Hellsbane Hereafter (21 page)

“And if I can’t?” It’s not like I hadn’t been trying. “You could be playing right into Jukar’s hands. Killing Abram may be exactly what he hopes will happen.”

“Why would Jukar have placed you as Abram’s protector? You—the most powerful nephilim born, the least likely of all to fail. It would be more like a Fallen to simply slaughter the boy outright and ensure the success of his plan.” He shook his head. “No. You can rest assured we have a thorough understanding of our enemy and how his mind works. The bastard child cannot be allowed to testify. Jukar is right in his assessment. Humanity’s current intellect would be too easily seduced. The wicked one must be put down. Beyond that, you can concern yourself with discovering the full extent of the Fallen’s plan, and we will use that information to our advantage when we attack.”

“Wait. What?” I pulled my jaw off the ground. “You’re planning an attack on Jukar?”

He glanced at me then back to the critters, lifting his chin. “Of course. Did you think we would allow this chaotic fighting to continue? It must be brought to a head. The war has to end. Soon.”

“What about Eli?”

The archangel sighed. “If the Fallen remains pure, if he continues to repent, he will be welcomed home.”

“Before you launch the attack?” I didn’t want to risk Eli raising a sword against the seraphim in the heat of battle. He’d made friends among Jukar’s followers, good friends. He would defend them.

Michael looked me square in the eye. “Granted.”

My heart lurched into my throat. My eyes suddenly stung with tears, but I wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy or sorrow. I sniffled. “Good. That’s good.”

He went back to passing out crumbs, tossing a few to the rabbits, raccoons, rats, mice, and moles begging at his feet.
Yuck.
“As for the boy. Where can we find him? The Fallen has shielded him from us somehow. He can’t be suffered to live a moment longer, and it’s clear we can’t rely on your service where your half brother is concerned.”

“I thought you couldn’t kill him.” I didn’t answer his question. I could’ve figured out where Abram was with a flex of my power, tapping into his thoughts like I did with anyone. Why wouldn’t Michael do the same? I knew to the seraphim the idea of touching a corrupted mind normally wasn’t worth it. But this wasn’t a normal situation. Was it possible Jukar was powerful enough to shield Abram’s mind from the seraphim? Not that Michael would ever admit to such a shortcoming.

“He’ll use his power. He’ll lift a gibborim sword or an illorum sword. It doesn’t matter which. Once he does, his powers will be triggered, and his existence will come to an end by the blade of a seraph’s sword.”

A pigeon landed on my head. Space nearer to the angel was scarce. I waved it off me before it had a chance to relieve itself in my hair. “Was that the plan last night at the bar? You’re the one who sent Thes and the other illorum, right?”

“I did.” The same pigeon batted its wings over to Michael, coming to perch on his head. Michael glanced up but then went back to feeding the others.

“So much for your brilliant plan. The only one who died was Thes.” My chest pinched. I hadn’t told Sadie yet. I hadn’t figured out what to say exactly. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I would come as close to it as I could.

“I didn’t account for your interference.” He reached up and fed a crumb to the pigeon on his head. “Had we been able to count on your loyalty, the operation would’ve been a success and this conversation unnecessary.”

I looked away, my cheeks warming. “Right. But… I mean, maybe if I’d been clued in…” I let the sentence die on my lips. Finishing it would’ve been a lie. I wouldn’t have let them kill Abram. I still wasn’t on board with that plan. “Even if you’re right about killing Abram, you’re taking a risk while he’s got that butt-ugly ring.”

The angel seemed to think about that for a moment then nodded. “The Ring of Solomon. Yes. That’s right.”

“You forgot?” Hard to believe. The archangel was up to something. “You’re the one who told me it controlled angels.”

“
Could
control angels,” he corrected. “In the hands of an unknowing master, the ring is simply bad jewelry.”

“You think Abram doesn’t know what it can do?” I stepped to the side, standing more in front of Michael, wanting him to look at me.

The angel’s gaze lifted to me, seemingly unimpressed. “Do you?”

I had to think about that. “He said an angel gave it to him. Told him it would protect him. It seems kind of pointless to give him the ring and not tell him how to use it.”

Michael nodded. “It does. So we should assume he has at least some working knowledge of how to activate the ring. However, it doesn’t automatically follow that he will be skilled in its use. I don’t think the ring in his hands will be much of a problem for us.”

“That’s kind of a risky assumption. Isn’t it?” I leaned against the headstone behind me, then realized what I was sitting on and jumped to my feet again.
Shit.
“Um, I mean, what if you’re wrong? If he can control you and the other seraphim, you’d all be vulnerable. He could command you to stand there and let the Fallen cut you all down. He could turn the war. Heaven would lose.” The thought sent an icy stab down my spine.

“That’s not going to happen.” He smiled as though I was being ridiculous. He balled the finally empty sandwich bag into his pocket. “The boy will be long dead before the final battle begins. And even if he’s not, I have no doubt one ugly little ring will be no match for us all. We will win this war. Heaven is, and always will be, secure.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” I mumbled.

“Exactly.” He turned to face me. “I am an archangel, Emma Jane, the right hand of God. I’m privy to knowledge you can’t begin to fathom. I have access to a comprehension that spans the ages of time in all directions, people, places, events that have come, and endless more that are yet to be and countless more that never will. You can trust that nothing slips my notice.”

I snorted, toeing a thick patch of crabgrass. “Yeah, well, sometimes it’s the little things we don’t give much attention to that end up biting us in the butt.”

“In my mind there are no little things.” He gestured to the headstone next to him. The woodland critters had scattered for the most part. Only one brilliant-red cardinal remained, his slender feet clutching the fat stone. “If you’d like to speak with your departed friend, I’d suggest you come here. Like most, his spirit avoids such a somber location, so you’re far less likely to have your head filled with nonsense. Agreed?”

I glanced down at the name carved into granite.
Thomas Michael Saint James.
“Tommy,” I breathed his name on a pain-filled exhale.

The cardinal stretched and flapped its wings. I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t been here since the day they lowered his casket into the ground. It just made everything too real. If I stayed away, I could pretend he was still with me, still alive somewhere on the Earth, and one day I’d see him again.

“He’s gone, Emma.” Michael clasped his hands behind his back. “His spirit may visit, may watch over you, but his ghost has nothing to tell you.”

My knees went out from under me, and I fell to the ground in front of my friend’s grave. He was gone. Tommy was really gone—forever gone. I sucked a hard breath and the air burned into my lungs, raw and pained. The ones that followed were no better, and my sobs shook through me, echoing off the headstones and the trees and down through the valley of graves. It was like losing him all over again.

Damn Michael for leading me here. And damn him for knowing how much I needed this.

Chapter Eighteen

I finally stopped crying. It took a while, but the entire time I knelt in front of Tommy’s grave, never once did he appear to me. I was kind of thankful for that. I didn’t think I could take the pain of accepting his death again, only to see him standing in front of me. My brain could only take so much screwing with.

My cell phone buzzed in my hip pocket, and I pulled it out to see that I’d missed a call. “Mihir. Finally.” I thumbed through to listen to his message.

“Emma. Yeah, I remember you. Yeah, I remember the damned ring. I want to forget both. Okay? So take a fucking hint and stop calling me. I mean it, Emma. Don’t ever call me again. Erase my number from your contacts. In fact, erase any trace you have of me. Forget you ever knew Mihir Thingal. He doesn’t exist anymore.”

The message ended just like that. I stared at the phone for a second or two, trying to wrap my brain around what could’ve crawled up his butt to ruin his day. Then I decided it didn’t matter. I needed to talk to him. So I dialed his number again.

This time though, instead of going to voicemail, I got a recording that said the number was no longer in service. I thumbed the end call button, staring at the phone again. He’d changed his number that fast?

“Sorry, Mihir. But I can’t let you off the hook that easily.” I knew where my little nerdy friend lived. At least I knew where his parents lived. It was a place to start. I didn’t like dragging him back into this, but what choice did I have? I needed his help. I could only hope he’d understand.

Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I gave one last glance at Tommy’s headstone. A smile took hold of my mouth. He always had that effect on me. “See you around, Tommy. Just stay out of my dreams, okay?”

Memories shuffled through my head, the summer before my senior year of college and the trip I took with Mihir to his parents’ summer beach house in the Hamptons. I exhaled, allowing my power to stir within me, to pull on nature itself. The soft sound of wings fluttering, like birds taking flight, brushed past my ear just as the desire to stand on the wide wraparound porch entered my thoughts.

I opened my eyes, and I was there. I couldn’t help turning in a circle, checking that the white-and-blue-trimmed home, the wicker porch furniture, and the slow-turning fans dotting the long, covered porch were all real. How fast had I traveled? I hadn’t even needed to take a step. I didn’t want to think about it too much. It didn’t matter. The answer wouldn’t change anything.

The beautiful home of Dr. Sagun Thingal and his wife, Dr. Ria Thingal, seemed exactly as I remembered it. I stepped forward to knock on the door. Had it always been a double door? I couldn’t remember. Not that I didn’t have more important things to wonder about.

What if Mihir had told his parents he didn’t want to see me? They’d always liked me. I’d been their son’s closest friend in college. We’d both been so young, having skipped grades in high school. I was three years older than Mihir, and at thirteen his freshmen year, it was harder for him than it’d been for me. Being a genius didn’t help with the awkward social skills, a lanky, boyish body, and the raging hormones of a typical teenage boy.

At least I’d been fifteen when I started, mildly cute, and a girl. College boys weren’t as judgmental of the opposite sex. Not that college boys didn’t scare the hell out of me. Finding each other kind of saved us both.
I can’t believe I lost touch with him.

And then I remembered the last time I’d seen him. They called it a horrific accident, but Mihir and I knew differently. It was no kind of accident.

It’d been a wish, twisted and fulfilled by a vengeful jinni. He’d been called up by my boyfriend and trapped in a butt-ugly ring, the Ring of Solomon. No one was too badly injured—except my boyfriend. He lost both his legs and his arms, but at least he’d survived. Apparently he was lucky. Most didn’t when they tried to use that stupid ring. Which was why we had to get rid of it, put it somewhere where no one would ever find it again.

Thanks to Mihir’s family background he knew exactly how to get it done. They were Hindu, and his grandmother was some kind of spiritual medicine woman. She knew all about the supernatural, the good and the bad, and she’d taught everything she knew to Mihir. He was confident he knew how to make the ring disappear for good. Or so he’d promised. Guess I knew how that had worked out.

I pulled open the lightweight screen door and knocked a solid three count on the hardwood. A few seconds after the screen door slapped shut, I heard footsteps nearing on the other side. The right side of the double door opened, and a tall, heavyset woman glared at me, hand on her hip.

She wore pink medical scrubs and white nursing shoes. Her ginger-red, short hair had a cute curl to it, though the sour expression on her pudgy face instantly overshadowed any beauty it had earned her. Her freckled cheeks were flushed, her lips almost puckered in irritation, red brows creased. The pink scrubs clashed with her hair and skin tone and gave her a sort of pasty undertone. Maybe that’s why she was in such a grumpy mood.

“Yes?” she said. “We don’t want any solicitors. Says so right there.”

I glanced at the little
No Soliciting
sign next to the door when she pointed and then back to her. I shook my head, flashing my sweetest “I’m harmless” smile. “Oh. No. I’m not selling anything. I was actually looking for the Thingals. They used to live here.”

“Yeah.” She gave me a quick once-over. “You’re at the right place. But Dr. Thingal ain’t home. Neither of them.”

“Actually, I was looking for their son, Mihir. We were really close friends in college. But then we, uh, I lost touch. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by and check if anyone knew where I could find him. Do you know where he lives now?”

She snorted. “Yeah, I know where he lives. Used to have a nice apartment in the city, but now he’s camped out in his parents’ living room.”

“Here?” I straightened. “Is he here now?”

“Honey, he’s always here. He doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t do anything, and he doesn’t see anyone. Sorry.” She started to close the door.

I hurried to open the screen. “No. Wait. It’s really important that I speak to him. It’s life and death.”

Standing with the door half closed, her scowl crinkled her brow again. “Back up there, missy. I can’t help you. I’m just his nurse. I only give him his meds and help with the physical therapy. If the man says he doesn’t want to see anyone, it’s his call.”

“His nurse? What’s wrong—I mean, did something happen?”

“Can’t discuss his medical information with anyone besides family. You’ll have to leave.” This time my protests didn’t stop her from closing the door in my face.

I stepped back, letting the screen slap closed again. He was in there. I had to find out what happened with the ring, how had it gotten into Abram’s hands, what exactly it had to do with angels, and how we could defuse it.

The threshold to a person’s home is a physical barrier. Nothing with angelic DNA could pass without the owner’s permission. I couldn’t use my powers to teleport into the house. As a human I could try to break in, but I didn’t really have that kind of skill set. Plus, then I’d have to deal with the sumo wrestler nurse, the police, and possible jail time, and it just wasn’t worth it.

I jogged down the front steps and followed the circular driveway to the side of the house. A pretty little boardwalk led alongside the house from the manicured front lawn toward the tall, grassy dunes and the ocean beyond. I followed it to the back of the house.

August was high season in the Hamptons, and for good reason. Even though it was around eighty-five degrees, a comforting breeze blew off the ocean that swayed the tall grass and lent a refreshing touch of moisture to the air. It ruffled through my hair and cooled the droplets of sweat down my back.

Sandy beaches and the brackish fragrance of the ocean scented the air, and even as I stepped from between the houses, I could smell the suntan oil and taste the salt on my lips. The plan was…well I didn’t know what the plan was. I thought a look at the house from a different angle would give me a new idea. Plus, it’d been years since I’d been there. I just wanted a quick glimpse of the beach and the ocean-goers lounging on the sand. I needed to see, to remember, that last summer. I wasn’t sure why.

The summer I’d spent here with Mihir hadn’t been extra special or anything. I didn’t find my true love, didn’t come of age, didn’t have any sort of life-altering epiphany. It was just a summer like any other: fun, average, uneventful, and
normal.

My breath caught.
That’s it.
That summer I’d spent here with Mihir and his family was the last summer I’d believed, known, there were no such thing as angels and demons and evil jinn. By the next summer, all that had changed, and nothing was quite the same again.

I stared out past the tall, swaying grass and the foamy crests of the waves. My mind raced in circles, remembering the wonderful bliss of ignorance. If I could go back in time and change it all… I wasn’t sure I would. I’d seen a lot and lost a lot, but not everything was bad.

“Emma. Really? You seriously can’t take a hint.”

I spun around, following the sound of Mihir’s voice to the back deck of the house. “Dude, you moved back in with your parents. You’ve officially lost all rights to judge.”

My friend pushed forward in his wheelchair, took one look at the shock on my face, and his expression hardened. “Get out, Emma Jane. Leave.”

The last time I’d seen Mihir he’d been a skinny, able-bodied, horny fifteen-year-old. “What happened?”

“What, they didn’t tell you? Too bad. Get out,” he said.

“No one told me anything. I had no idea.” I climbed the wooden steps to stand on the deck in front of him.

“You shouldn’t have come.” His face hardened, hands on the wheels of his chair. “I told you to leave me alone.”

I snorted. “Well you had to know that wouldn’t work.”

“Truthfully, I can’t believe you had the nerve to call me, let alone show up on my doorstep.” He jammed the small metal locks forward on his wheels. “After everything, how can you even show your face?”

Except for the wheelchair and maybe an extra fifty pounds, he didn’t look much different. He still had the silky, midnight black hair, ebony eyes, and perfectly tanned skin. His narrow face had filled out with age, and his body was thicker, taller I assumed, but he still had a runner’s build with long arms and legs.

Just as I’d predicted in college, Mihir had grown into a handsome man, a definite hottie by anyone’s standard, and no ring encircled his finger. He was a young, gorgeous, single doctor. So basically he was female crack.

“What are you talking about?” I stepped forward, and he wheeled back. “I just wanted to talk to you about the ring. I’ve seen it, Mihir. Wherever you hid it, whatever you did with it, someone found it and now this…
kid
is wearing it.”

Mihir didn’t know about me. I mean, he knew I had the “gift” of being able to feel other people’s emotions as if they were my own. I’d learned how to control it by the time I’d met him in college, but I’d told him about it anyway.

Thanks to his family history and everything he’d learned from his grandmother, Mihir was open to all kinds of woo-woo stuff. I’d just been a new kind of woo-woo for him, and he’d accepted it. It’s one of the reasons we’d been such good friends.

He didn’t know about what had happened to me in the last few years, though, what I’d learned about myself, or the reason why I possessed the “gift” to begin with. He didn’t know I was nephilim, that I was only half human. And suddenly worry twisted my gut, afraid of what his reaction would be, afraid he wasn’t as open-minded as he’d been in college.

“Found it? Someone just
found
the ring?” He laughed, but there was a distinct bitterness about it. “No shit. That’s one way to put it.”

I felt like I was missing some inside joke or something. “Okay, that’s it. What’s going on? What happened to you? How’d you end up in that chair? How’d the Ring of Solomon get out on the open market again? And why are you being such a…such a dick to me?”

His dark eyes went wide, a shocked, open-mouthed smile parting his lips. “Why am I being a dick to you? Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.” I stepped back, planting my butt against the deck railing, and folded my arms under my breasts. “I mean, you’d think I was the one who put you there.”

He blinked at that, head tilted to the side, confusion creasing his brow. “Are you joking?”

“No. For fuck’s sake, Mihir, what the hell’s going on?” I’d had enough of this sarcastic double talk. There was a war going on and people’s lives were at stake. I didn’t have time to play games.

“Emma, you’re the reason the ring is out on the open market.” He shook his head, an astonished smile warring with his outrage. “You and the demon you sent here to torture its location out of me.”

My brain froze, and I felt my knees weaken. Thank God a bench from the table set stood nearby, and I dropped into it. I thought I might be sick all over his parents’ fancy deck. “Wha…a demon?” I swallowed. “A demon did this to you?”

“Yeah.” He laughed, but he didn’t sound as sure as he had before. “Right before he told me you sent him.”

“No. Mihir, I’d never…” I shook my head, took a deep breath, and started again. “Tell me what happened. What do you know about demons? What did he say about me, exactly? What did he do to you?”

Mihir looked away, doubt ruining his hard, bitter expression. “Fine. Okay. We’ll play it your way. About six months ago I came home from work to find this guy hanging out in front of my apartment building. I didn’t know what he was at first. He told me he was a friend of yours, so like a damned idiot I invited him up. I invited him into my home.”

“You gave a demon permission to cross your threshold,” I said. The threshold to a home was its best and most important protection from evil—from everything supernatural. The only way evil can enter a home is over the threshold and only if it’s been invited.
Shit.