Sins of the Lost

Alex’s stomach tightened, cramped. She touched the scar that remained from her own brush with a Naphil pregnancy, drew back her fingers as if scorched. “Are you sure?”

“That she was ripped open? Fairly.” Henderson’s attempt at gallows humor fell as flat as his voice. “I spent the better part of last night on the phone with Interpol,” he continued. “There have been four others reported in the last twenty-four hours. One in India, one in the States, and two in China.”

Her gaze returned to the computer monitor and the article she’d been reading.

“If that keeps up, it’ll seriously screw with the bioterrorism theories,” she said. “There’s no group in the world organized enough to steal babies from across the planet. At least, not a human one.”

“Interpol is setting up a task force anyway. They have no choice.”

For a moment, she envied the cops who would be a part of that task force, analyzing, investigating, doing all the things they’d been taught to do in their mortal world. She wondered what it would be like to go back to that state of blissful ignorance. To forget all that had happened, all that was still to come. Would she do it if she could? Even if it meant losing Seth?

“You said there were two things,” Henderson reminded her.

She switched off the monitor, then changed the subject. “Morinville.”

“Yeah, I saw that.”

“You don’t think the scrolls—?”

“A leak? No. Anyone with access to them would have been able to give the press more specifics. This is just pure knee-jerk fanaticism. You have to remember how much practice the Vatican has at keeping secrets.”

“Even the Church has rumors.”

“True, but the press would straight-up say where they’d got that kind of information.” She grunted a concession, then added, “That doesn’t mean something won’t get out eventually, and when it does, we’re screwed six ways to Sunday.”

“Let’s worry about that when—if—it happens. Now, how is Seth doing?”

“Settling in. It’s hard for him.”

“Still not talking about it? Because we could really use some insider information. He does realize the Nephilim could wipe us out, right?”

“He’s also been betrayed by both his parents, used for millennia as a pawn in their twisted little game, and given up everything he ever was in order to put all that behind him,” she snapped. “How happy would you be to rehash your parents’ attempts to kill you?”

“Easy, Jarvis. I was only asking.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, creating a physical pain to distract herself from the one in her heart. It didn’t help. “I know. I’ll keep working on him.”

In between dealing with her own issues.

Henderson cleared his throat, but his voice remained gruff. “It’s late there. Get some sleep, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Murmuring a good night, Alex replaced the receiver in its cradle. The headache had spread, filling her skull, throbbing in time to her heartbeat. She closed her eyes against the pain. Against the fine thread of constant tension that caused it.

Her brain replayed Henderson’s words. “He does know the Nephilim could wipe us out, right?”

Yes, he knew. She just didn’t know how to make him care. Especially when she couldn’t—

Warm hands settled onto her shoulders, massaging at the knots that never went away anymore. She sat quietly, letting Seth’s strength seep into her and chase away the shadows that wanted to gather at her core.

Long minutes later, when his hands left her shoulders to link with her own, she opened her eyes, let him draw her up out of the chair, and followed him to their bedroom. There would be no pressure tonight, no demand for anything she wasn’t ready to give. She knew that, because she knew he cared for her.

And if he cared for her, he could learn to care for others.

He just needed time.

Chapter 9

Lucifer looked up at the sound of a tap on his office door. His aide, Samael, stood in the opening, an aura of apology surrounding him. Lucifer scowled.

“Still nothing?” He tossed down his pen. “Bloody Heaven, how hard can it be to trace them?”

Samael leaned a shoulder against the door frame, his reluctance to venture inside clearly written across his expression, right beside the scars that served as Lucifer’s permanent reminder about who truly ruled Hell.

“I warned you this could take a while,” he said. “They’re Nephilim. Without Guardians we can eavesdrop on, we have no way to trace them other than through the woman.”

Lucifer’s nostrils flared, and the hand he rested on the desk curled into a fist. Across the room, Sam shifted. Lucifer didn’t bother telling him it was the thought of the woman that irritated him and not Sam’s news. He liked the former Archangel this way: a little nervous, a little cautious, a lot respectful.

No, Sam wasn’t the issue. The woman, on the other hand . . . now, she infuriated him. The defiance, the sheer insolence . . . His fingers curled tighter. Killing his child, maiming herself so she could not bear another . . .

He glowered at his aide. “Have we made any progress?”

“We’ve located where the woman works, and we’re watching her around the clock. It’s just a matter of time until she reaches out to her sister.”

“Watching her? Why in bloody Heaven would we sit back and watch? Take her, damn it. Make her tell you where to find the sister.”

“That might not be wise. The Archangels have been watching her, too. At first it was only Aramael, and I thought it was personal, but now Mika’el is hovering over her. We don’t know what his interest is, but if we take her and he wants her . . .”

His aide’s voice trailed off.

“Bloody Heaven!” Lucifer thrust back his chair and rose, stalking to the window. Weariness wound through him. What was the Archangel up to now? The warrior had been such a thorn in his side. The only being in all of Heaven, other than the One, powerful enough to take him on and not be decimated in the process. First rallying the Archangels to force him across that damnable Hellfire barrier, then derailing his attempt to mold his son, and now returning to interfere yet again.

Bracing a hand on either side of the window, he stared out at the gray, brittle landscape. The gardens that defied his efforts to recreate Heaven had declined yet further. Nothing remained but the withered corpses of what he’d intended. Bitterness filled him, settling like dry dust on his tongue.

For the first time in his existence, disquiet slithered down his spine. A possibility he’d denied for more than six thousand years took form low in his belly, gelled into certainty.

I’m going to lose it, he thought. I’m going to lose it all.

Maybe not now, maybe not even soon, but eventually.

It was inevitable.

For an instant, the realization paralyzed him. Held him as a fly might be held by a spider, passive and unmoving, tangled beyond hope in strands of unbreakable silk. He shook off the suffocating cling of the metaphor. Loss might be inevitable, but it wouldn’t happen yet. Not if he could help it.

Not until he had ensured humanity’s absolute, total destruction. He spun back to face Samael.

“What about the Nephilim? Are we at least ready for them?”

“We’re working on it. The city we chose has been abandoned for a long time. It’s not an easy task readying it without drawing attention to ourselves.”

“You’ve had human interference?”