Sins of the Angels (37 page)

Splinters of ice shot through Alex's heart.

She tried to swallow, but too great a lump sat in the way.

For what felt like an eternity, she stood, unable to look in the direction Jen indicated. Unable to move. Unable to think. Incapable of reacting. At last her hand crept toward the light switch beside the door and flicked it upward. She blinked against the brightness and then, finally, looked at the bed where Nina still slept, her body a lump under the covers, identifiable only by her long, dark hair splayed across the pillow. Her gaze shifted a fraction to the right, to
him
.

Caim.

Lounging beside her niece, torso propped against the headboard, feet stretched out comfortably, hands tucked behind his head. Looking every inch like he belonged there. Looking so much like Aramael that Alex hesitated. Doubted.

Until he smiled.

Until his eyes turned from gray to obsidian, and he reached out a hand to stroke Nina's hair, and Alex saw the ragged, bloody place where a fingernail had been ripped from its bed. In the space of a single, ponderous heartbeat, a dozen thoughts flashed through her mind. A dozen certainties.

Aramael's hand, stretched out to touch her face only a short time ago, had been marred by no such blemish.

A claw, the only physical evidence they'd found at any of the scenes, still lacked identification.

A claw, broken from the hand of a demon, might leave behind a mark such as this.

And if any doubt remained, there, tucked behind him, were his wings. Unkempt, yellowed, and lacking in any of the glory of Aramael's—but wings nonetheless.

Horror replaced Alex's doubt. Turned to terror. Became a cop's instinctive bid to protect the vulnerable—and to survive. With fingers numbed by fear, she pulled the gun from behind her back and trained it on Caim's chest. She had no misconceptions that a bullet would stop him, but maybe she could slow him down enough to get Nina and Jen to safety—

Caim laughed. A loud, genuinely amused laugh. “Seriously?” he asked. “Haven't you learned anything about us yet? Or are you really as stupid as the rest of them?”

The gun wavered in Alex's hand. She gritted her teeth and steadied it through sheer force of will. Demon or no demon, he was still scum. “Get the fuck away from my niece, you son of a bitch!”

“Son of a bitch? Me?” Caim chuckled again, letting a lock of Nina's hair slide through his fingers. “You have it wrong, Naphil. I'm just a lowly Fallen Angel. Now,
he
, on the other hand”—he jutted his chin in her direction—“he truly does qualify for the title.”

Seth's hand closed over the gun in Alex's hand and pushed it down to her side. “Get behind me,” he ordered. “Now.”

“Listen and she dies, Naphil.” Caim's hand snaked out and lifted Nina, limp as a rag doll, upright by her hair. All trace of amusement had disappeared and his eyes glittered with a cold, bright light.

Seth raised his left hand, palm toward the bed, and Alex's skin prickled under the energy building around him. Caim pulled back Nina's head to expose her throat and curved his other hand across the pale skin there.

“What if you're not fast enough, Appointed? Or strong enough? What if you can't hold me until the Power arrives and the girl dies and I was right all along?”

The fingers of Seth's extended hand flexed wide.

Jen fell to her knees on the carpet, her shriek turning from shrill to muffled as she slapped a hand over her own mouth. Alex launched herself at Seth's arm.

“Seth, no!”

“Listen to her, Seth.” A single nail on Caim's hand had grown and turned black and polished and curved. It pierced the fragile skin of Nina's throat, drawing a tiny trickle of blood. Malevolent black eyes held Alex's without wavering. “You know, don't you, Naphil? You know there's no way out of this, that someone will give up their life to me today.”

Alex felt Seth's arm contract under her hold. She gripped tighter. Nodded. “I know.”

“Then it's all about choices, isn't it? Her”—Caim looked down at Nina with an almost tender adulation, and then lifted his gaze to Alex again—“or you. Free will's a bitch, isn't it?”

Alex stared at him for a long moment, searching for any hint of uncertainty. Found only a cornered animal made unpredictable by desperation. Caim might want Aramael's defeat more than his own return to Heaven, but with every passing second, they risked him changing his mind and deciding to go with the sure thing he already held in his hands.

Which would open the door to a hundred thousand others like him, each seeking his or her own Naphil fast track to Heaven. A hundred thousand serial killers, give or take, unleashed on Earth.

She turned to Seth. “If you try anything, she'll be dead before you blink,” she whispered. “You know that.”

“And if I leave you with him,” he growled, “we risk Aramael's return. You know
that
.”

“Not if you find another Power to stop him.”

“Another Power will go right through you, Alex. Without hesitation.”

“I know.”

She waited for Seth to sift through to the truth she had already reached. Watched comprehension turn to denial in his gaze, then darken to bleak acceptance.

“Caim is powerful,” he said quietly. “He can make you call out to Aramael, to summon him. What if I can't move fast enough?”

Alex steeled herself not to flinch. “We have to try. There's no other choice. Get Jen and Nina out of the house and then go,” she said. “I'll hold out as long as I can.”

She pulled her sister up from the floor and shoved her toward the door, away from the chance of an embrace she wasn't sure she could end. “Go,” she said. “Seth will bring Nina.”

Beyond argument, Jen stumbled through the doorway, her expression dazed. Shell-shocked.

Alex met Seth's grave gaze one last time and then turned to face Caim.

“Me,” she said. “You can have me.”

Caim moved faster than Alex could blink, depositing Nina in a heap on the floor at Seth's feet and grasping Alex by the throat so tightly that the very air itself scraped her windpipe. Dragging her away from the others, he shoved her against the wall, ragged wings outspread behind him. Then he looked over his shoulder at Seth and lifted his chin in defiance. “Do what you're thinking of doing and she dies before you can draw breath. Now leave us.”

Alex met Seth's helpless fury and fought down the wave of panic that threatened to swamp her, to make her change her mind and beg for help. This was the only way, she reminded herself. All they could do now was prevent Aramael from triggering the unthinkable.

“Go,” she croaked. “Don't let him win.”

Not until she heard the front door close and the car start did Alex breathe easily again. Or as easily as she could with Caim's fingers digging into her throat. She tried to pull back from his grip a little, but stopped when his nails pressed harder.

His nails—or his claws?

His face swam into focus through tears of pain.

“Now, Naphil, before Seth is able to put your little plan into motion—” He paused at her involuntary start. “What, you didn't think I could hear you?”

His face moved closer, until his cheek rested against hers. Until his lips moved against her ear, his breath hot and moist. “You truly have no idea the power you're dealing with, have you? Your puny mortal brain just can't stretch far enough to grasp what lies outside you, and anything of the divine in you is long gone, too diluted to make any difference. So what is it that he sees in you, then?”

Alex pressed her lips together, refusing to answer. Or to release the agony building in her throat. The claws pressed a little harder and she felt one pierce the skin.

“Did you know that I loved someone once?” Caim asked softly. “Not just someone. My soulmate. She didn't follow when I left the One, and when I tried to return to her, Aramael stopped me. I lost her forever because of him.”

Alex swallowed against his grip. She could think of nothing more bizarre than discussing a demon's love life right now, but she needed to keep him talking. Needed to give Seth time to find another Power. “But I thought soulmates were taken from all angels,” she rasped. “Even if you return, she won't remember you.”

“But I would finally find the same peace that she has.” His face twisted. “Nearly five thousand years I have lived with the memory of her loss. Five thousand years of feeling my soul slowly bleed to death, because my brother denied my return. Denied my cleansing.”

Alex tugged in vain at Caim's hand and struggled for air. She willed herself not to black out. Not yet. “I'm sure he didn't mean—”

His hand left her throat, wrapped into her hair, and threw her to the floor. Her head cracked against a baseboard and explosions of light and fire went off inside her skull. She clenched her teeth against the wave of nausea that washed through her and struggled to sit up. A foot shoved into her face, sending her to the floor a second time. Her nose shattered with an audible crack and a fresh jolt of agony ripped through her. She gagged on the blood flooding her throat and remained down, staring up at her captor through the tears streaming from her eyes.

Caim stooped and grasped her chin in a cruel grip, a yellowed feather dropping from a wing and brushing against her cheek in its descent to the floor.

“Never, ever think that your angel is any less merciless than the one he serves, Naphil,” he grated. “He knew. He knew, and he told me my memories would be just punishment. Told me I deserved to suffer for my actions against the One.” His eyes became like chips of black ice. “He knew, and now he will know more. He will understand what he sentenced me to with his betrayal.”

He grasped her hair again and hoisted her to her feet as if she had no weight, no substance. Then he slipped behind her, one hand at her throat, the other resting over her heart. “Call him,” he commanded. “I want him to see you die.”

“I can't—”

He jerked her against him. “Call him.”

“I don't know how.”

“Say his name!”

Alex thought of the torment she had glimpsed in gray, turbulent eyes during unguarded moments. Thought about the war that might be triggered by the pain of a Power's loss, and what new level of agony would be added to that pain if he had to witness that loss. Knew that she could not allow that to happen. Would not.

“No,” she whispered.
Please let Seth have found someone. Please let him be on his way back . . . please.

“The Appointed was right, you know. I can make you.”

Caim's voice had roughened and the texture of his skin against hers had changed. Alex did not want to know why. She stood tall, closed her eyes, and braced for the worst.

“No,” she said. “You can't.”

“Poor, naïve mortal,” Caim whispered in her ear. “You really don't understand, do you?”

Three distinct, icy-cold points dug into Alex's chest over her heart and her eyes flew open. Heat followed the cold, as the points raked across her, shallow at first and then deepening, gouging, tearing through tissue and bone alike. Agony pierced through to the very core of her sanity. The next time Caim's voice growled its command to call Aramael, she did so—obediently, instinctively, mindlessly.

 

ARAMAEL STOOD AT
the edge of a roof, thirty-four stories above the streets, and watched the city come to life below him. Hundreds of thousands of mortals beginning their day, going about their business, all oblivious to the drama playing out in their midst.

Oblivious to an angel's torment.

He raised his head and glowered at the morning sky. Damn it to hell and back, how he ached to be with her. Ached for this hunt to be over, so he could return to her. Hold her, feel her presence mingle with his, discover how complete the melding of their energies might be.

His mouth twisted. But as much as he desired the end of this hunt, he dreaded it, too. It would only be a matter of time before he was cleansed as the others had been; before his recognition of a soulmate was removed from him and she became nothing more than a distant memory. There, but without context. Without meaning.

Aramael bit back an oath and he turned to pace the roofline. Froze in mid-swivel. His head snapped up and he stared out at the sunrise, focused, rigid, waiting. A long moment slid by, then another. He frowned. He was sure he'd felt—yes. There. A ripple along the edge of his consciousness. The stirring of an awareness that he'd almost missed amid the chaos of his thoughts. An awareness he'd almost forgotten, it seemed so long since he'd felt it.

Caim.

Savage exhilaration filled him. Head high, he tensed, centered himself, willed himself to stillness. Caim's energy surged through the air, bold, vile, and entirely traceable as he transitioned to his demon side. Sudden thunder rolled overhead, a low, ominous growl that signaled Caim's interference in a universe he had no business toying with. The city's sounds faded into the background. The fire of the hunt licked along Aramael's veins, kindling the cold rage he carried in him. The rage that
was
him.

Satisfaction snarled through his center.

But on the verge of increasing his energy vibration to give chase, he went still. Something was wrong. He fought back the fury, struggled to control the instinct that would overtake him. No, not wrong. Missing. His center turned to ice.

Alex.

He could feel Caim, but where the hell was Alex?