When I turned, I stifled a scream because a man stood behind me. I stumbled back a couple steps as Butch lunged between us, his teeth bared. He rumbled out a warning growl, deceptively fierce for his size. In the moonlight, the stranger’s features were divinely beautiful, capped with a shock of silver hair, but his eyes burned like black holes, cold and pitiless as the grave. He wore a dark trench coat, his hands tucked into the deep pockets, which should have reassured me.
It didn’t.
“Can I help you?”
“You know you can.” His words flowed in a silken tenor, playful, but I had never been so terrified in my life.
I had no idea why, but it was all I could do not to cower or piss my pants. “Uhm. I think I’ll go in now.” Stumbling back a few steps toward the house, I gauged him, wondering how fast he could move.
Other than appearing like a creeper in the dark, he hadn’t actually done anything threatening, hadn’t said anything scary. So what the hell . . . ?
“You find my aura alarming,” he observed. “If you would comply with Kelethiel’s request, it will cease to affect you.”
Oh. Shit.
“Barachiel,” I guessed.
“Clever monkey.”
Blerg. Distaste for the condescension in his tone permitted me to force down some of the abject terror. In response, I picked Butch up and cradled him in one arm; the dog did not stand down. Without my intervention he would’ve chewed the archangel’s ankles and pissed on his designer shoes. Barachiel seemed amused by the move, contemptuous of my pet and me.
“I’m still listening to the benefits.” So far as I knew, Kel was still stalling him. “I don’t make rash decisions.”
“I thought it might help if you got to know me.” He gazed into my eyes, apparently trying to hypnotize me.
Which might’ve worked if Butch hadn’t been biting my forearm. Good dog.
“I’m willing to listen if you want to state your case.”
Anything to get rid of you. This is. Not. Good.
The only way this could be worse was if I was in my panties, like I had been when I saw Chance. I so wasn’t prepared to fight an archangel or an ancient former demon—whatever the hell he was—tonight. Maybe I never would be, but it would be the apex of suckage if I got killed as Chance managed to find his way back to me. I wasn’t on board with such a Romeo and Juliet ending. No damn way.
So bullshit would form my defense matrix; fortunately, I was strong in the ways of BS-fu.
“I can taste the darkness on you, even now,” he whispered. “Whorls of smoke and brimstone. But it’s fading. You chose the bright path. You cut the demon out. I need someone at my side, one strong enough to resist temptation. Together, we can reshape the world. No more war. No more poverty.”
On the surface, it sounded great, but I remembered the vision Kel had shown me. The people who gazed up at me seemed brainwashed. Maybe the world was a shithole, but at least it was full of people who could call their minds their own. I didn’t want to create some totalitarian regime where this creepy fucker controlled our actions and opinions. The idea of being used in that fashion made me want to barf.
“I’m unclear on what you’re offering,” I said softly, buying time. “I thought I’d be some kind of a religious leader. But it seems like you’re inviting me to take a different role.”
Before he could reply, footsteps crunched over the gravel, heavy ones. They thumped over to the lawn, coming toward us. Kel was the only person big enough to make those strides. Relief surged through me; surely he could get rid of his boss.
“What’re you doing here?” Kel demanded.
“Checking up on you, Nephilim. It is my right.”
“If you frighten her away, then this failure is on you,” Kel said coldly.
His tats glowed with threatening power, and for a horrified moment, I wondered if they would duke it out on Chuch’s lawn. I held up a hand, almost too scared to speak, but somehow I got the words out.
“Please . . . take it down the road. Find an empty field. The winner can come find me. Just . . . don’t hurt my friends. Don’t hurt the baby.”
“There’s no need for violence,” Barachiel said silkily. “I always win. Isn’t that right, half-breed?”
The archangel raised his arm, and Kel’s body stretched taut, as if pulled on a torture rack. Then Barachiel slammed his palm downward; Kel’s knees buckled, dropping him into a humble, penitent posture. I’d never imagined a force strong enough to control Kel, but Barachiel’s power was undeniable. And terrible.
Kel mumbled something.
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
For interminable moments, I stood holding my dog while Barachiel forced Kel to demonstrate his utter helplessness. But I didn’t take the message from it he intended. Instead of seeing his potency, I saw my own death. Because now I knew for sure: Kel wouldn’t be able to stop his hands from tightening on my throat or running me through with a holy blade. Though he’d hate it, as with Asherah, he was helpless before Barachiel.
“I think that is an ample demonstration.” The archangel turned to me, his teeth alarmingly white in the dark. “You will find I am gentle and tender to those who please me.”
I heard the unspoken message as well. I am brutal and merciless to those who do not. Barachiel vanished as he had come, leaving Kel to stagger to his feet. I despised seeing him so reduced; it was obvious from his expression that he felt the deepest, most piercing shame. This night he had been stripped of his pride before me, left to grovel in the dirt at Barachiel’s whim. Maybe I was supposed to be impressed.