Conspiracy of Angels (25 page)

“Not helping,” I snarled.

Remy offered me one of his very Gallic shrugs.

I chewed my cheeks, struggling to drive the smell of musk and vanilla from my head. It seemed to cling to everything.

I
called shotgun. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to understand what that meant. Lil froze for instant, scanning the trees for an actual shooter. The street was empty at this hour—not even a stray cat skulked among the cars parked along the curb.

“That means you get into the back seat, Remy,” I explained.

He shrugged without comment, the heels of his shoes clicking smartly on the pavement as we crossed East Boulevard. Lil thumbed her key fob and the lights on the Sebring flashed twice. Then the engine started up.
Fancy.
She shifted the rucksack on her shoulder, letting Remy pull ahead of her.

“Who’s the dead guy?” she asked. She kept her voice low as my sibling ducked into the car.

“Kessiel,” I replied.

“Nephilim?”

I nodded. We stopped walking about ten feet away from the convertible. Lil waited for Remy to shut the door after getting in.

“His ears are good. He can probably still hear us,” she breathed. It was so quiet, she might have been talking to herself.

“Why all cloak and dagger?”

“When you see those missing pages, you’ll understand,” she answered, “but I think you know already. It’s back in play, isn’t it?”

I started to respond, but she made a cutting motion at her neck. “Not where he might hear you. He finds out, then Sal finds out, and that would be bad for everyone. Why do you think I interrupted you back there?”

“You kissed me,” I objected.

“And?” she responded. “You didn’t like it?”

“No—I mean—that’s not the point,” I fumbled. “You did it just to shut me up.”

“Of course I did.” She laughed. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun.” With a smug look, she started walking again. I tried not to stare at the way her hips swayed, the rucksack bouncing jauntily. I failed. She opened Remy’s door and shoved the over-stuffed bag of bones into his lap. She made sure she bent in my direction while she did it.

“Do something with this,” she said curtly.

He blinked, frowning at the bag.

“Are those human femurs?”

“Depends on what you consider human,” she replied, then she slammed the door shut on him, and got in on the driver’s side.

I stepped around and slid into the passenger seat. Lil sat behind the wheel of the car doing that maddening thing with her nails. Remy had eased the bag full of Kessiel onto the seat beside him. He didn’t look too happy about it, and I didn’t offer him a chance to ask me questions. I had other things on my mind.

Reaching into the messenger bag, I pulled out the photos and all but shoved them at him. He took them wordlessly and sat for a few minutes, slowly poring over the images.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” he murmured at length.

There was a streetlamp not three car lengths away, and with his night vision, I knew he wasn’t having trouble seeing. Irritably, I twisted around to check which one he was holding.

“Those are reference photos from my office,” I explained. “They’re the demon jars the
Plain Dealer
was talking about.”

He frowned, delicate brows drawing together. “Yes, but this writing, Zaquiel—”

I cut him off. “What, you can’t read it?”

“I can read it without difficulty,” he retorted. “That’s the problem.”

“Then stop pretending you’re shocked by it. That’s exactly who it says it is.” “But it can’t be,” he objected.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“For the same reason that none of the Nephilim could be responsible for your amnesia, Zaquiel.”

“Enlighten me,” I shot back.

Remy made an irritated sound, twitching the photo. “Only your tribe can bind someone like this, and only the primus can bind souls as complex as ours. He can’t be in a jar himself. It’s a paradox.”

“So you’re saying no one else could learn how to do that? I’ve taught you a few things about the Shadowside. You said it yourself.”

“That’s different,” Remy objected. “What you propose is impossible—especially after the Covenant of the Six.”

“What if you sucked the power to do it right out of my soul?”

Lil cleared her throat warningly. I was too close to what she wanted me keeping from Remiel.

“Again, impossible,” he cried.

“I need to know where we’re going,” Lil broke in. “Maybe you could take a look at my
phone
and enter the address for me, Zack.”

“Hunh?” I responded. “Oh, sure…” I pulled out the little device and glanced over it while Remy continued to frown at the photos. He was acting like, if he stared at them hard enough, the names on them might change. Lil regarded me out of the corner of her eye, pecking at the steering wheel the whole time. I gritted my teeth and tried to block out the nerve-shredding sound.

She’d tracked down the missing pages from de Garmeaux’s book. They contained sketches of items from an archaeological dig originally funded by an Englishman, then seized by Napoleon on his infamous jaunt through Egypt, back in the late 1700s. My eyes were drawn to one particular name—Dorian Hartleigh. It couldn’t have been coincidence.

Dorimiel.

I angled the phone toward the passenger-side window, scrolling swiftly through the PDF. My thumb froze above a sketch of one of the treasures. My stomach dropped like a runaway elevator.

It was an Eye of Horus—but not just any Eye of Horus. Central to the eye was a thick, dark stone. It looked as if the pendant had been shaped to accommodate the slightly oblong chunk of rock, not the other way around. The sketch was black and white, but in my mind’s eye, that stone burned a dark and bloody red. I didn’t need anyone to tell me what I was looking at.

The Eye of Nefer-Ka.

With nerveless fingers, I shoved the phone back at Lil. She gave me a look. I gave her one right back. I turned to say something to Remiel—which, for the record, didn’t have anything to do with the icon, but Lil misunderstood. She raised her hand, ready to smack me the minute I opened my mouth.

Remy chose that moment to pass the reference photos back to me.

“I understand now why you’re so upset,” he began, holding the images poised between us. He glanced pointedly to Lil, adding, “And why Lilianna is trying so hard to shut you up about it, but I assure you, I knew nothing of these things.”

Beside me, Lil ground her teeth, her features locked in a furious scowl. She didn’t even bother to correct her name.

Remy tapped the topmost image with a gleaming, manicured nail. It was the jar with Anakesiel.

“If he is really in here,” he said in barely a murmur, “there is only one way it could have happened. It’s unthinkable, but no other conclusion makes sense. Someone uncovered the icon of the Anakim primus, and they used it to bind the man himself. I didn’t think such a thing was even possible.”

Shit.
Now we were in territory I didn’t want to make common knowledge. One icon on the table was bad enough.

“Uh—why does it have to be the Stylus?” I stammered. “There are other Icons out there. Your tribe has something that can steal powers, right?”

Lil shot me a speculative look—then jabbed her elbow into my ribs. At least it wasn’t the side with the gun. Remiel piqued a brow at this exchange, but opted not to comment.

“I’m not sitting here and swapping theories all night,” she complained. “Lailah’s still out there somewhere—or did you two forget? My sister’s in trouble because of your shit.”

“Dorimiel has her out on a boat,” I answered. I rubbed my side, feeling both annoyed and contrite.

“Dorimiel again?” Remy wondered. “Is that why you were asking about him at dinner?”

“Don’t feign ignorance,” I demanded. “He’s behind this whole damned thing.”

Remy scowled and fussed with the end of his braid. “We don’t keep close tabs on one another. Not outside of our own hierarchies—and besides, Dorimiel was gone for such a long time.”

“That’s what you said at dinner.”

“Shall I spell it out for you? He was bound,” Remy stated flatly. “As a consequence of the last of the Blood Wars. You throw accusations at me right and left, Zaquiel, but the members of your tribe are hardly blameless. That includes you,” he added with quiet heat.

I thought back to the murderous scene in the temple and shut my mouth.

“Tell me you at least have the location of the boat,” Lil said.

“Nope,” I admitted glumly. “Kessiel was more interested in dying than revealing the master plan.”

“Oh,” Remy responded, poking the bag of bones on the seat beside him. “So that’s who this is.”

“He started it,” I shot back.

Lil smacked her hands against the steering wheel, hard. “If you two don’t stop fucking around,” she shouted, “I’m going to drive this car right into the lake. Get me something I can use to help my sister!”

“What about Saliriel?” Remy offered.

Lil emitted a strangled sound of wordless rage.

“Are you nuts?” I demanded.

Undeterred, Remy persisted. “This is her territory. If Dorimiel is responsible for these events, she is the local decimus. She needs to know of these things.”

“That was my fucking point,” I snarled. “She has to know what’s going on. How can she
not
know?”

“Zaquiel. She is not as bad as you think,” Remy objected, shooting me that wounded expression that was beginning to irritate the hell out of me. I was tempted to smash it right off of his face. I clenched my fist so tightly the cuts on my knuckles reopened. My sibling inhaled sharply.

He could probably smell the blood.

“If Saliriel was a part of this, do you think I wouldn’t know?” he asked. His clipped and proper accent grew thicker the more defensive he got. “What you are claiming is no less than a conspiracy, brother. It could easily reignite the Blood Wars. Saliriel
must
be informed.”

Lil sneered at him in the rear-view mirror. “Remy—dear heart—if your naïveté didn’t get people killed so often, it would almost be charming.”

“Lilianna—”

“Don’t ‘Lilianna’ me. Do you seriously believe Saliriel is in the dark about any of this? If anything, he’s cheek to jowl with Dorimiel, orchestrating the whole conspiracy.”

“She,” Remy corrected quietly. “Allow her that much, please.”

“Fuck that!” Lil pounded the steering wheel again, growling in frustration. “You’re impossible!”

My thoughts strayed to tattered memories of Dorimiel and the Eye of Nefer-Ka. The marks he’d left above my heart twinged—though maybe that was just a memory, too. Was it possible to feel an absence of being?

“Let’s do it,” I said.

“Do what?” Lil squawked.

“Let’s go see Saliriel,” I said. “Confront her directly, now that we have more information. The worst she can do is throw us out.”

Lil barked a bitter laugh. “You’ve forgotten a hell of a lot if you think that’s the worst Sal can do.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Remy promised.

Lil glowered at the both of us. A muscle ticked in her cheek as she clenched her jaw.

“Fine,” she grumbled. She turned to Remy. “You’ll talk to her. Then what? You’ll cave the minute she tells you to. I’ve played that tune before, Remington,” she spat. “I know how it ends.”

“This is different,” he protested.

“Oh?” she demanded with a little toss of her head. “And how is it different?”

With quiet vehemence, he said, “This involves family.”

Lil ground her teeth, snarling furiously, “At least I know where I rate.” Then she gunned the motor and tore onto the street.

L
il took a circuitous route to the Flats, navigating a maze of backstreets that had me feeling irreparably lost after the first five minutes. A strict edict of silence reigned in the car as she raced down one-way streets and whipped around curves. She didn’t even do that restless thing with her nails—just gritted her teeth and choked us in a smothering pall of unspoken fury.

Maybe it was Lil’s mood, but I thought the city had a post-apocalyptic feel at this hour. Sure, it was close to two in the morning, but in any other city we would have passed at least a little foot traffic—vagrants, restless teens, locals stumbling home from the bars—something. It was a Friday night. Instead, the streets we drove were empty, with the exception of parked cars mutely lining the curbs.

When we got to Club Heaven, the lot was nearly deserted. This only underscored the impression that it was a zombie apocalypse version of Cleveland. I half-expected to see shambling hordes of walking dead lumbering across the empty lot, dragging themselves from the depths of dumpsters, sewers, and derelict factories.

The thought stopped being funny once I remembered the other night.

There were a few beat-up trucks near the door of the club, a couple of them with logos for industrial repair and construction companies. They would have been more at home at a redneck bar.

“Oh, damn,” Remiel muttered as we pulled up to the empty lot. “The repairs were scheduled for tonight. I forgot entirely. Saliriel will be furious.”

“It sucks to be you,” Lil muttered. She swung the car in a sudden arc, wheels spitting loose gravel. Then she skidded to a halt. “Everybody out.”

She unwound several of the pendants from the mess of charms hung from the rear-view mirror, wordlessly shoving them into her pockets. Tucking her little white clutch-purse primly under one arm, she stepped out of the car, tapping the heel of her Versace boot as she waited.

Remy and I exchanged glances, each daring the other to ask her about the charms. Neither of us was willing to risk it. Before I slammed the door behind me, I grabbed the rucksack full of Kessiel and tucked one of the reference photos into my jacket. Remy frowned a bit as I hefted the sack of dead vampire, but he didn’t try to stop me. He headed toward the entrance of the club.

Lil and I followed mutely along.

The double doors of Club Heaven appeared locked up tight. As we approached the awning, I could just spy a makeshift sign tacked to the door with electrical tape.

R
EPAIRS TONIGHT
.
H
EAVEN IS
C
LOSED
.