“Most likely.” She pulled out her cell phone and moved forward again, simultaneously punching in a number and calling out to the man. “Sir? Are you all right? I’m a police officer, and I want to help. I’m going to have a look at—” She broke off and turned her attention to the phone as she went down on one knee beside the man. “Hi, yes, it’s Detective Alexandra Jarvis from the homicide unit. I have an injured civilian in an alley off—”
The man lunged at her. The cell phone flew from her grasp and smashed into the Dumpster. Seth leapt forward, reaching to pull Alex away, but he was too slow. The man’s hands closed around her throat and he rose to his feet, lifting her with him. Her breath became a harsh rasp beneath his hold and Seth seized his arm. He pulled. Pulled harder. Bellowed his fury. His fear.
The man paid no attention.
Abandoning his hold, Seth snaked his forearm around the man’s neck and tightened it with all the strength he possessed. An elbow plowed into his ribs and he sailed through the air. His head cracked against a brick wall. For an awful instant, the world flickered, on the verge of turning black. He struggled to breathe, fought off the darkness.
Alex. I have to help Alex.
He rolled to his hands and knees. Pain shot through his chest, hammered in his skull. A cold, awful realization gripped him. I can’t help her. I’m mortal. I have no power—
“Call him,” the man snarled.
Seth tried to focus through the flashes of light going off in his eyes. Alex’s attacker held her off the ground, hands still at her throat, shaking her as he might a doll.
“Call him!” he demanded again. “Call your soulmate, Naphil. Like you did for—”
A rush of wind swept through the alley, driving grit into Seth’s eyes, sealing them shut. He scrubbed at them, forced them open. Aramael towered above him, black wings spread wide, menace written in his every line.
“Let her go, Mittron,” he snarled.
Mittron?
The man shifted, spinning to hold her from behind. He replaced the hands at her throat with a knife. Alex gasped for air, a harsh, ragged sound that clawed at Seth’s heart. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain streaking through his rib cage, focusing instead on the cold glint of metal. He tried not to think about the terrible fragility of a mortal life. The world spun and his stomach heaved. He sagged to the pavement.
“I knew you would come,” the man breathed. “I knew she would call for you.”
“Let her go,” Aramael said again.
The man shook his head, his amber eyes glowing with an intensity that sent a shudder down Seth’s spine. Amber eyes that, despite the mania that had taken hold in their depths, he recognized. Aramael was right. It was Mittron. Fresh fury snarled through Seth. Damn it to Hell, would Heaven’s interference never end?
“It’s not that easy,” Mittron said. “We need to trade. You want her, and I want what you gave Caim.”
Aramael scowled. “Caim!” he spat. “I gave him noth—”
“Death,” rasped Seth. “He wants you to kill him.”
He felt the Archangel’s shock. His denial. He kept his own focus squarely on the wavering knife, willing it to stay still. A thin line of blood trickled down Alex’s throat. Something inside him shriveled.
“Do it,” he told Aramael.
“I cannot.”
“Yes,” he snapped, flashing the angel a venomous glare. “You can. And we all know it.”
Icy rage gathered in the other’s eyes. Glittered in them. “We all know what came of it, too,” he growled back.
“A little late to have discovered your principles, don’t you think?”
“At least I have them.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Alex’s mutter broke between them.
Seth switched his attention back to her in time to see her become a blur of motion. In the space of a heartbeat, before Mittron could react, she planted an elbow in his gut, clamped fingers over his wrist, spun on one heel, and pinned the knife-wielding hand behind his back. Practiced moves calculated to disarm and control a human.
But not an angel. Not even an exiled one stripped of his divine powers. A warning formed in Seth’s throat as Alex glowered over her shoulder.
“When you two are done with your pissing contest—” she began.
Mittron jerked free and whirled, his knife slicing toward her in a wide, graceful arc.
Chapter 37
Even as Seth’s shout rang through the alley, Aramael’s wings shot open, driving between Alex and her attacker. The knife slammed into unyielding feathers and Mittron staggered backward. Before he recovered his footing, Aramael reached one hand for the weapon, the other for the former Seraph’s throat. A vast ugliness rose in his soul as his fingers closed around both.
Manic joy lit the Seraph’s eyes.
“Yes,” he croaked. “Do it. I deserve nothing less after what I’ve done to you, to her. I deserve to die.”
The ugliness in Aramael’s core darkened. Seethed. About that, Mittron was right. No one was more deserving of death. All of this was the Seraph’s fault. He was at the center of everything: the breaking of the pact between Heaven and Hell; the failure of the eleventh-hour agreement; Alex’s near death—twice; Seth’s abandonment of his place at his mother’s side . . .
And Aramael’s own bond to a soulmate he could never hope to have.
Deep within him, the power of an Archangel began to build, mingling with the rage he thought he had left behind. He inhaled a ragged breath and crumpled the knife in his hand. He let it fall to the ground. Energy—fluid, glacial—coursed through his body.
Dangling from his hold, Mittron closed his eyes. His features went slack and almost peaceful. “Please,” he whispered.
No other word could have reached Aramael.
No other word could have stopped him cold.
He stared at the Seraph. Saw for the first time the agony etched into the lines there. The anguish. Slow understanding unfurled in him. The One’s intent hadn’t been to let Mittron live; it had been to let him live like this. With the same torment that he had caused so many. Inescapable, awful torment.
Her Judgment had been so much more than Aramael had assumed.
More, and infinitely worse than death could ever be.
He shook his head. “No.”
Mittron’s eyes shot open. Panic warred with madness in their amber depths. He scrabbled at the hand locked around his throat. “You must. I should die for what I’ve done. I need to die.”
“Which is why I won’t kill you. You don’t deserve to die for what you’ve done, Seraph. You deserve to suffer. I can do no worse to you than what our Creator has done, and I’m damned if I’ll do better.”
He released his hold. The Seraph dropped to the ground, sagged to his knees. He reached to pluck at Aramael’s leg.
“By all that is merciful, Archangel—”
Aramael backhanded the Seraph across the cheek, snapping Mittron’s head to the side. The wrecked, wretched angel toppled and lay weeping on the filthy pavement. Aramael stared down at him.
“I have no mercy for you, Mittron,” he said.
Turning his back on that which Heaven itself had already discarded, he found Alex still standing where she’d been when he blocked Mittron’s attack. Her sky-blue eyes stood out against the pale of her skin. Shocked. Wary. Appalled. He studied her, marveling at the strength that held her upright, that had let her become embroiled in a war between angels.
“Are you all right?” he asked. A dozen tiny cuts marred her face, seeping crimson. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. In battle, my wings—”