Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (21 page)

“Fine. Then why are you here for him?”

“So you
do
have him,” Riley interjected. “I
knew
it.”

The psychiatrist tried to push past Aramael, but he held out an arm, blocking her path.

“This isn’t mortal business,” he said.

Riley opened her mouth to object, stopped, and looked at Alex, the faint beginnings of uncertainty shining from behind her wire frames.

Alex forced her gaze back to the remoteness in Aramael’s eyes. “Answer me,” she said. “Why do you want to see Seth?”

“It isn’t mortal business,” he repeated.

Riley took a second step back, and then a third.

Alex lifted her chin. “I’m not just any mortal,” she reminded him. “Not after all that’s happened.”

His expression turned impossibly colder. “Yes,” he said. “You are. Now let me pass.”

Fighting off the paralysis of sheer, soul-deep agony, Alex shook her head. “Not unless you tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit.” Slamming the hotel room door shut, Alex scowled and crossed her arms. “The evasive routine doesn’t work with me, remember? It never has and never will. Either tell me what’s going on or leave. Your choice.”

Aramael stared at her. “You can’t stop me.”

“Maybe not,” said a new voice, “but I can.”

Alex was certain all three of them—she, Aramael, Riley—looked down the corridor in perfect unison. Any other time, she might have found that amusing, but right now, as she stared at the gun in Hugh Henderson’s hands, she failed to see much humor in any of this.

“Liz, move away from him and come here,” Henderson ordered, jerking his head to the side. Riley did as directed, her face a study in utter confusion. When she was within arm’s length, Henderson reached out to tuck her behind him. He raised an eyebrow at Alex. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but—”

Henderson released Riley’s arm and held up his hand. “Am I understanding this right? Do you have Seth in your room?”

Oh, for the love of—Alex sighed. How much more complicated could things get? She glowered at Aramael, nodded defeat at Henderson. “Yes. He’s here.”

“Okay. We’ll deal with that later. Right now I need you to move over here with me.” Waggling his fingers at her, Henderson scowled at Aramael. “And I need
you
not to
move,” he added. “In fact, I’d strongly suggest you don’t even breathe.”

“Detective Henderson,” Alex began.

“Don’t.” Henderson shook his head. “Not so much as a word, Jarvis. I’m sick to death of the whole cloak-and-dagger thing you have going. I want answers and, with or without your cooperation, I plan to get them. Now get your ass over here before I decide to arrest you, too.”

“W
e’ve found him.”

Lucifer looked up to find Samael standing in the doorway, wings outspread in obvious excitement. “That was quick.”

“And unexpected.” Coming into the office, Sam glanced back as his wings knocked into the door frame. He tucked them into place against his shoulders. “You remember the Power who broke the pact?”

Once again, Lucifer set aside the journal he had been working on. He popped a peppermint into his mouth. “Caim’s twin. Yes. What about him?”

“You knew he was cast out into the mortal realm without his powers? Some of the ranks have been toying with him, exacting a certain—revenge for what they perceive to be his sins against their colleagues.”

“I care about this why?”

“Patience, oh Mighty One.” Samael grinned, obviously enjoying himself. “I’m getting to that.”

Lucifer glowered at the overt use of the nickname he
knew was murmured behind his back. “You’re pushing your luck, Archangel,” he warned.

Samael waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. Just listen. Qemuel was the latest to go after the Power. He was following him, waiting for his opportunity to strike, when the Power went to a hotel to meet a woman.”

Whatever?
Lucifer’s fingers curled around the pen he’d begun to wish was Samael’s neck. “That might make the Power a potential recruit,” he acknowledged tightly. “But I still don’t see—”

“She’s the Nephilim Caim tried to kill.”

Sam’s smile took on a whole new level of satisfaction. Lucifer waited, sensing more to come. His aide didn’t disappoint.

“And she has Seth.”

The pen in Lucifer’s hand snapped in two, sending a spray of ink across the desk. A stain spread over the page he’d been writing. It couldn’t be. The consequences were too great; she wouldn’t dare move against him that way. Wouldn’t risk—

“You know what this means.”

Lucifer fought down a sour rush of sickness and held up discolored fingers for silence. There had to be another explanation. She was the One, the Creator, the single constant in the whole of the universe. A fine film of sweat broke out along his forehead. She wouldn’t break her word like that. Couldn’t. Not when her word was all he had left. Not when he counted on that word to give him the time he needed to finally rid himself of that plague she called her children.

He raised his gaze to Samael’s gleeful face. The expectation behind it. “That’s it? That’s all we have?”

Samael’s smile faded. “We have an angel in direct contact with the Appointed,” he said. “One of Heaven’s own, interfering with your son. Violating the terms of the agree-ment.”

“Did Qemuel see them together? The Power and the Appointed?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“Then how do we know the Power was there for him and not for the woman?”

Temper darkened his aide’s face. “And Seth just happened to be there?” he snarled. “You can’t seriously think this is all a coincidence. The One’s mark is all over this.”

Agony lanced through Lucifer’s chest. He felt certain that his very heart had begun to bleed. Wondered if it had ever stopped. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It doesn’t—” Sam stared at him.

“Without proof, we cannot demand her forfeiture and if we move prematurely, we’ll be the ones forfeiting instead of her.”

“What does it matter? Either way, we go to war.”

“Agreed, but we go to war on our terms, not hers.” The black smear on Lucifer’s skin shrank and disappeared. He looked up at his nearly apoplectic aide. “I haven’t come this far only to see my plans for humanity crushed by your impatience, Samael. I don’t care what it looks like, I’ve made my decision. We wait until we have the Nephilim in place and we do nothing to jeopardize the agreement. Is that clear?”

Black wings opened with a thunderous crack and the papers stacked on Lucifer’s desk scattered in the draft. Lucifer narrowed his eyes, but the Archangel either didn’t notice the warning sign or chose to ignore it. Slamming his hands onto the mahogany surface, Samael leaned down.

“Fuck that,” he snarled. “I am
done
waiting. Done waiting for her, done waiting for Seth, and especially done waiting for you. We have ample cause to declare the agreement broken. You can do whatever you’d like with the mortals, but
we
are going to war.”

Lucifer stared at a drop of spittle clinging to his aide’s bottom lip. Slowly, wearily, he climbed to his feet and looked across at his aide’s fury. Then, without warning, he struck, shoving the desk with a single, mighty thrust across the room, Samael with it. The Archangel struck the wall with a grunt amid a shower of peppermints launched from their dish. Pinned, he lifted his chin as Lucifer stalked toward him, his startled gaze turning first wary, then sullen.

But not afraid.

Not yet.

Nostrils flaring, Lucifer reached across the desk, grasped his aide by the throat, and lifted him up and over to dangle in front of him, feet several inches above the floor. Samael clawed at the fingers cutting off his air, his eyes widening.

“I warned you, Samael,” Lucifer said. “So many times I warned you, but still you chose to ignore me. And now I have endured your insolence long enough.”

The former Archangel’s arms flailed as Lucifer threw him across the room. He crashed into one of the bookcases, splintering three shelves and sending their load tumbling to the floor around him. Lucifer followed.

His aide dragged himself upright, shock and uncertainty flickering across his face. “Lucifer, I—”

A backhand sent the Archangel staggering into another waterfall of books. Lucifer followed, relentless in his pursuit. Another slap split Samael’s cheek. A third and fourth, each delivered with measured but increasing force, transformed his eyes to pools of blood.

Samael scrambled to get away, scuttling across the floor on hands and knees, his wings dragging through the wreckage of the room. The stench of fear oozed from his pores to hang in the air, but still Lucifer didn’t stop. Following the Archangel, he delivered blow after punishing blow until Samael lay at his feet, weeping in agony, shattered beyond recognition, his wings in tatters.

Done at last, Lucifer crouched at his aide’s side. He rolled what remained of Samael’s head toward him. Blood seeped from the Archangel’s eyes, mingling with tears. Shaking his head, Lucifer wiped away the crimson trickles.

“I’m sorry it came to this, Samael, truly. But I need to be sure you’ve learned your lesson.”

Samael mewled a plaintive response.

“No.” Lucifer shook his head again. “No, there’s one more thing I must do to be certain. This will hurt, but you need to hold very still or I might make a mistake. Quiet, now.”

He plunged a hand into Samael’s chest. The Archangel
arched and writhed beneath the new assault, a thin, high-pitched scream emanating from the gore that had once been his mouth. Lucifer reached deeper, deeper, until his fingers closed over a tiny sphere, hard as marble. He smiled.

Withdrawing his hand, he wiped the orb clean on a part of his sleeve not already covered in Samael’s body bits and held it up for his aide to see. The Archangel fell silent except for the gurgle of air passing through the fluids in his throat.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lucifer asked, admiring the swirl of light pulsing between his thumb and forefinger. “Hard to believe something so small can contain all you are, the very essence of your immortality.”

He looked down at Sam again, letting his smile fade. “You do know I can take it from you anytime I wish, don’t you, Samael? That I can destroy you with just a twitch of my fingers?”

He tightened his delicate hold by the slightest fraction and a whistling hiss broke from Sam.

Lucifer nodded. “You understand. I’m glad. Now understand this, Samael formerly of the Archangels.” He enclosed the sphere in his fist and terror shot through Sam’s eyes. “Understand that, while you might be useful to me, I do not need you. I never have. So if you ever so much as breathe discontent again—if you so much as
think
it, I will not stop. I will kill you.”

Rising to his feet, he dropped Samael’s immortality onto the floor. It rolled to a stop by his aide’s mutilated fingers.

“I’m going out,” Lucifer said. “When you’re done putting yourself together, make sure you clean up the mess. And get me more peppermints. You’ve ruined mine.”

“D
amn it, Jarvis, I’m not kidding,” Henderson growled. “I will arrest your ass in a heartbeat if you don’t get over here.”

“Hugh, what in God’s name is going on?” Elizabeth Riley hissed.

“Let me handle this, Liz. Just stay back. Jarvis, I gave you an order.”

Focusing on Aramael’s back, on the way his shoulders flexed and then stilled, Alex didn’t dare look up at the others. The cold in her settled deeper. He was waiting. The moment she moved from the door—

“I can’t. He’ll go after Seth.”

“If he so much as twitches, I promise I’ll shoot. Now move.”

“I know you’re trying to protect me, Henderson, but I’m not the one he’s after.”

Aramael’s shoulders tensed again and Alex frowned, an un-nameable something tugging at her mind. A question that wouldn’t quite take shape.

“For fuck’s sake, Alex,” Henderson growled. He sighed
and reached for the handcuffs clipped to his belt. “Fine. Have it your way.” He waggled the gun at Aramael. “You. On the ground, face down, hands away from your body.”

Aramael didn’t move and a frisson of warning ran down Alex’s spine. If she didn’t put an end to this standoff, it was going to get ugly. No matter what Aramael’s reason for being here might be, he would never allow himself to be taken into custody. Couldn’t allow it.

Shooting a quick glance past him to where Henderson was beginning to look downright pissed, she pitched her voice low enough that only Aramael could hear. “You need to get out of here. Now.”

Aramael met her gaze over his shoulder. “I can’t.”

“Look,” she said through clenched teeth, “I get you have an agenda of some kind, but neither one of us needs the kind of attention you’ll bring if you’re taken into custody. Now get the hell out of here while you can.”

Not that having him disappear into thin air would be much better, but at least he wouldn’t be around for questioning.

“You don’t understand,” he said, gray eyes boring into hers. “I can’t.”

“You—” She stopped. Stared at his shoulders. Willed herself to see them there, rising beyond him, flexed, powerful, iridescent with their golden fire. But there was nothing. Her gaze moved to his again.

“Your wings,” she whispered. “Aramael, what happened to your wings?”

But even as she asked, she knew. Felt the answer come together in her head like the pieces of a puzzle.

“You can’t stop me,”
he’d said, and yet he’d remained there, in the hallway, allowing her to block his access to Seth. Had remained solid, and present, and unmoving. Had done nothing about Henderson, or the gun, or the threat of arrest.

A tiny muscle flickered near Aramael’s ear, the only movement in a body that might otherwise have been stone. Winter’s barren chill stared back at Alex from his eyes.

“I need to see Seth,” he said.

“No.” Alex shook her head. The doorknob pressed into the small of her back. “No. You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

As if he hadn’t spoken, Alex looked past him to Henderson. “I’ll trade you,” she said. “Him for Seth.”