Chapter 19
19
ELIAS
E lias knew he should be taking Tlalli’s advice, disappearing from existence to hide away from whatever chaos Anthony decided to rain down upon the Earth. Elias didn’t owe anyone anything, least of all Anthony, but that didn’t negate the fact that Elias was still an angel. Or rather, it didn’t negate the fact that Elias still had his morals and his values regardless of what he was, and he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the mortals he had helped raise, helped create.
Additionally, the thought of hiding from Anthony made his skin crawl in a way that it had not in a long while. Even sitting up here on the roof of the estate felt like a cowardly position. Elias had freed himself from the limits of his own pride many ages ago, yet after an hour with Tlalli, that pride had reared its ugly head again.
Or maybe it wasn’t pride. Maybe it was simply caring, an act he had too easily slipped back into as he slipped inside Tlalli. Maybe she had managed to do the worst possible thing and bring out the best in him.
If that was the case though, Elias was more of a liability than anything.
He hadn’t confirmed it outright to Tlalli, but since Anthony had stolen the chalice and disappeared, Elias was convinced that Michael had some hand in Anthony’s current rogue antics. After Elias and Tlalli fucked, he found himself afraid for the first time in his life, afraid of the future. Since then, he had been rethinking and second-guessing everything, replaying every interaction between himself and Michael prior to leaving for the auction and forcing himself to face every red flag that went up. By the end of it, the truth was so glaringly clear that it hurt.
Elias had been lied to in Michael’s office the day they left for the mansion. Whatever the Dominion’s plan was, Elias was now certain it differed from the plan given to him and Tlalli, and while he still couldn’t discern what that plan was, he did come to a worrisome conclusion. He and Tlalli hadn’t just been abandoned. They had been sacrificed.
Yesterday, Elias would have laughed at this revelation and welcomed whatever glorious end befell him. Now? That wasn’t an option. Not for him and not for Tlalli.
The sun had long since set, meaning the party downstairs was in full swing. A small sliver of Elias had wanted to go and check it once it began, but after this afternoon, he doubted anything or anyone there would hold his attention.
Instead, he decided to search the house and grounds for Xaphan, hoping to find him quickly despite the storm that was once again picking up outside. He had no clue what he would say to the demon, but finding him was the only thing he could think to do now. While Elias knew Tlalli was fucking Cahuani, he had no idea if she was conspiring with demons. He had been putting off thinking about it, quite easily, the past twenty-four hours. If he followed through with this plan of his, he would have to confront her. And he would have to tell her the truth about what he knew and how he knew it.
He figured it was always going to come to this. Xaphan had said so himself, that Greed was still waiting for Elias to do the right thing, and as hard as Elias had tried to deny that the Puri were the ones interested in “the right thing,” the time for denial had passed. The Dominion could not be trusted, and everything was at stake.
Nonetheless, as he made his way out onto the muddy grounds, he found his heart once again at odds with his head. He no longer wished to seek out Xaphan. He wanted to find Tlalli. He wanted to tell her first.
He was reaching for her before he could think twice about it, then letting the steady pulse of her being guide him in the direction of the tree line. She had left the connection open, and judging by the strength of it, she was still here in this realm. Apparently, she hadn’t taken her own advice either.
As he neared the tree line, however, he found his path blocked by a familiar figure: the one he had been looking for before.
“What are you doing out here?” Xaphan grunted, crossing his arms over his chest.
Elias rolled his eyes. “Looking for you.”
Xaphan seemed genuinely surprised at that response but softened nonetheless. Then a smirk fell across his features. “And what can I do for you?”
Elias wet his lips while glancing around consciously. He definitely hadn’t thought this far ahead, but there really wasn’t much else to say apart from the truth, so he started there. “Anthony got to the chalice,” he said.
Intuition had long ago told Elias the demons had already gotten to it first, but his award-winning denial had held up right until this moment, when Xaphan’s face screwed up in what Elias would call confused guilt.
“The chalice you put in place of the real one...” he tacked on sheepishly.
Yet Xaphan’s features didn’t change much, and the longer they stood there staring at each other, the clearer the picture became. Xaphan already knew. He knew what Elias was gonna say, all of it, which could only mean one thing. Tlalli had told them. She had indeed already made the decision to betray Heaven.
Elias could admit he was hurt, but the pain only lasted a moment before Xaphan dragged him back to the matter at hand.
“Is this you doing the right thing?”
There was only the slightest hint of smugness in Xaphan’s voice, but it was more than enough to make Elias’s blood curdle. Still, Xaphan stared hard at him, as if willing the confirmation to form in the air around Elias’s lips.
“I don’t know?”
“It’s really simple at this point, Elias. You know what’s gonna happen, and you know your angels have left you to the wolves. You know how this ends. Now, you can die for that loyalty you’re so proud of, but I think you know you deserve better. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out here looking for me.”
Elias clicked his tongue. “What am I supposed to do? Just... throw it all away? Run and never look back?”
“Naw, that ain’t possible. You have to look back. You have to look and see and tell the Puri everything you can because otherwise, everything you’ve put your faith in is gonna destroy all that you helped build. And then all of this was for nothing.”
“And if we fail?”
“Then at least you can show up in Hell and say you did your damn best to be good, even when you were given every permission to be anything but.”
There was no denying who Xaphan’s creator was. Lucifer, the Prince of Pride himself, had been every bit the orator that Xaphan was now. And Pride had been so close to securing Elias’s loyalty all those millennia ago, yet Elias, who had still believed so strongly in the way of the Righteous God, despite the calamity that had brought them together in the first place, had fought him.
He’d watched Pride lead his devils out of Heaven to rebel against the Dominion’s warped idea of creation. Then he’d watched the Dominion become everything Lucifer had warned they would, and Elias had numbed himself to the reality since. Not anymore. There was no going back. There was no buying time. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now.
And if Tlalli was leaving, what else did he have in Heaven worth staying for? Even if she wished to leave him behind, even if she had committed to cutting ties, he still had to make a choice for himself.
“She didn’t tell you, because we didn’t trust you,” Xaphan said. There was nothing particularly cold about his statement. It was just a fact. “We wouldn’t have allowed it whether she asked or not. We couldn’t risk sabotaging ourselves, so we had to wait for you to come to us yourself. But you know the Puri keeps a place for you.”
“And even after all this time, they really still want me on their side? After I—I called them liars and turned my back on them?”
He smirked now. “You keep mistaking devils for angels, Elias. We aren’t gonna damn nobody for making a very logical mistake, and y’all got history. Fact of the matter is, you’re useful, and they know that if you come to us, you mean it. That’s good enough for me, so you wanna do this, we got you.”
Elias chuckled, running a hand over his beard. “You make it sound so easy.”
“I mean, it really is at this point. Besides, think of it this way.” Xaphan put a large hand on his shoulder. “You get a brand-new pair of wings that are much cooler than those chicken feathers you’re sporting now.”
After a beat, the two cracked matching smiles, and their laughter climbed up the trees and into the canopy of leaves above. The rain fell heavy around them, but Elias was undisturbed. He felt lighter than he ever had before.
Elias took a deep breath once the laughter subsided, then looked out into the dense forest behind Xaphan. His desire to see Tlalli was renewed. In fact, it was stronger now, and as he recalled the few seconds he’d seen of that little video, so was his desire to see Cahuani. Since he was being brave and all, he figured he might as well do all the things he’d been wanting to do this weekend. Or at least try to. If they rejected him, so be it, but at least he could start anew without question about where he stood with them.
“I assume they’re in there,” Elias said, nodding his head toward the woods. “You’re the bodyguard, right?”
Xaphan smirked and rolled his eyes. “I’m making sure things remain calm out here. Acheron is on duty inside. He’s got a bit of an advantage that lets him stay— unseen in public places.”
As much as Elias wanted to ask what that advantage was, he decided to believe it could wait.
“Let Cahuani know I’m coming,” Elias went on.
Xaphan raised a brow. “I don’t think?—”
“I know what they’re doin’, and I’m not asking them to stop on my account,” Elias interjected. “Just let him know.”
Xaphan shrugged his broad shoulders and nodded, then stepped aside and gestured deeper into the wood. Again, Tlalli pulsed beneath Elias’s skin, guiding him along the path, but there was another light, too, growing before his eyes and burrowing into his ribs—Cahuani. It had to be.
He heard her first, the familiar moans he had strummed from her body earlier that day wafting through the air alongside the patter of rain against the ground. Then he registered a bassline of grunts and groans that were at times more animal than human—Cahuani’s second form making its presence known when it could. Chills ran down Elias’s spine. Yearning gripped him by the throat.
He found the two in a small clearing that could hardly be called a clearing, rain coming down hard around the canopy of Tlalli’s wings. The golden light of them reflected off the trees, and Elias lost his breath. In comparison... Well, there was no comparison. Heaven could never hope to hold the divinity that this clearing did now. Nothing could, not even Michael and all his angels.
He was glad she’d chosen herself. The Dominion did not deserve her. Elias didn’t either.
Though before he could abandon this endeavor, their bodies shifted, and Cahuani’s head appeared over her shoulder, the silver streaks in his beard catching the light of Tlalli’s wings, black curls plastered to his forehead. His dark eyes were filled with a ravenous hunger as they locked on Elias’s, and every dark and devastating thought the angel had ever had—every dirty idea he had refused himself—erupted in Elias’s mind. The world grew brighter, and the trees leaned in. They whispered words of wanting in his ears. This time, Elias heeded them.