The Darkest Night (12 page)

Since obviously that wasn’t him.

* * *

Fane parked the Porsche across the street from the gleaming glass and steel office building he thought he’d never see again. He turned to Bella. “Here’s the plan—”

Reflected lights from the building glinted in her glasses, dimmer and distorted. “We go inside sphericanum headquarters, introduce ourselves as an ex-warden and an imp, and get our heads chopped off.”

He narrowed his eyes. “This is why I’ll make the plans, thank you.”

“The sphericanum isn’t going to help us. You are a rebel now, as far as they are concerned, and I am anathema, or worse. I don’t even know what’s worse than that.” She hunkered down in her seat, and the fluffy ruff of her coat puffed up around her nose, muffling her voice. “I’ve seen them shred tenebrae until there isn’t even dust left to float away on the wind.”

He wanted to reach for her, to soothe her fears. Instead, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The sphericanum has tricks we could use.”

“We don’t need them that badly.”

“You don’t place bombs before Christmas because you’re going to be on vacation until after New Year’s. Thorne will act sooner, not later.” He stared up at the towering angelic command building. “Ending the djinn threat is a purpose that rises above sphere prejudice.”

“There is no
above
the sphere,” she reminded him. “There is only under. Preferably six feet under, as far as they’re concerned. And their prejudice is
always
extreme prejudice. Hence the head chopping.”

“If I can make them see reason—”

“Because zeal and reason go so well together. Like a bottle of Everclear and a blow torch.”

He scowled. “You could give the Grinch lessons in gloom.”

She’d taken out one of the glass baubles they’d bought at the Christkindlmarket when he’d first suggested their stop at the sphericanum headquarters, and now she clutched the little red and gold sphere like she wanted to crawl inside it herself. “I’m most likely going to be attacked by demons and sucked back into the tenebraeternum on the anniversary of my birth death. I really didn’t want to speed up the process by walking into heaven central.”

“It’s better if you wait here anyway.”

He slammed out of the car, but when he crossed the street she was only half a step behind him.

The front door was not guarded, although the security punch pad was an upscale model protected from the weather by a cover designed to look like a gate with a pearly finish. Somebody in the building had a sense of humor, but Fane had never met him or her.

He aimed his finger at the intercom button, then tried his code instead. The door lock clicked open.

Bella settled back on her heels. “Huh. Trusting.”

“Or trap.”

She sighed.

After the whimsy of the pearly gate, the lobby inside was uninspired Class A corporate. Fane marched them past the potted palms decorated with silver tinsel to the elevator.

As the door opened, Bella hesitated.

Fane took out his keys. “You can wait in the car.”

She took the keys, running her fingertip over the ridges. He swallowed back the unexpected surge of disappointment that she was going to leave.

“Danke,” she said, but then she walked into the elevator.

He followed and held out his hands for the keys. “I don’t want a blind girl driving my Porsche.”

“Don’t be so sexist.”

He entered his security code again and stabbed the top-floor button. “It’s not the sex part I have trouble with.”

She stared up at the ascending numbers. “So I noticed.”

He sputtered, but she hiked up the hem of her parka and tucked the keys into the front pocket of her tight jeans. Clearly he wasn’t getting those keys back unless he wanted to wrestle her down and rummage around in her pants. The thought had a certain charm, but was not recommended protocol in the elevator of an angelic stronghold. The speedy elevator arrived at their destination before he could come up with another plan.

So much for being the one with the plans.

The elevator doors opened and they faced five angelic wardens, all clad in white and barefoot, like something from a Christmas postcard.

All with weapons drawn.

Chapter 11

Bella pushed her glasses higher on her nose—a thin disguise, those two brittle panes of glass—and let out a shuddering breath. Maybe her last one if the wardens’ massed surge of righteous fury was any indication.

Fane braced his hand in the closing elevator door. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so careless as to leave my code active.”

The warden in the middle angled a shepherd’s crook across his chest. To the imp, the crook blazed, molten streams of etheric energy spiraling upward like ghostly fire. “We would not have thought you would be so stupid as to use it.”

She heard herself say, “I suppose you both learned a lesson.”

Wow, she so did not need that focused golden fuming—Fane included—upon her. She stepped past Fane’s arm toward the wardens. If she was going to die, she might as well get it over with.

But the wardens retreated a step, except for the middle one. That was fine; she wasn’t here for the VIP tour. She tilted her head toward Fane. “Back to your plan.”

“Plan?” In contrast to his crook, the warden’s tone dripped ice.

“To retrieve my sword,” Fane said as he stepped into the room.

His slightly haughty emphasis on the last word made Bella wonder if the wardens’ compared the size of their…weapons. Maybe a skinny pole with a hook on the end just wasn’t considered as sexy as a long, thick sword. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Like the enmity wasn’t thick enough.

But the warden didn’t seem annoyed, or at least no more annoyed than he’d been already. If anything, a note of glee lightened his voice when he said, “Your abraxas is irretrievably ruined. Even if you take it back from the djinn-man, its influence is forever poisoned.”

Bella didn’t need to see the flare of gold in Fane’s eyes to sense his rage. “If Thorne’s power has altered the sword, I will change it back.”

The warden at one end of the line shook her head, her voice every bit as uncompromising, if less delighted. “The flaws will be permanent and impossible to absolve.”

Bella coughed under her breath. So much for the forgiveness of sins. Maybe that only applied to animate objects. Of course, the wardens seemed unwilling to offer any absolution to Fane either.

She couldn’t imagine—didn’t
want
to imagine—what they would do to her.

Fane seemed to recognize the nowhere-fast nature of the conversation. “Regardless,” he said. “Retrieving the abraxas from Thorne’s possession will weaken him. That is in all our interests.”

“But mostly yours,” the male warden said snidely. “It matters little to us what weapons the tenebrae wield against us. We will fight on.”

Fane gave an exasperated sigh. “But wouldn’t it be better to just win one?”

“Corvus tried to end the war once and for all,” the warden drawled. “And look where that got him.”

Bella blinked in surprise at the tacit confession the sphericanum wasn’t interested in ending anything. Corvus had wanted to bring the battle to a head, to force heaven and hell to at last confront each other without the intervening avatars of djinn-men, wardens and talyan. It had been almost noble; demented and doomed, not to mention devastating to the earthly realm, but strangely, sadly noble.

Not that she’d say as much aloud. No need to reveal her demonic origins so blatantly.

Fane crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Then consider your possible elevation through the spheres should we take out one of the most insidious djinn-men to emerge in centuries.”

The warden hesitated, and Bella wondered how he didn’t recognize temptation when it was right in front of him.

Of course, he didn’t recognize an imp when it was right in front of him either. But Bella wasn’t going to blame him for that; which made her more virtuous than a warden, apparently.

However, the female warden was shifting uncomfortably. Or maybe one of the glowing gold arrows in the quiver on her back was poking her in the ass. “We cannot consort with an exile.”

Bella took another step up. “He doesn’t need a consort, thanks anyway, but maybe you can work with me.”

Again she quavered under the weight of those stares, but if they were going to make this happen… She dragged out the little glass ball she’d carried up in her pocket and balanced it in the center of her palm. “We need to capture and confine tenebrae emanations, and reversing the charge of the wards the sphericanum uses, we think we can—”

With the curve of his crook, the male warden slapped her hand.

The glass ball flew from her grasp and bounced once on the carpet but did not break. Bella gasped and reached down, but the warden smashed his bare foot down on the bauble.

Red glass and blood flared in the imp’s vision.

“Whatever sphere secrets the traitor has revealed must go with you to your grave, woman,” the warden said harshly. “Which will be sooner rather than later if you speak of this.”

“Sooner even than that, probably,” Bella muttered. She knelt to retrieve the broken ornament.

“In that case—” The warden raised his crook.

Fane punched him. One shot, right past the crook and straight to the stern, square jaw.

The warden went over backward, white robe flapping.

The female warden jumped to one side, an arrow instantly cocked in her bow, and the other wardens were bristling with their weapons a half-second later.

Fane shook out his hand. “We don’t use our abraxas against the innocent.”

“There are no innocents in the war between good and evil,” the female warden reminded him. “Everyone takes a side.”

“Not everyone,” Fane said. He did not look over his shoulder, but Bella felt the intent aimed at her anyway.

The female warden rumbled angrily in her throat. “The ambivalent should be the first to die.”

Bella picked the bloody shards of the ornament out of the carpet. “No doubt you’ll get your wish.” She rose as the male warden sat up, groaning. “Let’s get out of here.”

Fane nodded brusquely and recalled the elevator.

The female warden cocked her bow another notch tighter. “Don’t come back here again, Fane. Once was stupid. Twice will be suicide. And you wouldn’t want that stain on your soul, would you?”

He didn’t reply, just faced the elevator doors until they opened and strode in.

Bella kept a wary eye on the golden glow of the enraged angels, but they made no further moves.

She and Fane descended in silence. She wondered if the descent felt more metaphorical to him, once again kicked out of his celestial standing. She cleared her throat. “That went well.”

He stared at the dropping numbers. “We still have our heads.”

“And angelic blood spoor. The divine essence can be used to bless artifacts used against the tenebrae. The reliquary I have at my apartment supposedly has a saint’s knucklebone, but I’m pretty sure it’s a pig’s tail bone. Unless the saint cracked his knuckles a lot.”

“You’re babbling.”

“I do that when I’m grateful to be alive.”

The elevator door opened and they marched across the lobby, which was filled with wardens in white who parted slower than the Red Sea to let them pass.

Bella shivered at the threat of those golden glares—some mere sparks, some bright enough to scorch—and moved closer to Fane, but no one tried to stop them. Too bad, in a way. Certainly she’d be safe from the tenebrae here in sphericanum central.

Fane reached for the front door, but it opened before he touched it. An angelic possessed dressed in white overalls waved them out, grumbling, “They told me I have to replace the entire keypad.”

“Sucks to be you,” Bella said.

The lesser ward jerked his thumb toward Fane. “Not as much as it sucks to be him.”

Fane ignored the other angelic possessed as he stalked past. He held his flattened palm out to Bella.

She put the broken ornament in his hand. “You’re upset. I’ll drive.”

He glowered, first at the glass, then at her. “I’ll be upset
if
you drive.”

“Which will be a nice distraction for you. I’m so thoughtful that way.” She pointed the fob at the Porsche and the headlights flashed a silvery halogen welcome through spits of icy rain.

She shivered again. Already the night threatened. Shadows seemed to decant from the low clouds, dripping down the sides of the tall buildings and spreading across the pavement toward her boots.

She opened the passenger door and then whisked around the front of the car.

Fane slapped his palms down on the roof. “I’m serious.”

“So I’ve noticed. And I’m driving.” She slid into the driver’s seat and ran her hands over the controls, familiarizing herself with the touch of fine leather and chrome. Still, Fane didn’t plunk himself down into the passenger seat until she actually started up the engine with a somewhat unnecessary roar.

He dumped the bloody glass shards into the center console coin holder. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter if I die.”

“That’s the spirit.” She peeled smoothly away from the curb.

His fingers clenched the arm rest. “You didn’t even check your blindspot.”

She looked at him. “Do you hear how silly you just sounded? I’m blind-ish, remember?”

He slumped lower yet. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

“Were you mighty?”

His hand spasmed again on the arm rest between them. For him, she realized, talking about his loss was more terrifying than handing over his keys.

“Not almighty,” he said at last. “But mighty enough.”

“And now?”

“Mighty pissed. They want to banish me, fine, but to refuse a chance to confront Thorne? Why else are we here?”

“I think their problem was not the confrontation but the company.”

He snorted. “Shouldn’t matter.”

“Because the company you keep doesn’t matter to you?” She kept her eyes forward, not sure what she wanted him to say. Did she want him to care about the company he kept? But then, if an angel-man had any sort of judgment, he wouldn’t be with a demon…