by Jenny McKane
At the heart of if, though, Sunny missed her friend. And she pushed the notion that he was holding some sort of candle for her out of her mind—he’d be crazy to attach himself to her right now when she was so fresh in her grief and overwhelmed. Sunny could hardly keep her thoughts straight, and her issues with Gideon and what he’d done to her had been packed away firmly in the abyss of her mind somewhere. Before she ever would be open to another connection, she’d need to unpack the unholy mess she and Gideon had created.
With a little time and distance, Sunny had been able, more and more, to see that she’d played a small part in the mess she’d become. She’d clung so fiercely to making things right with Gideon after returning from the Shadow Realm that she’d closed her eyes to the truth. Looking back, if she’d been given a second chance, she wouldn’t have pushed so hard to hang on to someone trying to let go.
What if Gideon had known a deeper truth back then?
She still believed that he’d been himself, at least some version of it, all the way through Chicago. That he’d started to lose his fight against his inner nox right around the time they snuck Selah to Hell so she could find herself help.
That was the moment that truly changed things in Gideon and when the strange dreams started; when Sunny hadn’t been able to distinguish up from down when it came to him anymore.
Riding in that car towards the New Mexico border, Sunny had a lot of things come into clarity for her, and despite the fact that Eli was a big sulking mess up in the front seat and despite the fact that she still wanted to put her boot up his ass at the moment, her eyes were a lot more open now than they’d been a month ago. A week ago. A day ago.
For a galvanizing moment, it wasn’t exactly remarkable. She always pictured epiphanies happening through rays of sunlight streaming through heaven and with choirs singing in the background. This? This was just Sunny finally looking a few hard truths, that she’d been ignoring, in the face.
*****
Technically, they didn’t exactly stay in Gallup. They stayed in a small town about 20 minutes south of it. And it wasn’t a hotel they were staying in—it was a casino.
A giant, bright casino with flashing lights, cover bands, and slot machines galore.
Not…exactly what Sunny was expecting, but okay. She could work with this. Ronnie and Jericho seemed pleased, too, as the place belonged to a local tribe and had some extra special protections and wards going on.
Within an hour, everyone was checked into their rooms, showered, and changed. There was an in-house grill they’d agreed to eat at while they discussed what was supposed to happen tomorrow.
“It’s another portal, but bigger than the normal ones, according to my friend Felipe,” Jericho said. “The ferals coming through it are moving quicker than the other ones and they’ve already wrecked two small towns and a trailer park outside the boundaries of the national monument they’re coming through.”
“National monument?” Sunny asked. First she’d heard of it.
Jericho nodded.
“El Morro,” she said. “About an hour and a half south of here. Felipe will meet us there and show us the way in and we’ll disable the portal.”
Nino had volunteered to take Plaxo’s place when he came to visit Sunny after her shower. She walked out of the steamy bathroom and saw the glum little dream demon propped on her small writing desk, his stumpy legs hanging over the side.
Her first thought was that something terrible had happened to Plaxo and she gripped the doorframe.
“Please tell me he’s okay,” she croaked, the emotions of any possibility that Plaxo wasn’t okay making it impossible to breathe.
Nino glanced up.
“Plaxo will recover, Lady Hunter,” Nino said. “It was the first thing he told Nino to tell the Lady Hunter. He will heal. It might take longer than Plaxo wants, but it will happen. He also wants Nino to help Lady Hunter and her team. Nino will break the portals while Plaxo heals.”
“You know how?”
Nino got a wicked look on his little gargoyle face and grinned.
“Plaxo didn’t teach himself,” he said, obvious pride in his words.
This was a good turn of events, too, because her other option was to call on a guardian to help and Asmodeus wasn’t sure they’d have the ability to do that. Dream demons were incredibly rare and their powers unique among the demon-kind.
“Thank you, Nino,” Sunny said. “We’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
Now at the table, Sunny was feeling a little less defeated than she had been when Nino had taken Plaxo back to Hell to heal. She wasn’t sure what they were going to do moving forward without him. She still wanted him back, he was that special to her, but he was right. They had to keep the momentum going, even while he healed.
“How many of these do we plan on doing?” Eli asked, speaking of the portals.
Sunny was curious about the same thing, though not impatient enough like Eli to blurt it out. There were no real plans on the table beyond tomorrow and it was clear Eli wanted to know their long game. Or at least their medium game. Hell, their short game would be a great thing to have set in stone at this point.
“We’re not sure,” Gabriel answered honestly. “Right now, we’re hoping answers get easier to come by the more of these small portals we destroy.”
Nobody said it, but Sunny understood that the team was also using Sunny as bait in hopes that Gideon would make another move and show the cards he and Camael were holding. Along with figuring out Death—that was also on their to-do list.
The worst part about where they were in the fight was that they didn’t have anywhere to go to take the fight to Camael. The coward, and his cowardly son, were hiding somewhere in the world and throwing wrenches into their plans. Sunny wanted, more than anything, to get her guardians up and running and to just take a giant swing at Camael and let the chips fall where they may.
But the bastard kept hiding and building his offense as each day ticked by. At least by destroying these portals and stopping the flow of ferals into the mortal realm, Sunny wasn’t sitting idly by for Camael to make another move. They were slowing his progress and trying to draw him out.
The worst thing Sunny could imagine doing right now—sitting in their Sedona safe house and waiting for another catastrophe with Camael’s signature on it to appear—was probably exactly what Eli wanted to do. Knowing him, he’d want Sunny back in the safehouse doing drill after drill after drill until every piece he could control was perfect.
But Sunny had an idea that in a fight like this, perfect didn’t always mean success. Momentum meant success and so she was making decisions to best get their momentum built up.
Sunny ordered a fat burger and two desserts and ignored the looks she got from her team. Jericho seemed to understand the need to celebrate the good things while they could, so she, too ordered a second dessert.
“Can’t tell you how long it’s been since I got to dig into a molten lava chocolate cake,” she said between gooey bites. “You guys should live it up while we can. It’s hard to eat this good off a campfire and a generator.”
Sunny laughed as Sin signaled the waiter to return.
Jericho had it figured out, too. Live when you can, fight when you need to, and hope for the best.
“Is it a big hike into the portal?” Sunny asked.
Jericho wasn’t sure. “We should plan on a walk, given the area,” she said. “It’s beautiful, but it’s high desert so the elements can get rough quickly.”
“And sacred grounds?” Sunny asked, thinking of the Skinwalkers. “Would the Skinwalkers be out there, too?”
“Definitely,” Jericho responded. “El Morro literally means the headlands and was a stopping site for people on their journey north. Ancient Pueblo tribes, Spaniards and explorers have stopped and carved their names in the rock. It’s given safe passage to thousands because of the special warding that some shamans swear is more than 5,000 years old.”
Su
nny bit into her cheesecake and marveled at how old the place was.
“Any pointers on working with Skinwalkers?” she asked Jericho later in the meal after Metatron and Gabriel had gone to the bar with Ronnie. Sin was playing an “I Love Lucy” slot machine nearby and Eli had taken a phone call and disappeared somewhere on the casino floor.
“I wish I had some,” Jericho said. “I haven’t seen one myself. Normally, I’d say I was jealous because you have, but I’m okay with limited interaction with them. They’re tricksters at heart—it’s who they are. I’d never be comfortable dealing with them.”
Sunny listened and took the words to heart. Between the tengu and the Skinwalkers and the guardians and Asmodeus himself, Sunny was getting really good at staying suspicious while trying to form beneficial alliances. Maybe when it was all done she’d go into diplomatic service or something.
The thought made her laugh.
Nope. She still wanted to paint. And now she wanted to do it in Northern Arizona surrounded by red rocks.
Despite all of the chaos that surrounded her life right now, she found it amazing that everything she was going through was not only making her tougher and smarter, it was also shaking loose things that she wanted out of life—things for her to aim for when she got her life back and in her own hands.
Assuming she lived that long, of course. But more and more, Sunny was feeling cautiously optimistic about surviving to the end of it all, and when she did, she was certainly getting clearer about what she wanted her life to look like.
She wished Jericho a good night and made her way to out of the restaurant and toward the elevators. When she got into a car alone and the doors slid shut, she closed her eyes as the elevator began its ascent to the fifth floor.
In the morning, they were back in the fight. But for tonight, she was going to allow herself to imagine what life was going to look like when they won this thing. And Sunny made a promise to herself that she wasn’t going to waste another moment of her life wishing for things that she didn’t want or for things or people that didn’t want her.
Chapter Twenty-six
Gideon
Camael brought out Gideon’s homicidal urgings more than any single thing in all the realms. It was crazy, the fire, rage and anger that the fallen archangel could inspire in Gideon, simply by doing innocuous things like reading a news story on his tablet or whistling some melody he remembered from the Seraphim.
If Gideon found himself around his father for too long, the red-hot molten anger became more pronounced in his chest and, lately, it made the nox in him surge forward, trying to get free. Funny how that happened—the same dark creature Camael had infected him with was now clamoring for his death as much as Gideon was.
Ironic, Gideon thought to himself with a dark chuckle. Who was he to argue with the creature who would one day consume him wholly?
“The car is waiting outside,” one of Camael’s demons announced to Gideon, as he stood staring out the dark window into the forest beyond.
He didn’t say anything and strode past the creature as he jogged down the stairs and outside into the waiting limo.
Camael and the full demon Victor were already waiting.
“I don’t like it when you make me wait,” Camael said, his tone bored but the words full of implicit meaning.
Too bad Gideon didn’t give a shit about the meaning.
“My bad,” was all he said.
Victor, his hair pomaded and slicked like some stupid little show pony, rolled his eyes at Gideon. Gideon’s arms jerked as the image of jumping across the empty space between them and plucking his eye from its socket raced through his head.
The nox. It was pissed. Gideon let out a dark chuckle.
Camael might have take Gideon under his wing these past weeks, and Gideon had returned without a fight, but he knew what the score really was.
Victor was the heir apparent. The confidante. The demon who had helped orchestrate the murder and overthrow of his own father, Azrael. Gideon was the pet. The monster on a leash who would lead the armies Camael was building among the feral demons and when the last of his consciousness was overtaken by the nox, Gideon and the army of ferals that was building would be the ultimate weapon for Death and the Armageddon he and Camael had been planning for thousands of years.
The more Gideon listened, the more he learned. He was so far into his transformation that Camael hardly looked at him like a man anymore, treating him more like an animal that would need to eventually be caged.
Again, Gideon and the darkness that was consuming him welcomed it.
It was all part of his plan and he couldn’t wait to get the ball rolling on everything Camael had meticulously planned over the years. Watching it unveil would make all the pain and suffering Gideon had endured, all the suffering he would endure worth it.
The two other men in the car continued on with their conversation without further acknowledging Gideon, who stayed in character. Half-beast, half-demon.
“Do you think the time nears?” Victor asked as he swiped through his phone.
Camael was on his own and grunted. “I’m not sure why they’d want to meet if it wasn’t getting closer.”
Death. Gideon knew they were talking about Death rising and that the event must be getting closer and closer.
The nox inside him shuddered, almost as if it was answering a call from afar that it could scarcely hear—but one that was growing louder.
Gideon still didn’t know who Death was. Neither did Victor, from what he could ascertain. But Camael had to know and the fact that he wasn’t telling either of them was the only part of the whole thing that gave him pause.
He had no relationship experience with Camael to draw on, so there weren’t many tells or clues he could draw from his interactions with the fallen archangel.
What was he hiding? And why?
From what he could gather, Camael had made a life, a very long life, out of double crossing angels and demons and humans alike. Were Victor and Gideon just another couple of suckers on his list? Probably. It wouldn’t be the first time Gideon had been fed to the wolves by him—so why would he assume it was the last.
“When we get there, Victor and I are going upstairs to the penthouse,” Camael said. “You stay posted in the lobby and keep an eye out. I don’t need any surprises tonight.”
Gideon gave a tight nod, letting him know that he heard the order, and looked back outside in the darkness.
How close were they to the end game? Was it months away? Weeks? Days?
Gideon didn’t know, but from the increasing strength of the nox, he could tell it was getting closer and closer. Coupled with the fact that his rage and desire to transform at the drop of a hat and wreck shit in a temper had been harder and harder to ignore, he hazarded a guess that it was only a matter of weeks.
His body began to heat and he fought back against the push. The nox was banging hard against him and he looked up at Victor across from him as the thoughts from the creature crept across his psyche.
His neck would slice so easily. The blood would be warm and plentiful and the lifeforce behind it would taste like mana. Energy. Life. Slice his neck…
Gideon felt his claws growing from his fingers and he crossed his arms across his body to hide them. He didn’t need either of those pricks knowing the fight he had to put up to stop from phasing.
Sweat was beading on his forehead as the voice continued to hiss in his mind, demanding that he kill Victor and take his place beside the fallen commander.
The honor is yours. The place is yours. Kill the interloper and claim your right.
It wasn’t lost on Gideon that the right to lead with Camael wasn’t his. He was from neither world that they were—one was full-blooded archangel and the other was full-blooded demon. Gideon was a hodge-podge mix: one half angel, one quarter demon, and one quarter human. All useless, as he’d proven in his attempts to not just stay out of his father’s crossfires, but even when he’d decided to
get his revenge on Camael, he’d been too weak to do it properly.
Weak. Pathetic. Worthless.
The voice of the death eater was back again, running a litany of abuse through his head now, turning the attention to himself. Gideon hated these moments the most, when it became impossible to distinguish truth from fiction in what the creature was saying.
It was manipulating him and getting a stronger hold over his sanity with each passing hour—every moment that ticked by, his head and body felt more pressure up against, like his very being was slowly getting pushed out by an overwhelming force taking over. Soon, there would be no more room for Gideon.
The thing had completely taken over during his fight with Sunny. He had no memory of their altercation and only woke up with her blood on his hands and a smug look on Camael’s face when the rest of the nox delivered his unconscious form to his father.
“Well done, son,” Camael had said, not knowing that Gideon hadn’t meant to do it at all.
But if all those years of trying to stay one step ahead of his father and whatever demons he’d been sold to, it was to play the character, even when you didn’t fully understand the role. So that’s what Gideon did. He pretended he’d meant to nearly kill Sunny and he’d shown no remorse or emotion whatsoever as he stood behind his father and taunted her and Asmodeus. He’d pretended to be on his father’s side. That he’d always been on his father’s side—that he’d already made the choice before leaving Hell.
It was a lie, of course. He was lying to everyone. Himself, even, when he tried to believe there was a way that he would survive the ending he had planned.
The limo pulled up in front of an expensive, and foreign, hotel and the driver let out his father and Victor. Gideon followed behind, ever the silent guard dog.
“You know where you belong,” Camael motioned to a far corner in the lobby. Gideon followed where he motioned to and gave another shake of his obedient head.
“Yes,” he said, playing his role to perfection.
This was a perfect spot for him, anyway. To jump portals and consciousness, he’d need to be somewhere safe—where nobody would try to communicate with the empty husk he left behind in the physical form. Gideon’s body would remain leaning against the marble pillar when he made the jump, but his consciousness would be gone.