Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (36 page)

“That means he knows a Fallen One attacked the woman.”

“Of course he does. The attack on the Nephilim woman was deliberate—a way around the non-interference clause. Seth was intended to know. To react this way.”

“There must be something we can do.”

Tipping back his head, Mika’el tried to think. But no matter how he looked at things, it all came down to one inescapable conclusion. Lucifer had out-manipulated him. He closed his eyes. He had allowed the Light-Bearer to skirt the rules, to get away with brazen disrespect, even to threaten, all in an attempt to protect the One from having to make that final, impossible decision.

And instead it had come to this.

“Mika’el?” the Highest prompted.

He shook his head soundlessly, remaining as he was, letting the knowledge of what was to come settle into him. He waited for it to fill him. Change him. Instead, failure gave way to a quiet, seething righteousness. A determination. No. He would not give up. Not now, not ever. He reached out with every fiber of his existence, allowing the energy of Heaven itself to mingle with his. Reached until he found and embraced the One’s own power, taking it within him for the first time in more than four thousand years. Feeling her surprise as he did. Her questions. Ignoring
them, he opened his eyes and lifted Verchiel’s hand from his arm, giving it a small squeeze as he released it.

“Send the Powers to engage the sentries,” he ordered. “All of them.”

“All? Even—?”

“All,” he said. “Including Aramael.”

B
ailing out of Henderson’s sedan, Alex took in the scene with a sweeping glance. A dozen police cars were strewn across the street, blockading the alley mouth and all possible chance of escape. Twice that number of officers had taken up sheltered positions behind the vehicles, and an Emergency Response Team van had pulled up across the sidewalk, its back doors wide as members scrambled out.

She turned to Henderson. “Get them out of here.”

“Right. And would you like me to drain the fucking Pacific while I’m at it?” he retorted. “It’s too late, Alex. You know they won’t back down at this stage.”

“Then get me in there.”

He patted down his pockets and then spread his hands wide. “Sorry, I seem to be missing my magic wand.”

“Damn it, Henderson!”

He placed his hands on the sedan’s roof and glared at her. “I told you on the way here what it was going to be like. He’s in there, tossing around Dumpsters like they’re goddamn basketballs. They’re not going to let an unknown cop wander in to have a conversation with him.”

A resounding crash backed his words, its echo rumbling down the alley and making cops duck behind car doors again. Henderson waited for the reverberation to still before he continued, his voice calmer but no less cutting.

“He’s holed up in a blind alley with a hostage and he’s not responding to anyone. If hostage negotiation fails, these guys have no choice but to go in there after him, and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop them.”

“You don’t understand. Something changed when he saw me with Aramael. He’s on the edge, trying to make his decision, and I think he wants us to force him into it.” Alex waved a hand at the gathered cops. “If they go in, he’ll kill them.”

Henderson stared into the alley. “If we go after him, he’ll have reason to take one of us out.”

“Or all of you,” Alex agreed. “And if he’s as far gone as I think, you don’t have enough firepower in the city to stop him.”

“Fuck,” said Henderson.
“Fuck.”
He slammed his fist against the car roof and glared across at her again. “You know I’ll sound like a lunatic.”

“I know.”

“Fuck.” Pushing away from the vehicle, he strode toward the ERT van, yanking his badge from his pocket.

Alex paced a short, tight line beside the car, her eyes glued to Henderson and the ERT supervisor. She saw it all. The raised eyebrows, the scowls, the glances exchanged between supervisor and nearby team members, the angry gesticulations that all too clearly told Henderson to piss off.

And then the lightning.

Stopping mid-stride, she stared at a sky that had been clear when she’d left the hospital with Henderson—enough so that she’d noticed the crescent moon following them as Henderson drove. Now, the sky that should have been growing pale with an encroaching dawn had instead gone black. A shiver went down her spine. Vancouver weather was famous for its changeability, but this much this fast?

Another shaft of lightning split the sky, then a third.

Just like the storms that had plagued Toronto during
Caim’s rampage. The storms that had occurred simultaneously with the murders, earning him the title of the Storm Slasher. Almost as if—Alex sucked in a breath and stared into the still inky-dark alley.

Almost as if Caim had affected the very energy of the world around him whenever he killed. Like Seth seemed to be doing now.

“Got any other bright ideas?” Henderson’s sour voice asked. “Because that one went over like a ton of bricks. By tonight, everyone on the force will think I’m a fucking nutcase and I’ll be lucky if all I get is—”

His words dropped off into silence as the street dimmed beneath a giant shadow passing over it. The hive of activity around them stilled into an eerie silence and Alex watched all eyes turn skyward. Her mouth filled with dust.

“What the hell?” Henderson murmured.

“It’s them.” Grabbing the other detective’s arm, she swung him around to face her. “They’re here for Seth. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone follow me in.”

“Follow you—Alex, where the hell are you going? Who’s here? Damn it, Jarvis, get back here before you get shot!”

Henderson’s furious bellow shattered the stillness as she bolted for the alley, bringing the scene back to life. Startled cops grabbed for her, missed, added their shouts to Henderson’s. Alex dodged, wove, feinted to the side, and ran like she’d never run before. Behind her, Henderson’s voice rose above the others.

“Hold your fire! Goddamn it, don’t shoot! She’s a cop!”

Ahead of her and to the left, a burly ERT member in full gear was on an intercept course. Lightning split the sky again, illuminating the grim determination on his face. She eyed the police cars blocking the alley, looked back at the ERT member, and calculated her chances of evading him. Her step faltered. Then, reaching deep, she found a final burst of speed and her stride lengthened one more time. Vaulting onto the hood of one of the cars, she slid across it and onto the pavement again. Just a few more feet and—

Powerful arms encircled her, lifted her from her feet, and
swung her around.
No. Damn it, no! Not now. Not this close.
She shoved at a solid chest, twisted in the iron grip, fought with every ounce of strength she possessed.

Feathers brushed her cheek.

“Alex, it’s me,” a familiar voice spoke over her head, and hands gripped her arms, shaking her. “Stop fighting.”

She did, if only out of sheer surprise. “Aramael? You have your wings back. Thank God! Seth—the Archangels—you have to help me get in there.”

Arms still pinned to her sides, she indicated the alley with her chin, but Aramael’s only response was to tighten his grip. The hope that had surged in her hesitated, then shriveled as she raised her gaze to his. ERT members formed a ring around them, weapons poised, voices bellowing instructions. Caught up in stony gray eyes, Alex barely registered their existence.

“You goddamn son of a bitch!” She pulled free of Aramael’s hands and raised her own to shove at his chest. She might as well have tried to move the squat brownstone beside them. Breast heaving, she blinked back tears of frustration. Fury at knowing that, after all she’d done, all she’d been through, she had failed. Failed Seth, failed the human race, failed herself.

“I’m sorry,” Aramael said.

“Are you?” she demanded bitterly. One of the ERT members reached for her arm and she shook him off with a vicious, “Back off!” before rounding on Aramael again. “Are you really? You’re getting what you wanted, remember? Seth is about to die. You should be thrilled.”

“I never wanted this.”

“Because you wanted to do the honors yourself?”

Aramael flinched and his nostrils flared. “This isn’t about me, Alex. I did what I had to do because that’s who I am.
What
I am. You know that.”

“And what about Seth?” she snarled. “Was that something you had to do, too? Tear him apart inside so he would doubt me and believe the Fallen One’s lies? All of this is still new to him. He doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know yet
that I care for him.” She ignored the flash of pain across Aramael’s features and pressed on. “
You
did this to him, Aramael. You owe him another chance.”

She glanced past the ERT members surrounding them, past Henderson in furious discussion with the team supervisor, down the alley. What was happening? Had the angels taken him yet? Would she see them go as she had seen them arrive, as a silent, massive shadow passing across her world? Would she feel him go? Her breath rasped in her throat.

She looked up at her soulmate.

Ice crystals had formed in his eyes. “You don’t know what you ask.”

“I’m asking you to help me. To trust me.” Alex reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “I couldn’t save you, Aramael. Let me try to save Seth. Let him love me so he can do what he’s supposed to.”

Aramael stared over her head into the alley, his conflict a palpable, surging energy that enveloped them both. Behind her, the argument between Henderson and the ERT supervisor escalated; around them, heavily armed cops shifted. Agonizing seconds dragged past.

At last her soulmate looked down at her again and took her hands from his face. “You’re damned lucky I still have my free will,” he grated, “or this wouldn’t even be an option.”

He raised a hand. Momentary alarm surged through Alex, along with memories of another time he had raised his hand to a human, a time when his wings had come alive with golden flames and a terrible wrath had darkened his features. But the ERT members standing between them and the alley simply staggered backward as if pushed by an enormous gust of wind. No flames. No bodies sailing through the air. Only a half dozen cops pummeled into reverse, trying to regain their balance without dropping their weapons.

Gray eyes met hers again, just for an instant. “I’ll hold them off,” he said. “Go.”

Go to Seth.

Alex turned and ran.

S
he found them beneath a single light mounted high on the brick wall that formed the end of the blind alley. Black wings—six pairs of them—formed a barrier beyond which she couldn’t see a thing, and the kind of silence reigned where a person truly could have heard a pin drop. Her heart plummeted. Was she too late? Had they already…?

One of the Archangels shifted and the wall of feathers parted. Through them, she saw Seth, his back to the graffiti-covered wall and face twisted with emotions Alex didn’t think he had even begun to understand. Ugly intent glittered in his black eyes, and, in his hold, dangled the reason the Archangels hadn’t yet struck him down—a quivering, terrified man with a knife at his throat. A knife held by Seth.

“Wait!” Alex lunged through the gap in the blockade and planted herself between the Archangels and Seth. Arms spread wide, she sought and found Michael’s face among the others and, ignoring his fury, directed her entreaty to him. “I can talk to him. I can make him understand.”

Behind her, Seth grated, “I already understand.”

Low, violent energy pushed at Alex’s back. She staggered under its force and looked back at him, at the knife in his hand pressed against the man’s skin, drawing a bead of blood. At his malice. Her heart shivered but she made herself meet his gaze and hold it without wavering. “It doesn’t have to be like this. It wasn’t what you thought. Aramael never touched me in the way you think.”

“You lie,” he snarled. “I saw you. I saw him.”

The bead of blood became a line.

“Alex.” Michael’s voice was cold, commanding, com-pelling.

It took all the willpower Alex would ever possess to ignore it and continue speaking to Seth. “No. That wasn’t him. It was—” She swallowed hard.

“Alex,” Michael said again.

She lost it.
“Shut. Up.”
She rounded on him. “Just shut up, Michael. You’ve done enough. More than enough. You and your creator and fucking Lucifer. Seth and Aramael and I are not pawns in some goddamn cosmic chess game!”

“Actually,” drawled a new voice, “you are.”

Lucifer.

She knew it without looking. Knew from the way six pairs of wings shot open to their full span. The way the energy radiating from Seth was suddenly swallowed by something greater. Something lethal, crackling in the air and tingling along her skin. Her insides went liquid.

Lucifer, six Heavenly warriors, a divine being in a position to annihilate humankind—and her, caught between them all. If it weren’t for the death sentence she already carried in her belly, Alex might have at last turned tail and run. But even then—to where? If the human race faced either annihilation on one hand or Armageddon on the other, there would be no safe place on the planet. Perhaps not in the universe.

So she did the only thing she could. She held her ground, continued to shield Seth and his hostage from the Archangels,
hoped for a miracle, and tried very, very hard not to flinch from reality. Or from the tiny blue flicker of energy that snapped near her cheek.

“Lucifer.” Michael grated the name with such fury in his voice that the walls of the alley trembled, sending a fine shower of dust across the pool of light in which they stood.

“Mika’el. Don’t let me interrupt. Please. I believe you were about to forfeit the agreement?”

Lucifer’s footsteps signaled his approach and Alex held rigid against the raw desire to simply fold to the ground. Michael’s breath hissed out, sending dust motes skidding away from him. “I do nothing more here than end your treachery, Light-Bearer.”

As tall and luminescent as Alex remembered, Lucifer stopped at the edge of her peripheral vision. “What treachery would that be, Archangel?” His voice went cold. Hard. “Given you’re here to murder my son, what treachery have I committed that could possibly equal that?”