Heath, whose lips looked as though he’d been intimate with the tailpipe of an eighteen-wheeler, extended his fingers and gave them a little wiggle. He said something that Francis couldn’t quite make out because it sounded like the sorcerer had a mouthful of marbles, but he guessed that Heath was staying.
“All right,” Squire said with a shrug. He reached into a pocket of his tool belt and produced two short-bladed knives that he held tightly in both pudgy hands. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’.”
Seeing the others with weapons made Francis realize how naked he was. He closed his eyes and envisioned the Pitiless pistol and the scalpel-like blade taken from the dead hand of one of the architects of creation. He missed his weapons, his deadly friends.
“How much longer do you plan on skulking there upon the staircase?” asked a voice he recognized as belonging to the Archangel Michael.
Francis glanced to the others, seeing the beginnings of panic in their eyes as he climbed the rest of the way to the landing. So much for surprise.
He was met at the top of the stairs by the angel Dardariel, and immediately tensed. But Dardariel just stood there, holding out his hands to present Francis with the most unexpected of things.
In one palm rested his knife, and in the other the Pitiless pistol.
At first Francis thought it was some sort of joke, but he sensed from the weapons themselves that they were the real deal, and were anxious to be back in his possession.
He took them, first the knife and then the gun.
“I haven’t forgotten about our little conversation downstairs,” Francis said, dropping the knife into his pocket. He hefted the pistol. It felt good in his hand, which suggested to him that he was spending a little bit too much time with the gun.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t enough.
“Of course not,” Dardariel said, and gestured for them to follow. “They’re waiting for you on the roof.”
Francis looked to the others.
“Who is waiting?” Montagin asked.
Squire and Heath shrugged.
“Only one way to find out,” Francis said. He continued down the corridor, following Dardariel up another small flight of stone steps that led onto the prison rooftop.
He really had no idea what to expect. A catered lunch would have been nice, but he was completely taken aback by the sight that awaited him.
It was a gathering of angels.
Everywhere he looked stood a soldier of Heaven, and as Francis emerged onto the rooftop, every eye turned to him. The Pitiless grew warm in his hand, excited by the prospect of violence, but Francis knew it would be hopeless.
Sure, he could take a bunch of the peacocks down, but eventually one of them would reach him, and that would be all she wrote.
Still, not a single weapon of fire was called upon. The angels simply stood and stared, as if waiting for something.
“Ah, there you are,” the Archangel Michael said, moving away from the crowd. “Now we can go.”
Montagin was standing beside Francis, and the former Guardian could sense Heath and Squire at his back. They all seemed just as confused as he was.
“Go where?” Francis asked.
“There has been a cessation of hostilities,” the Archangel stated as he spread his wings.
All the other angels opened their wings as well.
“A conference has been called.”
Angel soldiers appeared behind Francis and his group. They were incredibly close—close enough to take them inside their winged embrace, and transport them away.
“And we must answer the summons.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Remy stopped in the doorway of Prosper’s room, a steaming mug of coffee in hand.
A few of the female staff were seeing to the fallen angel’s needs—changing bandages, fluffing pillows. Remy noticed that none of the Nephilim that Prosper employed were present. He figured that the lie about the death of their children was just too much for them to forgive.
“You wanted to see me?” Remy asked.
“Yeah,” Prosper said, shifting his weight upon the bed. He dismissed the girls with a wave of his hand, and they passed Remy with a smile as they went out the door.
“I wanted to thank you,” the fallen angel said, playing with the corner of his bedsheet.
“For what, not killing you?”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Prosper answered. “But also for getting me out of there.”
The fallen angel looked at Remy. His eyes were still bloodshot, his face swollen and bruised in places.
“I have no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me if . . .”
Remy took a sip from his coffee mug.
“And you would have deserved it.”
Prosper shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s also because of me that they’re still alive.”
Remy silently considered that.
“They would have been tossed in the trash, whether they were dead or alive.”
“So you think of yourself as some kind of savior? That they owe you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Prosper said.
Remy drank some more coffee, watching the fallen angel.
“You did me a solid, so I wanted to do the same for you,” Prosper continued.
“And what are you going to do for me?”
“I called off the hit,” Prosper said. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder for the Black Choir anymore.”
“Until they come for me again.”
“Yeah, but it won’t have anything to do with me.”
“What about the others?” Remy asked. “The Bone Masters.”
Prosper looked at him strangely. “Bone Masters?”
“The other assassins you sicced on me—the guys with the freaky guns that shoot teeth.”
Prosper stared, then slowly shook his head.
“I only hired the Choir,” the fallen angel said. “I don’t know anything about any Bone—”
Malatesta appeared behind Remy.
“We should probably head back,” he said, his voice low. “The Keepers should be there within the half hour.”
Remy nodded, and looked back to Prosper.
“You be sure,” Prosper said, hands flitting nervously over his bedclothes as Remy prepared to go.
“Sure about what?”
“That you’re doing the right thing,” Prosper said. “That it’s okay for those things—children, if you want to call them that—to remain alive.”
“Of course I’m sure,” Remy said, disgusted at the notion that the children of Gunkanjima should be denied the right to exist.
He left the fallen angel and followed Malatesta back to Prosper’s office. Some of Prosper’s girls were there already, bags packed and stacked beside them.
“What’s this?” Remy asked as he came into the room.
“They want to be with their children,” Malatesta explained.
