Chapter Fourteen
Twenty-seven hours.
We had one day and change until Vexa LaRue’s next performance, which meant we had to outlast the angel’s demand to hand me over for an hour and a half longer than they’d allotted.
The time change between New York and Vegas caused a hiccup, but hopefully it was nothing we couldn’t manage.
Tomorrow’s show in Las Vegas’s stadium had been sold out for months.
With its reputation as Sin City, it was an audience primed to cheer for a demon.
Greece was ten hours ahead of Nevada. If we timed things right, Silas and Azrames could be making their big debut just as Poppy and Dorian strolled onto the morning show to change the world.
It was the perfect solution.
We didn’t want to wake up Heaven’s people. We wanted the eyes of the world. Between our stateside show and televised display of power, we could coordinate throwing the world into a mixed basket of religious calamity.
Showcasing the validity of other religions and their deities would throw Heaven’s claims of sovereignty into a tailspin. If we were lucky, other gods would follow suit once Dorian broke the seal and burst the world wide open.
I had the s?lje. Decades prior, my great-grandmother had been gifted a silver heirloom by a fae from the Nordic pantheon to move across the veil, with no way of knowing that nearly a century later, her great-granddaughter would use it to orchestrate the end of the world.
Between the dangly, silver piece of jewelry and the two eternal beings accompanying me, I wouldn’t have to lose a day to travel like my friends.
Nia and Kirby would take the next flight back home, with Priscilla and Xuan keeping them safe for another day.
All that remained was our goodbyes.
We embraced on the curb outside the Four Seasons. I hugged Nia a little too tightly. I trusted in our plan as much as I could, but nothing was certain. It was a good reminder to love my friends, squeezing them every time as if it might be the last time.
“I’ve taken as much time off work as I can, Marlow. Unless you want to pay my mortgage for the rest of my life.”
“I will,” I said honestly. Nia narrowed her eyes in response.
Azrames remained solution oriented. “Xuan and Pris can’t hang out at your friends’ houses forever, but someone invisible could. You have a broad net. I’m sure we could get someone to stay with them. Fauna would—”
“No,” I bit. I tried to turn my head before the wound in his expression hurt me but failed. I chewed my lip. “I’ll take some Nordic help, though. We could use a Valkyrie and a goddess. Az, can you get a hold of Ella and Estrid? I bet they would babysit.”
To my extreme displeasure, Silas matched Azrames’s expression. “You’re okay with them, but not with Fauna?”
I hissed, “They’re no more culpable than Az.” Then to the demon, I said, “You love her. I get it. You fought for her and for me. But did you ever consciously manipulate me? Did either Ella or Estrid go out of their way to orchestrate global plans with me as a pawn while pretending to be my friend?”
Azrames’s shoulders slumped. “She wasn’t pretending, Mar.”
Nia and Kirby kept quiet, hugging themselves against the breeze as our conversation soured. Cars whirred by, pedestrians milling about the sidewalk around us as we remained locked in a silent battle, inhaling exhaust and dust.
To my relief, Silas turned on an exhale. He rotated toward Azrames, positioning himself next to me as he asked, “Can you? Contact them, that is?”
Az looked between us. “Yes. But it won’t be instant. I don’t want to leave you alone with her while I get the others home and wait for reinforcements.”
“I’ll send a note so you can find me even when I’m undetectable.” I patted the envelope of powder concealed in my pocket.
His brows pinched in a way that I knew had nothing to do with Alessia’s drugs.
The words came out before I knew what I was saying. “Go, Az. I trust him.”
I didn’t miss the way Silas moved closer.
Azrames closed his eyes, shaking his head ever so slightly.
“Call a car, Kirbs,” I said. “The four of you need to stay together until we have the escort situation figured out.”
Kirby said, “We’ve been perfectly fine for days. Are you sure we—”
“Yes,” Azrames said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The only other human I care about was nearly killed for affiliating with Marlow. You absolutely need round-the-clock protection.”
Nia lifted her chin. She lowered her hands to her sides as she took a step closer to Silas. “Because of angels. That’s what she said. Marlow may trust you, angel, but why should we?”
Silas blinked back as if trying to rid water droplets from his face. His shock was palpable. “Are you serious?”
“As death,” she replied. I’d already loved her more than life.
Unbeknownst to her, she and Kirby were set to split my worldly possessions and lifetime of royalties down the middle in my living will.
But watching her stare down a powerful soldier from Heaven as she stepped up to defend me brought me to tears. I watched them through a watery haze.
“I could have ended the war,” he said quietly. “Heaven would have won. None of this would have happened. I could have done that.”
Nia took a half step back.
His posture was rigid. “Has Marlow told you? Caliban owed me a favor. Anything in the realms. I could have asked for every angel to have free access to Hell. I could have asked him to kill his own bride. I could have requested anything. And I didn’t.”
Her bewilderment was palpable.
“Instead,” he went on, “I called in the favor by sending him to a town where no one else would enter to touch him. I gave Hell a fighting chance. And then I showed up for Marlow again. And again. If you can’t trust someone who protected her interest over the kingdom’s, then who can you trust?”
Nia’s lips parted in surprise.
“Um.” Kirby flashed their phone uncomfortably from the curb. “I’m sorry. This is so awkward. Our car is pulling up.”
“Go,” I tried to say, but nothing came out. I closed the space between us and threw my arms around Nia, crushing her in another hug. I nearly cracked her spine from how hard I crushed, and she met me squeeze for squeeze. “I love the hell out of you,” I choked out.
Kirby had already begun loading the carry-on bags of NYC spoils into the trunk of the car. I released Nia just long enough to give Kirby a quick hug.
“I’ll be back soon,” Azrames promised. He cast one final, serious look over my shoulder at the angel before sliding into the back seat with the others.
To Silas, he added, “Keep her safe, angel. If she’s invisible to the realms, it means that if something happens to her, you will have been the leak.
Return her with a single scratch, and you’d better hope Caliban finds you before I do.
He’d smite you from existence. Me, on the other hand?
” They stared each other down for three painful, throbbing beats. “I’ll make sure you suffer.”
Silas wasn’t given the opportunity for rebuttal.
The door closed behind Azrames as he left with the four most precious mortals in the world.
I watched the vehicle round the corner, leaving me completely alone with the angel.
“He’s pleasant,” Silas murmured.
“Yes, he is,” I said definitively.
He chewed his inner cheek for the barest of moments before saying, “I’m glad you have him.”
Yellow cabs whirred by. City folk jostled us on the sidewalk. I was left reeling once more.
Last time he and I had the world to ourselves, he had dragged me through my past lives and opened my eyes to things I often wished I’d never seen. Then again, it was how I’d learned he was the only entity in my life who wasn’t lying to me.
A beat passed before Silas broke the silence.
I guess I was expecting him to say something sweet, or sentimental, or even a smartass remark. Instead, he surprised me with his request.
“Now that it’s just the two of us: Let’s see the s?lje.”
***
I missed my home.
I was so glad Silas had suggested we hide out here. I fully understand why he’d waited until the others left, as surely, it was not the wisest place for us to lay low. But it was warded, no one was tracking us, and god, it felt good to be back.
With the two of us traveling together, the jump had happened in an instant.
We still had twenty-five and a half hours before the concert.
I ran up to my floor-to-ceiling windows and told them that I missed them. Then, unable to stop myself, I went on a tour of the apartment. “I missed you, couch. I missed you, giant TV. I missed you, well-stocked bar cart. I missed you, amaretto-scented candles.”
“Are you almost done?” Silas asked.
“I missed you, high-speed Wi-Fi.”
“Now you’re just naming things.”
My last visit to the apartment had been a blur of panic and trauma.
I collapsed onto my couch, hugging my couch cushion like it was my lifeline.
It had been less than a week in the human realm, but I’d spent days in álfheimr and even longer with the Phoenicians, even if the mortal calendar didn’t reflect my absence.
The roller bag teetered on a single wheel after our jump, balancing precariously as I leaped for the comfort of my cream sofa rather than rescue it from gravity.
I ignored the permanent marker scribbles that remained on my window and front door.
Other than the faint, lingering scent of the sea, everything was exactly as I remembered it.
The midday sun illuminated the space as Silas went straight for the kitchen and began opening cabinets.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, sitting up. I could feel the static as my hair billowed around me and thought maybe I’d been a little overdramatic when I’d rubbed my head against the cushion like I’d never see it again.
“I’m trying to make myself at home. This had better not be a dry house.”
I realized that Silas had been in my home before, sure, but only for the barest of necessary moments. At last, I was playing host.