Chapter 12

Blood was life to vampires. It nourished them. It made them stronger. It made them immortal. It did not kill them.

But blood had killed those vampires in Purgatory. It was just the next thing that didn't make sense. First, monsters who could survive on this side of the wall. And now vampires who died when they drank blood.

At the moment, a lot of things weren't making any sense at all, and it was really making me second guess myself.

I wasn't sure I could handle another crisis right now. I was already drowning in crises. And Faris was watching my every move right now, breathing down my neck, just waiting to blame me for something. Daddy Dearest probably agreed with the incendiary reporter on the point that I wasn't worthy of my position. That I was a sorry excuse for an angel.

And could I honestly blame them? During my ascension ceremony, I'd promised that we would take back the Earth, that we'd reclaim our world from the monsters, that humanity would thrive again. I'd made so many grand promises, but since I'd become the Angel of Purgatory, I'd had nothing but one disaster after the other.

I spread my wings and jumped off the edge of the airship to tackle this latest disaster. The scene of the crime was the villa of one of the town's former district lords, glorified mobsters that I'd helped to expose and expel from Purgatory several months ago. The Legion had taken over all the district lords' estates when we'd set up the new office here, but many of the buildings lay vacant as they awaited the renovations necessary to transform them from gangster hangouts to office space worthy of the gods' Earthly army.

The district lords had always had far more money than class, so naturally they'd tried to buy a bit of class too. At some point, they'd decided that all respectable, distinguished houses had a name, and so they'd named their houses too. The house I was flying toward now was called ‘Big Money', and I knew for a fact that the district lord who'd owned it considered this name to be the most upscale, most venerable one a house could possibly have.

Big Money was indeed big. From the multiple building wings, to the swimming pool, to the sixteen castle towers, to the decorative stone fountain, to the fifty-car garage—this place had been designed with single-minded determination to be the biggest, most expensive structure in town. The gigantic, shining gold-plated money symbol on the front of the house might have been a little over the top, though.

I landed just outside the official Legion fences that surrounded the entire property. Big Money was part of our next-step renovation plans in Purgatory, but we just hadn't gotten around to it yet. So in the meantime, we'd just stuck a big fence around the place and put the project on the shelf for later. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that criminals had set up shop here. At the Legion, we too often set problems aside to deal with later—or maybe never at all.

A crowd had gathered on the street outside the fence. They cheered as I landed there, which I had to admit was nice. At least I still had some supporters. At least not everyone believed everything that vicious reporter said. My smile faded, however, when I heard what the crowd was chanting to me.

"Those vampires got what they deserved!"

"You took care of them, Pandora!"

"About time someone poisoned those filthy vampires!"

"Death to vampires!"

"Death to witches!"

"Death to shifters!"

"Death to fairies!"

"Death to them all!"

So they were anti-vampire fanatics. Anti-magic fanatics in general, from the sounds of it. This wasn't a gathering of support; it was a hate mob. And these people were happy to see me, not because they liked me, but because they believed that I'd personally poisoned the entire vampire nest.

"Death to sirens!"

"Death to psychics!"

"Death to elementals!"

"Death to ghosts!"

"Death to them all!"

Every word of their chants pulsed with hatred. They were under the impression that I'd killed the vampires, and that this was all part of my ingenious plan to rid the Frontier of criminals and retake the world, just as I'd promised I would.

But I hadn't meant it like this. I wanted peace and harmony. The last thing I wanted was for humans and supernaturals to turn against one another. I'd rather listen to the incendiary reporter condemn me as a Berserker Angel than listen to a hate gang sing my praises as the killer of supernaturals.

I sighed as I moved past the two Legion soldiers standing guard at the front fence. Life used to be so much easier.

Inside the house, I followed the sound of voices up the stairs to the second level. Here, Basanti, Alec, and Drake were gathering up the vampires' corpses and zipping them up into black bodybags. And there were a lot of corpses. I counted over twenty in this room alone. And who knew how many were in the other parts of the house.

"Have you figured out what kind of poison killed them?" I asked Basanti.

"No. The vampires were poisoned, and it was something in the blood they drank that killed them. That's all we know. But I couldn't find any signs of poison in their bodies."

"Then how do you know it was poison?"

"We have a witness." Basanti waved at Drake, and he brought in a man from the room next door.

He was human, between the ages of thirty-five and forty. His head was covered in a messy mop of greasy brown hair. He had about a week's worth of facial hair growth on his face, and eyes that constantly darted around the room with agitated energy. His jeans were torn and his t-shirt stained with blood. Every exposed inch of his skin was covered in dirt and dust.

"He saw it happen." Basanti nudged the witness toward me.

I turned to him. "What did you see?"

He blew air through his lips and laughed.

I looked at Basanti.

She shook her head. "His wits aren't all with him. The vampires held him prisoner for eight days, and the experience has left him shaken."

The witness jumped up and down and slapped his knees.

"It took us over an hour to get anything comprehensible out of him," said Basanti. "He said the vampires kept him and many more prisoners here as food. But very early this morning, after the vampires drank from their prisoners, they fell fast asleep. They were asleep for many hours. Finally, one of the prisoners discovered the vampires weren't actually asleep. They were all dead. That sounds like poison to me."

"Yeah," I agreed. "What happened to the other prisoners?"

"Some of them escaped, but the others, the majority of the prisoners, were already too weak to move. We found the bodies. They all died from severe blood loss."

I glanced at the witness. "And him?"

"We found him wandering the streets of Purgatory this morning," said Basanti. "He led us back here, to the rogue vampires' nest."

"I need to talk to him."

The witness pulled down his pants and mooned me.

I waited for him to pull up his pants again, then I said to him, "Hi, I'm Leda."

He giggled. "The Angel of Chaos."

I nodded. "That's right. What's your name?"

"Will."

"I need to know more about what happened here to the vampires, Will. Can you help me with that?"

"Yes."

I smiled at him. "Good."

"People have to know what happened," Will told me earnestly, then he ran out of the room, onto the balcony. He opened his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs to all the people gathered down below, "The vampires took us! They tortured us, and they fed from us! Vampires are all monsters, and they have to be stopped!"

Cameras clicked and lights flashed. There must have been reporters down there in the crowd. Damn it.

"Get him back inside now," I told Alec.

Alec nodded and hurried onto the balcony.

"We need to take a stand against the vampires! Hunt them down! Kill them all!" Will was shouting.

Alec had already grabbed hold of the man and was pulling him back inside, but the crowd below had taken up Will's chant.

"Hunt them down! Kill them all!" they sang, over and over again as Alec carried Will over to me.

"Now they know." The witness looked at me like a puppy waiting to be praised. "Now they know."

I sighed. "Keep him out of trouble," I told Alec. "I need to get a look at the vampires' bodies."

"Why don't you leave that to the professionals?"

I turned at the sound of Nerissa's voice. She was dressed in a white suit with a white jacket over it. Even her high heels were white. Today, she wore her dark hair in a high ponytail tied up with a sparkling white ribbon.

"Nerissa, I'm glad to see you." The scent of freshly-baked, warm chocolate chip cookies tickled my nose. "New perfume?"

Her dark brows drew together in confusion. "I'm not wearing any."

"You smell like cookies."

She lifted up her arm and smelled the sleeve of her jacket. "No, I don't." She gave me a concerned look. "Leda, when was the last time you ate something?"

"Last night at din—"

I frowned at the pleasant memory. It was hard to believe that only half a day ago, everything had been so perfect. And now it wasn't at all. Nero wasn't talking to me, I was buried in disasters, and the world was starting to wonder if I might just be the worst thing ever to happen to the Legion of Angels.

"Ok, yes, I'm hungry," I admitted to Nerissa. "But you still smell like cookies."

"Whatever you say, Leda. Just don't try to eat me." She knelt beside one of the dead vampires.

Nerissa hadn't mentioned Nero, but after seeing her, I could think of nothing but Nero—and the fight we'd had in Nerissa's office last night.

I tried to push those unhappy thoughts out of my head. I didn't have time to wallow in self-pity. I had to focus on the mission at hand.

"I need to get these bodies back to my lab for study," Nerissa said, rising to her feet.

I motioned for Drake and Alec to help her load the bodies into the Legion truck parked outside.

"What should we do with him?" Drake asked, casting a brief glance across the room at Will.

"Bring him back to the office too," I said in a lowered whisper, so the human couldn't hear. "Tell him its for his protection in case these dead vampires had friends and those friends come after him to silence him. But keep him away from the hate group outside. He'll only rile them up and fuel their fire. And above all, keep him away from those damn reporters."

Drake nodded crisply. "Sure thing, boss."

Then he joined Alec.

Basanti glanced at me. "Those reporters really got under your skin, didn't they, Pandora?"

"They are chasing disasters and endangering themselves and everyone else. It's my duty to protect them—and the world—from their stupidity."

"And?"

"And they're just mean, hateful people who care more about manufacturing a juicy story than about telling the truth."

"And what is the truth?" she asked me.

"Stop it."

Basanti's brows arched. "Stop what?"

"Stop making me feel guilty."

"Do you have something to feel guilty about?"

I frowned at her. "I thought Ivy was our counselor."

Basanti chuckled. "Just keeping you on your toes, Pandora."

I sighed as I watched Drake and Alec carry Will and the dead vampires outside to the truck. "When did I become like this? When did I start locking up victims and silencing freedom?"

"Angels are the Earth's protectors." The humor had faded from Basanti's eyes; she was completely serious now. "Sometimes you protect people from monsters. And sometimes you have to protect those same people from themselves. It's a terrible burden to bear, but that's why the gods have chosen you. That's what it means to be an angel: to protect the Earth at all costs, even at the cost to yourself."

"I preferred it when I thought being an angel just meant shooting magic out of your fingertips and wielding a flaming sword."

"You never thought it was that easy."

"No, I suppose not," I agreed. "But I did promise myself that I would be a different kind of angel. That I wouldn't be the sort to make every decision for everyone."

"Is this about Will and those troublesome reporters?" she asked me. "Or is it about you and Nero?"

My heart stopped for a second. "What about me and Nero?"

"You're fighting."

"How do you know about that?"

She pointed out the window, indicating the dark storm cloud looming over Nero's house. The rest of the sky was bright blue, and there wasn't another cloud in it anywhere. Nero's storm cloud was kind of hard to miss, so I must have been really preoccupied if I hadn't noticed it before.

"Oh," I said.

"That storm cloud has been there since last night."

Since our fight.

"This morning, I paid Nero a visit to see what was wrong," said Basanti.

I checked the urge to wince. "What did he say?"

"Not much. Nero was very silent and stony, even for him. He did grumble something about controlling angels, which I found pretty rich coming from Mr. Controlling. But he didn't elaborate further. I guessed that ‘controlling angel' must refer to you since Nero never mopes when he fights with other angels."

"Mope? Did you really use that word when you talked to Nero?"

"That word and many more colorful ones."

Basanti had known Nero a long time. She was one of his closest friends, and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind to him.

"And what did he do?" I asked her.

"Kept on moping. That's what I'm worried about. Nero doesn't mope; he acts. You really broke him, Leda."

"And what makes you think that this is all my fault?" I demanded.

She shrugged. "I'm sure he's at fault too. This is why angels usually don't get along. You're all so certain you're always right."

"You're not helping."

"I never said I was trying to help. This is your problem, yours and Nero's. I can't do anything about it, and neither can anyone else. Only you and Nero can. Whatever this thing is you're fighting about, you need to fix it or…"

"Or?"

"Or your marriage will really only be a Legion assignment."

With that said, Basanti walked away from me, swung a dead vampire over each shoulder, then walked downstairs.

She was right. The hollow ache in my heart told me that, even as my head tried to talk itself out of believing it. Marriage wasn't a war, a battle where one party had to emerge victorious over the other. We shared in our victories—and in our defeats.

Just yesterday, my life had been perfect, but now it lay in shambles at my feet. And it wasn't just about Nero. Maybe those reporters were right. Maybe I was a terrible angel, and try as I might to do right, I simply ruined everything that I touched.

My ringing phone interrupted my pity party.

"Lucy," I said.

"Leda, there's been another incident."

"Where?"

"In the Frontier town of Beyond."

"What happened?"

"Two fire elementals burned to death. And two ice elementals died from frostbite."

Vampires poisoned by blood. Elementals dying by their own elements. None of this made a lick of sense.

"I'm on it," I told Lucy, then hung up.

I spread my wings and flew off the balcony, back up to the airship. I was collecting problems faster than I could resolve them. Nero. Faris. Grace. The whole damned demon council for that matter, and my duties as Heaven's Emissary to Hell. Failing Magitech barrier. Monsters surviving on this side of the wall. Supernaturals dying everywhere. Reporters. Hate groups. Everything!

Soon there would be so many problems weighing down my wings that I wouldn't even be able to stand up, let alone fly.