“I have a job for you,” he heard the Morningstar speak again.
The golden peacemaker was still in his hand, and he held it above the angel’s chest, firing another round into Malachi’s black heart.
The angel twitched as the bullet entered his body, and then went still.
“If you are so inclined.”
Francis closed his eyes, recalling the offer, and the answer he gave, as he was yanked back from the edge of death.
There was a scuffling sound somewhere behind him, and he spun around, finger twitching on the trigger of the deadly pistol.
But it was only Eliza Swan.
Eliza Swan. Even thinking her name brought a smile to his lips.
Willing the gun away, he went to the woman.
She was leaning up against the cave wall, and it was then that Francis noticed how incredibly old she had become. He tried to do the math, and gave up. She was of Eve’s bloodline, and would live much longer than the average human woman, but even by those standards, she was pretty damn old.
Francis approached the woman, whose love he had remembered only a short time ago, and knelt down beside her.
“How are you, girl?” he asked, emotions that he would never admit to bubbling to the surface.
Eliza lifted her head to look into his eyes. “Pearly,” she whispered. “I never forgot you.”
She lifted a hand to stroke his face, and he leaned into it, reveling in the affection, but suddenly taken aback by the scent of blood.
“Eliza?” he questioned, taking her hand and staring at it. Her fingers were stained red. “Are you hurt?”
“You told me to leave the writing where it was,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “That if I didn’t, I would put myself in danger . . .”
Francis began to panic; the smell of blood was stronger.
“Why is it that I never listened?” she asked him. “Why did I always ignore the people I loved? My parents . . . you . . . I guess I was always bad news, wasn’t I?”
“You were never bad news. . . .”
She began to cough, and that was when he saw it.
Malachi’s scalpel protruding from her belly.
He gasped and reached to pull it free, but she caught his wrist, demanding that he look at her.
“I did this,” she told him. “If I had listened . . . if I had listened, none of this would have happened. Figured I’d best put an end to it . . . before I messed up anything else.”
He was about to tell her that she would be fine, that he would find a way to fix her, but he didn’t want to lie, not to her.
Her hold on his wrist grew weaker, and her hand eventually fell into her lap.
Francis reached for the blade, pulling it from her. He stared at it, listening to its faint hum and occasional crackle, before slipping it into the pocket of his jacket.
Claiming the weapon as his own.
Eliza’s eyes had begun to close, and he knew that she didn’t have much longer. There was so much he wanted to say, to tell her before she left, but all he could do was watch.
“I have a job for you.”
And remember what he had done to be here.
“If you are so inclined.”
Eden was still dying, but she wasn’t as sick as she had been before.
Izzy could feel the connection with the Garden now, the thrum of her life through her own body.
And Jon’s.
He had been the key to saving her, the two of them somehow providing the place with what she needed to fight . . . the strength to fight and possibly survive what was happening to her.
The ground still trembled violently beneath their feet as they pushed their way through the thick jungle, an effort on the part of Eden to fight back against her foes.
Izzy could feel where she needed to go, holding on to Jon’s hand, leading him to their destination. He believed that they were going to Remy, to assist the angel in his fight against the Shaitan, but she knew otherwise.
There was someplace else she was supposed to be right now.
She brought them to a stop before the gaping mouth of the cave.
“What are we doing?” Jon asked. “This isn’t where . . .”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Yes, it is.”
And as the words left her mouth she and Jon watched as the man in the suit emerged from the darkness of the cave, the body of an elderly woman held in his arms.
Izzy knew at once who the old woman was, and that she was dead, for the Garden was telling her this.
“That . . . that’s your mother,” Jon spoke aloud, seemingly knowing the information as well.
A pistol had appeared in the man’s hand, aimed at them both.
“You don’t have any need for that,” Izzy told him.
The man continued to stare. It had been a very long time since she’d seen either of them, but she knew this man before Eden had begun to tell her who he was.
“Don’t you remember me, Dad?”
His expression barely changed, but in his dark eyes she could see that he knew her . . . that he remembered.
“Izabella,” he said.
The gun was somehow gone; she hadn’t seen where, or how he’d put it away while still holding the woman, but it wasn’t pointed at them anymore.
Her father looked at the dead woman in his arms with a gaze so intense that she could feel the energy passing between them.
“She blamed herself for what’s happening,” her father said, lowering himself to his knees. “Said that it was all her fault. Purposely hurt herself so that she couldn’t be used anymore.”
Izzy knelt in the moving grass beside her mother and father.
“Why’d you have to go and do that,” Izzy said quietly, reaching out to cup the dead woman’s cold cheek in her hand. “Wish I could have spent some time with you before—”
A violent tremor passed through the earth, and a jab of pain like an ice pick to the skull caused her to double over.
Eden was in trouble again. Eden was in pain.
“We really don’t have the time for this,” Jon said. He was holding the side of his head, a slight trickle of blood leaking from his nose.
Her father was now staring at the man, as if noticing him for the first time.
“Who’s he?” he asked. “Boyfriend?”
Izzy smiled at the idea—after so many years of hate, the Sons and Daughters coming together again . . . here.
“No,” she told her father. “But you don’t have to worry about that.”
She stroked her mother’s hair.
“You need to get her out of here,” Izzy told him. “You need to bring her home. . . .” She looked at him squarely through the lenses of his dark-framed glasses.
“Her real home.”
Her father nodded, understanding what she was asking of him.
“We have some business to take care of here first,” Izzy said.
He stood, gently holding the body of the woman in his arms.
“It was nice to see you again, Dad,” Izzy said.
“Nice to see you too,” her father told her.
And in his eyes she could read that it was true—he was glad to see her.
Remiel held the young Shaitan at bay with the Cherubim’s sword.
The fire burned brightly as he held it out before him, the light from the blade preventing them from advancing.
But for how long?
The small monsters, no bigger than newborns, hissed and snapped at the light thrown from the blade, squinting and covering their eyes with nastily clawed hands.
The angel considered his options: He could flee the Garden, leaving the situation as bad as he’d found it, or he could attack, wading in among the pale-skinned creatures and attempting to slay them all before they reached their full, deadly maturity.
He didn’t particularly care for either choice, but running away was not an option.
The Shaitan were getting braver by the second, charging at him, teeth snapping. As one did this, the others followed suit. They were learning from one another, and it wouldn’t be long now before they came at him in full force.