Chapter 84
Alex jolted back to consciousness with a gasp. She lay without moving for an instant, trying to get her bearings. Then, just in time, she rolled clear of the many booted feet trampling near her head. The clang of metal on metal reverberated, mixing with shouts and grunts of pain, coming from what seemed to be every side. Instinctively, she sought cover as her brain scrabbled for a frame of reference, trying to piece together where she was, what was happening. Cool softness pressed against her cheek. She put out a hand—then recoiled when her fingers found the long, limp curve of a wing.
Remembrance flooded back.
Aramael. Dying. Seth. Murderer. Michael. Here.
Horror churned together with agony and emerged in a harsh gag.
Aramael was dying.
A rough hand hauled her to her feet. She struck out blindly, viciously, her training and experience forgotten in a vortex of pure terror. Her black-armor-clad captor shook her.
“Knock it off, Naphil. I’m trying to help,” the female Archangel growled. With no hint of effort, she hoisted Aramael’s body upright with her other hand and towed both it and Alex unceremoniously through the fray. Surges of sparking blue power battered them, but the Archangel seemed oblivious, intent on her destination, shoving their heads down as a black wing, edged with razor-sharp feathers, whistled past.
By the time they reached the washroom corridor at the back of the office—the only area that had so far escaped devastation—Alex bled from at least ten wing-inflicted wounds and felt as if she’d gone twice that many rounds in a fight ring. The Archangel thrust her into the ladies’ room and dumped Aramael on the cold tile floor.
Alex dropped onto her knees beside him, one hand searching for a pulse at the side of his throat, the other trying again to stem the trickle of blood from his chest. The blade of a sword came between them.
“Take it,” the Archangel said. “You might need it.”
Alex recoiled from the blood-spattered blade. “What do I look like, a goddamn ninja?” She tugged her sidearm from its holster, ignoring how it trembled in her grip. “I have my own weapon.”
“That”—the Archangel plucked the gun from her and tossed it aside—“will have about as much effect against one of us as a peashooter against an incoming comet.”
She shoved the sword into Alex’s hand and forcibly curled her fingers around it. “This is Aramael’s blade. It needs to be wielded by an Archangel to kill, but it contains enough power on its own to hold off a Fallen One until we can get to you. Stay here. If anything other than one of us comes through that door”—she pointed—“swing first. Then scream. Clear?”
Alex stared at the broadsword in her hand, its steel glinting dully. Aramael’s blade, because Aramael can’t use it himself. She tried to release it, but the Archangel’s grip was unyielding. A shriek of agony rose above the clashes and clangs of battle, then cut off abruptly. The Archangel seized Alex’s chin and forced it up. Sapphire blue eyes glared at her.
“Take it,” she snarled. “Aramael protected you with his life. You owe him nothing less.”
Alex shrank from the words. Another hand, warm and familiar, closed over her fingers. Aramael, alive and awake.
“Do as Gabriel says,” he whispered. “Take the sword.”
Meeting his pain-clouded gaze, Alex swallowed, nodded. She let her fingers curl over the hilt. Seeming satisfied, her rescuer whirled in a metallic whisper of feathers and, her own sword in hand, leapt for the door. The clashes and clangs of battle grew louder and then muted again as the door swung closed on its hydraulic hinge. Alex stared down at the figure on the floor, nested against his own black wings, deathly pale and unmoving. His eyes—his magnificent, fierce, stormy gray eyes—closed once more.
Grief clawed at her chest, fighting for release. She clamped her teeth against it. With her free hand, she brushed back the hair from his forehead.
Don’t you dare lose it, Jarvis. Aramael didn’t save your life so you could play wilting violet. You’re going to get out of here—Michael and the others will make sure of it—and Aramael will live, and then you’re going to find Nina . . .
Find her and hold her and watch her die.
God.
Clang. Crash. Scream.
Christ.
The cut on her arm gave a twinge, and she glanced down. The other cuts she’d sustained had been superficial, but that one had looked—
Gone?
The air wheezed from her lungs. She took her hand from Aramael’s forehead and swiped at the drying blood. Licked her fingers. Scrubbed harder. Stared. Not so much as a scar remained. Aramael hadn’t saved her after all. Seth had done it anyway. He’d made her immortal. She couldn’t die. She was going to live forever.
Horror swirled in her chest, slammed into her belly, rose again in her gorge.
Still clutching the sword, she lunged toward a sink.
Chapter 85
Alex braced one hand against the smooth porcelain sink and used the other to carry cold water to her face, her throat, the nape of her neck. Nausea still churned, but the retching had finally stopped—although that could simply have been because there was nothing left to purge. She eyed her wan, dripping reflection. While the physical shaking had also ended, her insides continued to vibrate at a pitch that would have shattered her if she’d been made of crystal.
She looked at the forearm supporting her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to wash the blood from it—or from any of the other injury sites. It was as if, on some visceral level, she needed to retain evidence of her wounds. The only evidence she had of what she’d become. What Seth had made her. Her mind veered away from the idea, and she splashed another handful of water over her neck. Beyond the washroom door, the sounds of sword fighting continued.
Swords. With all the power these beings possessed, who would have imagined they’d resort to swords for battle? She looked at the blade she had propped against the wall by the sink. Simple, unadorned, crafted for nothing more than service. She turned off the tap and tore a length of rough brown paper towel from the dispenser to dry herself. Tossing the paper into the garbage, she turned to check on Aramael.
Outside and across the hall, a door thudded shut.
She stared at the washroom door just a few feet away. Was the fight over? No—she could still hear the clang of metal on metal. Then who—
The door cracked open, and Seth stepped inside. Hysteria bubbled up in her chest as he stared at the prone Aramael. She shoved it ruthlessly back down, swallowing against it. Seth looked up and smiled at her.
“There you are,” he said. “I thought they might have taken you away.”
His matter-of-factness hit her like a bucket of ice water, erasing the vestiges of panic, replacing it with a vast, disorienting disbelief. After all he’d done, he behaved as if none of it had happened at all. As if none of it mattered. Was he really that unfeeling? Had she made that monumental a mistake in saving him from Michael and the others in Vancouver?
She shifted to block the sword from his view. “What do you want?”
He raised an eyebrow. “A little gratitude for the gift, to begin with.”
“Gift?” She choked out a laugh. “I’ve lost everything I ever loved, everything I ever cared for, and now I get to live forever? How in hell is that a gift?”
“You haven’t lost everything, only the distractions.” He put out a hand to brush the hair from her face. “You still have me, remember? It’s what we always wanted.”