Colin let his eyes drift back up toward his apartment door one last time before he took a deep breath and nodded toward Luca’s car. “We should probably check out the camp by the Amite. I can’t imagine he’d be stupid enough to be hiding out there, but he was stupid enough to fall from Heaven in the first place, so who knows?”
Luca unlocked his car doors and Colin climbed into the passenger seat. Luca wasn’t familiar with the area, so Colin gave him directions back to the same woods where Anna had first disappeared from him. It seemed like that had been years ago, not a few months. The rising sun cast a blinding orange light in their eyes as they drove east to Ascension Parish. Instead of reaching into his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, Colin just closed his eyes and imagined Anna lying permanently frozen in this endless sleep.
Even her abduction had left him with the hope that as long as she retained her soul, they would be reunited in the next life. With her mind held prisoner by Adriel, there were no guarantees he would ever get her back, even after her body died. After all, what is a person’s soul if not those traits orchestrated within their minds that make them so unique?
Luca’s phone interrupted Colin’s metaphysical musings. He cracked one eye open against the blinding yellow-orange glare and Luca tried to glance at the number while keeping on eye on the black asphalt of the highway ahead of him. “Holy shit,” he muttered.
“If it’s Adriel, let me talk to him,” Colin muttered back.
“Maybe almost as bad. It’s Tahel,” Luca said.
Colin opened both eyes and leaned closer to Luca as he answered his phone. He could hear snippets of Tahel’s animated and irate tirade on the other end, wanting to know why the hell Luca had called her and accused her of being a traitor. When she finished yelling at him, Luca told her they knew about Andrew and that he wasn’t the only Immortal who had betrayed Heaven.
Tahel was quiet on the other end for a few moments, and when she spoke again, she was no longer yelling, so Colin couldn’t hear her part of the conversation. Luca told her to hold on for a second and put her on speakerphone. “Colin’s in the car with me. You met him and his wife, Anna, in Tel Aviv.”
“I’m assuming neither of them are your other traitors, then,” Tahel said.
“Tahel,” Colin said carefully, “you never wanted to be an Immortal. You told us that yourself. And then a year later, you were turned into one by someone else’s decision, which is exactly what happened to Andrew. And that’s apparently why he’s so pissed off at Heaven.”
“So you automatically assume that makes me a traitor, too?” she shot back.
Colin thought she was just as pleasant as ever, and tried not to mumble something to that effect out loud. “There are only a handful of Immortals in the world, and you’re the only one I know who made it perfectly clear she didn’t want to be one,” Colin said. He was trying not to lose his patience with her, because if she was involved with these fallen angels, then anything he said or did now could potentially make things worse for Anna.
“I didn’t, but I would never betray Heaven.”
“Fine,” Luca interrupted, “I’ll figure out who our Benedict Arnolds are and deal with them later. We’ve got much bigger problems here than arguing with you about your wounded pride.”
Tahel got quiet again and Colin put his hand over the screen on the phone to block out the glare from the sun; part of him suspected Tahel had hung up on them. But her call was still connected, and he heard her take a deep breath, then she shocked the hell out of Colin when she actually apologized to Luca. “Sorry. I guess this is unbelievably stressful. I wish I knew something to help you out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
Luca pulled off the highway onto a side street that would take them farther from the city and toward the woods where Anna had first disappeared. Luca offered her a brief thanks and was about to hang up when Tahel stopped him with a heavy sigh. “Hold on,” she said. “Apparently, my angel thinks this phone call warrants a visit.”
Luca pulled his car over to the side of the road and stared back at Colin with the same you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me expression on his face. But they both heard a man’s voice in the background and waited for Tahel to explain what message her angel had thought was so important that it needed to be delivered immediately.
Tahel’s voice moved away from her phone, but they could still hear her. “Wait. What happened to Anna?”
Colin’s heart accelerated and he felt dizzy and sick again. “Oh my God,” he whispered. He had no idea if this angel had come just to inform Tahel of what had already taken place or to deliver news to them that something else had happened to his wife, and Colin forgot to breathe again.
The man’s voice moved closer to the receiver and they would have been able to pick out pieces of his conversation with Tahel – if they could speak Hebrew. Colin looked at Luca hopefully, but he shook his head.
Tahel picked up her phone again. “This was kind of rushed. I’m not even sure I understand what exactly has happened over there, but you’re not just dealing with traitorous Immortals, you’re fighting fallen angels?”
Colin remembered he’d been holding his breath and exhaled angrily. “What did he say about my wife?”
“One of these fallen angels has kidnapped her or something. Sort of. Except he doesn’t have her body, just her mind. How does that even work?”
Colin was about to curse at her, because right now, he didn’t give a damn how any of this worked; he just wanted his wife back. But Luca must have known Colin was seconds away from exploding, and they needed to know why this angel had appeared to Tahel in the first place.
“Tahel, what is your angel doing there?” Luca asked. “Anna is in danger, and we don’t have time to waste over here.”
Tahel made a noise that was a cross between a grunt and a moan and told him, “Two things. One, don’t waste your time wherever you’re going. He’s positive whomever you’re looking for isn’t there. Given what they now know about what Colin can do, they won’t be hiding out anywhere isolated like that again. They’re most likely staying in the city limits.”
Luca groaned and rubbed his eyes. It was still early morning, he was already tired, and they had no backup plan. Colin shook his head at Luca, because he still didn’t trust Tahel. For all they knew, her angel could be one of these fallen angels, too, and they were both just conning them.
“And two?” he asked wearily.
“Well, I guess you’re not going to like this considering you just accused me of being a traitor and all, but Gabriel wants me to join you in Baton Rouge. Today. I’ll be on a flight over there in a few hours.”
Luca stopped rubbing his eyes and stared at Colin again. “Gabriel? The Gabriel?”
Tahel snickered. “How many angels named Gabriel do you know of?”
“Just one,” Luca sighed. And if Gabriel was really Tahel’s angel, then she was telling the truth. She wasn’t one of the traitors, and they had no purpose out here near the Amite River.
Chapter 12
For some reason, Adriel had decided to allow Anna to stay awake, so she watched the snow falling through the thick, foggy windows for a long time, trying to keep her mind away from her friends and husband, but not thinking about Colin was impossible. This time, she didn’t need Adriel to torture her with memories of happier years, when they’d lived in a world without demons, safe in the comfort of their hopes to grow old and move on to the next life with one another.
Though painful, those memories with Colin from their mortal life together were safe; Adriel couldn’t use that information against her friends and husband now. And it was so easy to fall into these scenes in her mind that played stories from their youth: those two years from the day she met Colin in the market to the day she became his wife, as newlyweds who found excitement in everything about their new home together, Colin’s promotion then managing the book press himself when Mister Wrightson’s arthritis became so bad he could no longer work.
; Anna used to bake for Colin’s boss because she felt sorry for him; his wife had passed away and his only surviving son had moved to Sheffield where his father-in-law employed him in his cutlery business.
For years, Anna would visit Mister Wrightson several times a week with those pastries and cakes and rolls she baked for him, and she would write letters for him since he could no longer do it himself. They were often to his son, but she never knew if his son ever responded. She only ever saw him at Christmas.
One day, Anna brought her husband’s employer a special basket of treats; it was almost Easter and she wanted to make sure he had plenty of sweets to celebrate. As always, Mister Wrightson insisted she come inside for tea and, as always, Anna insisted he sit down and let her make it. As she set his tea on the table in front of him, the old man smiled up at her and told her hiring her husband ten years before had been one of the best decisions he’d ever made.
Anna returned his smile and her heart filled with pride for her husband, but Mister Wrightson wasn’t finished. “You’ve both been so good to me, Mrs. O’Conner. I don’t know what I would have done without either of you.”
Anna wanted to protest that he had been the one to do them the favor by giving Colin a chance in the first place, but he kept talking. “I had my Will rewritten over a year ago so that your husband will inherit my business. My son already knows, and he will receive my house and money, so he won’t contest it.”
Any argument Anna had about who had been better to whom vanished; she found herself speechless, because only ten years after moving from his father’s landlord’s farm outside of Dublin, Colin, this formerly poor Irish boy who had come to London with nothing, was going to inherit his own business. But Anna knew nothing about English law.
“Doesn’t your son have to inherit all of your property?” she asked. She felt breathless and light headed.
Mister Wrightson smiled at her and patted her hand. “It hasn’t been that way here for over a hundred years, my dear. I’ve had everything written up properly and witnessed. And, really, my son has no interest in a book press. He’s doing quite well with his father-in-law. Colin has worked so hard for me.”
Anna felt her cheeks flushing and she offered to refill his teacup, hoping he wouldn’t notice how much she was blushing. But Mister Wrightson’s eyes weren’t failing him nearly as badly as his joints, and of course, he noticed. He only chuckled and told her he’d love to have more tea with her, and Anna spent the rest of the afternoon in a blissful daze: her husband would one day be a business owner, something even he had never thought possible. That December, though, Anna contracted tuberculosis, and Colin prayed for a miracle to save his dying wife, and he never had the chance to become the owner of Mister Wrightson’s book press.
Anna wiped the fresh tears from her cheeks and heard footsteps on the stairs again. She closed her eyes as Adriel descended the stairs, and she listened as he moved the chair closer to her. She pulled her coat around her again.
“Would you like to talk yet?” Adriel asked her.
Anna didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, actually, but she did have questions of her own, and she knew the only way he’d humor her is if she listened to him. “Only if I can go first,” Anna bartered.
Adriel shrugged a shoulder at her, and Anna wondered where to begin. She had more questions than he’d ever be willing to answer. He smiled at her, and she ignored him. “Were you ever an angel for an Immortal?” she asked. It was an impulsive question, and it surprised Adriel.
His pale blue eyes studied her, but his smile never slipped. He wasn’t disturbed by her question, only amused. “Yes. I’m sure Zadkiel told you I left Heaven about five hundred years ago. That wasn’t so long ago that I wouldn’t have been asked to help Immortals on Earth while I was still there.”
“You were asked? You didn’t do it willingly?” Anna was certain The Angel was never asked; she would have sacrificed herself to save the O’Conners. That’s not the kind of love and compassion that would require asking an angel to do something good for mankind.
“I’m an angel of death and destruction, created originally to hunt down demons and destroy them. I make a dangerous mentor for humans, don’t you think?”
“But you were asked. Why?” Anna couldn’t imagine what kind of Immortal would attract Adriel as a personal angel.
“Because of what I could do. With my help, Immortals became particularly dangerous, which is why Heaven decided not to use me anymore.”
“And that’s when you turned your back on God,” Anna said.
“I turned my back on a god, and found one who appreciated my natural abilities,” Adriel told her, still smiling at her in the same way that made Anna wrap her arms around her waist to keep her coat tied tightly around her.
“That’s what you told Andrew, isn’t it? That’s the truth he was referring to. There’s some god ruling in Hell just as in Heaven. But why should I believe you?” Anna shivered but she didn’t know if it was because of his cold nature or the fear she felt in having this conversation with him. She had wanted to avoid discussing whatever truths he’d been wanting to tell her, and yet, he’d somehow led her right into that exact conversation.
“Because I’ve seen them both and you haven’t,” Adriel answered, and he was so complacent about it that it just made Anna angrier.
“Well, I only have any interest in meeting one of them,” Anna retorted.
Adriel snickered and sat back in the chair. “Do you know what Lilith is?”
“The Whore of Babylon?” Anna guessed.
That seemed to amuse Adriel, too. He laughed and lifted a shoulder again. “Maybe. Men wrote the Bible, you know that. And Revelations is really out there, even for your so-called prophets. But Lilith was a Mesopotamian goddess.”
Anna snorted and interrupted him, and for the first time, Adriel looked mildly annoyed.
“Oh, so now you’re going to tell me there are thousands of gods and goddesses out there?” Anna asked. She kept her arms folded around her, but it was just as much out of defiance now than anything else.
“No. And if you keep interrupting me, I won’t tell you anything.”
Anna thought about it and decided if she were trapped in here against her will, she might as well listen to him. She didn’t have to believe him.
“If the god who rules over Heaven can create angels, then the god who rules over Hell can create his own powerful beings to serve him. A demon doesn’t have the kind of power she does. She was worshipped as a goddess in Mesopotamia, and her purpose was to direct souls to Hell. I don’t think she ever bothered to correct anyone who called her a goddess and not an angel,” Adriel explained.
Anna made sure he was finished speaking this time. His smirk assured her he was through and was back to finding her amusing. “Then she’s a demon, not an angel.”
Of course, considering she didn’t even believe in his ridiculous god anyway, she wasn’t sure why she was bothering to argue semantics with him. And he apparently didn’t think it was worth the effort either. He waved her off then continued, “You can kill demons with a dagger or knife, Anna. Try it with Lilith and see how far you get. She’s not a demon. She’s essentially the same thing I am. Now, are you ready to hear why I left Heaven in the first place?”
Anna took a slow, deep breath. She thought she’d already gotten her answer: he was an angel of death and destruction and had become obsolete. How could there possibly be more?
Adriel smiled at her again, and Anna’s stomach fluttered but in a completely different way than when Colin smiled at her or touched her. Adriel terrified her. “I discovered the truth about these gods, these worlds they rule over, even us angels. And I would no longer work for a side that couldn’t possibly ever win this war.”
She’d heard him say this before in the Garden of the Gods, but she would always believe there was only one possible outcome: Heaven’s victory over evil. Adriel laughed and shook his head at her. “Perhaps if everything you beli
eved were true, Heaven would stand a chance. But Heaven can never win a war when it was created by man in the first place.”
Anna let that deep breath out slowly and realized the biting pain in her palms was from her own nails that were digging into her skin. She tried to focus on unclenching her fingers. “We didn’t start this war, Adriel. We just got dragged into it.”
“Oh, Anna. You humans started everything, not just the war. With your love and compassion and empathy, you created your god and your Heaven, just as your hatred and cruelty created Hell and this god you don’t want to believe in. Why do you think wars and the actions of men that cause so much suffering have always made demons appear in such great numbers?”
Anna gritted her teeth and glared at Adriel; he wouldn’t twist her beliefs like this. She wouldn’t allow him to manipulate her mind. “The actions of men make demons work easier. That’s why.”
Adriel just shook his head and stood up again, that enigmatic smile never leaving his smooth, handsome face. “You humans. So much power. And this is what you’ve done with it. Created worlds destined to tear each other apart.”
“No,” Anna whispered, but she was whispering to Adriel’s back. He was already leaving her again.
Anna’s mind began twisting anyway and she jumped off the bed for the first time since falling asleep after entering this building. She grabbed Adriel’s arm to stop him from climbing those stairs and disappearing to wherever he went every time he left her. He looked down at her, surprised and apprehensive.
“You’re lying,” Anna insisted. “You’re just trying to mess with my head again to try to convince me to help you. We didn’t do this. People aren’t responsible for creating God or Hell or any part of your worlds. We’re the ones who became pawns in your game!”
Adriel stepped down so that he was level with Anna again, and glanced at her hand still gripping his arm. His other hand grabbed hers and he pulled her closer to him. Anna had never been so close to him before and she was able to sense the iciness, the frigidness that radiated off of him mixed with something else now: something warmer and almost human. Anna trembled even though he wasn’t hurting her, but he didn’t let her go either.
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