Chapter Four
I didn’t see them.
But I could feel them.
“Heaven found us,” I said miserably, both to convince myself of the terrible truth and to explain to my friends how I’d fucked up their lives.
Through gritted teeth, Azrames spat, “But the wards—”
“Are demon wards,” Silas countered. “If you want to fight angels, you’re better off with something angelic.”
The air in the house had gone razor-sharp, thin as a blade and just as merciless. The walls groaned; the windows bulged inward as if some great, unseen pressure was trying to force its way inside. The floor beneath me shuddered, rattling the wineglass shards at Azrames’s feet.
Then the sound hit. The rattling, screaming blast passed through time and space as it ripped through the very fabric of my being.
It was deafening. A roar of wings, thousands of them, beating against the sky in an unseen hurricane. But it wasn’t just wind. There was something else underneath it—trumpets, blasting from nowhere and everywhere at once, high and shrill like the bones of the earth itself were cracking.
“Who is it?” I asked Silas. “Do you know these angels? Can you reason with them? Can you—”
Another blast of sound, this one so painful that it snapped my sentence in half. I covered my ears. It didn’t help.
Nia sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers clutching the couch as if she could hold on to reality itself. Kirby was frozen, pale, mouth slightly open. I didn’t think they were breathing.
Azrames only stared at the door. His jaw was clenched, his fingers twitching at his sides. His power should have roiled from him, the way it had in battle before. But something was stopping him. Something bigger.
Another blast and we scattered to the floor, braced for an earthquake. In tornadoes and hurricanes and acts of God, one was told to curl into a ball and cover their neck with the back of their hand. I just hadn’t expected the act of God to be so literal.
Silas stood perfectly still.
His golden eyes were locked on the front door, unblinking, unreadable. Not a muscle twitched; not a breath moved his chest. Like he was bracing for a blade that had already been raised.
Then, a tremendous whomp—not just a knock, not a pound—the bowing door itself.
I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. If this was it, I didn’t want to go out a coward. Years of joking about God striking me down, about smiting the unrighteous, about praying for the rapture suddenly weren’t so funny.
“Don’t insult our warding,” Az said.
“Is your pride worth the gamble?” Silas spat back.
I scooted closer to Azrames, hating that this was how it was about to end. Hating that I wasn’t with Caliban in my final moments. And knowing that even with my last breath, I chose Hell.
The lock groaned. The wood cracked. Something was trying to push through, and for a horrible second, I was certain it would.
My heart hammered against my ribs. “They can’t get in, right?” I said. “Right?”
Silas exhaled through his nose. “We need to move.”
“And be even more exposed?” I practically choked on the response.
Azrames flung his arms around Kirby and me. I extended a hand and tried to pull Nia closer, urging her into our huddle should the roof collapse.
“Darius!” she shouted.
“He’ll be safe,” Azrames promised.
The next hit shook the entire house. The walls trembled; the overhead light swayed. The front door buckled, but it held.
The warding was working.
Whatever Caliban had done to this place, whatever infernal magic had been drawn into the bones of this house, it was not only keeping the angels out but keeping the house together.
For now.
Then the light turned gold.
A crack of blinding radiance—heavenly fire—lanced through the doorframe, peeling the paint, scorching the wood. I felt the heat across my face, like a furnace door had swung wide open.
I recoiled. My back hit the couch.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck—” Kirby scrambled back, pulling Nia with them, moving like something primal in their body had finally caught up with the moment.
The fire wasn’t touching the door itself.
It couldn’t. The warding stopped it.
But it kept trying.
A voice—a terrible voice—boomed from outside, shaking the walls.
“Deliver her unto us.”
It wasn’t a request.
I whipped toward Silas, expecting him to answer, expecting some sign of defiance, some grand proclamation, but—
He was shaking.
I had never seen his hands quiver.
He was standing, his back stiff, his hands at his sides—but his fingers were clenched into fists.
His throat bobbed. His jaw was tight enough to break.
And his wings—his invisible wings—I could see the way his shoulders stiffened, the way something unseen tried to push outward before curling back in, trembling.
He was afraid.
Holy shit, he was truly afraid.
And then—I heard the sound of the lock turning.
No.
No, no, no.
“Silas, do something!” I begged.
His fingers hovered just above the deadbolt, like he was about to open the door.
It was almost like he wanted to—or was compelled to—comply.
Something invisible and monstrous cracked through the space between us, something ancient and unseen pulling him forward. His body jerked slightly, his foot dragging an inch toward the door before he forced himself still.
I grabbed his wrist. “Silas.”
His breath hitched. His hand was ice cold.
The chorus of otherworldly voices slithered through the home—be it one or many, it was impossible to tell—filling our minds, bursting our ears as it said, “Prove you were not born into sin—prove you will not fall.”
“They’re calling me,” he said.
His voice was wrong. It wasn’t his usual low, steady grit. It was hollow, empty—like something had broken inside him and all that was left was the echo.
I held on tighter. “Then don’t answer.”
A second voice split the air—different, but just as terrible.
“You have three days. Deliver her unto us, or succumb to your prophecy.”
I was the her he was supposed to deliver; I was sure of it. Silas had three days to turn me over. But I didn’t understand the other half of the message.
The answer came in the next sentence, in the next horrible, echoing decree:
“Should you choose to defy us, you will be lost.”
The shadows outside reared up like living things, gold against black, light against dark. The whole world vibrated, the very laws of existence bending to this command.
Silas inhaled sharply. His shoulders hunched, his head bowed.
The light blazed brighter, brighter, brighter…
And then, just as suddenly—
Darkness.
The fire vanished. The light was gone. The sound of wings faded into nothing.
The house was still.
It was as though our heads had been yanked out from under water as we gasped and panted on the floor.
I realized I was gripping Silas’s wrist so hard my nails had left indentations. His breath was shallow. I let go. Slowly.
Nia was still gripping Kirby’s hand. Azrames hadn’t moved.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Silas exhaled. He lifted his arm and stared at the moving ink. “They know I’m rebelling.”
“Welcome to the club,” I said.
***
Five times in my life, I’d been rendered truly speechless.
Two of them were a direct result of the conservative propaganda my mother had spouted without listening to herself speak.
The third was as an escort when I’d entered a Los Angeles client’s home to see it smothered in toys, merchandise, art, and memorabilia from a rather famous animated musical he’d produced.
He could only reach completion while looping the climactic, inspirational song belted by the heroine.
As a professional, I’d kept a neutral face while effectively deprived of the ability to speak.
The final two were the faults of the supernatural, namely Azrames and Fauna.
Az, as he’d demonstrated his influence in Bellfield and quickly destroyed the life of a terrible hotel clerk who hadn’t deserved to live, and Fauna, when she’d brought me to meet my long-dead great-grandmother without any forewarning.
I wondered what it would take to steal the words from Nia and Kirby.
“Are we all on the same page?” Silas asked. “We have to get out of here.”
“And go where?” I demanded. “Where is safer than somewhere Caliban himself warded?”
I was genuinely surprised that my question had an answer.
Azrames released a defeated exhale. “Some places are even more demon-friendly than warded homes.”
“Night clubs and federal buildings?” I scoffed.
Silas rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Nia, does your neighborhood have any old buildings? Churches, specifically?”
You could have heard a pin drop. “You want to go to a church?”
Azrames’s expression implied that he understood immediately. “An abandoned one, yes. Any rundown neighborhoods with boarded-up buildings? A deconsecrated church would get the job done.”
Still rattled from the angelic assault, Nia opened her laptop, punched in the password, and pulled up a city map. Her finger shook ever so slightly as she pointed out foreclosure-heavy neighborhoods, then left the boys to their arguments.
“So, this has been your life?” Kirby scoffed as they put two more bottles of liquor in their emergency go-bag. We bustled around the house, preparing our exit, while they prioritized the essentials. “You’re, what, subject to house-shaking and weather changes whenever a pantheon throws a tantrum?”
“You’re being a little flippant,” I said. I was still worried about Silas, and I couldn’t believe how willing my friends were to brush it off like we hadn’t almost died.
Nia disappeared to check on Darius—who we were reassured was neither a threat to the enemy nor on the angelic radar whatsoever—though I suspected she was also taking a few steadying breaths out of eyeshot. It was what I would be doing.
Azrames said, “That’s some incredible warding. Thank your Prince for making a house so impenetrable that we can make jokes in moments after an intended smiting. That said, maybe the angel has a point.”