“How did you even…?” Will seemed to struggle with an end to that question.
“Get involved with him?” She wore a small, sad smile. “I knew who he was long before I met him, though I was still young. He was notorious, hunted by many of the most powerful angelic reapers. The first time I saw him with my own eyes, I had pursued some bottom-feeder right into an ambush led by Bastian. I killed six, until the only one remaining was Bastian himself. I was exhausted and wounded and certain he would kill me, but he didn’t. He let me live. After that I seemed to keep running into him. It took me a while to realize it was on purpose, and it took me longer to fall in love with him.”
Will shook his head. “But he was a monster.” His hand tightened into a fist and I covered it with my own to offer him comfort.
Madeleine’s gaze didn’t miss the gesture. “He wasn’t always. He told me his grandmother was Antares. The angelic blood in his veins made him different, created a light in his soul. But after a while, he just stopped feeling and welcomed only his dominant demonic side. He once told me that forever is a long time to keep fighting. I hadn’t realized until it was too late that he meant fighting himself. I wish I knew how to explain to you what that goodness inside him was like and how he revealed it to me.”
Will sat in silence beside me, his expression hard and contemplating. He was trying to understand what Madeleine explained about his father, but I didn’t need any help. This was how I felt about Cadan, who fought with tooth and nail against what his father became and what he was also destined to become. From the first moment I met Cadan, I felt the light in him that Madeleine felt in Bastian, but that light had saved him from the darkness his father had been consumed by.
“It was hard for him,” Madeleine said gently, “as I know it has been for you, William. But you’re stronger than he was. Your heart is too pure for the demonic blood in you to take hold.”
His green eyes met her identical gaze. “How do you know it won’t? There’s darkness in me and I feel it every day.”
I squeezed his hand tighter. “You’re not your father. You’ve proven that to me every day for five centuries.”
Madeleine studied our faces and our clasped hands, but she wore the same ironclad, unreadable expression that Will wore when he was thinking.
Will exhaled and his gaze grew distant. “I have eternity to live, but not enough time to learn who I really am. Not until this fight is over. We have the Pentalpha and that’s all that matters right now.” He’d shut us out again, as I feared he would. He’d face Hell itself before taking on his own emotions, because the truth was a far more terrifying enemy and one that he couldn’t control. He stood, his jaw set hard and shoulders tied into tense knots.
I stood with him. “Madeleine, will you help us?”
“Of course,” she said. “I am no longer a relic guardian. My sword and life are at your disposal.”
I was certain Will would be happy to have his mother by his side and that she would be an invaluable ally. I also wanted to know her. It was like meeting a legend, someone you’d heard about and wondered what it would be like to come face to face with. And her eyes…they were Will’s eyes.
“We’ll return tomorrow,” I told Madeleine. “I need to figure out how I will use the Pentalpha to summon Azrael. We have a demonic reaper with us, so we have to take the sun into consideration. We’ll likely arrive in the afternoon when the sun isn’t so high.”
Her brow made an almost imperceptible movement. “Demonic?”
Will spoke before I had a chance. “Another son of Bastian.”
“Ah. I understand.” She didn’t seem surprised by the news that Bastian had sired another. At least Madeleine wouldn’t be as hostile toward Cadan as the other angelic reapers we’d encountered, given her history with Bastian.
We said good-bye to Madeleine and headed to the car. As we navigated the abandoned castle, the cell phone in my pocket buzzed and I realized I’d completely forgotten to call Ava. I pulled it out and answered. “Sorry,” I said guiltily.
“Where have you been?” she asked. She didn’t seem angry, which made me feel a little better about not calling.
“We got sidetracked,” I confessed. “But we have awesome news. I’m holding the Ring of Solomon right now.”
I heard Ava exhale with relief and relay the news to Marcus. “That’s fantastic,” she said to me.
“How about we find someplace to get some rest?” I suggested.
“Perfect,” she replied. “I’m not sure about you three, but Marcus and I are exhausted.”
“Cadan split from us a few hours ago, so I’ll touch base with him in a sec. While we head back into town, do you want to find a hotel to crash at?”
“Collect Cadan and I’ll call you again when we’ve got rooms somewhere.”
After Ava booked us a few rooms at the Best Western in Aalst, she texted me the address, which I plugged into the GPS. Cadan was closer to the destination than we were, so he met us there. Will and I had our own room, which I was glad for. He was troubled after the reunion with his mother and I worried that he was angry with her. I thought seeing Madeleine again would have thrilled him, despite the shock. Will had accepted her loss and mourned her long ago, and after losing my own mother so recently, I could imagine what old wounds of his had reopened upon seeing her face.
Will took a shower to remove the dust and grime caking his skin from climbing through the crumbling castle, but when he hadn’t left the bathroom after some time, I started worrying about him. The door was cracked, so I knocked once and tapped it the rest of the way open. He stood over the sink, leaning heavily on his hands on the edge of the counter. His face was soaked as if he’d splashed it with water over and over. I touched his arm and kissed his shoulder, looking up into his face.
“Want to talk?” I asked him as I rubbed his back soothingly.
He took a deep, quivering breath. His pain was so naked on his face, etching scars into his skin that weren’t traced by the edge of a blade. “For my entire life, I thought the reason she never came home that night was because she was dead. But she just left. And she didn’t say good-bye.”
“How old were you when she left?” I asked, and leaned on the bathroom counter beside him. I played with the Pentalpha with my thumb and forefinger. I’d looped the leather cord around my neck to keep it safe, as Madeleine had, and it hung just a little lower than my winged necklace.
He didn’t answer right away, his gaze unfocused. “Fifteen.”
I felt my heart break for him, a painful crack right down the middle. I had always been sure that he’d been young, even for a reaper, when his mother vanished, but I never anticipated how young he’d been even for a human.
“I wanted revenge for my mother’s death and I’d only received basic training from her,” he continued. “I went looking for trouble and would’ve gotten myself killed if Nathaniel hadn’t found me. He and my mother had been friends, and then Nathaniel was all I had for a long time. Until you came into my life, anyway.”
He looked back at me and I offered him a small smile. “And now you have your mother again.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that she’s alive,” he said, “but I feel so betrayed.”
“I know,” I said softly. “She isn’t perfect. That’s a hard truth to accept when it comes to parents. We idolize them and that isn’t fair to them, or us.”
He became quiet, but I understood how he was feeling. His entire life was spent believing his mother was this unfailing warrior, and now the image he’d woven of her in his mind had begun to unravel. He didn’t want to accept that she was as flawed as the rest of us.
“When you’re able to forgive her,” I offered, “then you two can reconnect. She seems like an amazing person.”
He leaned over me and rested his forehead against mine. “When did you start being so reasonable?”
I grinned. “One of us has to be. Usually it’s you, but I appreciate you letting me have a go at i
t. Maybe I’m just tired and less argumentative.”
It was his turn to grin, but there was a devilishness to his. “Well, then. I’ll just have to keep you worn out so you don’t bicker with me so much.”
“Oh jeez—” was all I could say before he kissed me.
23
MY MOM PLOPPED DOWN ON THE COUCH BESIDE ME and grabbed a handful of popcorn before passing the bowl to me. I shook it up and frowned. She watched me and rolled her eyes.
“I’m glad you remembered a little popcorn with your salt,” I grumbled and picked through the bowl, glad I didn’t have a paper cut. It’d be like dunking my hand into acid.
“I like salt!” she said with a laugh. “Sue me.”
“Why aren’t you on a heart attack prevention regimen?” I asked. “Dad, help me out here.”
He sat in his favorite chair on the other side of the end table and peeked his eyes over the top of the newspaper he was reading. Besides the TV, the only light in the room was the lamp switched on between us. “She has a point, Diane. How can you even eat that? Salt crunching between your teeth…. It’s disgusting.”
Mom threw her hands up in defeat. “All right! Fine. Make your own bowl. This one’s mine. Keep your grubby hands out of it.”
I looked back to my dad. “You’re both terrible at watching scary movies. Dad, seriously. Put the paper down and turn off the lamp. You can’t get scared with the lights on.”
“Who says we want to get scared?” he asked, giving me a serious look.
“Why else would you want to watch a scary movie? Not for the gore, I hope.” I grimaced. “Then I’d really worry about you.”
He laughed. “No need to worry. You know how weak my stomach is.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a shadow passing by the window outside. I squinted curiously and stood, watching to see if the shadow appeared in the next window. In a few seconds, it did.
“I’ll be right back,” I said distantly and moved toward the front door. I turned the knob and pushed open the heavy door, peering into darkness. Crickets chirped and I heard tires on the road a few houses down. Across the large, wooded lawn, my closest neighbor’s house was lit up.
Other than the usual, there was nothing outside.
Certain I’d just imagined what I’d seen, I went back inside and closed the door behind me. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the winged man standing in the living room between my parents.
I cried out, but my parents didn’t seem to notice him or me. I ran to them, darting around a column that broke my line of sight. When I passed the column, I saw that the man had vanished. I slid to a stop and whirled around, searching for him. That’s when he reappeared, standing only a few feet from me in the kitchen. I gasped and jumped back into the counter bar, nearly knocking over a stool. I caught my balance with a hand on the counter and stared at the man. He said nothing, but only watched me in return, and after a moment, I remembered his face.
He looked different—handsome, youthful, with bright, gleaming golden eyes beneath soft, silver hair. There were no horns or armor or bones that looked like children’s bones. His wings weren’t quite white, but more like the color of sunlight on snow, so unlike the charred and broken stalks I’d seen sprouting from his back last time we met. He appeared as he had when he was still an angel of the Lord.
“Sammael?” I asked, breathless.
He smiled, showing no teeth, only a widening split in his face that held no sincerity or emotion behind the expression. Soulless. “You remember me.”
“But you fell.” I shook my head, confused. “Am I dreaming?”
“Yes,” he replied. “And yes.”
Things began to add up. I glanced into the living room, where my parents had just been sitting, but they were gone. Of course they’d be gone now that I knew I was dreaming. My parents were dead. This night was not real. It wasn’t even a memory. Strangely though, I could still smell the popcorn.
“You’ve come into my dream,” I said, and looked back at Sammael. “Why do you look like this?”
He stepped forward, his gait unnaturally smooth and effortless. The cloak he wore flowed at the ankles of his lightweight boots. Beneath the cloak was a high-collared soldier’s jacket lined with gold fastenings and small jewels awarded to him for merit in battle. “My form in the physical world frightens you,” he replied. “I thought it would be wise to appear to you as you knew me before Azrael cast me out, because I do not wish to frighten you tonight. I wish to talk.”
“Why? You’re only going to try to destroy me and send your thugs to kill more of the people I love. I have nothing to say to you except that I will destroy you first.”
His face did not change, but his liquid gold eyes flickered. “Why bother to fight the inevitable? I know what you’re doing. Collecting your trinkets and magic spells. You have the Pentalpha ring, this my spies have warned me of, but do not make the mistake of believing that since you possess it, I cannot take it. I will find you, Gabriel.”
“You’ll be too late.”
“You’re wrong in believing that you can defeat me once you ascend,” he said. “But at least you admit that your human body is a weakness.”
“It’s not a weakness,” I shot back, gritting my teeth. I wanted to lunge for him, but it would be pointless to attack him in a dream. “This body just needs more power. I can’t beat you as just a human girl or just an archangel, but combined? I will make deli slices out of you. You’re afraid of the power my human soul will add to my unbound archangel strength. You know that’s true, otherwise you wouldn’t be here trying to scare me into giving up. I won’t give up. That’s something you should know too. Whatever you’re here to do, tempt me to the dark side, or whatever—it won’t work.”
He grew closer to me, leaning over me, and his nose brushed my neck, inhaling slowly. “I’m not here to seduce you with flesh,” he said, his breath hot against my skin. “I can offer you what you want, the very thing your existence depends on: power.”
“Everything I have in me and everything I will gain I will use to destroy you.”
He drew the backs of his fingers along the line of my jaw, but the feather-soft touch only felt like the brushing of flies’ wings against my skin. I shivered in disgust. “You won’t want to,” he crooned into my ear. “Not after you’ve had a taste of what I can offer you.”
“You’re right,” I chirped. “I’ll probably barf. I’m getting indigestion just thinking about it.”
Sammael’s face hardened and his golden eyes blazed with fire. “Do you think this is a game, Gabriel?”
I glared at him, grinding my teeth together. “I absolutely do not.”
He seemed to soften then, but it was false and momentary, like dirt turned to mud in the rain. “I can smell your soul. I can smell it like infection in a wound. When I take it, you will be purified.”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, unwilling to move and to show my fear of him. “My soul has given me a sense of self, made me unique from everyone else. Don’t pretend that isn’t what you’ve always wanted.”
He circled me, laughing. “A soul, Gabriel?”
“An identity,” I corrected. “That’s why you turned your back on Heaven. That’s why all of the Fallen did. You were tired of being a mindless drone, a soldier who performed his duties and was never allowed to dream. You want your existence to mean something even now. Being human has given me a chance to really live instead of just survive. It’s not enough just to exist.”
He became quiet, his gaze studying me from head to toe. “Are you admitting your sympathies for the Fallen?”
“Yes,” I said. “In a way. But you turned your longing into hatred, and instead of freedom, you only found bloodshed and misery and imprisonment in Hell. That’s all you’ll ever have. I feel sorry for you.”
He lifted a hand and his long, slender fingers cupped my chin, lifting my face to his. “Do you honestly believe that you’ve found freedom on Earth, that bein
g trapped in this limited mortal body makes you human?”
“Not just freedom,” I said. “I have a chance to live here. Freedom isn’t just about getting to make your own choices. It’s about getting to enjoy the life you’re given, to live life to the fullest. That’s the beauty of mortality, of what makes someone human. Time is treasured. The eternal…all they have is time.”
“What’s beautiful about mortality?” he asked. “You, Gabriel, a mighty archangel, stripped of your true power. A lesser thing. You live, you die, you live, you die. An endless cycle of violence and pain and suffering. There is nothing ultimate about your death, which is mortality at its intrinsic sense. Human souls go to Heaven or to Hell, but your soul—this shriveled thing you cling to so desperately—is shoved right back into your body and you’re forced to do it all over again. You think that you’re free? You’re a slave to this mortal shell.”
I swallowed hard and gritted my teeth. “At least I’m not hollow like you are.”
Sammael stood straight, staring down at me calmly as though he were unaffected. As I considered the shadow of truth in his words, I broke. Just a small crack, but it was enough to let a tear roll down my cheek and pool into the corner of my mouth.
“Why do you hate them so much?” I asked in a tiny voice, my lips trembling.
“They disgust me,” he replied, revulsion rolling on his tongue. “Earthly, living creatures with their feeding, bleeding, lusting. Pure beings like you—your angelic form, that is—and I, we require nothing like the breath and blood these impuissant life-forms depend on. I don’t know how you can tolerate that decaying cage of a body. From the moment you are born, you are already dying. Can’t you smell the rot?”
I shook my head, confused. “You hate them because they are alive?”
“Life-forms are impure,” he said. “We angels are older than life itself, the first beings made from nothingness and given absolute power. We have no limits. But here you are consorting with these hybrid mongrel reapers. I can smell him on you. I can’t articulate how disappointed I am in you. Come back to us, Sister. You can still reclaim your grace and I won’t kill you. Heaven will fall and Lucifer will rise. Michael, Rafael, all of our brothers and sisters will die, but it is necessary for the purification. They are too loyal to God and his human creations to be swayed. Gabriel, my sister, help me cleanse the universe of the poisoning life and restore the dominion of angels.”