Grace and Glory

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  Danika turned her head away, and I knew she, like me, couldn’t bear the thought of that.

  I took a shaky breath. “If I don’t try to bring him back and take that risk, he will become evil. He’s going to do things that Zayne would never do.”

  “He already has, by the looks of it,” Nicolai said softly, staring at me, and I knew what he saw. New bruises.

  The truth in that burned. “I can’t let him turn into a monster. I won’t do that to him. I won’t let that happen to him. I can’t.”

  “Agreed,” Dez said without a second of hesitation.

  “Then what’s the game plan?” Nicolai placed his hands on the desk. “What happens next?”

  Shower? There was dirt and mud on me. And blood. I doubted that was what Nicolai meant. I also doubted there was time for that. “I’ll head out there and look for Zayne. He found me once and I guess he’ll find me again. The Throne made it sound like he would be drawn to my grace. Then I will...I will bring him back.”

  “Okay, then.” He turned to Dez. “Let’s roll out.”

  It took me a moment to realize what that meant. “You guys can’t go out there looking for him. I told you that he’s back so you all stay away from him.”

  Nicolai faced me. “We are in this with you. You head out there to find Zayne, we’ll be there with you.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s wise. He’s very—”

  “Confused. Possibly even dangerous to us. Yes, I know. We all know, which is why you shouldn’t be out there on your own.”

  “You’re a Trueborn,” Gideon said. “That’s pretty cool. And it’s also something I should’ve figured out, especially Zayne being your Protector. You’re strong and deadly in your own right, but he’s a fallen angel, Trinity. He may not be fully Fallen, as in the sense that he’s completely lost to us, but you’re going up against a very powerful class of angel that may not be able to stop himself from doing some major damage. You can’t do this alone, and I doubt he’s just going to allow you to walk right up to him and stab him. You’re going to need us to distract him.”

  I tensed, humbled by their willingness to not stand by and also downright terrified. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but I didn’t come here to ask for help—”

  “I know. We all know that,” Nicolai stated. “You came here to warn us off, and I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not offering our help. You’re getting it.”

  A knot formed in my chest as I tipped forward. “And what will happen if Zayne takes one of you out?”

  “That is a risk we would take,” Nicolai answered.

  “Gladly,” Dez tossed out, and when I looked over to him, I saw Gideon nod. “We would gladly risk our lives to help bring him back.”

  “That’s great to hear. All of you are amazing. Really. But what if that does happen? And I succeed in bringing him back?” I asked, scanning the room. “What do you think that’ll do to Zayne?”

  Everyone in the room fell quiet.

  “He’s going to have to deal with enough crap as it is.” I hoped said crap was minimal and limited to throwing me around, but knowing him, that would cut him deep. “We don’t want to add to that.”

  “You’re right,” came Danika’s voice. “We don’t want to add to that, but we also aren’t going to stand back and do nothing.” She came forward, sitting beside me. “I think I know Zayne pretty well,” she said, and that was true. They were friends, and at one point they could’ve become more. That was what Zayne’s father had wanted. “If this was happening to any Warden, he wouldn’t sit it out. You know that. He’d be right there, making damn sure that he came home and that he didn’t add to the mess the other was in, and so would any of us.”

  “But you can’t guarantee that. I can’t even guarantee that,” I argued.

  “And you can’t guarantee that this will even work,” she countered. “That Zayne will even survive this.”

  Cold air filled my chest. “You’re right. You all want to be there for that?”

  “No,” Nicolai answered. “We want to be there for you if this doesn’t work.”

  5

  There was no convincing Nicolai or the others that the smart and sane thing was to stay home. It wasn’t like the city would descend into chaos if they did. Ever since the Harbinger had showed up, demon activity had gone way down. They could spend the next couple of days watching Netflix. There was some really interesting crap on that streaming service, according to Cayman, the demon who was sort of like middle management in the demonic world. When I left the apartment earlier that evening, he had passed out watching some kind of documentary about a guy with a mullet, big cats and murder.

  But the Wardens weren’t about that kind of life.

  So after taking a moment to wash the blood off my chin and below my ears, I found myself walking aimlessly through Rock Creek Park with Dez at my side and several other Wardens nearby. Gideon had hung back at the compound, wiring into the police dispatch just in case any calls came in that would possibly give us a lead on Zayne’s whereabouts. Nicolai was out here somewhere, but he’d left after Dez and I to “talk” things over with Danika. She wanted to help. Nicolai was dead set against that. I had no idea who won that battle, but I was betting on Danika.

  Before we hit the park, we did swing by the apartment just in case Zayne somehow remembered the police and for me to let Cayman and my ghostly roommate, Peanut, know that I was alive.

  The apartment was empty of all three of them.

  Figuring Peanut was with his new friend who could see him—something I still needed to check on—or off doing whatever ghosts did in their spare, undead time, Dez and I had then headed to the park. Cayman had actually texted right before we got there. I had no idea how he’d gotten my phone number, but he’d sent a message that said, Are you still alive? I’d sent back a quick, Yes, and then received a response demanding proof that it was me and not an “asshole archangel” with my phone.

  I’d texted back with, You’re afraid of me.

  Yep. It’s you. Be safe. Roth would be mad if you got killed on my watch.

  I really had no idea how to respond to that.

  But all of that felt like an eternity ago.

  Frustration burned its way through me as we passed by the bench I’d been sitting on when Zayne had arrived for what felt like the hundredth time. I stopped this time, scanning the dark tree line. At least it had stopped raining. The air was still weirdly cold for July.

  Only a few steps ahead of me, Dez turned around. In his Warden form, his skin was a deep gray and as hard as granite, and the two thick horns that parted his hair could puncture through steel. He kept his large, leathery wings tucked back just in case I walked into one and lost an eyeball. Right now, most of him blended into the night. “Do you see anything?”

  “Godzilla could be hiding among those trees and I wouldn’t be able to see him.”

  “Sorry. I meant do you feel anything?”

  “No.” I placed my hands on my hips. “Either he’s no longer in the park or he’s staying back.”

  “Did he strike you as a type to stay back?” Dez asked, his voice raspier in his true form.

  “Not particularly, but what do I know? It’s not like I ever met a fallen angel before.” I shook my head as my gaze fell to the outline of the bench. “I think we need to check someplace else.” Or I needed to be out here without Warden babysitters, because there could be a sliver of a chance that Zayne wasn’t coming close because of the Wardens. “Where? I have no idea.”

  “He could be anywhere in the city.”

  “That obvious piece of knowledge isn’t exactly helpful,” I replied.

  Dez chuckled as he walked toward me. For someone so large, he moved as silently as a ghost. Zayne had been that way, too.

  A sharp burst of agony pierced my heart.

  He is that w
ay, too.

  “But we could try thinking like Zayne,” he said, stopping close enough to me that he was no longer a blob of shadows. Now he was a dark mass in the shape of a Warden. Improvement. “And I know—we have no idea what could be going through his mind, but we know what would go through his mind if there were some part of him still operating, and we know where evil tends to gather together.”

  I stared at the general direction of his face while I mulled that over. “That’s smart.” I blew out a breath. “All right. If there’s a part of Zayne still operating, I think he would go...he would go to the apartment, but we were there and there was no sign of him. I think he’d go to...” I rubbed the heel of my palm over my aching hip. “The treehouse! The one at the compound. That was important to him.”

  “I’ll have Gideon check there,” he said, pulling the cell phone out of the back of his tactical pants that somehow didn’t shred when he shifted. “Anyplace else?”

  “A place that sells sandwiches without bread?” I said, and the tug on my heart threatened to pull me all the way to the ground. “The ice cream parlor! But that wouldn’t be open. I guess he could break in, though.” I racked my brain. “I think he used to like walking through the park area around the National Mall.”

  “I texted Gideon to check out the treehouse,” he said. “We can canvass the other places.”

  “Don’t you think we should check out the treehouse, too?”

  “Gideon will be smart about checking out the area. He’ll do it without being seen,” Dez said. “And if Zayne is there, he’ll let us know.”

  I guessed I was going to have to take his word on that. Another place popped into my head. “Crap. What about Stacey? He’s really close friends with her. Do you think he’d search her out?”

  “If he didn’t seem to really recognize you, I doubt he’d go for her,” he said, and that was a relief. “But I’ll get eyes on her place.”

  “What about the places where...where evil goes?” I asked as we started for the exit of the park. “Not that Zayne is evil,” I added. “He just might be...unconsciously evil.”

  “I don’t think Zayne is evil. If he was, I don’t know if you’d be standing here.”

  I didn’t have to concentrate to feel Zayne’s hands around my throat, clamping down—hands that had been cold. I had no idea if he would’ve killed me if I hadn’t touched him, but he had stopped. If he was truly lost already, my touch would’ve meant nothing.

  “They’d go where the people are. At this time of night, they’d be around the bars and clubs,” Dez continued. “There is a club where many of them hang out. Roth has or had a place above the club. He could take a look around, but I have no idea if a Fallen would go there—if demons can sense what he is or what he’d even do to them.”

  Considering that none of the Wardens had any idea where Roth and Layla were currently, I murmured something along the lines of getting Roth to check out this club.

  Dez shifted back into his human form as we neared the parked SUV. He pulled on a plain, dark-colored shirt he’d snatched somewhere from the back seat area, and I wondered exactly how many of them he had stowed away.

  Then we were off, and I told myself not to get hopeful. Which was pretty much like telling myself not to eat the whole bag of chips.

  Even though it was well past most people’s bedtime, there was still traffic, but we reached the ice cream parlor in record time, slowing down for Dez to check the building out. No lights on. No apparent signs of a break-in. My hope took a blow, but that had been a shot in the dark. Ten minutes later, we arrived at our second destination.

  The National Mall.

  There was a surprising amount of people about for the time of night. Dez remained in his human form as we started walking, and it didn’t take very long before I felt the heavy tingle of awareness along the nape of my neck.

  My senses sharpened as I eyed a group huddled under a tree. I couldn’t make out any of their features, but I knew what I was feeling. “There are demons here.”

  Dez followed my gaze. “I see them.”

  They didn’t seem to notice us as we passed them. “I think they’re Fiends.”

  Fiends were lower level demons who were virtually the pranksters of the demon world, the living embodiment of Murphy’s Law. They liked to mess with things, especially electronics. Though I supposed if someone was stuck in a traffic jam because one of them was bored and decided to brush up against several blocks’ worth of streetlights, I guessed some wouldn’t see them as harmless little pranksters.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them,” Dez advised.

  I glanced up at him. “You don’t want to dispatch them to the fiery rings of Hell?”

  He snorted as the wind lifted his hair from his forehead. “If they’re not hurting anyone, I don’t have a beef with them. You?”

  I glanced back at them, barely able to distinguish them from the shadows of the trees. “You know I grew up in the Potomac Highlands community. Obviously.” He’d come with Zayne when Nicolai arrived before the Accolade, where Wardens in training became the warriors who protected the cities. “I was always raised to believe that all demons were bad, but Zayne...he kind of opened my eyes to the fact that wasn’t always the case. Strange that a Warden was the source of that kind of enlightenment, but then I met Roth and Cayman, and...” How in the world did I describe the actual Crown Prince of Hell and a demon broker, who fulfilled humans’ desires and wishes in return for pieces of the human’s soul? Wasn’t like they were upstanding citizens or anything. “They aren’t good per se, but they are...carefully evil.” Carefully evil? I rolled my own eyes at that. “That probably makes me a really bad Trueborn.”

  Dez laughed under his breath. “Never quite heard them described like that, but I get what you’re saying. There’s necessary evil in the world, right? A balance between good and bad that must be kept so that the agreement between God and Lucifer is honored. As long as everyone stays in their lane, it is what it is.”

  Dez was right. Demons were a necessity and they also served a purpose. They were the embodiment of the forbidden fruit. Their whispers, gifts and manipulations were all a test that every human faced. Demons caused humans to exercise free will. To do right or to do wrong. To make lemonade out of lemons or to raise holy Hell. To forgive or to seek vengeance. To be the one who lends a helping hand or to be the one who punches down. To educate or to misinform. To love or to hate. To be a part of the solution or part of the problem. To keep on the path to eternal righteousness or to be led astray, into eternal damnation.

  There was a whole world of gray in between each of those things, and it was what people did in that gray area that determined where they ended up.

  The problem was that many demons didn’t stay in their lanes. There were the ones who were ordered to stay in Hell, but came topside, like Ravers, Nightcrawlers and others that couldn’t possibly pass as human. Then there were the Upper Level demons, and they almost never paid any respect to that balance.

  I also doubted Roth or Cayman stayed in their lane.

  But whatever.

  I wasn’t here for them.

  I was supposed to be here for the Harbinger. The archangel Gabriel, who dropped a nuclear bomb on that fragile balance. But right now? I was here for Zayne.

  Dez and I traveled around the National Mall for quite some time, and it wasn’t exactly a stroll in the park. It hurt to think that Zayne had planned on giving me a tour, taking me to the museums and such, but this was how I was being introduced to the Mall.

  But it could still happen, and besides, it wasn’t like I could see anything beyond a few feet in front of me and general shapes. I could always pretend I hadn’t been here, because with each minute that turned into ten, it became clear that Zayne wasn’t here.

  Which left only the bars and clubs—where humans would be gathering. According to Dez, we had les
s than an hour before they closed.

  I didn’t even want to ask why Dez had thought a Fallen would seek out humans, but I had to when we arrived at Dupont Circle, where the streets were lit by signs and the steady stream of headlights.

  “Why do you think a Fallen would be drawn to the same area as a demon?” I kept close to Dez as we passed several packed bars, continuously scanning for doors randomly opening and stumbling drunks who would have more trouble than me when it came to navigating the sidewalk.

  “There’s not a lot of info out there about the Fallen,” Dez said as I noticed a cluster of laughing girls headed down the sidewalk. “But I do remember what made God go after them.”

  “Besides producing nephilim offspring every five seconds, and I honestly don’t see how that was such a big deal, because hello.”

  “Thought you didn’t like that term.”

  “I don’t.”

  I thought he grinned, because the giggling group of girls we passed went completely silent as they stared up at him. He didn’t seem to notice. “That I can’t answer, but the Fallen were drawn to humans in the same ways demons are. When they were still fully certified heavenly angels, they worked alongside man to achieve a better way of life, but once they Fell, they used their charisma and charm to...well, revel in sin.”

  My stomach soured. I didn’t want to even think about Zayne reveling in sin. “Did fallen angels have the same kind of talents as some of the Upper Level demons?”

  He hesitated, and I knew that was my answer. “I believe so.”

  Oh God.

  Upper Level demons could sway people into doing all kinds of disturbing things with just their words alone.

  My gaze crept toward an all-night coffee shop. There were a few people sitting at the bistro tables inside and a handful in line. Two young men headed for the door, Styrofoam cups in hand. Behind them, a child too young to be out at this time of night trailed after them. He was too far away for me to make out the little boy’s features, but I knew he was a spirit. Perhaps their child? A younger brother? I wasn’t sure, but I knew he’d crossed over and was now back.