been able to work up the stomach for it. The thought of her sister tied to a bed—
“Jarvis?”
She realized Roberts had been speaking to her. “Sorry, I didn’t hear.”
“I asked who you pissed off in Ottawa. You’ve been seconded to the RCMP antiterrorism unit. They’ve set up a—”
Alex bolted upright. “That son of a bitch. I told him I wouldn’t go!”
Roberts, his mouth still open to speak, regarded her. Then he stood, crossed the room, and closed the door, shutting out the others’ voices, the ring of a telephone, a bark of laughter that was horribly out of place in her world.
“Sit,” he ordered. “Talk.”
She threw herself back into the chair, wincing at the pull of fabric against the stitches on her thighs and abdomen. “Where do you want me to start?”
Roberts returned to the desk but not his chair. He sat on the edge, one leg dangling, arms crossed, jaw set. “At the beginning,” he said. “And I want all of it. It’s time.”
It took ten minutes to undo all the good accomplished by Michael’s little memory-wipe trick two days before—and then some. She started with Caim and Aramael, continued with Seth and Michael and Lucifer, finished with the missing scrolls, her visit to Ottawa, and what Boileau had told her about the children at the study centers—now also missing. When she was done, Roberts remained silent for long seconds, hands on hips, staring out the window behind his desk.
“So let me make sure I have all this straight,” he said at last. “Heaven and Hell are at war on some other plane, but the fighting might spill over to here. Seth, who you’ve been living with for the past three weeks, is the son of God and Lucifer—”
“The One,” Alex corrected.
Roberts shot her a dark look. “Whatever. You think he’s taken back his powers, which might have caused the disturbance in Lake Ontario last night, and gone back to Heaven.”
She nodded.
“And now we’ve lost track of these Nephilim children, and your niece . . .” He shook his head slowly. “You’re sure it was Lucifer.”
“Positive.”
Roberts stared out the window in silence. Then, quietly and succinctly, said, “Fucking goddamn son of a bitch.”
That pretty much encompassed it, all right. Alex waited through another silence. She’d had weeks to pull together the details she’d just given her supervisor. Weeks to absorb the new reality of her world. He didn’t have that luxury. Roberts scrubbed a hand over his head and swung around to face her. His hands went back to his hips.
“I think I prefer Ottawa’s alien theory,” he muttered. “At least we might have been able to fight back. But if you’re right about this, about angels and Lucifer and Armageddon—how the hell do we protect ourselves from that?”
“We don’t. The war is between Heaven and Hell. We have no control over it and wouldn’t want to get involved even if we could. What we need to focus on is the human reaction. World Health can cry virus all it wants, but once the rest of the babies are born—”
“Wait. There are
She thought back over her explanation and realized she’d left out that little detail. Probably because it had become so personal now that Nina—she shied away from the idea. Bracing herself to deliver the news, she met her staff inspector’s gaze as steadily as she could while wanting nothing more than to crawl under the desk and hide. From him, from the world, from the chaos, from the pain she knew still waited for her whether she found her niece or not.
The door opened, and Bastion’s stammer preempted her. “The news—the babies—”
Without a word, she left Roberts to trail in her wake as she followed her colleague out to join the others. She knew what she would hear before she came in range of the newscaster’s voice.
Knew, because it had been three weeks since the alley in Vancouver. Three weeks since Lucifer had announced his plans for an army.
Which meant the Nephilim pregnancies had reached term.
All eighty thousand of them.
Less Nina.
Chapter 68
Striding up the boulder-strewn hill, Mika’el scanned the waiting Archangels and jabbed his finger at Uriel. “Report,” he barked.
The fair-haired Archangel didn’t so much as blink at the peremptoriness. “Major flickers along the entire length, but it’s holding. For now.”
“Was it down long enough to get a look at the other side?”
“Word is still coming in, but so far we think in the neighborhood of ten thousand.”
“Ten—” Michaela’s step hitched. He stopped and scowled. “That’s a fraction of their number. Where in bloody Hell are the other ninety?”
“Nearly ten thousand are held in Limbo,” Gabriel offered.
“That still puts them down eighty.”
“Perhaps they’re just not all waiting along the Hellfire border,” Zachariel said. “We’re not keeping our entire force there, either.”
“No, but we have a great deal more there than they have. Sam—” Azrael shot a quick look at Raphael, whose expression had gone stony, then continued. “Samael knows how we think, and he’s too good a strategist to leave their front line so weak.”
Mika’el flexed his fingers, stiff inside their armored gloves. His glare passed over the group once, twice, and then a third time. He scowled. “Where the Hell is Aramael? Did he not get an invitation to the party?”
“He did,” Raphael said. “I delivered it myself.”
Mika’el considered asking if the other Archangel had delivered anything else at the same time, such as an incapacitating beating, but he refrained. Raphael had made his views on Aramael’s appointment clear, but he was still one of them. Still an Archangel. He would follow his orders to the letter, whether he agreed with them or not.
Aramael, on the other hand—
He’d deal with that issue later. “I think Azrael is right. The Fallen have been waiting more than four millennia for the Hellfire to weaken, so they won’t be just lounging around somewhere. If Samael doesn’t have them on the front line, where are they? What are we missing?”
“The Nephilim,” said a new voice.
Mika’el glowered over his shoulder. “You’re late.”
“Verchiel had news she thought you would want.” Aramael climbed the last few yards to join them. “Some of the Guardians have reported that the Fallen are watching the pregnant women. They’re stopping them from harming either themselves or the babies they carry. Verchiel has sent word to all the Guardians to check in on their wards and report back to her, but I’d say chances are good that’s what’s keeping the Fallen otherwise occupied at the moment.”
Of course. Lucifer would be taking no chances with his army. Mika’el stared out over the barren sweep of land below their vantage point. “If that’s the case,” he said at last, “this standoff could end at any moment. Let’s be ready.”
He watched the others depart, each to his or her own duties, and then, turning toward the Hellfire, he launched himself into the air.
