Chapter 21

“No!”

Without even acknowledging my outburst, the She-Godric turns and walks back to her bed.

I stare at her as she puts her stuff away in her walk-in closet with that same psychopathic neatness, a storm of implications battering me.

Sarah’s presence here is a total coincidence. A terrible mistake. One I was responsible for.

But what if—what if I’m also the reason they think she’s angel-graced?

She ingested Angelescence once by accident, and again to ascertain its effects, when it didn’t work on me.

What if a second dose, so closely after the first one, left a residue in her system, and it’s making them think she’s angel-graced?

Sarah’s gentle touch brings me out of the tornado of dread and guilt. I turn to her urgently. “Did they take you to the Divining?”

She shakes her head dazedly. “What’s that?”

So she didn’t suffer through that horrific test. How did they decide she’s angel-graced then?

Lorcan. He must know what’s going on.

Grabbing Sarah’s hand, I resume our interrupted escape, and hurtle out of the room in search of him.

He’s going to answer my questions. Then I’ll brain him.

It’s only after I reach the building’s entrance that I stop. Basically because I’m dying.

As distressed, Sarah bends over, hands on knees as she wheezes. “Tell me…you’re not thinking of…escaping.”

“There’s no escaping…these monsters,” I gasp as I fold almost in two, feeling like a hot poker is embedded in my side. “I need…to find Lorcan.”

“You know where he is?” She straightens, recovering faster than me.

I didn’t even think how I’d find him before hurtling out of that room as if I had a demon snapping at my heels.

Oh, wait. I did have one. I’ll have an archangelspawn, too, if I ever breathe near her again.

I force myself to straighten. “I’ll figure it out. C’mon, we gotta clear this misunderstanding up and get you the hell out of here.”

This time, when I try to drag her after me, I only slide her over the mirror-polished floor.

Frowning down at her, I find that expression I so dread gripping her face as she raises her dainty chin. “I’m going nowhere without you.”

“I’m going nowhere, Sar. They arrested me for peddling Angelescence, which seems to be an unforgivable offense to them.”

“Yeah, Lorcan told me. He also said it’s a huge problem no one else must know about, but they’re inducting you into the Academy until they figure out how you do it. Now I have the chance to be with you for however long they’ll keep you, you think I’d leave?”

I start to blurt something, before clamping my lips over it.

Arguing with Sarah would be an exercise in futility. She’s the personification of accommodation—until it comes to my wellbeing. Then there’s no budging her. Not to mention that she always had this crazy conviction that my life is somehow worth more than hers.

Once I know I can make Lorcan fix this disaster, then I’ll argue.

From the brief look at my schedule in that welcome-to-prison packet, there’s another part of Orientation that’s required attendance for all Angel-Graced.

Was it Afterworld: Introduction to the Post-Apocalypse or Angel Grace 101? Neither?

Whatever, we’re supposed to meet some professors.

Not that I care. But if everyone is heading there, Lorcan could be, too. As a tutor or guard, or whatever the hell he is.

Taking the magical map out, I watch it orient itself. A glowing path snakes across it, with the angelic language I couldn’t read before morphing into English. At least I see the meaning in my mind in English. It indicates that my destination building is Jophiel Hall. As I hover my hand over it, the map provides the extra info that it’s named after the archangel of learning and education.

This map either knows my schedule and is pointing me where I should be, or it reads my intention and is taking me to Lorcan. Either way, I can only follow its directions.

Sarah falls into step with me, looking disapprovingly up at me. “I know what you’re doing. You’re postponing our argument until you know for sure you can get me out of here.”

Ugh. She knows me too well.

“I made a mistake ignoring your premonition, Sar, and fell into their trap. You have nothing to do with it, and you can and must get out of your Indenture.” She starts to protest vehemently, but I drown her voice. “It’s only going to be four years max. I’ll serve my time, then catch up with you wherever you end up. Easy, peasy.”

After a stretch of silence, I’m starting to hope she might be seeing reason when she whispers, her voice shaky, “When you didn’t return that night, and I feared y-you died, I wanted to die, too. You’re the only reason I want to live, Wen. And I can’t live in this world without you.”

“You can, in the real world outside our prison. When you’re free…”

“I don’t want to be free without you!” she cries. “We get free together, or not at all, remember?”

Ugh, I should have known this would come back to bite me in my “scrawny arse.”

“When Lorcan showed up and told me you were okay…”

I cut her off, boiling blood hurtling in my veins. “This isn’t why I sent that traitorous hunk of muscle and feather to you! I sent him to help you get free, not to imprison you with me.”

“When he told me you’re okay—” She continues as if I didn’t rant anything. “—it felt like a stay of execution.” What I always thought every time I knew she was okay. “I wanted nothing but to come be with you.”

I gape at her. “You mean you asked him to bring you here?”

She throws her hands up in exasperation. “Of course, I did. You think I’d do anything else?”

“If this is why he brought you here, you’ve seen me, and now you can go!”

She twists her lips. “I said I want to be with you, not just see for myself you’re okay and go back to Zeral.”

“That’s the whole point. You won’t go back to her.”

“I won’t, because I’m staying here.”

“Listen, Sar, if Lorcan took you because you asked…”

She shakes her head, stopping me again. “I didn’t ask, I begged. He kept saying it’s impossible. I was almost groveling when he suddenly fell silent, but kept staring at me as if in a trance. When he came out of it, he said he’s sorry he can no longer help me with my Indenture, and has to take me with him.”

“So he did break his word! He did take you against your will!”

She rolls her eyes. “Didn’t you hear anything I said? I was sure it wasn’t my pleas that changed his mind, but I didn’t care what did. I practically jumped in his arms!”

“Oh, hell no, Sar!” I moan, feeling my skull tightening over my brain. “But no—he would have taken you anyway. That you wanted him to doesn’t make him less of a treacherous bastard.” I hold up a hand to stop her objection. “But that’s okay, because I’ll make him take you back, and fulfill his promise. You’ll get out of L.A. and your Mark will be deactivated…”

Everything comes to a jarring halt.

The Mark! I can’t believe I didn”t think of this before. That it hasn’t activated all this time, when I traveled as far as New York!

As always, Sarah answers my unspoken confusion. “Lorcan thinks the Mark’s infernal magic was neutralized by such proximity to their angelic magic. It’s why he felt confident he can take me away without my own Mark activating. And he was right. Though he thinks this effect won’t last. But he said they’ll deal with it.”

“Deal with it how?”

She shrugs. “He’ll tell us when they figure it out. Just think of it, Wen—when they deactivate the Mark for good, we’ll be free from our Indenture in a way we never dreamed of.”

I shake my head. “This isn’t how it works, Sar. Deactivating the Marks will mean we reneged on its rules, and we’d be considered fugitives.”

“Who cares? The demons won’t be able to do anything as long as we’re here.”

“As if here is any better!” I exclaim.

“Of course, it’s better. We’re both safe…”

“We’re not safe! This place is filled with Supernatural monsters…”

“If it is, you even think I’d leave you among them alone?”

“You can’t do anything for me here, Sar! But you can get free, forever. No other being can enslave you again. This is the best thing you can do for me!”

“And the best thing for me is to be with you. And this is where I’m staying. Whatever the reason Lorcan brought me here, it’s the best thing he could have done.”

I stare at her, tongue going numb with frustration. I want to shake sense into her. I want to knock her out until I get her out of here. I want to hurl myself to the ground and throw a fit.

She holds my gaze, letting me know I can do whatever the hell I want. She said she’s going nowhere without me, and that’s that.

Feeling like I’m about to have a heart attack, but knowing we’ve reached the end of this argument—for now—I turn and continue walking.

We say nothing more all the way to Jophiel Hall. On the way, we pass by Raphael Sanatorium, and Jegudiel House, where all professors live. Or have offices. Or both.

Apart from sharing the opulence and timelessness that stamps every inch of the Academy, this building isn’t a maze like Raziel Complex. Its layout is intuitive, and I only need the map for a few nudges in the right direction.

Finally something that follows logic. Or maybe I’m getting the hang of this place? Or is it getting the hang of me? But if this place, or this map are guiding me on auto now, maybe they will pinpoint Lorcan?

Neither do, and before I come up with a search strategy, cadets pour in from outside.

At Sarah’s insistence, I let the crowd sweep us into the Roman theater-like auditorium. It’s only going to be an hour-long lecture, and maybe I’ll spot Lorcan lurking around somewhere.

As we take our seats in the sloping rows, I’m stunned to sense that Sarah is excited. It’s confusing, even disconcerting, until I think about this situation from another angle. Then it makes some sort of sense.

We were both forced to leave school after sixth grade. I myself was glad to be rid of school. But Sarah would have loved to continue her education, into high school and beyond if possible.

Now, in this total mess of circumstances, she finds herself attending an insanely exclusive college-level Academy. With the Nephilim, of all beings.

As I ponder the implications of this realization, a massive angel walks in with a smaller man in tow. Half a dozen other angels, all in solid dark grey uniforms adorned by a single emblem over their hearts enter the stage behind them, and stand at the back like guards.

The angel seems at least a decade older than the usual late-twenties-to-early-thirties appearance all angels sport. Which is very strange. Do angels age?

Also unlike all the dressed-to-kill Designated Angels I’ve seen, he’s wearing a faded t-shirt that’s stretched to bursting over his muscular torso and arms. Only the contrast with his stark-white wings tells me it was once black. It has seen better days—years ago. Even at its prime, it would have been something I can afford.

Even more casual are the knee-length khakis and toe-ring sandals, not to mention his drab-gold hair. A far departure from the precise stylings of other angels, it hangs lankily in haphazard waves to his shoulders. It doesn’t seem he’s washed it or used a cleaning spell on it in a while. And he has a scruffy, five-day blondish beard.

Without the wings, he’d pass for some sun-bleached, fitness-freak uncle back from a camping trip. Or, considering his striking looks, some Hollywood A-lister taking a break from a Wild West set, and out for a stroll on the beach.

I never even imagined angels could look this human. This approachable. I can feel the same reaction from all around me as he takes the podium, and a hush of anticipation falls over the hall.

But my optimism starts to dim when, instead of addressing us, he eyeballs us. For what feels like an hour.

Everyone starts to shuffle uneasily under his unnerving focus, what I’m certain each feels directed towards them in specific.

I’m starting to wonder if he’s mute or something, when he finally says, “How new and shiny you all look.”

His voice, like the archangels’, comes from all around. But while theirs felt like a sensory surround system, his bears down on me, burrowing in my very marrow.

Then he adds, “I loathe new and shiny.”

Well, that’s about the last thing I expected an angel to say.

Shaking his head, he gives an exasperated sigh.

Wind explodes across the auditorium, smashing us all back in our seats.

Everything slows down as my mind fast forwards, as it always does in response to danger.

I see and hear everything at once.

The shockwave sending anything not nailed down shooting through the air. Cries and yells bursting around the hall in a cacophonous chorus of shock and fright—and pain. The angel who caused that hurricane-level wind, and the man he came with, not a feather or a hair on them moving. The angel starting to smile. Missiles hurtling straight at us.

Act. Now.

I ram into Sarah, taking her down. A fraction of a second before we get hit by welcome packets at near the speed of sound. Those paper cuts would have been fatal.

After ten seconds or minutes, the wind dies down as abruptly as it detonated. I’m still holding Sarah down, arms spastic around her, breath still bated, screams still splintering inside my head. And now stampeding feet are reverberating like an earthquake in my bones.

This is why I hate being in a crowd. They’re in my way to the exit, to escape. But I must find a clear path out of this deathtrap.

I raise my head enough to scope the situation. The scene of mayhem that assails me is what I expected.

Many weren’t as quick in dodging the flying debris. The screams and sobs continue, intensifying as the injured try to run out of the auditorium, or others try to drag them out. I see a girl with something sticking out of her chest and blood drenching her whole front. Another boy is shrieking as he holds up an arm, spurting blood from his half-missing hand. Another has his face almost torn off, his flesh dangling off his skull.

All this because that angel sighed.

What would happen if he blew out his breath for real?

As macabre images of human body parts flying around in an angel’s exhalation flood my mind, I duck down to pull at Sarah. “We have to get out of here. We’ll crawl below…”

Thuds reverberate the ground, cutting off my frantic words. My heart convulses as I realize what the sound was. Doors slamming shut. That monster angel has locked us in.

“Sit.”

His voice again bombards the whole space from every direction. It makes my every cell vibrate with rejection, defiance. It has the opposite effect on everyone else.

It’s like a compulsion comes over the crowd. I can hear them stumbling to obey him, see the group cowering in the row behind us scrambling up.

I exchange a look with Sarah. She doesn’t seem compelled either, but she nods. We have to sit up. We can’t afford to find out what would happen if we’re the only two who don’t.

As we clamber up to our seats, I keep Sarah’s hand clutched in mine, keep my eyes on the source of danger, while stealing glances all around, assessing the situation and escape plans. None of them is viable.

We are trapped.

With the rows full again, the auditorium looks back to normal. If you discount the gored cadets, the smashed objects, and the blood on almost every surface, like a post-massacre scene.

The angel sighs again, and whimpers shear through the hall as we all brace for another onslaught. This time, with him forcing everyone to remain seated, that body parts maelstrom may still happen.

But—nothing happens. There’s no wind, no projectiles this time. The whole hall exchange still panicked if confused glances.

I’m not confused. I was exposed to gratuitous violence all my life. I know his type. They live to inflict damage on others. They feed off their pain and terror. He caused that first hurricane on purpose. The sick bastard.

“That’s more like it,” the angel says, accent a cross between American and Irish, voice now filled with satisfaction. “You may still be disgustingly new, but you’re no longer shiny.”

We certainly aren’t. Apart from those with severe injuries, the rest are either bloodied or disheveled.

“You must be wondering, why? Simple. Because I am Azazel. Yeah, hurry, get out your phones, fire up your search engines and look me up—and shake in your new, shiny, Academy-issue boots.”

Everyone frantically whips out their phones. As their thumbs fly over their screens, I burn with envy that they have the latest models, with working, and clearly lightning-fast internet. I have to get us phones like these before Sarah leaves, so we can stay in touch.

I’m busy planning the acquisitions, when the cadets put down their phones, every face pale and terrified.

Azazel laughs, and the sound is the most hair-raising thing I ever heard. Not because it’s hideous like Kondar’s belching cackles, on the contrary. His voice is as darkly smooth and sweet as molasses. But it sends something like an ominous memory burrowing into my spine.

Azazel spreads his arms and makes a small bow, as if receiving applause. “Yep, boys and girls, I’m that Azazel. Fallen and very, very averse to all that’s Light and Good.”

Fallen? As in a Fallen angel?

I never heard about his kind outside of religious stories. Even Lucifer is talked about as if he’s just a myth. In the version of the Apocalypse we heard about, he wasn’t leading the armies of Hell against those of his estranged family.

But since Azazel exists, then Lucifer probably does, too.

Just the idea zaps through me with dread and—delight?

Yeah, right. After all I’ve been through in the past couple of days, my brain must be a jumble of misfiring neurons.

But what else don’t we know about the angels? About the Supernatural World? What more have we been misled about?

Though I shouldn’t say “we.” From the reactions of the Angel-Graced, I’m certain they knew the Fallen existed before meeting Azazel. They just didn’t expect to see one here, let alone for him to be their professor. But they were “groomed” as Azrael said, receiving intel that is kept from humanity at large.

It reinforces my belief that neither I nor Sarah are Graced. If we were, we would have been sought out long ago, and told truths reserved only for those with angelic potential.

Not that knowing could have made any difference. Knowledge is certainly not power when its imbalance is that unimaginable.

As if to demonstrate that imbalance, I can feel Azazel pinning everyone in their seats, as with a pleasant smile and conversational tone he says, “I will be teaching you two subjects—the academic Fallen History, and the applied Fallen Magic. Both are mandatory requirements for every Angel-Graced student. A passing grade is an A. A failing grade is punishable by dismemberment.”