Page 60

Mira

Kerry took one look, fell to his knees, and pulled Lilas from my lap into his. Hinge hovered at his elbow, his bones clicking louder than usual as his agitation grew.

“What can we do?” I felt completely useless.

Rome crouched beside me and slid his arm over my shoulders. I reached up and grabbed his hand with both of mine.

“Should I call Josef?” he asked Kerry. “He could have a healer ’ported here, or close to here.”

“If St. Pat’s is warded, it means Valhalla is under attack.” Kerry’s scarred fingers stroked the little girl’s hair out of her face. “He’s in combat, and probably wouldn’t have a healer to spare even if he answered his phone.”

Then inspiration hit me.

“I’ll use the teleport bracelet!” I held up my wrist.

“If Gina bounced off St. Pat’s, you will, too. It’d be a waste of a charm.”

“We could take her somewhere else.”

“Where? The only way into the Sanctuary now is through an outpost.”

“Enough!” Hinge said. “I’ll use my power and heal her myself.”

“No,” Lilas gasped. “You’ll die.”

“That doesn’t matter.” He grabbed her hand. “That’s our only choice if we’re going to save you, and saving you is all that matters. Besides, I’m not tainted or corrupted. Death doesn’t scare me.”

“I don’t want you to do this, Hinge,” Kerry said, “but I’m outta ideas.”

“You’ll watch out for her, won’t you?” Purple lights blinked up at him.

“All the rest of my days.”

“Good enough.”

What happened next was both terrible and poignant, and nothing I ever want to witness again.

Hinge’s power left him in a slow drain of pearly white light and, as it trickled into Lilas, he fell apart.

I mean, he literally fell apart. One by one, from the toes up, his bones dropped with sad little clunks before crumbling to dust. By the time his rib cage collapsed, color had crept back into Lilas’ face and her eyes were no longer glazed over.

“Oh, Bertie.” Tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry.” He was little more than a skull and an arm now, and still he held her hand and tried to comfort her.

“But you’re dying!”

“I died two centuries ago. All the years since then, I wrestled with regret and the shame of going against God and nature. Now, I realize I was allowed to endure for one reason: so that I could be here at this moment to save you.”

He pressed his forehead against hers.

“I choose to do it gladly, too, for now I can go to my Maker with neither shame nor regret, and my final sight and thought will be precious ones.”

I knotted my fingers into Rome’s shirt, and his arm tightened around me as we watched Hinge’s fingers crumble one by one.

His hand went next, then his wrist, his arm, his shoulder.

Finally, only his skull remained. Kerry held it against the little girl’s cheek as the purple lights flickered in their dark eye sockets, then winked out for the last time.

“Lilassss…”

His jaw unhinged, his skull turned to powder, and Albert Grenville Chesterton laid down the burden of life.

#

Kerry

’Course it wasn’t that easy. Nothing ever is.

For one, the front door was gone. Granted, the apartment took up the whole floor, so there shouldn’t be any curious rubberneckers walking by, but a gaping hole in the wall was hardly secure.

For another, Hinge’s soul was floating around after his bones dissolved.

It’d be a few minutes before it formed up enough for us to find.

Unlike other dead nephilim, whose souls slept until the Second Coming, Hinge’s had been bound to his bones.

Now that they were gone, he had no anchor, and would need a little help.

For a third, there was an almighty mess we’d have to clean up. I didn’t wanna leave any of the dust that had been Hinge’s bones, since someone like a necromancer could use it to raise or bind him. I wasn’t sure if that would work without a body, but I didn’t wanna risk it.

Finally, there was Lilas. Mira led the girl into the other room to try to calm her down. She’d called Lilas inconsolable, which Rome told me meant nothing would comfort her. Being familiar with the feeling, I sympathized.

While Rome began to destroy all the bone dust, I turned my eyes “on” and watched a pearly cloud shimmer into being in the center of the room.

“He’s forming up.” I stared as the cloud began to take on details. “Good night, Hinge! What are you wearing?”

“What?” Hinge’s voice was far, far away. He’d need another minute or two. “I don’t know. What I died in, I guess.”

“You look like that sick kid in A Christmas Carol .” I snickered. “Tiny Tom or something.”

“Tiny Tim ,” said Rome, who was on his way over with a pyx. “Tiny Tim Cratchit.”

“Whatever. Hinge, I didn’t tell Lilas anything about this part. I’m pretty sure it woulda hurt her more than helped her.”

“Yes, she might like me hanging around for a while, but when I get eaten, she’ll lose her mind.”

“Nothing’s gonna eat you.” I rolled my eyes at Rome. “We’re gonna make you safe, then pass you off to an angel for a free ride home.”

“Sounds good. Let’s do it. Sooner, the better, right?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “I’m gonna miss you, you creepy lil monster.”

“I’ll miss you, too, Kerry.”

“That was very brave, Hinge,” Rome said.

“No, not brave.” He shook his head. “Selfish. How could I live with myself if she died because I didn’t save her?”

“Not self ish , then.” Rome smiled a little. “Self less .”

Suddenly, white light filled the room at the same time searing pain shot through my heart. Driven to my knees, I gasped as the taint tore up my chest with razor-claws.

My sight dimmed and a voice filled my mind, but the pain made it impossible to understand. I raised my head and through streaming eyes saw something I never, ever thought I would.

#

Rome

The malakim’s appearance shocked me, but it did something far worse to Kerry. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his middle, his whole body shuddering. Thank God it was only a malakim, one of the lower angels who guarded mortals. An archangel’s presence might have killed him.

And it’s a good thing he was in the hallway when the peris arrived earlier.

“Well done, Bertie.” The malakim’s voice was sweet as a song and soft as down. “I’ve come to take you home.”

“I don’t— I don’t understand.”

“Is it not written, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”?

The malakim’s attention was drawn away from Hinge when Kerry groaned and tipped onto his side.

I moved in front of Kerry and crossed my arms, sure to keep my face blank.

You could never predict what an angel of any class would do.

They were otherworldly in more than appearance, and not endowed with humanity.

I’d have to distract him—or take him down. A malakim was only about as powerful as a djinni, so it wasn’t an issue of could I. It was an issue of should I. It would not go unnoticed in the sight of Heaven, and relations between nephilim and angels were never better than tense.

Let’s try the distraction first.

“What drew your attention to Hin— Um, Bertie? Surely the gaze of the guardians is far too lofty for mere nephilim to catch one’s eye.”

“His mother prayed for his soul every day of her devout life.” The malakim’s passionless eyes settled on me.

“It is also written, ‘If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.’ For one so faithful, I vowed to fulfill her final wish, which was to save the soul of her son.”

“My mother?” Hinge’s voice was thick. “I can barely— No, I do. I remember. I remember her face. She prayed for me?”

The malakim returned his attention to the tousle-haired lad dressed in Victorian short pants and stockings, stiff linen shirt and high-heeled shoes.

“She did. Now you will reap the reward of her faith.”

Kerry writhed on the floor and, as much as we would all miss Hinge, I wanted the malakim to take him and go.

If only Mira were here! She was fearless and quick-thinking, and she would have instinctively known to drag Kerry away from the malakim’s interest. Unfortunately, she wasn’t, and the malakim was very interested, especially when Kerry tugged on my pant leg.

“That one.” He cut his eyes at me, then to Kerry. “Is he in need of mercy?”

I glanced down at Kerry. He tried to speak, but the pain reduced him to gesturing with one hand. What was he trying to tell me?

“Yes and no,” I answered the malakim. “Look deeper to the root of the taint.”

The malakim took a moment, but nodded.

“Ah. I see. A pity.”

Kerry whacked my calf hard and choked out, “Aspen.”

Oh. Right. Good idea.

“Malakim, we harrowed Hell and have a soul you can take along with Hinge. I mean, Bertie.” I reached into my back pocket for the pyx, then held it out. “Here. Aspen Abernathy. Her enthraller made her kill herself when she began to break his hold.”

“You found a righteous soul in Hell?” The malakim’s voice dripped with disbelief. “Nephilim, if you’re lying—”

“I have no reason to.” I looked down my nose at him. “I suggest you investigate things on your end of Heaven. It may be that one of your brethren is deceived.”

The malakim’s eyelids flew up and his nostrils flared as he snatched the pyx from my hand. Holy light blazed in a sudden halo around him, Kerry fell face down on the floor, and I called up my blades. The malakim would die before Kerry did, and to the Devil with the fallout.

But the light faded in a blink and with it went both Hinge and the malakim. I waited a minute, swords up and ready, but it seemed the Divine was done with us.

Good. That got rid of him.

I dissolved the blades and knelt next to Kerry. He was sweated wet and panting like a parched hound.

“You okay, buddy?”

“They … didn’t … even … say … goodbye.” Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, and I did him the courtesy of ignoring them.

I smiled. If he could make wisecracks, I figured he was all right. Then I remembered that Kerry Harker didn’t joke.

“I didn’t mean to make it sound like I harrowed Hell.

” I felt I owed him an apology for that.

“I didn’t want his attention drawn to you anymore than it already was, so I wasn’t going to point out that it was really you who—” “Doesn’t matter.

” He ground the heel of one hand into his chest. “ Son of a whore , that hurts!”

“I doubt there’s anything I can do.” I shoved a hand through my hair.

“I wish I could, and I wish I knew a way to free you of the taint. Did you know that the others have been researching it? Chance said Chessie told him that they’ve been looking into absolution and Sin Eaters, and he had to explain to her why neither of those would work. ”

“She’s a fool. They all are.” He shifted a little and a grimace twisted his face.

“They care about you,” I corrected, “enough to want to help you with something other nephs find revolting. You should treasure that. But, yes, they don’t understand possession taint is almost impossible to dissolve. I figure only a blessing will do it.”

“No archangel is ever gonna bless me .”

“You may be surprised one day. I know the taint blinds you to it, but your strength comes from an indomitable will. Not everyone has that within them, Kerry, and to find it in someone who had been possessed? That’s an amazing thing.”

He lay there, still and silent with his eyes closed, and worry bit me harder. Had the malakim done more harm than stir up the taint that the peris had already disturbed?

“Rome?” he muttered at last.

“Yeah?”

“I ain’t dying.” His eyes opened and met mine. “So stop the sentimental crap and help me up. We need to find out what’s going on and where the others are.”

Grinning, I held out my hand.

“Well, it looks like you boys survived just fine.”