“Don’t just stand there,” Hank exploded at his men. “Bring this arrogant fallen angel to his knees!”
But Hank didn’t stick around to shout further orders. He bolted through the door.
Gabe’s laughter rang from the rafters. He strolled to the door and flung it open. His voice boomed into the night. “Scared, Nephil? You’d better be. Here I come.”
At this, every Nephilim in the building fled through the front and rear exits. Jeremiah and Dominic chased after them, whooping and hollering.
Patch stood in the vacated warehouse, facing the archangel’s cage. He approached her and she drew back with a warning hiss.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Patch told her, keeping his hands where she could see them. “I’m going to unlock the cage and let you go.”
“Why would you do that?” she rasped.
“Because you don’t belong here.”
Her eyes, ringed with exhaustion, darted over his face. “And what do you want in return? What mysteries of the world do you want answered? What lies will you whisper sweetly into my ear for the truth?”
Opening the door to the cage, Patch reached inside slowly, taking her hand. “I don’t want anything except for you to hear me out. I don’t need a necklace to make you talk, because I think once you hear what I have to say, you’ll want to help.”
The archangel hobbled out of the cage, reluctantly leaning her weight on Patch, her blue-glowing legs clearly impaired by devil-craft.
“How long will I be like this?” she asked, tears jumping to her eyes.
“I don’t know, but I think we can both agree the archangels will be able to help.”
“He cut my wings off,” she whispered hoarsely.
A nod. “But he didn’t rip them out. There’s hope.”
“Hope?” she repeated, eyes flashing. “You see something hopeful in all this? That makes one of us. What kind of help do you want anyway?” she inquired miserably.
“I want a way to kill Hank Millar,” Patch said bluntly.
A dull laugh. “And now that makes two of us.”
“You can make it happen.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
“The archangels have tampered with death at least once before, and they can do it again.”
“What are you talking about?” she scoffed.
“Four months ago one of Chauncey Langeais’s female descendants threw herself off the rafters of her high school gym, a sacrifice that ended up killing him. Her name is Nora Grey, but I can tell by the look on your face you’ve heard of her.”
Patch’s words shocked me. Not because what he’d said sounded foreign. In one of his other memories I’d heard myself say I killed Chauncey Langeais, but on coming out of the memory, I’d stubbornly denied it. Now there was no closing my eyes to the truth. The fog in my mind shifted, and in a succession of flashes, I saw myself standing in the gym at school, several months ago. With Chauncey Langeais, a Nephil who wanted to kill me to hurt Patch.
A Nephil who didn’t realize I was his descendant.
“What I want to know is why her sacrifice didn’t kill Hank Millar,” Patch said. “Hank was the most direct Nephil in her line. Something tells me the archangels have their hand in this.”
The archangel stared back wordlessly. Patch had visibly cracked her composure, which had been whittled down to threadbare from the start. With a faint smile of mockery, she said at last, “Any other conspiracy theories?”
Patch shook his head. “Not a theory. A cover-up — the archangels’ cover-up. I missed it at first, but when I realized what happened, I knew the archangels had tampered with death. You let Chauncey die in Hank’s place. Given the problems Hank has created for you, why?”
“You really think I’m going to talk about this with you?”
“Then you get to hear my theory after all. Here’s what I think. I think just about five months ago the archangels found out that Chauncey and Hank had started dabbling in devilcraft, and they wanted it stopped. Believing Hank was the lesser of two evils, the archangels approached him first. The archangels would have foreseen Nora’s sacrifice, and they decided to offer Hank a deal. They’d let Chauncey die in his place, if Hank agreed to leave devilcraft alone.”
“Your imagination astounds,” the archangel said, but her voice came out haggard, and I knew Patch was onto something.
“You haven’t heard the end of the story,” Patch said. “I’m betting Hank sold Chauncey out. And then he sold the archangels out. Picking up where Chauncey left off, he’s been using devilcraft ever since. The archangels want him out of the picture before he passes the knowledge on to anyone else. And they want devilcraft back where it belongs — in hell. That’s where I come in. I’m asking for the archangels to tamper with death one more time. Let me kill Hank. He’ll carry the knowledge of devilcraft to his grave, and if my theory is as dead on as I’m betting it is, that’s exactly what you and the rest of the archangels want. Of course, I’m sure you have your own reasons for wanting Hank dead,” Patch added meaningfully.
“Pretend for a moment the archangels could tamper with death. I couldn’t make that decision on my own,” she said. “It would require a unanimous vote.”
“Then let’s take it to the table.”
The archangel spread her hands wide. “In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not at the table. I don’t have a way to get from here to there. I can’t fly. I can’t call home, Jev. As long as I’m cursed with devilcraft, I’m an invisible spot on their radar.”
“The power in an archangel’s necklace is stronger than devil-craft.”
“I don’t have my necklace,” she said wearily.
“You’re going to use my necklace. Talk to the archangels. Present my idea and take a vote.” He pulled his archangel’s necklace from his pocket and unclasped it for her.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick? How do I know you won’t force me to answer your questions?”
“You don’t. The only thing you have at the moment is faith.”
“You’re asking me to trust a known betrayer. A banished angel.” Her eyes locked with his, searching his face, which was as opaque as a lake at midnight.
“That was a long time ago,” he said quietly, holding his necklace out to her again. “Turn around and I’ll put it on you.”
“Faith,” she repeated just as softly. Her eyes seemed to weigh her options. Trust Patch, or tackle her problems alone.
At last she turned and lifted her hair. “Put it on.”
CHAPTER 32
MY BREATHING SLOWED AS I REALIZED PATCH’S arms were secure around me. We were sitting on the floor in his bedroom, and I was leaning back against him. He rocked me gently, murmuring soothing sounds in my ear. “So that’s that,” I said. “I really did kill Chauncey. I killed a Nephil. An immortal. I killed someone. Indirectly, but still. I killed.”
“Your sacrifice should have killed Hank.”
I nodded numbly. “I saw you tell the archangel. I saw everything. You used Gabe, Jeremiah, and Dominic to clear the warehouse and get her alone.”
“Yes.”
“Did Gabe find Hank and force him to swear fealty?”
“No. He would have, but I got to Hank first. I wasn’t completely up-front with Gabe. I let him think I’d give him Hank, but I had Dabria waiting outside the warehouse. The moment Hank surfaced, she grabbed him. When I came back here and found you gone, I thought he’d gotten to you. I called Dabria and hauled Hank here to interrogate him. I’m sorry about Dabria,” he apologized. “I took her with me because I don’t care what happens to her. She’s disposable. You’re not.”