“Our paths had brought us, turning to the right, to reach the final twist of punishment, and we were now intent on new concerns.”
―Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
I was baffled but also grateful that they were risking their lives to get me out of here. The problem was that Watchers were guarding the exit and I wasn’t going to be much use to Paul and Cyril.
Maybe Paul was hoping that I would forget about his lies. These two were the last people that I expected to come to my rescue. Besides, Cyril was part of faction security, so he was compromising his own position.
“I wasn’t supposed to be alive in the morning,” I told them, lifting myself on my feet. The sharp pain made me instantly dizzy, but I tried to act like my disability didn’t faze me. Elixirs or potions could take care of my injuries later on. Now all I wanted was to get the hell out of here.
“Rodriguez paid Watchers to snap you up from Victoria. He brainwashed Emma. He must have realised that she was aware of your plans,” Cyril explained, sounding concerned that someone like Rodriguez was still in power.
“Is she all right? Please tell me that the bastard didn’t damage her in any way?” I asked, panicking that my friend would never be the same again. I was suddenly done with playing by the rules, and Lucifer could kiss my arse. As far as I was concerned the deal that I had made with Morpheus was off.
“She doesn’t remember much of what happened, but she should be all right,” Paul explained, giving me a warm smile. I hoped he wasn’t lying to me. I could never forgive myself if something happened to Emma. She had gone through enough in her life as it was.
I exhaled sharply, telling myself that I could destroy Rodriguez. I had to report him, that was all. Lucifer hated demons that went over his head. The old demon was doing everything that he could to eliminate me. Maybe he believed that I knew too much. It was a valid reason, but there were other possibilities too. I remember meeting him for the first time; even then he was using his abilities to break through my wards. Morpheus could back me up, but getting tangled up with politics wasn’t something that I intended to do. Ricky was dying and Alexis had my daughter. These were my priorities for now. It looked like everyone around me had been playing by their own rules. The faction system was shaky, but I had only just begun seeing it.
“The Watchers, they are guarding the exit. How are we going to pass them?” I asked, thinking that the blond one was a nasty piece of work.
“Don’t worry about them. We’ve already taken care of them,” Paul said unexpectedly. “Move away.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was planning to do, but a bright green light blinded me. Several seconds later the warmth licked my wounds and the pain in my foot eased off.
“Good job, messenger,” Cyril muttered, sounding amused.
I stopped rubbing my eyes and noticed that some of the bars vanished completely. Paul was standing in the cell now, looking pleased with himself. The light freaked me out a little. He was supposed to be my friend, not the ex-angel that was sent from heaven.
“How the hell did you do this?” I asked him, tapping into my own source. The binding spell had been broken and I felt sudden relief. Paul put my arm around his and gave me a cheeky smile.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me,” he muttered, helping me to get out.
“Hold on a minute, you guys said that the Watchers were eliminated, but how? You can’t kill a Watcher, that’s punishable by death,” I said, remembering the protocol in detail.
“No one is going to die, trust me. Those two were corrupted, and I’m glad that they were eliminated,” Cyril assured me and I could have sworn that he winked at me at the same time. Last time I remembered he wanted me to back away from working on certain cases. He even warned me that the faction was keeping a close eye on me. I wondered what or who changed his mind.
“Rodriguez is behind all this,” I said through gritted teeth, thinking that I really needed to get some potions into my system. Even though Paul’s spell helped my foot, my ribs were shattered and every move was agony, although I was masking it as well as I could.
“That old demon is corrupt. He was told to take care of any scandals or skeletons that might involve royals. Apparently the dark lord wasn’t too happy with the way he was running things in the palace,” Cyril explained. We were moving through the old warehouse. The Watchers were either silent or they were truly dead. I had a feeling that Paul had something to do with it.
I needed to get in touch with Zach. He was most likely going crazy over the fact that I was arrested in a public place by people that impersonated police officers. I could only hope that the Watchers didn’t dare to mess around with his head. Apart from me, no one knew that he didn’t have a relief licence. That could have got him in a lot of more trouble. Michaelstone only granted one relief licence two months ago, and Zach wasn’t even in the system.
There was a van waiting outside for us and I was grateful how smoothly things went. Rodriguez had chosen some obscure location near the shipping yard, and the building that I was kept in was abandoned. Paul and Cyril had to almost carry me when I nearly passed out by the van. I felt embarrassed that Watchers had battered me so badly. I was going to destroy Rodriguez, but first I had to cross Alexis off that list.
I never asked any people close to me for help, and Paul’s rescue mission was very touching. Cyril was driving. I had a feeling that he and Paul knew each other from the past. Yet again, it seemed that I hardly knew anything about the retired Watcher.
I arched my head backwards and kept on breathing for several minutes until the pain was tolerable. An awkward silence settled between me and Paul. I always considered him a friend. I accepted that he had a complicated past and never pushed him. After that night in the pub, I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“How are you doing back there?” he finally asked, when Cyril turned and found the main road. I was free, in a lot of pain, but free.
“I’ll be all right once I get some potions into me,” I answered. “I hope he’s driving back to London?”
“We are going back to the Broken Shoe; the business is running as normal. I have set up wards in case someone wanted to come in and sniff around,” Paul said. “Max, I owe you an apology, about the wings and everything else.”
Okay, there it was, the overdue awkward conversation that we had to have. I sighed, thinking that there was a lot that we needed to talk about, but I didn’t think that I was ready. A lot of things happened in the past twenty-four hours and listening to Paul’s story might have been a bit too much for me then.
“Save it. I have my own set of problems,” I said, knowing that I was probably hurting Paul’s feelings, but all I could think about was Summer.
I couldn’t go after Alexis in the state that I was in. It was killing me not knowing if Summer was all right, but I needed to regenerate my strength. That bitch had all the advantage, but she was falling apart. The next seventy-two hours were crucial. I didn’t believe that she would wait any longer, but I wasn’t sure if she was ready to go through the ritual. “But how did you guys know where to find me?”
“Cyril had an anonymous message from someone. He showed up in the pub, after demons in the city told him that you like drinking in Broken Shoe.”
Anonymous message—what the hell was that supposed to mean?
“I’m glad that you did rescue me. I would have been dead by morning, that’s what the blond one said,” I muttered.
I drifted off for a bit and didn’t wake up until Paul carried me upstairs to his flat that was above the pub. Cyril must have left when I was still asleep. Maybe tomorrow when I was a hundred percent I could thank him.
“Why are you doing this, Paul? For years I believed that you were retired, that your magic was gone. Why did you have to lie to me?”
“I swore to a demon that visited me after my sentence to keep an eye on you. It was a deal that I couldn’t turn down. My past doesn’t matter, my angel wings are only a sentiment,” he explained in a serious tone of voice.
He kicked his door open and we got inside. Once I was sitting on the sofa covered with blankets my mind started working again. Shortly after that I was holding a red potion in my hands, slowly sipping it. The magic would take care of my injuries and tomorrow I’d wake up feeling all right. It hit me then—Paul was an angel, a fucking real biblical creature sent from heaven. Many demons had claimed that they met an angel once in their lifetime, and now I was sitting face-to-face with one.
“A demon? Who was he and why did he ask you to keep an eye on me?” I asked, thinking about my father. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing in my story. First some old demon told me to look into the death of my mother and then Morpheus barges into my life, claiming that Lucifer himself was interested in my soul.
“I never learnt his name. He helped me when I was down on the bottom and in exchange he asked me to keep an eye on you.”
I shook my head, not knowing what to think anymore. Paul was reluctant to talk about the liquid magic. I was the one that showed up in the pub and asked for it. A few months went by and I became an addict and he turned into my supplier. Was he giving me the magic in order to keep an eye on me? Overall this whole thing was messed up.
“What about the wings? Have you always kept them in the basement?”
“That night when you showed up, I was going to move them upstairs. A few minutes later Rodriguez surprised me with his guard,” he said, sounding angry. Well, that made sense, but I still had no idea why Paul was so attached to his past.
Something started vibrating all of a sudden. Paul handed me my mobile. He’d found it on one of the Watchers, so he brought it with him. Zach was trying to get through to me and I was glad that everything turned out the way it had.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Fuck, Maxine, are you all right?” he asked, sounding out of breath.
“Overall all right, now I just need a few hours sleep to regenerate my strength,” I said, then explained what went on after they took me from the station. Zachary was with Zara in Reading; he was hoping that Nameless could tell him what happened to me. Eventually my battery went dead and we were cut off.
Paul left me a glass of wine on the table, silently letting me know that he wasn’t planning to give me magical tequila anymore.
The last thing I remembered from that night was sitting on his sofa, thinking about the vision from the maze.
I must have fallen asleep on the sofa, because when I opened my eyes later it was a bright morning. Paul was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. I was glad that he came for me, but still confused about his past. I rubbed my sleepy eyes, realising that my ribs must have healed. It was going to take me a few days to fully recover, but my energy was back.
Paul must have gone back to work last night, after I’d fallen asleep. I didn’t want to wake him. I grabbed what I could and wrote him a short thank you note. Several minutes later I left and an hour later I was heading back to Ricky’s apartment in Chelsea. Once I had a bath and changed into clean clothes, I started doing research about any place that resembled the one from my vision. Matilda was keeping Summer in the charm, so the child was unaware of what was happening to her.
It was an island in the middle of the sea, like Gjöll. The tower seemed familiar, and I had this strange sensation in my gut, like I had been there before. Maybe she was keeping her somewhere in the underworld, or in the crossroads.
The books didn’t give me any indication of where to go from here. I took a break for a coffee and some food. Ricky’s fridge was empty, but I found a can of beans in the cupboard.
I had been so absorbed with the hunt for Alexis that I almost forgot about Ricky. He was in the hospital, fighting for his life. I really had to get that reversal spell and for that I needed Morpheus. Suddenly I had this crazy idea. I needed to get close to a demon that could take me directly to Lucifer. Morpheus wasn’t going to be much help. Besides, I needed to figure this out on my own.
I started sifting through the bills, wondering how Ricky managed to keep everything so organised. It was one way to take my mind off mounting thoughts. A black shiny envelope with an odd symbol of a gargoyle caught my attention. There was no return address.
Inside I found an invitation to Vortex, an exclusive nightclub in east London. Tonight there was a party going on there that supposedly attracted a lot of important demons, some even from hell. It was a one in a million shot, but I guess that my plans for this evening were sorted.