“Start talking,” Scout said.
Bailey glared at me. “With him just sitting there? After what he did?”
If Jax was alive, he probably would’ve said something smooth like, “Aw, Bailey, I didn’t know you cared!” He had always known what to say to get people to like him and to do what he was asking.
Well, almost always. That last time was kind of the big one considering it got his neck snapped.
“Jax screwed up,” Scout told Bailey. “You know that as well as I do. He could’ve taken the time to learn craft from you guys, become an apprentice, and in ten or fifteen years he could’ve been a witch, but he didn’t. He took the shortcut and traded Jason Gudehaus for his magic.”
“Familiar sounding story,” Bailey said, looking Scout up and down like she was sizing up Scout’s crow magic.
Scout stood up straighter. “I made my decision. So did Jax. We’re the ones who’ll have to deal with the consequences. You get to make a decision now, too. Tell us everything you know about the sword or Tough and I will dig it out of you. Between his mesmerization—” She reached down and pulled an old style KA-BAR out of a crate. “—and this, I’m pretty sure we can find out everything we need to know.”
Bailey rolled her eyes, but she didn’t call Scout’s bluff.
Clarion waved a hand at Scout like he was telling Bailey to ignore her. “If your specialty really is information and prophecy, then you already know what’s at stake here. Do you think I want to be working with crows? That they want to be working with me? There aren’t a lot of sides to choose from this time. You’re either with us or you’re with them.”
Bailey shot me one last look, then took a deep breath and blew a puff up at the stray hairs hanging over her glasses. “The Sword of Judgment, if I’m remembering the translations correctly, was posted at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, going to and fro day and night to keep anyone from entering after Adam and Eve were cast out. If our timelines are correct, this was long after Kathan led the rebellion in Heaven which caused a third of the angels to fall.”
She paused to lift up her glasses and rub her eyes. “There was a time when the fallen angels weren’t organized. They roamed the Earth, demanding to be worshiped as gods, pitting tribes against one another, mating with humans and animals—which is where we get the origin of beings like the Nephilim, chimera, Naga, sirens, lizard people, et cetera—and generally causing chaos wherever they pleased. According to most accounts, that all changed when Mikal stole the Sword of Judgment from the entrance of the Garden. This gave Kathan the power to send any of his fellow fallen angels to Hell, which as one might imagine, was equivalent to being given the divine right to rule. Thus the fallen angels organized with Kathan as their leader. And as you’ve no doubt seen in the triptych in the Dark Mansion’s front hall, they’ve spent the remaining time gathering their armies for the last battle. Most non-people communities are indebted to the fallen angels for setting up refuges and twisting the folklore about them in such a way as to make them desirable to humankind, so one can assume they would stand with the fallen angels in the last battle.”
“Mikal had the sword,” Clarion said. “Why didn’t she just become the leader herself?”
Bailey paused, then shrugged. “Most APIM and sup-psych studies conclude that fallen angels are—or project the semblance of being—similar to humans in their desires. Some crave power, others to be the object of lust, and still others crave bloodshed and war. They theorize that alphas like Kathan chase power and obeisance, whereas most enforcers enjoy causing suffering. Mikal knew uniting the angels under Kathan would give her everything she was looking for, without putting her at the forefront where she would eventually have to deal with the trivialities that come from being at the head of any movement—public relations, for example.” Bailey’s eyebrows came together in a frown. “Although the working theory at the Council is somewhat different.”
Then she waited.
I would’ve just stared at her like she was stupid until she quit with the teacher act, but Scout took the bait.
“What’s that?”
“Raelynn, Brant, and I have talked about it extensively,” Bailey said, “And we think Kathan can’t wield the Sword of Judgment.”
Bailey’s blue-gray eyes met mine, and for a second it felt like all the buzz from Scout’s blood was gone. The look made it pretty obvious that she would rather scrape me off her shoe than track me around the house, but behind that there was something else. She looked like she wanted to be mad at me, but she was too tired to pull it off.
Scout broke our stare-down. “Why wouldn’t he be able to use the sword?”
“That is the question,” Bailey said. “But consider that Kathan had supreme power in his hand and chose not to wield it. Rather, he chose to let someone else hold a piece of the power that held his kingdom together, to depend on someone other than himself. In popular religious theory, what was the sin that got Lucifer cast out?”
“Pride,” Clarion said. “Thinking he was good enough to rule in God’s place.”
Bailey nodded. “Exactly. Angels may have similar psychologies to humans, but they’re different in one fundamental way—they’re changeless. Fifty thousand years ago, Kathan thought he was worthy of the throne and everything that comes with it. Fifty thousand years from now, Kathan will still believe he’s worthy of the throne and everything that comes with it. There’s no reason Kathan would leave such an important piece of the puzzle in someone else’s hands unless he didn’t have a choice.”
None of this helps
