Silence hh-3, page 31
part #3 of Hush, Hush Series
I nodded numbly. “I saw you tell the archangel. I saw everything. You used Gabe, Jeremiah, and Dominic to clear the warehouse and get her alone.”
“Yes.”
“Did Gabe find Hank and force him to swear fealty?”
“No. He would have, but I got to Hank first. I wasn’t completely up-front with Gabe. I let him think I’d give him Hank, but I had Dabria waiting outside the warehouse. The moment Hank surfaced, she grabbed him. When I came back here and found you gone, I thought he’d gotten to you. I called Dabria and hauled Hank here to interrogate him. I’m sorry about Dabria,” he apologized. “I took her with me because I don’t care what happens to her. She’s disposable. You’re not.”
“I’m not mad,” I said. Dabria was the least of my worries. I had a much bigger concern hammering inside me. “Did the archangels vote? What’s going to happen to Hank?”
“Before they voted, they wanted to talk to me. Given everything that’s happened, they don’t trust me. I told them if they’d let me kill Hank, they wouldn’t have to worry about devilcraft anymore. I also reminded them that if Hank dies, you’ll become the leader of his Nephilim army. I promised them you’d stop the war.”
“Whatever it takes,” I said, nodding impatiently. “I want Hank gone. Was the vote unanimous?”
“They want this mess behind them. They’ve given me the green light on Hank. We have until sunrise.” It was then that I noticed the handgun on the floor beside his leg.
He said, “I promised I wouldn’t take this moment from you, and if that’s still what you want, then I’ll close my argument on the subject forever. But I can’t let you walk into this blindly. Hank’s death will stay with you forever. You can’t take it back, and you’ll never forget it. I’ll kill him, Nora. I’ll do it if you’ll let me. The option is there. It’s your choice to make, and I’ll stand beside you either way, but I want you prepared.”
I didn’t flinch. I picked up the gun. “I want to see him. I want to look in his eyes and see his regret when he realizes where his choices have left him.”
Only the briefest moment passed before Patch accepted my decision with a nod. He led me into the secret corridor. The only light flickered from the mounted torches. The flames illuminated the first several feet down the corridor, but after that, I could see nothing through the suffocating blackness.
I followed Patch deeper and deeper, the corridor gently leading us downhill. At last a door appeared. Patch tugged on the iron ring pull, and the door swung toward us.
Inside, Hank was ready. He lunged for Patch. Manacles brought him up short, catching his fists midair. With a chuckle that sounded too insane for my liking, he said, “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll get away with this.” His eyes gleamed with equal parts approval and hatred.
“Like you thought you could fool the archangels?” came Patch’s level response.
Hank’s eyes narrowed warily. His gaze fell on the gun in my hand, registering it for the first time. “What’s this?” he asked in truly chilling tones.
I raised the gun, aiming it at Hank. I took satisfaction in watching his face cloud with confusion, then hostility. “Would someone tell me what’s going on?” he snapped.
“Your time is up,” Patch told him.
“We’ve made our own agreement with the archangels,” I said.
“What agreement?” Hank snarled, rage seething from every word.
I narrowed my aim to his chest. “You’re not immortal anymore, Hank. Death came knocking after all.”
He gave a short, incredulous laugh, but the fearful glint in his eyes told me he believed me.
“I wonder what it will be like for you in the next life,” I murmured. “I wonder if, right now, you’re second-guessing the life you’ve built. I wonder if you’re rethinking every decision, and trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Do you remember the countless people you used and hurt? Do you remember each of their names? Do you see my mom’s face? I hope so. I hope her face haunts you. Eternity is a long time, Hank.”
Hank beat against the chains so violently, I thought they would snap.
“I want you to remember my name,” I told Hank. “I want you to remember that I did for you what you should have done for me. Showed a little mercy.”
His wild, vindictive expression was suddenly etched with guarded speculation. He was a clever man, but I wasn’t sure he’d guessed my intentions just yet.
“I’m not going to lead your Nephilim uprising,” I told him, “because you’re not going to die. In fact, you’re going to live quite a bit longer. Granted, you won’t be living at the Ritz. Unless Patch intends to upgrade this chamber.” I raised my eyebrows at Patch, asking him to weigh in.
What are you doing, Angel? he murmured to my thoughts.
To my amazement, my ability to speak to his mind came naturally. An instinctive switch flipped in my brain, and I channeled my words by sheer mental power. I’m not going to kill him. And you aren’t either, so don’t get any ideas.
And the archangels? We had a deal.
This isn’t right. His death shouldn’t be our call. I thought this was what I wanted, but you were right. If I kill him, I’ll never forget. I’ll carry him with me forever, and that’s not what I want. I want to move on. I’m making the right decision. And though I kept it to myself, I knew the archangels were using us to do their dirty work. I for one had had enough of getting my hands dirty.
To my surprise, Patch didn’t argue. He faced Hank. “I prefer it cold, dark, and cramped. And I’ll soundproof it. That way, no matter how loud or long you holler, you’ll only have your own misery to keep you company.”
Thank you, I told Patch, putting all my sincerity behind my words.
A wicked smile crept to his mouth. Death was too good for him. More fun this way.
If the mood hadn’t been so grave, I might have laughed.
“This is what you get for believing Dabria,” I told Hank. “She’s not a prophetess; she’s a psychopath. Live and learn.”
I gave Hank the opportunity for any final words, but as I expected, he was speechless. I’d hoped, at the very least, for a fumbled attempt at an apology, but I hadn’t set my heart on it. Instead Hank’s final exchange came in the form of a strange, faint smile of anticipation. The effect unnerved me slightly, but I supposed that was what he intended.
A hush filled the small cell. The tension crackling the air ebbed away. Banishing all thought of Hank, I became acutely aware of Patch standing behind me. There was a distinct change in the air, shifting from uncertainty to relief.
Exhaustion drained through me. Its first casualty were my hands, which started to shake. My knees also trembled, then my legs. The draining sensation swept through me like a dizzy spell. The walls of the cell, the stale air, even Hank seemed to spin away. The only thing keeping me grounded was Patch.
Without warning, I flung myself into his arms. He pressed me back against the wall with the force of his kiss. A shudder of relief rippled through him, and I sank my fingers into his shirt, dragging him against me, needing him close in a way I never had before. His mouth pressed and tasted mine. There was nothing expert about the way he kissed now; in the cool darkness of the cell, hot urgency bound us together.
“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured into my ear.
I was about to agree, when I saw fire out of the corner of my eye. At fist I thought one of the torches had fallen from a bracket. But the flame danced in Hank’s hand, a mesmerizing, unearthly blue glow. It took me a moment to understand what my eyes were seeing but refused to believe.
Realization dawned one piece at a time. Hank juggled a ball of sizzling blue fire in one hand and Patch’s black feather in the other. Two vastly different objects; one light, one dark. Moving inextricably closer together. A thread of smoke coiled up from the tip of the feather.
There wasn’t time to shout a warning. There wasn’t time at all.
In that thinnest of moments, I raised the gun. I squeezed the trigger.
The shot flung Hank back against the wall, arms outstretched, mouth open in surprise.
He never moved again.
CHAPTER 33
PATCH DIDN’T BOTHER DIGGING A GRAVE FOR THE body. It was dark, an hour or two before sunrise, and he dragged it to the coast, just beyond Delphic’s gates, and with a nudge of his boot, rolled it off the cliffs and into the raging waves below.
“What will happen to him?” I asked, huddling into Patch for warmth. The icy winds ripped at my clothes, painting a layer of frost over my skin, but the real chill came from within, cutting bone deep.
“The tide will drag him out, and the sharks will have an easy meal.”
I shook my head to signify he’d misunderstood. “What will happen to his soul?” I couldn’t help but wonder if the things I’d said to Hank were true. Would he suffer every moment for the rest of time? I shook aside any remorse I felt. I hadn’t wanted to kill Hank, but in the end, he’d left me no choice.
Patch stayed silent, but I didn’t miss that he held me tighter, closing his arms protectively around me. He ran his hands briskly over my arms. “You’re freezing. Let me take you back to my place.”
I held my ground. “What happens now?” I whispered. “I killed Hank. I have to lead his men, but what will I do with them?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Patch said. “We’ll come up with a plan, and I’ll be by your side until we see it through.”
“Do you really believe it will be that easy?”
Patch made a short sound of amusement. “If I wanted easy, I’d chain myself in hell beside Rixon. The two of us could kick back and soak up the rays together.”
I gazed down at the waves, dashing themselves to pieces against the rocks. “When you made the deal with the archangels, weren’t they worried you’d talk? This can’t look good for them. All you’d have to do is spread rumors that devilcraft can be harnessed, and you’d incite a black-market feeding frenzy among Nephilim and fallen angels.”
“I swore an oath not to talk. That was part of the deal.”
“Could you have asked for anything in exchange for your silence?” I asked quietly.
Patch tensed, and I sensed he’d guessed the direction of my thoughts. “Does it matter?” he said blandly.
It did. Now that Hank was dead, the haze shrouding my memory was burning off like clouds under the sun. I couldn’t remember entire reels of memories, but pictures were there. Flashes and glimpses that grew stronger by the minute. Hank’s power, and control over me, was dying alongside him, leaving me wide open to remember everything Patch and I had struggled through together. The tests of betrayal, loyalty, trust. I knew what made him laugh, what set him off. I knew his deepest desire. I saw him so clearly. So breathtakingly clearly.
“Could you have asked them to make you human?”
I felt him exhale slowly, and when he spoke, there was a raw honesty in his voice. “The short answer to that question is yes. I could have.”
Tears blurred my vision. I was overcome by my own selfishness, even though rationally, I knew I hadn’t made Patch’s decision for him. Still. He’d made it because of me, and my guilt tossed and churned as stormily as the sea below.
Upon seeing my reaction, Patch made a sound of disagreement. “No, hear me out. The long answer to that question is that everything about me has changed since meeting you. What I wanted five months ago is different from what I want today. Did I want a human body? Yes, very much. Is it my top priority now? No.” He looked at me with serious eyes. “I gave up something I wanted for something I need. And I need you, Angel. More than I think you’ll ever know. You’re immortal now. And so am I. That’s something.”
“Patch—,” I began, shutting my eyes, my heart hanging from a thread.
His mouth brushed my earlobe, a searing flutter-weight pressure. “I love you.” His voice was straightforward, affectionate. “You make me remember who I used to be. You make me want to be that man again. Right now, holding you, I feel like we have a shot at beating all odds and making it together. I’m yours, if you’ll have me.”
Just like that, I forgot that I was thoroughly soaked, shivering, and poised to be the next leader of a Nephilim society I wanted nothing to do with. Patch loved me. Nothing else was important.
“Love you back,” I said.
He bowed his head into my throat, groaning softly. “I loved you long before you loved me. It’s the only thing I have you beat at, and I’ll bring it up every chance I get.” His mouth, pressed to my skin, took on a devilish curve. “Let’s get out of here. I’m taking you back to my place, this time for good. We have unfinished business, and I think it’s time we do something about it.”
I hesitated, one big question looming in my mind. Sex was a big deal. I wasn’t sure I was ready to complicate our relationship — or my life — that way, and that was only top on a long list of repercussions. If a fallen angel who slept with a human created a Nephil — a being that was never meant to inhabit Earth — what happened when a fallen angel slept with a Nephil? Based on what I’d seen of the icy relationship between angels and Nephilim, it probably hadn’t happened yet, but that only made me more leery of the consequences.
As much as I’d been content in the past to make the archangels out as the bad guys, a shred of doubt crept into my mind. Was there a reason angels weren’t supposed to fall in love with mortals, or in my case, a Nephil? An archaic rule meant to divide our races … or a safeguard against tampering with nature and destiny? Patch had once said the only reason the Nephilim race existed was because fallen angels sought revenge for being forced out of heaven. To get even with the archangels for banishing them, they’d seduced the very humans they had previously been charged to protect.
They’d gotten revenge all right. And stirred up an underground war that had been raging for centuries: fallen angels on one side, Nephilim on the other, and human pawns trapped in the middle. Even though it scared me to think it, Patch had promised it would end with the annihilation of an entire race. Which one was yet to be seen.
All because a fallen angel wandered into the wrong bed.
“Not yet,” I said.
Patch arched a dark eyebrow. “Not yet to leaving, or not yet to leaving with me?”
“I have questions.” I gave him a meaningful look.
A smile tugged at his mouth, but it didn’t mask a wavering note of uncertainty. “I should have known you’ve only been keeping me around for answers.”
“Well, that and your kisses. Anyone ever tell you you’re an incredible kisser?”
“The only person whose opinion I care about is right here.” He tipped my chin up to level our eyes. “We don’t have to go back to my place, Angel. I can take you home, if that’s what you want. Or, if you decide you want to sleep at my place, on opposite sides of my bedroom with a Do Not Cross line drawn down the middle, I’ll do it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
Touched by his sincerity, I hooked my finger under his shirt, trying to find the right gesture to show my appreciation. My knuckle brushed toned skin beneath, and desire shattered me. Why, oh why, did he make it so easy to feel too much, all sensation, blazing and devouring, and forget reason?
“If you haven’t guessed it already,” I said, something fervent and resonating slipping into my tone, “I need you, too.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked, pushing his fingers through my hair, fanning it out around my shoulders and searching my face intently. “Please let it be yes,” he said with a gravelly edge. “Stay with me tonight. Let me hold you, even if that’s all it is. Let me keep you safe.”
As my answer, I slipped my fingers between his, twining us together. I met his kiss with unrepentant boldness, greedy and reckless, feeling his touch loosen my joints, melting me in places I didn’t know existed. Breaking me down, one kiss at a time, reeling me further and further out of control, casting me into solid heat, dark and provocative, until there was only him, and only me. Until I didn’t know where I stopped and he began.
CHAPTER 34
THE SUN HAD BURNED THROUGH HALF THE DAY BY the time Patch parked his motorcycle in front of the farmhouse. I swung off, a silly smile plastered on my face, a warm glow permeating every inch of skin. Perfection.
I wasn’t naive enough to think it would last, but there was something to be said about living in the moment. I’d already decided to file dealing with my new purebred Nephilim blood, and all the consequences that were bound to come with it, including how my transformation would manifest itself and ruling Hank’s army, under future concerns.
Right now, I had everything I could ask for. It wasn’t a long list, but it was a very satisfying one, starting with the love of my life back in my arms.
“I had fun last night,” I told Patch, flicking off my chin strap and handing over my helmet. “I’m officially in love with your sheets.”
“That the only thing you’re in love with?”
“Nope. Your mattress, too.”
Some smile crept into Patch’s eyes. “My bed’s an open invitation.”
We hadn’t slept with a Do Not Cross line drawn down the middle of the bed, because we hadn’t slept together, period. I took the bed and Patch got the sofa. I knew he wanted more from me, but I also knew he wanted my head in the right place. He’d said he could wait, and I believed him.
“Give me an inch, I’ll take a mile,” I warned. “You should be worried I might confiscate it.”
“I’d consider myself a lucky man.”
“Only downside to your place is the disturbingly low amount of extraneous toiletries. No conditioner? Lip gloss? Sunscreen?” I jerked my thumb toward the front door. “I need to brush my teeth. And I need a shower.”
He grinned, hopping off the bike. “Now that is an invitation.”
Reaching up on my tiptoes, I kissed him. “When I finish, it’s D-day. I’m going over to Vee’s to pick up my mom, and I’m telling both of them the truth. Hank is gone, and it’s time to come clean.”
