Chapter 31 #3
I pull my phone out with numb fingers. Find Ash's name. Hit call.
He picks up on the first ring.
"Raven."
His voice is low, rough, the familiar rasp of cheap cigarettes and sleepless nights. I picture him the way Luna described him. Leather jacket and messy dark hair and those nearly black eyes hiding red flecks only I can see. Leaning against a wall somewhere. Watching.
"You've been watching her."
“Well, you asked me to.”
"She told me about you," I say. "On the stairs. She thinks you're a random neighbor."
"Good. That was the idea."
"She also thinks you're cute."
A pause. Then, almost a laugh. "Noted. Not why I'm here, but noted."
"The people at her apartment? You saw them leaving?"
"I saw enough. Came down the stairs right as the woman was touching your sister's hand. They looked at me and I looked at them and they left in a real big hurry." A beat. "Raven, those weren't human."
"I know."
"Their eyes." He stops. Starts again. "When they passed me in the hallway and I got close enough to see. The red flecks. Both of them. Not diluted like mine. Full. Bright. Like fresh blood in dark water."
Full-blooded demons. Not half-breeds or quarter-breeds or the faded echoes of infernal ancestry that Ash carries. The real thing, wearing human faces and business suits, sitting on Luna's couch and asking about the Vesper bloodline.
"They're from Hell," I say.
"Yeah. I figured that out when I got close enough to smell them and my blood started buzzing like a live wire.
" He sounds shaken. Ash, who is almost never shaken.
"Raven, they didn't feel like the low-level shit we used to deal with.
The petty demons, the minor contracts. These were something else.
Older. More controlled. Like they'd been wearing those human skins for a very long time and had gotten very good at it. "
"They marked her. Seraph thinks the woman left some kind of trace on Luna when she touched her hand."
"Shit."
"Can you get to her?"
"I'm outside her building right now. Been here since last night."
Of course he has. Because that's who Ash is.
Messy-haired, leather-jacketed, demon-blooded, standing guard over my little sister in the cold because he knows what she means to me.
Because he has every reason to be angry with me, every reason to walk away, and instead he stationed himself outside Luna's apartment building and waited.
"Stay there," I say. "Don't leave her alone."
"I won't."
"Ash." I stop. There's so much I want to say. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." His voice is tight.
"Stay with her," I say again. "We're going to figure this out. All of it. But right now she needs someone there and you're the only one I trust."
"The angel of greed might have feelings about that."
"The angel of greed can deal with his feelings. This is Luna."
"Yeah." A long exhale. "Yeah, okay. I'm not going anywhere."
The call ends.
I lower the phone. Stand there, forehead against marble, letting the cold seep into my skin.
"He's compromised," Seraph says from behind me. His voice is quiet. Not unkind, but clinical. "His blood is a beacon. If he stays near Luna, he's leading them directly to her."
"If he leaves, she has no one."
"I could send a construct. A watcher."
"Your constructs are angelic. If Hell is already watching, an angelic presence near Luna would escalate things. They'd think we're making a move."
"She's right," Croesus says. "For now, the demon-blood is the safer option. Hell won't attack one of their own kind unprovoked, even a diluted one. His presence might actually keep them cautious."
"Or it might tell them exactly what they want to know.
" Seraph stops pacing. Turns to face us both.
His silver eyes are mirrors, reflecting the room, reflecting me.
"They came to catalog. To confirm. They wanted to verify that Luna is your anchor, that the Vesper bloodline is what they think it is, and that you're exactly where they expect you to be. Serving the houses. Getting stronger."
"We already know Heaven wants you dead," Croesus says. He moves to stand beside me. Not touching, but close enough that his warmth reaches my skin. "They've been clear about that. The messenger made it plain. We have only days until they follow through."
"And Hell?" I ask.
Croesus looks at Seraph. Another one of those three-thousand-year looks. I'm getting very tired of those looks.
"Hell doesn't want you dead," Seraph says. "That's what makes them more dangerous. They want you to succeed. On their terms. Under their influence no doubt."
"No one is holding my leash."
"No." Croesus agrees. His hand finds mine. Warm fingers closing over my cold ones, inside me, a surge of something fierce and uncompromising. Not possession. Protection. "No one is."
I look at my phone. At the cracked screen. At the time.
"Two fronts," I say. "Heaven in eleven days with an army. Hell right now with my sister."
"Three fronts," Seraph corrects. "The binding is still unstable. The web holds, but Idris was right. It needs reinforcing through each house or it frays. That clock is ticking too."
"So we're fighting Heaven, and dodging Hell. All while my sister has a demonic trace on her and the only person protecting her is a quarter-demon whose blood is a signal fire." I look at Croesus, then at Seraph. "Tell me there's a plan."
"There's a plan," Croesus says.
"Is there really?"
"No. But I'm excellent at making them under pressure."
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitches. Through the bond, I feel his grim humor, and underneath it, the thing he won't say out loud. That he's terrified. Not for himself. For me. For the girl he's never met who means more to me than anything in this world or any other.
Seraph straightens. Pulls on his composure like armor. When he speaks, his voice is the voice of Heaven's former greatest warrior. The voice that commanded legions before the fall.
"Call the others. All of them. Even Caspian, though getting him off that bench will require an act of will he hasn't demonstrated in centuries."
"If Hell is moving," Croesus says, "they won't stop with reconnaissance. Those two were the introduction. The handshake."
"Whatever comes next will be an offer," Seraph finishes. "And offers from Hell always come with a price."
I think of Luna's voice. The tremble in it. The way she said you're scaring me and I said good.
I think of Ash, standing outside her building, his blood humming with a frequency he can't control, keeping watch over the only person in the world who makes all of this worth it.
I think of a woman in a gray blazer touching my sister's hand and saying you're important like it was a promise and a threat and a prophecy wrapped in three small words.
Eleven days until Heaven arrives.
But Hell is already here.