Lucian’s hideout was in an old abandoned cemetery in Valhalla, New York. It didn’t surprise me that the archdemon would pick a cemetery in that specific location. Valhalla in Old Norse means “the hall of the fallen,” where the god Odin housed the dead he deemed worthy of dwelling with him. How poetic. Of course he’d pick a place like that.
After about an hour’s drive, I parked my subbie at the front entrance to Highgate Cemetery, killed the engine and we all clambered out.
The sound of a car door slamming shut pulled my attention behind me to the light blue pickup truck as Gareth and Tyrius joined us. The cat’s face was solemn, making me wonder what they’d talked about on their way here. Me. And Me. And then some more me.
Tyrius had chosen to ride with Gareth. Maybe he was still on edge and upset about what happened to me. Perhaps he just didn’t want to ride in a car full of angels. I understood that. Granted, he was a demon after all. Still, it had stung just a little.
Having Jenna and Lance ride with me had been instructional and calming at best. They spent the entire trip schooling me on what being an angel entailed—the good and the bad. I got a front row seat into the Legion secrets and how it all operated. It was intense. All classified information that I would never have gotten as a mortal. I was still having trouble with the not-breathing thing, not to mention how strange it was just to walk and move around with an angel body. It would take some getting used to.
When I met Gareth’s stare, I didn’t like the way he was looking at me again, with buckets of pity. I didn’t want or need his pity, so I looked away.
“This way,” announced Jenna as she and Lance started for the entrance to the cemetery, saving me from having to wait for Gareth to catch up. He looked as though he was about to ask me something, but I didn’t want to hear it.
Tugging my weapons belt around my waist, I headed out with the angels. Tyrius next to me was silent. Gareth lagged behind. My thoughts were on Lucian while the angels guided us in silence through the maze of headstones, tombstones and shrines. It was dark, seeing as the thick clouds weren’t letting the moon out. But with my new angel eyes, I could see just fine, as though I had on night vision goggles. Guess being an angel had its perks. Maybe this was how Tyrius saw at night.
A pulse of raw energy was thick in the air, the Holy Grail. The angels had been right. This was definitely the place. However, I also felt something else, something foul and cold, lingering in the shadows like a night’s mist. Demons. And a hell of a lot of them. Great.
Still, a fight with some demons was a perfect opportunity to test this new angel body of mine.
We trudged through a wooded area, through tall, overgrown grass, with the occasional flagstone remnants of a path. Decapitated angel statues flanked either side of our path, dark stains marring their stone necks. A warning? It would take a lot more than that to scare me off.
I’d always admired and loved spending time in cemeteries while I was alive. There was money to be made, yes, with all the ghouls and other supernatural nasties, but it was also peaceful and quiet. I had done a lot of thinking in cemeteries.
“How does this cemetery make you feel?” came Tyrius’s voice, shaking me out of my thoughts.
I peered down at the cat. “What do you mean? Like the chills?”
The cat snickered. “You’re dead. They’re dead. It’s like a big ‘ol family reunion for you. Isn’t it?”
“Idiot.”
“Angel.”
I gave a small laugh. “Stupid cat,” I said, matching the smile on Tyrius’s smug face. “Took you long enough to come around. You can’t catch what I have, you know. There’s no angel virus.” Not that I know of.
“Give a demon a break,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You’re an angel now. My sworn enemy.”
“Your only sworn enemy is what happens to you after you’ve eaten five large pizzas all by yourself.”
The cat chuckled. “Yeah. You’re right.” He laughed harder. “You as an angel… is going to take some getting used to.”
“You’re telling me.”
Tyrius leaped over a fallen tombstone. “Rowyn, a goddamn angel. Who would have thought?”
“Not me.”
“Or me.”
“I’m still the same person, Tyrius,” I added, aware that Gareth was probably listening. “I might be dead. But my soul is the same. And my mind. I’m still going to tell you when you’re being an ass.”
“I know.” Tyrius was quiet for a moment, his tread silenced by the tall grass. “I’m sorry about earlier. I was a total ass.”
I felt a tightness in my chest. “Yeah. You were. Don’t worry about it. I’m used to you spazzing out once a month. Make that twice a month.”
“Still, you can’t blame me. I’m only a demon,” said the cat, pointedly.
A smile tugged at my lips. “Whatever you say, little kitty.”
Tyrius glanced up and made a little huff of amusement. “So, how do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“Yes, but… how does it feel, feel?” prompted the cat as he walked next to me. “How does it feel to be a walking, glowing celestial airhead?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “It’s weird. I’ll admit,” I answered truthfully, knowing exactly what he wanted to know and knowing that was something Gareth wanted to hear as well. I spoke a little louder. “The body part is strange. Not needing to breathe? That’s the weirdest thing. I still haven’t figured it out. I keep telling myself that I don’t need to, that I don’t need to fill my lungs with air, but it’s like my mind is still functioning on mortal-mode. It’s hard to unlearn what I’ve been doing for the past twenty-four years of my life.”
“Gotcha.”
“The skin is odd,” I said, for lack of a better word, and I turned my hand over, examining it. “I’m not hot or cold… I’m just indistinctly warm, I guess. You know, when we heard the angels comment about wearing mortal suits when they’re on this side of the planes. Well. That’s exactly how I would describe it. A thin layer on top of your skin.”
“Like how men feel when they wear a rubber?”
I let out a snort and nearly tripped over a flagstone with my new angel legs. “I wouldn’t know.”
With a lip-curling sneer, Tyrius said, “It makes perfect sense. Angels are just a bunch of glowing, walking rubbers.” He beamed. “It’s awesome. Can’t wait to tell Kora.”
“You’re one crazy cat. You know that?” I laughed. God, I was going to miss that cat. If I survived tonight, I didn’t think the Legion would let me hang around with him anymore. Or Danto, Layla, Gareth. After tonight, everything would change.
Tyrius let out a long sigh and said, “Thank the souls you didn’t come back as a mutt like that one,” said the cat as he gave a nod of his head in the direction of Lance.
There was a growl, and then came the dog’s voice, high with annoyance. “I heard that.”
“I don’t care,” Tyrius called back.
A deep bark of displeasure came from the big White German Shepherd, making the baal demon laugh.
“We can do this,” said the cat with his tail straight up in the air. “We’re a team. I don’t even mind that you’re a walking, glow-in-the-dark rubber. We’re going to be okay.”
“I know.” It was what I was waiting to hear. What I wanted to believe, but I knew it would never be the same. Ever. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that after tonight, I’d probably never see him again.
Still, it was nice to pretend that it was just like before, for a little while. And I felt some tension leave me.
“We’re almost there,” said Jenna as she glanced over her shoulder at me.
In silence I followed. Lance moved skillfully through the tall grasses and fallen stones, his white fur catching glimpses of sporadic moonlight and looking every bit like his wolf ancestors. If he was allowed to use a wolf as his mortal suit, maybe I’d ask the oracle if I could be a cat on my next assignment. Bet Tyrius would love that.
A cold, relentless energy pressed against me. It crawled up my skin. The air wavered and shook with demonic energy as though a mass of demons had just crossed over from the Netherworld. And then I heard them, the whispering guttural grunts and voices of demons whispering through the air, dozens, hundreds of murmurs. I yanked out my soul blade.
Gareth appeared next to me a heartbeat later, making me flinch. Damn, even as an angel, I didn’t feel him coming.
He cleared his throat, “Rowyn—”
“Forget it,” I said, the tightness in his face telling me exactly what he was going to say.
Tyrius looked up at me, giving me the “let him speak” eyes, but I didn’t have time for this. His reaction earlier made it clear. He was afraid of me.
It had been a normal reaction, pulling away from my hand. It wasn’t his fault. And I didn’t blame him. I just didn’t want my mixed emotions getting in the way of my killing Lucian tonight. Because his ass was mine.
“You don’t know what I wanted to say,” said the elf, his tone thick with anger. That made two of us.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. “You can’t pass through the demon wards. You’re not a demon.” A breeze lifted around us. Without a jacket I would have been cold, but I felt nothing. Weird. I was a walking corpse.
“I’m here to help,” he said, his voice tight. “In case you need me.”
I turned and looked at him. A deep sadness and worry pinched his eyes. I had to look away before I lost it.
“A dark angel,” commented Gareth after a moment. “A dark angel because of your archdemon blood.”
I shrugged and stepped over a fallen stone. “That’s what the oracle told me.”
Gareth took a deep breath, and I felt myself longing to do the same. “It’s just so sudden. So unexpected. I never thought this would happen.”
“And I never thought my parents would die. But they did.”
The elf didn’t comment after that. We continued in silence, trampling through the tall grasses and shards of broken tombstones, following Jenna and Lance deep into the abandoned cemetery.
I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. I had to be ready. Somewhere between now and a few minutes, I was either going to succeed or fail miserably.
I didn’t know what my new angel body was capable of. That was the only really exciting part of being a dark angel. New possibilities.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous or scared. The only emotion I felt right now was anger. Deep, satisfying ass-kicking anger. I still didn’t know how to use the Holy Grail, but I would figure it out. I was an angel now—a dark angel—and I was going to use it to kill the archdemon bastard.
Jenna halted suddenly and pointed to a headstone on her left.
Demonic symbols and runes were painted in dark maroon on the stone. Though I had some knowledge of the demonic languages, there were still hundreds of different dialects, and these I didn’t know.
Tyrius moved among the symbols, his eyes traveling over the markings, slowly. “I haven’t seen these kinds of symbols in a very long time,” informed the cat. He read one of the markings and then looked up at me. “These are old. Eons and eons old. Like… Biblical.” His gaze moved to Jenna and Lance. “You sure Lucian wants his wings back?”
“Of course we’re sure,” snapped Jenna, her face pinched in a frown. “It’s the only reason he took the Holy Grail. To get them back. Why else would he be here?”
The cat screwed up his face in a scowl. “You angels will never learn. The answer is not always about what’s in front of you, but rather what you can’t see. And with this guy, I’m guessing whatever you think he’s doing with the Holy Grail… it’s not it.”
A quiver ran through me. “Tyrius. What do the symbols say?”
And then somewhere in the darkness and shadows of the cemetery, a woman screamed.
Layla.