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Kheone would recognize those haughty features anywhere, painted in her memory, as permanent as the blue-tipped, black wings tattooed across her back. The harsh lines of his chiseled jaw and amber eyes, darkened in despair, fueled her nightmares. Some mornings she awoke with the cold edge of obsidian on her throat and the smell of leathery wings wrapped around her. There had been no sign of Shax since. Her hopes of punching him in the nose faded, appeased only by the fact he must have burned up in the Second Fall. But then the dirtbag had tackled her to the ground, intent on finishing the job the explosion a year ago interrupted.
She wrapped her hands around the demon’s throat, triumph coursing through her body. The tables had finally turned. Fueled by their last encounter, their first encounter, and every encounter in between, wrath rose in Kheone’s breast, a fiery rush urging her to end him, clouding her vision and her judgment. Serel’s sightless eyes accused them both as she wrestled with the demon who had caused his demise. Shax deserved death for his role in this. He deserved death merely for existing. All demons deserved death.
He wheezed and choked as she strangled the life out of him. His powerful hands gripped hers, but Shax did not fight back. He did not claw at her, kick at her, or try to buck her off.
He pulled in a last, desperate breath when she adjusted her hands to speed the process.
“I didn’t do it,” he croaked, all the usual spitefulness gone. “I swear.”
“What? Swear to God?” Cruel coldness in her words, Kheone tightened her grip, and Shax’s hands fell away.
“Remember. Sound.”
Sad that those would be his last words. What sound—oh. That sound. Twice in her memory, she’d heard this specific doom-filled note, now and...
Her hesitation was all Shax needed. Before she could place the note, he pushed her over with his legs, holding her hands above her head, his entire weight keeping her flat on the ground. But unlike him, she fought, bucking and wriggling, trying to dislodge him.
He coughed. “We have a bigger problem, Blue.”
“Don’t. Call. Me. That,” she spat.
“For Christ’s sake, stop!” he said, voice hoarse from her not-so-tender ministrations.
“You have no right to invoke God’s name.”
“Kheone, listen to me. I didn’t kill your friend. You saw. I was down here when the explosion went off. He was up there. How would I have done this?”
“You set the bomb and ran. And Serel—” Her voice caught on a sob. “Why him? He was a healer, a scholar. He never hurt anyone.”
“I didn’t do it!” His voice echoed off the buildings.
“Bull!”
Anger flared in his eyes, their amber color now resembling the orange glow of the inferno. He adjusted his grip, holding both her hands in one of his. She only needed a second, and she’d be able to break free. Kheone suppressed the smile that fought to escape as she tasted her upcoming victory. Shax reached over with his free hand and grabbed a shard of glass from the sidewalk.
She hissed as he shoved the shard into her open palm, drawing it down. Blood dripped off her wrist. He tossed the piece of glass to the side, a streak of black blood on his own palm, and grasped her hand in his, intermingling their blood.
“I swear to you, Kheone, I had nothing to do with the explosion that expelled us from the celestial realm, nor with the death of Serel. I swear on Lucifer’s throne and the remains of my soul.”
A blood pact. If he lied, he died a true death and disappeared into oblivion. She stilled. Golden light radiated from where their hands met, and warmth flowed through her, stealing her breath. She blinked, and the wound and the light vanished.
“Good. Promise not to kill me yet?” he asked.
Kheone nodded, and he let go. She examined where the wound should be. Nothing but a faint sense of loss where he had touched her. A remnant of their new bond? Shax stood and offered her a hand. She glared at him and rose on her own.
“The same magic destroyed the Gates.” Shax’s voice was oddly calm, considering she had been a hair’s breadth from slaying him. Perhaps he was used to it. “I was otherwise occupied then, too, if you recall. I don’t have the mojo to work that kind of magic.”
Recognition dawned. She’d heard the sound the instant before the Gates toppled. Heaven above, Shax was right. No single demon would have the strength to set off such a devastating explosion.
“Well?”
“Just waiting for you to drop dead or lightning to strike. Whatever,” she said.
“You still don’t trust me?”
Kheone rubbed at the scar on her throat, her reminder of the last time she let Shax get close. She stared him down, keeping her gaze cold and steady and refusing to answer his inane question. He shrugged and turned to walk away.
It hit her. She had a rare opportunity to interrogate a demon. None ever seemed to survive the raids Michael planned. Perhaps Shax would have some answers not only to what happened tonight but also the day a year ago when they fell from the celestial realm in a blazing storm. Or perhaps she could tease out some clue as to what the demons were doing. Because her gut told her they were up to something.
“Wait!”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, brows raised in question.
Voices floated toward them from around the corner, and footsteps pounded. Her gathering would kill a demon without hesitation, and Michael would know immediately Shax was no human. She had to get him away from the scene or risk losing whatever information he carried.
Kheone opened a rift behind him, the red light glinting off the glass strewn across the sidewalk and making the snow glow like a hellscape. She shoved Shax through and into a locked utility room in the basement of their gym, protecting him from the oncoming storm of angels. The rift closed with the sizzling snap of a static discharge. Shax glared at her, anger and shock warring for control of his expression. She would deal with him later if she could get the others off his scent.
She had closed the rift not a second too soon. The gathering of angels came charging around the opposite corner, Michael in the lead, golden and furious. Wordlessly, he sent pairs off in every direction before approaching Kheone at a run.
“Lieutenant, are you injured?” His arms grasped her shoulders as he raked his gaze over her, looking for any injury with an intensity she had not seen before.
Kheone looked down and finally noticed the glimmer of Serel’s blood streaked her from head to foot.
“The blood isn’t mine, Archangel. It’s Serel’s.” Once again, her voice caught on the name of her friend.
“Have you swept the area?” He let go and withdrew a step. She shivered as the cool air replaced his warm touch.
“Not yet.”
Michael looked down upon her with disappointment chiseled into his brow. She cringed away. Hopefully, he would give her a chance to explain once she interrogated Shax. The archangel knelt over Serel’s body, ignoring the blood spread over the sidewalk. He moved the body around, pulling clothes out of the way to get a better look at the wounds. Finally, Michael closed his eyes, hands on Serel’s body.
“Tell me what happened, Kheone.” His voice was soft, almost sad. But Michael did not get sad.
“I was supposed to meet Serel. There was an explosion, and his body fell from the library.”
If she left out the rest, was it technically lying?
“That is all?”
Shoot, he was calling her bluff. She had one more piece of information to grant him and hoped he didn’t ask too many questions.
“The explosion might be connected to the Second Fall.”
Michael’s eyes shot open, and he frowned at her. “What evidence do you have?”
“I heard a sound just before the explosion, same one I heard then.”
“Are you certain?”
Her intel came from two unreliable sources: her memory of the day the Gates fell and a demon. Kheone shook her head.
Michael stood, brushing snow and dirt off his knees. He peered at her, doubtful.
“I find it unlikely Serel’s death is related to the Second Fall.”
Good, the doubt was over her conclusion, not her word. Guilt washed over her. When he found out she had held something back, Michael would be pissed.
“Until we have proof of their connection, we will proceed as though this is an isolated incident,” the archangel continued. “I have everything I need for now. Take Serel’s body to the dormitory while the others finish their sweep. I will clean up this debris and call off the authorities. Join me on the fourth floor of the library once your duty is complete.”
“Yes, Archangel.”
Michael turned his attention to the glass on the ground, a small frown turning down his lips and creasing his forehead. With a wave of his hands, the shards floated up to the broken window and reassembled themselves. She missed being able to do things like that.
Kheone hoisted Serel’s limp body over her shoulder and performed the only talent still available to her. She walked through the rift to Serel’s room and placed the angel, much lighter in death than in life, on his bed. At sundown, the angels would gather to sing as his body faded into dust.
“I’m so sorry, Serel. I wish this hadn’t happened to you.”
Kheone smoothed his hair from his brow and covered him with the blanket she found at the foot of his bed. She hadn’t lost an angel from her gathering since the Second Fall, whether from pure luck or her excellent training regimen. Kheone had lost compatriots in battle too many times to count, but this one hurt more than the others.
Serel was her friend. They’d laughed together last night. And now he was dead.
With no time to deal with her grief, she shoved it down deep and opened another rift, joining Michael in the library. The eerie red light from emergency exit signs greeted her as she stepped onto the fourth floor, as did an odd tingling on her skin from the leftover angel magic. Serel must have fought back, somehow. Kheone followed the sound of feet scuffling in the far corner and discovered Michael flicking a flashlight over empty shelves. Books of all kinds lay strewn across the floor as though an earthquake had knocked them off the shelves.
“Will we be able to clean this mess before the librarians show up for work?” Kheone asked, her soft voice only getting a grunt of acknowledgment from the archangel. It wasn’t important right now. She sighed. “What have you found?”
“The wounds upon Serel’s body were likely the result of the explosion and the subsequent fall, except for two penetrating wounds in his abdomen. I cannot tell if these were the cause of death, if he died upon impact, or if the explosion killed him.”
There were too many questions. But why, for all that was holy, did today’s explosion mirror the one condemning all the angels and demons caught in the wasteland to walk the Earth as near-mortals? And what did Shax have to do with it, if anything at all?
“None of this makes sense,” she said, drawing Michael’s sharp gaze.
“We shall see, Lieutenant. Do you have your flashlight?”
Kheone pulled out a penlight. Michael looked high. She looked low. They came to a section where there were no books for a five-foot radius, a perfect circle of calm in the midst of destruction. This was the epicenter of the explosion.
“Why was he here before the library opened?” Michael asked.
“We were supposed to meet outside. He said he’d found something he wanted to show me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A book, obviously, but he never mentioned the title.”
“Hmm.” He glanced out the window. Red and blue lights flashed outside. “It seems the authorities have taken an interest. I shall take care of them. The search is yours, Kheone. Others will join you shortly to assist. Report to me when you have finished.”
Piercing sirens filled the air when Michael opened a rift and stepped through. They cut off abruptly as the rift disappeared.
Kheone continued up and down the aisles, looking for clues. A flash of gold caught her attention. There was a bit of something reflecting the beam of her flashlight under a bookshelf. She got down on her hands and knees and reached under the shelf. Her fingers closed gingerly on a cool, hard object with jagged edges. She sat on her heels and examined her find. A bit of brown pottery with symbols inscribed in gold leaf rested neatly in her palm, taking up most of the area. The edges curled up, telling her it was part of a cylinder or cup. She didn’t recognize the symbols off the top of her head, but she would bet her immortal life they were part of a spell.
Kheone flattened to the floor, the industrial carpet failing to cushion the press of it into her hips, and swept her flashlight around, looking for any other pieces. Another glint caught her eye, one bookshelf over. Crawling a few feet, she reached under the shelf and felt around. She hissed as her fingers touched the sharp, hard fragment. It was almost too hot to hold.
This piece was much smaller, an irregular shape about the size of a quarter. A symbol inscribed on the fragment glowed red. Messenger was the direct translation. Angel was the meaning. And it reacted to her presence.
Tucking the pieces into her pocket, she spent a few more minutes searching. Either whoever had killed Serel cleaned up the evidence, or the explosion destroyed it. Another rift opened, and Maj stepped through with a few others. Her face wet with tears, she walked up to Kheone and pulled her into an embrace.
Kheone fought her own tears. Now wasn’t the time, not for her. She still had a demon to interrogate, pieces of a puzzle to decode, and a report to make. Maj looked at her with a question on her lips.
“I will mourn later,” Kheone said before she could ask.
Maj nodded and dashed away the tears leaking from her eyes. “Okay, let’s prove just how divine we are and get these books back on the shelf. Kheone, go get some rest. You look like death warmed over.”
Her friend walked off, directing the others to various piles of books. Kheone opened a rift to her room. She couldn’t rest yet. Kheone had a caged demon to question.