Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (41 page)

And then falling.

He would never forget the falling. The crashing to Earth. The inability to stop it.

“Is everyone gone?” Grace asked. Her voice betrayed the fear she felt.

“Clark and Maya left a couple of hours ago. But I’m staying here to protect you, and Michaela is in the other room. If the Loyalists do know where we are, we can handle them.”

“There were a lot of them,” Grace whispered. “And there’s only two of you.”

“Two of us is plenty.”

“Because you’re angels…”

Zarachiel nodded. He didn’t agree or outright disagree, but the truth was, he wasn’t much of anything at this point. He was a hunched, broken man with a twisted, ugly back. If Grace could see his bare skin, she would laugh in his face at the thought of him being an angel. But Zarachiel welcomed that. He didn’t deserve the position anymore. He’d failed the humans, the Earth. What he thought he was so good at and had enjoyed so much was turned to dust by his kind. So he welcomed his punishment; he bore it because he deserved it.

He hadn’t been able to save them. The Earth. The humans. The angels.

“Are you in pain?” Zarachiel asked. He reached for the aspirin bottle in Clark’s medical kit and shook out two pills, which he handed to Grace along with a glass of water from the nightstand.

“Thank you.” She swallowed the pills with a grimace and drank the rest of the water. Slowly, her eyes drifted back to him, trailing from his brown eyes down his aristocratic nose to the cleft in his chin. She examined him, seemingly searching for the thing that made him so alien. Little lines formed between her brow, the corners of her lips pressing into a tiny frown. When she finally met his eyes again, she said, “There’s something else.”

Zarachiel frowned, chiding himself to not thinking of whatever she needed. “You’re hungry? More water?”

“No.” Grace tried to smile. She reached for his hand, and Zarachiel sat down on the bed next to her. “About the Loyalists. I didn’t tell you and your friends the entire truth.”

Her words gave Zarachiel pause, but he didn’t let his worry show. Very carefully, he kept his voice calm and even. “You can tell me. We’ll still offer you protection no matter what. You’re safe with us.”

“I believe you.”

“Good. What’s the truth then?”

“I was with them,” Grace whispered after a long pause to collect herself. “I was
with
them.”

Zarachiel felt the tips of his fingers turn icy. “You’re a Loyalist?”

“No!” Grace shook her head, making the pillowcase rustle beneath her head. “I wasn’t a Loyalist. I wasn’t! But…but I was with them. I traveled with them.”

“They forced you?” His throat clenched, and the words came out tight and bitten off.

Grace stared over his shoulder and said, “No. I went willingly in the beginning. When the plagues started happening and everyone was dying, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. But I didn’t want to die, and they were a strong group. I knew they would protect me, keep me alive. So I went with them. And in exchange, I slept with them. I let them use my body so I could live.”

Tension rolled down Zarachiel’s spine, lighting up every fried nerve ending there, and sending waves of pain throughout his body, which he ignored. “Grace—”

“I hated it! Please, believe me. I didn’t want to do it. I’m not that kind of girl. But I didn’t know any other way to survive. All my family was gone. Looters and gangs raided my town. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“No one can fault you for that,” Zarachiel said carefully. The dread he’d experienced earlier trickled back in.

Grace tried to smile to ease the tension. “Not even an angel?”

“Especially not an angel. But you were hurt at the river. If you were in their group, what happened?”

Grace stiffened. Her eyes went over his shoulder again. “They’d found a stash of liquor at a grocery store the night before that hadn’t been raided, and they drank until they were all obliterated. There were other women that traveled with the group, and I could hear some of the things happening to them. A group of men would go into a car with one woman. Then they started looking at me like they wanted to eat me. I tried to sneak off, but they saw me. So I ran. I didn’t know the woods, and I got lost. They found me soon. And then they…they…”

“Okay,” Zarachiel soothed. “It’s okay. You’re with me now. You’re safe. I promise.”

He repeated the words over and over until Grace’s breathing slowed and she relaxed back against the pillow. He stayed with her, stroking her hand, until her eyes drifted shut and the aspirin kicked in. Only when she’d been asleep for a while did he slowly rise from the bed, ignoring the screaming pain in his back. He limped quietly to the bedroom door and slipped out.

Michaela glanced up from where she sat at the dining room table. As he crossed the room, everything from his neck down to his tailbone was a fiery trail of pain, licking out to his ribs with each breath. He gritted his jaw and stuffed the pain back down. Michaela must have sensed it though, because as he drew closer, her eyes softened and she smiled sadly. She didn’t mention his suffering.

“How’s she doing?” she asked instead.

“Sleeping.”

“That’s good.”

Zarachiel paused, thinking. He needed to tell Michaela what Grace had told him, but something made him hesitate. He didn’t want Michaela to think less of Grace. Even as he thought it, he scolded himself for his doubt; Michaela would understand. Grace was a survivor, and obviously the Loyalists had terrified her. He took a deep breath and said, “She told me that she was with them. Traveling them and offering sex for protection.”

“You believe her?” she asked finally after she’d considered his words. A shadow lingered in her dark eyes.

“What is there to believe? They raped her and left her for dead.” Zarachiel lowered his voice and glanced over his shoulder as he spoke to make sure Grace couldn’t hear them.

“There’s no doubt they hurt her, and they’ll pay for it. But you believe that she was only a bystander—a victim—of their group?”

“What are you saying?”

Michaela held up her hands, her eyes flickering to the bedroom door. She too lowered her voice until only he could hear. “She’s the one that told us the Loyalists hate angels.”

“They took her against her will. Many of them. I think she hates them more than they hate us.” Zarachiel paused for a moment and gathered himself. He felt like he was personally responsible for clearing Grace’s name. He knew it looked bad, but Grace was hurt. She needed their help, and she was the one thing right then that Zarachiel could actually save. He couldn’t let her down. “I believe that she was never really with them. She was just trying to survive anyway possible.”

“I can’t know her soul while she’s alive—or anyone’s, for that matter.” Michaela’s tone sent nausea roiling through his gut. “But I can taste it. Whenever I’m around someone human or mostly human, the smell of their soul lingers on my tongue.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that hers doesn’t taste right. I can’t know if she’s untrustworthy or not, but I’m saying be careful around her. Keep your guard up.”

“Maybe you’re sensing what she’s been through,” Zarachiel said, needing anything to defend Grace.

“Possibly.”

Zarachiel didn’t want to fight with Michaela, so he changed the subject. “I want to go check her attacker’s body before the animals get to it. Maybe there’s some sign of where they went. They could be trouble for us later.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be back before nightfall. Can you stay until then and watch Grace?”

“I will.”

“Thank you,” Zarachiel said. Neither of them spoke of Clark and Maya and what was likely happening at the cave at that very moment. But he could tell from the tight press of Michaela’s lips that she was thinking of them. She didn’t trust Lucifer—no one did, except maybe Maya—to not kill Clark, and he knew she was afraid. They both were.

“No problem, Z,” she said, eyes traveling toward the window.

Zarachiel quietly left the cabin and retraced his footsteps back down to the creek. Carefully, he eased down the ravine, letting his eyes search through the dense bramble of brush and fallen limbs. He assumed the Loyalists would have followed the creek bed, but he kept a close lookout anyway.

His boots skidded over moss-covered rocks, and he had to occasionally reach for a tree limb to keep his balance, but he eventually made it down to the water, where the rocks were covered in frost and his breath condensed in the air. Easily enough, he found the spot where Grace had lain, blood still smeared across the smooth, flat rocks.

She must have been cold lying there with her back against the icy rocks. She’d probably shivered and cried out, her hair growing wet from the water trickling beyond the hold of the river. He wondered if her attackers had once been her friends; if she had trusted them. And like Michaela, he couldn’t help the nagging thought: what if she still did?

Zarachiel had to force the thoughts from his mind, or else he was going to lose it. He needed to focus, so he forced himself to turn away from the bloody spot and walk toward the body. In the time since Grace’s attack, it had been dragged a short distance by scavenging animals, and some of the flesh had been munched on. Standing over the man that Grace had killed—bitten through his jugular—in desperation, Zarachiel studied his face, committing the features to memory. Even though he was starting to bloat, the man still had prominent features: a flat, large forehead, sharp chin, and broad nose. He looked bullish and obstinate, like an old dairy cow past its prime.

Zarachiel searched the man’s damp pockets. In the back pocket of his jeans, he found a wallet with an out-of-state driver’s license, two soggy twenty-dollar bills, and a few loose ones inside the sticky leather folds. The man had three credit cards that looked well worn and no pictures of family in the miniature photo holders. Zarachiel tossed the wallet aside and started on the jacket pockets.

When he checked inside the jacket, he discovered a small zippered pocket in the lining containing a single matchbook from a local bar. It was mostly dry, and the edges were crisp and unbent, like it had recently been picked it up. Only a few matches were missing. Zarachiel flipped the little book back over again and studied the logo. The bar’s address was in a town just a few miles away from the safe house.

Zarachiel sat back on his heels and thought for a minute. It was possible that the Loyalists were camped out at the bar. The possibility was likely enough that he couldn’t waste the chance, even without Clark and Michaela as backup. Michaela didn’t expect him back until nightfall, which meant that he had plenty of time to trek into town and check out the bar. The interstate was close by. All he had to do was make it to the road, and it would lead him straight to the town.

His eyes drifted over to the bloody spot on the rocks, and the decision made itself.

Zarachiel had to pay attention to the terrain until he made it through the woods by the safe house and back onto the service road. From there, he zoned out and followed the snaking road straight to the interstate. When his feet hit the pavement, he was like a robot putting one foot in front of the other. The walk was mindless work, and Zarachiel’s thoughts inevitably drifted to the war, Uriel, Heaven, and Grace. He thought about it all until his chest was tight with anxiety and waves of pain rode down his back from the tension in his shoulders.

Nearly an hour passed before he saw the town’s exit; the sign hanging above the interstate was riddled with fresh bullet holes. He left the rode and slid down the hill next to the interstate. The town was right off the main road, which made things easier. He pulled out the matchbook and noted the road again before he set off. Cautiously, he wove his way through the small town, searching for the right road and being careful not to be spotted in case the Loyalists had lookouts. He knew when he was close: he heard the Loyalists and smelled them—beer and filth—long before he saw them. When he finally found the right street, the bar was the first thing he saw.

People were obviously inside, and they did little to hide the fact, with their blaring rock music and occasional shouting and breaking glass. A ragtag caravan of sorts was parked outside, all abandoned, save for two guards, who were loading crates into a trailer. Skirting the road, Zarachiel eased along the edges of the buildings, keeping to the shadows, and doubled back. Taking his time, he went up another road and then crossed over behind the bar. He easily found the building’s alley and approached it from behind.

Trash and putrid standing water filled the narrow alley. Animals or hungry survivors had torn the dumpsters apart looking for something edible. Zarachiel tried to ignore the smell and scouted the alley for a vantage point. There was a back door to the building, but he would be a sitting duck going in through there. Instead, he studied the metal dumpster and the second floor window ledge beyond it.

Not seeing a better option and wanting to move before someone stumbled back there, Zarachiel climbed on top of the dumpster and jumped for the ledge. His fingers barely caught the outermost edge of the brick, which started to crumble beneath his grip. Gritting his teeth and snarling in pain, he hauled himself up enough to hook his elbow on the ledge and heave his body up. Every distorted angle of his damaged spine and every shard of loose bone in his back howled in complaint, but he made it.