Uriel's Descent (Ubiquity #1) (17 page)

Ronnie drummed her finger on the right mouse button as she sifted through the queue.
Dud, dud, dud.
What a surprise. Most of these didn’t even remotely look like they might be cherubs. Or maybe she wasn’t interested in finding them anymore. What gave her the right to take their lives from them?

The air shifted around her, and she flinched at the familiarity of it. Her eyes were drawn toward Michael’s office just in time to see the blinds flip shut. Lucifer.

“You know talking to him doesn’t really work for us these days.”

Ronnie gritted her teeth, hating to agree. But why was he talking to Michael? What happened to her and Michael doing this together?

“The whole of life doesn’t revolve around you. They had jobs before you, and they’ll continue to after. I should know.”

Ronnie slouched in her seat and forced her attention back to her work. Stupid, reasonable voice. Besides, she trusted Michael—at least as far as his not colluding with Lucifer to make her life worse.

“Nice qualifier.”

She had other things to worry about anyway. For instance, Ari still wasn’t at work. It was Tuesday, so she’d only been gone for two days. But the weekend felt like an eternity ago. Then there was that whole
angels don’t get sick
thing. If she was out on assignment, she would have shown up to retrieve the information, and she wasn’t on vacation, so where was she?

“She tried to steal my soul. Why do you care?”

She tried to help Ronnie. Now who was being egocentric and overreacting?

“Fuck you, too.”

Some of Ronnie’s tension evaporated when Lucifer’s power vanished from the office. The relief nudged a sadness inside she couldn’t quite place. It was true, Lucifer was good to her, but heavy disappointment filled her because they were barely on speaking terms. Why should it matter?

“None of your business.”

Great, more feelings that weren’t Ronnie’s.

A few minutes later, her email chimed with a message from Michael.
Have to look into something. Meet me later this evening?
She was pleased he seemed serious about what he said this morning, but at the same time, she was concerned about how much of her reaction to him was her own. His confidence there ran far deeper than hers.

It would give her time to check on Ari as soon as Ronnie was off the clock. Which, as the minutes continued to drag away in slow ticks of the clock, took forever. The moment the display clicked from 4:59 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., she logged off and grabbed her purse before transporting herself to Ari’s front landing.

Ronnie knocked. And waited. Was she not home? Maybe she
was
on assignment, and Ronnie didn’t know it. She should have called. As she was turning away, the door creaked.

Ari poked her head out. Her normally almost spring-loaded curls hung limply around her face, dark shadows circled her eyes, and her aura was barely visible. A tiny smile forced some color into her cheeks when her gaze met Ronnie’s, and she opened the door wider. Her voice was quiet. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

“Worrying about you.” Ronnie stepped into small apartment. The studio looked a lot like hers: minimal furniture, tiny not-quite kitchen. But the closet was stuffed to spilling over with a rainbow of clothing, and she knew from past experience, at least half the contents of the fridge was butterscotch pudding.

Ari snorted. “After Saturday? You should be leaving me to rot. Did you see how furious Gabriel was?”

“Which I don’t get. You were just doing what I asked you to.”

More of the shadows faded from around Ari’s eyes. “You’re too sweet to be from hell.”

Ronnie didn’t know what to say to that. She did know what should lighten the mood, though. “We should go to dinner. Someplace nice. Blow any extra cash we have for the week.”

“Maybe we could just walk.”

That didn’t sound right. “Or we could go for coffee, if you’re worried about the money.”

“I don’t have ti—”

The shrillness in her voice caught Ronnie off guard.

Ari clenched her jaw. It took her a few seconds before her expression softened. “I don’t want good coffee to go to waste. I’ll explain, I promise. Let’s just walk.”

“I’d like to go on record as saying I don’t like this. I’d like to, but I know you won’t listen, so, meh.”

Ronnie attached the thought to her own misgivings. But she couldn’t find a source for the uneasiness sliding through her. Besides, she missed Ari. “A walk sounds good.”

Ari slipped on the pair of flip-flops by the door, and seconds later, they meandered down the sidewalk. Curiosity and concern grew under Ronnie’s skin when the silence stretched on.

“I don’t have a lot of time left. As in, I could be sent back to heaven at any minute.”

When Ari finally spoke, Ronnie jumped and stumbled on an invisible crack in the sidewalk as she processed the words. Despite the warmth of the afternoon sun, a sliver of cold trailed through Ronnie. “Why?”

“Did Gabe offer you a job?”

“Ooh, random. Her tangents and mood swings are almost crazier than those of someone who hears a voice in their head.”

Whatever. Ronnie was curious about the direction of the conversation. “He did, but he was a little vague on the details, and I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a barista.”

Ari’s barked laugh echoed off the nearby buildings. “Really? You’re too naïve for your own good.”

That was the second time she said something like that, and it didn’t sound like a compliment. “So…fill me in?”

“He’s not just running a coffee shop.” Ari kicked a pebble and sent it scurrying down the sidewalk half a block. “And that job was supposed to be mine. But he won’t return my calls, he’s never in when I stop by, and now, today, I find out I don’t work for Ubiquity anymore either. It’s back to ethereal form for me. And all because—” She snapped her mouth shut. “Never mind.”

“What happened?” They turned down another street and into a small park. The sun was bright, the temperature was perfect, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Yet, the entire place was empty. So strange.

Ari dropped onto a nearby bench. “I’m jumping all over the place. I’m sorry. I’ll back up a little. Ubiquity doesn’t do all of their own software development. They outsource a lot of their programming.”

Ronnie stayed on the sidewalk in front of Ari, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Like, overseas? How’s that work?”

“No. Like to a different building down the street. That’s what Gabriel does. He heads up these contract developers. In addition, he’s got a very small group of us—sorry, them, I’m not one after all—who seek out the challenges. There are the cherubs the regular Ubiquity staff goes after—the newbies who don’t know how to hide themselves, who give in to every temptation out there. And then there are those like the guy in Israel.”

How did Ari know about him? This encounter sent nervous energy coursing all the way into Ronnie’s fingernails. She was talking to her best friend, her confidant. So where did this doubt come from?

And Ari was implying this other team of Gabriel’s had better algorithms than Ubiquity did. Why weren’t those universal? “I’m still missing something.”

Her laugh made Ronnie’s blood run cold. “You’re still missing so much, I’m surprised it doesn’t make you dizzy. The top performers at Ubiquity? We get the good leads. The hard to spot ones. Think of it like auditioning or proving yourself for a promotion. If we can handle them, we get to move on. Or they do.”

Something triggered in the back of Ronnie’s thoughts, and she grasped it. “You said hard to spot ones. Like… the one in Gabe’s coffee shop? Why don’t you capture all of them?”

“Why didn’t you take the priest in Israel?”

“How do you know about that?” Ronnie knew she didn’t tell Ari about him.

“Gabe asked me to pass him to you. To see what you would do. Your unwitting trial run became another nail in my coffin. Why did you leave him behind?”

“Look at her aura. It was nearly dead when you showed up, and now it’s almost neon. I don’t think a random rabbi is the biggest concern we have.”

Ronnie hadn’t noticed, but now that Metatron pointed it out, it seemed strange. “Because he was already doing more than any angel ever could. Sending him back to heaven or hell wouldn’t help anyone.”

Ari smirked and stood. “Exactly. You, for instance, you don’t deserve what you’ve got. I don’t know where you took it from, or how you don’t know, but you shouldn’t have it.”

Ronnie’s uneasiness scaled from wary to full-blown what-the-fuck in under a second.

Ari’s aura flared. “They found out I kept a cherub and took it away. That’s why they’re sending me back. But if I had whatever it is you’ve got, whatever it is you won’t even touch that makes originals flock to you like you’re the only demon ever to inhabit a female body, they couldn’t take me away from this plane.”

“I’ll kill you where you stand.”

The roar screamed through Ronnie’s skull, but instead of feeling like foreign ribbons, this was familiar and safe. “It’s not yours.”

“It should be.” Ari spun in a blur, foot sweeping to the side, kicking Ronnie’s legs from beneath her and knocking her to the ground. Ari straddled her, one hand on Ronnie’s upper arm, and the other resting on her neck.

Ronnie struggled against the weight on her chest. The edges of her vision flickered and dimmed, sliding into black. Being strangled wouldn’t kill her, but it wouldn’t be pleasant either. She needed to shift to her ethereal form, so Ari couldn’t incapacitate her physical one.

“We need to destroy her.”

“Don’t you dare.” Ari’s sneer cut through Ronnie’s fading consciousness before she could phase away her flesh.

A new level of pain rocked through Ronnie’s body as if every inch of her was being torn in different directions simultaneously. It dragged back the unpleasant memories of the spear in Gabe’s basement.

“It’s funny you showed up today. I was trying to figure out how to get you to talk to me again without looking suspicious, and you didn’t even know enough to realize you should be upset with me. You never realized I meant to take this from you at the club.” Ari’s taunt swam through the agony. “We’re not doing things the easy way this time.”

“No. No we’re not.”

Ronnie agreed one-hundred and ten percent. An itch rolled through her palms, and before the realization fully formed, she knew what it was. She didn’t want the swords yet but soon. She closed her eyes and focused inward, driving past the pain to grab hold of the inky ribbons she so frequently tried to get rid of.

This time, Ronnie slid into them instead. Diving into the power the same way she would if she were touching Gabriel. As she opened her eyes to the world, a snarl escaped her throat. She rolled from underneath Ari, knocking her back.

Ari stumbled but landed on her feet, moving into a defensive posture in a flash—hands up, legs spaced for stability. “You won’t keep this from me.”

She aimed a kick at Ronnie’s head. Ronnie ducked and rolled. She didn’t know any of this fighting stuff, she wasn’t even sure how she was doing it, but she was. It was as if she’d been fighting for centuries.

“It feels good to let loose after so long.”

Ronnie didn’t know or care who the thought belonged to. This time, she didn’t stop the blades from appearing in her hands—a long one in the right and a dagger-length one in her left. Different from Metatron’s in the chapel and far more comfortable.

Ari narrowed her eyes. “You can’t do that. No one but an original can.”

“I’m a special little snowflake.” Ronnie advanced slowly, Ari taking a step back for each step she took forward, until Ari’s back was to a nearby tree. This was her best friend. The one person Ronnie shared everything with. Now Ari wanted to kill her for something inside her head she didn’t even understand. Betrayal and fury throbbed in Ronnie. There really wasn’t anyone she could trust.

“Except Michael.”

“Maybe.”

Ronnie raised the tip of her blade to Ari’s throat. As far as Ronnie knew, she didn’t have the power to kill her, but she could send her back to heaven early.

“You could do to her what her boyfriend did to us.”

Gabriel. Ronnie was heading there next. Spoon feeding her power and convincing her it was lust—or more? He was definitely next. Fury poured through her, and she reveled in it. Vengeance tasted better than she thought it would.

Orange glowed in Ari’s hands, and before Ronnie could react, a ball of flame slammed into her chest and sent her stumbling back. Ari smirked. “We don’t use swords anymore, because projectiles are far more effective.”

Ronnie found her footing and adopted a defensive posture. “Or because you don’t have the focus to summon a real weapon.”

Ari snorted. “You sound like you were trained eons ago. You need to get that fucker out of your head and hand it over to me before you start believing you and it are the same.”

“Too late.”

Ronnie ignored the taunts and lunged again. Irritation and rage filled her. Lying, sadistic, pretending-to-be-her-friend-to-steal-from-her bitch. Time to fix that.