Chapter 7

Abass thrum penetrates the cocoon of darkness enveloping me. A crimson glare joins its attempts to scrape me away from its embrace.

“Wake up, Ms. White. To be further redundant, I’m not carrying you out of here.”

“I can carry her.”

“No, Lorcan, you can’t.”

“Spoilsport.”

“She has two working legs, since I saw fit not to break their every bone when she tried to escape me. She can use them.”

My lids weigh a ton each, but the sheer asshattery splattering me drags them up. I swear I can hear them scraping, like boulders over silt. I see nothing but painful whiteness.

For moments, I think I’m blind. I’m too drained to feel panic, or relief when I realize it’s only sunlight burning my retinas.

How long have I been out?

When my vision returns, the glorious brute materializes out of the glare. He’s scowling down at me as if I were some rotting roadkill.

In the dark, I thought he was dressed in black. Now I see it’s midnight blue—like the highlights in his hair. The strangely obscuring top and pants still fail to hide the magnificence below, from his neck down to his mid-calf boots. The boots that still bear the residue of my puke.

And his wings are back. Thankfully, the terrifying runes that blazed all over them are gone. Another on-demand feature. Their absence, and the sunlight, showcase those thousand-shades-of-grey miracles in aching detail. They’re raised behind him, as if in anticipation of a fight.

Fight? With insignificant human me? Sure.

That must be how they react when he’s revolted. That’s right. His wings are puckered in disgust.

“Hey, chicken wings,” I slur.

A boom of laughter issues from behind him as another stunning creature—Lorcan in my first look at him—comes into view.

“I truly hope they don’t execute you, Walter White.” Lorcan snickers. “Anyone who can call Godric the Great ‘chicken wings’ is too much bloody fun to die.”

Godric? That’s the stupendous swine’s name? It actually starts with God?

Seems fitting, I think grudgingly.

Out loud, I mumble, “Godric, huh? Who’s the pompous ass who named him? Now he probably thinks people, especially women, mean him when they gasp, ‘Oh God!’”

Another bellow of laughter from Lorcan. “That’s it. You should live forever.”

In response to our snarky volleys at his expense, that celestial sourpuss growls, “On. Your. Feet. Now.”

With that, he turns and walks away, looking like—well, a god. A god of vengeance, immaculate and righteous, striding away from a battlefield he turned into a graveyard, after he slaughtered all wrong-doers and decimated all evil.

At least he doesn’t do his angel-leash number on me, leaving me to struggle out of the car under my own empty-tank power.

Lorcan steadies me, stopping me from face-planting on the cobblestone ground. Seems he hasn’t sworn off touching humans.

Eyes lined with sandpaper, I look up at him. Should I thank him, Angelhole’s accomplice, for the assist?

Next moment, the world decides a course of action for me. It pitches and heaves a second before I lurch around and spew a gallon of vomit all over the van’s pristine interior.

Sarah’s serving was more generous than I realized.

Lorcan chuckles. “Now Godric will really push for capital punishment.”

“Yeah, hilarious, right?” I wipe my hand over my mouth, grimacing at the taste and smell I feel marinated in. Nothing less than boiling will disinfect me from the reek.

Lorcan’s grin only widens, and I finally register his details.

Perfection is the only adjective for his body, if on a slightly lesser scale than Godric the Great’s. His otherworldly clothes are also the opposite of the latter’s stealth getup. Detailed and decorated, they’re Roman soldier-like at the top, but with pants instead of a tunic at the bottom. An elaborate armor molds across his massive shoulders and chest like a second skin, seeming to morph in material and color with his movements.

His super-hero arms are displayed by the deep grey short-sleeved top beneath, and his muscled forearms are wrapped in worked, holographic gauntlets that match his shin guards. His pants are the same molding material, with metal-like straps around one thigh and the opposite calf, holstering vicious-looking daggers with exquisitely worked sheaths and pommels. All that’s left is a helmet and cape and he’d be some celestial centurion.

A warrior’s outfit. When I thought the war was over. The one that requires uniformed soldiers, at least. No one has any illusions it was really over. It has just turned cold.

At least that’s what I always thought. But maybe it isn’t so cold if that’s the uniform of the Celestial Court lackeys. Not that I have any idea if Lorcan is one of those, since he’s still not sporting wings.

But I’m somehow certain he can sprout them at will, too. That he and GTG are the same kind of monster. He’s just a nicer one.

This makes him less awe-striking than his brutal buddy. A terrible fact, I know, but a fact nonetheless. He’s handsome off the charts, far above any angel, and rugged with it, but he lacks the menace, the savagery that makes GTG mind-blowing.

Noticing me documenting his assets, he smiles, as if giving me permission. Not that I need one. I openly stare into eyes that can’t decide if they’re brandy or amber, shining from within with a banked fire, and made to crinkle in laughter. Then I move to his shock of dark hair that glints a rich auburn in the sunlight. His grin widens, drawing my attention to the full, wide lips that don’t seem to find seriousness an option.

All in all, the merry opposite of his cohort, the celestial grump.

As I step away from the van, I’m a jumble of searing aches. Not one inch of me, save my face, feels intact. When Angelhole didn’t lay a finger on me. My injuries are the collateral damage of his disregard for my human frailty. Like what his kind’s Apocalypse did to my race and planet.

I should be in a wheelchair. But I doubt I would have gotten one if he’d actually paralyzed me. He would have made me drag my limp body on the ground. Or towed it for me by the neck.

He can still do that if he thinks I’m stalling.

That makes me start walking. Lorcan remains a step away, and I can’t help but feel grateful for his presence beside me. It makes the situation feel less dire somehow.

He disabuses me of that notion the moment it forms in my mind.

“All fun aside, Ms. White, you’re in deep shi—trouble.” He huffs a laugh, as if savoring my predicament. “Mariana Trench deep. What you did is—well, you’ll hear all about the sheer gravity of the matter from those who are far more pompou—uh, serious than I am. I do know you’re needed alive for now—”

There’s that “for now” again!

“—but remember this when you’re facing judgement: there are fates far worse than death.”

My limping steps falter as I gape up at him. “You’re saying if it comes to a choice, I should go for execution?”

He shrugs one powerful shoulder, making his uniform shape-shift. “Just giving you perspective, since from what I hear, death seems to be the worst thing to humans.”

“What you hear? Seems to be? You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

“About humans? I have little firsthand interaction. But it’s enough to know what needs to be known about you. You are largely base creatures whose only redeeming quality is creativity, born of necessity, of course. I positively adore your arts and little inventions.”

“How charming.” I scoff. “Coming from a member of the species plaguing our planet, supposedly to protect us!”

My dig slides right off his nonchalant hide like water off a duck’s feathers as he shrugs again. “Only stating a universal truth.”

“We have an even worse opinion of you, pal.”

He nods, that easy smile never leaving his gorgeous lips. “Expected, and probably merited. We can have a meaningful discussion about the fallibilities of the different species ‘plaguing’ this planet later—if you’re still alive after your arraignment, that is.”

I choke and stumble.

A light touch on my elbow supports my whole weight. Super-strength, check. More proof he’s another member of that angelic breed the world knows nothing about.

“Anyway,” he continues smoothly. “My earlier point was; now you’ve breached the world of immortals, the rules here are totally different. There are many fates that make death, even after prolonged torture, a favorable outcome.”

I gulp around the spiked mass expanding in my throat. “You’re talking eternal damnation, right?”

“That, too, isn’t the capital punishment.”

There’s worse than that?

My stunned stare turns into a glower. “I guess in your warped angelic mind, you just gave me great advice and support.”

He grins. “Just saying.”

As he looks ahead, considering the conversation over, I tear my attention towards my surroundings. And my breath jams in my already constricted lungs.

All my life, my Mark confined me to the city limits of Los Angeles. The grandest buildings I’ve seen had some Greek, Roman, or Gothic architectural influences. Anything loftier I’ve only seen on TV or the internet. But what I see before me now? No words, not human anyway, can do it justice.

The sprawling, soaring constructions are mind-boggling. Their size and extent make it clear they were built with giants, or flying beings—or both—in mind. The architecture looks like a seamless marriage of Medieval, Renaissance and… Celestial? I guess it must be, if this is the Celestial Court.

I can’t imagine what else it can be. What other place would have spires that attempt to reach Heaven? Can feel as if the very fabric of light and shadow weaved with stone to make its pillars and parapets? As if solid materials merged with mirages in its construction? As if it exists in different realms at once?

The immense grounds are no less mind-bending, their sweeping perspective arrowing away beyond the reach of my mortal vision. Within my sight’s limits, dense woods spill through vast passages like sentinels, and a tapestry of parterres and pavilions wind between reflecting pools and groves. Like the building they surround, everything feels like a similar mix of the natural and supernatural.

If I have to describe everything in my own inadequate way, I’d say it’s a fusion of the sensual, sublime, and sinister. That it feels like a miniature of the world’s current state, an inextricable amalgam of Earth, Heaven—and even Hell.

It overwhelms me just looking at it, being near it.

Unable to take another step, I bend with hands on knees, struggling to breathe.

“Curious.”

Gasping, I glare up at Lorcan. “Dude, you gotta work on your…inappropriate responses. I’m dying here…and you’re finding it…interesting?”

“It is. When other humans first see the Court, they’re delirious with delight. It’s as if they stumbled into one of your fabled wonderlands. Like Hogwarts, only on celestial steroids.” A hand on my back urges me to straighten and continue walking. “I never heard of any human being disturbed.”

With my heart trying to climb up my throat, I resume limping alongside him. Secure that this weird mix of jerk and gentleman won’t let me keel over, I still toss him a sour glance. “Other human ‘felons’ get excited when they see this place? Where they’ll meet a fate far worse than death?”

“I meant other humans. Though felons also exhibit excitement—initially. But while you took my dire predictions in your stride, you’re falling apart now as a reaction to the Court itself.”

“Well, duh. This place is…unbearable!”

Lorcan gazes at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Which is a reasonable assumption. This Court is beyond any fantasy. It dwarfs imagination and drowns limitation. My jaw should be on the floor with awe. Which, according to Lorcan, is the unanimous human reaction. And my jaw is dragging on the exquisite cobblestones.

But there’s something about this place that makes me quake with a crazy mixture of foreboding—and anticipation. Something pervasive. Bone deep. Cell deep.

Soul deep.

It’s telling me that the moment I set foot inside this place, my world as I know it would end. Not in death. Or the worse ways Lorcan warned me about. In totally unquantifiable ways. And to me, that’s the worst of all fates.

I can’t handle uncertainty.

In the life that ended when Angelhole caught me, Kondar would have gloated about my fate beforehand. I would have had time to arrange for Sarah’s safety. I would have gone to face death knowing how it would happen, that my purpose was fulfilled. No matter the horror or pain, I would have died content, at peace.

But this place is telling me what awaits me is something…beyond comprehension. Something no one—even those who hold my fate in their hands—knows anything about.

And that terrifies me.

But I must be imagining it all. I don’t do premonitions. That’s Sarah’s domain. I can’t be feeling these overpowering—transmissions. Courts, even the celestial kind, don’t communicate anything, right? It must be all in my mind. And who can blame me if I’m outright hallucinating by now?

Everything I’m feeling has to be a side-effect of my ordeal at that angelic Nazi’s hands. His figurative ones, since he didn’t touch me, would never touch me, blah blah blah.

But his aversion may yet prove useful. Whether he’s walked or flown, he has reached what looks like the central building of that endless complex. At my pace, I have minutes until we catch up to him. Enough time to bombard Lorcan with the dozen questions I…

A crack of thunder makes me swallow them and almost my tongue.

“Faster, Ms. White!”

To my ears, his command wasn’t that loud. He’s too far, and he didn’t even shout. But I swear I feel his voice on different levels. To the exact intensity he intends me to feel.

If only I ran the moment I heard it!

If I did, I wouldn’t be hurtling up this celestial crap creek. What’s about to become infinitely crappier.