“Not now,” Alex hissed. She looked back at a visibly irritated Riley. “Later. Watch now,” she pointed toward the window, making sure her gesture was hidden from the others. “Be patient. Come later.”
“Detective,” Riley grated.
Alex stared into Seth’s eyes, willing him to understand. “Come later,” she repeated. “When you see me out there.”
“Detective Jarvis,” the psychiatrist snapped, “either come with me now or I call security.”
“Coming,” Alex said. “I’m coming.”
SEVENTEEN
Dancing out of Mika’el’s reach, Aramael watched the Archangel swipe blood from a split lip. It marked the second blow he’d landed in this session; the second Mika’el had failed to block. And the Archangel had not yet touched him. Hard satisfaction burned in Aramael’s chest.
Mika’el regarded him with a mixture of ruefulness and approval. “You have learned well, Grasshopper.”
Grasshopper?
Mika’el waved away the question before Aramael could ask it. “Never mind. Human thing. It just means I think my job here is done.”
Aramael lowered his fists. “Done? You’re not taking me to Seth?”
“If you’re capable of slipping past an Archangel’s guard, you’re ready to take on a few cocky Fallen Ones.” Mika’el stepped past him and picked up a towel from the floor by the wall. “I told you I had better things to do than babysit you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. But when I find Seth—”
The Archangel shot him a narrow look. “I cannot help you with Seth, Power. You must know that.”
“I knew you expected me to—” Aramael paused. Gritted his teeth. “I know I must kill Seth, but you said—”
“I said I would give what help I could. This was it.”
A flush of anger started at Aramael’s toes and spiraled upward. He supposed a part of him had suspected as much, but he hadn’t wanted to ask. And would have preferred not to know.
He wrestled with his reaction. It made sense, of course. While Mika’el may have been absent for four and a half millennia, his connections to Heaven were still strong. Traceable. The Archangel couldn’t be seen to have anything to do with what needed to be done. The alternative, however, stank.
“So that’s it, then. I’ve become the sacrificial lamb.”
“It may not go that way.”
“Fuck you, Mika’el,” Aramael snarled. “That’s exactly how it will go. These little tricks you taught me”—he waved at their informal fighting ring—“may work on the Fallen Ones, but they won’t even slow down the Appointed. Seth has his powers. I only have one shot at this, which means I’ll have to wait until he is fully engaged in wiping out my own immortality before I can move against his. My chances of surviving this are infinitesimal. You know it.”
He struggled with his breathing, facing at last what he hadn’t dared think about when the Archangel had first assigned this task. What he had tried so hard to ignore ever since. At his center, the core of loss he carried, the place that marked where he had once held Alex, became a gaping hole.
If he didn’t survive this, if he died—and he almost certainly would—he would never have the chance to know her again. Never know if what he thought he remembered had been real. If it could have been revived.
He would never know if faith could restore love.
“You know what you’re thinking isn’t possible,” Mika’el said.
Aramael shot him a filthy look. “What, now you’re a mind reader?”
“I recognize the symptoms. You’re not the only one to lose a soulmate.”
“I didn’t lose her. She was taken from me.”
Mika’el’s gaze narrowed. “Just how much of her do you remember?”
Aramael looked away. “Enough to know what I no longer have.”
“You never had her in the first place,” the Archangel pointed out. “And you never can. She is a mortal, Aramael, and you are and always will be an angel of the Sixth Choir. A Power. What happened between you has already caused unparalleled damage. The cardinal rule banning interaction between angels and mortals is there for a reason.”
“Fuck the cardinal rule. Heaven threw me out, remember? The rules don’t apply to me anymore. Especially once I’ve done what you ask.”
“Assuming you survive, the rules do apply,” the Archangel corrected. “If you choose otherwise, you choose to fall.”
“This, coming from the angel who has asked me to assassinate the Appointed.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? If I go through with this, Mika’el, I’ll compromise my own soul. I’m pretty sure that will result in my fall.”
“And what if it does?” Mika’el stood tall, aloof, every inch one of Heaven’s warriors. “What if you do have to sacrifice yourself in order to stop Armageddon and save humanity? Will you deny your Creator, Power? Turn your back on her and her children?”
“Like you did?” Aramael shot back.
Before the last word had fully left his lips, he found himself against the wall, feet dangling, with Mika’el’s hand wrapped around his throat. The Archangel’s black wings spread wide. Aramael saw each individual feather, sensed the power pulsing through them. He swung at the Archangel defiantly. Missed. And with new insight, understood he had only landed those blows against the other angel because Mika’el had let him. He might be able to fight off a Fallen One, but with or without powers, he could never hope to take on one of Heaven’s warriors.
“You know nothing!” Mika’el spat. “I have given my life to her a hundred thousand times over. I begged her to let me—” He broke off and his fingers tightened, digging into Aramael’s larynx.
Aramael’s lungs screamed for air and the world began to fog over. Then, as suddenly as the Archangel had seized him, he let go. Aramael slumped to the floor, blood rushing to his head, gasping for breath. Slowly his vision cleared and he sat up. Mika’el stood on the opposite side of the room, looking down onto the street from the window, his wings once more folded against his back, his shoulders sagging.
Silence reigned for a long moment, broken only by the rasp of air through Aramael’s throat. The Archangel turned to him, his gaze flat. His voice flatter. “Your Creator needs you, Aramael of the Powers. Once you have completed your task, should you survive, then your choices are your own. Be ready to leave at midnight. I’ll take you as far as I can.”
In a rush of feathers, Mika’el was gone. Aramael stared at the empty space left behind, the Archangel’s parting words lingering in the air. Then he pushed to his feet.
Mika’el had begged the One to let him—what?
“IT’S TUCKER,” SAID a voice when Henderson answered his cell phone. “From Homicide. You know that girl you were looking for? Katherine Gray? We have her.”
“Have her?” Henderson echoed. “As in—?”
“She’s been identified as the Jane Doe who hit the pavement two nights ago. The coroner hasn’t signed off on anything yet, but it looks like suicide. Twenty stories down, headfirst.”
Tucker’s voice droned on, but the rest of his words disappeared inside the sudden buzzing in Henderson’s head as he dropped into his chair. Suicide. He stared at Gray’s driver’s license photo on his desk, and the birth date jumped out at him. His stomach twisted. She would have been twenty-seven next month. Five years younger than—the twist in his stomach became a heave and he gritted his teeth. Another needless death that he could have prevented. Should have prevented.
“Henderson? You still there?”
“Yeah.” Hugh swallowed a mouthful of bile and wiped a palm over his clammy forehead. “Yeah. I’m here. The coroner is sure about the ID?”
“Dental records are a match.”
Fuck. His hand moved over his cropped head. God almighty, he hated this job sometimes. He rubbed his jaw, digging deep for the cop in him, needing it to process the news. He found only memories. Recriminations. Nightmares.
Suic
ide.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Right,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know. Make sure I get a copy of the report, will you?”
“Sure thing.”
“Wait. What about the baby? She was pregnant.”
“Like I said”—Tucker’s voice went grim—“twenty stories. It’ll be in the report.”
Hugh stared at the phone long after he hung up. Another mother and child dead because of him. Because he hadn’t paid enough attention, hadn’t seen the warning signs. Not even Liz could argue his responsibility this time.
His gaze moved to a stack of messages one of the admin assistants had placed on his desk. The name on the top slip of yellow jumped out at him. Father Marcus, St. Benedict’s Parish. The assistant no longer scrawled the word again across the top of the message, but it was still there. Unseen. Accusatory. Father Marcus had called every month for the last ten years, ever since Laura and Mitchell had died.
Unable to bring himself to speak to the man who represented the Church that had abandoned him and his family when they needed it most, Hugh had never called back.
He reached for the message, crumpled it, and then hesitated. Smoothing it out, he stared at the X through the box marked urgent. A last-ditch effort to gain his attention? He toyed with the paper. Tapped it against the desktop. Then, jaw going tight, dropped it into the trash can.
Urgent or not, he still wasn’t ready to go there.
RILEY HAD MISSED her true calling, Alex decided as she sat in the psychiatrist’s office, waiting for the doctor to wind down. The woman would have made a great cop with her lecture punctuated by overstepping your bounds, out of your jurisdiction, and various other references to turf and territory.
Alex endured the ordeal with as much patience as she could muster, her attention straying to the shelves behind Riley’s head and then to the seconds ticking by on the watch strapped to her wrist. How long would Seth wait? Would he wait? What if he turned up here, now, out of the blue? How the hell would she explain that to Riley?
Realizing her leg jittered up and down under her sweaty palm, she made herself take a deep breath and focus on stilling it. Christ, how long was this going to take?
“—understand?” Riley finished, her brows arching sharply upward and her eyes cold as she peered over the glasses perched on her nose.
Shit. Understand what?
“Of course,” she said. “You’re absolutely right about everything, Dr. Riley, and I apologize for having overstepped the way I did. I never meant to cause trouble.”
Riley glowered. “And?”
“And—?” Wasn’t that enough?
“And you’ll tell me everything you know about Seth Benjamin. No more secrets.”
Alex’s face went still. She glanced again at her watch. Ten minutes since she’d left Seth: she sure as hell hoped he had the gist of patient. She looked up at Riley again, searching for words—no, for sheer inspiration. But before she could open her mouth, the doctor rose from behind the desk, her face a closed, hard mask.
“Get out,” Riley ordered.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been a psychiatrist for thirty years, Detective Jarvis. I know when someone is preparing to lie to me and I am sick to death of your evasiveness. Get out. We’re done.”
Argument didn’t even cross Alex’s mind. As she raced for the elevator, however, she couldn’t help but reflect on the track record she seemed to be establishing where shrinks were concerned. First Bell had thrown her out of his office, and now Riley. It was almost enough to give an angel-seeing, demon-surviving cop a complex. If she’d cared.
Ten minutes later, she pulled the rental car to a stop in a no-parking zone alongside a fence thick with ivy and peered through the leaves at the hospital. Her heart sank. So many windows, all so far away. No way would she be able to spot Seth at one of them, and with that damned fence in the way, he couldn’t see her or the vehicle, either.
Resting an elbow on the steering wheel, she threaded her fingers through her hair. What the hell was she supposed to do now? For a second, she contemplated climbing the fence, perching atop it, and waving to get Seth’s attention. A brief second, because the next image that came to mind was one of her trying to convince the local constabulary she really hadn’t gone off the deep end.
Despite what Riley and Bell might otherwise tell them.
She dropped her head back against the headrest and stared at the ceiling. Think, damn it, Jarvis. There must be some way—
“I come now?” a deep voice inquired from beside her.
EIGHTEEN
“Are you okay?” Liz Riley asked. “I can clear my schedule if you need to talk.”
Hugh rubbed a hand over his eyes. The vague tension touched off by the conversation he’d had with Detective Jarvis’s boss had escalated into a full-fledged headache with the news of Katherine Gray’s suicide. Opening his top desk drawer, he rummaged inside for the acetaminophen he kept there.
“I’m fine,” he answered Liz. “Generally pissed at myself, but fine.”
“Then what are the pain killers for?”
He pulled the receiver from his ear for a second and gave it a sour look. Then he tucked it back into the crook of his neck and opened the pill bottle—a two-handed job because of the childproof lid. “What are you, psychic?”
“I can hear the bottle.”
“I have a headache. I’m fine.”
“I’ve known you for more than ten years, Hugh. It’s in your voice. You’re not fine.”
“Then I’ll be fine once the headache is gone.” Tossing back two tablets, he reached for the cold coffee on his desk and grimaced at the congealed cream floating on its surface.
Liz sighed. “You’re not responsible for Katherine Gray, Hugh. Any more than you were responsible for—”
“Don’t.” The word came out harsher than Hugh intended and he scrubbed an impatient hand over his head. She still didn’t get it, and no matter how good a shrink she was, she’d never get it because she hadn’t lived it. But even if she hadn’t been able to take away the guilt or the horror, she’d given him the tools to survive and, for that, he was grateful. Which made him sorry he’d snapped. “I know you’re trying to help, Liz, but I’m fine. And you’re not my doctor anymore. So do us both a favor and let it go, all right?”
“Damn it, Hugh—”
“Let it go.”
Liz muttered something he didn’t ask her to repeat and then heaved another sigh. “Fine. So was that it? Just the news about Katherine Gray?”
Leaning back in his chair, Hugh put his feet up on the desk and crossed them at the ankles. He stared at his shoes. Should he tell her about the conversation with Staff Inspector Roberts in Toronto? About the distinctly woo-woo flavor of a discussion he still couldn’t quite believe he’d had with another cop? Would it help to share what Roberts had told him about Seth Benjamin? His gaze slid to the trash can. Or to confess to ten years of ignored messages?
“Well?” Liz prodded.
“That was it. Just Gray.”
“Hugh—” The psychiatrist broke off. “Hold on, something’s up here.”
A quick, muffled conversation took place at the other end of the line, and then Liz’s voice came back on.
“Do you mind if we finish this later? We’re in lockdown. One of the patients has gone missing.”
“Benjamin.”
“How did you know?”
After all Roberts had told him? How could he not know?
“Lucky guess,” he said. “Go. Let me know if you need help.”
SHE’D REALLY PAINTED herself into a corner this time.
Alex stared across the hotel-room bed at Seth, still clad in hospital pajamas, and cursed her recently acquired ability to act without thinking through the consequences. What had seemed like the only option at the time had taken on ominous overtones now that she looked back on her actions. Riley would be livid, Henderson would be just as pissed, and if the court put out a det
ention order for Seth, Alex would face charges of contempt.
Taking a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, Alex reined in her overwrought nerves. No one knew, she reminded herself. No one could know. Riley had seen her leave the psych ward alone; Seth’s room would have remained locked; the security cameras in the hospital and the parking lot would show nothing. No connection between her and the missing patient. For now, they were safe.
For now.
But Alex still faced the problem of a powerful amnesiac angel. And the question destined to dog her every step: now what?
She cleared her throat. “Are you hungry?”
Seth regarded her with a calm she would have liked to own herself. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”
He was learning fast.
Her gaze dropped to the books he clutched in his hands and a smile tugged at her mouth. “Would you like me to help you with those?”
Seth frowned at the books. “Those?”
“The books. Would you like to learn the books?” They might as well get right to it. The faster he learned, the sooner she could tell him what little she knew of him. For all the good it might do if he still didn’t have his memory.
He held out the books to her. “Yes.”
Alex glanced around. The only potential work surfaces were the dresser with the television on it and one small desk in the corner where she’d set her suitcase. The room, she realized, was barely adequate for one person, let alone two. A move to something bigger, however, would draw Riley and Henderson’s attention, so they’d just have to make do. With a sigh, Alex shifted her suitcase to the floor and tugged the desk out from the corner, positioning it beside the bed.
“Come,” she said to her student, patting the faded bedspread. “Sit.”
BY THE TIME they took a break several hours later, Seth had proved himself not just an apt pupil, but a phenomenal one. He blasted through the reading books, retaining everything he learned on the first try, and was halfway through the second illustrated dictionary when Alex returned to the room with their take-out chicken dinner and an armload of clothes she’d picked up at a nearby discount store.
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