Since obviously that wasn’t him.
Fane parked the Porsche across the street from the gleaming glass and steel office building he thought he’d never see again. He turned to Bella. “Here’s the plan—”
Reflected lights from the building glinted in her glasses, dimmer and distorted. “We go inside sphericanum headquarters, introduce ourselves as an ex-warden and an imp, and get our heads chopped off.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This is why I’ll make the plans, thank you.”
“The sphericanum isn’t going to help us. You are a rebel now, as far as they are concerned, and I am anathema, or worse. I don’t even know what’s worse than that.” She hunkered down in her seat, and the fluffy ruff of her coat puffed up around her nose, muffling her voice. “I’ve seen them shred tenebrae until there isn’t even dust left to float away on the wind.”
He wanted to reach for her, to soothe her fears. Instead, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The sphericanum has tricks we could use.”
“We don’t need them that badly.”
“You don’t place bombs before Christmas because you’re going to be on vacation until after New Year’s. Thorne will act sooner, not later.” He stared up at the towering angelic command building. “Ending the djinn threat is a purpose that rises above sphere prejudice.”
“There is no above the sphere,” she reminded him. “There is only under. Preferably six feet under, as far as they’re concerned. And their prejudice is always extreme prejudice. Hence the head chopping.”
“If I can make them see reason—”
“Because zeal and reason go so well together. Like a bottle of Everclear and a blow torch.”
He scowled. “You could give the Grinch lessons in gloom.”
She’d taken out one of the glass baubles they’d bought at the Christkindlmarket when he’d first suggested their stop at the sphericanum headquarters, and now she clutched the little red and gold sphere like she wanted to crawl inside it herself. “I’m most likely going to be attacked by demons and sucked back into the tenebraeternum on the anniversary of my birth death. I really didn’t want to speed up the process by walking into heaven central.”
“It’s better if you wait here anyway.”
He slammed out of the car, but when he crossed the street she was only half a step behind him.
The front door was not guarded, although the security punch pad was an upscale model protected from the weather by a cover designed to look like a gate with a pearly finish. Somebody in the building had a sense of humor, but Fane had never met him or her.
He aimed his finger at the intercom button, then tried his code instead. The door lock clicked open.
Bella settled back on her heels. “Huh. Trusting.”
“Or trap.”
She sighed.
After the whimsy of the pearly gate, the lobby inside was uninspired Class A corporate. Fane marched them past the potted palms decorated with silver tinsel to the elevator.
As the door opened, Bella hesitated.
Fane took out his keys. “You can wait in the car.”
She took the keys, running her fingertip over the ridges. He swallowed back the unexpected surge of disappointment that she was going to leave.
“Danke,” she said, but then she walked into the elevator.
He followed and held out his hands for the keys. “I don’t want a blind girl driving my Porsche.”
“Don’t be so sexist.”
He entered his security code again and stabbed the top-floor button. “It’s not the sex part I have trouble with.”
She stared up at the ascending numbers. “So I noticed.”
He sputtered, but she hiked up the hem of her parka and tucked the keys into the front pocket of her tight jeans. Clearly he wasn’t getting those keys back unless he wanted to wrestle her down and rummage around in her pants. The thought had a certain charm, but was not recommended protocol in the elevator of an angelic stronghold. The speedy elevator arrived at their destination before he could come up with another plan.
So much for being the one with the plans.
The elevator doors opened and they faced five angelic wardens, all clad in white and barefoot, like something from a Christmas postcard.
All with weapons drawn.
Chapter 11
Bella pushed her glasses higher on her nose—a thin disguise, those two brittle panes of glass—and let out a shuddering breath. Maybe her last one if the wardens’ massed surge of righteous fury was any indication.
Fane braced his hand in the closing elevator door. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so careless as to leave my code active.”
The warden in the middle angled a shepherd’s crook across his chest. To the imp, the crook blazed, molten streams of etheric energy spiraling upward like ghostly fire. “We would not have thought you would be so stupid as to use it.”
She heard herself say, “I suppose you both learned a lesson.”
Wow, she so did not need that focused golden fuming—Fane included—upon her. She stepped past Fane’s arm toward the wardens. If she was going to die, she might as well get it over with.
But the wardens retreated a step, except for the middle one. That was fine; she wasn’t here for the VIP tour. She tilted her head toward Fane. “Back to your plan.”
“Plan?” In contrast to his crook, the warden’s tone dripped ice.
“To retrieve my sword,” Fane said as he stepped into the room.
His slightly haughty emphasis on the last word made Bella wonder if the wardens’ compared the size of their…weapons. Maybe a skinny pole with a hook on the end just wasn’t considered as sexy as a long, thick sword. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Like the enmity wasn’t thick enough.
But the warden didn’t seem annoyed, or at least no more annoyed than he’d been already. If anything, a note of glee lightened his voice when he said, “Your abraxas is irretrievably ruined. Even if you take it back from the djinn-man, its influence is forever poisoned.”
Bella didn’t need to see the flare of gold in Fane’s eyes to sense his rage. “If Thorne’s power has altered the sword, I will change it back.”
The warden at one end of the line shook her head, her voice every bit as uncompromising, if less delighted. “The flaws will be permanent and impossible to absolve.”
Bella coughed under her breath. So much for the forgiveness of sins. Maybe that only applied to animate objects. Of course, the wardens seemed unwilling to offer any absolution to Fane either.
She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—what they would do to her.
Fane seemed to recognize the nowhere-fast nature of the conversation. “Regardless,” he said. “Retrieving the abraxas from Thorne’s possession will weaken him. That is in all our interests.”
“But mostly yours,” the male warden said snidely. “It matters little to us what weapons the tenebrae wield against us. We will fight on.”
Fane gave an exasperated sigh. “But wouldn’t it be better to just win one?”
“Corvus tried to end the war once and for all,” the warden drawled. “And look where that got him.”
Bella blinked in surprise at the tacit confession the sphericanum wasn’t interested in ending anything. Corvus had wanted to bring the battle to a head, to force heaven and hell to at last confront each other without the intervening avatars of djinn-men, wardens and talyan. It had been almost noble; demented and doomed, not to mention devastating to the earthly realm, but strangely, sadly noble.
Not that she’d say as much aloud. No need to reveal her demonic origins so blatantly.
Fane crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Then consider your possible elevation through the spheres should we take out one of the most insidious djinn-men to emerge in centuries.”