Chapter 15

This time, I don’t meet the archangels. I only meet two. My dear captors’ loving dads. Gabriel and Azrael.

That Last Supper table with its ancient tomes is also missing. They’re now sitting at a polished mahogany round table that can accommodate a dozen more. And they’re no longer dressed like they just stepped out of a Michelangelo painting.

Gabriel is in a white shirt, black slacks and sneakers. With his auburn hair tousled, I can now see his resemblance to Lorcan.

But it’s nothing like Azrael’s resemblance to Godric. His midnight hair is now loose and cascading in waves to his shoulders, making me suddenly ache to see Godric’s hair like that. He is dressed almost like his son, in a black leather jacket and jeans, but with a purple shirt and black tie instead of Godric’s V-neck charcoal T. It makes him look more like Godric’s older brother than ever. A much less dangerous one, if that can be believed.

So were they in their heavenly generals get-up before to act as judge and executioner of Walter White? Is this how they always dress? They’ve caught up with modern times like the other angels and Nephilim?

One thing for sure, they no longer feel alien and detached. Maybe that was another act to intimidate me into giving them the info they needed. Or this is the difference the clothes make.

I’m still debating the issue as the two archangels rise to their feet and face Godric. From the way their gazes lock but become vacant, it’s clear they’re “soulspeaking,” a conference call this time.

Long minutes later, that trio of terror turn their attention to me.

Gabriel seems contemplative as he nears me. Azrael is impassive, but he too approaches. I really, really hope they won’t probe me again. After what those angels and demons did to me, I may just attack them if they start tickling me.

Thankfully, they don’t make me do something insane. But I’m dying to know if he told them what happened during the Divining.

“My son informs me you had an eventful Divining, Wen White,” Azrael says, voice deep and calm.

I suddenly realize it’s almost the same as said son’s. But it doesn’t make everything inside me jiggle like jelly on the verge of melting. His eyes, sapphire instead of viridian, and almost the same shape, don’t ignite wild, wanton things I didn’t know existed within me.

It’s not a discovery I wanted to make. That Angelhole’s effect on me has nothing to do with his looks or power.

I exhale forcibly. “You can say that again.”

Azrael frowns. “I said my son informs me you had an eventful Divining, Wen White.”

I scoff. “I didn’t mean for you to repeat yourself. You archangels may look up-to-date today, but you certainly aren’t where slang is concerned…” I stop at Godric’s glare. And because it really isn’t good for my life expectancy to mock a being with the power of a star.

“It’s true,” Azrael says, titling his head in a gracious gesture. “This is the second time you’ve brought this to my attention. Perhaps it’s time we involved ourselves as we should in the ways of this modern world.”

“You have better things to do other than learning how base humans butcher the English language,” Godric growls.

“Aw.” I jump as a spark of his visual lightning zaps me. “Chill, dude. Not all of us can sound like we just rolled off a BBC documentary truck.” Before he electrocutes me for real, I hobble closer to his dad, hoping he’ll curb him again. “But what do you mean by eventful? What really happened in that Divining?”

“You don’t know?” Gabriel asks, still regarding me with this strange expression, as if he’s both intrigued and unsettled. Yeah, right.

“All I know is that your Divining almost tore me apart,” I grumble, unable to temper the accusation in my tone.

“It’s not our Divining,” Azrael says, being literal again. “We have no say in what happens in it. No one does. Once the Tribunal gathers in that hallowed spot and converges their powers, what happens is beyond anyone.”

I exhale. “Yeah, I sort of got this was some kind of autonomous process, like gravity or magnetism.”

Azrael nods. “That is an accurate analogy. It’s the very fabric of existence that determines the nature of those undergoing the Divining.”

“Yeah, it had to be something that lofty, right? But that still doesn’t explain what happened in my case.”

“Godric didn’t tell you?” Gabriel asks, his unreadable gaze targeting his nephew.

I toss Godric a sour glance. “He told me exactly nothing. Actually, he said I’m Nothing. With a capital N, I’m sure.”

Azrael looks at his son for a long moment, and I get the impression they’re fighting again in their private astral plane.

But when he turns his attention back at me, his gaze is the personification of equanimity. “If he chose not to explain, he must have his reasons.”

“Yeah, again. That’s why I’m hoping you’ll enlighten me. It’s impossible to have a civil conversation with this damn son of… Uh, with him.”

Just as Azrael starts to answer me, Godric’s leash materializes around my neck.

Next thing I know, I’m back at the frieze.

I don’t know how long I stand there until I realize what happened. Godric has fast forwarded me here and disappeared.

Shrieking in frustration, I call him every foul name I ever heard and invent a few dozen more. But of course, he doesn’t come back.

I wait and wait for him to. It turns out he can maintain his leash remotely. And tie it to something other than his hand, the golden frame of the frieze this time. He also made it too short for me to sit on the floor. And he’s been in there for eons.

Okay, so it’s been less than an hour. But all through, my whole body is a throb of pain and outrage. And hunger. And a desperate urge to pee.

The last two afflictions are strange. That angelic jet cut flight times in more than half both ways. So, added to the driving time, it was about five hours since I stuffed myself beyond human limits. The Divining itself, what felt like an eternity, only lasted five minutes, according to Lorcan. And I used the bathroom right before we left the jet less than two hours ago. I shouldn’t be in such an urgent condition.

But there’s an even stranger thing. Or maybe not so strange, considering everything else that has happened in the last day.

All evidence of Kondar’s flogging has vanished from my back. I had to struggle out of my jumpsuit’s top to make sure what I was feeling was true. And it was. I may have thought that salve was that magical this time, if all the injuries I suffered since the Godric Landing weren’t also healed. No, not healed—gone.

Stranger still, when I checked my older scars, they were smoother than they used to be. Apart from two that felt even more pronounced. But these don’t ache and pull like all my scars used to, only itch.

Seems the Divining tearing me apart and putting me back together had a good side-effect. An incredible one. The only scars that were unaffected by it are the burn of that locket on my chest, and my Mark. Maybe because one is too old, and the other is an infernal magic injury.

But the pain it inflicted persists elsewhere. Everywhere. It’s so pervasive, I can’t even pinpoint its origin. It’s like every cell in my body is…in flux. Straining and colliding with the cell next to it. But it goes beyond the physical. It’s like having…a soul-deep toothache.

Hope it doesn’t get any worse, or I may need the equivalent of a root canal for the soul. Or even worse, an extraction.

Compounding my distress is being garroted every time my legs buckle, and that maddening itch in my back.

I’m planning Godawful’s gruesome death after prolonged degradation and rubbing my back against his family’s likenesses like a mangy dog when the frieze at my back disappears and he finally walks out. Looking like he wants to murder me.

Now that’s rich.

But maybe this leash is two-way in more than the physical sense, and his rage is a reflection of mine?

Nah. He hates my guts all on his own.

“Feeling’s oh-so-mutual, Godforsaken,” I mutter as I stumble after him.

I know he heard me.

This time, he warps us for over half an hour. But though it’s mostly a blur, I’m almost certain parts of the trip was outside. I also felt as if we stepped through some threshold into another…place? State of existence? It just feels vastly different when we end up in a gigantic hall spread in mosaic-bordered floors and surrounded by soaring Greco-Egyptian columns. The periphery appears as if it shimmers into other realms. But the central part seems rooted in this reality, and is filled with people.

This reinforces my feeling that we’re no longer at the Court part of this domain. We must be in the Academy end of it. According to Lorcan, we must have crossed the Palladium river and Ward to get here…

I do a double take. There are many familiar faces from the Divining. I actually think everyone is from there!

How did they get here this fast? Even if each Divining lasted five minutes, there were too many of them. It should have taken days!

I ask this out loud, and Godric seems to take pleasure in answering me this time. “Time passes differently inside the Divining Cathedral. But it’s been twelve hours since we left it.”

“No way!” I exclaim. “We left the Divining thingy no more than five hours ago!”

“Twelve,” is all he says.

“I would know if you left me standing outside your damn meeting with your damn family for hours!”

“Seven to be exact. And I did.”

I gape up at him as my mind whirs and glitches.

Is it possible it didn’t register the passage of time correctly?

It’s my bladder that answers. It says it’s not only possible, it’s a fact.

Godawful left me standing there for seven hours!

“How about I pee on your boots this time in gratitude?”

His painstakingly sculpted lips twitch and his amazing eyes crinkle. My heart stops. Then bursts out in a mad stumble.

I just tickled his humor. In spite of all his efforts not to allow it.

No, no. I don’t want to see any sign of his wickedness, no proof of his human side, no matter how fleeting. I want him to remain a snarling, humorless brute. I need only fight or flight hormones in his presence.

As if he heard my thoughts, any trace of levity vanishes as he scowls down at me. “Go relieve yourself, human. If you have enough intelligence to fathom the signs. Return in a timely manner, if you don’t want to be dragged back on your belly.”

Our gazes duel for one last moment before I bolt. Facing off with him takes a very distant second priority to committing social suicide in this elitist setting by peeing myself.

Outside the hall, I find many signs that look made of solid energy floating discreetly within ornate arches. But like that damned archangelspawn sneered, I can’t decipher their angelic script. At least, I won’t in time to make a difference to my pee-related crisis.

I’m beginning to think I’d go behind a column and do my thing, even if it means falling into another realm, when a symbol up ahead pulses with the iridescent bluish hue of Angelescence.

Before I can wonder what that means, another symbol beyond it does the same, then another.

Unable to wait anymore, I consider this is some guidance system activated in response to my urgency, and hobble along the path of the relaying pulses. If it doesn’t lead to a restroom, I will pee myself.

Thankfully, it does. Nephilim do use bathrooms like us lowly humans, after all.

I barely make it to a stall and get out of my jumpsuit. Barely meaning I pee myself a little.

After cleaning up as best I can with that self-operating bidet, I rush out in search of a dryer. If I’m forced to go back looking like I did pee myself, I will commit suicide. While trying to kill that sadist.

Thankfully, I find many, powerful enough they’d dry me whole if need be. In seconds, I rush to a row of sinks right out of a lush fantasy movie. Water flows before I approach the faucet, smelling of lemongrass and lavender.

Humming at the perfect scent and temperature, I wash my sweaty hands and flaming face. My pleasure doesn’t last as my hair falls into the sink. It has long escaped its braid and I have nothing to bind it with. As I attempt the futility of finger-combing it with water, I notice the drool map at my collar. Not much better than a pee stain.

Leaning closer to the mirror, I start dabbing at it, then jerk a double take at my reflection.

We only have a distorted, age-spotted mirror in our bathroom. Besides that, I never had the feminine impulse of checking myself in every reflective surface. In fact, I avoided even a glance when I passed any. I never wanted to see my lanky, semi-starved body or my hollowed-out-by-existence face.

Now I gape at myself in the pristine, gilded mirror that seems to reflect more than my face.

Is this what I really look like?

So my face is what I know it to be, all cutting cheekbones and angular jawline. My skin is sallow and my hair is a riot of darkness. It’s the sum of all that’s unfamiliar. And then there’s my eyes.

Is this how they always were and I never noticed? A navy blue as dark and deep as a midnight sky, flecked by the simmering embers of stars? It’s as if something within may ignite at any moment.

I shake my head at the ridiculous idea. That’s just reflections of this sourceless lighting. And my fury at the massive monster out there.

But it’s my resting face, the involuntary glare in my too-wide eyes and the permanent twist of my too-full lips that worry me. The resulting expression is an inflammatory mix of goading and insolence.

So that’s what Angelhole has been responding to.

Not that it excuses that bully. I wouldn’t treat him this way if I were infinitely powerful while his only power was a provocative face and mouth.

Problem is, this face isn’t in response to him. It probably gets far worse around him, but this is how I look.

I try to soften my expression, but it only becomes sullen and sarcastic. This face isn’t going to win me any friends around here. No wonder I never made any. None besides Sarah.

I’m so screwed. More than I already am. I…

A tug on my neck yanks me away from the mirror. I’m not “timely” enough for my keeper. And he can latch onto me that remotely.

Aaargh.

Fuming, I barely catch myself and stumble out of the bathroom. At least there were no other girls in there to witness my humiliation.

Once back at the hall, I find no sign of Godric. So he drags me where he wants without bothering to be there himself.

Struggling to breathe after running the whole way back here, I remain at the periphery, assessing the crowd.

Everyone is now thronged in groups. Forming cliques already, it seems. I’m betting I won’t be invited to any. Not that I know if they’re fellow conscripts or what.

But how can they be when they seem beside themselves with elation?

So Lorcan said all humans are excited when they’re first brought here, and the Select are proud of the most atrocious job the angels toss them in. But these kids can’t be this excited about cleaning Nephilim toilets, can they? And as humans, we’re no good for more than that, right?

Oh, well. There’s a saying among the demons that fits this situation. If today’s news costs money, get it tomorrow for free.

The groups ebb and flow until suddenly, everything empties from my mind.

Godric. He is here. Right across the crowded hall.

And he’s looking straight at me. Into me. As if there’s no one else to see. No one else he can see. When there are dozens of bodies between us. The bodies I, too, no longer register.

As for my body, it all but combusts under his gaze, and all the things it insists it reads there.

Shutting it up is more difficult this time. It may become impossible if he keeps brooding at me like this. When he’s probably thinking how he’d torture me to death once he gets the green light.

It’s such a criminally cruel existence, to endow one being with all that. Did a more overpowering specimen of maleness ever exist? And to be paired with probably unlimited power, too? Yet manifest in the same package as this abhorrent personality?

But maybe the personality bit is the universe’s way of balancing things. If he was nice, or at least not full-on loathsome, other beings would drop dead in his orbit like mosquitoes around a zapper.

I can’t understand how the girls, and boys, are not fawning over him as he leans lazily against one of those soaring columns that seem to lead into the next realm. Unless he’s Glamoring himself to avoid the nuisance of their abject admiration.

That proves to be the case when he straightens, causing a wave of bugging eyes and swooning gasps.

He just de-cloaked.

He starts cutting through the crowd as if no one else is there, and everyone scrambles to clear his path.

When he’s a dozen feet away from me, and as if to stress his vileness, he makes a tranquil gesture with his hand. The leash appears in his hand in the same moment it tugs hard on my neck, making me stumble the remaining steps between us.

I come to a teetering stop, skewering him with the pokers of my fury, surreptitiously gesturing at the leash. I’d rather not be known as his pet goat right out the gate.

He only raises one masterpiece eyebrow. He isn’t removing it. Big surprise.

Darting a pained glance around, I find no one staring at it. Seems no one thinks it strange for him to have me on a leash.

Fighting the bone-searing urge to pulverize my hand punching his god-like face, I smirk up at him. It gives me some measure of power knowing how infuriating my expression is. “Next time, knock before you yank, or I’ll finish pooping on your boots.”

The flare in his amazing viridian eyes tells me I got a rise from him.

When he speaks, though, he sounds like the fed-up Godric who arrested me. “Here are the ground rules, White. From now on, you shut your bleating mouth, you listen when I talk, you do as I say…”

I pretend to yawn noisily. “Yeah, yeah, when you say it, exactly the way you say it. Dude, what did I tell you about redundancy?”

“You told me many things any sane being wouldn’t dare think in my presence, let alone utter.” His lips slowly twist in a smirk. One far scarier and sexier than what he gave me and that Asmodeus back at the Divining. It almost makes my now-empty bladder loosen once more. “This changes now.”

Refusing to back down, I raise him my most provocative grin. “No, it won’t. I’m telling you the truth about your atrocious self that no one else dares to while I can, you loathsome, uppity, insecure bully. Since this is goodbye...”

“It’s not goodbye. It will never be goodbye.”

A jolt passes through me from heart to fingertips.

The way he said this, anyone listening in would think it an emotional outburst.

But since it isn’t, I gape up at him until he qualifies it, and the world disappears beneath my feet.

He just said, “We will be joined at the hip, for probably the next four years—since now I’m your personal tutor.”