“Living in Hell for six months does that to a person. Now move,” I told her. “I won’t tell you again.”
“We’re Grigori, Amelia,” Matt said.
“I’m sorry, what?” I turned to face the hawk-winged angel.
He scooped up his shirt from the ground and started to approach me. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
The brunette didn’t add her two cents. He must have been telling the truth.
“Like a Nephilim?”
He stood just out of my reach and retracted his wings, buttoning his shirt as he did. “Adam didn’t explain much to you, did he?”
I snorted against my will. “Much is an understatement. More like a crash course. One minute he’s an angel, the next we’re being tortured in Hell.”
He smiled and nodded, taking my hoodie from the blonde and handing it to me. “I know. I’ve heard all about your heroics. Now, come have a bite, and I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know.”
I froze and stared at the hoodie as if it were a snake waiting to strike.
“It’s just a jacket, Amelia,” he said, “and some really good Italian food. I’m not asking you to marry me.”
My eyes widened at his brazen mouth. “I—”
He laughed at me again and sat down at the closest table, the traditional red-and-white checkerboard tablecloth staring boldly at us. Nodding to the freckle-faced waiter on standby, Matt soon had our table overflowing with enough antipasti and rolls to feed an army.
As the waiter laid out our plates and silverware, I took the opportunity to get the ball rolling. “So, tell me. What’s this all about?”
“So anxious,” he mumbled through a bite of bread. “I thought you were ready to leave.”
“I still am,” I said, glancing at the clock. It was already after eleven. “But I have long enough to find out if you have anything useful to say.”
“Oh, I do,” he said, pooling another mound of salad and olives onto his plate. I had never seen any angel or demon eat like this. “How long were you down in Hell? Three, four months?”
“Six.”
“Okay . . .” He said between bites. “And Adam didn’t tell you anything before you ran off half-cocked? Eat something.”
I scowled. This guy didn’t miss a beat. “No, he didn’t get the chance. He told me they were coming after him, and by association, me.”
“They?”
I reached into the breadbasket and took a roll for myself, tearing into pieces as I thought of how to explain this to someone who knew the half of the story that I didn’t. “Originally, he told me it was whoever put us here.”
“Like Middleton here or like Earth here?” he asked as he took the serving bowl for the antipasti and scooped some onto my plate, ignoring my increasing glare. “Eat. On Earth, you eat. Heaven, Hell, forget about it. Here, you eat because you may never eat again.”
“Earth here,” I replied confusedly. “But why does it matter? Are the two of you friends?”
He looked up from his plate. “Who?”
“You and Adam.”
“I wouldn’t say friends,” he said simply. “More like I owe him a favor.”
“So you’re not on the Seraph’s side?”
“God, no.” He cringed. “No pun intended.”
I finally took a bite of the pepper-jack cheese he had placed on my plate. “So who are the Grigori exactly? You’re obviously not human.”
He laughed as the other two women came to sit in the remaining two seats. “No, Amelia, we’re not human. Obviously, you know about the Fall, and thus yourself and Adam. Right?”
I thought about it. I really didn't know much other than who I was, who I had been, and who was after me. “I don’t know what I know, to be completely honest, Matt. Is that even your real name?”
“Matthew, actually,” he said softly with a grin, “But yes. The Grigori are not Nephilim by default. Nephilim are members of the Celestial Realm who were cast out of Heaven due to some transgression against the Le Coelesti. The Grigori are a variety of outcasts, soldiers—think of them like our government’s Secret Service. We are the Watchers, the classic guardian angels.
“We are neutral in the fight. We choose no sides, and so, by Araboth's standards, that makes us dangerous. But because one of the Seraphim, Lord Barachiel, is our leader, the Council tolerates us knowing that our work is sanctioned by the Seven Heavens.”
I nearly fell out of my chair as I leapt up. “Your boss is a Seraph?”
Before I could take off running, Matt was already on his feet, his hand pinning mine to the table. “Not all the Seraphim are bad.”
“Yeah, right,” I choked.
“Sit back down.” He nodded to my seat as the last of the customers exited the restaurant. “I’m not finished. Not by a long shot. Hey, Andrea, go make sure Signore Salvatore closes up shop before anyone else comes in. If it’s an issue, tell him we’ll pay for the loss of business.” He waved off the brunette who I had teed off with earlier.
She was a lithe little thing with a long ponytail that came down to her hips. The fighter jacket and knee-high stilettos told me she’d probably be rather unpleasant in a fight. Women didn’t typically dress badass unless they could back it up, or at least believed they could.
“This is what we know, from what we’ve been told over the years,” he said, wiping his mouth on the cloth napkin and leaned back into the frame of the chair. “Adam and you were assigned to guard Vilon, the first level of Heaven, when something went wrong. Depends on whom you ask as to what story you get. Christians are going to tell you the classic tale from Genesis, which is completely different than if you ask someone from the First Sphere versus someone from Gehenna.
“You fled Heaven and came here, rescinding your immortality for a human life, and Adam became one of us.”
“The Grigori, right?” I asked, reaching for my glass.
Matt nodded. “Yeah. He’s been with us for, oh say,” he sighed, and I could see him mulling the time over in his head. “Six thousand years, more or less.”
I choked on my lemon water. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah,” he snorted. “I know. Pretty serious. The Christian Bible says he was over nine-hundred something, but they always get stuff like that wrong. He’s still very much around, and seeing as how I haven’t heard anything from Raphael, either he’s not dead or they all are.”
“Raphael?” I asked. “He’s one of the Seraphim?”
“No. Raphael just sits on the Council with them. After Lucifer left, there were seven remaining Enoch, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, Samael, Barachiel, and Camael. They are each supervisors in their own respective roles.”
“Camael’s gone,” I said.
Matt nodded again. “I know. We all know. Hell, there isn’t a single person in all the realms who doesn’t know, and that’s why we’re here. We want you to stop it.”
“Me? How?” I sat up in my seat.
“One of them is going to die,” Matt said, his face solemn like a stone. “You have to choose which one lives and which one dies. Adam or Camael, but not both.”
The bottom of my stomach finally gave out. “You can’t be serious,” I said slowly, doing my best to keep from retching up what dinner I had eaten.
Matt frowned. “No, Amelia, I’m sorry. I’m completely serious. One of them is going to die, and it’s going to be your choice that dictates it; this is how it works. Assiyah can’t afford another war between Araboth and Gehenna. Earth, right here, is the Grigori’s responsibility.
“We’ll give you twenty-four hours to make your decision, but after that we’ll be back for your answer. I wish it were better news, Amelia. I’m sorry. I truly am.”
And with that, they were gone from the restaurant, almost as if they had never been there in the first place. The half-eaten meals on the placemats around me kept my brain from believing I had imagined them.
I raced out of the building and into the street as fast as I could, retching up my m
eal as the tears burst from my eyes. This time, no one would come to my aid, human or otherwise.
This time, I was truly alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
If you’ve ever been to the point of breaking, then you know how there is no other feeling in the world like it. Every nerve in your body turns to a dull ache that burns until it leaves you numb. My soul felt like it was being pulled out through my stomach with a meat hook.
And that was putting it nicely.
After several minutes of crying, I finally dragged myself into the narrow alleyway behind the restaurant. As my luck would have it, the universe’s sense of humor never ceased to antagonize me as the rain started. I didn’t even care that the water fell in steady streams around me as I curled up against the alley wall and wept. I wasn’t a killer. Self-defense was one thing. Murder was something else altogether.
I felt so weak as I lay there, eventually rolling over to stare up at the dismal gray skies that stared back at me.
Heaven and Hell were back at war, and I was in the middle.
More so than ever before, I didn’t know what to do.
Ω
“These preparations have been a long time coming,” Michael said confidently as he looked between Emil and Adam. The three of them stood on the cliff overlooking Gehenna’s main entrance.
“Indeed, and it’s going to be worth it when we defeat them,” Emil said simply.
With Raphael still missing, Michael had to settle for the next best thing beside Adam, which was Emil.
Skilled and bloodthirsty, he would get the job done as needed.
Michael needed them both on the field; he needed Adam’s experience and Emil’s physical prowess to lead the First Ray. Michael’s men were good men, virtuous men that would die for their cause. They understood what it meant to take orders. And it was Michael’s job to make sure that Adam succeeded. Enoch wouldn’t tolerate Adam turning his back on the task assigned to him.
Twenty-four hours and this war would be over. According to the charts he and Gabriel had derived back in Araboth, twenty-four hours was all it would take to break through the entrance to Gehenna. With an army of over a hundred thousand soldiers, Michael was more than confident they’d succeed. All he needed was for Adam to cooperate, a feat in itself, but their fate all lay with his friend’s choice.
“You say that, Michael, but you and I both know you’re wrong,” Adam conceded, watching as Michael adjusted the collar beneath his plate armor. “If I’m going to get Mia back, then we’re going to have to kill Camael first. And if we’re going to kill Camael, we’re going to have to go through every single one of his men.”
Michael laughed. “Then so be it. I haven’t had a good challenge in years.”
“You might be up for it,” Adam said, “but not all of us feel like charging head first into a wall of demons.”
Emil shook his head. “No, but there’s no other choice. The only thing we can do is go forward.”
“Indeed.” Michael nodded, looking over at his two companions. “Be ready. We break at dawn.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Twenty-four hours isn’t a lot of time when you start breaking down the amount of time it takes to do things. Ten minutes to eat a sandwich. Five to use the restroom. Thirty-six-and-a-half seconds to wash my hands at the kitchen sink. Two minutes and forty-one seconds to walk to the mailbox at the end of the drive.
Before you know it, minutes turn into hours, and the hours begin to tick away.
I had twenty-four of them to give Matt my answer. The way time had to keep moving forward while I just sat here was the cruelest joke yet.
I leaned forward on the swing in the backyard and rubbed my face with my hands. There had to be something I could do. Adam was—why did my brain keep bringing him up first? Was I so resigned to the fact that he was going to die and not Camael? I had chosen sides, even if I hadn’t meant it that way in the beginning, and now Adam was out for my blood.
I kicked the sand beneath my feet. I needed to tell someone. I didn’t know whom, but I had to tell someone. I had to say something. I couldn’t do this alone. I couldn’t trust anyone at this point, but I couldn’t just let them die. The Grigori were going to do what they wanted with or without my approval.
Even if I wanted to warn the others, I had no way to find Adam or Camael. Each time they had found me. Now here I was, stuck in Assiyah alone without my angelic protectors. It had been remarkably quiet, almost incomparably so. Since I’d been back, I hadn’t seen or heard the first bit from an immortal until the Grigori.
It still wouldn’t matter.
Even I did tell Adam and Camael, I still had to choose who would live and who would die. As a living, breathing human being walking on this earth, I felt the instinctual, moral obligation to keep the leader of Hell from roaming, yet that wasn’t my choice.
I hadn’t wanted any of this, but somehow it had found me. Now I was stuck.
Matt hadn’t mentioned anything about calling off the war either.
Perhaps if I found a way into Araboth and got them to stop the advance on Gehenna, all of this would be over. At least then both their lives would be saved. But in order to do that, I would have to get there first. Even after that, I would have to manage to find and convince those in charge not to kill any of us.
A concept I doubted would prove easy.
But I had to try.
Ω
What do you pack for a reconnaissance mission in Heaven? A gun? A change of underwear? An arsenal of flamethrowers?
I didn’t have time to try to figure it out. It was already 4:30 a.m.
Five hours had already passed, which meant I had nineteen left to get into Heaven, find someone that could do a damned thing about this mess, and somehow make it out alive in that amount of time.
And if I managed to make it out alive, I was sure I’d have results of some kind, hopefully ones that would solve this mess.
Camael or Adam: I had to choose. I had to choose, and I felt guilty about every single moment of it.
I had already thrown everything on top of the bicentennial-style quilt on my bed. I was shooting blanks. I had no idea what to pack. I didn’t even own a gun, nor did I think I could even buy one. My driver’s license had expired months before I had even left for Washington, back while I was still in the hospital. More importantly, I think most places had a waiting lists or something. I couldn’t wait days. Hell, I couldn’t even wait hours.
Instead, it all came down to me.
My modest arsenal of demonic skills and angelic powers were quite limited in comparison to the Seraphim. And from what I had seen of Camael, if I ran into even the first Seraph that was half as powerful as he was, I was screwed.
I had my watch to keep time by, and I was pretty certain it would still work after crossing planes. Come to think of it, I didn’t know if Matt was going by human time or Celestial. If it was the latter of the two, it took my time and cut it by two-thirds. Which meant I had six and a half hours to get all of this done. God, it was like crossing fucking time zones from Hell. The fact that this was all literal only made my stomach twist even more.
I tossed in my denim jacket because it comforted me. Silly, I know, but it did. I switched the cuff Camael had given me between wrists repeatedly, but regardless of what I did, it didn’t feel right on either side, so it just stared at me from the bed as well as a flashlight, some rope from the garage, my boots, a canister of organic sea salt, and my pocketknife to go in the boot holster.
Looking down at all of the stuff on the quilt, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed and trite. These people moved mountains, destroyed cities, and here I was, taking a piece of rope and a pocketknife to fight them. But I had to toughen up, to summon my inner-bitch or whatever. I had to fake it till I made it, I guess.
I could teleport without an anchor. I could launch fireballs from my hands, and I could communicate without words. Even with all that at my disposal, they were going to wipe the floor with m
e.
The good news was that I knew what I was going up against. Or, at least, I had some sort of idea.
I was a beginner going up against an entire realm of soldiers. My only real advantage was that I could teleport between the realms without anyone’s help. It almost made me wonder why Raphael had sent me back through the Gate in the first place.
The Gate. Rai’ek. It might be my only way in, and I had no idea how to get there.
Too bad Goat was on the complete opposite side of the country. He might have been able to tell me how to get past the Gate. Teleporting into the realm was one thing, but getting through the main gate was something altogether different.
Hell, I didn't even know if I should have been mad at him anymore. He had gotten me into Gehenna in the first place.
The blood. The circle. The salt.
I could probably finagle it together, but I was no mage. I had spent days trying to recall the words to the spell I had remembered but came up with nothing. It was a one-time thing. Psychologists would probably say that it was still buried too far to serve any real use.
I had nothing to go on and even less to lose.
Before the rational part of my mind could tell me to stop, I snatched the salt up and spun open the lid. I hastily poured it in a circle around me. I didn’t know if I needed protection this time, but even sanctimonious bullcrap would serve its purpose.
The circle was crude, but I made sure to meet the ends together. It’d work, and that was all that mattered.
I threw the container into the messenger bag I had pulled down from the headboard before tossing the rest of my collection into it save for the pocketknife. I pulled my boots on as quickly as I could manage and slid the knife into place.
I glanced down at the same palm Goat had cut before. Now nothing more than a small scar, I ran the small blade down the length of my palm, reopening the wound in an attempt to open a portal. But without some sort of incantation, I had no idea how this was going to work. Hell, I had no idea if I even needed an incantation. I clenched my fist tight, letting the blood pool into the palm of my hand before it dropped to the pale carpet. Good thing I wasn’t worried about getting the deposit back from Mrs. Henry.
FALL FROM PARADISE Page 21