Remy thought about what Byleth had just said, the idea of weapons as some sort of last-ditch effort rattling around inside his head.
“Secret weapons that were never used.”
But if that was the case, why did they end up here… on Earth? Remy wondered, not even close to answering the questions that continued to float to the surface of his brain.
“How did you know about my case? How did you know I’d been hired to find what you had been searching for?”
Byleth clung to his glass of booze like it was a security blanket. “Your friend Francis made a few calls for you, asking around. And in turn, those he reached out to got in touch with us. It sounded like we just might be looking for the same thing.”
Byleth held out his empty glass. “More,” he commanded.
Remy took the glass and poured more Scotch from the decanter.
“Before your involvement, we had been contacted,” Byleth said, taking the glass. “Somebody who had heard about my offer to make them rich if they could deliver the Pitiless.”
Remy watched the fallen angel drink.
“So you made a deal with this person?” Remy asked.
Byleth nodded. “Arranged for an exchange, but it never happened.”
The fallen angel seemed to become even more nervous, getting out of his chair to fix his own drink. His movements were awkward, a shaking hand dropping the crystal stopper from the bottle, good Scotch splashing over the rim of the glass to be wasted as he filled it to the brim.
“I’m guessing that something besides your seller standing you up happened.”
“You could say that.” Byleth laughed nervously, pouring the contents of the glass down an insatiably thirsty gullet.
Remy urged the Satan to go on with a stare.
“We were attacked,” he said. Remy could see that his hands were shaking, and wasn’t sure if it was still the effect of connecting with the powerful weapons, or this recent memory. The fallen leader appeared unnerved.
“Rival host, maybe even a Hellion of your very own? What attacked you, Byleth?” Remy urged.
The fallen angel’s eyes got suddenly glassy as he gazed into the past. Slowly he made his way back to his seat, swatting away the helpful attentions of his bodyguards. He lowered himself into the folds of the wingback.
“He dropped out of the sky like a falling star,” the Satan said. “He was beautiful… as we all were once.”
Byleth looked at Remy, smiling sadly.
“An angel attacked you?”
He nodded. “Something wasn’t right about him. He was enraged, filled with a violent anger, going on and on about a sin that he couldn’t bear anymore.”
A sudden twinge of recognition stabbed at Remy, like a jab from one of the powerful blades.
“Was he a Nomad, Byleth?” Images of the poor creature that he and Francis had rescued from a dissecting chamber flashed before his eyes.
Remy reached down to grip the fallen’s shoulder, to urge him to answer.
Mulciber immediately grabbed hold of Remy’s wrist, attempting to pull it away. The Seraphim did not take kindly to being touched by one of them, and Remy allowed it to emerge, taking hold of the large man’s arm and twisting it violently to one side. Pulling the big man closer, Remy drove his forehead into the Denizen’s face.
The fallen grunted, blood exploding from his nose as he dropped to his knees moaning. The other Denizen made his move, but Remy froze him with a stare.
The Seraphim liked this, wanting to make the foolish creatures suffer, but Remy restrained it. This wasn’t the time for games.
“Byleth?” he said firmly.
“Yes, yes, he was a Nomad.” He tried to have some more to drink, but his glass was empty. “I didn’t think of it at the time…” Byleth stopped, remembering the details. “But I think he was trying to warn us.”
Remy felt his anger flare, the Seraphim right there, eager to be set loose, but he held its leash tight. “But you didn’t listen.”
Byleth turned in the chair, anger burning in his eyes. “Of course we didn’t listen; even though a Nomad, he was still one of them… still of Heaven. And he wanted the weapons that we didn’t have.”
“What did you do?” Remy asked, already knowing the answer.
Byleth laughed, slumping in the chair. “We saw it as an opportunity,” he explained.
Mulciber was still moaning, attempting to stifle the flow of blood that poured from his damaged nose.
“We captured him,” the Satan continued with a certain amount of pride. “It wasn’t easy—he was strong—but at the same time, I don’t think he had all his faculties. It was almost as if something… some knowledge that he had locked away inside his head had driven him mad.”
It took everything that Remy had not to grab Byleth and beat him senseless. “You captured him and you cut him up,” he said through gritted teeth.
Byleth smiled weakly, knowing that what he had done was wrong, but still taking pleasure from it. “Normally I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but with this one… I cut out his eyes.”
Remy’s true nature fought harder than he could ever remember, and he could feel his skin begin to itch—to heat—as the warrior angel rose to the surface, ready to emerge and destroy these abominations in their nest. And Remy doubted that the unleashed Seraphim would have stopped there, flying into the night, hunting every Denizen it could find and destroying them one after the other.
This might have happened—if there hadn’t been a knock at the door.
It was just enough of a distraction to avert disaster.
“Yes,” Byleth called.
The door opened and another of his men stood there. He was holding a cell phone.
“It’s somebody named Mason,” the fallen angel said.
“He says that he’s out back and to tell you that he’s found what you’ve been looking for.”
CHAPTER TEN
Remy didn’t like the sound of that.
Byleth pulled himself together, running his long fingers through his straight blond hair. “It appears to be my lucky day,” he said. He removed his sports coat and squatted before the daggers.
“Depends on how you define lucky, I guess,” Remy said, watching as the Satan wrapped the knives in his jacket. “What are you going to do with them?”
“What do you think?” Byleth asked, a nasty glimmer in his eye. “They were to be Lucifer’s. The power of Heaven flows through them. Imagine the clout somebody with these bad boys in their possession would have.”
Remy couldn’t believe his ears. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “There’s something not right about this whole business,” the angel started to explain. “The kind of not right that involves a creature from Hell and an angel driven crazy by guilt. Do you seriously want to wrap this Pitiless albatross around your neck?”
“Losing Heaven nearly destroyed me,” Byleth began. “My time in Tartarus was nothing compared to the pain I felt… still feel… when God took it all away.”
The Satan looked to his men.
“Restrain him,” Byleth commanded.
Mulciber seemed to have learned his lesson; his face stained with blood, he looked to the floor. But not the other, the one that Byleth called Procell.
Remy had wondered about that one, not at all physically imposing, but there was something about him that flashed caution. He planted his feet, preparing for a physical attack that never came.
The fallen angel Procell lifted one of his hands, and Remy noticed the elaborate tattoos—sigils—that had been drawn upon the pale flesh. He didn’t have a chance to react as the Denizen waved his fingers in the air, an incantation of angel magick leaving his lips, cast through the air to ensnare Remy in its ancient power.