to say where, and when, and under what circumstances…They’d think I was out of my tree.”
She rubbed an aching temple and muttered, “Trust me, I know the feeling.”
“But we’re not.”
More question than statement. Dr. Bell would get a real thrill from this exchange.
“No. We’re not crazy.”
Not that she didn’t consider the idea a viable alternative. Even taking into account her family history, insanity made more sense than reality seemed to these days.
Roberts nodded. “I didn’t think so. But I still can’t call Vancouver.”
“No.”
“And I can’t send you out there. Not officially.”
Sensing more to come, she waited. Roberts reached out and snagged a form sitting on the corner of the desk. He slid it toward her so it covered Seth Benjamin’s photo. Her name was at the top and Roberts’s familiar, scrawled signature at the bottom. She raised her gaze to his.
“A leave of absence?”
“Two weeks paid. If you want more time, pull vacation. And, Alex—if you need help, call. I’ll do what I can.”
SIX
Hugh Henderson stared at Katherine Gray, digesting her bizarre story. The young woman seated across the interview table from him didn’t seem hysterical. Seemed cool as a cucumber, in fact. But her story? Fucking nuts. He swallowed a sigh. It was just his luck to be the one to catch this. Served him right for working so much overtime lately and being the only one here.
Still, if she wanted to lay a complaint, his job required he take it. Regardless of his personal opinion. “All right,” he said. “Why don’t we start from the top? Do you mind if I record this? I want to make sure I get it right, because it’s kind of—”
“Crazy?” Gray suggested. “Believe me, I know.”
“Out of the ordinary,” Hugh supplied instead, and the young woman rewarded him with a tiny smile. Her first since entering the Sex Crimes office twenty minutes earlier.
Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Page 4