Hellsbane Hereafter (22 page)

“Yeah. I mean, he looked like a normal guy, good looking, like male model material, you know? Nothing like the way you’d expect evil to look.”

“They hardly ever do.” I cupped my forehead for a half beat, laughing to myself about the massive understatement.

“You’re telling me?” He shook his head. “I should’ve known better. Me, of all people. God, I was so stupid. But he’d said he was a friend of yours, so I let my guard down.”

“I’m so sorry, Mihir.”

He ignored my apology. “Once he was inside everything changed. He started asking about the ring. Wanted to know where it was, how he could get it. I played dumb at first. But he kept saying you’d sent him to get it, and I needed to give it to him. I almost handed it over right there, but then…”

I swallowed, not wanting to know, but needing to. “What?”

“I don’t know. I guess maybe he thought he wasn’t getting anywhere, or he just lost patience or something. He pulled this black sword out of nowhere and stabbed it through my gut.” Mihir looked away then, lifting a shaky hand to scrub over his mouth and chin.

He took a few deep breaths through his nose and looked back. “He yanked it back out, and I dropped to my knees. There was blood everywhere. I figured he must’ve punctured my stomach, so I knew I was dying. I lost a lot of blood, I know that, and the demon just stood there watching, telling me to give him the ring.”

“So you told him?”

“No. I passed out before I could. When I woke up, the wound was healed, and I was sitting in one of my kitchen chairs, naked.”

I sat forward. “Demons can’t heal people.”

“I’m telling you, I was completely healed, which is why I knew for sure I wasn’t dealing with anything human. I also knew there was no way I could let him get his hands on the ring.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. At least not at first.” He looked at his legs, his hands squeezing his thin thighs. “I took as much as I could, as long as I could. It wasn’t too bad at first. He just beat the shit out of me. I mean, my face must’ve looked like a blackberry, all bumpy and swollen. He’d break my fingers, then my toes. When I still didn’t give him what he wanted, he broke my arms and then my legs. He must’ve shattered the bones. It hurt like…I can’t even describe it.”

“Why didn’t you just tell him?” I winced before I could stop myself, my hand lifting to my mouth to hide my kneejerk response. I was so proud of him, but I couldn’t stand thinking of him in such pain.

“It’s the Ring of Solomon. Do you have any idea how powerful it is? What the wearer could actually do with it? I couldn’t let a demon, of all things, get hold of it.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, exhaled, then started again. “I’d figured out what he was based on stuff my grandmother had told me years ago. Just never thought I’d ever meet one in person.”

Neither did I.
“So how did he get it?”

“When he’d broken all my limbs and I still wouldn’t tell him, he slit my throat and stood there watching me bleed out. I don’t know if I died or just passed out. But then…I don’t know, I mean, I’m still not sure, but right before things went black, I could’ve sworn I heard him speak to someone.”

“A Fallen.” The Fallen lost a lot of power in the fall, but they could still heal wounds, provided they weren’t made by a seraphim sword. They couldn’t bring a human back from death, but they could let a man get right up to the Grim Reaper’s door and then heal his wounds to save his life.

His eyes opened wider. “Fallen. As in fallen angel?”

“You got it.”

Mihir shook his head as though clearing the new info from his thoughts. “I don’t know what or who it was. All I knew was that I woke up again, right where I’d been and completely healed, but this time the demon was really pissed. He yanked me to my feet, tossed me over his shoulder, and then, I don’t know, teleported me I guess, to the roof of my apartment building. It’s a four-story building, Emma.”

My stomach clenched. “Dear God, what did he do?”

“He set me on my feet, toes hanging over the edge, and said, when I woke up again, I’d better tell him where I’d hidden the ring, or he’d find a taller building. And then he pushed me.”

“Mihir, I’m so sorry.” Tears made chilly trails down my cheeks, but I couldn’t raise my hand to wipe them away.

“Ever get pushed off a four-story building? Doesn’t kill you. Just makes you wish it had. I was sure every bone in my body was broken. I knew I’d punctured a lung, and I was pretty sure my brain was leaking fluid onto the cement. When I woke up I was totally healed and standing on the edge of the building again. The demon asked me again where he could find the ring. I told him.” Mihir stared at nothing, his face pale, sweat beading along his upper lip.

“It’s okay, Mihir. You had to,” I said.

“He pushed me anyway.”

“What?”

“Actually, that might not be true.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then cupped a hand over them as though trying to picture the events in his mind. “As I fell and tumbled toward the pavement, I caught a glimpse of him standing up there. He wasn’t alone. There was another guy, taller, with shorter hair, standing next to him. They were arguing, and the demon looked down at me like, I don’t know, like he was sorry. It was weird. Maybe I imagined it.”

“Well, what happened when you woke up?”

Mihir lowered his hand, his brown eyes turning to me. “I was in a hospital with a severed spine, two broken legs, two shattered shoulder blades, a punctured lung, five broken ribs, and swelling on the brain. They had me hooked up to a heart monitor with a tube down my throat, IVs stuck in my arms, and a colostomy bag hooked up to my intestine at my stomach.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.” He shrugged. “The demon had gotten what he wanted. I was just lucky I’d landed on a car roof. It cushioned my fall. Someone had called the cops the first time he pushed me off, so they’d already dispatched an ambulance. I hear it got there within minutes after I landed the second time. The worst part is those pricks had the power to heal me, but they didn’t. They just left me like this.”

“I might be able to help with that.” I picked at a thread on my jeans, not looking him in the eye. “I know some, um, pretty powerful people now.”

“No, thanks.” He snorted, and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve met the kind of people you know. I’ve had enough.”

I shifted to the edge of the bench, sitting straighter. “No. I mean…” I sighed. I had to tell him everything. I had to try to explain, to try to make things right. God, another person had nearly been killed because of me. How could anyone say I wasn’t evil? “You’re right. The thing that did this to you was probably a demon. And the thing that healed you each time, had to be an angel. A fallen angel.”

“Shit. I knew it. I knew it.” He leaned back, raking both hands through his hair, fisting the strands for a second before dropping his arms to his lap. “I mean, I didn’t know about the fallen angel, but I knew it was a demon. What the fuck? I mean, seriously? What the fuck?”

“I didn’t send them, Mihir.”

“Emma—”

“But I think my father may have.”

Whatever he was about to say froze on his lips, his mouth open. He blinked at me. “But…your father’s dead.”

“Yeah, not him.” Not that being dead was an insurmountable obstacle. But I kept that to myself. “I meant my biological father. Mihir, I’m not… ” I bit my bottom lip. Took a breath and cringed. “I’m not completely human.”

“Uh-huh.” His brows knitted over his eyes and he sat forward a little, listening.

I didn’t think he’d figured it out, but rather he was just open to the possibility and waited for me to explain. With a relieved sigh, I did. The whole story, even the part about what had happened deep in the ancient underground city of Petra, just spilled out of me like some sort of cathartic purge. Mihir was human—purely, entirely human. It was a relief to tell someone who had no danger of befalling the same fate as me but still completely understood and utterly believed. God, I’d missed my friend.

“So your father is a fallen archangel, and you’re some never-before-seen, all-powerful, half-angel warrior?” His head bobbed as he spoke, thumb and forefinger stroking his chin in concentration.

“Right.” I titled my head to the side, studying him. Was he really taking it this well?

“Okay.” He exhaled, folding his arms under his chest and settling a little deeper into his chair. “That actually explains a lot.”

“I don’t know who the demon was who hurt you. But I’m pretty sure my father, Jukar, sent him. I don’t know why yet, but I’ll find out. There’s not much that happens involving Fallen and demons that he doesn’t have a hand in. I just don’t understand how they figured out I even knew about the ring. I’ve only ever told my friends about Justin and what happened with the ring. I didn’t even know it could affect angels until recently.”

He raised a finger. “That’s my fault. I didn’t do enough research on the ring back then. I never even considered that some scholars believe jinn were actually fallen angels. If that’s true, then the Ring of Solomon was most likely made to control fallen angels.”

“Just the Fallen?” I pushed to my feet, mindlessly resting a hand on top of my head. Nothing was making sense.

He shrugged. “From what I can tell, yeah. I mean, theoretically, with the right incantation, the wearer could call up any supernatural being and trap their will in the ring. But…”

I paced to the other side of the deck, repeating Michael’s words. “But the ring is never so powerful as when it’s used to control the thing for which it was made.”

“That’s right.” Mihir turned his wheelchair to face me. “So why would your father want your brother to have a ring that controls him?”

I paced back to the bench beside him. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.”

Chapter Ninteen

My sword lay in my hand when the elevator doors to Jukar’s office slid open. On his orders, my friend had been tortured nearly to death and left paralyzed from the waist down. And not for any reason other than he could. If evil had a face, it was my father. I was done.

I spotted Eli and Jukar out on the penthouse patio, and before they even realized I was there, I moved on Jukar, my sword denting the skin under his chin. “Why’d you have to hurt Mihir? You could’ve just asked me for the ring.” I struggled not to run him through before he could answer.

The big angel stiffened, going deathly still. He stared down at me, a mix of anger and confusion narrowing his blue eyes. “What is it now, Emma Jane?”

“Emma Jane,” Eli said. “Take hold of yourself. You don’t want to do this.”

“Oh, I think I do,” I said, not even sparing Eli a glance. I wasn’t about to take my eyes off the Fallen. He wouldn’t get away this time. He wouldn’t charm me out of killing him. “Taking your head would solve everything.”

“You stupid nephilim. Do you really think you can—”

I pushed the point of my sword a little harder against his skin, stopping his bolster midsentence. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I can. And thanks to you, my sword won’t send you to the abyss where you might escape someday. No. You’ll be gone. For good.”

Anger darkened the color of his eyes, and I mentally prepared for his next move. My full attention narrowed on him. There was no way he’d escape my revenge for torturing my friend. I didn’t care what it would cost me. I was going to make him pay for what he’d done to Mihir, what he’d done to my mother, to me, to everyone.

I’d get Michael his answers, so he’d save Eli, and then I’d finally do what I was meant to, kill the beast that raped my mother. “Tell me how you’re going to use Abram. What are you going to do to make all of humanity listen to him, believe his…his testimony?”

Before he could answer a sword clashed into mine, sweeping my blade away from Jukar. In an instant the angels moved—Eli stood in front of me, his sword pointed toward me, ready to fight if he had to, and Jukar stood at my back, his sword pushing at the base of my skull.

“I can’t let you do this, Emma Jane,” Eli said. “I can’t let you throw everything away.”

“I should end you now, you traitorous bitch,” Jukar said.

“Archangel, no.” Eli shifted to catch Jukar’s attention, hands up in silent surrender. “Please. She’s concerned for Abram. The ring he wears is dangerous. She’s seen the carnage it can cause.”

“She fears for her brother, yet she stands before me, weapon drawn, threatening to end me. End
me
?” His indignation was clear in his tone, but I could tell he was totally freaked that I’d gotten the upper hand on him, if only for a few seconds.

“Put your sword away, Emma Jane,” Eli begged, his voice calm and soothing. “This is the only way. Anything else will get us both killed.”

He was right. I’d missed my chance, and now every second I stood there with my weapon in my hand was another second I risked that Jukar would go through on his threat. Then Eli would have no choice but to avenge me and likely get himself killed, too.
Crap.

I willed my sword to disperse and watched Eli’s eyes widen when he saw how the hilt and all vanished. I still hadn’t told him how Jukar had changed me. Now he knew I wasn’t the same girl he’d fallen for.
Crap, crap.

“What ring?” The point of Jukar’s sword pressed a fraction harder at the base of my skull before he lowered the blade and came around to face me again. “And who is Mihir?”

Eli exhaled and took a step toward me. “The Ring of Solomon. The boy wears it.”

“Cut the act, Jukar.” My anger bubbled up again. “I know you’re the one who sent a couple of your flunkies over to my friend Mihir’s apartment to torture him until he told them where he’d hidden it.”

“What do you mean flunkies?” The archangel looked genuinely confused, not that I bought it. “Why would I put that ring on my son’s finger?”

“Because you’re a sick, twisted bastard, and you don’t care who you hurt as long as your grand plan unfolds just the way you wanted.” I met Jukar’s pretty blue eyes, mentally daring him to take issue with anything I said.
Prick.

“I may be a bastard, but I’m no fool, woman.” My father snorted a laugh, his mouth lifting in a cocky grin, but an instant later, his scowl returned. “I gave no command to locate the Ring of Solomon. Someone else is lying to you this time.”

I blinked at that. He sounded sincere. Jukar was a master liar, but he’d always taken a kind of sick joy in being brutally honest with me. Why would he keep lying now when he knew I had him? And if
he
didn’t send the demon and Fallen to harass Mihir, who had?

Demons stuck together like koi in a pond. One of them had to know the name of the demon who’d hurt Mihir, but just as I was about to announce my intentions to interview each and every one of them, Eli stopped me.

“The boys are in trouble,” he said, and before he’d even finished the sentence Jukar was gone.

I opened my mind to Abram and knew instantly there was a fire at the campus house. Eli and I stood on the sidewalk in front of the big home half a heartbeat later.

The fire trucks hadn’t arrived yet, but their sirens echoed over the city, still streets away. Jukar spoke to one of the demons he’d positioned around the boys for their protection.

“Where are the boys?”

The tall man was dressed in a white, soot-smudged chef’s smock and black slacks. More dark smudges colored his cheek and a patch under his nose. His white-gray hair, what there was of it, lay dingy and disheveled. He looked terrified. “
Oui.
Abram was here, Monsieur,” he said in a heavy French accent. “But then the boy…he ran back in. He said the other boys were not well. Uh, he say, they were, uh…
comment dites-vous
, asleep.
Je ne sais pas
—I do not know.”

“You were placed here to protect them. Why are you not in there protecting them?” Jukar demanded, his face grim.

The balding demon glanced from Jukar to the smoking house and back again, wringing his hands. “Archangel,
s’il vous plaît
. The building, it is on fire. I do not want to burn.”

Jukar tisked, curling his top lip in distaste. “It wouldn’t kill you.”

“
Oui
, but it would hurt.”

“Ah, I understand.” Jukar drew his sword. “Tell me if this hurts.” In one lightning quick move he sliced off the demon’s head.

The large man’s body crumpled to the ground, already smoldering as it and the head melted into black, stinking goo. At least no one was near who might have seen the disturbing show. Not even the goo would remain after a few minutes, and Jukar didn’t seem to give it a second thought.

He glanced over his shoulder at Eli and me. “Let’s go.”

Jukar vanished into the house, and Eli and I followed a blink later. Standing in the entry it was clear we were at the scene of a battle. Two bodies lay on the stairs, both covered in blood, one missing its head. They had to be illorum. Demons would’ve melted to nothing. Plus, at least one still held the hilt of his sword. My stomach lurched at the sight, and I had to look away.

Smoke filled every breath, but the thick cloud still hovered high along the second floor ceiling. I didn’t know where the fire burned, and I couldn’t worry about it. We had to find the boys and get them out before it was too late. I ran to the right toward the living room, and Eli shot off in the other direction.

The once-immaculate living room, with its rich, leather furniture, polished end tables, and built-in, ceiling-high bookshelves, was trashed. Overturned furniture filled the room, and broken shelves and books littered the floor. In the center, a black circle stained the expensive Oriental rug. I knelt down and brushed a finger over the stain. It came away slimy and stinking of brimstone. Someone had killed a demon.

“Emma Jane,” Eli yelled from the entry hall. I raced to meet him. He’d checked the dining room and the kitchen.

“Did you find anyone?”

He shook his head. “Someone put up a fight, though. There are deep cuts in the table and chunks of granite missing from the kitchen counters as well as the wall. Most likely sword strikes. And there’s evidence of demon deaths. Three.”

“Where are the boys?” I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. The thickening smoke scratched at the back of my throat, and I coughed. “If the fight was down here, what happened to the boys?”

“Perhaps it was a distraction meant to keep their demon protectors busy, leaving the boys vulnerable.” Eli’s gaze shot up to the second floor as though he could see through the walls. “Jukar says they’re upstairs. There’s something wrong.”

I didn’t regret not allowing the fallen angel into my head, but it sucked getting information secondhand. Eli didn’t elaborate, he just turned and teleported up the stairs. I could’ve beat him, but instead I followed behind.

The smoke was intense but neither of the two angels seemed to notice. They didn’t need to breathe. I pulled the collar of my T-shirt up over my mouth and nose, struggling not to cough.

Jukar stood in the center of the first bedroom. Abram was there, too, kneeling next to one of his housemates passed out on the bed. I couldn’t be sure, but I guessed from the golden-blond hair it was Pete Murray.

Something felt off about the scene and the way the kid lay, one leg sprawled off the side of the bed, his left arm trapped under him, like he’d been dropped there. Across the room another boy, Tom Windfeld I thought, lay face down, fully dressed except for one missing shoe. I realized then that Pete was dressed, too.

I squatted next to Tom, felt for a pulse. He was alive, but what had happened? “What is this?”

Abram looked up at me, his face smudged with soot, dark stains under his nose and around his mouth. After a short coughing fit he said, “They’re unconscious. I can’t wake them up.”

Jukar bent over and lifted Abram by his shoulders, then tucked him close to his body. “Elizal, you and Emma get as many of the boys out as you can. Ambulances are on the way.”

With that the archangel and his son vanished. Eli didn’t seem at all surprised but instead set to work, scooping up Pete and tossing him over his shoulder. He looked at me. “Can you manage the other boy?”

I lifted the kid the same way Eli had lifted Pete. Despite being at least a foot taller and probably thirty pounds heavier than me, it was easy. I slung him over my shoulder and teleported him to the sidewalk, laying him on the front lawn next to where Eli laid Pete.

“The other guys are…” Abram said, pushing from Jukar to join us, his voice raw before breaking into another painful coughing fit. He recovered, swallowing hard. “They’re in their rooms. Nine more.”

My throat was killing me, but I wasn’t as bad as Abram. He’d been in the smoke-filled house longer. I made the trip in and out with Eli four more times, grabbing bodies. Eli went in for the final kid, and within minutes we had everyone out. We each stopped at the door, careful to walk out at human speed. The police arrived first, no one I knew, and rushed forward each time, helping with the boys.

All eleven boys lay unconscious on the front lawn, their beautiful house now fully engulfed in flames as the fire trucks pulled up along with the first of the ambulances. Despite the movement and all the noise, none of the boys had awoken.

“Is it the smoke?” I asked.

Jukar knelt next to Pete, brushing a thumb over the center of his forehead. “No. They’ve been touched. Put under by an angel.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because seraphim can’t kill innocent humans.” Eli, his voice low, kept our conversation private. “They can only arrange for their demise.”

“This was an angelic hit?” I knew how insane it would sound to most people. But then we weren’t most people.

Jukar moved around the frantic ambulance attendants, from one boy to the next, using his power to revive them. He’d touch a foot, or a dangling hand, nothing obvious, and each boy’s eyes slowly blinked open, their first breaths turning into coughs. After he finished, he joined us outside the ambulance where an EMT tended to Abram. They’d put him on a gurney, but they’d raised the back half so he could sit. Despite the oxygen mask, he could answer questions.

Eli stepped up to the heavyset attendant and pulled a badge from his pocket. He flashed it at the other man. “Detective Smith. I need to question this witness. Mind stepping around to the front of the vehicle?”

“I can’t leave a patient—”

Eli cut him off and leaned close, his angelic power pouring out of him. “The patient is in good hands. Step around to the front of the vehicle.”

The guy shrugged. “Okay.”

Eli looked across Abram to me, and I raised a brow. “Really? We don’t give a crap about free will anymore?”

Eli raised his chin. “I’m Fallen. The rules are different now.”

“Right.” I looked at Abram. “Did you see the angel who attacked your housemates?”

“Yeah. I heard the fighting downstairs, and I smelled the smoke. The smoke detectors didn’t go off, though.” His voice was soft, mumbled, but we could understand him well enough. “Then all of a sudden this guy barges into my room. He didn’t say anything, just walked straight up to me and pressed his fucking thumb to my forehead. I didn’t know what he expected, but I guess things weren’t going as planned. Thank God Juan came in.”

“Did you say Juan?” Eli asked.

Abram nodded behind his mask. “He cuts the grass and stuff. But when he came into my room, he had this black sword. He and the angel went at it. Gave me enough time to get out.”

“You got out of the house?” I asked. “Came out to the sidewalk, right?”

“Yeah. But when I saw that the only other person who’d made it out was Juan, I ran back in. I couldn’t find any of the other staff, but I saw the bodies on the steps. I don’t know who they were. I didn’t care. I mean, I wasn’t even sure what was going on until I found Pete. I figured out then that the angel had been trying to make me pass out, too. He was gone, though, so I tried waking the guys, but I couldn’t. And then you guys showed up.”