Chapter 11

Nothing has ever left me at a loss for words.

I was told I talked when they exhumed me from that burning rubble. I talked after Kondar lashed me and I was wishing to die. I even talked when confronted by this deadly nephilim and his soul-sundering family.

In a world where all creatures are more powerful than I am, what else do I have but the ability to mouth off? Shit continued to happen to me whether I did so or not. Cowering never protects anyone, and it would have only made me feel worse while enduring abuse. When I talked back, I remained in control of one thing in this messed up world.

Seems I only never got the exact amount of shock needed to silence me. Now I did. And Godric was the one who delivered it. Depriving me of my one and only power.

It’s funny really, when he just said I could be one of the most dangerous entities who ever existed.

“Dude, you need to lighten up or these wings of yours, wherever you stash them when not in use, are going to molt.”

Okay. Seems my auto smart-mouth function is still intact.

Thank you, mouth.

If looks could fry, and I’m certain Godric’s can, I’d be crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside right now. It’s only on account of the archangels’ “judgement” that I’m not already.

That’s the only piece of good news in this mess. In a way, he’s as helpless as I am.

And boy, does this make me feel better.

In case I survive whatever that Divining is, I’m milking his impotence—the totallyfigurative kind I’m sure—for all it’s worth.

The archangels share a final glance, before Azrael says, “Carry out our decree, son. Take Ms. White to the Divining. You will receive further guidance once you bring her back.”

The storm that rages across Godric’s face—even though his expression doesn’t change—says exactly what he thinks of this errand.

He brought me here so the archangels would extract answers from me, before tossing me to him to roast with heavenly fire, or something. I bet he never imagined they would fail to, and his father would saddle him with babysitting me until that Divining produces the info they need.

Tough luck, big guy. If I’m spending the next years picking smelly Nephilim socks, you’re putting up with a few more hours of my delightful company. They’re my last chance of making you regret the moment you “made me,” and I’m not wasting a second.

Azrael seems to be waiting for Godric to give his consent. These archangels are really big on free will, aren’t they?

But then, how could Godric say anything but yes to his father and celestial superior? Free will doesn’t feature in army hierarchy.

“Permission to soulspeak,” Godric says without taking his stony gaze off me.

Azrael nods, and they face each other. As their gazes empty, as if looking beyond this existence, everything hits me all over again.

I’m really here. Standing between an archangel and his son. Beings capable of snapping me in two with a thought. Of razing the world with their army.

Now they’re razing my world.

So it’s not a world to mourn, but I shared it with Sarah…

Sarah! I can’t leave her!

But they will force me to. She will be all alone.

I can’t bear to think of her alone.

The one thing that keeps me from doing something suicidal, like scratching Azrael’s eternal eyes out or kicking Godric in his celestial jewels is one hope. That they’ll let me see Sarah one last time.

I have to see her. Have to instruct her in getting her ticket out of hell.

A blast of something bleak and devouring, like a void expanding, interrupts my desperation. I stumble back as I gape at the godlike beings lost in their inner dialogue.

Are they fighting in there?

If they are, I may become collateral damage any moment now.

I turn to the archangels, hoping they’ll get me out of their range until they settle whatever is roiling between them and…

What the hell? The archangels are gone!

When did that happen?

Not that it matters. Only that they left me with the archangel whose diet for millennia has been human lives, and his half-human son, who has the full array of both species’ vices.

Don’t those archangels understand our tissue-like existence? If one of them lashes out, even mentally, I’m toast.

As I begin to think that’s inevitable, Azrael looks away from whatever he’s been staring into—maybe some cosmic arena where he’s been spanking his son—and back to me.

“May the Light choose you, Ms. White.”

Then, between one blink and the next, he’s gone in a blinding flash.

“Hey! Angels can teleport? Why have wings then? Can you teleport, too? Then why the van?”

Godric turns to me, and now no one is buffering his antipathy, I almost cringe.

Thankfully, I don’t. But I shake, and pretend it’s with my hurrying gesture. “So—what did your dad tell you on your private channel? To bring me back in one unscathed piece, right? Not that I’m unscathed now.”

“Until I deliver you back, you will not ask questions or do anything else unless I tell you to.”

“How about I don’t breathe, too?”

A baleful glance. “That would be preferable. Regretfully, you’re still needed alive.”

“Yeah, too bad for you.”

He stalks away, his damn leash forming around my neck. Now that I expect it, I rush after him, to deprive him of the pleasure of jerking me around.

But as we cross that frieze gateway and exit the hall where the course of my life has changed for what remains of it, I begin spluttering for breath.

Angelhole is quickening his pace on purpose, I just know it. He’s not tightening the noose per se, but he’s still choking me.

Rage rising again, I pull at the string of angelic compulsion. This is still a duel, and I’m keeping up my end of it, even at the cost of more injuries.

But strangely, it doesn’t burn me this time. And my tug corresponds to the slightest of jerks from Godric.

Is that a coincidence, or...?

I tug again. And again there’s this almost imperceptible interruption in his perfect control.

What do you know? This thing istwo-way!

There’s a measure of fairness in the world, after all.

Feeling immeasurably better even in my battered condition and grim situation, I scamper to keep up with his massive strides as he compresses warping our way out into under a minute. This fast-forwarding may not be teleporting, but it’s close, and far more interesting.

Feeling giddy at my latest discovery, I grin up at him as we reach the main doors, goading set on maximum. “So, if not questions, what will we talk about?”

He flicks the doors open. “We will not talk.”

“Chill, dude. Can’t go through eternity this wound up. Say, how old are you? You don’t look that much older than I am. Twenty-six? Eight? Thirty tops!” A mature, rugged, indescribable thirty. “But then you might be thirty centuries!”

“Walk in silence, human.”

“Don’t ‘human’ me. You’re half human yourself.”

The look he gives me says how much he hates this fact. And that I’m walking on wafer-thin ice.

But since he can’t act on his non-verbal threat, my grin widens as I rush down the stairs behind him. “Oh, I know something to talk about, something we have in common. We’re both on a leash.”

Giving me a steel-melting glance, he reaches the van waiting for us and gets inside the passenger seat next to Lorcan. I sigh as I take my place in the backseat. Gotta show him the silent treatment won’t do a thing to shut me up.

Lorcan launches the car like a runaway rocket the moment I’m buckled in. After my heart slams back in my chest, I feel a pang of triumph that I managed it on my own. Then I notice it’s not the same seat. We’re in another car. A clean one. Too bad.

Sitting back, my tailbone reminds me with a lance of pain how I almost fractured it at the Godric Landing.

Fidgeting to a position that lessens the discomfort, I let out a long exhalation. “So, how about we compare leashes?”

Lorcan’s eyes round as they meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Leashes? What did I miss?” He shoots Godric’s rigid profile an eager glance. “You are going to recap that summit meeting, right?”

“Wrong.”

At Godric’s cutting syllable, I sigh dramatically. “His dad and uncles ordered him to chaperone me to the Divining and back. He’d rather pluck his own wings and set his feathers on fire, but he has to obey. I was just discussing with him how we’re both on a leash. Though mine isn’t as…suffocating. It’s probably temporary, until they figure out how I gather Angel Essence and I atone for the crime of selling it. But his leash is genetic, so it’s going to be yanking him by the neck for the rest of his life. Say…are you guys immortal like your parents? Cause that would suck, big time. Big endless time. Imagine an eternity on a leash. I can’t imagine. Can you?”

Lorcan gapes at me before he starts laughing. Godric doesn’t react outwardly, but a hair-raising shockwave emanates from him. He’s incensed. But he says nothing. It feels like he can’t say anything.

Sweet. I managed to silence him.

I can now brag I have something in common with Azrael. That’s an archangel-sized win. Gotta savor it. It’s probably the only win I’ll have for whatever remains of my life.

I lost whatever hope I had for freedom. I may not survive that Divining, or another form of Indenture in that Academy. But for now I don’t care.

Whatever happens next, I only care about two things.

That I manage to contact Sarah one last time. And that I stick the needles of my aggravation into Godric. I have nothing left but making sure she gets free, and the pleasure of seeing him strain and snap at his own leash to no avail.

Welcome to my misery, Angelhole.