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R oman punched in the code on the keypad, making sure that the door leading down to the dungeon was securely locked. The two demons could wait till tomorrow. He was too tired and exhausted to question them.

He sighed, causing his ribs to ache. His thoughts moved to Charlotte, whom he’d ordered to have taken to his room. He would take no more chances with her safety. He’d watch over her himself from now on.

Roman thought of Charlotte waiting for him in his bedroom. The image of her beautiful form lying on his bed had heat bursting throughout his body. He liked the idea of her in his room, his desire screaming out for him to join her, but as usual, business came first.

He headed toward the other room where the fallen were waiting, sitting around the table. The angels who’d tried to help take down the Archdemon looked worse for wear, while the others didn’t have a scratch on them.

Roman took his seat at the table.

“Well, that was a bit of a shit show, wasn’t it,” Lucian complained as he took a sip of his rum and Coke. The side of his face was a blue and purple mess.

“The Archdemon’s strength is superior to ours. We’re lucky there was only one of them. Five of us could barely hold him down,” Maalik said, looking at the angels who were unharmed.

“Why was he there?” Phoenix asked, leaning back in his chair. “Not once in all these millennia has an Archdemon ever shown themselves. We didn’t even know they existed until recently. Don’t you think it’s odd that he was there?”

Phoenix was right. Roman couldn’t help but feel as if the demons had known they were coming.

“I agree with Phoenix. It means something that the demon was there. Many people knew about this mission, and we called in a lot of help to find Charlotte,” Maalik said, staring into his whiskey, his face bruised as he kept rubbing his chest.

I feel your pain, brother , Roman thought, rubbing his ribs again.

“Listen to yourselves,” Turel piped up from across the table, his brown shoulder-length dreadlocks bobbing as he tilted his head to the side, his amber eyes watching everyone closely. “You are seriously thinking someone betrayed us? I think you’ve all gone mad.” He laughed.

Roman took a sip of his whiskey as a few of the others argued their point with Turel, who seemingly wouldn’t have it that someone tipped off the demons. What caught Roman’s interest was the way Ariel, the red-haired beauty, sat there as still as a statue, her green eyes staring intensely at Turel, who seemed oblivious to her.

Something’s not right , he thought, watching Turel, the angel’s arrogance annoying him.

“Where were you back at the warehouse, Turel?” Roman asked, the room falling silent.

Turel stared at Roman, a small smile playing on his face. “I spent most of my time outside killing demons and taking out the surveillance cameras so there would be no evidence left for the humans.” His eyes never wavered from Roman’s stare. “Look, I’m sorry you guys got your asses kicked by the Archdemon. Next time, I swear, I will be front and center, getting my ass kicked just like the rest of you,” he answered with a shrug.

“I’m going to hold you to that, brother,” Roman told him in a calm voice.

The others playfully teased Turel, throwing insults his way and joking that he had been too scared to come into the warehouse. All the while, Ariel’s gaze never left Turel.

Something is off here. Roman felt unsettled. The whole warehouse situation had been a disaster, except, of course, getting Charlotte back.

“Ariel,” Roman interrupted the others.

Ariel whipped her head around, startled. “Why don’t you fill everyone in on what happened while you were all in Rome?”

A bruised face accompanied Ariel’s tired appearance. The black singlet she wore bared her shoulders and arms, which were covered in bruises and cuts. She constantly rubbed the center of her chest. The stab wound must be giving her grief.

“Demons have infiltrated the Vatican,” she told them.

“What? You’re kidding, right? The Order would never let that happen. No one has ever gotten into the Vatican,” Phoenix said, sounds of disbelief coming from the other angels as well.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. They slaughtered over half the cardinals and at least a dozen soldiers of The Order. The only thing they’ve found missing is an ancient scroll.”

Roman frowned. “A scroll?”

He looked around the table, noticing Armaros was missing. Maalik and Phoenix had taken him to his room as soon as they’d arrived.

He must still be out cold. His old friend was another thing for him to be concerned about. Sabriel and Marius were missing, too. Marius had taken Sabriel to her room to help her with her wounds. Ariel would no doubt fill them in later.

“They have thousands of ancient scrolls and artifacts under protection there, and all they took was just the one. They are sure?” He thought it odd nothing else was missing.

Ariel nodded.

“But why a scroll?” Maalik wondered aloud.

“It’s one of the oldest, written in ancient Sumerian,” Ramiel answered.

In his pursuit to speak to the Almighty, Ramiel had dedicated most of his time on Earth studying all known religions. He’d spent hundreds of years living in the Himalayas with mystical monks who thought he was a god. He’d traveled the world, studying every ancient text he could get his hands on. At one stage, he spent years studying everything in the Vatican’s vault. What the humans would allow him to see, that is. If anyone had a chance of knowing what was on that scroll, it was Ramiel.

“What I want to know is how the hell did these demons get into the impenetrable Vatican?” Phoenix asked, glancing around the table. “You can’t tell me no one thinks it’s crazy that these demons got in?”

“They have been trying for hundreds of years. They must have finally figured it out,” Turel said, taking a swig of his beer.

Ariel leaned forward, resting her battered arms on the smooth black table. “They had help.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her in disbelief.

“There’s no other way. Someone showed them how to get in. There are secret tunnels, which we all know about. That’s how they got in. But what shocked me was that someone deliberately disabled the security to the door, granting them access to enter the building and the vault door leading to the library with the artifacts, which we all know is hidden and heavily guarded.”

“This is unbelievable. What the hell was on that scroll?” Lucian asked.

“It’s a prophecy. A powerful spell. It has instructions on how to perform the ritual Lucifer needs to get out of Hell.”

Roman slammed his fist on the table. “The Vatican had this knowledge the whole time and never once thought to tell us there was a way he could get out? You, Ramiel. Surely, you read this all those years ago. Yet you told us nothing?”

Ramiel’s face went cold, the tattoos covering his skull standing out under the light of the room, his dark brown eyes narrowing. “You really think that of me, Roman? You all know goddamn well that there’s a whole secret chamber locked up tight. They never allowed me access to it. No matter how much I asked. This scroll was obviously from there. If I’d ever come across anything even hinting he could get free, I would have told you straight away. Hell, I would have stolen the damn thing myself.”

Roman felt guilty that he’d even insinuated Ramiel would do such a thing. Out of all the angels, he’d been the only one to stay true to their faith. The rest of the angels lived mostly a life of sin if one followed The Bible. Mind, the mortals did not know the so-called Bible they followed was utter rubbish. Over the centuries, people copied and rewrote it so many times that most of it was an exaggerated fabrication. The Vatican had been furious when they discovered Ramiel had the original book, which was written long before the human version existed, and despite the pope’s decades of begging, Ramiel refused to give it to the churches. Ramiel had chosen to stay true to the Almighty for all these years. There was just no way he could be the one who’d betrayed them all.

Roman shook his head. “No, of course not. Forgive me, Ramiel. This talk of betrayal has made me uneasy.”

“The humans don’t trust us. You know this, Roman. They never have, not since the chaos we caused so long ago,” Ariel told him calmly.

“Look, I spoke with the cardinal who takes care of everything in the vault. He told me what was on the scroll. Lucifer needs a prophet who has the blood of an angel in their veins. He must kill them at one of the gates leading to Hell. He requires a powerful witch to help open the seals. After spilling the blood and draining the life force of the prophet, he will be able to pass through… Everything will be able to pass through,” Ramiel said.

Silence swallowed the room. Roman knew what most of them were thinking.

What should they do about Charlotte?

“Is she a prophet? Does she have visions of the future?” Maalik asked with a frown.

Roman stared into his whiskey, wondering why everything always had to be so fucking hard. “Yes… she has visions.”

“And you never thought to share that information with the rest of us?” Maalik glared at him.

“I wasn’t sure what was going on. I witnessed her have a nightmare in her cell when we first brought her here. The injuries she sustained while asleep followed her through to this plane. She said she was being chased by demons. I thought little of it until I spoke to Armaros. He has been having the same visions, or more, appearing in hers. He said it has been happening for years, since she was younger. That he’d been protecting her and keeping watch over her. Until they both saw each other back when we rescued her the first time, they both thought the other didn’t exist and that they’d just been having normal dreams. Then, all this happened, and I kind of got a bit preoccupied with current events,” he said, feeling guilty.

“We can’t kill her now,” Lucian said quietly.

“We never were,” Roman snapped.

“If she is a prophet, we should keep her. They are rare. She could help us,” Lucian added, ignoring Roman’s outburst.

“What does it mean when the prophecy says the blood of an angel in her veins? Is that implying one of us at one stage had a child?” Grigori asked, eating a cold slice of pizza.

“We would know, surely. I thought all the Nephilim had been wiped out during the witch wars. They made it their business to make sure we didn’t reproduce.” Cael frowned, looking at everyone, scratching his beard. His sun-bleached blond hair hung loose just above his shoulders, and his storm-gray eyes flickered around the table, watching everyone closely.

He had heavily tattooed his arms, hands, and body. His neck, hidden under his beard, bore elaborate mandala tattoos that continued down under his shirt. His ribs and stomach had a menacing giant skull head, which looked eerily real. When he had his shirt off, he looked like he was the bringer of death.

Cael was one of the rare few fallen who chose not to live in the mansion, like Sabriel. He had a condo over in Malibu on the beach. He was an adrenaline junkie and addicted to surfing. When not doing some kind of extreme sport, he was being a playboy and jet-setting off to other countries. His favorite place was Queensland, in Australia. He would disappear for months and be hard to get in contact with. Once, Roman had asked why the infatuation with the place, and his simple reply was: It’s peaceful.

“There are other groups of angels as well as many rogue fallen around the world who chose to disappear and blend in. Many of them could have families, children, an entire line of descendants, and we wouldn’t even know about it,” Ariel said quietly.

“Ariel’s right. There could easily be Nephilim. Not everyone has been as careful as we have,” said Roman.

When they had first fallen and rampaged, causing chaos around the world, there had been… accidents. The mating between angels and mortals had created Nephilim, a half-angel and half-human breed. They quickly learned these babies had enormous powers, unpredictable ones at that. The witches moved through the planet, eradicating every baby that an angel made, escalating the hatred and the war between the two species.

Dark times, indeed. Roman inwardly shivered at the horrible memories.

“I agree. We all know it’s not a descendant of one of us, and as far as we know, the other fallen angel clans have lived by the same strict rules as we do, so I doubt it would be any of them. It’s obviously from a rogue angel. It would be impossible to even track the angel down. If they were active in Charlotte’s life or knew of her existence, they would have come to her aid by now, surely,” Roman said, taking another sip of his whiskey, ready to retreat to his room… to Charlotte.

“Maybe there is a way for Armaros to track her bloodline? Maybe the witches could help him,” Lucian said, sitting back in his chair, yawning.

“Once Armaros is awake, we should at least ask if he could do it. Now that we know her role in this, we should try to find out more about her past,” Grigori suggested, reaching for his fourth slice of pizza.

Roman nodded, agreeing with them.

“I think we can also all agree, now that we know what Charlotte is, killing her isn’t an option. We can’t let Lucifer get hold of her, either. Our first responsibility is to the people on this Earth and the heavens. If he gets out, that’s the end of days. He will slaughter everyone, and once he wipes out all living beings here, he will turn to the heavens and try to take the Almighty’s throne. We can’t let that happen,” Maalik told them.

The other fallen nodded in agreement.

“We can agree something is off with what happened at the Vatican. It would be in everyone’s best interest if, from here on out, we let no one know of our plans for the future. We shouldn’t let anyone know about Charlotte or that she is here, either,” Maalik added.

Most of the angels voiced their agreement, others simply nodded.

“I don’t trust anyone else with her safety. She stays with us for the moment. I will see to her safety personally; we don’t want her going missing again,” Roman said, glaring at Grigori, who was still stuffing his face. Roman rolled his eyes at the angel. “And with that said, I’m going to bed. That demon kicked my ass.” He rose from the table, throwing the last of his whiskey down his throat, nodding to his brethren, then left the room.