I felt sick as I approached J.B. Whatever had done this had slaughtered these people without mercy.
J.B. had his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, and he wore earmuffs in concession to the bitter cold. He looked sadder than I’d ever seen him. His shoulders were slumped, like he was carrying a heavy weight, and his face was tight with stress. His wings curled around him, like he was trying to comfort himself.
“What happened?” I asked, putting my arm around him.
“Vampires,” he said briefly.
I gazed around in shock. “Vampires? Out in the open like this?”
He nodded. “They were waiting at five o’clock when most of the people who work in these buildings were leaving. The early sundown worked to their advantage. We knew that something big was going to happen, but not exactly what. There were Agents here to collect the souls, and they saw the whole thing.”
“The prophets knew that the vampires were going to massacre all these people and they didn’t do anything? They didn’t warn the Agents?” I asked.
“Don’t act like you don’t know the rules,” J.B. said. “The deaths were foreseen. We were bound not to interfere.”
I looked around at the piles of twisted, broken forms. “That’s BS, and you know it.”
“How are these deaths any different from any others?” J.B. said impatiently. “What gives you the right to decide what deaths are right and which are wrong?”
“Because these aren’t normal human deaths,” I said. “They were killed by something they couldn’t understand, and had no defense against.”
“People have been killed by vampires before,” J.B. said.
“Not like this,” I said.
“So the number of people killed is what matters?”
“No,” I said. “Why are you picking a fight with me? You know that the Agency is wrong. You know that the prophets shouldn’t have sent the Agents here without warning them.”
J.B. turned his head away, but not before I saw the glitter of tears behind his glasses. “You’re right. They should have warned them. Maybe they wouldn’t have been so unprepared when…”
“What else happened?” I asked.
“Only some of the Agents returned,” J.B. said.
“Agents were killed, too?” I asked, a cold ball of dread forming in my stomach.
J.B. shook his head. “They were captured.”
“By the vampires? Why?”
“One of the Agents that escaped said that there was a man with the vampires. A man with black hair, and black eyes, and…”
“Black wings,” I finished. “Azazel.”
I rubbed my hand over my face, trying to think. The carnage before us was hard to process, and now my father was involved. Again.
“What was Azazel doing while the vampires were killing everyone?” I asked.
“Neutralizing the Agents,” J.B. said. “The ones that got away said it was pure luck. He was casting a spell, and the spell missed them.”
“How many escaped?”
“Of the twenty-two Agents that were sent here, only six made it back. And all of the souls of the dead are gone. Azazel took them, too,” J.B. said.
“Why?” I cried. “What is he doing? Is all of this part of his insane experiment?”
“I don’t know,” J.B. said. “And I’m not sure we’ll be able to figure it out now, in any case. He took Chloe, too.”
13
SAMIEL WENT RIGID BESIDE ME. THEN HE GRABBED J.B. by the lapel. What was she doing here in the first place?
“She’s an Agent; you know that,” J.B. said.
She told me she hardly ever collects souls anymore, that she spends most of her time working on tech projects in the basement.
“Hardly ever doesn’t mean never,” J.B. said. “The upper management requires all Agents, even me, to do several pickups a year. This was one of hers.”
“Stand down,” I said to Samiel, trying to pry his fingers off J.B.’s coat. Samiel looked like he was going to strangle J.B. on principle. “You know it’s not J.B.’s fault.”
The light of fury in Samiel’s eyes faded. He let go of J.B. and stepped back, covering his face with his hands.
“We have to find them,” I said. “We can’t leave them to Azazel.”
“Management has ordered me not to pursue Azazel,” J.B. said, his eyes bleak.
I stared at him. “Are you kidding? They’re just going to let sixteen Agents go without a fight?”
“They do not want to get involved in ‘fallen business,’” J.B. said. “I told you that before.”
“This isn’t fallen business. Azazel led a rebellion against Lucifer. He’s gone completely rogue.”
“They don’t care about the particulars,” J.B. said. “They saw what happened when Ramuell and Antares got into the Agency. They’re not going to risk more lives.”
“So they’re just going to let all those Agents go? Azazel is probably torturing them right now. I can’t believe that they would allow that just because they don’t want to get ‘involved,’” I shouted.
“Do you think I like this?” J.B. said. “Those are my people that were taken. I know them. I know their families.”
“Then why are you going to stand for this?” I said.
“I’m not,” he said. “I said that they ordered me not to pursue Azazel. And I’m not going to. But they didn’t order me not to look for the Agents under my care.”