Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (27 page)

“Make sure you’re standing somewhere they can’t see you,” he told Henderson. “Then look around at where you are and notice the details. All of them. The buildings, names, cracks on the sidewalk, everything you can. Hold the images in your mind and stay focused—good. I have it. We’ll be there in a second.”

Michael snapped the phone shut and handed it to her. “This may be unpleasant,” he said, “but it’s the fastest way.”

“What…?” Alex’s words died on her lips as Michael’s wings unfolded behind his back. Pitch-black, with almost twice the span of Aramael’s, they were at once breathtaking and humbling, magnificent and terrifying.

And they were moving forward as if to ensnare her.

Alex stumbled back, but Michael caught hold of the hand she put up in defense, using it to pull her toward him. She landed against his chest with a force that knocked the wind from her lungs. Before she could catch her breath to protest, his arms wrapped around her, holding her tight against him.

His wings followed, closing over her head and enveloping her in a cocoon of feathers. Then Michael’s body turned molten, becoming a liquid heat that poured through her, changed her, became her…And the entire world fell away in a rush of vibration. An absence of anything she had ever known. Ever been.

Alex had barely registered her lack of self when she stumbled at the sudden feel of pavement beneath her again. She felt herself thrust upright, the protection of angelic wings torn from her, their loss brutal. Ice crystallized in her veins.

Henderson stared at her as if she were an apparition, reaching to steady her when she stumbled against him. “Christ, Jarvis,” he muttered, his pallor assuring her he had seen everything. Including Michael’s wings. “What the hell was that?”

Alex opened her mouth to respond, but her voice seemed not to have followed her to where she stood now. Pressing her lips together, she shook her head.

“Where?” Michael demanded of Henderson.

“The other side of the street, about a half block down. By the bench.”

Michael looked in the direction indicated and inhaled sharply. He went still for a moment, then drew tall, seeming to increase in size. A scowl darkened his face.

“Lucifer,” he spat. His powerful wings unfurling behind him again, he shot Alex a steely look. “Stay here.”

Alex shook off Henderson’s hands and the residual disorientation.
Lucifer?
That couldn’t be good. Through sheer force of will, she made her throat muscles respond again, albeit in more of a croak than actual speech. “I’m coming with you.”

A ferocious glare stopped her in her tracks. “I said stay.”

A shiver went through her. Not fear, exactly, but something very like it that made her want to give in to the command. She shoved the urge aside. Seth was out there and, judging by the look on Michael’s face, he would die unless she went to him.

He might die anyway, but she couldn’t think about that.

She caught hold of the Archangel’s sleeve. “That wasn’t our deal, Michael.”

“Michael?”
Henderson half choked behind her.

Alex ignored the other detective. Couldn’t have answered if she’d tried as Michael’s gaze lifted from her hand on his sleeve.

“Circumstances have changed, Naphil.”

Holding tight to her determination, Alex lifted her chin.
“We had an agreement. I get twenty-four hours before you make a decision.”

Hard fingers grasped her wrist and Michael jerked her into the shelter of the building at the edge of the lot. Taking her chin in his hand, he twisted until she looked down the street.

“Do you see him?” he snarled. “Do you see your precious Appointed? And the one standing with him?”

Alex found Seth first, his familiar figure standing tall and straight, his hands tucked into the pockets of the jeans she’d bought for him just yesterday. Then her gaze went to the man with him, taller even than Seth, blond hair shining under the streetlight above, making him seem almost luminescent.

She tried to nod, couldn’t against Michael’s grip. Whispered instead, “I see.”

“
That
,” Michael said, “is Lucifer. The one being we could not allow to gain access to the Appointed. His presence changes everything, Naphil, and it makes any agreement between us null and void. Do you understand?”

Alex stared at the luminous man down the block and her heart shriveled in her chest. Lucifer. Seth’s father and would-be destroyer of all humankind. She could only imagine what poison he had fed Seth, how he had tainted their one chance at preventing the coming war.

Taking her silence as compliance, Michael released her. “Good,” he said. “Now stay.”

Wings half-open, he stepped out of the lot and stalked toward the duo beside the bench. Alex’s gaze shifted to Seth.

Seth, whose identity and destiny had been stolen from him by a traitor. Seth, who had saved her life and shown her such gentleness, such compassion. Who stood now, arms crossed and body half-turned from the father he should never have known, oblivious to the approach of one sent by his own mother to—

Alex stiffened. Stared.

Seth, who displayed the body language of one who
rejected both what he heard and the person from whom he heard it.

“The
Archangel
Michael?” Henderson croaked behind her.

Alex didn’t answer.

She was too busy chasing the Archangel in question.

L
ucifer heard the rustle of feathers in the same instant he felt the Heavenly presence—both too late. He knew it even before he whirled and found the Archangel, black wings spread wide, not two dozen strides away. More than close enough to have already seen him.

Shock tightened his throat. Swift fury, self-directed, followed. How could he have been so careless? He’d known they would be watching over the Appointed, damaged as Seth was—damn it to Heaven, he’d been the one to warn Samael of the risks. Had told his aide to keep away from Seth, not to do anything to jeopardize their plans…and now he himself had ruined everything. Bloody Heaven, how stupid could he be?

Forfeiture.

After all this time, all this effort, the mortals were going to survive. Even if he refused to withdraw from their realm as promised, they would survive. Because no matter how many his followers managed to take out before Heaven stopped them, they would never eliminate them all. There were just too many.

Sickness filled him. Not even the Nephilim could help. The angels would know of the infants by now and, with the agreement broken, would do everything in their power to keep the Fallen away. The army he had created would remain untrained. Impotent.

Useless.

“Who is that?” Seth asked at his shoulder.

Lucifer grimaced. “A messenger,” he said. “For me. Wait here.”

He walked to meet the Archangel, a small start of surprise kicking through his veins as he moved close enough to recognize him. Mika’el? Since when had he returned to the One’s side?

“You have broken your agreement with the Creator,” the Archangel announced when Lucifer reached him.

Lucifer let his gaze travel over Heaven’s warrior with a deliberateness that made Mika’el stiffen and gave Lucifer time to hide his own bitter turmoil.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the prodigal son.”

Mika’el scowled. “You will hand the Appointed over to me.”

“Seth is free to go wherever he likes,” Lucifer said with a shrug. “I have no hold over him.”

“You have tainted him.”

“I educated him.”

The Archangel’s scowl deepened. “Interference contravenes the terms of—”

A small whirlwind of human flesh burst past the black wings and planted its feet wide on the pavement between them, back to Lucifer, facing Mika’el. Lucifer stared at the creature, tasting its presence and then raising an eyebrow. Nephilim blood. Faint, but still in its veins.

“You gave your word,” it snarled at the Archangel.

Lucifer’s other eyebrow shot up. Not just any Naphil, but one with an apparent death wish. He waited to see how the Archangel would respond.

Mika’el glared at the Naphil, fury blazing from his eyes. “I told you to wait.”

“And I told you I’d help you find Seth only if you didn’t harm him,” the creature snapped back. “You gave me twenty-four hours. You
agreed
.”

Lucifer’s brows snapped together. Harm Seth? He reached out to shove the creature aside, but Seth beat him to it, stepping into the fray and taking the creature’s arm.

“Alex? What are you doing here?”

Seth looked down at the creature with concern, his grip on it gentle as he drew it aside, and understanding dawned in Lucifer. So this was the mortal Seth had fallen in love with, the woman who stood in the way of him reaching his son. But what had she meant about harming Seth?

He stared over the woman’s head, meeting the Archangel’s guarded gaze. His watchfulness. Lucifer’s breath stilled.

She wouldn’t.

Mika’el’s expression hardened.

She couldn’t.

The Archangel glanced at the woman, fury flashing through his eyes. Fury and—despair? Betrayal slammed like the fist of Heaven itself into Lucifer’s gut.

She had.
After all her talk, all her holier-than-thou lecturing, the One had gone back on her word. Had breached their contract. Had forfeited the human race to him. Her mortal children, his to destroy at last. All of them, without Heavenly intervention.

Euphoria surged…and came up short against Mika’el’s flat, uncompromising gaze. Lucifer hesitated. That was not the look of defeat he’d expected.

“We need to talk,” Mika’el said. “Privately.”

Drawing his wings against his back, the Archangel stalked down the street. With a last glance at Seth—accompanied by a shudder of disgust at his son’s continued physical contact with the woman—Lucifer followed.

“Harm him?” he growled, the moment they were out of earshot. “The One sends you to kill the Appointed and you dare accuse
me
of interfering?”

“She didn’t send me to kill him. The decision was mine.”

“Semantics, Archangel, and you know it. You could not
do this without her knowledge and therefore her implicit consent. Whether you planned to kill him yourself or have the Power do it, you have still broken the agreement. According to the One’s own terms, I demand forfeiture.”

The Archangel said nothing. He stared back at Lucifer with a fierce, ugly hatred, his entire body as rigid as stone. Lucifer eyed him. Mika’el was strong. Stronger than the others. They had tangled before, and if it hadn’t been for the One’s interference, Lucifer may not have faced a simple exile to Hell.

But the One’s warrior didn’t move except to shake his head. “I’m afraid not, Light-Bearer. Whatever may or may not have been intended, the Appointed remains alive and well and neither the Power nor I have so much as spoken to him. On the other hand, I have witnessed
your
interference with my own eyes. The only one who has forfeited, therefore, is you.”

“Except you have no idea what passed between us and therefore you have no proof.” Lucifer gave Mika’el a tight smile, watching him struggle with the truth of his words. In the back of his mind, an idea began to form.

“Then we are at war.”

The satisfaction in the way Mika’el spoke the words sent a frisson of uneasiness down Lucifer’s spine. For six thousand years, the One had done everything in her power to maintain peace, and now her Archangel gave every impression of spoiling for a fight. Why? What had changed? What could have made war the most appealing alternative all of a sudden? He narrowed his eyes.

Without warning, his thoughts snaked back five thousand years, to the signing of the agreement. The only meeting with his Creator that he’d had since he had left her side, rife with the unspoken. Rife with secrets. He remembered what he had suspected, even then…

“You’re trying to protect her.”

If he hadn’t been watching so intently, he would have missed Mika’el’s flinch. But he was watching, and he saw, and then he knew.

Everything in him went cold. His blood, his heart, his soul, the tiny sphere that held his immortality. He’d gone around and around the idea a thousand times after signing the agreement, had very nearly driven himself mad wondering at its truth before finally dismissing it. It had been too unthinkable, too impossible.

And apparently real.

With a clinical distance, Lucifer’s mind flipped through the facts. The One, the all-powerful Creator, could not stop him without sacrificing herself. Mika’el would do anything to stop that from happening, even if it meant leading Heaven’s angels against their kin in another war. Because the Archangel could not destroy Lucifer himself, however, he would ultimately fail.

Which left only the question of when.

Not yet. Not until I’m done.

The idea that had begun forming gelled into com-pletion.

“There’s just one problem,” he said slowly. “The agreement still stands.”

Mika’el snorted. “And how do you figure that? You’ve just spent the last two hours or more corrupting the Appointed’s thinking in every way you can.”

“And you intended him harm. We both erred, Mika’el, and such errors can only have the effect of canceling out one another.”

“You’re insane if you think I’ll agree—”

“You have no choice,” Lucifer snapped. “Don’t you get it, Archangel? I know what she has to do to stop me, and if you push me into war before I’m ready, I’ll see to it she has no choice. You’ll lose her.”

The lines about his mouth white with tension, Mika’el stared at him. “You’re serious.”

“I’ve never been more so.”

“And what of the Nephilim army you build? I’m supposed to simply ignore that?”

“Again, you have no choice. Like it or not, the agreement stands. Strike a blow against me or any of my followers, and
you will be in contravention, at which point I will demand forfeiture.” Allowing a moment for his words to fully hit home, Lucifer stretched out his wings, ruffled the feathers into place, and folded them closed again. He smiled. “Now, shall we discuss terms?”

“L
et me get this straight.” Alex ended her pacing with a swivel toward the little group waiting for her: Seth, Henderson, Michael. “He wants to leave the agreement in place. Knowing you planned to—”