Chapter Two
I’d found the music-free drive uncomfortably quiet even while Kirby still assumed I needed to be institutionalized. But now, we were left in utter silence, save for the quiet whir of air-conditioning.
Silas hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t waved. He hadn’t greeted. He’d merely revealed himself: broad chest and shoulders, cream leathers, metallic eyes, and unmissable shimmer hovering about him like powdered treasure catching in the dim, amber light of the tunnel.
The Jeep remained in park as the tunnel traffic crawled forward. One honk came from the obnoxious SUV behind us, then another, before Kirby silently put the vehicle in drive and eased it forward. They didn’t look at me, or in the rearview mirror.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but this seemed worse, somehow.
We crawled out of the dark tunnel. The Jeep shook as its wheels hit the rumble strips along the shoulder and looped back toward the suburbs.
Bright, summer light glared over us as we abandoned the highway for surface streets.
I shot an uncertain glance over my shoulder but noted only the way Silas closed his eyes, shaking his head exactly once.
No.
Whether he was using some sparkly angel powers of mind-reading empathy or if he’d just encountered enough shell-shocked humans in his day, I didn’t know, but I didn’t press him.
We drove in wordless discomfort, leaving the city behind us and easing into the uniform shrubs, white fences, and meticulously leveled lawns of identical home after home.
Adrenaline filled me when we turned onto Nia’s block.
I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to stroll up Nia’s front walkway with an angel in tow.
I was about to express my concern when Silas touched my arm.
“You have your poppet?”
I blinked. I’d completely forgotten about the small metallic object he’d slipped into my pocket what felt like ages ago.
I ran my hand over my upper thigh, feeling the figurine beneath my fingertips.
I looked up at him to answer, but he’d been watching me carefully enough to see it before I spoke.
He leaned forward over the center console.
Once again, we were too close. When he opened his mouth to whisper, I tasted the sharp tang of frankincense on my tongue.
My heart missed a beat, jogging to catch up to its regular pattern as he invaded my space.
A hand slid over my elbow, pulling me to him.
He leaned in close, lips brushing against my ear.
“You’re going to have to decide what you want, Marlow,” he said.
I attempted to pull away so he could see the skeptical confusion on my face, but he held me closer. My stomach dipped in pleasurable confusion as I tried and failed to shake him loose. I didn’t like the way my body—the traitorous bitch—reacted to the forcible touch.
“Nia’s banned angels and welcomed two demons by name. Whether or not you’re ready to see them, they’re here. You’re under no obligation to keep me.”
“But you have nowhere to go,” I said on an exhale.
His hand stayed on me, sending gooseflesh up my arms, over my neck, and onto my jaw.
If I hadn’t spent years training myself to watch men and their expressions, I would have missed the tense way he forced his eyes up and didn’t have to guess why.
The chills rippling through me had a terribly obvious effect, as my sweats-and-tank getup hadn’t included a bra.
Kirby parked the car in front of Nia’s house but said nothing. They didn’t even look at the obscene display unfolding beside them, though that may have had to do less with privacy and more with their state of utter shock.
“They’re inside?” I restated. “Caliban and Azrames?”
“Yes. But none of us should be here for much longer. We’re going to have to move,” he said. “The warding is good, but it’s not perfect. We can’t afford to be here if they find a weakness.”
“We’re not going to get Nia to leave her house unless she can see them.”
To mine and Silas’s shared surprise, Kirby made eye contact with him through the rearview mirror, asking, “Can whatever’s in her house reveal itself like you did? That would chase me out of my house.”
I waited for him to answer.
“Caliban could appear to any of them, if he wanted,” he said.
“But Azrames is a lower-level demon…” His thumb moved, and I realized why he’d been grabbing me near the elbow.
Though his fingers clutched the backside of my arm, his thumb brushed over the raised skin of a tattoo on the tender, flat space on my forearm just below the elbow crease.
I looked down at the perfect circle and interconnected lines, the curious arrow-like shapes, the geometric angles and curves captured within.
“I should attack my friends with a marker?”
He looked down at my tattoo, then back up at me. “How safe do you want them to be in this war?”
I felt the skin from my temples to my ears tighten as my entire face widened in surprise. My breath caught at the implication. “Am I supposed to drag them to a tattoo shop? Brand them so they can spend their lives as crazy as my mom? So they’re as terrified of the world as my grandma?”
Kirby cleared their throat. Silas released his hold on my arm, and I relaxed muscles I hadn’t realized I’d been clenching. I looked at them expectantly.
“I don’t know how much say I get in this,” they said, as carefully as if each word were a barefoot step over glass, “but I, for one, would like whatever resources would enable me to know if there’s an enormous man in the back seat of my Jeep.”
Silas cocked a single brow, but Kirby could wait.
“Will you be safe?” I asked Silas, locking my sights on the man. “If you’re positioned against Heaven to defend me, then the angels have to be after you, too…”
“I’ll be safer when we get out of the target zone.”
“Then let’s get the fuck out of this car,” Kirby said, reaching for the door handle.
“Hang on,” I pressed. “We’ve still got the shield while we remain in your vehicle, and I need to know what we’re doing before we take action. I can’t keep plowing forward without a goddamn plan.”
“That’s fair,” he hedged. “As it stands, Azrames is in there, and he might be a bigger threat to me than the angels. I’m not convinced he won’t kill anything that stinks of the Pearly Gates.
Heaven may not be looking for me or any other missing soldiers, as they sent several on a suicide mission knowing they’d meet their end before overpowering Betty’s wards.
” Silas spoke of the slain angels in the Daily Devils metaphysical shop as if discussing cannon fodder in Heaven’s wars.
I thought of the witch once more—the kind, elderly woman who ran a metaphysical shop in the arts district.
Or had, until she’d been targeted for affiliating with me.
I’d proclaimed myself the antichrist, and so any earthly ties that bound the mortal world with the preternatural—ties like Betty—were an aid to me and, therefore, a threat to my enemy.
Betty and Azrames had worked together for lifetimes. Now, thanks to my meddling, she clung to the barest edges of life in a hospital room.
Tick, tick, tick went the seconds as I scrambled for our next steps.
I looked at the incompressible scribbles on Silas’s forearm. “Your tattoo—whatever it is—do we still have time?”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here explaining things to you if we were all about to die, but we still need to hurry.”
My face fell. Skepticism drove my fingertips into my palms. “If your tattoo doesn’t tell the others that you’re fallen, are you telling me that they might show up and think you’re their ally? That, what, you’re a mole here eliminating the demons?”
“I get it.” He cut me off, hand clamping down over the fist I’d balled against him. “You have every reason to distrust all of us. The way in which you’ve been manipulated and betrayed will go down in mythology, religion, and history alike.”
I sucked in a painful breath at the words.
Manipulated and betrayed.
Gods and fae from warring pantheons had spotted me in various bodies, in many lives, for more than two thousand years.
The realms had been sick of the status quo for a long time and were eager to help Heaven fall.
I was the Prince’s human, after all, and when a high-ranking demon impregnated a human, well…
Jesus was born from a virgin.
The antichrist will be born from a whore.
My heart ached at the thought. But I wasn’t about to leave the fate of the world in the hands of some infant. I’d take responsibility for the legend. I would be the thing they feared. And I would do it with my eyes wide open.
Silas said, “You have every reason to have your guard up. But I haven’t lied to you, Marlow. Heaven is coming for your friends because they were already on a dispatch to eliminate threats to help alienate you. Heaven wants you.”
My hand relaxed beneath his, and he gave it the gentlest squeeze. I had trust issues, and he wasn’t holding them against me. I’d been done dirty and had every reason to question every supernatural who’d strolled into my life.
“I’m not going to let them kill you,” I said.
Something cracked behind his eyes. Something helpless, something broken, stirred in them as he looked into mine. I realized at that moment that he hadn’t expected to live.
My brows met in the middle. I twisted my fingers uncertainly beneath the weight of his palm, exceedingly conscious of Kirby’s presence. Still, I asked Silas, “You’ve used your gift before to check on Nia. Do you know for sure that they’re in there now?”
He looked at me, and I understood. Everything horrible was happening, and it was happening now.
I forced myself to relax. “What do you need from me?”
He withdrew his hand. “Give the poppet to Nia and have her invite me in while holding it. You may want to talk to Caliban and Azrames in the time it takes me to get from the car to the door, so I’ll give you a running start. And then…”
“And then, the sigil.”
He swallowed.