The aftermath of Michael’s departure is filled at first by the roar of the sandstorm that follows him up and up and up, then an unsettling quiet. Finally, when the sounds of the street return to us, and whatever bubble Michael extended is completely gone, Saraya breaks it.
“If you thought I hated you before…” Saraya says through gritted teeth.
I’m not sure who she’s talking to. Sean isn’t either. “Do you mean me?” he asks.
“No,” she says.
I’m it then. “Sorry?” I offer. “I really am. But maybe this is for the best.”
Saraya works her jaw in a way that fully communicates what words never could. One of her minions, a lean man with a scar down his left cheek and a hint of beard, tries. “In what possible way?” he asks.
“Go,” Saraya tells him, and by extension the rest of the squad. She jerks her head.
“What?” the man asks. A woman in leathers behind him says, “We’re with you.”
The loyalty is touching …
“Go home,” Saraya says. “That’s an order. I’ll babysit.”
But only touching to me, apparently.
Sean is watching the guardians’ exchange with an intensity that borders on creepy. His handsome face splits into a genuine grin.
He leans forward the slightest bit to me and says into my ear, “She volunteered.”
“Calm down,” I murmur. I can’t believe Luke summoned Michael. And it worked. Sort of.
“You have to help us,” I say to Saraya.
“Now who’s pushing it,” Luke says, in my other ear.
Saraya sighs and then levels her chin at Sean. “You’re going back where you belong at the end of this. I’ll just be conveniently nearby.”
This will be the longest three days ever only to fail. So we won’t.
Sean’s face, there’s only one word to describe it—besides gorgeous—and that’s yearning. He’s pining and then some. What’s their story? I want to know so badly I can hardly stand it.
Saraya’s squad shows no signs of leaving. She gestures for them to surround her, huddling several feet away from us. While they’re busy I take the chance to speak to Luke.
“You were in there a long time,” I say to Luke. He opens his mouth, to argue or protest. I don’t want that. “I was worried.”
“You were?” he asks with a hopeful tilt of his head. It somehow manages to remind me of Bosch when I produce a tennis ball from my pocket and also makes me want to jump Luke right here, right now.
“I was.”
“You won’t believe what I had to do in there—it has a subterranean museum.” He preens.
“Please save it for my nightmares.”
He grins. “Right?” He’s serious again in a blink. “I never want to see you…” he searches, “Hurt. I never want to see you hurt.”
He means the cut on my neck. I would be perfectly happy never to get poked in the throat by a holy sword again too. The concern in his eyes does something to my insides, twists them around and puts them back together again.
“Luke…” I hesitate, my brain rushing ahead and back to our current dilemma. “Why do you think Michael was so helpful?”
“I have no idea.”
I asked the question because it seems important. Sean has been uncharacteristically quiet during all this, mooning in the direction of the guardians. Of Saraya, probably not the others. Though they occasionally take turns shooting the look equivalent of daggers at him, no doubt wishing they were actual knives.
Grudgingly, the huddle breaks up enough to let Saraya step out of it. The others lean in, heads touching. The guardians are truly the jocks of the Good vs. Evil world. They chant together a phrase I can’t decode even with Luke’s powers. Then all but Saraya disappear en masse.
“Was that angelic tongue? So, it’s real!” I know I sound like a huge nerd, but as a fan of everything occult even before I got involved in any of it directly … The language of the angels exists?!
“You should never have witnessed it,” Saraya says.
“You’re staying,” Sean says to her. “You could’ve left, but you didn’t.”
Saraya could be talking to the sky. “I regret it already.”
During our confab with Michael, the street has grown busier. There’s more foot traffic. People going about their days, with no clue what has been happening here. I used to be one of them, assuming the stories of good and evil and supernatural forces were things humans came up with to avoid boredom. My family and my best friend seem to think I still should be. They don’t believe it’s my place to change the universe.
“What do we do next?” I ask.
How do we give Sean Tattersall a chance at redemption? We’re no closer that I can tell. We don’t even know how he ended up in Hell. And he’s not toting the Grail beneath his arm.
Luke opens his mouth then closes it and fidgets. I interpret this as him having an idea he suspects I won’t like. Better than the nothing I’ve got.
“Spit it out,” I say.
“I don’t want to fight,” he says.
“Me neither.” I wave. “Bring it on.”
“I want to fight,” Saraya says as if she’s remarking upon the weather. She tosses her braids over her shoulder. “To kill. To maim. To defeat. To conquer.”
We all look at her, Sean included, with a “you do know you just said that out loud” reaction.
“For the glory of the Heavenly Host,” she adds.
“Obviously,” I say with raised brows. I turn to Luke. “What is it?”
“We’re helping Sean, correct?”
Luke’s senses surge back to me now that I’m not pushing them away and his beauty stuns me all over again. His hair a golden halo in the sunlight, eyes clear as unspoiled oceans.
Luke ticks his head toward Saraya. Is Luke saying that we have to help Sean with her? I think we have a better chance of finding the Grail.
“He’s seeking another trophy,” Saraya says. “He’ll never find it. Why bother?”
“I’ll find it just to prove you wrong,” Sean says.
That logic does appeal to me. We don’t have any other grand leads and Luke must have his reasons for thinking this might soften her attitude toward Sean eventually. Assuming I’m reading his suggestion right. I trust him. I do.
“Okay,” I say, “so we’re helping Sean find the Grail. What’s your plan, Sean?”
Because if there’s one thing I learned from researching him, it’s that he’s a meticulous criminal.
Sean grins. Saraya sighs.
“Oh,” I say when he doesn’t answer. We’ve just been bouncing between reputed sites where it might be. “You’ve been making it up as you go along, haven’t you?”
“Now you’re starting to get me,” Sean says.
I frown. No, I don’t think so. He’s behaving out of pattern. It could be the time in Hell or it could be something else.
Saraya pulls her favorite thigh knife and without looking manages to avoid hitting anyone or thing besides the other eye of the actor on the billboard across the street. She strides across the busy street, successfully dodging people without a hitch in her step, leaps up to retrieve her weapon, then returns to us. The whole journey takes less time than I’ve spent putting a book on hold on my library’s app.
Saraya stops beside us. “I want to remind everyone here that I was willing to take him off your hands and deliver him back to Hell where he belongs.”
“Noted,” I say and think next moves. Sean said we inspired his quest, and given the timing, that may be true. Meaning we’ve created our own problems, in every possible sense.
I choose to believe that means we can also solve them. And then an even easier one presents itself. Luke’s stomach growls.
An easy call, then. The time may be six hours later here, but as far as our bodies are concerned it’s morning. “Breakfast planning session.”
“I am starved nigh unto death,” Luke says in happy agreement.
Sean claps his hands together. “I know just the place.”
Saraya looks at me and I’ll allow her the told you so on this one.
“No,” I say. “I’m picking. We will not be stealing any more cars.” From whatever religious leaders happen to be around.
“You used to be so much more fun … yesterday,” Sean says.
Luke kicks his shoe. We set off a discontent foursome on the hunt for food.
If we make it through the meal intact, I deserve a trophy for keeping them from brawling in the street.
And so we find ourselves crammed into a table at a ridiculously cute café with the best pastries I’ve ever eaten and tiny espresso cups of nearly undrinkably strong coffee. Or Luke, Saraya, and me have espresso; Sean ordered an aperitivo, a fizzy cocktail that arrived in a tall glass. Italians saunter in and out, few of them lingering at what for them is midafternoon. And those few are clearly sticking around for the scenery.
Luke and Sean together cause a sensation. I catch three different women and one man snapping photos with their phones from nearby tables. Presumably they are also thinking: missing Hemsworths.
Saraya could be the personal trainer for whatever movie they’re here to film. Their extremely serious personal trainer. Who ordered three espressos.
“Is this how you do things?” she asks casually, after downing the third. She kicks her feet out in front of her and crosses them at the ankle. “Lazily? No wonder you’re constantly given deadlines. Otherwise you’d never get anything done.”
“We can’t all be as driven as you,” Sean says, and what possesses him to smile around his bite of a custardy tart I couldn’t explain.
Saraya lifts her leg and kicks over his chair.
The two scarlet-haired young women nearby leap to help, but Sean rights himself with a laugh. He winks at Saraya.
“So,” I say to him, “you have a death wish.”
And it occurs to me we still haven’t answered a basic question about Sean.
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Luke says beside me at the table, polishing off his own espresso and then setting it down. “Is he dead?”
Luke is looking at me with expectation.
“How should I know?” I ask.
He scoots his chair closer. He puts a hand on mine and I lean into the touch. I don’t bother checking to see what I assume is Saraya’s expression of disgust.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
I do.
“And now listen, cast out the sense. Listen and search for his heartbeat.”
“I could just slice into him for you,” Saraya says, sounding disappointed we won’t go for it. “It would answer the question.”
“Shh,” Luke says. Then to me, “Can you hear it?”
I block out everything except the feeling of his touch on my arm. Then I get rid of the stray café sounds. No more clinking cups. No more frothing machines. No more low Italian chatter, pings of texts, scrape of chairs. I zero in on where Sean sits and listen. His breath, even, in and out. And yes, there it is. The steady thump of his heart. Pumping regularly to go with each inhale and exhale.
I open my eyes. “He’s alive.”
“I thought so.” Luke doesn’t look pleased about it.
“He’s alive?” Saraya says, and straightens up. “How?”
“You never did give me enough credit.” Sean gets up and busses the table, taking our items to a bewildered but grateful kitchen worker.
“Why is this a big deal?” I ask to distract from how freaky it is that I was able to listen to his heart from across the table. Something else occurs to me. “You don’t do this to me, do you? Listen to my heart?” I ask Luke.
Luke, to my surprise, coughs with what might be embarrassment.
“You do?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Sometimes.”
“Why?”
His cheeks go a touch pink. “I like the sound of it. It centers me. Like a rhythm under the universe.”
Swoon.
Saraya snorts. She is such a buzzkill. I frown at her as Sean returns. “Sean … You being alive, why is this weird?” I answer it for myself. “You were in Hell.”
We all look to him. He gives us an innocent smile.
“Yes,” Luke says. “That’s not suspicious at all. We don’t usually admit people for punishment who aren’t deceased. It’s known as the afterlife for a reason.”
“Porsoth was surprised he was there,” I say. “And now so am I. Sean, why were you?”
“He belongs there,” Saraya says. “Why question it?”
But there’s something almost like concern in her voice. Like she’s afraid to know the answer. Like she’s as thrown by this fact as anyone.
“I let myself in,” Sean says.
As if it’s simple.
“Most people don’t do that,” Luke says.
“You’ve probably noticed I have a talent for getting in and out of places.”
“So, he let himself into Hell, but he still counts as a fugitive to you when Lucifer lets him leave? I will never understand how your rules work.” I throw up my hands at Luke.
“They’re not my rules,” Luke says.
“Correct,” Saraya says. “Though Sean has never followed anyone’s rules but his own.”
“Why, Saraya,” Sean says, and then grimaces as he adds “the Rude” without a choice. “Apologies,” he says, for the name. Then, “I’d almost think you care whether I’m alive or dead.”
Saraya stands. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
She leaves before anyone can stop her. Sean watches until the door closes behind her. “Now that we’ve had breakfast,” he says, “I’ll just be going.”
“No,” I say and put a command in it. The espresso cups in the café rattle. “You will behave. At least a little. We’re helping you. I’d ask where to next, but I’m beginning to think I probably know more Grail lore than you do.”
“The Knights Templar stuff is all titwaffle,” Luke says. “Made-up.”
“What about the other knights?” I’ve been thinking along different lines. “The ones who had a big round table.”
“You mean King Arthur?” Sean says, and puts his elbows on the table. “I didn’t start there, because it seems like it must be pure poppycoddle.”
Look at the two of them, using formal research terms. “I’d think so too, but it also has a certain resonance. The Holy Grail ending up near the legendary Avalon. It’s old. Joseph of Arimathea supposedly took it there, after collecting it and bringing it on his travels. There are some natural signs and portents in Glastonbury, England. And a whole literary history of Grail quests within Arthurian legend. It’s as good a lead as any of the other places you’ve hit.”
Plus, I have a feeling about it. I try to look there and part of it is fuzzy at the edges. Not concealed, but not entirely visible either. The opposite of what I felt outside the cathedral here.
“If you think it’s worth a look,” Sean says, “by all means.”
“What do you want it for?” I ask.
Luke joins the conversation. “He wants to impress a girl.”
That means I did read Luke’s silent suggestion correctly.
“A woman,” Sean corrects.
“You’re right. Sorry,” Luke says. “A woman.”
I can hear my own heartbeat. There’s nothing sexier than a man showing respect to women—except a man who shows respect to women and people of every other gender.
“I don’t think she wants the Grail, so what is it really for?” I ask.
“Does it matter?” Sean asks.
“It does if that’s your answer.”
Luke touches my arm again. “A word?”
“I’ll wait outside, I promise,” Sean says.
He gets up and I say, “Tell Saraya I said she has permission to break your kneecaps if you try to run.”
He gives me a small salute and leaves.
“Go with this,” Luke says. “She’s his one weakness. What are the odds we’ll even find it?”
“Why are you suddenly Team Sean?” I ask.
“I’m not,” Luke says. “But we need to keep him around in order to meet Father’s goal, correct?”
“This isn’t even his second chance,” I say. “If he let himself into Hell, then he’s still on his first one, right?”
“It must not matter.” Luke taps his fingers on the table. “I just … I think he does care about her.”
“Under that hot exterior, I know you’re a big mushy softie.”
He raises his brows. “I am not.”
Uh-huh. “But is that the only reason you want to help him, Prince Softie?”
Luke hesitates.
A crash in the direction of the street interrupts, followed by a loud crack against the window of the shop. I produce a bundle of cash I hope is good in Italy and slide it over the counter for any damage as we dash outside.
Sean is rubbing his jaw on the sidewalk across from Saraya. Glass fragments dot the street around him.
“We probably ought to get going,” Sean says.
It’s easy to fill in what happened. Saraya threw him at the window. I can’t blame her.
There goes my imaginary no-brawling trophy. I’m not sure which is the longer shot—getting Saraya to stop hating Sean or fixing his soul. Good thing that doesn’t matter for our next move.
“Camelot, here we come,” I say.