The Rise of the Fallen (The Angelic Wars Book 2) (18 page)

What?
Chris sat up abruptly, staring across the gardens but picturing
Sariel's face in his mind.
A celebrity?
Are they kidding? She's evil, Sariel. Don't they know that?

Of course she is. But
she also has a sort of glamor for some angels. Think about it, Chris.
Humans do the same thing. Some people are attracted to the tough
guys, the bad boys, whatever term you wish to apply. Lilith, as I
said, was the first female angel. She is very old, almost as old as
my brothers and I. She is powerful and willful and independent of
thought. Most angels are not. So they see her as a rogue and are
drawn to her.

Sariel's
tone hardened
. It is this group with
whom I have been having problems. Some have actually tried to free
her. I have had to be firm. Indeed, I have actually had to punish
several of them, something that I have never done in Purgatory
before. This has caused a growing restlessness among my people. And
it is this mood that I have been trying to quell.

Chris
finally stood up and began to wander through the gardens again. His
butt was sore from sitting on the stone bench, and Sariel's speech
had made him too anxious to remain seated in one place.

So what are you saying?
That there's rebellion brewing in Purgatory?

Rebellion?
Sariel began to laugh but stopped quickly as if the thought hadn't
occurred to him before.
Rebellion,
he repeated softly.

The
word echoed through Chris' mind.

Would they rebel?
Sariel seemed to be speaking to himself and Chris stayed quiet.
What
would be the point? Unless they wish to join the forces of Hell. But
no, they would not do that. Or would they?

Sariel?
Chris interrupted silently.
I doubt if
my opinion means much to someone as old and wise as you, but you've
said before that humans and angels share the same emotions and ways
of thinking.

Yes, that's true.

Well, on the street, I
saw people who started off as upstanding and decent. But sometimes
they were corrupted, whether by greed or fear or just simple
desperation. They became...twisted from the people that they were. It
can happen to humans. Maybe it can happen to angels as well.

Oh, that is a horrible
thought, Chris,
Sariel said, sounding shocked.
Horrible.
And yet,
a
long pause,
you are right. We are all
God's creations and all of us are flawed, even the children of
Heaven.

A
bed of yellow flowers caught Chris' attention and he stopped and
watched as fat bumblebees staggered from flower to flower like
drunken helicopter pilots. The heavy scent of the plants and the
sight of the ungainly bees made him smile.

Thank you for your
insight,
Sariel said suddenly, his voice firmer and more decisive.
I
must head home again. I promise to try to be more available to you in
the future, but for now I will investigate this idea of rebellion for
myself. Obviously I could not see the forest for the trees, as humans
say. I was too trusting perhaps. Or simply naïve. But no more.
Now I shall gather my lieutenants and we will weed out this
corruption if it exists.

I understand,
Chris
said.
Be careful. If I've learned one
thing in my life, it's that desperate people are unpredictable. Be
ready for anything.

I shall be, my other
self. I shall be. Farewell.

And
with that, Chris felt Sariel's presence withdraw and he was alone
again.

Unconsciously,
he rubbed his hand against the outline of the hilt in his pocket.
Rebellion among angels. It sounded horribly like what the Devil had
done when he had rebelled against God. Was that scene being played
out again? But against Sariel this time? Chris shivered at the
thought.

To
distract himself, Chris decided to take a tour of the entire garden.
He wandered its paths and marveled at some of the statues and hidden
treasures that appeared around corners when you least expected them.
He laughed once at the sight of a small child with a handful of
flowers being chased around a stand of trees by her exasperated
father. She was managing to stay just ahead of him and laughed with
delight as her disheveled dad slipped and slid, face covered with
sweat, trying to catch her. Chris noticed a small smile on the man's
face and realized that he was deliberately not catching his daughter
to increase her pleasure.

Finally
the man swept up the little girl, shook a finger at her and kissed
her firmly. She squealed and giggled loudly as she hugged him.

Chris
turned away and walked off in a different direction, memories of his
own parents suddenly making the scene bittersweet. It was time to go
back inside. He'd had enough of the garden for one day.

Chris wandered vaguely
around the castle for a few hours after lunch. He was becoming more
and more anxious at the thought of a spy in their midst, and the
conversation with Sariel had only increased his anxiety. It seemed
that you couldn't really trust anyone, not here or in Purgatory. He
was struck by the similarities of their situations and wondered if
there was a connection somehow.

He did wish that he'd
asked the archangel about this feeling of foreboding that had settled
over him. He was starting to look over his shoulder to see if he was
being followed. And he was jerking and starting at every unexpected
sound, It was beginning to irritate him.

Finally during his aimless
stroll, as Chris was checking out yet another little sitting room,
this one lined with shelves stuffed with books, his phone rang.

'Hello?” he said as
he answered it.

“
Christopher, this
is Judge Hawkes. Would you come to my office please? It's tea time,
as they say here, and I'm having some food brought up.” The
judge's voice took on a darker tone. “And we've had word from
Ghost. So please join myself and the others as soon as you can.”

Chris felt a surge of
excitement. Finally, some action!

“
On my way, sir,”
he replied and clicked off the phone. He slipped it into a pocket and
hurried off to the judge's office. This time he only got lost once.

The door was open when he
got there and Chris walked in to find that he was the last to arrive,
again. Everyone was seated in the same places that they had been
during their last meeting and he had a weird flash of deja vu.

Judge Hawkes nodded in
answer to his greeting and asked Chris to close the door behind him.
He did that and then went to sit by Natalie again.

“
How did the rest of
your meeting with the other teens go?” he asked her quietly.
She was adding a sugar cube to her teacup and just shrugged.

“
It pretty much
broke up after you left. They asked me a bit about Sariel and about
the fight with Lilith, but that was about it.” She sipped her
tea thoughtfully. “They're quite a nice bunch, actually. I'm
glad we have at least a few others like us to talk to.” She
gave him a sly wink. “It can get a bit dull just talking to you
all the time.”

Chris glanced quickly at
the judge to make sure he wasn't watching and then stuck his tongue
out at her. Natalie giggled and wiped a trickle of tea off of her
chin.

“
Help yourself,
Christopher,” the judge said as he buttered a scone. “We'll
get down to the serious business after tea.”

“
Yes sir,”
Chris answered. He helped himself to tea and a few scones. He didn't
really think that he was hungry, but found to his surprise that he
put away three scones with butter and jam and was on his second cup
of tea when the judge tapped his cup lightly with his spoon to get
their attention.

The hum of conversation
died away and Judge Hawkes cleared his throat.

“
Now that we're all
comfortably fed, I want to let you know what Ghost uncovered during
our little fishing trip.” He smiled grimly. “It is
surprising the things you can catch with the right bait, and
apparently, a purported shopping excursion by Natalie was that bait.”
Natalie just grimaced at that but made no comment.

“
Ghost is out there
right now, close at hand if we need him, and monitoring all
communications in and out of Valiant.” The judge picked up a
piece of paper and gave it a cursory look. “It seems that we've
been more lax in our security here in the castle than I would have
believed. However, that's hardly surprising, considering.”

“
Considering what,
Ethan?” Chef asked. Chris looked at him closely.

He hadn't talked to the
man for a few days and was surprised to see how tired and grim he
looked; not like the cheerful Chef that he knew at all. He wondered
what the cook had been doing that had left him looking so serious.

“
Considering that
our dear Mr. Mahony has been speaking with Scythe, the local
equivalent of North America's Talon.”

There were a round of
gasps and several curses as the judge dropped this bombshell. George
banged the table with his fist hard enough to make the china cups
ring. Ramona and Beatrice exchanged dark looks, while Chef sat back
and clasped both of his hands together so tightly that Chris saw his
biceps quivering.

“
How is that
possible, your honor?” Tony asked in his, as always, calm
voice. The others seemed to take their cue from him and settled down
to listen.

“
It is possible
because I was too trusting, I suppose.” The judge looked very
tired. “Alan was recommended by his predecessor, a lovely women
whom I held in high regard. When she learned that she had terminal
cancer, Victoria asked that I appoint him as her replacement. I
agreed. It was almost her dying wish, and I wanted to honor that
wish,”

He looked down at the
paper in front of him and tapped it lightly. “I should have
vetted him more carefully, I fear. Perhaps he wasn't originally a
traitor. I think his position seems to have gone to his head.”
The judge waved at the room around them. “After all, running a
castle, having others at your beck and call, having access to almost
unlimited funds to do with as you please, as long as you fill out the
paperwork, must have been heady stuff indeed. And now I show up, with
all of you in tow, hale and hearty. He may have assumed that we were
killed along with the others at the Nest. I can't say. All I know is
that he sent a text message to a location that Ghost assures me is
the headquarters of the local chapter of Scythe.”

“
What was the
message, sir?” Chris asked. He was torn between anger at the
betrayal and fear that they had been compromised so badly that an
attack might be imminent.

The judge read directly
from the note. “Target of opportunity will be in London this
afternoon. Shopping trip. She is the one you want. Minimal security.”
He looked up at them. “Short and to the point. He's always been
very efficient.”

Chris looked at Natalie.
He was surprised that she didn't look angrier. If anything, she
appeared thoughtful. Then she cocked her head to the side slightly
and looked at the judge with a frown.

“
Is there more, your
honor? You said that we'd been even more lax than you thought.”

“
Yes. Leave it to
you to pick up on that,” Judge Hawkes replied. “There was
a second message from Valiant. This one was sent yesterday. Our
problem is that Ghost wasn't able to pinpoint its exact source. It
originated from within the castle. That was all he could say.”

He looked at his notes
again.

“
The plan goes well.
There are only six of them here now. I can easily take them out as a
group. Just give me the signal when you are ready.”

He sat back and rubbed his
eyes.

“
It was definitely
sent from a second cellphone, so Ghost tells me. Which means that we
have a second mole inside the castle. And this one seems even
deadlier than our Mr. Mahony.”

“
'Only six of them'
means the Angelics, obviously,” Chef said in his low baritone.
“But how does whoever sent this think that he, or she, could
easily take them out as a group?” He smiled a bit at Chris and
Natalie. “They are a lot tougher than the mere teenagers they
appear to be, after all. Surely this 'mole' knows that?”

“
Maybe they
underestimate them, Chef,” Beatrice said. She seemed the
angriest of the staffers, but it looked like a cold anger and she was
holding it firmly in check. “If you haven't seen an Angelic in
action, you might believe that reports of their prowess are a little
exaggerated.”

“
Maybe not, Bea,”
Davidson spoke this time. “They are still human, after all. A
properly planted explosive device, or the right poison in their soup
and, voila, six dead Angelics.”