“Hmm,” Lonely said. “Not entirely true, tarnished one. We need to know everything we can learn about the sword, not just where it is now. You never know which piece of information might turn out to be important.”
Bailey glanced my way again. “All information is inherently valuable. Your girlfriend seemed like the type who would’ve recognized that. As much as I hate to admit it, Ajax didn’t. He could store nearly infinite data in that brilliant head of his, but he never quite saw the need for the gathering of it.” She looked down at the floor as if she could see Jax laying in his grave. “He would’ve made a good mage, but a terrible witch.”
“To get back to the matter at hand, though,” Clarion said. “Kathan probably can’t wield the sword. Mikal could. But Mikal’s in Hell now. So where is the sword?”
“I think Colt might’ve had it,” Scout said. “One of my people did a fly-over of the cabin last night when Hell came for one of the fallen angels. They wouldn’t have used it on each other, so that means Colt had it.” She looked at me and nodded like I was already agreeing with her. “Right?”
Just a fucking kid just a fucking kid just a fucking kid started looping through my head. I nodded so I could look anywhere else but at Scout.
Bailey pursed her lips, then nodded. “Mikal stole it from the Garden. Colt stole it from Mikal. The Tracker and a squad of foot soldiers led by Rian killed Colt and Tiffani Cranston last night. One assumes that they recovered the sword during or after the melee. It surely would’ve been high on their priority list, with Colt’s death a close second.”
Then she laughed. A real, delighted laugh that lit up her whole face.
When Bailey saw that we were all staring at her, she shrugged. “Prophecies never turn out the way you think they will. ‘The last chosen soldier of God must visit death upon his brother before a holy champion can rise and the last battle for Earth can begin.’ Even when they’re written in a clear, coarse language, the human assumptions are always so far from what actually happens that it’s…well, it’s laughable. It’s like the 10-day weather forecast.”
Lonely laughed then, too, a few loud crawks that shook his head and shoulders. Almost human, but at the same time definitely not human at all. The sound scraped down the back of my neck like a bad chord.
“So, if I’m hearing you right,” Clarion said, scratching the gray-blonde stubble on his chin, “Then the sword is back with the fallen angels. Our next course of action is pretty clear. We have to get it back. So, how do we do that?”
“Well, that’s trickier,” Bailey said. “Like any item you wish to steal, you would have to know who has it, where they’re keeping it, and how to take it away from them without dying.”
That was what it always came down to. Not dying.
Tempie
How do you turn against your rescuing angel? How do you betray the only being who ever understood and loved you unconditionally?
I don’t have to betray anybody, I thought again, more forcefully.
This isn’t something you can stubborn your way out of, that little voice in my head argued. You either let them torture your sister until they kill her or until she’s as screwed-up and lost as you, or you betray the one shining memory of your life, the one being who’s ever been honest with you, the only thing that could ever love you.
No, I thought again. I don’t have to betray anybody.
And for once in my life I wasn’t just saying it because screw anybody who tried to tell me what to do. No, this time I was sure I was right.
“Make love to me,” I whispered—or thought—to Kathan. “To my body. Please, Kathan. Really love me.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not I was alone in our suite—there was always the chance that Kathan’s projection beside me was actually a piece of his mind holding the pieces of my mind together while they recovered—but when I spoke, he sighed against my throat, and I felt it in every piece of my mind and body.
“Would that I could, my love.” A little nip of his teeth at my collarbone. Burning fingers tracing down the outside of my thigh, then sliding back up the inside, under my skirt. “But I’ve got the legions lining up at my parlor door, waiting to kneel down to me. Can’t keep them waiting much longer.”
My mind was exhausted from staying apart for so long, but I broke off that burned-out emotionless piece again and sent it after some part of my angel lover. He wanted sex, needed it. The plays that were in motion now were happening so fast—and worse, they hurt him. They dug into those eternal wounds in his soul. He needed something to take his mind off of that pain, even just for a few moments. He needed my love and adoration to sooth the pain. He needed to know that I needed him.
It wasn’t a lie. I did need him. After he let me see inside his mind, it helped to have physical sensations—real ones, not essence-borne ones—to reset my internal gauges, to remind me what was real and what wasn’t.
“Please,” I begged. “I can make it fast. I just need to feel you. Please, Kathan.”
His hair fuzzed across my exposed belly and his teeth nibbled again, this time at my hip. “Later.”
“Now.” I groaned and tried to press closer.
His laughter rumbled through his chest and across my skin. God, I loved to make him laugh. He was so deeply scarred, so angry, so determined. But
