TRUTH, LIES AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

I feel my mouth fall open. The Rephaim skitter away from him, leaving the angel alone on the sand.

Gabriel.

An archangel.

Not just any archangel: the warrior who murdered the original offspring of the Fallen all those thousands of years ago.

Jude and I did this. We set the Fallen free. We brought him here.

We wanted to face down the Garrison, to know what they want from us. And now we do: nothing. They don’t want anything from us, they never have. If we’d known that half an hour ago, would it have changed our decision to free our fathers? I stare at Gabriel, try to find my way through an onslaught of panic. The sky shifts from oranges to pinks, bringing the cobalt clouds over the sea into sharp relief. Thunder rolls across the headland. The night is breathless, electric. Rafa moves closer until our elbows touch.

‘Are you going to kill us?’ Jude asks, somehow keeping his voice steady.

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because we freed the Fallen. And because that’s what you did the last time Semyaza and his cohort fathered children.’

‘If that was my commission today, would you war against the Angelic Garrison?’

‘Would we fight you for our lives?’ Jude doesn’t need to look to Rafa or me. He knows the answer.

‘Absolutely.’

Gabriel watches Jude for a moment before his attention shifts to Semyaza. The leader of the Fallen holds his ground. ‘You did not adhere to our covenant, Semyaza.’

‘You offered no covenant, brother, only a new prison.’

‘Did you prefer the company of Gatekeepers? Should I send you back with them?’

Semyaza flicks the tip of his broadsword in Nathaniel’s direction. ‘Do you think that punishment did not cut as deep into our flesh as Zarael’s blade?’

‘It was not I who led Nathaniel to your women.’

‘He was meant to gather and protect our brides, but you rewarded him with a glimmer of glory and he used it to punish them.’

‘I returned to him what he would need to protect himself in this realm. It was never intended as an instrument for judgment.’

Wait. What? My mind scrambles.

‘You’re the reason Nathaniel can show glory and the Fallen can’t?’ Jude asks before I can form the question.

Gabriel turns from Semyaza, gives my brother his full attention. Intent. Panic slices through my confusion. Rafa tenses. This angel destroyed an entire generation of our half-siblings, has the power to command the attention of two hundred and one fallen angels. He so terrifies Nathaniel, he still won’t look up.

Gabriel weighs the question. He tilts his head, birdlike, and his focus drifts elsewhere for a long moment. Nobody speaks. Nobody moves. In the stillness, a wave breaks on the shore. Our world is being up-ended and shaken out but the tide keeps rolling in, oblivious.

‘Let us wait for the others.’

I follow Gabriel’s gaze to the resort. Does he mean the Rephaim up there? When does he think they’re coming?

My stomach dips.

The rest of the Rephaim materialise. Magda, Zeb and the other non-combatants. And—oh no.

Dani.

She’s with Jason. But they’re not touching. He snatches her to his hip, his face pinched with fear. Maria and Maggie aren’t with them; they must have left them behind.

‘Jason, what the fuck?’ I demand.

He looks stricken. ‘I didn’t—’

‘I bade them come,’ Gabriel says. It’s only now I see how bewildered and shaken the newly arrived Rephaim are. Holy shit. Gabriel plucked them out of that room. Can he do that to the Fallen too? Is that why they haven’t fled from him already?

I shift and put myself between Dani and the Fallen. Between Dani and Gabriel. I force myself to look Gabriel in the eye. ‘You’ll get a war if you touch this girl.’ I’m like a flea threatening a lion, but I eyeball the archangel anyway. Because I mean it.

‘The same thing goes if you touch Gaby,’ Rafa says.

Gabriel blinks, slowly. ‘You, children, have spent too much time in the company of pit excrement. I am Second Lieutenant of the Host of Heaven. I would no sooner harm humans than I would offer my throat to a hellion.’

‘But half-humans are fair game?’ It’s out before I can consider the wisdom of the accusation.

The archangel’s lips tighten. His irises flare. I wait, my heart working double time.

‘All actions have consequences,’ he says, carefully. ‘Your existence is a consequence of the decision made the day the nephilim were extinguished.’

‘They weren’t extinguished.’ Semyaza spits out the word. ‘You slaughtered them in cold blood while we stood in chains and watched. They were defenceless, utterly ignorant of their crimes. They were not warriors, they were children.’

Gabriel doesn’t acknowledge Semyaza. He keeps his attention squarely on me. ‘The Fallen paid for their transgressions in ways that were justified, but perhaps not just.’

Warm fingers touch my elbow. Dani is reaching for me. I nod for Jason to let go and her bony arm snakes around my waist, slender fingers gripping the top of my jeans. She’s studying Semyaza, no more frightened of him than she was of Nathaniel at the Sanctuary yesterday.

‘Is that why you all made more children?’ she asks Semyaza. ‘Because you lost the others?’

A storm of rage and grief darkens his eyes and tightens his shoulders. Two hundred warriors fall dangerously still. Nathaniel stays on his knees, ready to be executed. Dani lets go of me so she can crouch down. She brushes her fingers over his feathers, so gentle and sad.

‘Is that why you didn’t want another child?’

Nathaniel’s hands ball into fists, grazed knuckles pressing into the sand. I look to Jude. Nathaniel always told us he didn’t father a child the first time around. Was that another lie?

‘Nathaniel,’ I say. ‘Was one of the nephilim yours?’

His broken wings shudder.

Bloody hell. Nathaniel was a father once…and he watched that child die. The significance sinks in. No wonder he wanted to believe so badly that we had a destiny. He wanted to convince himself as much as the Garrison that we were different from the half-angel bastards who came before us. Even if none of us were his.

‘Semyaza and his cohort did not learn the lessons of their recklessness,’ Gabriel says. ‘They repeated their transgression at the first possible opportunity. They lusted for the pleasures of the flesh, and they yearned to create life once more.’

‘Why didn’t you go with them?’ I ask Nathaniel.

He lifts his face. His wounds are weeping. ‘I could not bear the desolation a second time.’ He finally looks at Gabriel. The sight of the angel seems to sharpen his pain. ‘And then I was spared when my brothers disappeared. When I saw the signs, I knew it was a chance for redemption, to save this new generation from the fate of the last—’

‘Nathaniel.’

The fallen angel pauses, swallows. Waits for Gabriel to continue.

‘You were spared from exile with your brothers-in-arms because of your discipline. That was your redemption. You had freedom, Nathaniel, yet you could not see it. You could not accept a gift so simple.’

Nathaniel stares at Gabriel, understanding dawning. Everything he’s done over the last one hundred and forty years was for nothing. His slate was already clean.

I watch as the archangel’s words further crush him. He starts to shake. His feathers rustle as his wings spasm and shudder. He slumps forward to the sand and clasps his hands over his head as if to ward off an attack, mutters words I don’t understand. Completely unravelled.

I have to look away. But there’s no relief here. The beach—my beautiful, sun-drenched beach—is a battlefield. The surviving Immundi are still pushing through the portal like frantic commuters at peak hour. The esplanade is a war zone, fire and smoke and overturned vehicles. The stench of ash and burning plastic carries across the road to us and the sky is still all wrong.

The rest of the Rephaim are as lost as I am. Ez and Zak are together, hands clasped. Jones prods a cut on his neck. Taya, Malachi and Micah stand close, swords hanging loose in their hands. Shirts bloodied and torn. Daisy has moved next to Jude, freckled cheeks flushed, eyes sharp.

I need space. I squeeze Dani’s shoulder and guide her back to Jason.

‘Why didn’t you just send the Fallen back to hell when they broke out?’ Jude asks. ‘Where have they been?’

Gabriel nods: this is what he wants to tell us.

‘Semyaza and his second-in-charge—Orias—pierced the veil and touched the minds of your mother and her cousin. I saw this, and I watched and I waited. I proposed that the Garrison let our brothers escape and give them the freedom to choose their own destiny. My captain, Michael, agreed, but only on the terms that I must take responsibility for whatever transpired. I accepted, with terms of my own: that Michael not interfere unless commanded to do so.’

I wish I could read Gabriel and understand what’s going on here. Is he explaining because he’s going to spare us, or does he want us to understand before he kills us? Or sends us to hell with our fathers.

Gabriel checks Semyaza. The leader of the Fallen scowls at him.

‘As soon as they were loosed from the pit, Semyaza and Orias entered this realm in the place you call Monterosso, Italy. The others scattered to the corners of the earth, to willing women. Fertile women.’

‘And you let it happen.’

The accusation comes from Ez.

‘Your fathers chose their own fate.’

Ez clicks her tongue. ‘You allowed the Fallen to create life—create us—and then you took them away. You left us alone.’

‘What would they have learnt if they had remained here?’

‘What did they learn being away from us?’ Her voice breaks a little on that last word.

‘They learned to watch.’

‘Watch what?’

Gabriel’s lips twitch in what could be a hint of a smile.

‘You.’