Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (20 page)

“You like it here,” Camille commented, shifting the books.

“Libraries comfort me.”

“I meant the monastery as a whole. Do you miss your convent?”

Maya moved farther down the shelf and stretched on her tiptoes to pull down more books. “I do. Most Nephilim girls choose the sisterhood as a way out, to escape marriage.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Not for some, I’m sure. But many don’t get to pick who they marry. The pressure to start a family is really intense. Before the war, when we were hunted and damned,” at this, Maya shot Camille a pointed glare, “things were hard. We were only focused on surviving the next day and replenishing our numbers. Our magic faded more and more. We were losing the very thing that had made us special in the beginning. I didn’t want that for myself. The Sisters of Merciful Light was more than just an escape for me. I liked the order of things, the simplicity. They were focused less on the day-to-day survival and more on the mythology and magic of who we are as a species. You could forget what year it was sometimes and just lose yourself to the history of it all. I loved that.” Maya cleared her throat as if she’d grown uncomfortable sharing all that she had with Camille. “So yeah. I miss it.”

“So isn’t stealing against your religion?” Camille asked as Maya added more and more books. She’d pulled out so many that she started wedging them underneath her own arms.

“I’m an atheist.”

Camille’s smirk fell away. She wasn’t surprised often. “Uh, what?”

“I don’t believe in a god. I believe in angels’ existence, obviously. But I don’t think you are meant to be divine, blessed creatures of the Light or whatever. I think we all have a purpose here and none is more holy than the other.”

“Really?”

“Why else would the war have happened if we weren’t alone? How could some creator let that happen amongst his own angels? Does that make sense to you?”

“I don’t care what makes sense. I do what I’m supposed to when I’m supposed to do it.”

“You never question things? You’ve never asked Michaela who made her? Who made you?” Maya stopped pulling down books and faced Camille fully.

“You humans—”

“Nephilim.”

“Whatever. You
people
just need the comfort of answers. It’s not the truth you care about but the comfort. But my entire existence has been the opposite of comfort. And I’ve learned that answers only bring about more problems. So I don’t ask because I don’t want to know. I keep my mouth shut and do my job.”

“Then why are you down here? I know this isn’t really doing your job. You left Heaven to be with Clark.”

“Why did you leave the convent to come here?”

“I came here to fix things. To make things right for myself. I didn’t want to marry someone I didn’t love.”

Camille cocked a brow at the Nephil. She didn’t want to say out loud that Maya’s reason was the same as hers. She’d served her time in Heaven. Now she could make her own happiness elsewhere. It just so happened to be with Clark—even if she hadn’t told him yet.

At Camille’s silence, Maya turned back to the books, her eyes roaming over the shelves to see if she’d missed anything. “We should probably cause some damage so they won’t notice what’s missing right away.”

Shuffling the books in her arms, Camille walked over to the nearest shelf, her thoughts still on this new revelation about Maya. It surprised her, to be honest, that Maya could have an opinion of something that was so different and unconventional in their times. The Nephilim were deeply, fanatically religious. Camille grudgingly admitted that it made her like Maya a little bit more.

She didn’t like to be wrong about people. To take out her frustration, she kicked the bookshelf with a little more force than needed. The shelf wobbled before crashing down, and, like dominoes, it knocked into the next shelf, which toppled over and hit the next. By the time Camille was back at a plain side window that Maya stood beside, the room was filled with bangs and crashes, ancient books slapping onto the floor and wood heaving and cracking. The sound of destruction soothed her soul.

With the toe of her boot, she kicked through the simple, single-paned glass window. The library was on the first floor of the compound, so she and Maya simply stepped through and hurried around the back edge of the compound, their rushed steps made awkward by the load they carried. Camille listened closely for the riot, but things were quiet on the opposite side of the massive building. She picked up only a few shouts and the misplaced sound of a broken machine whirring and clicking.

They hurried across the compound’s quad, crossing from one wing to the other and rounding the edge of the west wing. They emerged next to the fields and greenhouses where Clark and Zarachiel had spent most of their days and evenings before the arrest. Camille led Maya through a side door. The cramped and cluttered kitchen had long ago been turned into a storage room of sorts for the compound’s farming efforts. Dirt littered the floor and spilled off the surfaces. Tools lined one wall, while heaps of plastic planters made a towering stack in another corner. It smelled like the earth. Camille wrinkled her nose and looked around.

“We should stash the books in here in case the Descendants search rooms for stolen goods.”

“But I thought we needed these to perform an exorcism on Clark?”

“We’ll have to come back for them. If we break Clark out, we need to move fast from here. I can always fly back and pick them up.”

“Oh, good idea,” Maya said. “What about over there?”

She pointed to pile of clay pots that were mostly cracked or falling apart. With a nod, Camille followed her over and they wedged the books into a pot in the middle of the stack. Someone would have to tear the place apart to find them, and Camille doubted there would be much time for a thorough search after the damage caused by the riot.

“Let’s go see about Clark,” Camille said. In truth, she was worried about leaving the books behind if they did get the chance to break Clark out, but she couldn’t carry the books, Clark, and Maya while she was flying away.

“We better hurry.” Maya was the first out of the room, heading in the direction of the dungeon’s stairs.

“He might be different,” Camille said when she caught up to Maya. “Not himself, I mean.”

“Because of the demon. I get it.”

“He could be mean,” Camille added, wondering why in the hell she felt the need to warn Maya. But maybe it had to do with all she’d learned about the Nephil in the monastery. Maybe—and it was a horrible thought—but maybe Camille was starting to understand Maya and her motivations for coming to the Descendants. Maybe it really wasn’t about Clark, like Camille had feared.

Putting her hands on her narrow hips, Maya drew to a stop and looked at Camille. “I’m not a little girl, you know. I look like one because I’m small and younger than everyone else, but I’m not naive. I get it. I understand what happened to him.”

The struggles Maya had lived through weren’t hard to see. Being a Nephil in this world couldn’t have been easy. They’d been persecuted almost their entire existence by the angels. But there wasn’t anything Camille could do about that either, so she didn’t waste any time feeling guilty over it.

“Fine. Let’s go then.”

There was only one way into the dungeon, and they had to pass by a sliver of the damage the refugees had caused on the first floor. All the windows were broken, and doors had been hacked apart. Precious paintings had been torn off the walls and ripped into curling bits of confetti, like a party had gotten too rowdy. Stray dogs scampered throughout the wreckage, snuffling for bits of food. Torches had been pulled off the walls, leaving gaping holes of crumbling stone, and a large ceiling light had been torn down, so that it hung crookedly by only a few wires. But this was only the corner of the first floor, and it likely hadn’t been the focus of the refugees’ attack since there wasn’t food or water nearby. Camille couldn’t imagine what had happened in the heart of the compound.

Angels could cause a lot of destruction, but the humans weren’t far behind.

There wasn’t a guard posted at the top of the stairs, nor was there one at the bottom when Camille and Maya wove their way down the rounded staircase into the damp dungeon. The place was ancient, built with the earliest parts of the compound centuries before. The level was empty save for Clark, who stood at the front of his cell, pressing his face against the bars to peer out.

“Dudes!” he called when he saw them. He’d apparently been yelling a lot, because his voice rasped as he said the word. “What in the flying shitsticks is going on out there?”

Camille’s shoulders eased as she walked over to the cell; he was just Clark right then. Maya was the first to the bars, answering, “A riot broke out. The refugees attacked the compound. We don’t know all the damage yet.”

“God bless America, are you serious? Why did they do that?”

“There were rumors of a food and water shortage, and the Descendants haven’t done anything about them,” Camille said. She examined the bars and the lock mechanism on the door. Testing the strength of the metal, she pulled and twisted. But the Descendants had built the holding cells with angels in mind; it was strong, stronger than Camille, which meant she needed something more than her bare hands to get Clark out…like a key. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Let me guess. You were going to break me out.”

“That was the plan.”

Clark’s brows rose, like he’d just remembered something. Camille scowled—that look was never good. “Actually, about the plan. I talked to Gabriel.” Clark held up his hands, cutting off Camille’s question before she could ask it. “He channeled one of my dreams.”

“What did he say?” Camille asked.

“Channeling? As in he took over your dream? That’s so cool!” Maya grinned.

“I know, right?” Clark grinned back. “But he said that he has some angels out looking for Lucifer. That it was safer for me inside here.”

“So we let the Descendants do an exorcism?”

“If that’s in their plans. They might just take me straight to the noose.”

Camille stepped forward and wrapped her hand around Clark’s. She felt the chill that permeated his body. His worried blue eyes met her own. “That won’t happen,” she said quietly. “We’ll get you out before.”

“This wasn’t a complete bust though,” Maya spoke up. Camille stepped back from the bars, forcing air down her lungs to ease the pain in her throat. “We broke into the monastery and stole some books on exorcisms.”

“You stole?” Clark seemed as surprised as Camille was.

“She’s an atheist,” Camille supplied.

“Well, hot damn. That’s different.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “It’s not that big of a deal, you two.”

Clark’s eyes widened, his brows inching up his forehead. He pointed to Camille. “Then how do you explain her? Evolution from a…” he regarded Camille, wrinkling his nose in thought, “…a bat?”

“Hey!” Camille complained.

Maya shrugged. “I think—”

But she didn’t get to finish her thought. Guards wearing the special Descendant police force badge rushed down the stairs. They screeched to a halt when they saw Camille and Maya standing casually in front of Clark’s cell. More than a few hands went to their weapons.

“Hey, guys. I missed you all,” Clark said with a friendly nod.

Bailey strode between the guards and stopped a few strides from Camille, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. “What are you doing down here?”

Camille shrugged. “We just came for a visit.”

“A visit,” Bailey said, mouth pursing. He cocked a brow in suspicion.

“We’re just chillin’, man. Nothing fishy,” Clark leaned against the bars. “Hey, can I get some food? I missed lunch.”

“Food is going to be a little hard to come by right now,” Bailey said.

“The riot?” Camille asked.

“Yes. The kitchens and storage rooms were compromised. Actually, now that I think about it,” Bailey said, his eyes too hard for the casual innocence in his voice, “where were you, Camille?”

“Asleep,” Camille said, just as innocently.

“She sleeps like the dead. Really.” Maya smiled sweetly.

“I assume you got the riot under control, though,” Camille added.

Leaning against the bars, she sensed Clark’s proximity to her and realized, in that moment, how much she really missed him. He’d been locked up for a week, but it felt like a month. She shifted slightly so her arm brushed his fingertips and a chill rushed down her spine. Ever so slightly, so no one would see, he ran the tip of his finger down the sensitive skin at the back of her arm.

“We did with Zarachiel’s help. The Nephilim were notably absent,” Bailey said, turning his gaze to Clark.

“Hey! What am I supposed to do about that from in here?” Clark asked.

Bailey turned back to Camille. “The attack wasn’t organized enough to do much real damage. There’s a lot to clean up, and I’m sure you could be used elsewhere.”

“Fine. Let’s go, Maya.”

Camille pushed off the bars and walked away. She didn’t look back at Clark as she left because she didn’t want the guards to see the chink in her armor. She needed their fear and respect, even if it came from intimidation and threats. The Descendants’ control over the compound was slipping; they’d shown their weakness by not controlling the refugees. Things were going to happen fast from now on, and Camille had to be prepared. The Descendants had completely lost control, and the Nephilim were going rogue. Gabriel might think the compound was safer, but he didn’t know everything. And Camille had learned that blatant trust in angels led to ruin. She’d keep an eye on things, and if she felt like Clark needed to leave, she would see to it.