“Why have you come here?”
Andrei lowered the tip of his gladius, but he didn’t sheathe it. He didn’t like this bearer of bad news; the cold persona was unbecoming in an angel. Maybe Eitan didn’t think he deserved to see an empathetic, compassionate side. “I’m here to test.”
“This testing ground was nullified after your failure.”
“I have to do this.” Determination saturated his voice.
“You were given a chance. And a second chance.”
“I know, but—”
“Go home, Andrei. Or run to McGhee’s.” Eitan shrugged. “Whichever suits you best when matters aren’t as you like.”
Andrei squared his shoulders. He’d made it here, came inside, and dared climb the steps. He wouldn’t be dismissed and belittled. He wasn’t lying in the street with his face in a puddle of his own vomit this time. “I want to face a demon.”
“You did.” Eitan crossed his arms. “You ran away.”
“I won’t fail this time.”
Eitan sighed, annoyed. “It is too late.”
“Reinstate the ground.” Andrei’s voice was low. The blade of the gladius came parallel to the floor.
Eitan noted the threat with a raised brow. He uncrossed his arms. “That cannot be done.”
Every wiry nerve in Andrei’s body burned white-hot. He shot forward as if to attack, but Eitan didn’t flinch, not even when Andrei put the sword tip at his throat. “Are you saying God isn’t omnipotent?”
“Of course not. But the offer to make you an abhadhon has expired.” Eitan did not move or blink. “Are you truly this desperate?”
The question was a kick in Andrei’s gut. It made him back up and for a moment he stopped breathing. The gladius dropped and clanged on the floor. He continued backing away until his spine pressed against the wall. “Every time I try to do right, I do wrong. Everything I want to succeed at, I fail.”
“Not everything. Jovienne is a success.”
Andrei shook his head. “That she is an abhadhon at all is more damaging than all my other failures.”
“Why do you say this?”
“She should never have been among you.”
“Who are you to decide what should and should not be?”
“Have you met her? Have you seen her?”
“I have.”
Andrei didn’t like the appreciation in Eitan’s tone. “Recently?”
“Forty-eight hours ago.”
“Can’t you see what it’s doing to her? It’s too much, too fast! Whatever it is you’ve asked her to do,” Andrei pushed away from the wall, “you have to stop. It’s killing her!”
“That is unlikely. The abhadhim are imbued with nearly absolute immortality.”
“I’m not talking about her dying physically.” Andrei shook his head. “You don’t know her like I do. You don’t know how bright her inner fire burns…she’s down to embers. I can’t let her flames go out. Let me rid her of this. Help me be what I was meant to be so her suffering can end.”
Eitan placed a reassuring hand on Andrei’s shoulder. “You sound like a good father, but what has been done, will not be un-done.”
Father. The word wrapped around his heart and the faces of the crack-heads he hadn’t helped flitted through memory. “I can still make a difference! I’ll go to another testing ground.”
“There is no other that you can enter.” The angel’s grip tightened to emphasize his words.
“Make one,” Andrei insisted.
“That is not within my power.”
Andrei shrugged away from the angel.
“Andrei.”
He paused atop the stairwell and over his shoulder said, “I’ve been a coward. A deserter, a drunk, and a fool. I came here to change all that. You’re telling me it’s too late. I expected an angel would be interested in saving a mortal. But then, you’re not that kind of angel, are you?” Andrei looked him up and down once, and then descended the steps, rounded through the second floor to descend to the first floor and bent to climb between the boards over the front door.
When he straightened up, Eitan was standing there.
Eitan offered Andrei the gladius he’d dropped in the attic. “The courage it required to return should affirm that you are no coward. A deserter does not come back. Perhaps you are a fool,” he said with a hint of a smile, “but you have chosen to be here tonight, not McGhee’s.”
Andrei said nothing.
“You are a man, Andrei. If you came here tonight to prove that to yourself, do not leave feeling a failure because there was no Hell-demon to face.”
“But I’m leaving as mortal as I arrived.”
Eitan offered the sword insistently. “You have faced your own demon, as mortals say, and that says much about your character.”
Andrei accepted the weapon. “Do you hear the drums she hears or feel the cringe that I feel?”
Eitan regarded him, but did not answer.
“It’s happening when it shouldn’t be.”
“I know this.”
“Something terrible is happening and she’s dealing with it alone.”
Eitan stared at the ground. “She is not completely alone.”
Andrei’s head snapped up. “Who’s she with?”
“I have checked on her. If it would give you some peace, I would watch over her.”
“You? Like I said, you don’t know her like I do. She does what’s expected of her, but she…she hides things, hides her feelings.”
Matter-of-factly, Eitan said, “She does not hide her anger.”
Andrei’s gut cramped and he wiped his hands over his face. “If you’ve made her feel she has something to prove, she’s going to show her sass and smart-ass mouth. But if you see anger, her real, biting anger, that means she’s hurt deep and holding that pain inside.” Andrei felt like he might be sick. He turned away. “Tell me you know what I’m talking about. You see it, don’t you?”
After the briefest hesitation, he said, “I see it.”
Andrei’s fists clenched and unclenched. “Then do something about it! If you won’t let me help her, then you have to!” He poked Eitan in the chest.
NATHAN MARSHALL AWOKE with a start. Feeling something warm, he looked down at the thick puddle oozing across his stomach. He’d made a mess again, but at least this time it wasn’t blood. The tissues on the nightstand were sufficient to clean this.
The last thing he remembered was climbing the stairs of the old priest’s house to go to bed. He had no memory of taking off his clothes or crawling into this bed.
But he recalled every detail of the dream about the black diamond woman. This time, she had wings like a dark angel. He had touched her, talked to her though the dream was silent.
She was so beautiful. So strong and proud. Everything he wasn’t. No real woman would want to be with a freak like him. Especially not one as self-assured as her.
Friday
THE PRE-DAWN FOG rolled in. Though it was dark and she was supposedly invisible, Jovienne hid in the mist, hoping she wouldn’t be seen by anything that wasn’t mortal. Her adrenaline was gone and exhaustion set in as she soared between the Golden Gate Bridge’s suspension cables and turned inland for home. Nearing the warehouse, she slowed and stretched her palm forward, sensing, searching for a cinder in the warehouse.
No cinder…but someone was waiting for her.
Daggers drawn, she shot through the hole in the roof and landed with a thump, her ghost arms sweeping.
“I am here.” It was Eitan. His voice was higher, more tense than usual. He stepped from the darkened corner.
She dropped her aggressive stance and sheathed her daggers.
“What has happened to you?” He walked into better light, gaping at her wings as if he stared at a horrific monster. “How?”
She dematerialized them. “Better?”
“How?”
She lifted her chin defiantly.
He evaluated her, noting the damage on her vest col
lar and the thigh of her pants. He came and crouched before her to inspect the nearly healed wound and the rip in the leather. “I will bring you new gear before morning. Leave these out when you rest. I will take them to repair and modify.” As he stood, he added, “You keep me busy.”
“I wouldn’t want your job.”
“And I do not want yours.” He scrutinized the vest collar. Jovienne watched his face as he trailed the magma burns from the chest up and around the collar. She liked his scrutiny more than she should have.
He had been bold before, bold enough to measure her leg with his hands. There was no need for him to trace these rough patches with his fingers. But she wished he would. Shutting her eyes, she turned away.
“You’re trembling.”
Opening her eyes, she kept her focus on the floor. “Rough night.”
“Where are the gloves?”
“I left them behind. I didn’t mean to, but I left in a hurry. I’ll retrieve them. The leather held up great, considering how much Hellfire ran over it.”
“This leather will hold up in extreme situations. It is demon hide.”
“Where did—? Wait. I don’t want to know.”
Eitan shook his head. “You really don’t.” He checked the burn on her shoulder. His touch ignited the heat of the darkblood inside her. A sensation thrummed along her spine and spread along her hips. It was better than the reward for answering the Call. It made her want to purr, and she barely managed to keep silent.
“At this rate,” Eitan said, “you should have a room adjacent to my atelier.”
Her fingers squeezed around his thumb and her voice dropped low and husky. “Are you offering?”
He stilled and cleared his throat, but did not pull away. “Perhaps you have misunderstood me.”
“Perhaps you should consider the possibilities in being misunderstood.”
He blinked faster than necessary. Jovienne knew her bold words were out of line, but even so she could not keep from arching her back to push her breasts forward.
Eitan did not break from her inviting gaze, but he did shift and draw his hand away. When he stopped touching her, she began winning her inner battle against this bold desire. What’s happening to me?
“Do you need anything else equipment-wise?”
She nodded. “A sword.”
At his puzzled look, she pulled the hilt of the spatha and upturned the sheath so the other half clattered to the floor.
He appraised the pieces with great concern. “How did this happen?”
Jovienne shrugged. “The demons started out dog-sized. I put two down and the others ate them. It made them grow. When I killed the third, the fourth ate it and grew again, becoming a…a pretty big dragon.”
“Four? You faced four demons?”
She nodded.
“The olaim released four demons at once?”
She said nothing.
“You still have the long-sword, though.”
Jovienne shook her head and walked away to retrieved the broken pieces.
When she returned, he was studying the break in the spatha. Without looking up, he asked, “How did the long sword break?”
“A bug-like demon atop a building downtown. It was huge and it snapped the blade with its pincher-like arm thing.”
“Huge? How huge?” She had his attention now.
“Like a city bus.”
His eyes widened and his fingers brushed hers as he accepted these broken pieces. “No wonder I can’t keep you in gear.”
You could get me out of it. The words were on her lips, but she clamped her mouth shut. Something appropriate worked across her tongue when he was no longer touching her. “What do you mean?”
“I thought the demons were testing you hard, because you are new.”
Jovienne’s jaw clenched, anger rising as she remembered Damnzel’s taunt about evil having discovered her witch wings.
“The abhadhim are called upon every evening, but they do not always have a demon to slay.”
Jovienne looked up sharply, stunned. “The cinders, I mean the olaim, rise every night.”
“Yes. Those creatures always rise, but they are not always successful in summoning a demon.”
“But I’ve felt the Call That Follows every evening for years!”
“The sensation is linked to the summoning…like the glow of a lighthouse. It is transferred to the demon as it arrives, but it dissipates if the demon does not make it through. A little less than half the time, they do not manifest.” He hesitated. “I guess I can’t say that now. Not here. Forgive me, Jovienne. I thought you were being sloppy. I never considered that something truly terrible might be aligning here. What do you know of it?”
“Do you really think they’re telling me their plan?”
“Have you any clues? A suspicion or an educated guess?”
Jovienne hesitated. If he didn’t already know everything that had been happening, she didn’t want to tell him. Her eyes narrowed as she considered what she could say.
He was watching her close. “Say it. You know something.”
“The bug demon was named Zaebos.”
“Zaebos! He’s…” Eitan sat the pieces of the sword on the floor and spread his arms to indicate a large size.
“Yeah. A bus. He said he had an offer but I killed him before he told me what it was.”
“So, you don’t know why they went to so much effort?”
She shook her head. “Better not to be tempted.”
“Would you be easily tempted?”
Jovienne turned away. The double-meaning wasn’t Eitan’s intention. “I don’t want to find out.” Over her shoulder, she asked, “Damnzel said I’m not really one of them. Does she know something I don’t?” She turned back around. “Did Zaebos come because I am a lesser angel?”
Eitan stepped closer. “You, who have shoved your arm under a demon’s ribcage, burning yourself to defeat it, who slew Zaebos, who faced and defeated four demons at once… you ask me if you are the lesser angel?” He gently gripped her unburned shoulder. “This day you answered the Call and you did as you were trained.”
If she had tears, they would have fallen in torrents.
Eitan cupped her cheek and she knew then what she yearned for. Basic human contact. Affection and kindness. Intimacy and trust and love. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been hugged…not counting a demon trying to manipulate her. She just wanted someone to wrap their arms around her and tell her, ‘Yes, the world is too big, too harsh and too cruel, but everything is going to be okay.’
Andrei tried to do this out on the pier. I didn’t let him.
She lifted her gaze to meet Eitan’s copper-brown eyes. His touch coupled with his kind, soft-spoken words, made her feel weak. She wanted to melt into his arms and confess everything. She wanted him to listen, to understand what was going on and explain it to her so she’d know if she was more than some monstrous toy God was testing.
But telling him about the infusion would surely make him thrust her away in disgust as she had shoved Andrei away.
Though the full admission would be dangerous, she could gauge his reaction to a partial confession. That would tell her much more about him than hours of conversation could. Summoning courage, she prepared to speak. “This day, I used a magic called weaving.” His hand fell away. She missed his touch, but continued. “I opened a Hellgate. And when the seraph came to censure me for it, I used that same magic to strike it.”
For an instant, he did not react except to stare. “Why would you do this?”
“Why wouldn’t I? My job is slaying demons. If I can open a Hellgate and summon one to destroy, why shouldn’t I? It’s more efficient, cutting out the middle man. And why should I be censured for doing my job in an innovative way?”
“It isn’t an issue of innovation.”
“I get that it’s an issue of not following the rules, but I got the job done anyway. Why does my method matter, if I get the result God wants?�
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Eitan shook his head. “Do you want to work that much harder?”
“Harder?” She thought about stabbing herself in the heart. “It’s not difficult, it’s just…a matter of willingness or determination.”
“Who was it that doubted you and left you feeling you have something to prove?”
My father. Andrei. Damnzel. You.
“Do not doubt yourself, Jovienne. Do not doubt your heart.”
“Heart?” She nearly choked. “If I ever had one, God stole it with my mortality, Eitan.” Her throat constricted. “What he made me do, do you even know what is in the test?” Her voice cracked. When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I didn’t think so. There’s a shifter in the initial test. Through that thing wore different faces, God made me kill everyone I ever cared about. I had to prove that I’m the heartless monster He wanted me to be!”
“You’re wrong! It takes heart to do this job. How many broken weapons will it take for you to see that?” His features fell slack like something bad had occurred to him. “That’s why there are so many demons coming here. It’s not your bloodline—”
“Bloodline? What about my bloodline?”
“You’re faithless!”
“If by faithless you mean I don’t trust God, then yeah. I don’t trust him.” She squinted. “Why should I? It’s true what Damnzel said, isn’t it? I’m not like the others. But no one tells me anything. Why am I not supposed to know something about myself that everyone else knows?”
Eitan retreated a step. “If you have no faith, no trust, no heart… the blessed weapons will continue to fail you. It won’t just be the demons you’ll have to confront. You’ll end up fighting yourself. Maybe you already are.”
“Tell me, Eitan, how am I supposed to have a heart after God made me experience killing everyone I ever loved? Why would I trust Him after that?”
“I can’t answer your personal truths. Only you can.” He walked past her and stopped under the hole in the roof, but he turned back. “I am hopeful for you, Jovienne, because you are still asking the questions.”
NINETEEN
THE SUN WAS setting. The window at Andrei’s back was open. Cold air flowed inside and chilled his bare feet, yet he remained in the rusty folding chair staring at the cracked vinyl floor.
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