by G. A. Rael
"I was told this was a special case and your visit would imply as much, Samael," said the man who could be none other than Raguel. He slid a folder identical to the one the receptionist had made Samael sign across the table. "Care to tell me why I can't find a single thing in her file that stands out from any other Class-K intake?"
Samael closed the door and motioned for Jordan to take a seat beside him on the other end of the table. "Oh, she’s special alright. DJ7 ring any bells?”
That got Raguel’s attention. He did a double take at Jordan and frowned. “You’re telling me this is the Whore of Babylon?”
Jordan’s back straightened against the chair. Should she be insulted? Because she felt like she should be insulted.
“Would’ve been before long. I’ve been watching her ever since she signed a contract that pinged our radar,” Samael said, propping his feet up on the edge of the table. The gesture obviously irritated his coworker, but Raguel just scowled in silence. “Good thing she recognized she was in over her head and turned herself in voluntarily.”
“Voluntarily?” Raguel looked directly at Jordan for once, even though she still wasn’t sure he was actually addressing her.
“That’s right,” she answered. “And I’m willing to cooperate, if you’re willing to cut a deal.”
Samael’s mouth tightened in a “we talked about this” expression, but Jordan ignored him and kept her focus on Raguel, who was obviously his superior. The one good piece of advice her mother had ever given her was to never take no for an answer until you’d heard it from the top, and she wasn’t willing to give up Darren’s mortal existence without a fight. “I turned myself in for a reason. Darren St. Clair.”
Raguel opened the file in front of him and flipped through the pages. “Ah, yes. The veterinarian you were fornicating with.”
Jordan’s cheeks blazed. How much did they have on her in that file? “Cold Creek is warded. How did you even —“
“A ward is like a chain link fence,” Samael interrupted. His tone was gruff and his eyes glinted with irritation. He was kind of cute when he was pissed, thought Jordan. Too bad he was probably going to be the one who threw her into the Pit if Heaven didn’t actually have plans to use her after all. On the one hand, she was relieved. On the other, she wasn’t eager to find out just how literal that Lake of Fire really was. “Just because it keeps people out doesn’t mean they can’t see through. There aren’t too many small towns in America warded to keep angels out, so it wasn’t all that hard to find you once you popped up on our radar.”
Now she could understand why Hermes was usually so adamant about keeping her penned in. “Whatever. Can you fix Darren or not?” she asked, turning back to Raguel.
“His body is dead and his soul is quite literally in pieces. What, exactly, do you expect me to do?” the angel asked in a condescending tone that made his face so punchable.
Jordan kept her hands clasped in front of her so her fire wouldn’t make any unplanned appearances. She wasn’t even sure her power worked in Heaven, or that far away from Chase, but it was better to be safe than sorry because she’d accidentally lit a sanctimonious angel on fire. “You are the angel of judgment,” she said, deciding to take Samael’s advice and appeal to his ego. He was still a male. At least, she assumed he was packing more than smooth plastic under that million dollar suit of his. “I just assumed you would be able to work something out.”
Raguel didn’t seem to expect the flattery. He didn’t seem self-aware enough to recognize it for what it was, either. Jordan caught Samael rolling his eyes. “I’m afraid once a soul is fractured, it’s impossible to restore life to the body.”
“Could God do it?” Jordan asked innocently. She knew she was taking a risk that she wouldn’t just end up pissing him off even more, but she had to pull out all the stops if she was going to push through Heaven’s bureaucracy to save Darren. Prick or not, he deserved better than eternal damnation or sudden death.
The jealous rage that flashed in Raguel’s eyes told Jordan she’d struck a nerve, like she hoped. “It’s not a matter of ability,” he said curtly. His ego was practically hemorrhaging all over the place. “Darren’s soul is fractured. The lion’s share is already in the Vault.”
“Which would be…?”
“It’s where we keep the souls that are too damaged to move on one way or another until they can be repaired,” said Samael. “Think of it as a hospital for souls.”
“More like a storage room, really,” Raguel said dryly. “The only reason Darren is still walking around is because he’s close enough to the only shard of his soul that’s left on earth and animated with demonic magic.”
“But if I could get you that shard, you could put it back?” she asked hopefully.
“Theoretically, yes,” said Raguel. “Whether I would is another matter entirely.”
“You need me,” she reminded him. “Or at least, you need to keep me on the shelf like all the other potentials, so you can avert the Apocalypse. What does breaking protocol for one person really matter in the scheme of things?”
Raguel looked over at Samuel, his arms folded calmly. “Would you give me a moment alone with Ms. Hurlow?”
Jordan winced at the sound of her birth name. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or concerned when Samael stood to leave, but when his gaze met hers, she knew.
“I need to know before you do anything with her,” he said firmly. “Basic holding’s not gonna be enough.”
“I just want to explain the gravity of the situation,” said Raguel.
Samael hesitated another moment before he left the room and Jordan felt his absence like a hole in the wall. Maybe she had picked the wrong angel to work on. Samael was a little rough around the edges, but there was something in the other angel’s gaze that made her every bit as uneasy as the first one she’d encountered.
“Tell me,” he said in an easy tone that made her anything but as he leaned on the table. “How many seals have you unlocked?”
Jordan stared at him, trying to understand the sudden shift in his line of questioning. She thought of lying but decided that information was the only leverage she really had with him. “Just one.”
“And that would be?”
She pursed her lips. “The seal of flame.”
“Ah,” he said knowingly, making a note in her file. “And do you have any idea who the other four are?”
“No,” she said, frowning. “What does that have to do with anything? As long as I’m away from them, I can’t break the seals anyway.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he just sat there watching her like he was studying the pieces of a puzzle spread out before him, trying to figure out how to fit them all together. “The demon must know,” he said, absently clicking his pen. Jordan could tell he wasn’t talking to her anymore, and the sound of the clicking was going to drive her insane.
“I’m sorry, could we get back to Darren? Because—“
“Darren is one of the consorts,” Raguel interrupted. “That much is clear, but if you’re too idiotic to realize that, I believe you when you say you don’t know the others.”
Jordan blinked. “Excuse me? Darren isn’t my consort. Hermes said —“
“Hermes is a demon. They lie,” the angel remarked, standing. Jordan leaped from her chair instinctively, but he made no move to come closer. Instead, he walked to the other side of the room and poured himself what looked like a cup of tea from the set on a nearby stand. “The others must be inside the ward. He wouldn’t risk that.”
Jordan’s stomach churned. “He said he didn’t know who any of them were.”
“Mhm. That may be true, but I can guarantee you that he has a good idea.” Raguel took a sip of his tea and it was strange to see him standing there, so elegant and pensive as he discussed the fate of the world. “I suppose we could always send a localized storm or an earthquake that would leave only the supernaturals standing. That would certainly narrow it down a bit.”
/> Jordan listened, unable to make sense of his words. “What are you talking about?”
“The other consorts,” he answered patiently. “They’re all monsters in some form or another. It’s part of the prophecy.” He glanced over at the bookshelf across the room. “You know, it might behove you to read it sometime. Of course, you’d have to master Enochian, but…”
He set his teacup down and Jordan watched, him, bewildered. “You would destroy an entire town just to flush them out?”
“Ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?” he asked flatly.
“You can’t do that,” she seethed. “I won’t let you.”
“And what are you going to do? Light a match?” he taunted. “Seduce me.”
“Like hell, asshole.”
The angel’s eyes darkened. “Watch your tongue. I need your power, not your limbs.”
Jordan backed away from him. “You’re not like Samael,” she murmured. “You’re not trying to prevent the apocalypse, you’re trying to start it.”
“Michael and his groupies have no right to rewrite history. The prophecy must come to pass, and when it does, we’ll have the upper hand. Only an idiot would let this opportunity go to waste.”
“Technically, if it’s a prophecy, isn’t it rewriting the future?” Jordan asked, inching toward the door.
Raguel was onto her. Before her eyes, the angel teleported across the room and threw her against the other wall. She caught herself before her nose could get rearranged on the hard floor, but Raguel was coming after her. Jordan threw up her hand and a wall of flame engulfed the angel. It was far more potent than any fire she’d called forth on earth and for a moment, she thought she’d won.
When Raguel stepped through the flame, her heart stopped. Not only was he untouched, but his suit was perfectly pressed without so much as a singed thread. “I’m afraid your little magic trick won’t work here. After all, this place is its source.”
Jordan turned onto her back, scrambling away from him until she hit a wall. She looked around the room but the only thing close to a weapon was a chair and somehow, she doubted that would do much against an archangel. Her eyes widened as Samael appeared behind Raguel out of nowhere and raised a finger to his lips to silence her. He pulled a revolver that looked like it belonged at an antiques show rather than in actual combat, but the bullet he fired into the back of Raguel’s head exploded in a flash of golden light.
The angel hit the ground with a blank, lifeless expression. In a shockingly swift transition, his flesh turned deathly white and chalky like stone before it crumbled in on itself and all that was left was a pile of ash.
Jordan’s jaw dropped open and she yanked her foot away from the newly formed ash pile. She’d heard of vampires turning to dust when they were staked, but an angel.
Samael holstered the smoking revolver and grabbed the arm of Jordan’s jacket to pull her to her feet. “Come on,” he muttered. “As bad as that looks, it won’t take him long to cobble together a new body.”
“He’s still alive?” she cried, stumbling after him as he dragged her down the hall.
“Angels aren’t physical beings. Our souls are floating up there with Source energy,” he said, pointing sharply toward the ceiling. “When we ‘die,’ everything that makes us us floats around up there for a while and it takes some time to untangle and form into an individual again, but Raguel is strong. It won’t take him long.”
“Why did you save me?” Jordan asked once they stopped in front of a flight of stairs that didn’t seem to have an end, judging from her point of view.
“I was listening in,” he muttered. “We’ve suspected a mutiny for a while now, but until today, I never thought Rag was part of it.”
“Can’t you turn him in?”
“I’ll tell Michael and maybe we can keep him from respawning, but I have to get you somewhere safe first. Raguel isn’t working alone and I can’t risk one of his buddies getting their hands on you.” He looked down the hall, clearly troubled. “No telling who can be trusted. Move.”
He gave Jordan a push toward the stairs and she ran up them, hoping they weren’t really as endless as they seemed. She could hear Samael right behind her and when she finally caught sight of the stairway’s end, she stopped short. All she could see was a thick, unnatural darkness that seemed to have consumed the rest of the stairway and she wasn’t about to go through.
She turned to face Samael, but the look of determination on his face made her second guess the fear that he was double crossing her. Not that she could even remember when they’d ended up on the wrong side. “You have to go. It’s the only place that’s safe right now.”
“What is it?” she demanded. “You can’t expect me to just walk into a shadow without knowing what’s on the other side.”
“It’s Purgatory,” he answered, allaying exactly none of her fears. “I’m not saying it’s a five-star resort, but it’s a whole lot cozier than where you were headed before and Raguel can’t get you there. Only I have access to souls on the other side.”
“I’m not going in there! I have to get back to Cold Creek and warn Chase and the others. He’s planning on —“
“I know what he’s planning,” Samael snapped. “You let me worry about the angels. When the time comes, I’ll pull you out.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“What choice to you really have?” he challenged.
It was a decent point. Jordan had never imagined that Hell was under the angels’ control. Nothing was at all like what Hermes had told her and she wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Some part of her wanted to trust Samael, if only because he’d saved her from whatever the other angel had planned, but she knew it wasn’t logical. It was the same sense of familiarity that had lulled her into a false sense of security with Hermes, and look where that had gotten her.
“We don’t have time for this,” Samael growled, reaching for her hand. The moment he made skin-to-skin contact, Jordan felt the same surge of energy she now recognized as the mark of her consort. As far as she knew, it wasn’t a full moon, but it was anyone’s guess as to whether a concept like that even mattered in Hell. All she knew was the undeniable bond that had formed between them with that single touch and when she finally met Samael’s eyes, she could tell he felt it, too. The dread within them made it clear that unlike Chase, he knew exactly what it meant.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, jerking his hand back.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan blurted out. It seemed like the right thing to say, and there wasn’t an etiquette guide for consoling a very unhappy archangel who’d just realized he was your destined lover.
Samael shook his head in disbelief, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was fully in his own thoughts, but he snapped out of them just as quickly, his gaze locked on Jordan. “Don’t worry about it. After this, we’ll be even.”
“After what?” she asked, confused.
He pushed her into the void without a word, but that more than answered her question.
Damned angels.
Thirty-Nine
Crrrrreeeeeeeeakkk.
It was the sound of metal ripping, but that wasn't possible. There was nothing metal to be found in the version of eternal boredom the angels who governed Purgatory had cooked up especially for Jordan. It happened to be a walk-in closet outfitted with a mattress, a Bible, a pencil and notebook, and a stack of black books in the corner that reached the ceiling and filled up what little of the closet that wasn't taken up by the mattress.
She knew the scene well. It was the one she had lived every time her smart mouth or simple refusal to dance like a puppet at her father’s services had earned her the ire of her parents. Her mother had once kept her in that closet for days until she felt that Jordan had “learned her lesson,” but even Marla gave in eventually.
Jordan still didn’t know how long she’d been in Purgatory, but it felt like a thousand years and not a day less. In the beginning, she’d taken comf
ort in knowing that she had to go insane eventually, if only from the repetitiveness of it. When the emotional equivalent of a few decades had passed, she realized that prolonged sanity must have been part of the simulation.
She turned her attention back to the book in her hands and the line she had scrawled onto the cur-rent page no less than a hundred times already.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Jordan had scarcely had time to process the fact that Samael was her consort before she was thrust into the constant loop of punishment. In the beginning, she had tried everything to escape. When she’d finally managed to break through the wall, she realized that there was literal nothingness on the other side. Even her attempt to fall into the void in hopes that she would either come out somewhere better or, worst case scenario, escape the constant loop, had only resulted in being dropped back into the closet to continue living out her personalized torment. She’d gone through the motions of hating Samael, resenting him for her eternal confinement, and even pitying him for the role he surely wanted no part in. Even if he had abandoned her, she couldn’t help but hold out hope that he would keep his promise to protect Cold Creek from Raguel and his followers.
Once she had squeezed in the last line that would fit on the current page of her notebook, Jordan turned it only to realize she had reached the end of the book. She sighed, closing the leather bound cover and placing it carefully on top of the stack. She reached for another black book among the dwindling supply stacked beside the mattress and shivered when she realized that her “mother” would be coming soon to refresh the stock. It wasn’t actually Marla, but the illusion was carefully crafted enough that it could only have been pulled from her own memories.
Before she could take the fresh notebook back to the mattress, the metallic ripping sound picked up at such volume that the entire closet shook violently.
An earthquake?