Chapter 18

Istood before the door to Derdekea’s office in the main mansion, staring at the white wood and hyping myself up to play my part.

In truth, I’d been hyping myself up for the past hour before coming here, channeling all the women in my life with way more confidence than me. Taylor, Azmodea, Naamah, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde… Look, if Elle could make it into Harvard out of spite to get back at her douchebag ex and then stand in front of him with the saucy retort of, “What—like it’s hard?” I could at least be able to lie through my fucking teeth about wanting to torture someone.

I just…had to imagine someone I would actually want to hurt in place of Azazel. Oooh, like Azrael, the turd of a father who was such a spineless coward that he’d leave his son, whom he professed to care about, to suffer and die.

My hands balled into fists at my sides.

Yep, that did it. I really wanted to hurt a certain someone right now.

Good, good.

Channeling the Emperor from Star Wars, I let the hate flow through me.

Now I just had to walk in there with the self-assurance of someone who knew her worth, asked for what she was owed, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Like my aunt, Cora, who’d made it into a prestigious law firm on the East Coast as one of their top attorneys.

Bracing myself, I knocked on the door, then opened it at Derdekea’s call to come in.

“My lady,” I said and bowed, then closed the door behind me.

“Ah, Chaya.” Derdekea leaned back in her chair behind her desk, which was strewn with papers and books. “I was about to call you anyway. Your new suite is ready. I can have someone pack your things and take them to your new rooms. And I wanted to talk to you about reassigning you to other tasks. Can’t have you cleaning out boxes anymore now that you’re a throne.” She winked at me.

“About that,” I said, straightening my shoulders. Radiate confidence, radiate confidence…

Derdekea raised her brows and looked at me expectantly.

Remember, you practiced this. You spent half an hour in front of the mirror rehearsing this speech.I took a deep breath and said, “I want to team a torture spot on Archangel Raphael.”

“Pardon?” Derdekea leaned forward.

Shit, shit, shit.

Come on, you’ve got this.What would Taylor do? She’d laugh it off; that was what. I just had to cosplay my best friend, pretend I was her for a spell, and I could wing this. I knew Tay well enough to know exactly how she’d act in a given moment. If I slipped her personality on like armor, I wouldn’t be Awkward Me right now. I’d be Confident Taylor, ready to take on the world.

With a chuckle—that was decidedly not self-deprecating—I threw my hair over my shoulder and said, “What I mean is, given that I was the one who rooted out the demon and held him immobile until reinforcements arrived, I deserve a spot on Archangel Raphael’s team that interrogates him.”

Derdekea leaned back again, regarding me with a glint in her eyes. “Do you now?”

I stood up straighter, clasping my hands at the small of my back in the posture of a good and eager soldier, and lifted my chin. “Yes, ma’am. Given my new rank and power, I need to be assigned new tasks anyway—like you said—and considering the talent and skill I’ve shown in apprehending the first demon trespasser in the history of Heaven, it would be a missed opportunity not to induct me into advanced strategical warfare and give me the chance to learn how to interrogate an enemy.”

“You never struck me as the ambitious sort.” She picked up a pen and played it through her fingers as she examined me. “In fact, you seemed quite content to scrape by with minimal effort all these years.”

“For lack of the right incentive.” I raised my brows. “With all due respect, I believe my talents are not best applied to intra-celestial politics, but should rather be turned to connections beyond Heaven.”

Derdekea’s lips twitched. “A diplomatic way of saying you want a career in the field of our nonexistent relations to Hell.”

“I did manage to corner a demon all on my own.”

“Yes.” She tapped the pen against her mouth. “How did you manage that?”

A bead of sweat rolled down my spine. Hidden behind my back, my fingers clenched and unclenched. “Subterfuge, my lady.”

“Elaborate.”

“He didn’t perceive me as a threat.” I waved at the length of my body. “I don’t look like a warrior. I look all cute and cuddly, and others often discount me as weak and clumsy. But when push comes to shove, I will rise to the challenge.”

Like my hellhound Vengeance, who would trip over her own feet when relaxed but would tear an attacker to shreds within seconds without missing a beat.

“He underestimated me,” I went on, “and I took advantage of that and used his hubris against him.”

“So I see.” She tilted her head. “And you think you’ve got what it takes to draw information out of someone unwilling to talk? That requires a very special skill set, not to mention being able to stomach causing someone pain. You’ll get your hands dirty.”

“He is a demon, ma’am.” I pictured Azrael suffering for abandoning his son yet again, condemning him to torture and death due to his inaction. I didn’t even have to act to produce the sneer curling my lip. “He deserves whatever pain comes his way for daring to infiltrate Heaven. If we do not defend the sanctity of our realm by any means necessary, we might as well hand our world over to those who seek to dominate it.”

“You really are this eager to drench yourself in his blood?”

I suppressed the shudder at the image she’d painted, and instead called on the anger and fear and determination swirling in my gut when I thought of Azazel chained and suffering.

“My lady,” I said with emphasis, forming the harshness of my emotions into steel to reinforce my words, “I would be wasted on internal duties like shuffling paperwork or trying to climb the ranks through winning competitions that only play-act the true conflict. You need to put my skills to use where they can make a real difference. If you get me a spot on the team that works on the demon, you will deliver Archangel Raphael an angel who is not only already in the loop about the entire affair and thus won’t pose a risk, but one who is also dedicated to enforcing the security of our realm and making sure we keep the upper hand in this cold war. I am sure our archangel will reward your initiative and the fact that you foster relevant talent in your own ranks with a keen eye on the needs and the prestige of this territory.”

Derdekea stared unblinking at me for a long, tense moment during which I tried my damnedest not to fidget and give away how nervous I really was.

Then, slowly, her grim expression turned into a smile. “Well played, Chaya. I’d be remiss if I disregarded this amount of spirit and motivation. I will speak to His Highness on your behalf.”

* * *

I couldn’t believethat it had worked. That I’d actually fooled Derdekea into thinking I was some kind of power-hungry angel who wanted nothing more than to hurt a demon and prove herself.

I’d had exactly one experience with acting before, which had been in middle school when Taylor had made me sign up for drama club with her. I’d lasted one semester before I’d hightailed it out of there.

The stage had not been for me.

So to have been able to drag up enough acting skills now to make this work was nothing short of a miracle. I guessed wanting to free Azazel was so strong an incentive that it had really brought out hidden—more like buried—talents in me.

I spent the next few hours in the combat training fields. No matter how this whole thing was going to go down, I’d need to be sharp on my fighting skills, and it was a good use of my time to go over what Azazel had taught me when he’d pretended to be Aziel.

Thinking back to that time was dizzying. My mind and heart still didn’t quite know how to parse all that had happened.

I’d fallen in love with him. Again.

He’d come here, knowing I didn’t remember him, and he’d courted me so sweetly, so patiently. This…this was like a new beginning to our love story, the start we could have had if we’d met under different circumstances.

And yet…I wouldn’t want to miss that first beginning we’d had. Wouldn’t want to miss it for the world. We’d had a rocky start to our relationship, but all that sniping and snapping at each other that we’d done after he’d taken me to Hell was just as much a cornerstone of who we were as a couple as the abiding love that had followed.

And now…now I even had an alternate, lovely, romantic, sweet beginning in addition to the tense, banter-filled, quarrelsome way our relationship had started all those years ago.

I loved both.

And I missed him so fiercely it hurt my soul.

I channeled that pain and my anger about him suffering into sharp attacks during combat training. When I’d walked onto the training fields, I’d opted for practicing with a dummy first to warm up. Even with how Azazel and I had spent more time on sex and cuddling during his “training” of me, the times we did practice had left their mark. I was able to execute maneuvers I hadn’t managed before, and my moves were more fluid and catered to my strengths.

Others noticed, too.

Within minutes, I had an audience. Angels who’d barely paid me any mind before now walked up to watch me practice, and after some time, one of them challenged me to spar with him.

So I did.

Grim-faced, I went to put to good use all that Azazel had taught me. And I didn’t just remember the things he’d drilled into me during his time up here in Heaven, but also our training sessions from when I’d lived in Hell.

Back then, I’d been a human, and the way he and the others had taught me to fight had necessarily been about making up for my weakness compared to demons. Still, a lot of what I’d learned in the arena with Azazel and the others was useful even now, especially as it applied to fighting against a stronger opponent.

My teeth-gritting rage and frustration about Azazel being caught gave me an edge I’d never had before. I had something to fight for now. Something far more valuable than the simple desire to win in a competition to move up a rank. I fought with an inner drive that my sparring partner lacked.

And it delivered a result I’d never achieved before—I won.

I ended up standing above him after I’d relieved him of his weapon with a well-placed strike that had taken him by surprise, while I’d swiped his legs out from under him at the same time. My sword now poised over his heart, I paused, panting, wrath heating my blood.

I was so angry.

Right this very moment, Azazel was being tortured, suffering who knew what horrible pain, unaware that Naamah and I were plotting to get him out, and all I could do for now was bide my time until I’d hopefully get on Raphael’s torture team and find out where Azazel was being held.

I couldn’t just sit on my hands. I had to stay active, to vent this oppressive force of aggravation and despair, or else I’d explode.

“Next!” I barked, lifting my gaze to the angels who’d watched me spar.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to fight. Needed the exertion, needed the way it focused my mind, narrowed my attention to the immediacy of the moment…pulled my thoughts off the never-ending spiral of doom whenever the memory of Azazel being beaten right in front of me flashed through my mind.

Another angel stepped up, this one a dominion who’d taken delight in defeating me the times I’d sparred with her before. I gave her a grim smile as I took my position.

We met in a clash of metal and flashing lights.

You still think in terms of human strength and speed, Azazel’s words surfaced from the depths of my mind. You’re moving slowly because you don’t believe that you’re capable of more, perceiving your body bound by human limitations. But you’re not human anymore. You’re an angel. So act like one.

I took his words to heart, internalizing the message. He was right. He was so right, and it was high time I dipped into the full potential of what my angel body could actually do.

As I fought, my power surged within me, rolling and roiling underneath my skin, and I used it in the way Azazel had shown me, my control over it better than ever before. In a mix of targeted lightning and precisely aimed pushes of pure power, I shoved the angel back, back, back, the fury inside me lending raw strength to my movements. My wings, too, were now an integral part of how I fought, giving me a wider range.

I saw the exact moment my opponent realized she’d miscalculated and underestimated me. Her eyes widened, and regret flashed across her expression just a second before I disarmed her, too, and stopped with my sword at her throat.

And so it went. I kept picking new sparring partners, and one after the other, they ended up beaten by me. If I’d been in any kind of mindset of the “me before Azazel had been caught,” I would have marveled at this new prowess I was showing here on the training fields. As it was, though, I wasn’t in the headspace to marvel. I wanted blood.

I imagined each and every one of these angels to be the one standing between me and liberating Azazel, and it did the trick like nothing ever had before. If I were to go into a competition with this kind of mindset, I’d be sure to win another rank.

Only, I didn’t give a fuck about that anymore.

Hours later, an angel I didn’t know came by to collect me, instructing me to follow him to receive my new assignment in Archangel Raphael’s personal employ.

The nerves I’d managed to keep pushed down during my fighting exercises now threatened to bubble up and ruin my composure as I landed next to my escort in front of a large building on the grounds of Raphael’s estate. Folding my wings and vanishing them, I peered at the massive structure looming above me.

I knew immediately the purpose of this building, recognizing the style of its construction as similar to Derdekea’s own soul stables. As with everything here in Heaven, it was not merely functional but also pleasing to the eye, the big structure embellished by murals and carvings on the huge walls.

By design, soul stables didn’t really need windows, since the purpose of the rooms inside was to provide a place of confinement for individual souls rather than to house someone who would need or want to actually look outside and enjoy the natural light of the everlasting celestial sunset. The souls would only ever gaze upon their own personal afterlife projection, which would give them all the input and impressions they could ever desire.

The intention of the soul stable buildings, then, was primarily to be able to contain as many souls as possible, like a huge warehouse. In modern human societies, such a building would be designed in as drably functional a way possible, maximizing space while keeping construction costs low by only using as much material as was necessary to achieve its goal, resulting in an eyesore made of concrete and steel.

Here in Heaven, on the other hand, anything that needed to be built had to both serve its primary purpose and manage the feat of enhancing the beauty of its surroundings. Which was the reason the soul stables rivaled cathedrals and sprawling temple compounds in their decorative prettiness.

After all, it wouldn’t do for angels to have to keep flying to and from and past anything but a stunning masterpiece of architectural elegance.

Raphael’s soul stable would have taken up several New York City blocks—and at the thought of one of my favorite metropolises, my heart pinched, remembering its massive destruction during the thwarted apocalypse eight years ago. God, I hoped the city had recovered and that the casualties hadn’t been as high as it had seemed back then.

And what, exactly, had humans made of these events? Had the whole thing ripped the wool from their eyes as to the existence of the supernatural beyond their imagination? Or had they found some logical excuse to explain away the emergence of three-headed hounds and winged warriors who’d wreaked such havoc on the population?

None of the magazines or other material relating to current events on Earth that Naamah had supplied me with had mentioned anything about an actual apocalypse… Had Heaven covered it all up somehow?

“So you’re the one who caught him.”

The statement jolted me out of my conspiracy musings, pulling my attention to the angel who’d come out of the soul stable to greet us. Her dark locks formed a voluminous mane around her head, her golden eyes shrewd as she looked me over.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

The hint of a grim smile adorned her dark brown face. “Impressive. Now, I understand His Highness has assigned you to join us, so I’ll be showing you around and letting you shadow me for today. You haven’t done interrogation work before, have you?”

I shook my head.

“Right. You’re barely much more than a baby in terms of age.”

I bristled, but she raised a hand.

“No offense intended, so untwist your wings. From what I heard, you’ve only been here eight years, and you’d just been made an angel after the new truce was struck. Which means you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn how to interrogate anyone.” She leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “In order to hone the skills of extracting information from someone determined to keep their mouth shut, you kind of need an enemy, because we don’t practice that shit on our own. And seeing as we’ve been in a precarious truce for thousands of years where we don’t really have reason to capture enemy fighters, the only ones among us who have any personal experience in torturing someone for intel are those who were around during the original war.”

My eyes widened as I studied her again. That meant she was?—

“Yep,” she said with a smirk. “I’m that old. My name is Ithuriel, and I’ve been serving as seraph under His Highness since before Lucifer’s fall.”

I went down on one knee and bowed my head in proper greeting for her rank.

“Rise, child.” She impatiently waved me up. “You’ll watch me work on him today, and I want you to take note of not just what I do and the questions I ask, but also the pattern of it. There’s a rhythm to this kind of interrogation.”

She beckoned me to follow her as she turned and walked toward the door to the soul stable. Ornate carvings adorned the entrance, which was of regular size in contrast to the massive doors to other official angel buildings. Much like Derdekea’s stable, this one didn’t feature a large lobby inside either, but rather a simple corridor leading to the back, with doors on either side—each the entrance to a room for an individual soul. To the left, a staircase granted access to the upper levels with more rooms for souls.

If this was similar to Derdekea’s stable, there’d be more corridors forking off toward the back. If viewed from above, the layout would look like the grid of a city planned in rectangular blocks so as to better maximize the space utilization, with the clusters of rooms being the city blocks and the corridors acting as “streets.”

The rooms were all numbered, and there were directories at the key points of the hallways, indicating in which direction what level of numbers were to be found. I cataloged everything as we went through the building, for once in my life not stressed about having to remember details—one of the advantages of being an angel was a near-eidetic memory, so I knew I’d have no trouble recalling the way and the room number later.

I also took note of any security we encountered, which was indeed more than was normal for a soul stable. Generally, soul theft wasn’t a thing up here—contrary to Hell—which meant that the only angels coming and going or milling about a soul stable were the ones tasked with creating afterlife projections, and their supervisors.

There’d been two angels “casually” hanging out in the vicinity of the soul stable out front, which I’d pegged for guards/lookouts right away. Each level had an angel standing by the staircase exit, scanning all who ventured upstairs, which was usually not the case, at least in Derdekea’s stable, bringing the count of guards up to five so far.

We reached the uppermost level, and here, two angels waited at the staircase exit, nodding at Ithuriel as we walked past.

“This entire floor has been cleared of souls,” Ithuriel said, walking down the corridor. “The room’s soundproof, obviously, but this way we won’t even have foot traffic outside in the corridor. It’s only the demon here in the back.”

“And there’s no chance he can escape?” I dared to ask.

Ithuriel snorted. “And go where? We’re in the middle of His Highness’s compound, surrounded by his cadre of high-ranking angels. Security at the gate has been beefed up, and patrols throughout the area have been increased. He wouldn’t make it two wing beats before someone spotted and tackled him, especially with that demon energy of his acting like a beacon.” She shook her head. “That is, if he even makes it out of this room, which is highly doubtful with him shackled down this tightly.”

Sweat broke out over my skin, my heartbeat thudding so hard I felt it all the way up in my head. How the fuck were we supposed to get him out of this? Did Naamah really have a plan that would account for all of these conditions?

We’d reached the end of the corridor, where another angel stood guard in front of a nondescript door. Ithuriel nodded at the security, then opened the door and stepped inside.

My stomach cramped as I followed her.

The scent of blood hit me first.

Heavy—so damn heavy in the air it was all I could do not to gag at the first breath. The iron tang of it rushed at me despite my efforts not to inhale through my nose, and I trembled.

Because I knew that scent.

Knew him.

His blood was so potent, and fresh as it was, it carried with it the essence of his being, unlike the dried stain I’d tried to sniff on the tunic he’d left me with. Here, now, the aroma of his blood was like a billboard sign showcasing who he was—at least for those who knew him.

And it crashed into me with enough force to make me wobble.

Worse yet was the visual that greeted me.

He was on his knees, arms bound behind his back, the chain around his wrists linked to the shackles around his ankles with no give, while a collar around his neck was attached to another chain dangling from the ceiling, exactly short enough to force him to keep himself upright on his knees and not sink down to sit on his legs. If he tried to relax his stance, or the muscles in his thighs gave out, he’d choke himself on the collar.

Not that it would kill him—just crush his windpipe, over and over in between those moments when the injury would heal.

It was precisely that fast demon healing that made for the true horror in this scenario. Because if a torturer didn’t even have to account for the limitations of a mortal body, where was the line? With humans, torture always had to avoid the kind of permanent damage that would render the subject useless for further interrogation. One could only cut so deep before risking spilling too much blood. Infection lurked behind every amputation and open wound, not to mention that the human mind tended to shut down at a certain threshold of pain. And an unconscious torture subject couldn’t answer questions.

With immortals such as our kind, with our fast healing and our ability to even regrow limbs, as well as our high pain tolerance, things were vastly different. Anything was possible in terms of torture methods and intensity because as long as the head remained firmly attached to the neck and the heart inside the chest, an angel or a demon wouldn’t die and would recover from any injury inflicted.

And I saw the tapestry of the kind of wounds Azazel had been dealt on every patch of his naked skin. The fact that so many of the injuries were still visible spoke to how recently they’d been caused, for usually they’d close and heal within minutes.

My breath stuck in my throat at the sight of his mangled body, at the blood seeping out of cuts and slices, some of which were kept open by contraptions that prevented closure. Nausea coiled in my stomach, bile rising up my esophagus.

He hung his head forward as much as the collar around his neck allowed, strands of his black hair half obscuring his face.

I still noticed the second he realized I was in the room with him.

His entire body tensed, muscles steeling underneath red-coated, butchered skin, his nostrils flared as he inhaled—and then he became inhumanly still. Tragically so, for there was an undercurrent of sorrow in his energy, muted as it was through whatever magic was worked into those shackles of his.

He lifted his head, and his gaze slammed into me, the storm-gray of his eyes turned to liquid silver.

I couldn’t breathe. My whole body hurt. My fucking soul ached so much it threatened to break me.

“Interesting tidbit about him,” Ithuriel said, drawing my attention to her. “His injuries all heal at the rate to be expected when in his home realm. Which shouldn’t be the case.”

I jerked and stared at her. Wait—so they’d thought he wouldn’t heal? Oh, God.

Ithuriel took my shock as a response to her revelation that he recovered at a speed that should be impossible. “I know. Quite strange, isn’t it? Up here, he should be as vulnerable as on Earth. There should be no way that he can draw energy from Heaven as he can do from Hell. Yet he does. And he just”—she bared her teeth and grabbed his hair, wrenching his head back—“won’t tell us how.”

Azazel’s subdued power vibrated in the air, the note of it purely demon. There was no trace of his angelic heritage in his energy. He’d obviously repressed his angel side completely when they’d caught him, to better hide his identity and how he’d been able to make it into Heaven.

He peeled his gaze off me and looked at Ithuriel instead, his features hardening. “Go fuck yourself,” he purred.

Stop antagonizing her, I wanted to snap. Did he have to make things harder for himself by insulting his torturers? Ugh!

“Not very creative,” I blurted.

Azazel’s gaze flicked to me.

Ithuriel straightened and looked at me over her shoulder, her attention effectively pulled off him for a moment.

“I mean,” I went on, “I’d have thought demons were more eloquent. You’d hear more innovative insults on the streets of New York City.” I shifted my weight. “From what I’ve been told.”

“He’s stingy with words,” Ithuriel said. “We haven’t been able to get anything relevant out of him about who he is, how he got here, or what he’s been doing in Heaven. Not a peep.”

I swallowed down the renewed bout of nausea rising up. That amount of resilience… To withstand this kind of torture without breaking even just a little was incredibly impressive, and my mind and heart struggled with the full and true understanding of how much pain he’d already endured, just going by the looks of it and the knowledge that they’d already had him for more than a day.

The torture would have gotten progressively worse, for one thing, because they’d have realized he healed fast and therefore could take more, and because his continued refusal to provide them with even the smallest bit of information would have ratcheted up their frustration under the pressure to produce results for Raphael.

We had to get him out of here ASAP.

“Well,” Ithuriel said, “I am nothing if not persistent.”

She walked over to a table on the wall, which I only noticed now, and when I saw what lay atop it, I had to catch my breath and still my heart so as not to utter a horrified gasp.

I’d seen pictures of medieval torture devices. I’d watched movies here and there featuring deranged serial killers who delighted in collecting all sorts of sharp tools they’d then use on their victims. I’d prepared myself before coming here as best as I could.

If he suffered through this, without breaking, I’d be able to watch if that was what it took to keep my cover and gather the intel necessary for Naamah to execute her plan for rescue. Now that my memories were back, I remembered all too well my visceral reaction to being handed the severed wings of Inachiel—still dripping with his blood—as well as puking my guts out at having to witness the torture session Lucifer had dragged me to. I knew how hard it was for me to keep the contents of my stomach from hurtling up at the sight, sound, and smell of suffering.

But if I vomited in here, or worse, if I had to run out because I couldn’t take it, I’d risk arousing suspicion. Because the angel I’d pretended to be in order to be allowed on the team wouldn’t be plagued by nausea when watching a demon get tortured. I had to play the part and make them think I had what it took to pursue this line of work.

I. Would. Not. Throw. Up.

No matter what, I’d keep it together, for Azazel’s sake.

For his sake, for his sake,I chanted in my head, fighting down bile as Ithuriel set blade to skin, as the scent of fresh blood permeated the air, as—eventually, after what seemed like hours of silent suffering—the sound of his choked-back screams chipped away at my composure.

That was the first and only time in my life that I threw up in my mouth, only to swallow it all down before anyone noticed.