Holy Hell, page 3
part #5 of Sins of the Father Series
“Sadriel,” I said through gritted teeth.
6
“The one and only,” Sadriel said gleefully, one hand clutching her signature clipboard, the other holding a sparkling golden pen. As always, the angel of order dressed to impress, preferring to wear a corporeal form that reminded me of a powerful executive – that, or an unsettlingly sexy librarian.
“Sending more of your minions to do your dirty work?” Florian growled. “This one’s just a boy.”
Sadriel scoffed. “Nonsense. Every angel in my department is older than even your oldest surviving humans. That one’s an ophanim, a throne. Very speedy.”
“I have a name,” the ophanim groaned, coughing out another little bit of tooth.
“Excellent,” Sadriel said, her voice dripping with derision as she angled her head towards the boy – sorry, the angel. “I’ll be sure to use it when I write you a memorandum for failing such a simple task. You are dismissed.”
The ophanim groaned again.
I allowed my sword to fall from my grasp and return to the Vestments. “What the hell was that about?”
Sadriel shrugged as she scribbled away at her clipboard. “A test. You know how it is. We at the Department of Extracelestial Angelic Delinquency have a job to do, and that job is to keep tabs on you naughty, naughty nephilim.” She stopped writing long enough to nudge her glasses up the bridge of her nose and let out a plaintive sigh. “It has been difficult, you know. I couldn’t even rustle up a host of cherubim to come with me for this outing. They refused as soon as they heard we were coming to examine you.”
Angels were scared of me? Of us? I couldn’t help myself. My chest puffed itself out in pride, almost as a reflex. In my peripheral vision, though, I could see Florian’s frown only deepen. “Wait,” I said. “Cherubim? What cherubim? Aren’t those tiny little naked babies with wings?”
Sadriel shook her head. “Don’t be preposterous. The huge, musclebound goons I recruited to very nearly break your legs? Those are what cherubim actually look like.”
“Cut the crap,” Florian snarled. Ooh. I liked this aggressive side of him. The little smirk that Sadriel gave him told me she liked it, too. “You harass us, then you disappear for weeks, and now you’re suddenly back and attacking us again? What gives?”
“And how did you find us, anyway?” I said, rubbing at the bracer fused invisibly to my skin. I paid out the butt to hide myself from the entities, yet she still found me.
Sadriel pointed at Florian. “I tracked him instead. You may have found a way to hide yourself from supernatural society, Mr. Albrecht, but the same does not apply to your flowery friend here.”
All that money, all for nothing. I glared accusingly at Florian. He shrugged, giving me an apologetic grin.
She cleared her throat. “As I said, the Department of Extracelestial Angelic Delinquency – ”
“Which stands for DEAD,” I added helpfully.
“Yes, yes, very good, so good to know you can read,” she snapped. “As I was saying, things have been busy upstairs. And down here as well, to be frank. My department has been noticing unusually increased levels of nephilim activity across the globe. It appears that more of your kind have been awakening to their abilities, Mr. Albrecht. Almost as if in response to some strange, dark threat.”
I exchanged a glance with Florian. “A threat, you say?” I scratched at my forearm. “And what kind of threat would that be, exactly?”
“A dark one,” Sadriel said, grinning sardonically, pressing one perfectly manicured finger into the underside of her chin. “You tell me, Mr. Albrecht. Could this be a problem of a necromantic nature?”
I clenched my jaw, saying nothing. The angel of order had done favors for us in the past, but she wasn’t exactly someone I’d consider a friend. She wasn’t wrong, though. This was, as she’d said, a problem of a necromantic nature, and we were off to seek out a necromantic solution from my buddy, the necromancer. You know, the one I hadn’t been texting.
Again, in that uniquely patronizing way of hers, Sadriel tittered and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Mr. Albrecht. My people will find out regardless.” She let go of her pen and her clipboard, both items vanishing in puffs of golden dust, replaced by a single, slender notebook. “I will say, however, that it is very interesting how your skills in combat have appeared to appreciate.” Sadriel nodded at me, and then at Florian. “Both of you. Of course, I take particular interest in nephilim matters. No offense meant, Mr. Florian.”
“None taken,” he said cautiously, giving me a sidelong glance. “But does this mean your little test is over now? No more invisible high-speed teenagers planning to punch me in the face?”
Sadriel tilted her head, favoring Florian with a simpering smile. “Not quite.” She held up her notebook. “There’s just this one last thing.”
She parted the covers, perusing the pages as casually as if she were checking on her schedule, then turned the book towards us. I peered closer, squinting as I tried to make out the scribbles and scrawls, before I realized that the pages were mostly an array of equally spaced dots. Little bullets. A smug, self-satisfied grin appeared on Sadriel’s face at about the same moment that the notebook made a faint metallic sound.
“Get down,” I shouted, calling to the Vestments for the biggest, sturdiest shield I could handle. “Behind me.”
Florian didn’t hesitate, hunkering down and pressing himself to the ground as a tower shield bigger and wider than a man materialized in the air before us. I grunted as I accepted the gift from the armories, straining in surprise as the bottom half of the shield, pointed and like the end of a sharp shovel, fell straight into the pavement, lodging itself there so that the shield stood upright. Small mercies. I braced my shoulder against the back of it, shut my eyes, and prayed.
A hail of golden bullets sprayed out of the pages, Sadriel holding on for dear life as she fought the recoil of her automatic assault book. Bullets pinged and clanged against my shield like the world’s deadliest hailstones, zinging as they ricocheted and slammed into our surroundings. I heard the snapping of branches, what sounded like a bullet hitting a garbage can, or someone’s car. Fuck. If she wanted to kick my ass, I could understand, but we were in the city. There were bound to be bystanders. This wasn’t very angelic behavior on her part.
It didn’t take long for Sadriel’s ammunition to run out. I held my breath as I listened for more pinging, or worse, for the sound of Sadriel reloading her – her book. My back was slick with sweat already going cold in the night air. The bottom half of my shirt was bundled up in Florian’s fist, who was clinging to me like his life depended on it.
“Dude,” I whispered. “You okay?”
“Still alive,” he said. “I think. Still in one piece.”
I dared to peer over the top of my tower shield. Sadriel stood there with the book still held open, locks of her hair having worked their way free of the tight bun she normally wore, her cheeks flushed with exhilaration, her lips locked in a maniacal grin.
“What the hell was that?” I yelled.
“A bullet journal.” Sadriel laughed, full and musical. “I hear it’s all the rage in the human world. Very good for keeping things in order.”
I stood fully erect, my body tensing with anger as I shoved a finger in her direction. “That is not what a bullet journal is, or does. Not even close, Sadriel.” These angels and their inability to understand anything terrestrial truly, truly got to me sometimes. “And I thought you were supposed to be an angel. What’s up with endangering the public?” I looked around, remembering to lower my voice, casually dismissing my tower shield in a large puff of glitter. “You could have killed someone.”
“We could be such good friends, Mr. Albrecht, yet you always insist on being such a Misbehaving Melvin,” she said with a sniff, closing the journal and bringing it to her chest, turning up her nose. “This was about testing your defensive capabilities, something I might have even considered complimenting you on. And please, have some faith. I am the angel of order. I knew for a fact that there would be no civilians to witness us at this time of night. Everything was perfectly planned, just as I intended. Everything was perfectly calculated.”
Florian stood abreast of me, brave again, back up on the balls of his feet. “Well, you certainly didn’t calculate for your ophanim to get his entire lower jaw detached.”
Sadriel stared at us coolly, the smile on her lips no longer something jovial or celebratory – now something crueler. But she said nothing.
“Now can we leave?” Florian said. “I am so done with this. I am so done with angels, possibly forever.”
“Just one thing,” Sadriel said, opening the journal again. I flinched. So did Florian, who rushed behind me, as if my smaller, skinnier frame could do anything to protect him. Sadriel chuckled as she leafed through the pages. “Don’t be frightened, gentlemen. This is only a matter of accounting.”
Something horrible writhed in my chest. I gulped. “Accounting?”
Sadriel’s smile was evil, as evil as an angel’s could be. “Yes. Consider this an audit. There is the very small matter of settling your bill with heaven’s armories.”
7
“One million dollars,” I said, pronouncing each word with the gravity of a curse, or a prayer, every syllable filling my heart with terror, with dread. “I owe the armories one million whole, actual American dollars.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that just now,” Florian muttered.
“How could you not be bothered by this?” I said, stabbing a thumb at the cover of Sadriel’s bullet journal from hell. Or heaven, whatever. “This is total and complete bullshit, Sadriel.”
She shook her head, turning the journal around to show me. This time I flinched not from the expectation of another salvo of bullets, but from the staggering sight of some complicated spreadsheet that had manifested itself onto the pages. At the bottom of the two-page spread, right there in a glowing golden scrawl, was what I allegedly owed.
“These are all the rental fees associated with every piece of equipment you have ever borrowed from the Vestments. Right here. We have kindly converted this to the currency that is most convenient for you, of course. And between you and me, I managed to haggle the amount down. The people upstairs agreed to a sort of amnesty. It’s been rounded to a very generous amount. A very generous amount, indeed.”
“Oh,” I said, too whiny even for my own liking. “Well thank you very much, Sadriel, so kind of you.”
She perked up, pushing back her shoulders with a proud grin, very much like Raziel, the sarcasm flying completely over her head. “Why, you’re very welcome.”
“I didn’t know about all this. I shouldn’t have to pay. Why didn’t anyone warn me?”
Sadriel tutted and wagged her finger. “How do you humans put it again? Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one.”
I glowered at her, then turned to Florian for support. “She has no idea what a bullet journal is, then she pulls this legal stuff out of thin air.”
“Laws are laws, Mr. Albrecht,” she said, lightly tapping one foot. “Angel of order and all that.”
I snapped my fingers, grasping for a way out. “Raziel. He should have told me. I shouldn’t be liable for this.”
“Ah, but your talents are unprecedented, Mr. Albrecht, especially for one of the fallen. If you were part of the celestial host – that is, a regular angel in good standing with the high heavens – then the cost of renting arms would be waived. In fact, full access would be granted, up to and including the armored siege tanks.”
I was so close to ripping my hair out. “The armored what now?”
“But since you are a child of the Grigori, a nephilim, the rules are different.”
“This isn’t fair.” I stamped my foot and folded my arms, light pouring off my glyphs in shimmering waves, echoing my anger.
“Life isn’t fair, Mr. Albrecht.”
Then, a tug on my arm as Florian started pulling me down the street. I stumbled after, throwing confused looks between him and Sadriel.
“There’s nothing they can do about it,” Florian grumbled. “Come on. We’ve got a mission. What are they gonna do, break your arms?”
“And legs,” Sadriel added cheerfully, a hand cupped along the side of her mouth as she waved goodbye. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Albrecht. Don’t worry, we’ll be able to sort out your finances, I’ll be sure to negotiate the best possible payment plan for you. In the meantime, you will have no access to the Vestments.”
My stomach dropped. My blood ran cold. I hadn’t even considered that. I thought that I’d just be adding more to my stupid celestial mountain of debt. Was she serious? I gawped like a fish as I struggled to form a response, but Florian was insistent. Sadriel threw me one last smile, then vanished in a pillar of light. I wrenched my hand out of Florian’s grip, massaging my wrist.
“This can’t be right,” I said. “This is bullshit.”
“So you’ve said,” Florian answered, still walking, but gentler now that we were no longer in the presence of angelic aggravators. “But we’ll work our way around it. We’ll talk to Raziel, figure something out, right? It’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know about this, man. This is the worst possible time for this to happen. We’ve got fights to fight, zombies to kill, and I can’t fight if I can’t reach the Vestments.” I held out a hand, my heart pounding as I silently asked for a blade – a dagger, a stiletto, something small that might slip through the cracks. The Vestments didn’t answer.
“Yikes,” Florian said.
“Oh God,” I said, clutching at my hair. “This is real, dude. I’ve got nothing without the Vestments. Oh, fuck. It’ll take me years to pay that off. Decades.”
Florian’s huge hand slapped across my back, jolting me out of my panic, but also leaving a dull, hand-shaped ache in my muscles. “Creatio ex nihilo, am I right? That thing that Raziel says you have to practice so much. Now you’ve got another reason to practice, uh, even more. Or at least more than before.”
I looked down at my fingers. Reaching out to the Vestments was so easy, so effortless, and I’d been such an ass about it, especially in recent days. Creating matter out of thin air had more potential for power, like Raziel always said, but it was way, way tougher. Damn it. How much did that golden breastplate set me back, or that golden mirror? Where the fuck was I supposed to find all that money?
“I’m doomed,” I groaned, dragging myself down the street even as my knees weakened underneath me. I touched my hand to my forehead, feeling faint, my skin so clammy and cold, like I was already dead. Maybe I’d be better off.
Florian gave me a huge, reassuring smile, which hardly reassured me, but it’s the thought that counts. He slung his arm across my shoulders, pulling me in for a warm, if somewhat rough hug. Let’s never forget, the man’s built like a tree.
“We’re doomed,” he said, and maybe that made me feel a little bit better. But then he said the next thing. “Now come on. We’ve got to see a dead guy about a favor.”
8
It’s all semantics, sure, but Florian wasn’t entirely wrong about us having to meet a dead guy for a favor. Sterling, as a card-carrying vampire, was definitely deceased in a sense, and someone who’s even partially snuffed it is a great resource for when you need some extra information about the undead. Meeting up with him wasn’t the part I was worried about. We were meeting Asher, too – the guy I hadn’t been texting, the super powerful necromancer, and also, the guy who was probably super pissed at me for basically dropping off the face of the earth.
We reached Latham’s Cross not long after we ditched Sadriel. The night only got colder and wetter as we entered the cemetery, something about it being out of the city, maybe, but also, you know, the part where it’s a patch of dirt filled with icy stone and so, so many dead bodies. One of them, Sterling, was draped lazily across a headstone, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. A second figure sat in the grass near him, arms folded, legs crossed, and face screwed into the world’s unhappiest scowl.
I waved sheepishly as we approached. “Hi, Asher,” I said, working my way up to a smile. “Long time no see.”
He flicked his bangs away, huffing grumpily at the same time. “Hmph.”
Sterling blew a plume of perfect silver smoke up into the air, then chuckled. “Now, now, Asher, that’s not very polite.”
Asher huffed again. “Isn’t very polite to stop talking to people, either, especially when you still have their number, and you still live in the same city.”
My breath puffed out of me in a wisp of limp fog as my insides withered. I really had nothing to stand on. I groped at the air for an excuse, but Florian, mercifully, came rushing to my rescue.
“Hi,” he said cheerfully, as if some nephilim-necromancer buddy drama wasn’t playing out in front of him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Florian.”
“Nice to meet you too. I’m Asher.”
Asher broke into an easy smile as their eyes locked – the fucker. I knew this game he was playing. His gaze flitted towards me for a moment, then away again as his expression dropped once more. Yup. I knew it, damn it.
Asher Mayhew was a necromancer, rescued from the streets and from the clutches of a druidic death cult by our shared mentor, the good lich Carver. And despite his terrifying ability to launch shards of bone through the air, to erect walls of cruel ivory, and raise the very dead from the earth, Asher was the closest thing, probably, that I had to a best friend. At least before I met Florian. He was a sweet kid, which was strange to think of because we were the same age. I couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly, but he always sort of felt like the little brother I never had.
But that day, he wasn’t being very sweet at all. He was pouting, in fact, very much like a proverbial little brother. And I couldn’t rightly say that he looked much like my best friend just then, either. Asher was kind of pissed. I’d rarely seen this pricklier side of him, though I suspected he was going to be a total asshole about our meeting. And you know what? I probably deserved it, too. Probably.
6
“The one and only,” Sadriel said gleefully, one hand clutching her signature clipboard, the other holding a sparkling golden pen. As always, the angel of order dressed to impress, preferring to wear a corporeal form that reminded me of a powerful executive – that, or an unsettlingly sexy librarian.
“Sending more of your minions to do your dirty work?” Florian growled. “This one’s just a boy.”
Sadriel scoffed. “Nonsense. Every angel in my department is older than even your oldest surviving humans. That one’s an ophanim, a throne. Very speedy.”
“I have a name,” the ophanim groaned, coughing out another little bit of tooth.
“Excellent,” Sadriel said, her voice dripping with derision as she angled her head towards the boy – sorry, the angel. “I’ll be sure to use it when I write you a memorandum for failing such a simple task. You are dismissed.”
The ophanim groaned again.
I allowed my sword to fall from my grasp and return to the Vestments. “What the hell was that about?”
Sadriel shrugged as she scribbled away at her clipboard. “A test. You know how it is. We at the Department of Extracelestial Angelic Delinquency have a job to do, and that job is to keep tabs on you naughty, naughty nephilim.” She stopped writing long enough to nudge her glasses up the bridge of her nose and let out a plaintive sigh. “It has been difficult, you know. I couldn’t even rustle up a host of cherubim to come with me for this outing. They refused as soon as they heard we were coming to examine you.”
Angels were scared of me? Of us? I couldn’t help myself. My chest puffed itself out in pride, almost as a reflex. In my peripheral vision, though, I could see Florian’s frown only deepen. “Wait,” I said. “Cherubim? What cherubim? Aren’t those tiny little naked babies with wings?”
Sadriel shook her head. “Don’t be preposterous. The huge, musclebound goons I recruited to very nearly break your legs? Those are what cherubim actually look like.”
“Cut the crap,” Florian snarled. Ooh. I liked this aggressive side of him. The little smirk that Sadriel gave him told me she liked it, too. “You harass us, then you disappear for weeks, and now you’re suddenly back and attacking us again? What gives?”
“And how did you find us, anyway?” I said, rubbing at the bracer fused invisibly to my skin. I paid out the butt to hide myself from the entities, yet she still found me.
Sadriel pointed at Florian. “I tracked him instead. You may have found a way to hide yourself from supernatural society, Mr. Albrecht, but the same does not apply to your flowery friend here.”
All that money, all for nothing. I glared accusingly at Florian. He shrugged, giving me an apologetic grin.
She cleared her throat. “As I said, the Department of Extracelestial Angelic Delinquency – ”
“Which stands for DEAD,” I added helpfully.
“Yes, yes, very good, so good to know you can read,” she snapped. “As I was saying, things have been busy upstairs. And down here as well, to be frank. My department has been noticing unusually increased levels of nephilim activity across the globe. It appears that more of your kind have been awakening to their abilities, Mr. Albrecht. Almost as if in response to some strange, dark threat.”
I exchanged a glance with Florian. “A threat, you say?” I scratched at my forearm. “And what kind of threat would that be, exactly?”
“A dark one,” Sadriel said, grinning sardonically, pressing one perfectly manicured finger into the underside of her chin. “You tell me, Mr. Albrecht. Could this be a problem of a necromantic nature?”
I clenched my jaw, saying nothing. The angel of order had done favors for us in the past, but she wasn’t exactly someone I’d consider a friend. She wasn’t wrong, though. This was, as she’d said, a problem of a necromantic nature, and we were off to seek out a necromantic solution from my buddy, the necromancer. You know, the one I hadn’t been texting.
Again, in that uniquely patronizing way of hers, Sadriel tittered and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Mr. Albrecht. My people will find out regardless.” She let go of her pen and her clipboard, both items vanishing in puffs of golden dust, replaced by a single, slender notebook. “I will say, however, that it is very interesting how your skills in combat have appeared to appreciate.” Sadriel nodded at me, and then at Florian. “Both of you. Of course, I take particular interest in nephilim matters. No offense meant, Mr. Florian.”
“None taken,” he said cautiously, giving me a sidelong glance. “But does this mean your little test is over now? No more invisible high-speed teenagers planning to punch me in the face?”
Sadriel tilted her head, favoring Florian with a simpering smile. “Not quite.” She held up her notebook. “There’s just this one last thing.”
She parted the covers, perusing the pages as casually as if she were checking on her schedule, then turned the book towards us. I peered closer, squinting as I tried to make out the scribbles and scrawls, before I realized that the pages were mostly an array of equally spaced dots. Little bullets. A smug, self-satisfied grin appeared on Sadriel’s face at about the same moment that the notebook made a faint metallic sound.
“Get down,” I shouted, calling to the Vestments for the biggest, sturdiest shield I could handle. “Behind me.”
Florian didn’t hesitate, hunkering down and pressing himself to the ground as a tower shield bigger and wider than a man materialized in the air before us. I grunted as I accepted the gift from the armories, straining in surprise as the bottom half of the shield, pointed and like the end of a sharp shovel, fell straight into the pavement, lodging itself there so that the shield stood upright. Small mercies. I braced my shoulder against the back of it, shut my eyes, and prayed.
A hail of golden bullets sprayed out of the pages, Sadriel holding on for dear life as she fought the recoil of her automatic assault book. Bullets pinged and clanged against my shield like the world’s deadliest hailstones, zinging as they ricocheted and slammed into our surroundings. I heard the snapping of branches, what sounded like a bullet hitting a garbage can, or someone’s car. Fuck. If she wanted to kick my ass, I could understand, but we were in the city. There were bound to be bystanders. This wasn’t very angelic behavior on her part.
It didn’t take long for Sadriel’s ammunition to run out. I held my breath as I listened for more pinging, or worse, for the sound of Sadriel reloading her – her book. My back was slick with sweat already going cold in the night air. The bottom half of my shirt was bundled up in Florian’s fist, who was clinging to me like his life depended on it.
“Dude,” I whispered. “You okay?”
“Still alive,” he said. “I think. Still in one piece.”
I dared to peer over the top of my tower shield. Sadriel stood there with the book still held open, locks of her hair having worked their way free of the tight bun she normally wore, her cheeks flushed with exhilaration, her lips locked in a maniacal grin.
“What the hell was that?” I yelled.
“A bullet journal.” Sadriel laughed, full and musical. “I hear it’s all the rage in the human world. Very good for keeping things in order.”
I stood fully erect, my body tensing with anger as I shoved a finger in her direction. “That is not what a bullet journal is, or does. Not even close, Sadriel.” These angels and their inability to understand anything terrestrial truly, truly got to me sometimes. “And I thought you were supposed to be an angel. What’s up with endangering the public?” I looked around, remembering to lower my voice, casually dismissing my tower shield in a large puff of glitter. “You could have killed someone.”
“We could be such good friends, Mr. Albrecht, yet you always insist on being such a Misbehaving Melvin,” she said with a sniff, closing the journal and bringing it to her chest, turning up her nose. “This was about testing your defensive capabilities, something I might have even considered complimenting you on. And please, have some faith. I am the angel of order. I knew for a fact that there would be no civilians to witness us at this time of night. Everything was perfectly planned, just as I intended. Everything was perfectly calculated.”
Florian stood abreast of me, brave again, back up on the balls of his feet. “Well, you certainly didn’t calculate for your ophanim to get his entire lower jaw detached.”
Sadriel stared at us coolly, the smile on her lips no longer something jovial or celebratory – now something crueler. But she said nothing.
“Now can we leave?” Florian said. “I am so done with this. I am so done with angels, possibly forever.”
“Just one thing,” Sadriel said, opening the journal again. I flinched. So did Florian, who rushed behind me, as if my smaller, skinnier frame could do anything to protect him. Sadriel chuckled as she leafed through the pages. “Don’t be frightened, gentlemen. This is only a matter of accounting.”
Something horrible writhed in my chest. I gulped. “Accounting?”
Sadriel’s smile was evil, as evil as an angel’s could be. “Yes. Consider this an audit. There is the very small matter of settling your bill with heaven’s armories.”
7
“One million dollars,” I said, pronouncing each word with the gravity of a curse, or a prayer, every syllable filling my heart with terror, with dread. “I owe the armories one million whole, actual American dollars.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that just now,” Florian muttered.
“How could you not be bothered by this?” I said, stabbing a thumb at the cover of Sadriel’s bullet journal from hell. Or heaven, whatever. “This is total and complete bullshit, Sadriel.”
She shook her head, turning the journal around to show me. This time I flinched not from the expectation of another salvo of bullets, but from the staggering sight of some complicated spreadsheet that had manifested itself onto the pages. At the bottom of the two-page spread, right there in a glowing golden scrawl, was what I allegedly owed.
“These are all the rental fees associated with every piece of equipment you have ever borrowed from the Vestments. Right here. We have kindly converted this to the currency that is most convenient for you, of course. And between you and me, I managed to haggle the amount down. The people upstairs agreed to a sort of amnesty. It’s been rounded to a very generous amount. A very generous amount, indeed.”
“Oh,” I said, too whiny even for my own liking. “Well thank you very much, Sadriel, so kind of you.”
She perked up, pushing back her shoulders with a proud grin, very much like Raziel, the sarcasm flying completely over her head. “Why, you’re very welcome.”
“I didn’t know about all this. I shouldn’t have to pay. Why didn’t anyone warn me?”
Sadriel tutted and wagged her finger. “How do you humans put it again? Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one.”
I glowered at her, then turned to Florian for support. “She has no idea what a bullet journal is, then she pulls this legal stuff out of thin air.”
“Laws are laws, Mr. Albrecht,” she said, lightly tapping one foot. “Angel of order and all that.”
I snapped my fingers, grasping for a way out. “Raziel. He should have told me. I shouldn’t be liable for this.”
“Ah, but your talents are unprecedented, Mr. Albrecht, especially for one of the fallen. If you were part of the celestial host – that is, a regular angel in good standing with the high heavens – then the cost of renting arms would be waived. In fact, full access would be granted, up to and including the armored siege tanks.”
I was so close to ripping my hair out. “The armored what now?”
“But since you are a child of the Grigori, a nephilim, the rules are different.”
“This isn’t fair.” I stamped my foot and folded my arms, light pouring off my glyphs in shimmering waves, echoing my anger.
“Life isn’t fair, Mr. Albrecht.”
Then, a tug on my arm as Florian started pulling me down the street. I stumbled after, throwing confused looks between him and Sadriel.
“There’s nothing they can do about it,” Florian grumbled. “Come on. We’ve got a mission. What are they gonna do, break your arms?”
“And legs,” Sadriel added cheerfully, a hand cupped along the side of her mouth as she waved goodbye. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Albrecht. Don’t worry, we’ll be able to sort out your finances, I’ll be sure to negotiate the best possible payment plan for you. In the meantime, you will have no access to the Vestments.”
My stomach dropped. My blood ran cold. I hadn’t even considered that. I thought that I’d just be adding more to my stupid celestial mountain of debt. Was she serious? I gawped like a fish as I struggled to form a response, but Florian was insistent. Sadriel threw me one last smile, then vanished in a pillar of light. I wrenched my hand out of Florian’s grip, massaging my wrist.
“This can’t be right,” I said. “This is bullshit.”
“So you’ve said,” Florian answered, still walking, but gentler now that we were no longer in the presence of angelic aggravators. “But we’ll work our way around it. We’ll talk to Raziel, figure something out, right? It’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know about this, man. This is the worst possible time for this to happen. We’ve got fights to fight, zombies to kill, and I can’t fight if I can’t reach the Vestments.” I held out a hand, my heart pounding as I silently asked for a blade – a dagger, a stiletto, something small that might slip through the cracks. The Vestments didn’t answer.
“Yikes,” Florian said.
“Oh God,” I said, clutching at my hair. “This is real, dude. I’ve got nothing without the Vestments. Oh, fuck. It’ll take me years to pay that off. Decades.”
Florian’s huge hand slapped across my back, jolting me out of my panic, but also leaving a dull, hand-shaped ache in my muscles. “Creatio ex nihilo, am I right? That thing that Raziel says you have to practice so much. Now you’ve got another reason to practice, uh, even more. Or at least more than before.”
I looked down at my fingers. Reaching out to the Vestments was so easy, so effortless, and I’d been such an ass about it, especially in recent days. Creating matter out of thin air had more potential for power, like Raziel always said, but it was way, way tougher. Damn it. How much did that golden breastplate set me back, or that golden mirror? Where the fuck was I supposed to find all that money?
“I’m doomed,” I groaned, dragging myself down the street even as my knees weakened underneath me. I touched my hand to my forehead, feeling faint, my skin so clammy and cold, like I was already dead. Maybe I’d be better off.
Florian gave me a huge, reassuring smile, which hardly reassured me, but it’s the thought that counts. He slung his arm across my shoulders, pulling me in for a warm, if somewhat rough hug. Let’s never forget, the man’s built like a tree.
“We’re doomed,” he said, and maybe that made me feel a little bit better. But then he said the next thing. “Now come on. We’ve got to see a dead guy about a favor.”
8
It’s all semantics, sure, but Florian wasn’t entirely wrong about us having to meet a dead guy for a favor. Sterling, as a card-carrying vampire, was definitely deceased in a sense, and someone who’s even partially snuffed it is a great resource for when you need some extra information about the undead. Meeting up with him wasn’t the part I was worried about. We were meeting Asher, too – the guy I hadn’t been texting, the super powerful necromancer, and also, the guy who was probably super pissed at me for basically dropping off the face of the earth.
We reached Latham’s Cross not long after we ditched Sadriel. The night only got colder and wetter as we entered the cemetery, something about it being out of the city, maybe, but also, you know, the part where it’s a patch of dirt filled with icy stone and so, so many dead bodies. One of them, Sterling, was draped lazily across a headstone, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. A second figure sat in the grass near him, arms folded, legs crossed, and face screwed into the world’s unhappiest scowl.
I waved sheepishly as we approached. “Hi, Asher,” I said, working my way up to a smile. “Long time no see.”
He flicked his bangs away, huffing grumpily at the same time. “Hmph.”
Sterling blew a plume of perfect silver smoke up into the air, then chuckled. “Now, now, Asher, that’s not very polite.”
Asher huffed again. “Isn’t very polite to stop talking to people, either, especially when you still have their number, and you still live in the same city.”
My breath puffed out of me in a wisp of limp fog as my insides withered. I really had nothing to stand on. I groped at the air for an excuse, but Florian, mercifully, came rushing to my rescue.
“Hi,” he said cheerfully, as if some nephilim-necromancer buddy drama wasn’t playing out in front of him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Florian.”
“Nice to meet you too. I’m Asher.”
Asher broke into an easy smile as their eyes locked – the fucker. I knew this game he was playing. His gaze flitted towards me for a moment, then away again as his expression dropped once more. Yup. I knew it, damn it.
Asher Mayhew was a necromancer, rescued from the streets and from the clutches of a druidic death cult by our shared mentor, the good lich Carver. And despite his terrifying ability to launch shards of bone through the air, to erect walls of cruel ivory, and raise the very dead from the earth, Asher was the closest thing, probably, that I had to a best friend. At least before I met Florian. He was a sweet kid, which was strange to think of because we were the same age. I couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly, but he always sort of felt like the little brother I never had.
But that day, he wasn’t being very sweet at all. He was pouting, in fact, very much like a proverbial little brother. And I couldn’t rightly say that he looked much like my best friend just then, either. Asher was kind of pissed. I’d rarely seen this pricklier side of him, though I suspected he was going to be a total asshole about our meeting. And you know what? I probably deserved it, too. Probably.
