Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Iwoke up in a hospital. It was the oddest thing. A blood bag was hanging from a pole next to me, with tubes leading to my elbow, and on two chairs at the foot of my bed were the team leader Richard, and Ever the spectacled angel of turning-people-to-stone.
There were watching me intently, like I was some kind of questionable theoretical argument that they were about to dissect.
“Do you have my glasses?” I asked Ever.
He blinked at me and absently touched his own glasses. “No. All in good time, Louisa.”
I winced as a wave of pain swept over me, from my toes to my crown. “This isn’t a good time, Ever.” I sat up when I remembered Gavriel. I searched Richard’s eyes, desperation twisting my heart and stomach in a vicious tangle. “Gavriel. The Reaper. Is he okay?”
Richard flashed me a broad smile. “Of course. Calm down. We don’t want to upset the delicate balance between life and death. Lay back gently.”
I flopped back and instantly regretted it.
I felt like someone had taken out all of my insides and put them back in the wrong places.
“You swear he’s alive and well? How are his wings?
They were shredded. And the rest of him wasn’t in the best state, but I’m most worried about his mind, heart, and soul.
The demon was very strong. It fed on my love for a century and it had him in its grasp.
” And I’d just said that out loud like I had no shame.
No, I just needed them to understand the stakes.
Team Leader Richard took my hand and patted it, sending warmth and comfort through me like he was Crucible my ferret.
“He’s well enough to be sent on a mission with my son and Lorien.
It’s Gavriel’s chance to redeem him. The cupid got caught in David’s web, but in the end, he told the demon to send only a few men that you should have easily defeated.
That’s why he was chained and drained at the demon’s house, because he tried to protect you the only way he could after he’d made a deal with the demon. ”
I winced. It wasn’t easy to go against someone who owned you. I knew that from very personal experience. Gavriel was gone on a mission. “So he was able to redeem him after all. That’s a happy ending.”
The team leader patted my hand again. “It is one of many. You destroyed the demon with Gavriel’s help, and using that as proof of your permanent rehabilitation, I was able to get a pardon for you.”
I stared at him, then looked at Ever. “What is he talking about?”
He smiled slightly, looking tired but mostly content. “He also used your connections with the president. You have friends in very high places.”
I stared at him. “The president of what?”
“The country. His daughter-in-law saved your life once. It makes her feel attached to you.”
“Has that girl not gotten herself killed yet?” The red-headed firecracker had been so bold in defending me from the Sphinx, both of whom could kill her with a careless wave of a clawed hand.
The president I’d ‘attempted’ to kill had pardoned me?
What an idiot. Like I could talk, being the person who had loved someone so stupidly, I’d created the worst monster out of my fear of losing him.
“I understand that she’s been working on her magical defense and has several very skilled bodyguards,” Richard Senior said with another smile. His smile was so strange, like he knew something I didn’t know.
I nodded politely and tugged on the tube going into my arm.
“That’s good. Why are the two of you here if I’ve been pardoned?
Do you still think I’m a threat? It’s very possible.
” I felt strange, unstable, anxious at the thought of Gavriel being sent off on a mission when he’d gotten his wings torn so badly so recently.
“We’re here to see that you survive your transition,” Ever said bluntly. “You haven’t noticed that you’re hooked up to blood bags?”
I blinked at him and then turned to stare at the blood bag that was dripping into my vein at an even rate.
Drip, drip, drip. I put my hand on my heart, and there it was, in my chest, beating faintly beneath my delicate ribcage.
I inhaled a breath of panic, and that breath filled me with oxygen I hadn’t really tasted for a hundred years.
“What do you mean, I’m alive? Did Gavriel make the deal with the demon?
Where is he? Don’t lie to me.” I gripped the side of the hospital bed and tried to summon as much threat to my voice as possible.
I sounded like a mewling kitten.
Richard patted my hand again. “No, Gavriel didn’t make a deal with the demon; he made a deal with me.”
I stared at him. “You’re not making any sense.”
“No?” He raised his brows and then shrugged, squeezing my fingers, pouring ever more magical life into me.
“Gavriel’s mission at the moment is to recover some certain talismans that will help you with your transition.
Naturally Lorien and Richard had to help so that he doesn’t let personal feelings get in the way. He loves you, you know.”
Ever snorted and jabbed Richard the elder. “Your manipulations aren’t very effective.” He focused on me. “He’s trying to help you focus on your love to help strengthen your metaphysical bindings with life.”
I blinked at the older angel. “Why are you here if you don’t have my glasses and you’re not interested in helping me…
with…er…transitioning?” It was the most absurd thing I’d ever heard of.
One didn’t transition to life, not unless you were brought back to life by a miracle or a saint.
Then again, I was dealing with angels. Maybe this was a dream, but vampires didn’t dream.
“I’m here because…” He frowned like he wasn’t sure why he was there either.
“He married your mother during a war when he was absolutely forbidden contact with civilians. Lost him his lieutenancy,” the team leader said, giving the other angel a smile that he didn’t return. Ever just looked at me intently, with a frown, waiting for me to get it.
It took a few more seconds of staring at him.
“You’re the soldier my mother married? The one that disappeared?
She was sure you were dead, or you would have come back for her.
She was so certain of your love to the very end.
I didn’t want to burst her bubble and tell her that men leave all the time, but I knew.
You probably had another family back home.
” I was pleased how calm my voice was, although all of this was absolutely impossible.
My father was this angel? That explained the spectacles business.
I’d gotten my bad eyesight after transitioning from him.
Although I wasn’t sure how that made any sense. Also my serious gray eyes.
“It took me years to track you down,” Richard the Team Leader said, giving me another twinkling smile.
“As soon as I got Ever to verify that he indeed had a wife that he lost during a war, and that’s why he turned so cynical and solitary—although he was never particularly rosy—I searched the world for you.
Or was it that I was curious about you, and then searched for his verification?
It’s so hard to remember these details.”
“You mean hard to remember your lies. That’s why angels shouldn’t lie,” Ever said sternly.
Richard the elder’s smile was so warm. “Nonsense. Angels shouldn’t lie because it wears away on the soul, unless the lie is inspired by a cause greater than truth.”
“As Commander of the Holy Order of the Swords of Truth, I can’t believe you just said that,” Ever said with a dark scowl. Yes, that was my scowl.
“Commander of what?” I asked, feeling like I was falling off a house again, only this time it was angels sucking me into an abyss.
Richard sighed heavily and then patted my hand. “The HOST’s. It’s a small organization that some angels like being part of.”
I pulled my hand out of his grasp, then stared at those fingers. I’d held the hilt of Gavriel’s sword with these fingers. How were they not melted into nothing? “Explain. What’s going on?”
“It seemed like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone,” Ever said after a beat while the Commander of the Holy Order of the Swords of Truth, the single most powerful and terrifying organization in the entire world, perhaps any world, stared at me looking slightly sheepish.
That’s what he meant about having friends in high places. Himself. Terrifying.
“What’s that?” I asked Ever, while a buzzing started in my ears.
My father looked concerned. “Mirabel’s his daughter. Ruined the chances of Gavriel Hartshorn continuing the angelic line, like my wife’s death ruined mine. He used you to lure Gavriel into marriage.”
“We aren’t married.”
He slumped back, crossing his arms. “That’s what you have to say? You aren’t married? You swore your heart to him, and he swore his heart to you. Your love was already trying to bring you back to life, and that was before you involved Tranquility.”
“Tranquility?”
“His sword. You bonded to his sword after you bonded to him, and that’s the only reason your heart is beating. The magics and potions we’ve been putting into you have helped, but without his love restarting your heart, making it want to beat, what could we do?”
I stared at Ever and then at Richard. I mean, the Commander of the Holy Order of the Swords of Truth. “I thought you’d turn to ashes if you lied.”
“There is capitalized Truth, and lowercase truth.”
Ever snorted. “He’s a commander of the HOST’s. Manipulation of words and ideas is what he does to inspire and lead. He is absolutely trustworthy, or he wouldn’t be a member of the HOST’s, but he is absolutely diabolical and can’t be trusted because he’s the commander.”