Sweet Evil (15 page)

I burrowed down into the covers and tried to resume normal breathing. I heard him get into his own bed and become still.

“Kaidan?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not trying to judge. I’m just curious. Um...” I twisted the blanket in my hands. “Are you going out tonight?”

The pause was long and weighty before he said, “I don’t think I will.”

Yes!
I reined in any hopeful thoughts and feelings about what this might mean, but I could not deny the speed of the hummingbird zooming around inside of me.

“Ann?” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“It won’t bother me if you need to, you know, properly pray, however you do it.”

“Oh. Okay, thanks.” He’d caught me off guard, but I felt willing to share my private moment with him.

I felt self-conscious at first as I clasped my fingers in front of me and closed my eyes, but as I began, a peace settled over me. I thought about all I’d seen that day, and what I’d be facing tomorrow. I asked for strength of heart to face my earthly father. I begged that the Nephilim could find reason to hope. And the last wish in my heart was for Kaidan to experience love in his life, both the giving and receiving.

Once finished, I reached for the lamp switch and saw his handsome face on the pillow watching me. Warmth rushed through my limbs.

“Good night,” I whispered, and turned out the light.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

M
OURNING
H
EAVEN

I
awoke at the first crack of dawn and lay listening to Kaidan’s steady breathing as he slept. I was glad this day was finally here. I wanted to get it over with.

I crept to the bathroom and took a shower, then dressed in the nicest outfit I’d brought—khaki shorts and a button-down yellow shirt with a white tank top underneath. I tried to think positive, peaceful thoughts as I towel-dried my hair.

In the room, Kaidan was lying on his back with his hands resting on top of his stomach. He didn’t look fully awake yet.

“I ordered us some room service for breakfast.” In his sleepy state, his voice was even deeper than normal.

“Thank you,” I told him.

He watched as I sat in a chair and brushed through my wet hair, snagging light tangles as I went. I was too nervous about the day to feel self-conscious. He didn’t take his eyes off me the entire time I French-braided it.

Our breakfast came and I took two bites of a waffle. Nerves had shot my appetite, but I forced down half a glass of apple juice.

Kaidan stared out of the window at our grungy city view. I went and stood next to him.

“You’ve gotten scruffy,” I said, reaching out to run a hand across the stubble on his jaw.

He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his cheek, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again I was startled by the crushing, desperate look he gave me. And just as quickly, he was dropping my hand and turning back to the window, crossing his arms. I swallowed, confused. I started to turn away but then he spoke.

“I have something for you.”

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and when he opened it, sitting in his palm was the small, beautiful necklace of turquoise I’d admired in New Mexico. I stared in disbelief.

“I saw you looking at it and thought you liked it,” he said.

Oh, no, not the tears. Please not the tears. I blinked the stupid things away, thinking about how much I did not want to clean mascara from my face.

“Have I upset you?” he asked.

“No! I’m not upset. I’m just surprised. I can’t believe... I mean, I
love
it. Nobody’s ever given me anything like this.” I wiped hard under my eyes and then clasped the necklace around my neck.

He cursed under his breath and roughly pushed the hair from his eyes, looking away. “This was a mistake.”

“No.” I grasped his arm. “It wasn’t.”

“Don’t read into this, Anna. It would be a mistake to romanticize me.”

“I’m not. It was a nice gesture. That’s all.” I tried to reassure him, though I wasn’t certain myself.

I would deal with this torrent of emotion later. Right now I had a demon to meet.

We sat in the parking lot of the Federal Correctional Institution of Southern California. Other visitors were sitting in their cars, too, or loitering by the entrance. We hadn’t spoken within five miles of the prison, in case my father was listening. I clutched at my stomach, which contracted and growled.

He gave me a soft admonishment. “You should have eaten more.”

“I couldn’t.”

I looked at the clock; it was time.

Car doors opened and slammed shut around us. The visitor doors were unlocked.

“You’re up,” Kaidan said.

It took awhile to get through security. They had to look for the fax Patti had sent giving me permission to visit as a minor. She’d jumped through major hoops to make it happen. The guard who took my name became interested when I told him I was Jonathan LaGray’s daughter.

“First visitor Johnny LaGray’s had in seventeen years,” he stated.

Not likely
, I thought, envisioning a steady stream of visiting demon spirits scoffing at the prison’s security measures.

The guard gave me a rundown of the rules. Hugging and holding hands were fine in moderation, but the guards would be watching to make sure I didn’t pass anything to my father. He didn’t have to worry—hugs and handshakes were not on my agenda.

He explained that my father would be notified that he had a visitor, but he had the right to refuse to see me.

The other visitors and I were led into a room the size of a small cafeteria and told to sit and wait in our assigned places. Mismatched tables lined the room, surrounded by guards. I sat down in a chair as wobbly as my stomach. The room filled with murmurs of adult conversation and the high-pitched voices of children. The general atmosphere was bleak, with gray auras most prevalent.

Sounds of heavy metal doors opening and chains clanging made me panic. I worried I might get sick. Prisoners entered single file, hands cuffed in front of them, chained feet dragging, wearing orange jumpsuits. People craned their necks to see.

I recognized him at once, head shaved smooth. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. His short brown goatee from the day of my birth had grown into a long, pointed beard with a bit of gray. His badge shone a deep, dark yellow. And then I saw his eyes and remembered them from the day of my birth—small and light brown, curved downward at the corners, the same as mine.

Our matching eyes met and stayed locked as a guard marched him toward me. I saw concern and hope in his eyes, not the evil I’d feared. As he got closer, every shred of anger I’d been harboring fell from me.

He stood in front of me now, on the other side of the table, and I found myself standing, too. Both our eyes filled with moisture. Maybe it was him I needed to thank for the curse of overactive tear ducts.

The guard unlocked my father’s handcuffs, keeping his ankles shackled, and we reached out for each other across the table. His hands were warm and rough. Mine were cold from nerves, but they would thaw now.

“Have a seat, LaGray,” the guard said, and we sat, never looking away from each other. The guard left us.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. His voice was as scratchy and gruff as I recalled. “I wrote so many letters over the years,” he continued, “but it wasn’t safe to send them to you. And... I wanted you to have a chance at a normal life.”

“There was never any chance of that,” I said as gently as I could.

He nodded and sniffed. He looked like a hard man—a scary man.

“You’re probably right about that. I hoped you would learn from that nun when the time was right.”

“Sister Ruth?” I asked. “I haven’t met her yet. She talked to my adoptive mother.”

“Have they treated you well, the people who raised you?”

I was shocked by his openness with me, his obvious sensitivity.

“Yes. Just one woman. Patti. And she’s as close to an angel as humans can be. I’ve never been without love.”

He relaxed, lowering his shoulders, but his eyes still brimmed with moisture.

“That’s good. That’s what I hoped for. What did Sister Ruth tell her?”

“She said you and my mother were in love.”

He half smiled, and for a moment his face was dreamy, a far-off look passing over it.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you, and that’s a good place to start,” he said. “Back when I was an angel in heaven. If you want to hear it.”

“I want to hear everything.”

We still held hands, and there was no chance either of us was letting go. His rough thumbs rubbed the soft peaks of my knuckles. We sat with our chests leaning on the table, heads inclined toward each other, keeping our conversation as hushed as possible. I listened as he began.

“Before there was earth, there were angels in heaven, billions of us. We were content. Well, most of us. Angels are genderless. So our relationships in heaven weren’t clouded by the physical. It was a community of friends, which may not sound compelling to a human, but it was good. It was right.”

His face softened, reverently, as he remembered. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there having a civil conversation with my father. I watched him, marveling, as he continued his story.

“Even though we angels could feel the full range of emotions, there was never any need to feel dark for more than a moment or two, and then we let it go and moved on. Everyone had a role, and we were all used to the best of our abilities. We felt secure and important.

“When I met Mariantha, our personalities clicked right off.” He paused, bashful at the mention of this angel, Mariantha. His tender expression was so contradictory to his hardened outer appearance.

“Mariantha is your mother, Anna,” he explained.

My heart leaped. I nodded and bit my lip, savoring each detail.

“I was drawn to her. I say ‘her,’ but remember—we were genderless in the heavenly sphere. Our feelings were strictly emotional. I made excuses to see her time and time again. Our souls complemented each other to the point where, eventually, we couldn’t stand to be apart. During that time there was an angel in the highest hierarchy who had the kind of charisma that quickly made him like a celebrity in the heavens.”

“Lucifer,” I whispered.

“Yep. I’d never met anyone like him. He had the kind of personality that draws others in. I wanted to hear everything he had to say. Mariantha said he gave her a bad feeling. She didn’t think that a single angel needed to stand out so brightly. It was the only thing we ever disagreed on.”

His face and tone were steeped in melancholy as he looked down at our hands.

“I started going to meetings to hear Lucifer speak. He was, and is, the master of deception. He would glorify God’s work and the work of the realm, and then sneak in one backhanded comment to leave us pondering. Over time, the tiny seeds of doubt started to grow, and so did the number of angels who gathered to listen. Lucifer used partial truths mixed with lies, and we fell for it. I was shocked the day I realized my feelings about everything had changed. I didn’t tell Mariantha.” He whispered that last line with regret. Dread filled me, knowing where the story was headed.

“Lucifer gained a huge following. He knew he’d succeeded in warping our thoughts, and was ready to go full force. He told us with total conviction that God was secretly creating a new race and a whole new realm just for these humans. Lucifer said that the Maker was obsessed like a child with a new toy. He planned to use us angels as no more than slaves to the new race: the humans. Humans would have luxuries and freedoms and experiences that angels would never be allowed. We angels would be used, and trampled, and forgotten. I was pissed— Sorry, hon. Excuse my language.”

I held back a smile. How cute that this giant demon was apologizing for a light curse.

“I was such a fool.” He shook his head, remembering. “I really believed God was fallible. I thought he’d lost his mind. And I wasn’t alone. One-third of the angels in heaven stood behind Lucifer. An angry mob of angels. Who could have imagined?”

He let go of my hand for a brief moment to smooth down his facial hair, in thought.

“I had to tell Mariantha everything at that point. She begged me not to fight, but I knew that when it was all over and she saw the truth, she would forgive me and understand. So I left and joined the war. You know what happened after we lost, don’t you?”

I swallowed. “You were cast into the pits of hell.”

He nodded, looking painfully glum. “It wasn’t till I found myself down there that I realized Lucifer’s deception. Others realized it, too, but most still blindly supported him. I kept to myself ’cause I knew it would be dangerous to speak out against him. My silent nature earned me respect. They thought I was broody and vengeful, but in actuality I was hating myself for what I did to Mariantha. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”

He stopped to look up at the ceiling. His heart still hurt after all this time. I rubbed his hands, encouraging him to continue.

“So, time passed and we heard stories about earth and humanity’s creation. Lucifer sent up spies. He became bolder and bolder, sending up rebel angels to turn humans against the Creator.”

His head suddenly snapped up and he looked over my shoulder. A strange hissing whisper came from deep in my father’s throat, and his eyes flashed bright red. I yanked my hands away. When he looked back at me he seemed completely normal.

“Sorry about that,” he said, distracted. “They’re not supposed to work in my territory.”

I couldn’t respond. The entire episode, lasting no more than two seconds, had been the most terrifying thing I’d ever witnessed. Was that inhuman hissing some sort of demon language? I looked around, but no one else had noticed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. This isn’t exactly a conversation for their ears, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just didn’t understand at first, because I can’t see them.”

“Really?” His forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows came together in worry. “That could be a problem.”

I touched my necklace, still shaken.

“I might be wrong,” I said. “But it sounds to me like you actually respect God. I don’t understand how that can be, though, considering your... line of work.” I lowered my eyes, hoping he wasn’t offended.

“Ironic, huh?” His mouth hitched into a satirical grin. “I deserve hell. I was led astray too easily.”

His forearms were still on the table, open palms up. I slipped my hands into his again, and he squeezed them.

“I worked my way up the ladder in hell for selfish reasons. I heard each human was assigned a guardian angel, and I became obsessed with the possibility of seeing Mariantha again. Something about my dreary attitude and hard work must have impressed Lucifer, because I found myself earthbound in the 1700s, with the job of leading humans to eventual addiction.”

I felt a flicker of shame at the thought of drugs, and although I was careful to keep my colors hidden, my face was harder to control.

“I’m afraid I’ve been too successful,” he whispered. “I knew when I was made a Duke that I would have to do a good job to keep the position. It was horrible when I came to earth and saw the human souls trapped in their physical forms. They were miraculous creations, truly a work of genius and love. But they’re at odds with their own bodies. My job was too easy. I focused on seeing as many guardian angels as I could across the world, hundreds of thousands of them. It was the only thing worth existing for. I’d already lost everything.