Forgiven (44 page)

‘Don’t know. Rosetti’s talking to Stewart right now, trying to work it out,’ he said, angling his head towards the pair at a far table. ‘The priest will tell me once they’ve done their business.’

Salvatore took a swig of his beer, then set his glass down with a pronounced thump. ‘About Justine,’ he began. ‘I know you two have been together.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘She told me. She likes to stir up trouble.’ Salvatore’s face furrowed in thought. ‘If I’d known you were headed her way, I would have warned you, man to man, you know.’

‘She wasn’t lyin’ when she said you two had a history?’

‘No, we were –’ Salvatore edited whatever he was going to say – ‘close a couple of years back. She nearly destroyed my career to get a scoop on a story. She’s beautiful, but she’s single-minded and doesn’t care who she hurts.’

‘I kinda noticed that.’

‘Are you two still . . .’ the hunter asked.

‘No. Like you, it didn’t end pretty.’ He told the hunter what Justine’s article might do to him. By the time he finished, the captain was noticeably upset.

‘I’ll see what I can do to head her off. She probably won’t listen, but I’ll try anyway.’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

Father Rosetti made his way over to their table, clearly well lubricated. He pulled a chair out and dropped into it. The pint glass in his hand was empty.

‘So what’s the verdict?’ Salvatore asked. ‘Is Riley staying here or coming back with us?’

‘She’s staying in Atlanta. Stewart will keep an eye on her. He promises to take care of any trouble that might arise. I pray to God there isn’t any.’

Beck heaved a sigh of relief.

‘This has been a rough one for all of us,’ Salvatore allowed. ‘I can’t say that I ever want to see another Fallen in my life.’

‘Amen to that. This wasn’t what I expected when I asked to come on this mission,’ Rosetti admitted. ‘I knew things were strange here, but . . .’ He shifted the empty glass a few inches. ‘If I make a mistake, a life is ruined. If I set one of Hell’s servants free, the world takes one step closer to eternal damnation. It’s a difficult call sometimes.’

Maybe this guy isn’t such a hardass after all.
‘You do have a crappy job,’ Beck observed.

‘I second that,’ Salvatore said, rising his pint in salute. ‘This whole mission got to you, didn’t it?’

‘Yes, it did,’ Rosetti said. ‘I was convinced Riley Blackthorne was working for Hell. She was, but she also served Heaven when the time came. She has Lucifer’s mark on her, yet she kept us from total war. How do I reconcile that? Is she good or evil?’

‘What did Rome say?’ Beck asked.

‘That she’s on the fence. I fear something happened between her and the Fallen, but I’m not sure exactly what. What did it cost her to free him?’

Beck didn’t want to know that answer. To change the subject, he pointed at the priest’s glass. ‘Seems yer beer is empty and so is mine. Another?’

‘Make it a pitcher,’ the captain suggested. ‘I’ve hunter tales to tell you. Some of the stuff we see . . . it’s unreal.’

Beck expected the priest to shut that down, but instead Rosetti nodded his approval. Get a few beers under the guy’s belt and he was pretty decent.

‘OK, then I’ll tell you some trapper ones. We’ll see who’s the best liar,’ Beck replied.

‘That would be me,’ the captain shot back. ‘But we’ll have the good father be the judge.’

‘You’re on, dude.’

Riley was up before dawn, unable to sleep. After carefully applying her make-up to cover the bruises and choosing exactly what she wanted to wear to visit Beck – she wanted her trapper guy to see her in something other than ripped and stained clothes – she headed to an unlikely place. This time Ori was calling her in a different way.

The sun was just beginning to rise when she reached the mausoleum. In the distance was the far-off rumble of thunder, hinting that today was going to be more wet than sunny. Kneeling in front of her parents’ graves, she uttered a brief prayer for her dad and her mom. Then she retrieved the chamois pouch from her pocket. Inside the pouch was the dirt she’d collected from her father’s grave after his body had been stolen. It was to remind her she couldn’t trust anyone.

But I
can
trust people.
Ayden, Mort, Stewart, Beck and Peter. They’d all come through for her. She upended the bag and let the soil fall back to earth because it no longer held any meaning for her.

Riley opened the double doors and retrieved the red rose the angel had given her. It took only a little hunting to find the spot where Ori had fallen to earth – his brilliant blue blood still caked the leaves. She inhaled the rose’s scent one last time, then placed it where he’d last been. Plucking a single petal, she tucked it into the pouch for remembrance of their night together. Then she selected one of the smaller blue-stained leaves and put it in with the rose petal.

If she prayed that Ori survive and it came true, she’d have a horrific debt to pay for eternity. If he was dead, his loss would be with her until her last breath.

‘I’ll live with whatever happens,’ she whispered.

Because sometimes it was best not to fight your fate.

A short time later, Riley left the graveyard behind. Another task called her as urgently as this one: it was time to hear the truth about her father’s sacrifice.

Riley sat next to Mortimer on the stone bench in his garden, her backpack on the ground between her feet.

She’d hoped he’d launch into the explanation about her father and why he’d taken Ozy’s place in the circle, but the summoner didn’t take the bait.

‘Tell me all of it, Mort. No more secrets.’

In lieu of a reply, the summoner rose and walked to the fountain where he bent forward to let the water trickle over his fingers. It seemed to relax him.

‘I’ll tell you what I know and what I think happened.’ He flicked the water away. ‘Lord Ozymandias had been summoning demons to gain hidden knowledge. He made a mistake with one of his spells and Sartael took advantage of it, manifesting instead of an Archdemon. The archangel gave him a choice – he did what Sartael asked or he would be carted to Hell and tortured for eternity.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Ozymandias told me.’

‘What? When?’ she demanded.

‘His lordship was on my doorstep last night at dusk,’ Mort said. ‘He acted as if he hadn’t attacked my house or stolen your father.’

Or helped Sartael push the world to the brink of war.

‘Did he apologize?’

‘Of course not,’ Mort replied, ‘but he insisted on telling me his story. He claimed it was so I might not make the same mistakes as I grew in power. I think it was more to assuage his conscience.’

‘I don’t think he has one,’ Riley retorted.

‘Perhaps he does now.’ Mort straightened up, brushing his wet fingers against his trousers. ‘He seemed . . . humbled. He said that Sartael instructed him how to alter the demons and with each additional spell layer he incorporated Ozymandias knew this was heading to a bad end. When your father died, he tried to summon him, hoping that a master trapper might know how to break his servitude to a Fallen angel.’

It all fell in place. ‘But Lucifer had summoned my dad first. He knew what Sartael was up to.’

‘Indeed. When your father disappeared, Ozymandias panicked. He knew that Sartael was intent on destroying the city, if not the world, so he stole your father from me. Which is why Paul came to me in the first place.’

‘Because you were no match for Ozy?’

‘Yes. Your father offered his lordship a way out: if Ozymandias did exactly as Lucifer required, he would walk away unscathed.’

‘While my dad got disintegrated,’ Riley retorted. ‘That sucks.’

‘It was Paul’s choice to serve as a conduit to defuse the spell,’ Mort explained. ‘He knew it would destroy him, but he felt it was the best way to pay off his debt to the trappers and to Lucifer.’

Riley felt the aching tug of loss once more. ‘He looked so peaceful, like it wasn’t hurting him or anything. Is that possible?’

‘He wasn’t in pain. I’m guessing Ozymandias made sure of that,’ Mort said gently.

Not all of this had come from the Dark Lord. That left only two possible sources and since Lucifer wouldn’t drop by for tea . . .

‘When did Dad tell you about this?’

Mort’s eyebrows rose in admiration. ‘Your father was fairly incoherent until right before I left for the graveyard. Then he shook off Ozymandias’s spell like it was nothing. I was stunned. I think he had Lucifer’s help with that.’

The necromancer returned to the bench, settling in next to her. ‘Paul told me what he knew and what role I had to play. His biggest concern was that you were kept safe.’

Once again Heaven and Hell had played them like master puppeteers.

‘If Ayden hadn’t repelled the spell when it rebounded, we would have died,’ she pointed out.

‘I mentioned that to Ozymandias, but he said that he’d carefully adjusted the rebound to exactly how much we could handle.’

‘That’s bull,’ she said. ‘No one can judge magic that carefully. It’s not that precise.’

Mort studied her with renewed interest. ‘I see you learned a few things during your apprenticeship.’

‘What? I . . .’ He was offering her a compliment. ‘I’m happy being a trapper.’

‘For the moment. Bear in mind that you have the ability to wrangle magic as well as you do demons.’

Not going there.
‘Why didn’t my dad tell me what he was going to do?’

‘He didn’t want you to worry. You know how he was about you.’ Mort extracted her demon claw pendant from his pocket. ‘It was inside the book of spells. It didn’t touch the ground, which is why it’s still in one piece.’

Riley took it from him, supremely pleased it had survived. A silver ring hung on the chain, one with a distinctive pattern of ovals cut into the metal. She’d know it anywhere. It was her father’s wedding ring.

‘Paul gave it to me before the battle,’ the summoner explained. ‘He knew it wouldn’t survive the spell’s destruction.’

Dad thought of everything.
Riley touched it fondly. ‘Mom’s still wearing hers. We could have got money for it, but it didn’t seem right.’ She pulled the pendant over her head, tucking it under her shirt. The demon claw felt cold against her skin, but the ring was warm, like one of her father’s embraces.

The ring and the note were all she had left of Paul Blackthorne. No, that wasn’t quite right: Her heart still held all those sweet memories of their years together. No matter what, those were immortal, beyond the reach of any demon or angel.

Despite his head-splitting hangover, Beck found himself in a good mood. Things were finally falling into place: the Vatican wasn’t going to mess with Riley as long as Stewart kept an eye on her, and they were doing a really fine job of squashing rumours about exactly what had gone down in the cemetery. The Holy Water was the real deal again, the undead demons were ash and Paul was out of Lucifer’s clutches.

He still had the trip to South Georgia to face, along with Sadie’s death. That’d be hard, but once he’d done right by her, given her a good funeral and cleaned out the old house, he could turn his back on Sadlersville and his past. He could start planning for the future and determine exactly where Paul’s daughter fitted in all that.