Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (35 page)

“I think the all-powerful part is fairly accurate,” Alex replied. “But not so much the looking after us. Aramael wasn’t big on theological discussions when I asked, but my understanding is the whole free-will thing makes us pretty much responsible for ourselves. Heaven tries to maintain a status quo on our behalf because the Fallen Angels are trying to screw us over, but other than that we’re on our own.”

Riley’s reflection grimaced. “I’ve always believed that anyway,” she said. “But actually
knowing
it’s true? Somehow that’s just downright depressing.” She straightened abruptly. “You know, I don’t think I’m ready for this after all.”

“I know.” An unexpected surge of sympathy softened Alex’s voice. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. Or that it’s real.”

Riley gave her a sidelong look. “Trying to analyze the analyst, Detective?”

Alex chuckled, remembering the first time Riley had asked that question after picking her up at the airport four days—and a whole lifetime—ago. “Nah,” she said. “I think the analyst will do just fine on her own once she gets used to the idea.”

Riley fell silent for a moment, and then gave Alex’s shoulder a squeeze. “Get some rest. They’ll be coming in to sedate you as soon as the anesthesiologist arrives. I’ll stay in the hospital, so if you need anything, have them page me.”

“I’ll be—”

“Fine, I know,” Riley interrupted. “I get that you’re tough,
Alex, really I do. But at some point in our lives, we all need a little help. Make sure you’re strong enough to accept it.”

“C
ONGRATULATIONS
.”

Lucifer looked up at Samael’s dry voice and set aside his dog-eared copy of Dante’s
Inferno
, the single most amusing literary work to come out of the mortal realm, in his opinion. It had taken a while to get past the sheer arrogance of the idea he would ever welcome any sniveling human souls into his Hell, but since then he’d never tired of reading it. He particularly enjoyed the three-headed version of himself embedded waist-deep in ice, supposedly cast there by the One.

Stretching his feet out to the flames in the fireplace hearth, he lifted a glass from the side table and sipped at the ruby liquid within. “Are these felicitations for anything in particular, or am I supposed to guess?”

The former Archangel shrugged, advancing further into the sitting room. “More for everything in general. Your plan has unfolded with remarkable precision.”

Lucifer inclined his head. “It has been rather outstanding, hasn’t it? So where do we stand at the moment?”

“Seth has gone to ground in the same area in which you originally found him. The others are searching for him.”

“Are any of them close?”

“You know we cannot feel them—” Samael broke off, flinching. “Apologies, Lucifer. I did not mean to speak so sharply.”

Leaning back, Lucifer linked his fingers behind his head and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. He quite liked this new and improved post-beating version of Samael, still a military genius but without those annoying rough edges. He should have reminded his aide years before about who truly ruled Hell; he could have saved himself a great many headaches.

“Apology accepted. Go on.”

“We haven’t been able to track the angels, but I’ve set up a perimeter around the Appointed and will let you know as soon as any of them show up.”

“What about the woman?”

“The Naphil?” Samael shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Lucifer stared into the pale flames. “I’m not sure. It might. The Nephilim bloodline runs stronger in her than I would have expected at this point. It feels different from any others I’ve encountered.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She has to descend from one of the most powerful of angels for that to have happened, don’t you think?”

“From an Archangel, you mean?” Samael frowned, looking equal parts intrigued and disgusted. “You think
I
fathered her line?”

“You’re telling me you didn’t dabble?”

“Only once. It was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life and not one I cared to repeat. She was so insipid and fragile. The mating itself nearly killed her.” Samael grimaced. “You really think it possible the woman is of my line?”

“Anything is possible. The question is, does it work to our advantage?”

His aide’s expression cleared. “So that was why you took on the task yourself. She carries your child.”

“She does,” Lucifer agreed softly. “A child that would have been extraordinary regardless, but this…this could mean something more. Something greater. Think of it, Sam, my blood mingling with the line of an Archangel.” He selected a peppermint from a dish on the couch beside him. “I want to keep an eye on her as well. We’ll take the child as soon as it is born. I’ll want it raised separately from the others. How are those arrangements going, by the way?”

“We’re still working out the details. The mortal world is well connected these days. It makes hiding a large number of infants somewhat difficult.”

“I’m sure you’ll work something out, my friend. I have every faith in you.”

Samael inclined his head a final time and then withdrew. Lucifer heaved a sigh of contentment, leaned his head back on the couch, and closed his eyes. It had taken thousands of years more than he would have liked, but at last he would rid the universe of the One’s precious children.

Because with or without agreements or wars or any other unthinkable measures, the One could no longer hope to save the mortals.

S
eth slammed his fist into the side of a Dumpster, sending it skidding into a building with a crash that echoed down the alley and sent shards of brick raining down on the pavement. The blow did no good, released none of the pressure building inside him, took away none of the pain or betrayal.

How could she? He had trusted her. Loved her. Believed in her and what she told him about the goodness inherent in humanity. He gazed at his surroundings, at the overflowing piles of garbage, the human refuse, the utter desolation. How could he have believed
this
to be good? How could he have believed
her
to be good?

He longed to flee, to seek out some tiny seed of hope that might counter the growing ugliness at his center, but he didn’t dare. They would be looking for him, and this was the one place he knew he could hide, at least for a while. The one place where Guardians were tangibly absent and wouldn’t be able to signal his presence to the others. Wouldn’t be able to see the rage within him, the seething
hatred that threatened to overflow his center, or the anguish that drove him to walk the streets and alleys over and over again, in search of a solace he was beginning to think just didn’t exist.

Had never existed.

Seth sent another Dumpster screeching across the pavement in a shower of sparks. A figure scrambled out of the shadows and dropped into an aggressive stance, light glinting from something in his hand. For an instant, Seth tensed, thinking
they
had found him, but then the smell reached him. The thick odor of unwashed skin, old urine, and stale smoke combined with that of alcohol and vomit…and mortality. His lip curled.

Revulsion,
Lucifer’s voice whispered in his memory.
Disgust. Repugnance.

The man hawked and spat onto the pavement by Seth’s feet.

Seth lunged forward and, before the man could react, shoved him the way of the Dumpster. Hard. Almost hard enough to kill him…

Almost, but not quite. At the last instant, a thread of regret made him hesitate just enough to weaken his intent and make him catch back a part of his fury. Staring first at his hands, then at the crumpled figure a dozen feet away on the pavement, he wondered what Alex would say if she knew of this.

Hated himself for caring.

Slowly he crossed to the man’s side and stared down into pain-glazed, terrified eyes. Eyes that lived because Seth still valued the opinion of the woman who had betrayed him. Spurned him. Lied to him. Self-loathing swelled in his breast. They wanted him to choose whether all of humanity would live or die, and he couldn’t even get past the weakness of his own desire and decide for himself whether or not to take a single life.

Was he really so pathetic? So feeble?

The man on the ground scrabbled for the knife he’d
dropped. As filthy fingers closed over the handle, Seth placed his booted foot on the thin, scarred wrist and reached down to pluck the knife from limp fingers. He might not have any memory of who he was, but he had the truth of what he’d been told. The certainty, in the deepest parts of himself, that he was more than mortal. More than Alex. Whatever hold she had on him, he had to break free. Would
make
himself break free. And then—

He hauled the blubbering man upright.

Then he would choose.

For himself.

“W
HAT DO YOU
mean, postponed?” Alex stared at Dr. Warner, who stared in turn at the floor between them. It was 5:00 a.m. and he’d come into her room just in time to stop the nurse from administering the pre-op sedative. One look at his face had made Alex’s heart plummet.

“The anesthesiologist was involved in an accident on the way to the hospital. We’re trying to find an alternate right now, but we haven’t been able to reach anyone. I’m so sorry, I know how hard this must be—” Warner broke off and reached out to her, his brow knit with concern. “You’re not going to pass out, are you? Maybe you should lie down.”

Alex brushed off his hand and focused on drawing a breath into frozen lungs. On thinking beyond the
no, no, no, no
running on an endless loop through her brain. On not grabbing the obstetrician by the lab-lapels and snarling,
“Accident, my ass. Find someone and get this thing the fuck out of me—
now.
”

The coincidence of an accident was just too great, and not to be able to reach another anesthesiologist in a hospital of this size? No way. There had to be something more to this. Something like a Fallen Angel trying to stop her from aborting his child.

“There has to be another way.”

“I wish there was, but—”

“Alex.” Elizabeth Riley’s voice intruded from the doorway, edged with urgency.

Alex looked past Warner and met agitation in the usually calm gaze. “You’ve heard.”

Riley blinked. “You know?”

“Dr. Warner just told me.”

Confusion crossed Riley’s expression and a surge of alertness chased away Alex’s nausea.

“You’re not talking about the accident.”

The psychiatrist shook her head. “Hugh called. There’s a disturbance down in Downtown Eastside. He thinks it’s Seth.”

Alex had shot to her feet at Hugh’s name, pushed past Warner, and already had her street clothes in hand.

“What kind of disturbance?” she asked, motioning to Riley to close the door. Figuring she had nothing an obstetrician hadn’t seen before, she stripped off the hospital gown and, with a speed that came from years of responding to middle-of-the-night calls, was dressed again before Warner had even mustered a proper look of surprise.

“Hugh didn’t say,” Riley answered as Alex slid her feet into her running shoes and stooped to tie them. “Just that he’s on his way to pick you up. He said he’d pull into the Emergency bay.”

“Wait,” Warner objected. “You can’t leave, Detective. I need you to remain here to keep our priority for the OR. If we get bumped, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get you in again.”

Alex straightened. “There won’t be an
again
,” she said. “The accident wasn’t an accident, Doctor. It was a message from the Fallen—from the father.”

A dozen expressions flickered across Warner’s face, ranging from skepticism to unease to outright disbelief, culminating in a look that told Alex he once again questioned her sanity. He rocked onto the balls of his feet, hands in pockets, and
ahemm
ed softly. “What kind of message?”

“The kind that tells me no matter how long I wait here,
I’ll never be allowed to abort this baby.” Alex snagged her coat from a hook behind the door and met Riley’s gaze, not daring to think about the truth behind her words. Or the consequences. “I’m ready.”

Leaving Warner gaping after them, they traveled the corridors and elevators in silence. Not until they pushed through the doors into Emergency did Riley put a hand out to Alex, pulling her to a stop.

“What you said about not being allowed to abort just now. You really think that’s true?”

Outside the glass entrance, a sedan pulled to an abrupt halt, its dome light splashing red into the early-morning gloom. Henderson leaned across the seat to peer at the ER doors in search of her. Alex’s pulse, already accelerated, kicked up another notch. This was it. This was their last chance.

If Henderson could get her there in time.

She tugged at Riley’s grip. “I have to go.”

The psychiatrist’s fingers tightened. “You didn’t answer me.”

“I know it’s true.”

Riley exhaled in a hiss. “Alex, if you carry this pregnancy to its term…”

Alex pulled her hand free. That would be the part she really didn’t want to think about. “I know,” she said, “but I don’t think whoever’s behind this much cares.”

M
IKA’EL LOOKED AROUND
as his office door opened without warning and the Highest Seraph stepped inside.

“We have him,” said Verchiel. “I’ve summoned the others.”

“Has he…?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but it doesn’t look good. The human police have him cornered in an alley.”

The Appointed, cornered?
Mika’el’s heart pitched down to belt level.
Not unless he wanted to be.
Hell. “He’s looking for a confrontation.”

“That’s what I thought. We’re trying to get the Guardians to pull their charges away, but you know what mortals are like when they’re in a state of high alert like this.”

“Where is he?”

“The area where you found him with Lucifer.”

Mika’el grunted. “He stayed that close? No wonder we weren’t able to find him.” His mouth tightened. “This is it, then. All right, let’s get it over with.”

Verchiel put a hand out to stop him as he went to step past. “It’s not going to be that easy, Mika’el. Lucifer has sentries set up around him. He’ll know the minute you arrive.”