Sins of the Angels (40 page)

The Highest's sheer conceit defied description. Defied understanding. Aramael's wings strained to extend, to respond to his need for power, but the Archangels' bindings held fast. He could do nothing. He would be exiled to Limbo knowing what Mittron was, knowing what he planned, and be completely helpless to do anything about it.

“Someone will find out,” he told the Highest. “Someone will stop you.”

“No one dares move against the Highest Seraph, Aramael. Except you, perhaps, and you will be safely removed from any interference. And now”—he waved the paper he held under Aramael's nose—“it is time.”

Aramael stared at the parchment. A decree. He saw the seal on it. “That's—”

“The One's mark. Yes. She took a special interest in your situation.” Mittron's voice was casual, but a tenseness around his eyes told Aramael the Highest wasn't as relaxed about this as he wished to portray. He jiggled the paper again. “Take it.”

The moment the document touched Aramael's skin, it burned its intent into his soul. Marked him forever as having broken faith with the One. Branded him as Fallen.

His stomach heaved and his hands shook. Fallen. He hadn't thought of it that way. Hadn't stopped to consider that, in choosing to betray the One's trust, he would follow in the path of those he had existed to hunt.

But there was more. He forced himself to look at the jumbled words on the page, to bring them into focus. Bypassed the phrase about his sins. Found the one about his sentence. Stared. Blinked. Read it a second time, and then a third. He looked to the Highest for confirmation. “Not Limbo?” he asked. “Just cast out? Where am I to go?”

“Unless you choose to throw yourself on Lucifer's mercy—and given your track record with his followers, I wouldn't recommend doing so—you will spend your eternity in the mortal realm. You will have no access to Heaven or anyone in it. No connection to the One. And—”

Mittron hesitated, not out of compassion, Aramael thought, but a desire to draw this out as much as possible. And to draw as much pleasure from it as he could.

“What?” he demanded bitterly. “What more can there possibly be?”

The Highest looked pensive. “I must be honest with you, Power. The very qualities for which I chose you as my pawn worry me now. Your instability makes it difficult to predict what you might do if I leave you to your own devices. Even without a connection to any of this realm, you might still do damage. I think it best that I strip you of your powers, as well.”

Aramael would never have imagined himself capable of destroying a second life, but if he'd been able to spread his wings and access his powers just then, been able to channel the rage that filled him, he didn't think Mittron would have survived. The careful distance Mittron maintained from him said the Highest knew it.

“Only the One can remove an angel's powers,” Aramael growled through clenched teeth.

“Given the number of your infractions on this last assignment, she has left it to me to decide whether or not you can be trusted to retain them. I find you cannot.”

Mittron strolled to his desk, picked up a second parchment, and returned. Aramael stared at the document and the seal stamped upon it. He tensed, his wings aching with the strain of trying to break free. An angel, stripped of his powers, cast into the mortal realm for eternity. Could there be any worse punishment?

He felt Mittron's anticipation. The Highest expected him to plead for mercy, he realized. Wanted him to beg. His throat closed against the urge to do just that.

Never.

The mortals managed to survive without divine powers. He would learn to do the same. And he'd have all of eternity in which to do so.

Head high, jaw clenched in defiance, he stretched out his hands and snatched the parchment from Mittron's grasp. He felt its impact immediately. Felt it snake through him, an inferno burning in its wake. He tried to release the paper, but it clung to his open palm. Melded with him. Became him. Then, when he didn't think he could endure a minute more, it fluttered to the floor. The internal fire disappeared, leaving cold emptiness wherever it had touched. Nothingness where there had once been a great energy.

The bonds holding his wings and hands fell away.

Mittron strode to the door and pulled it open to readmit the Archangels. “We're done,” he said. “You may take him.”

Aramael swayed under the weight of his new weakness, but stayed on his feet. He would
not
fall before Mittron, he told himself fiercely. Wouldn't so much as stumble. Straightening his shoulders and lifting his head, he went to meet the Archangels.

But in brushing past the Highest, he felt fingers burrow into the feathers of a wing. He stiffened as the Seraph stepped behind him and grasped one wing in each hand.

“I almost forgot these. With no power to hide them anymore, I'm afraid you won't be able to keep them.” Mittron's fingers dug in cruelly and he leaned close, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Nor, I'm afraid, will you keep your awareness of your soulmate. She turned out to be responsible in great part for that unpredictability of yours going beyond what I'd expected. I think you'll be safer without her.”

Aramael stiffened, but the Highest's grip prevented him from turning. He tried to shake it off, but his wings barely moved in response, powerless to rid him of the traitor on his back. Mittron's will flowed into him and the exquisite awareness of Alex faltered, and then faded by slow degrees, first into nothing, and then into less than nothing. Until he could remember her, but no longer feel her. Until the emptiness that had begun with his fall, with his turn away from the One, became complete.

Until he stood, depleted and beaten and more barren than any being should ever be, and felt his wings ripped from his body.

Agony drove him to his knees. Pure and physical and absolute, it wrenched a guttural roar from a place so profound and dark that he hadn't known its existence. Filled his head, his chest, his body with its force. Finally spent itself in a lack of air, leaving him gasping. Shaking. Hating.

He dug his fingers into his thighs, willing himself back to control, back to his feet. But before he could summon the strength needed, he heard Mittron's order above his head.

“Take him,” the Highest said. “Anywhere will do.”

Once again, cold, talonlike hands lifted Aramael from the floor.

She knew. One look at the shadows darkening her silver eyes and Seth was certain she knew. He steeled himself against the urge to confess his doubts and beg her forgiveness. Calmed his thoughts. She couldn't know, because he had only toyed with an idea. Wondered at it.

Had no intention of following through on it.

He swallowed. “One.”

The slender, silver-haired female brushed the dirt from her hands and looked with satisfaction at the potted plants on the greenhouse table. Then she smiled wistfully. “I should have stuck with plants,” she said. “They're a great deal less trouble.”

Seth made himself return the smile. “You'd miss the challenge.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed and looked up again. “Are you ready, then?”

Seth slid his hands into his pockets and worked to control his features. “As ready as I can ever be, I suppose.”

“Do you have any questions?”

He thought about all that had been allowed to pass, about the secret Mittron had hinted at, about the inexplicable and confusing feelings he had for a mortal. About how he could know and accept his destiny for thousands of years, only to falter now. About his promise to Alex to intervene on Aramael's behalf.

“No,” he answered. “No questions.”

The One glanced down at the pockets that hid his clenched fists. He thought she might comment, might probe further, but after a moment she turned away to fill another pot with soil.

“You understand that I may not interfere with you once this is done,” she said. “No communication of any kind. That was the agreement.”

“I understand.”

“Then as soon as things are finalized, we will proceed according to schedule.”

Seth's fists tightened. “You're certain this will work? That Lucifer will honor the agreement?”

A tiny smile curved the One's mouth. “I'm very certain of Lucifer.”

He flinched, hearing a message for himself in her words. Or maybe it was his guilt speaking. To cover his reaction, he cleared his throat. “Will you still have Mittron oversee the transition?”

“Unless you have an objection.”

“No. No objection.” Seth resisted the desire to withdraw his hands from his pockets and wipe his palms dry. “I should go.”

The One gave him a long, searching look. “So much rests on your shoulders, Seth. You know you have the right to refuse this task we have set you, that you may choose to remain here instead. You need only say.”

Seth stared at her, stunned. How much had it cost her to make that offer, knowing the outcome if he abdicated his destiny? Sudden, fierce love gripped him, filling him with determination. He stepped forward and grasped the One's hands in his own, ignoring the dirt that soiled them both. “I will fulfill the destiny you have set for me, One. And I will make my choice with the love and compassion you have taught me. I promise.”

For the instant it took to draw a single, quick breath, sadness hollowed his mother's eyes. Then Seth blinked and the look was gone, replaced by gentleness. Calm. The One returned the squeeze on his fingers.

“You will do everything you must, my son. I have never doubted that.”

Seth walked out of the greenhouse, holding fast to his certainty that he would keep his word. Clinging to it with both hands.

Believing it even as he prepared to lie again to Alex.

 

THE ONE WATCHED
the Appointed's departure from the greenhouse and then turned. “You heard?” she asked a row of tall plants.

Verchiel stepped from behind the greenery, hands tucked into her robe. “I did.”

“You don't look happy.”

“Mittron, One? Are you certain he can be trusted?”

“I am certain the decision is mine.”

Verchiel went pale. “Of course. I only meant—”

“I know what you meant, Verchiel, but you need to believe that what I do, I do with good reason.” The One quirked an eyebrow. “I think this might be where faith comes in.”

“Of course,” the Dominion said again. She remained quiet for a moment, her internal struggle obvious, and then straightened her shoulders. “Forgive me, One, but Seth is your son, and after all I've told you about the Highest—if you think he might do something—”

“I have spoken, Dominion.”

“But should we not at least assign a Guard—?”

“I
said
I have spoken.”

Verchiel flinched as if she had been struck, and bowed her head. “Yes, One.”

“Then you have your instructions. Monitor the Highest and advise me when preparations are complete. And, Verchiel—whatever happens, remember this conversation. Remember that, above all else, I demand faith from my angels. Not just trust.”

The One waited until Verchiel had departed the greenhouse before she sagged against the potting bench and raised hand to chest. She thought of what she had set in motion, what she could still stop now but wouldn't, because it needed to be. Should have been thousands of years before. Then she closed her eyes and squeezed her hand into a fist over a heart heavy with grief and guilt.

“Forgive me, my son.”

 

“
DID YOU EVEN
try?” Alex asked.

She stared out her sister's newly repaired living room window at a cat prowling through the neighbor's flower bed. Jen had insisted on taking her in after the fire—Alex would have preferred the privacy of a hotel, but hadn't had the strength to argue. It hadn't been as bad as she'd expected, living here. Jen seemed to sense that Alex needed to be left alone to heal, and hadn't asked any of the million questions she had to have. Or maybe Jen was just too busy trying to put her daughter's mind back together again to worry about her sister's mental state.

Seth said nothing, but Alex didn't need his words to hear his truth.

Her arms cradled her belly, protecting her from the future looming in the face of that truth. A future without Aramael, without the chance to even say good-bye. A band of iron settled around her heart, tight enough to make a tiny stab of pain the companion to each beat. She put a hand to her throat and traced the wound healing there, then the ones across her chest. Bruised ribs protested the breath she drew. She turned to face Seth. “So that's it, then. It's all over.”

Seth hesitated.

“I meant my part in this,” she said.

“Yes. Your part is over.” Seth regarded her with a compassion that made tears threaten. “Will you be all right?”

“Do I have any choice?” Alex grimaced at the bitter note in her voice. She ran a hand through her hair, careful to avoid the tender lump that remained from her run-in with Caim. Restlessly, she moved away from the window. “I'm sorry,” she muttered. “I know none of this is your fault—it's just so . . .”

“Unfair?”

“Wrong.”

Seth stood up from the sofa and tucked his hands into his front pockets in a gesture shockingly reminiscent of Aramael. Alex swallowed a lump in her throat and turned away from him.

“Try to remember that it could have been much worse for him, Alex. Limbo would have destroyed him. At least this way he has a chance at a semblance of life.”