Sins of the Warrior (22 page)

Samael crossed to the wall where his armor hung and lifted the sword from its place. He unsheathed it, laid the scabbard aside on the table, and then turned. Zuriel’s pain-glazed eyes shone with tears. With pleading. Her head moved from side to side. He pressed the blade’s tip against the center of her chest. She grasped frantically at the blade, slicing her hand, powerless to move it against his strength. His resolve. Steel began a slow, unrelenting slide through flesh and bone, and her eyes went wide. Samael felt the faint resistance of her immortality. He took a deep breath.

Useless
, he reminded himself.
Except as an example to others
.

He tightened his grip and shoved.

ALEX EMERGED FROM THE
bathroom to find Michael waiting for her in the hallway, back against the wall, arms crossed. She held up a hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Just…don’t.”

She brushed past him and made her way to the kitchen, any hope of sleep long gone. Perhaps for good.

Michael followed her. “We need to talk, Alex.”

“No. We don’t.” She took the coffee pot from the machine and filled it with cold water. Poured it into the reservoir. Replaced the pot on its element. Scooped coffee into the filter.

“You can’t just give up like this.”

Her hand jerked, dumping coffee grounds across the counter. She rested fists on either side of the mess and closed her eyes. “I’m not giving up. I’m facing reality. That Fallen One didn’t even hesitate. She pushed aside that sword as if it didn’t exist. As if
I
didn’t exist. I don’t care how much practice I get, I can’t fight that, Michael. I could never fight that.”

“Alex—”

“Stop it. Please.” Alex set the scoop on the counter and turned to him, folding her arms over her belly. “I’ve promised to help you with Emmanuelle, and as long as you’re able to keep me here, I will. But beyond that, we’re done. You don’t have to pretend you want to help me anymore.”

“I wasn’t pretending. I thought—I wanted—” Michael’s brilliant green gaze met hers, equal parts ferocity, pity, and guilt glittering there. His jaw flexed as he compressed his lips. “You’re right, I do need you to help me with Emmanuelle, but I wanted to give you something in return. You almost killed Seth with that sword once. That should have been impossible. No human hand should be able to wield an Archangel’s sword at all, let alone with enough force to wound one of Heaven or Hell. I honestly thought…”

“What? That I was special? Well, I’m not. I’m nothing more than what Caim said I was at the beginning of all this—a pawn in some fucking cosmic game I have no control over. As for the sword, Aramael was still alive when I used it against Seth. Did it ever cross your mind that
that
was why I could do what I did?”

Michael braced his hands against the island counter. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain how you summoned me across—”

“Don’t you get it?” Alex snarled. “Whatever you think, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. I get that you’re trying to give me some kind of hope I can escape this”— she waved a vague hand—”but we both know there’s no point. There never was. Unless you’re willing to end my life when this is done, there’s nothing you can do, Michael.”

There. She’d said it. She’d asked.

And now she waited for his answer.

“You know I can’t,” he said.

Self-righteous fury boiled over in her chest. The one thing she asked for in all this, the one thing she needed, and—

Pain tugged at the corners of Michael’s mouth. The fury in Alex hesitated. She took in the shadows in his eyes, the rigid line of the wings he kept tightly furled behind him, the bleak, hard planes of his face…

Something inside her folded. Crumpled. She blinked back the sting of tears. What the hell was she doing? This magnificent being—aggravating though he might be on occasion—was doing his level best to hold the universe together, and she accused him of not caring? Dared to ask him to go against everything he stood for, everything he was? The slap of clarity made her inhale sharply. Was this what she had become? What Seth had made her into? She slumped into the corner where pantry met countertop.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Shoulders that carried the weight of two realms still managed a shrug. “You have every right to be angry. None of this should ever have happened.”

None of it. Not Aramael or Seth or Lucifer…

Not Jen and Nina.

She swallowed. “But it did.”

“Yes.”

Silence drifted between them, a vast ocean filled with the knowledge that she would spend eternity with a divine being she both pitied and despised. The certainty that neither her soulmate’s sword nor Heaven’s greatest warrior himself could stop it from happening. The realization that it no longer mattered. Not in the grand scheme of things. Not when it was one life measured against billions; her life against the world’s very survival.

Eternity
.

She couldn’t even fathom the concept.

She refocused on Michael, on the self-recrimination scrawled across his face. He had enough to deal with. She wouldn’t make it more difficult for him. Not anymore. With a sigh, she crossed to the island and reached to cover one of his hands with hers, trying not to think about the incongruity of offering comfort to an Archangel.

“I’m not angry, Michael. Not really. Terrified, yes, but not angry. And despite what I may have said in past, I don’t blame you for what’s happened. You’ve done everything you can.”

A muscle in Michael’s jaw flexed, and he stared over her head. “I’m not accustomed to feeling helpless,” he said. “Or to not knowing what to do.”

“Then do what you set out to do. Find Emmanuelle. Convince her to return to Heaven.”

Michael’s mouth thinned. “And you? What about you?”

“I’ll help. I said I would.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

For long heartbeats, they stood in silence, Alex coming to terms with the inevitable, and Michael—no. It didn’t matter what Michael thought. He had a job to do. A war to win, a god to find, a Heaven to save. Alex had a job, too, if the world was to stand a chance of survival for those who remained behind. Those such as Henderson, and Elizabeth, and—

Michael’s hand moved beneath hers, turning until their fingers linked. She looked up at him, jolted from her dark reverie.

“When did you decide?” he asked.

“About ten seconds ago,” she admitted. “The entire world is falling apart, Michael. If I stay here, it won’t matter very much in the long run, but maybe I can make a difference there, with—in Hell. Maybe I can influence him.”

“And maybe you overestimate your powers of persuasion.”

“Most likely. But either way, he’s not going to stop until he has me.”

Michael pulled his hand from hers and walked to the French doors on the far side of the living room, an entire world away. Bracing his hands against the frame, he stared out into the night. His glossy black wings were half-unfurled behind him, their quiver mirroring the tension Alex read across his shoulders, in the set of his head.

“I wish I could argue with you,” he said. “You know that, right?”

Turning from his reflection’s gaze, she went back to bed.

“In,” Seth ordered the unknown Fallen who’d knocked at his door. He frowned at the charts spread across his desk—a battle plan Samael had sent over for his approval. Whatever issues he might have with his aide, he had to admit the Archangel was a brilliant strategist. Not to mention a formidable adversary.

He scrawled his signature across the bottom of the top chart and then looked up, expecting delivery of his tea tray. Instead, he found a Cherub staring at the floor, hands gripping one another so hard that his knuckles had turned white. Seth straightened.

“You are—?”

“S-Sintiel, lordship.”

Seth waited. The Cherub stayed quiet but for shallow, labored breathing interspersed by audible swallows.

“And?” Seth asked.

The Cherub jumped. Ruby eyes flicked up to Seth’s, then down again. Sintiel swallowed again. Seth sighed.

“Why are you here?”

“Zuriel, lordship. You left orders that you wanted to know when she returned.”

Oh, for the love of—Seth broke off the thought. He set his pen on the desk, refraining from the impulse to bounce it off the Cherub’s skull.

“Am I to understand she has?”

Sintiel nodded. Shook his head. Nodded. Then ducked the stylus pitched in his direction.

“She returned,” he said hastily, “but Samael…Zuriel…Samael…”

Seth’s blood ran cold. A buzzing sound began deep in his brain. “Samael what?”

“He killed her.”

Seth’s heart began a slow folding-in on itself, each beat labored, shuddering, excruciating.
Alex
. Buzzing filled his skull, and the world receded to a pinpoint of light. He clawed his way toward it, fighting the agony that tried to pull him under.

“Samael killed Alex?”

“Who is Alex?”

The Cherub’s question penetrated as nothing else could have, snapping Samael back into himself. He stared at Sintiel.

“What?”

“You said Samael killed Alex. Who is Alex?”

“He didn’t kill her?”

Sintiel shrugged both shoulders and spread his hands. “I have no idea. I just know he killed Zuriel. Do you wish me to—”

“Get out,” muttered Seth.

“Pardon?”

“Get
out!
” A roar this time.

The Cherub scrambled for the door, tripping in his haste, colliding with the frame, falling over the sill. At last the heavy oaken door closed behind him with a thud. Stillness filled the room. Seth sank slowly to his knees, his head and shoulders bowed, fists resting on his thighs. Great shudders shook his frame. He gulped for air, squeezing his eyes shut until he saw starbursts of light.

Alex lived, but in the moment he’d thought otherwise—that one instant—his world had ended. Become an eternity of emptiness that had taken away his breath, his heart, his soul. A void that had reflected back to him what he was without her.

Nothing.

His heart threatened to shatter all over again at the very thought. Seth let out a long, shaky breath. He opened his eyes and stared at the desk with its battle charts in front of him.

Fuck Samael and his
be patient
.

Fuck the war with Heaven.

And fuck his injury.

He would cross over into the human realm and find Alex himself. Not a week from now. Not tomorrow. Today.

Now.

“You need to eat.”

Alex gave a little start at Michael’s gruff words, then looked down at the pile of crumbs—formerly an uneaten slice of toast—on her plate. She pushed away the plate and her cold coffee, then drew the newspaper toward her.

Death toll climbs
,
its headline blared. More news about Slavutych and the man-made disaster engineered by Lang and his cronies, all because they wouldn’t listen to her. Didn’t want to hear.

Michael cleared his throat.

“I’ll have something later,” she said.

“Alex—”

“I forgot to ask why Bethiel was here last night.” She pushed the newspaper away again. “Does he have a lead on Nina?”

Michael regarded her in tight-lipped silence from his post in the living room. Then he shook his head. “Not your niece. Mittron. He’s heard rumors in Hell that the former Highest might be overseeing the care of the Nephilim children.”

The Fallen…and Mittron? Her gaze strayed back to the newspaper headline. Of course. She should have thought of that herself. It made sense, him aligning with Seth, because where else would he go? It also made sense that his would be the mind behind the New Children of God, and the hundreds of people flocking to help raise Lucifer’s Nephilim army. After engineering the Apocalypse and plunging the world into Armageddon, he’d more than proved his capacity for such machinations.

And Bethiel could stop him from doing further damage.

But if she told Bethiel, he would stop looking for Nina.

The coffee machine gurgled. Alex flexed cramped fingers, then leaned her elbows on the counter and cradled her head in her hands. Christ, she was tired of making impossible decisions. Her life vs. the world’s continued existence; Nina vs. the hundreds stupid enough to answer the call to Pripyat. Was there anything she
wouldn’t
have to sacrifice?

“I know about Pripyat.” Michael’s voice at her elbow made her jump again.

A headache born from lack of sleep pressed against the back of her eyes. Her fingertips traced an endless circle on the cool, granite countertop as she struggled to separate herself from the words she had to speak. From their impact.

“You’ll have to tell Bethiel,” she said.

How much would she have to sacrifice?

Everything.

“Not yet,” said Michael.

Her gaze flashed back to him. “But—”

“Your niece has only a few days left. Let him continue looking for her.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Thank you, but no. Not if it means more people will die.”

“More
will
die,” Michael said, “but we can’t let the Fallen know we’ve found the Nephilim. Not until we have Emmanuelle.”

Relief swamped Alex. Guilt rushed in after it. Bethiel would continue looking for Nina. Countless others would die because of that. And her only consolation in any of it was that, for once, the decision wasn’t hers.

It was Michael’s.

She tried to find words to thank him, but they eluded her. She nodded and reached again for the newspaper. At that instant, the condo’s front door burst open, and her hand slammed against the plate instead, sending it flying in a spray of toast crumbs as Henderson strode in, Riley hot on his heels.

The plate hit the floor and shattered.

“We’ve found her,” Henderson said. “We’ve found Emmanuelle.”

It took every fiber of willpower Seth possessed to remain where he was. To watch. Wait. Not go to the woman emerging from the door down the street. The woman whose very existence consumed him.

Alex lifted her hair free of her coat collar and let it fall in a blond cascade over her shoulders. Seth caught his breath. His heart hammered in his chest.