Revelation (4 page)

But his lush midnight feathers didn’t. And he held her, his body close in the heady scent of altar smoke. His whisper rumbled through her chest. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you call your security. You never should have seen any of this, but it’s too late for that now. My name is Luniel. That’s Ithiel, my twin. He’s an angel. And so am I.”

Morgan struggled, her mind blanking. It couldn’t be true. Not possible. She must be dreaming. Yet…

She wriggled, beating at his massive forearm. “Let me go!”

He let go.

She stumbled away, rounding on him. More fool him. Whatever this guy was, he wasn’t to be trusted. “Sorry. Not possible. I don’t believe in angels.”

“Not my problem.” The man—Luniel—shrugged, feathers ruffling. His accent was elusive, a mixture of exotic and familiar, like he came from no place in particular.

“It’ll be your problem when I call the cops, you freak.” The dude still wore a shirt with no sleeves, and the wings—
his
wings—fit easily into the cutaway space. Blacker than black, like soot, broader than his massive shoulders, and long, the tips of the feathers reaching to mid-calf. It looked so real.

Morgan’s mind stuttered. She must be dreaming. But if this was a dream, surely he’d be wearing white robes and a halo? Instead of all dark and smoldering and…and sinful, like some insane Mardi Gras biker?

She sidled backwards, towards her desk in the cutting room. A girl didn’t grow up in Babylon without learning some self-defense. Her pistol was in the drawer. Maybe she could get away, lock him in, call security. Calling 9-1-1 was a waste of time, despite her threat. Resources were stretched, and police response to anything short of a terrorist plot in progress just didn’t happen.

Luniel stalked her, midnight wings flaring. “Freak? Wow. I’m so pleased to meet you…I’m sorry, what didn’t you say your name was?”

“I’m Dr. Morgan Sterling. This is my mortuary. You’re trespassing.” Behind an autopsy bench, a few steps closer to the desk.

He circled, leaning over the bench on two hands, muscles flexing. “As they say these days, Dr. Sterling: whatever. Tell me where they found my brother.”

She fumbled against the desk, feeling behind her. “Screw you.”

“Is that an offer? I’m touched.” His hot blue gaze drilled her, magnetic. “But not distracted. Come on, Doctor, it’s important.”

She ripped the drawer open and grabbed the pistol, leveling it at him two-handed and thumbing the safety off. “So’s this. Back off.”

“No.” He vaulted the bench with ease, landing silently before her on wafting wings. Careless of her pistol. Unruffled, like a panther facing a hissing pussy cat, some small, insignificant creature who posed no threat.

His delicious scent paralyzed her, a rich toffee sweetness. Her mouth dried. He was luminous, dazzling, too perfect to be real. Certainly too perfect to be telling the truth. “Get away.”

“Wait, let’s see. Umm…no.” He cocked his head, and reached for her hair, stroking it with one finger. “You’re very pretty, Morgan Sterling. Pity if that got spoiled. Tell me about my brother.”

Now her gun was trapped between them. Her hands quivered, her memory of defensive moves a blank. “Get away! I’ll shoot!”

“No, you won’t.” He wrapped her hair around his fingers, and leaned closer, sniffing her. “You’re a doctor. You don’t hurt people.”

“Don’t bet on it.” She inhaled, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot thundered. Blood exploded on his chest, spattering her face. She let out a shuddering breath.

But Luniel didn’t fall.

He just cursed—most unangelic—and stunned her immobile with a burning blue glare. His palm flashed up, and impossible light welled from it, and her last thought before sinking into velvety black nothingness was that it was just typical that a lying bastard of an angel should be so infernally beautiful.

Light summer breeze swirled in red twilight around Lady Liberty’s torch, bringing the scent of blood. Inside the ringed iron railing, Dashiel paced in golden-edged shadow, his rich brown wings taut and eager for flight. Squawking gulls dived around him.

Below, the bay lay stagnant, stinking, dead things floating. No boats chugged through the congealed mess, and a big orange Staten Island ferry sat motionless, its engines clogged, while helicopters hovered like blowflies, winching the passengers away. On the glittering Babylon shore, a crowd shouted and pointed. Sirens howled, flashing police lights staining the purpling sky blue.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

Not the blood, mind. Dash had seen enough portents in his time—made enough himself—to know that nothing in the Book was metaphor. He’d dived in sultry storm clouds above the Flood, watched Sodom burn and Egypt’s crops vanish under a plague of hungry locusts. If the Book said the sea would turn to blood, that’s exactly what it meant.

But there were supposed to be warnings. Meetings. Shit, he’d expected at least a text message. Even his Tainted were still part of the team.

Maybe Lune was right. Something gonzo was going down here. And hell, Ithiel could be a Vial Guardian, for all Dash knew. Those guys’ identities were well-guarded secrets. Seven bottles of holy wrath weren’t the kind of thing you wanted turning up on eBay.

Answers. He needed them. Only one place to go.

He flipped out his phone. It rang for a long time before anyone picked up. “Hey, it’s Dashiel…Yeah, the lousy sinner. I’m flattered. I need to see Mike…What? I don’t give a toss about his schedule, it’s important. Just…” He swore, wings flaring. “Listen, you sniveling little worm. When’s the last time I called? That’s right. Like, never. So if I say I need to see him, I fucking well need to see him…Yeah, no shit. Thanks ever so. Tell him I’ll be by.”

He ended the call, and added, “Shithead.” Mike’s staff. Worse than librarians. Not that Dash ever spent much time in libraries. If you asked him,
waiting for the movie
was the twentieth century’s finest achievement.

He called another number. “Japheth, my good son. Can I have a word?”

“Sure.” Japheth’s musical voice was low, and some kind of god-awful yowling echoed in the background. “How about, bugger off, I’m busy?”

“Hey, you answered. I’m on Liberty Island. Get down here.”

A glitter of breeze, and Japheth materialized, crouched on the spiked railing. Golden hair shot through with bronze spilled over the shoulders of his tuxedo. His white shirt shone crisp and luminous, his black tie flawless. He’d tucked his gilded wings away, but now he let them reappear, and they shimmered and coalesced as they fit through his black jacket.

Just a little breath of glory, a leftover from more righteous days. It had been the easiest way to get dressed for the last eight centuries, since men started wearing clothes that covered them to the neck. Robes and togas and shit like that were easy, with loose fabric that folded where you wanted it. All this stitching was a cow.

Japheth hopped down, feathers twitching, and quirked a perfect golden eyebrow, his hot green eyes impatient. Good-looking son of a bitch, even for an angel. “What do you want, Dash? I’m in the middle of something.”

“Yeah, I heard the wailing. Rocking that fetish club again?” Heh. The day Japheth indulged himself, they’d all get ice-skating lessons in hell. Japheth was too keen on redemption to ever have any fun. He thought that if he stayed sinless, one day heaven might take him back. A total waste of the lad’s first-class chick-magnet action, if he ever asked Dash’s opinion, which he didn’t.

“Covent Garden, actually.” Japheth flicked a stray bronze feather from his black sleeve, impervious. “Verdi.”

“You were at the fucking opera. Jesus. Torturing yourself won’t earn you fun credits with the boss.”

“And giving me rubbish won’t change the fact that you’re an inbred redneck with no taste. You’ve got lipstick on your face.”

Dash grinned, and wiped his cheek. “No way. How’d that get there?”

“Other side. That’s it. What do you want, Dash?”

“You looked down since you got here?”

Japheth leaned over the rail, and for a long moment, he was silent. “Uh-huh. Is that, uh, what I think it is?”

“We don’t know. Lune thinks it is. Says some virus is the first plague. All I know is, no one said jack shit to me about it.”

Japheth twirled his golden curls absently. “Oh, lord.”

“Yeah.” Together, they watched the last scarlet sliver of sunset, breeze teasing their feathers alive. Japheth’s faint golden glow smelled of coffee and warm sugar, and it brought back memories. Cities leveled, demons felled with flaming swords. No coffee in those days, of course. Jae had smelled of frankincense and sandalwood oil. You had to move with the times. But Japheth was a mighty warrior back in the day, and they’d fought side by side on ancient battlefields soaked with blood and dying screams.

Perhaps too mighty a warrior, too eager to pour heaven’s glory upon himself. Japheth’s pride in his deeds brought him undone.

Inwardly, Dashiel shrugged. Whatever. If you were kick-ass, you were, and no point denying it. Pride was a harmless sin, compared to some. Like Dash’s own, for starters. Better not to go there.

The memories shone rich with death and sorrow, but with comradeship, too. Dash allowed a smile. Jae was a snotty little shit sometimes, but it was kinda cool to have him around.

“So,” said Japheth at length, loosening his bow tie and flicking the top button undone. “What are we doing about it?”

“You know what. We need to know who’s doing this, kid. If it’s all heaven’s idea, and they just forgot to tell us, fine. Gotta get us an update. You coming?”

Jae flushed, looking away. “I dunno—”

“C’mon, he’ll behave if you’re there.”

“Don’t count on it. You know he gets off on tormenting me.”

“Only because you let him.” Michael and Japheth had been close. Like brothers, except more complicated. But Michael had shunned him without a blink. That had to hurt.

“What else can I do? He’s got something I want, and he knows it.”

For once, Dash chose to let the obvious tease go by. “To rejoin Club Holy?” he scoffed. “Maybe you want it a bit too much. What’s so wrong with the way things are?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Japheth shrugged, angry. “An eternity of crappy jobs with no reward? Oh, and oblivion at the end of time?”

“It doesn’t have to be like that—”

“I want to go home, Dash.” Rage and grief shone bright in Japheth’s eyes. “I want to swim in the sunlight and kill demons and drink with the girls without wondering if I’m doing anything wrong. Not wallow in the dirt down here, fishing for favors and looking away every time I see something I like. Is that too much to ask?”

Dashiel clapped him on the shoulder, awkward. Jae abstained from everything, women included, in the hope that one day he’d be redeemed. But it wasn’t making him happy. And as for redemption…well, Dash wasn’t holding his breath for Mike to change his mind. “Maybe not, kid. For now, let’s get this shitstorm sorted. You coming or not?”

Japheth sighed. “Of course I’m coming. Think I’d let you go without me?”

Dashiel grinned, and they vanished.

They flashed into Michael’s courtyard, and hot moonlight blinded them.

Dash blinked, eyes watering. Beside him, Japheth did the same, sweat already running from his golden hair.

A high-walled garden, awash with flowers, fragrant with frangipani and musk. The moon shone fat and bright, glaring over a yellow stucco town house with blond awnings that still radiated the day’s warmth. Cicadas buzzed over distant electric club music, and heat shimmered the air, hotter even than an August night in Babylon.

Michael had always liked the heat.
Cold’s all very well for grinding them down,
the archangel had confided to Dash once, as they’d gazed over a victorious battlefield by the Euphrates, the scorching sand littered with the bodies of the damned.
But you want to drive the monkeys really insane? Toss out a whiff of blood feud and stick ’em in the desert for a thousand years. Then you’ll see some entertainment.

A silvery swimming pool almost filled the terra-cotta-paved courtyard. A few naked human girls and guys swam and splashed, and by the pool, more lolled and dozed and smoked crack pipes on low lounges, breasts and lithe limbs still oiled from sunbathing. On the other side, a bunch of them were having lazy sex, kissing and thrusting and moaning. Dash could see at least two dildos, a double penetration and stuff he didn’t even know the names for going on in that little lot. The air rippled with grunts and sighs. Another blond girl was bent over a bench, a guy taking her from behind and spanking her with a barbed whip, while another one pleasured himself deep in her mouth. She moaned and thrust back harder as the whip drew blood.

“Charming,” murmured Japheth, shifting to human shape for a moment to shrug his tux jacket off in the heat and toss it aside. “We miss all the good parties.” But an undercurrent of contempt tainted his voice sharp as his golden wings shimmered back in.

“Speak for yourself,” said Dash cheerfully.

“Where are we?”

“Ibiza.”

“What’s he doing in Ibiza?”

“Do you need to ask?” Dash gestured, and Japheth sighed. Because there, against the courtyard wall in a jasmine vine’s dappled moon shadow, stood Michael.

Naked. Shining with oil and sweat. Ice-pale hair tousled and damp, glittering glacier-blue wings swept back. The broad, luminous curve of his back flexed, thigh muscles rippling as he
fucked whatever it was he had trapped between him and the wall, slow and hard. Boy or girl, human or angel or monster, it didn’t matter to him, and despite what some people thought, no one in heaven gave a damn either. An equal-opportunity slayer of sanity, was Michael.

Dash sauntered up, dragging Japheth with him. Jae looked overdressed in his crisp white shirt. They both did. “Mike, how’s it hanging?”

No reaction. Asshole.

The girl—it was a girl—whimpered, her eyes glazed, cheek pressed to the rough plaster. Michael’s hair fell on her shoulder, shining ice-bright in the moonlight, and the ends sliced fine scarlet cuts into her skin. Bite marks bled on her throat, her breasts pink and bruised.