Chapter 10

The single syllable of towering outrage practically sears through the air.

It’s Godric’s. When I thought he’d be delighted with any sentence I got.

He must know something I don’t, since I’m not horrified. Hell—if I’m allowed to think of Hell in the presence of archangels—I can’t feel anything. There’s this void inside me, filled with nothing but questions.

So my sentence isn’t bad enough for Angelhole? That means it’s not worse-than-death, right? But what kind of sentence is conscription, anyway?

And what is that Celestial Academy?

Okay, so it sounds self-explanatory—an academy where magnificent monsters like Godric go, to—what? Study how to be the most lethal weapons in Heaven’s army? With each majoring in a branch of slaughter and mayhem?

Now I know the Nephilim exist, a place like this must be a necessity. The angels who procreate with humans must need a highly specialized teaching and training establishment for their hybrid offspring. Makes sense.

At least it does, until you throw me, lowly, powerless human into the equation.

So, am I conscripted to clean their toilets? Do the Nephilim even crap? Is this going to be their version of hard labor? For how long?

Yet even if it is hard labor, and it takes years until they “determine the scope of my unprecedented offense”, it isn’t as bad as I feared. I came here expecting a death sentence. Or an eternity of damnation. Or Lorcan’s worse fate.

But then, any time among such creatures will feel like forever. That’s assuming I can survive at all in such a place.

And how exactly do they intend to determine the scope of my offense? What is thatexactly? Recycling angel sweat? And what is there to discover about my “method”?

I told them I touch the stuff and it coats my hand. What more do they want from me? An explanation of the exact mechanics of the process? What would they do when I can’t provide more details?

“This isn’t a viable option.” Godric’s rumble slams the lid on my growing-again panic. “It was bad enough bringing her to the Court, but inducting her into the Academy?”

“You question our judgement, son?” Azrael is as tranquil as ever, but I sense an emotion fueling his words. It isn’t affront. It’s something deeper, and that much scarier for being so pervasive and unending.

There’s conflict between father and son. Simmering hot as Hell.

That’s good to know. Any crumb of info I pick up on these all-powerful creatures may come in handy later. However much “later” I have.

But Azrael’s question, and its implied challenge, silence Godric.

So miracles do happen.

Of course you have to be the Angel of Death and his father to achieve said miracle. But at least something in the universe can check him. Great to know.

Even greater is that the archangels don’t share his dismal view of me. Not bad having five of the most powerful entities in existence in your corner. Sorta. Sure, they drafted me to this academy, but since I expected much, much worse, I’m taking their sentence as clemency.

Whatever their reasons for it.

Nolooking a gift leviathan in the mouth, Wen. Take the stay of execution or eternal damnation. Live to fight another day.

Suddenly, all thoughts sputter. The archangels are approaching me.

With the brutal brunt of their soundless footfalls, I’m again struck by that marrow-deep familiarity.

Godric grudgingly makes way for his father as the quintet surrounds me.

They reach out their hands, each towards his symbol. The grey one I puked over is Azrael’s.

Focusing on the runes for the first time, I long for a pen and paper, to sketch them all down. Though I feel they may be imprinted in my mind. That they were always there, and seeing them unearthed the memory.

This has to be another side-effect of being exposed to such a power collective. My mind must be overloading. I only hope they step away before they fry it irreversibly.

As they seem to go into a trance, eyes half-closed and looking into the depths of eternity, probably literally, I feel free to examine them.

This up close, the only things that unify them are the basic style of attire, and that mind-melting radiation of power. Apart from that, they’re totally different in detail and feel.

It’s Azrael who snares my focus. He looks achingly like his son—just devoid of savagery and sensuality. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought they’re brothers.

But it’s not how Azrael looks that mesmerizes me. It’s how he feels. He’s the one who’s most familiar. Even—kindred? I have no other word for it. It’s like we share blood, essence.

It’s probably that racial memory again. For what is more familiar to mortals than the texture of Death?

Suddenly, I float in the air, my hair, my clothes lifting up, as if I’m hanging upside down. But it isn’t a gravity reversal, since I don’t feel blood rushing to my head. And my hair and clothes are rippling around me as if I’m underwater, undulating to the same frequency of the glowing streams rising from every symbol. They curve around and above me, enmeshing and entombing me in a cage of eternity.

For a timeless stretch, my senses are suspended within this celestial matrix. Only my heart works, emptying its beats in a frenzied rush.

Then angelic energy starts entwining through the mesh. I know because it has echoes of the waste product I collect. But the resemblance is like calling a magnificent tiger and a unicellular organism life. This stuff is the real deal. And it’s skittering all over me, as if trying to seep through my pores, like the Angelescence always tries to.

The sensations soon become too overpowering, no matter how hard I try to suppress them, to resist. But it’s no use.

I burst out in cackling shrieks.

I squirm and splutter and snort with laughter, tears running up my forehead to wet my hair. And all the time, Godric’s eyes dagger me with his distaste.

What does he want me to do? It tickles.

Just as I think I’m going to suffocate again, this time with the forced laughter, the tickling sensations morph in texture. They become pressure, sniffing, gauging, prodding. I feel the imprint of the archangels’ essences, their questions and curiosity, in every filament of my body and psyche.

Holy abduction scenario! These archdudes are giving me a full body and mind exam!

Then just as it began, it’s over, and I float back to my feet outside my cage.

At least they didn’t slam me down like Gordric did.

I still stagger, almost fall against those pulsing-with-indescribable-power symbols.

The archangels step back, again seeming to confer among themselves.

Then Raphael shakes his head. “Inconclusive.”

What’s inconclusive? What were they looking for?

“Indeed,” Uriel says, his eyes tinged with an unreadable expression as they sweep over me.

“I guess it was to be expected,” Michael says. “This was supremely irregular to start with.”

“It was, and remains, inconceivable,” Raphael corrects him. “It’s just as impossible that I wouldn’t be able to make a diagnosis.”

What? What’s inconceivable? What diagnosis? If they don’t make sense soon, I may do something I won’t live long enough to regret.

Michael nods. “This is indeed unprecedented. Yet we must fathom it, so we have no other recourse.”

Raphael exhales. “Then only what we hoped to avoid remains.”

What’s that? Are they going to crack me open and search for what their angelic MRI couldn’t find?

Before I work myself into a fiercer lather, Gabriel addresses me, “You will attend the Divining.”

The what now?

Before I blurt out the question, I remember I heard about this before. Some obscure ritual from ancient times, a pact between angels and demons long before the Accords. No idea what it was for, or what it entailed, only that they picked humans for it, then they divided those who survived it. A good percentage didn’t.

And they want me to attend it.

Yay me.

Validating my info, Michael adds, “It is perilous, yet unavoidable at this point.”

“Perilous how?” I croak. “I can die?”

“We sincerely hope you won’t,” Gabriel says.

“Not the answer I wanted to hear, dude!”

Gabriel seems genuinely confused at the way I addressed him. “It is the only way we have left to ascertain your nature.”

“My nature,” I repeat sluggishly. “As in what kind of person I am?”

“What kind of beingyou are,” Uriel corrects.

Does he mean what I think he means?

Nah. Of course not. Who knows how these detached creatures perceive other beings, anyway.

Guess it’s up to me to save us all time, and me probably my life. “I can tell you that, no Perilous Divining required. I’m a garden-variety human being.”

Raphael shakes his head. “You are not.”

Okay. They did mean what I thought they meant.

“You think I’m not human?” I rasp, panic drenching me yet again. “Based on what? That I can pick up angelic BO?”

Before any of the archangels can respond, Godric pushes past his father and bears down on me.

That voice of his slides lushly over my nerves like a blade as he says, “Perceiving Angel Essence by beings other than angels should be impossible. Is impossible. Harnessing it in any way is something not even the Seraphim has ever done. This makes you potentially one of the most dangerous entities who ever existed.”