I looked up. There was a figure standing in the shadows on the front porch. Someone tall, wearing an overcoat…
“Gabriel?” I said, my heart thundering in my chest.
“No,” the person said, and stepped into the light.
It was Nathaniel.
“You,” I snarled.
I dropped the grocery bags in the snow and charged up the steps. Nathaniel put his arms up in the air, stepped backward, but he was too slow and I was too angry.
I put my shoulder into his stomach, heard his hard exhalation as the breath went out of him. I tackled him down to the porch, kneeling with my legs on either side of his chest, and punched him in the face.
“You,” I repeated. All I could see was Nathaniel’s face under a haze of red.
I felt him struggle, try to push me off, but his arms were locked tight against the side of his body. He should have been able to move me. He was an angel, and I was only a half-blood. But I had a strength I’d never had before, a strength fueled by rage and betrayal.
My hands closed around his throat, squeezing tight. I pushed at the fragile accordion of his trachea, wanting to crush it to a pulp, wanting to kill him once and for all.
“Maddy!” Beezle shouted, but his voice sounded far away.
“Maddy, you’re going to kill him!”
“Yes,” I whispered, and when I looked at Nathaniel’s purpling face I saw Azazel’s malicious grin as he pushed his sword into Gabriel’s heart.
Nathaniel bucked hard, trying to throw me off again, his eyes wide and desperate.
Another pair of hands covered mine, peeled my fingers off Nathaniel’s throat with unnatural strength.
“No!” I said, clawing at Nathaniel’s neck, drawing blood, trying to renew my grip.
Those same arms surrounded me, pulled me from Nathaniel, carried me backward as I kicked and screamed like a madwoman.
“Samiel, no!” I shouted. “Put me down! Let me be!”
I felt Samiel shaking his head behind me. His arms tightened. Beezle fluttered in front of me. Nathaniel coughed, gasping for air.
“Maddy, you have to calm down,” Beezle said.
“I will not calm down!” I screamed. “I want him dead!”
“He didn’t kill Gabriel,” Beezle said. “He’s not Azazel.”
“No,” I spat. “He’s Azazel’s lackey. He sold people’s memories to vampires. He sold children’s memories. He knew Azazel was planning to rebel against Lucifer. And he tried to kill me the last time we saw him; do you remember?”
“He’s a cockroach, I agree. But if you kill him like this, you’ll never forgive yourself,” he said.
“I’ve killed plenty before,” I said bitterly.
Ramuell. Baraqiel. Amarantha.
“To defend yourself, or someone else,” Beezle said. “Not like this. You’re not a cold-blooded murderer.”
I thought of Azazel again, and said, “Yes, I am.”
I could—I would—kill Azazel without a shred of pity or remorse.
Nathaniel got to his feet, rubbing his throat. The sight of him made me furious all over again.
“You’d better run,” I said, struggling against Samiel’s grip. “Because when I get down I’m going to finish what I started.”
“I will not run,” he said. “I came to speak with you.”
“I’m not sure this is the best time,” Beezle said to Nathaniel. “She seems a little… unreasonable right now.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I said. “I’m not a child.”
“Then cease behaving like one,” Nathaniel said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not doing yourself any favors here, pal. What did you come here for?”
“I told you, to speak with you.”
His calm demeanor was making me angrier, which hardly seemed possible. There was a well of rage inside me that I had barely tapped. I’d been so foggy with grief that I’d forgotten how furious I was until I saw Nathaniel.
“How can you stand there like that, arrogant as ever? How can you stand there and pretend that you’ve done nothing wrong?” I said.
“Because I have spoken with Lord Lucifer and atoned.”
I froze, blank with shock. “You… what? You spoke to Lucifer and he didn’t strike you down on the spot? You participated in Azazel’s rebellion!”
“I had no other choice,” Nathaniel said icily. “Azazel was my master, the lord of my court. I must do as I am bid.”
“That’s a really convenient load of bullshit,” I said. “You had choices. You could have chosen to go to Lucifer when you had foreknowledge of the rebellion. You could have saved the lives of the people that were killed before you sucked their memories from them. You could have done a hundred things differently and in the end you chose to do exactly what you were told even if you knew that it was wrong.”
“If I had defied Azazel, I would have paid for it with my life,” Nathaniel said. His voice had an undercurrent of anger.
“So you chose your own worthless skin over the lives of innocents,” I said, letting my contempt show on my face.
“Regardless of my past actions—” he began.
“Your past actions are very relevant,” I said.
“Will you allow me to complete a sentence?” Nathaniel said angrily.
I’d finally cracked his icy facade. Yay for me.
“No,” I spat. “You deserve no courtesy from me.”
“Last time you saw her you did call her ‘hell’s own bitch,’” Beezle pointed out.
“Lord Lucifer has heard my plea and accepted me as a part of his court,” Nathaniel said.
“What you mean is that Azazel’s plan didn’t go the way he intended, and he abandoned you, so you were forced to crawl to someone else,” I said.
“You have never respected me,” Nathaniel said, his eyes sparking furiously in the light from the streetlamps.
“No, I haven’t,” I said. “I don’t see why I should have to.”
“You were my betrothed.”
“Do not bring up that farce of an engagement again,” I said through my teeth.
“It was not a farce to me,” he said. “When Azazel told me that you had married the thrall…”
He looked lost suddenly, vulnerable in a way that I had never seen him before. But his reference to my husband as “the thrall” set me off again.
“That’s why I could never respect you. Because you cleave to this ridiculous notion that you were better than Gabriel.”
“I was,” Nathaniel said. “You were the only one who could not comprehend what an insult it was for you to marry one such as him.”
I thought I’d reached maximum rage, but apparently I was wrong.
“Get off my porch. Leave this city and never come back.”
“That will be extremely difficult,” Nathaniel said, icicles dripping from every word, “as Lord Lucifer has bid me protect you as my penance.”
“No,” I said, pushing at Samiel’s arms so he would release me. “No.”
Samiel tightened his grip, and I turned to look up at him. He cocked his head, asking me with eyes, Can I trust you?
“I won’t attack him,” I said. “I promise.”
