Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (14 page)

Alex moved to gaze out the grime-streaked window. Not out of any sense of consideration for Riley’s privacy, but to give herself time to drag the fragments of her mind back together again. Seth, undergoing medical tests. Tests that showed him to be normal—human, even. But she’d seen otherwise. She’d watched him disappear. Knew he still had at least some of his powers.

As for language, she’d heard him speak. Was certain he had the capacity to relearn speech. But if she couldn’t tell the shrink about the come/go/stay lesson that had taken place in her office, how the hell would she convince her? Alex massaged the ache beginning in her temple. She could so use a drink right now.

“What do you mean, gone? How can it be gone?”

The sharpness of Riley’s voice snapped Alex’s attention back to her. She leaned against the window frame as the other woman’s brow furrowed.

“Well, it must be somewhere—maintenance must have removed it and forgotten to tell you. Do we have another room for him? Just move him there, then, and I’ll do the paperwork in the morning. And make sure you report this to Admin—I want to know who’s responsible.” Riley snapped the phone shut and stared at it a moment before she replaced it in its holder.

“Trouble?” Alex asked.

“The window and security screen are missing from John Doe’s room.”

Shit.
Alex focused all her energy on not reacting, saying instead, “You could ask him what happened if you’d let me work with him.”

“And why exactly do you expect to have more success than the speech therapist?”

“Has he said the therapist’s name?”

Riley’s nostrils flared and she stared at Alex, her expression giving no clue to what went on behind the sharp eyes and wire-framed glasses. Steeling herself, Alex held her gaze. She willed the woman to accept her offer and not press further for answers she simply could not give. Riley’s eyes narrowed, slid away, dropped to the stack of books on the dresser.

“Interesting reading material.”

Three illustrated encyclopedias. Two illustrated dictionaries. Several children’s books to teach reading skills. Alex shrugged. “They’re for Seth. I thought it might help.”

She didn’t add that it had damned well better help, because if windows and security screens were disappearing from Seth’s room, she needed to establish communication sooner rather than later.

Riley picked up one of the dictionaries and flipped through it. After a moment, she set it down again and tugged open the door. “Tomorrow,” she said without looking back. “Nine a.m. I’ll meet you at the nurse’s station. Bring the books.”

A
ramael braced himself against the wall, chest heaving, bricks rough beneath his palms. Probing the inside of his mouth with his tongue, he connected with a loose tooth and sent a sideways glare at the Archangel waiting for him.

“Tell me again how this is supposed to help?”

Mika’el paced the plank floor with the slow, lazy watchfulness of a predator waiting for its chance to make the final kill. A smile ghosted across his face. “I’ve seen you fight, remember? The Fallen Ones will keep coming after you unless you give them reason to leave you alone, and I can’t stick around to act as your nursemaid.”

“So your solution is to beat the crap out of me before they do?”

“If you’d learn to keep up your guard, I wouldn’t be able to hit you as often.”

“Maybe not, but you’d hit just as hard.”

“No harder than you can. Once you start landing as many blows as you take, you won’t make such an appealing target, believe me.”

Aramael dodged a right jab. Mortar crumbled to the floor
of the deserted warehouse as Mika’el pulled his fist out of the wall. He scowled. It seemed to him the Archangel was enjoying the lesson far more than he should.

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I
can’t
hit as hard as you. Or them.”

Mika’el caught back a left hook in mid-swing. “Pardon?”

“I said I can’t—”

“I heard you. I just didn’t believe
what
I heard. Is that what you think? That you can’t hit as hard as a Fallen One?”

Aramael scowled at him and pulled the neck of his T-shirt down to expose the ugly, ridged scar on the back of one shoulder where Mittron had torn away his wings. “Maybe you missed the part about me being thrown out of Heaven and stripped of my powers.”

“I didn’t miss anything, smart-ass.” Mika’el scooped up a towel from the corner and tossed it to him. “But I think you may have misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood what?”

“Regardless of what happened, you are still—and always will be—an angel. You are a superior being, physically equal to each and every Fallen One in the universe. With the exception of Lucifer, perhaps.”

“But Mittron—”

Mika’el raised an eyebrow.

Aramael sighed. Right. Mittron, architect of this entire mess. “So what did he forget to tell me?”

“The only powers stripped from you were those connecting you to Heaven: your ability to move between realms or communicate with your kin, or to call on energies that were never yours to begin with. Everything else is as much a part of you as breathing—your immortality, your ability to heal yourself, your physical strength. Mittron could no more take away those than he could turn a human into an immortal. It simply isn’t—and wasn’t—within his power.”

Aramael spat on the towel and rubbed away the dried blood from his already healed lip. He walked across the dusty floor and stared out the window at the street below,
thinking back over the month he’d spent as a punching bag for any Fallen One who tracked him down.

Thirty days’ worth of reasons to hate Mittron a little more. It really was too bad he’d never have a chance to repay the Seraph.

Down the block, the driver of a delivery van unloaded a rack of bread at a corner store. Traffic noises drifted in from the city: a siren, a horn, a truck rumbling along the pavement. Aramael’s breathing slowed, evened out. Could Mika’el be right? He focused inward for a moment but found nothing but frustration. If he did retain any part of the angelic, he sure as hell couldn’t feel it. He just felt
puny
.

He scowled at his faint reflection.

But if it were true…

“You’re sure.” He looked over his shoulder. “You’re sure I’m as strong as they are.”

“Positive.”

“If I do fight back the way you say, what’s to stop them from calling on their own powers?”

“It’s unlikely they will. We had a few days after the pact fell where the Fallen Ones believed they had free rein in the mortal world, but your former colleagues convinced them otherwise. Things have been quiet again for almost three weeks and should remain so as long as the agreement stands. The Fallen Ones are sufficiently cautious that you won’t face anything more than you can handle.”

Aramael grunted. “So you’re telling me—”

Mika’el smiled with grim satisfaction. “I’m telling you that, with a little work, you can kick a Fallen One’s ass from here to Hell and back again.”

Aramael dropped the towel onto the windowsill and turned to the Archangel.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

A
LEX PRESENTED HERSELF
at the nurses’ station at 8:57 a.m., books in hand, as ordered. Elizabeth Riley waited for her beneath the clock on the wall, fingers tapping against
crossed arms. The psychiatrist wore cargo-style pants again, and a blouse the color of a summer sky. Without a word, she led the way down the corridor, Birkenstocks slapping against gleaming linoleum. Following, Alex wondered if Fridays were standard blue-blouse days.

“I trust you slept well?” Riley broke the silence at last.

With the ease of habit, Alex told the same lie she’d been telling since Caim had very nearly killed her. “Fine, thanks.”

“Your hotel isn’t too noisy? You’ve hardly chosen a place conducive to sleep.”

“Maybe not, but it’s all I can afford if I’m going to be here for a while.”

Riley’s expression clearly said she didn’t think a long stay necessary—or likely, but her grunt was non-committal. Stopping in front of a door, she slid a key into the lock. “Time to put your theory to the test.”

She pushed open the door and stepped inside, only to come up short. “What the hell—?”

Alex peered over her, gaze sweeping the empty room, heart sinking. She pushed past Riley to make sure Seth wasn’t out of view in one of the corners. Nothing. Her heart sank.
Lord, Seth, I told you to stay…

“They must have moved him again.” Riley muttered something under her breath and then added, “Wait here. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

She returned thirty seconds later, a nurse in tow. She shot a grim look at Alex. “No one moved him. We’re doing a sweep of the floor and we’ve notified security.”

Standard procedure. But not standard circumstances. An image of Seth, cornered by security guards, sprang to Alex’s mind—along with visions of a half dozen messy outcomes. Shit, this was so not good. Before she could think of a way to express her reservations, however, a voice hailed from down the corridor.

“Found him!”

The same relief that flashed through Alex crossed Riley’s and the nurse’s faces. Following them to where an orderly stood outside another room, Alex stepped inside, leaving
the three in a heated debate about negligence and dereliction of duty.

Seth turned from the gaping, empty window space and smiled his pleasure at seeing her. “Alexandra Jarvis.” He waved his hand at his surroundings, looking satisfied. “I room,” he said. “I stay.”

In the room to which she’d told him to return, the one where she’d first seen him. Of course. With a twinge of regret, Alex glanced over her shoulder where Riley read the riot act to the blameless nurse and orderly, and then she smiled at Seth.

“Yes,” she agreed. “You stayed.” She held out the bag of books she carried. “I brought you something.”

Seth left the window and strolled over to join her. He reached into the bag and took out one of the illustrated dictionaries, turning it over to examine it. “Something?” he asked quizzically, holding it up to her.

“A book. A dictionary.”

He frowned.

Alex took out another book. “Book,” she said again. “A story.”

A third. “Book. An encyclopedia.”

Seth’s bafflement only appeared to increase, however, and so she put back the two books she’d taken from the bag and held out her hand for the one Seth held. She flipped through the pages, stopping at the letter
b
. “Book,” she said, pointing to the illustration and then hefting the volume in her hands. Another point to an illustration, and then to the cot along the wall. “Bed.”

Seth’s gaze narrowed.

Alex thumbed through more pages and pointed to the door outside, where Riley had gone silent and watched intently. “Door.”

Flip, flip, flip, point. “Window.”

Flip, flip. She pointed from the book to Riley and then to the nurse. “Woman.”

Seth’s finger touched her gently, mid-chest. “Alexandra Jarvis. Woman.”

Alex looked up into black eyes lit with understanding. Lit with a faint glimmer of
Seth
. She caught her breath, a frisson crawling up her spine. She’d been right. He was still in there. He just didn’t know how to get out.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’m a woman, too.”

His gaze lingered on hers for a long moment, and then dropped to the book in her hands. Alex held out the dictionary to him and he took it gently, almost reverently. “Book,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Alex said. “Dictionary.”

Seth went to the window, leaned a shoulder against the frame, and began flipping through the pages. But just as she was giving herself all kinds of mental pats on the back and feeling more than a little smug, Seth’s reverence turned to frustration.

“I don’t know book,” he accused, his tone one of betrayal. He slammed the cover shut and threw the dictionary on the bed, his dark eyes sparking. The bed bounced under the impact—or did it?

The cot legs hovered above the floor. Shit. Alex cast a quick glance at Riley, but the doctor was frowning at Seth and didn’t seem to have noticed anything odd. Yet. Crossing to Seth’s side, Alex took his fisted hands into her own, prying his fingers from his palms.

“It’s all right,” she soothed. “At least this tells us I’m right about the language thing. I didn’t expect you to be able to read.”

“I don’t know
book
,” he growled, curling his fingers around hers in a tear-inducing grip.

Swallowing a wince, Alex kept her voice even. “I know. But
I
know book, and I’ll teach you. I promise.”

“Detective Jarvis, a word, please,” said Riley.

Alex ignored her, holding Seth’s dark, turbulent gaze with a steadiness she hoped would mask her rising unease. Seth Benjamin may have saved her life once, but what did she really know about him? Aramael had described himself as a not-nice kind of angel…What if Seth was of that same
breed? With no memory of who he was, no checks and balances built into him the way Aramael had…

Agonizing seconds dragged past. At last Seth’s grip relaxed, restoring circulation to her tortured digits; he might not comprehend her words, but he seemed to understand her intent. Behind her, someone exhaled in a rush. Alex offered up a quick, small prayer that the sound would cover the muffled thud of the bed dropping back to the floor.

She gave Seth’s fingers a light squeeze.
Please, please let Riley have stayed focused on Seth and not the bed.
“Much better,” she said. “We’ll figure this out, all right? Together. You just have to be patient and wait.”

Heaven’s contingency plan looked unconvinced.

“Wait,” Alex repeated. “You stay here, you wait, you be patient.”

“Detective.” Riley’s clipped voice held a distinct, unhappy edge.

Alex squeezed Seth’s fingers a final time and then turned, her gaze flicking over the little group still in the doorway. Riley, who seemed intent on boring a hole through Alex with her hostile glare. The nurse, staring at Seth with a perplexed frown etched between her brows, most likely still trying to figure out how he’d been moved without her knowledge. And the orderly, whose gaze was fixated on the bed.