18. WEN

Seven days.

Seven maddening, interminable, nerve-wracking days.

Of silence. Of emptiness.

Of no Godric.

Ever since our confrontation in our dungeon, and my pathetic attempt to seduce him, he’s disappeared. Gone. Poof.

And no one cares that he vanished. Only I do.

The first day, when he didn’t answer his tablet or cell, I thought he was on a mission. He’s done that four times before, for one to two days each time, and was unreachable then. On those days, during the times when I should have been with him, I went running. Yeah, I did it voluntarily, and for miles. To expend the excess charge of missed training. And of missing him.

But for two months before the Trials, he always told me well before he had to leave. He even started detailing his absences on his return. I rationalized that he didn’t tell me this time because he was putting me in the “naughty corner.”

To make sure, I asked Lorcan, but he insisted there was no mission. As his second-in-command, Godric never fails to inform him of those, no matter how classified.

The second day, when my messages remained unanswered, I reached out through the bond I believe we developed beyond the Mindscape, what I really think made us communicate across realms during the Trials.

But like all other connections, it remained dead silent.

By the third day, without a charcoal feather or a golden leash in sight, I became certain his radio-silence was his way of punishing me. Godric the Great can kiss me and turn me inside out, but the Abominable Null isn’t allowed to paw and pursue him in return.

By the fourth day, I was convinced he was watching me run around like the chicken I emulated as my parting shot. Imagining him laughing his legendary ass off, reliving my pitiful temptress performance, I concluded it was a good thing he was staying away. I would have sicced my void on him otherwise.

On the fifth day, I decided I wasn’t letting him do it anymore. He would nephilim up, and face me.

He wanted me to keep my hands and provocation to myself? Fine. Whatever. His loss. But I needed my Godawful Guru. I needed those Worse-Than-A-Null powers researched and contained, and that auto-shield up, the sooner the better. And I was starting to literally suffer without his training, and his presence.

So I decided to ambush him in his living quarters. At least, wherever he sleeps—if he sleeps.

But everyone I asked either had no idea where these were, or thought me mad to expect they’d reveal what their Praetor hadn’t deemed to impart to me. Lorcan said Godric would rearrange the anatomy of the sod who told me, and it wasn’t going to be him.

It was only then I realized who I should have asked first. Gideon. I mean, he’s probably one of the few beings in the world who isn’t afraid of Godric, and he’s always open to undermining and pissing him off. He was my last ditch attempt to get a rise from Godric during my seduction fiasco. Even if fanning the blaze of their sibling rivalry hadn’t worked then.

Gideon told me what I needed to know at once.

Turns out Godric’s quarters occupy the top floor of Raguel Tower, the tallest structure by far in the Celestial Region. That’s saying a lot in a land spread in edifices that dwarf any humanity ever erected. The rest of it is occupied by his Praetorian Guard. Guess it makes sense, for him to be literally on top of his team, and the whole realm. Lord of all he surveys.

A consultation of my magitech map showed the tower overlooking Eternity Falls, and bordered by the Imperium River, Michael Colosseum and Gabriel Aquatica. But as I hovered over the tower, trying to expand it, and maybe get a look inside his quarters, a message popped up, warning that all cadets are forbidden from accessing that function, or approaching that region.

The map has locked me out ever since, demanding a reauthorization from my mentor. From him.

I would have defied the rules, and made the trek there anyway, to throw rocks at his window, demanding he unlocked my tablet, and to fucking answer my calls. Problem is, I would have been caught the moment I was detected in the area. Even if I could sneak in there, that tower is a literal cloud-scraper, and has no stairs. It was built for beings with wings. This really has to count as racist.

By the sixth day no theory could hold my anxiety in check any longer. Especially when uncertainty started to enter Lorcan’s insistence that there was nothing to worry about. So I accosted everyone else that I could, asking if they’d seen Godric or had any news of him. No one had anything to contribute. And I could tell they were telling the truth.

After another night of tossing and turning, I woke up this morning certain something had happened to him.

Terrible scenarios bombarded my brain like a meteor shower. That he might have gotten sucked into another realm. Or stumbled on Nephilim kryptonite and is lying unconscious in some ravine across the world. Or maybe even someone from his legions of enemies, Azazel for instance, had managed to off him.

My sanity has been coming apart at the seams all through morning classes, until I felt I’d do something drastic. Like yank the Life Essence out of the first Cadre angel who glares at me, and “cause him lasting damage” this time. Or unleash the void on this Academy full of bastards who care nothing that Godric is gone.

And here comes one such bastard. Gideon.

Every single time I saw him during the past week, I asked him about Godric. Each time, he only laughed, and said the region felt so much more habitable, and the air so much fresher without his toxic presence—or something to the effect.

Now he’s strolling toward Fem—what I call our dorm building, and what my Unitas and all First-Years have amazingly adopted. He’s probably coming to help Tory move out to her Designated Host. From the way he’s talking to himself, he’s clearly on the phone. And he’s laughing. Laughing. When his brother is missing. He’s probably happy that he is.

Feeling something snap inside me, I leave my Unitas at Fem’s doors, and hurtle toward him like a linebacker.

He stops in his tracks and taps his earbud when he sees me charging him. In the last second before I ram into him, his wings snap out, those bronzed marvels, and he launches into the air.

He stops six feet above me, and with a war cry, I jump and catch his boot with both hands.

His surprise turns into mischief as he purrs, “Down, girl.”

“You get down,” I growl.

His eyebrows shoot up, just as he does in the air. I gulp my stomach down at his take-off. It rises back up as I look at the receding ground. My Unitas led by Sarah are running from Fem, and dozens of cadets are gathering below to watch the show.

I sure am giving them one, the insane cadet Godric had on a leash, who goes around attacking Elite Fallen and Nephilim.

Gideon is now about a hundred feet up. A fall from this height would break every bone in my body, including my neck. But Godric pushed me beyond the breaking point until I could do thirty pull ups. Climbing Gideon like a dangling rope is nothing compared to that.

His turquoise eyes gleam in the steel light of the perpetually overcast sky as he watches me scaling his legs. “You should have told me you missed me that much.”

“Get down now, bastard, or I’ll hurt you.”

“Well, that’s not usually my thing, but for you, I’d give it a try.” I hiss like an enraged cobra, incoherent with fury, and he sighs. “Fine, I’ll play.”

But instead of landing, he flies away, taking us far beyond everyone’s line of sight. I call him every filthy name I can think of until he’s descending over Oriphiel Woods.

He still doesn’t land, hovering three dozen feet above ground.

“Which part of ‘get down’ didn’t you understand?”

His lips twist and a bolt zaps through me, enervating my arms. I fall off him like a dead bug.

That piece of semi-Celestial shit electrocuted me!

We’re high enough, I should have tumbled head over heels and gotten banged up all over when I crashed.

But Godric had tossed me from equal heights so many times during Melek training, with my arms tied behind my back, until I learned to land with minimal or no injuries. Now, with my arms still useless, I tuck and roll on the ground on impact, springing to my feet in the same sequence, every inch of me smarting.

A contemplative look coats Gideon’s face as he lands before me. Unlike his brother, who always literally rocks my world when he does, his shiny boots touch the ground as softly as an archangelspawn-sized feather.

“Want to enlighten me about what I did to deserve such ire?”

“How about you dropping me from a three-story height?”

The shithead has the gall to flash me a grin. “I meant what I did to warrant the attack in the first place.”

“It’s what you didn’t do, you smug scumbag. Your brother is missing, and you’re?—”

“Half-brother.”

My mouth hangs open for a moment, before I spit out, “Okay, I will hurt you anyway. Bad.”

He raises both hands. “Just stating facts. Regardless of how you think you can hurt me …” He grins again. “Maybe I really wouldn’t mind if you do.”

“Gideon!”

“What happened to Giddy?”

“Giddy was not an evil turd who cares nothing if his brother—excuse me, half-brother—is missing or dead.”

He frowns. “What are you talking about? Of course, Godric is neither missing nor dead.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know because he’s Godric. Nothing can happen to that bloody bastard. He was nuked, and only got a tan.”

“Wha …?” My mind empties. At the enormity of this claim. I shake my head, trying to slot my scattered wits back in place. “Did you say nuked?”

He gives a stony nod. “During the Apocalypse. And after he shook off the fallout from his hair, he zoomed to where the button was pushed, and pulverized the White House, before proceeding to the rest of D.C.”

I gape at him. That was Godric? Alone? Our history books said it was an army of angels.

How did they get it so wrong? Or was that a cover up? I must have been. There’s no way they mistook a single winged entity for a horde—a host of Chicken Wings.

But why would the human side want to cover this fact up?

Whatever the reason, Gideon couldn’t be lying. There’s no point, since I can fact-check that now. And there’s no doubt in my mind Godric is capable of it. That first night, I instinctively knew he could have destroyed half of L.A. not just the street.

Wow. This really puts his Level-Nine powers into perspective. And how much control he must possess to keep such destructive potential in check all the time.

But if that happened during the Apocalypse, that was twenty or more years ago. Just how old was he then? If he’s as young as he looks, he must have been a child, an early teen at most.

The idea of a young Godric, already possessing such power, capable of such mayhem … My mind stalls again.

I force my thoughts to restart, to refocus on the matter at hand.

His disappearance.

I advance on Gideon, fists balled, everything inside me going haywire. And suddenly, I see his Life Essence.

It’s far brighter and thicker than the Cadre angel’s. And not golden or uniform. It has all the colors of a blazing sunset and rages around and through him like the corona of a giant red star.

I’m so tempted to yank it out of him, at least pull on it, and give him the scare of his life.

Too bad I need him conscious, and cooperating. I had this idea for a few days now, and it’s time to put it into action.

I stop before him, meeting his puzzled gaze as I grit, “Take me to your father.”

After a moment of staring at me as if unable to believe he heard right, he throws his head back and guffaws.

I can see why, after Godric, he gets the most female, and a good percentage of male adoration around the Academy. With him being the sunset god to Godric’s midnight one, that guy’s beauty is heartbreaking.

He wipes off a tear of mirth. “It’s usually ‘take me to your leader’ but?—”

“Gideon.”

He waves me off. “Fine, I can consider him my leader, too.” His gaze sobers as it probes me. “This is still about Godric’s so-called disappearance, right?”

“Give the man a literal star. Since no one else can or will tell me anything, I’m going straight to the authority. The actual one and the one on all things Godric.”

“And you think an audience with my father is that achievable? And on such short notice, too?”

“Why do you think I’m talking to you? His pride and joy?”

“That would be your Godawful Angelhole.”

Is that right? That’s what fuels his loathing of Godric? If so, his motives aren’t as complex as he led me to believe. It’s all basic jealousy of daddy’s favorite.

Not that I felt any pride or joy from Azrael where he’s concerned.

But fathoming the familial strife between those godly monsters doesn’t matter now. I can resume probing and exploiting it, once I have my monster back.

“Well?” I snap. “Call him already.”

Gideon shrugs. “I can call him, but if I don’t give him a reason to warrant leaving his—post, he will disregard me.”

“Tell him you miss him. That you want him to make up for all the times he was reaping souls and had to cancel catching asteroids with you in your cosmic backyard.”

His expression grows dour. Seems I’ve hit a nerve. “I’d tell him that, if I want to make certain he wouldn’t come.”

Who knew? There’s a boy who misses his daddy and resents his absence inside that paragon.

Not in the mood to empathize with him, especially since he at least has a daddy to miss and resent, I tap my foot. “Then tell him Wen White, the one who called him a pompous ass to his face, needs an urgent audience. That should make him drop the souls he’s extracting and beam over.”

He gapes at me. Then he burst out laughing again, louder and longer this time.

He bends over as if in stitches as he splutters, “Now I know why they saddled Godric with you. You’re out of control. You must be excruciating to him, the realms’ ultimate control freak. You’re his perfect punishment.”

A shiver of delight courses through me. Though his conclusion is terrible, more so since it has a lot of truth to it, being called Godric’s perfect anything makes my heart sing.

I grind down on the ridiculous thrill. “Yeah, yeah, we’re a match made in your Horrific Heaven all right. Now quit stalling and call Daddy Death.”

He sighs, and closes his eyes.

My last nerve has snapped by the time he opens them again. “Daddy Death is asking your permission.”

“To drop by?”

“To transport you to him.”

“Tell him he has it, to this and to anything else, as long as he tells me where Godric is …”

The world zooms past, a trail of light like that of a starship jumping into warp, slingshotting me in its wake, and into infinity.

In the eternity of disintegration, memories, of all who ever existed, streak alongside my scattered cells. I see it all, relive it all. I try to store it, to access it later. But it’s everything. All the time. And the canvas of my mind is pixel-wide.

As the tumult ends in the same heartbeat, I reform, flesh and awareness, everything that permeated me seeping out and dissipating, like moisture under a scorching sun. Nothing remains but nausea, and a single knowledge.

I was teleported.

And it happened to me before.