by Meg Collett
Thankfully, Zarachiel set a cup of coffee—black, like Clark’s soul—in front of him just then. “Sugar or cream?” Zarachiel asked Maya, like the perfect waiter.
“Both, please,” she said, her voice wavering. When she looked back at Clark, her eyes were wide with tears.
“Full-breed angels are a little…different. It takes some time getting used to them,” Clark offered, hoping his words were comforting. Not too long ago, the Nephilim were hunted, damned creatures. Back then, a Nephil in a room with two angels meant he or she was about to be killed. Michaela might have decreed the Nephilim free creatures, but the scent of persecution takes some time to air out.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, eyes falling to the coffee Zarachiel sat in front of her. Quietly, the Archangel slipped out of the room and disappeared. Maya breathed a sigh of relief.
“You came from a European clan?”
“France. I was sent to the Sisters of Merciful Light as a young girl.”
Clark nodded, forcing the remark back down his throat. It was just too easy. “How did you arrange the travel?”
“That’s a long story,” Maya said carefully.
“I didn’t imagine it would be a short one.” Clark cocked an eyebrow, smiling with one side of his mouth. “But you’ve got to tell it at some point.”
“Right.” She tightened her grip on the coffee mug and dove in. “Word of Sophia’s death didn’t reach my family for some time since the phones and Internet were down. But the convent has never had anything advanced like that, so it took even longer for the messenger to arrive with news of my sister’s death. He also had other news that my parents had sent.” Maya was clearly skimming over something there, but Clark let it slide for the moment. “One of the sisters took pity on me and helped me escape. We were sending medical supplies and canned foods to the United States on a large ship. She hid me below deck with some turnips.”
“Are you serious?” Clark asked, shocked.
“Yes?”
“Gives a whole new meaning to falling off the turnip truck, eh?” Clark laughed, saw Maya didn’t understand, and turned it into a cough.
Zarachiel reappeared from another room, lifting a brow as if to reprimand Clark. The angel leaned against the counter as Camille had done, clearly thinking he needed to supervise. Clark coughed again and looked back at Maya.
“Okay. Ship from France. Got it. Why did you need to leave so secretively?”
“There’s no international travel,” Maya spoke like he was stupid. “You’re the leader of the Nephilim?”
Clark heard the insult or at the very least, the skepticism, in her voice, but he chose to ignore it. Rising above and all that. Zarachiel’s mouth twitched. “Yes, I am. And I know there’s no international travel. But why did a nun have to sneak you onto a boat to help you escape?”
“We’re not called nuns, we’re—”
“Listen,” Clark interjected, finally having enough with it all. Sitting here and pretending like everything was normal when it was anything but was starting to piss him off. “I could explain to you all the ways I don’t give a shit about what you’re called, but I’m trying to be tactful here.” He leaned forward, hands spreading across the table. Something must’ve been in his eyes because Maya sat back in her chair and Zarachiel straightened off the counter. “I loved your sister, did you know that? I didn’t know her long, but I loved her very well for the short time we had together. It wasn’t a great love in terms of length. But it was our love. Get it? So now you show up here, looking like her damned twin, and you’re not shooting straight with me. This isn’t really the time or place for coyness. Whether you know it or not, whether you sought me out or not, you’ve landed smack dab in ground zero over here in ‘Merica.” Clark spread his arms wide. “This is all that’s left. So, hopefully you can guess by now, we don’t have time for little girls who ask too many questions.”
“Clark,” Zarachiel warned.
“She needs to know,” Clark growled.
“I don’t think—” Zarachiel started.
But Maya shook her head. “No, I get it. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just a little overwhelmed by everything. It wasn’t like this in France. Things weren’t nearly this bad.” She seemed to relax now that Clark had said his piece, her round eyes understanding.
Clark nodded. “Okay, go on.”
She took a deep breath and started again. “I didn’t know my sister very well. I know that sounds bad, but Nephilim families have never had the luxury of knowing each other.” She peered over her coffee mug to see if Clark understood, but he’d never known the mysterious ways of the Nephilim. They were like the fairy tales he was told as a kid. Seeing he didn’t, she explained, “To survive, we had to do our duties, serve our race. Sophia’s responsibility was to come here and marry into the Pennsylvania clan of Nephilim. For Nephilim families with two daughters, the second, younger daughter has the choice of serving her time in a convent rather than marry. That’s what I chose. I never wanted to get married and have baby after baby like some kind of factory. Do you get that?” Maya asked sharply, like Clark had asked earlier. He nodded. From his time at the Amish farm in Pennsylvania, he at least knew the ways of the Nephilim were odd, even backwards to some. “But Sophia met you, which was fine. But it never would’ve lasted. You know that, right? Sophia would’ve had to marry unless Iris had intervened and said Sophia could marry you instead. That was Iris’ call to make as the leader of the Nephilim. But Sophia died before that could happen. Do you know what that means?”
Clark didn’t miss the bitterness in Maya’s tone as she spoke of her sister’s death. “I understand that she died. Trust me. I get that very clearly.”
“No,” Maya snapped, looking frustrated. “Her death means that there’s only one daughter left in our family. I have to marry. And I have to marry the one Sophia was originally bequeathed to.”
Clark leaned back in his seat and sighed. “That’s why you’re here.”
“Yes. I came here in the hopes that I could talk to him about things. Maybe make him understand that I don’t want this. But he won’t see reason.”
“You’ve already talked to him? He’s here? Who is it?”
“Ezekiel.”
“But he’s old as shit!”
“No, he’s a lonely widowed man who can still father children. Or at least that’s what he told me,” Maya said the words with disdain, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I have no choice. So I have to ask you to intervene as our new leader. To tell the clan they can’t have me.”
* * *
“Well, that went well.”
“That is not my definition of ‘well.’ How can you be so optimistic all the time?” Clark grumbled. He was exhausted; his teeth felt like they were covered in moss, and he could smell his own breath. He needed a shower and a bed.
Zarachiel dusted off the shoulder of his worn denim shirt. He kept pace easily with Clark, but his shoulders tended to sway as he walked, like swagger gone wrong. “I was actually being sarcastic.”
“Shit.” Clark scrubbed a hand over his face, tried to slap some life back into himself. “I couldn’t even tell.”
“So, are you going to do it?” Zarachiel asked after a moment of silence.
The halls were bustling with people rushing to and fro. Descendants and Nephilim spread out through the halls, keeping to their little groups, but doing the work that needed to be done. The compound smelled of the morning cooking fires, the sky outside darkening with the smoke. Jugs of precious water were carried carefully throughout the halls, where they were deposited in front of apartment doors, like the new version of a milkman. Almost everyone wore some kind of weapon; the gleaming metal was just a part of their normal attire now. Technically, it was peacetime, but no one felt safe. So they carried guns and fortified the walls around the estate, set up sentinels at the outskirts of town, scavenged and stocked ammunition. Like they were preparing fo
r another war. That’s what this entire compound felt like: people going about their duties with held breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It could be seen in people’s downcast eyes, in their hurried steps. Or maybe, Clark considered, they just did that around him because they didn’t want to meet his gaze.
“Do what?” Clark asked, distracted.
“Help Maya out of her marriage.”
Clark snorted. “That is so not my problem.”
“You are the leader of the Nephilim. It kind of is.”
“Look,” Clark said, glancing over at the angel, “can you stop with the logic for a minute? My head hurts.”
Zarachiel was silent for exactly half a minute. “Who do you think left that feather behind?”
Clark sighed heavily as he climbed up a set of sloping, steep stairs. This part of the compound looked like an old medieval castle with thick, dusty tapestries hanging from the walls; Clark thought they were glorified rugs, but apparently they were of historical value or something. “A wee leprechaun?”
“Come on, Clark,” Zarachiel said, sounding frustrated with Clark for the first time ever. “We all know retaliation from some of the fallen angels is coming. Not all of them are pleased to be under Gabriel’s rule now. Some are going to remain loyal to the memory of Lucifer.”
“Why wait until now, though?”
“Maybe someone’s organizing them?” Zarachiel offered, sending a chill down Clark’s spine. His thoughts danced to the dream he’d had about Lucifer. But the angel was dead.
“Who would do that? Who’s left?”
“I don’t know,” Zarachiel said, his shoulders tense. “But that smell on the roof?” Clark nodded, and Zarachiel went on, “it was a low-born demon. Camille and I didn’t recognize it at first because the low-born demons normally stayed in Hell as servants.”
“Shit. We need to tell Liam right away. He’ll be awake by now, and those chimneys will need to be secured somehow.”
“I can do that,” Zarachiel said easily. “You should get some sleep.”
Suddenly, Clark had another idea. “What if the feather was left to make it look like a fallen angel murdered Jenna? And why Jenna?”
Zarachiel thought for a moment before answering. Finally, he said, “Clearly, she was an easy target with that chimney. It’s possible that some holy angels were sympathetic to the Aethere’s rule, and they could be rebelling under the new democracy up there.”
“This is awful,” Clark said, rubbing a hand over his face. The Descendants had a lot of enemies; attacks could be coming from anywhere. He stopped outside his apartment door and looked at Zarachiel. “Maybe you should get some sleep. You don’t look so good.”
The angel’s face was tan enough from all the time he spent outside in the greenhouses, but he looked wane and extra stooped right then. His blazing eyes burned a little less bright, veiled behind the haze of pain he was in constantly from the mangled bones in his back.
“I’m fine,” he said, but he smiled only with his eyes, like he was too tired to spread the gesture farther down his face.
“If you let me try to fix your bones—”
“I’m fine, really, Clark. It’s okay.”
“But you shouldn’t have to live with that—”
“The pain?” Zarachiel asked; Clark nodded. “I like the pain. It reminds me of where I came from, where I fell from.”
“You’re not fallen.”
“Maybe not by definition. But all the holy angels are at fault. Look at this world.” Zarachiel gestured around them, his eyes shattering with sadness. “We were supposed to protect it and the humans. Now there’s not much left of either. That’s on us. So I like being reminded. The pain makes me a better angel every day.”
Before his time with Michaela, Clark would’ve called that a big pile of bullshit. But she’d changed him. Their friendship had changed him—she’d let him see her pain and torment. And, ultimately, a war wouldn’t leave anyone the same. Clark heard the words and understood, felt the angel’s pain like his own. “I bet that stoic shit gets you laid all the time, doesn’t it?”
That won a half-smile from Zarachiel. “Right. Get some rest. I’ll come find you after I talk to Liam.”
With that, Zarachiel headed back down the hall, his back curving and bending. Clark looked away and went inside, not bothering to turn on the lights. The rooms were chilly and heavily shadowed. The leaky faucet in the kitchen dripped tiny water drops into the sink, the sound echoing through the entire apartment. As he walked to the bedroom, Clark shed his clothes, letting them lay where they fell. By the time he figured out that he wasn’t alone in the apartment, he was naked, save for his boxers and thick, mismatched socks.
“Took you long enough.”
Clark squeaked and jumped in surprise. He wished desperately that he wasn’t the type of man who squeaked, but he believed his overall manliness more than compensated a perfectly justifiable, high-pitched reaction to being scared shitless.
“Dammit, Camille. I told you to stop doing that.”
“Were you with her?”
“Who?”
Camille stalked forward from the shadows of the bedroom. Her silken gold hair was loose around her shoulders, except for a large piece by her ear braided up tight to keep the strands from getting in her eyes. Her green eyes flared. “The Nephil. Were you banging her just now?”
Clark yawned largely. He was too tired to worry about her wrath today. “No, I wasn’t. No need to pee on me.”
Camille recoiled. “Excuse me?”
“To mark your territory?” Camille still looked confused, so Clark rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m going to take a shower. Don’t break anything.”
Camille liked to throw things when she was mad, and by the look on her face as Clark turned toward the bathroom, he knew she was considering it. Light streamed in through a gilded, rose-colored stained glass window above the shower. The tinted light turned his skin pink like his hair as he twisted the shower’s knob, making it shriek as the old pipes rumbled to life beneath his feet. There was no waiting for the water to heat up these days, just bearing the cold.
He had shampoo in his eyes when the shower curtain eased back and Camille stepped in with him. She was naked; her sinuous body slinked against his like the twist of a snake. How she could be a holy angel looking like this, Clark would never understand. Her hands twined around his neck and pulled his lips to hers. She was relentless, and he was powerless to stop her. As she kissed him, her eyes stayed open, wide and apologetic. She would never say the words, but she tried to tell him—the best way she could—that she was sorry.
Sex with Camille was either a punishment or an act of forgiveness.
And Clark wasn’t too tired to accept.
Chapter Six
“Clark.”
Clark was so exhausted that he didn’t dream when he fell asleep. Instead, he landed into unconsciousness with a heavy thud and a snore. It could have been a minute or a year that he was asleep. But deep in the hazy darkness of sleep, he recognized the voice saying his name. It was Sophia.
He opened his eyes and blinked, trying to recall the dream he must have been having. Slowly, he shifted his head against the pillow, rustling his half-dried hair. Camille lay beside him, her curves pressing soft and warm against him.
Clark’s throat tightened, and his stomach pitched. Camille didn’t have curves; the Throne angel had jutted angles and razor-sharp turns. She was a Formula 1 racecar; she certainly wasn’t warm and soft.
He turned his head farther. Camille’s back was to him, her strawberry blond hair spilling onto the pillow and his arm, like strands of silk across his skin. But Camille didn’t have strawberry blond hair, and the room was starting to roil beneath him as his anxiety built up. Something was wrong with this dream…
…Namely, he was awake.
The scent hit him then, wafting into his noise like a familiar brush across the lips. Sophia’s scent, like fresh cotton hanging out on line to dry in
the summer sun. Sophia’s voice. The feel of Sophia’s body against his. They’d been together only one night—one amazing night—but he would never forget the way her skin moved against his, the way she called to him in the dark.
Clark bolted up in bed, flinging the sheets back and looking down the naked length of Sophia’s body. She was slender, but her curves still swelled in a way that had his mouth watering even now. Sleepily, she rolled over, looking up at him with her wide-set pretty eyes.
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “Say you love me,” she purred, shifting up against him, pressing those wicked curves to his bare chest.
His heart hammered; the words were in his mouth to answer her, natural and instinctual. But his brain yelled at him. Her hand slid up and over his shoulder, into his tousled hair. Her touch was agony. Something vital was breaking apart inside him. God, he’d missed her. He wanted nothing more than to curl up beside her and loose himself to whatever was happening right now.
“Will you say it, Clark?” she asked again, nearly begging as she rose up to kiss him.
“You’re dead,” Clark whispered. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, but he turned his mouth away from her. The pain splintered inside him and pressed against the confines of his skin, threatening to rip him apart. His eyes watered with tears; his voice cracked as he spoke, “I saw your body.”
Her eyes widened, filled with delicate tears to match his own. “I’m right here. I’ve always been right here.”
“No,” he said, his teeth clacking together as he began to shiver. He shoved out of bed, stumbling and tripping over the sheets that ripped at his legs. “No, you died.”
She followed him, crawling down the length of the bed, stalking him as he backed away, fear gripping his heart now too. His hip hit the desk, sending waves of pain down his body. He groped for a light switch but couldn’t find it. If he found the light, he reasoned, he would see things clearly, see it wasn’t really Sophia in the room with him.