Текст книги "The Watcher"

Автор книги: Lisa Voisin

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Four

I was cleaning up the dinner dishes when Michael arrived on my doorstep. Underneath his gray button-down shirt, which transformed his eyes into jewels, was the signature white tank top he wore for flying. With his hair still damp, drying in curls around his face, he looked more angelic than ever.

My hands soapy, I waved him in through the window and he joined me in the kitchen.

“I’m just finishing up,” I said. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“I’ll dry,” he offered and held out his hand for the towel. There was a gash on his arm; it had to be fresh.

“You’re hurt.” I grabbed his hand to examine it, but he pulled it away.

“It’s not that bad.”

Instantly everything that had happened in my day vanished. I was lost in concern for him. “What happened?”

He leaned on the kitchen counter across from me. “We were trying to prevent a rape,” he explained. “Arielle was working with the girl, trying to guide her to what she would need to do to get away or at least survive. She brought me in to work with her attacker because…well…I know the voices that he has to fight inside himself.”

He paced from the kitchen into the living room. I followed him, drying my hands. “How did it go?”

“We were swarmed. They were lesser demons, but all working together, like Azazel. There were hundreds this time. Arielle and I tried to call to the others for help but they landed so fast… At first we tried to stay focused on the assignment. The girl…she was…”

He rubbed his eyes. Was he tired, or trying to wipe away what he’d seen? I couldn’t tell. I wanted to hold him, give him some comfort, but his body was so wiry and tense I wasn’t sure if he’d let me in.

“You did all you could.”

“By the time we were done…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but the look of devastation on his face said it all.

“You did your best,” I said soothingly.

“Arielle said the same thing.” He sighed heavily. “The girl was attacked, but she lived. When we’d dispatched the demons, it was easy enough to pry the beast off of her. Not so easy to let him live.” His anger filled the room as he strained to pull himself together, his expression both haunted and sad. “It could have been you.”

I took a step closer, touching his face, and he leaned his cheek into my hand. “I’m right here,” I said reassuringly.

“What if it happens again?”

“You’ll be more prepared,” I said. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. If anyone can learn from this, it’s you.”

He sighed, accepting that. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he opened his arms so I could lean into him. As he rested the side of his face gently on the top of my head, I listened to the steady beat of his heart, knowing I needed to mention the note from Damiel but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet—not when he’d had such a rough night.

Within a few moments, he tensed and backed away. Bright light flared around him. Squinting, he shifted his focus as though he was listening to something far away. A look of resignation crossed his face.

“What is it?”

“I’m still on duty tonight.” He ran a hand through his wavy bangs, pushing them out of his face. “I’m being called,” he said flatly. “To Portland. Another major attack.”

“Portland?” I asked, shocked. “Portland’s a three-hour drive away.”

“It’s way faster by air,” he said, and it took me a moment to realize he planned to fly.

I knew that he would at some point have an assignment and be called elsewhere; he had a larger purpose. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier. He’d already been on one call that night and it seemed to have deeply affected him. Clearly, he needed time to process.

His expression hardened with determination. “I’m not going.”

“Wha—?”

“I’m not going. They can send someone else.”

“People’s lives depend on you.” I thought of the attack he’d just prevented. However badly it went, his being there had made a difference. “That girl probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

He took my hands in his. “Your life depends on me, too. Your life is the one that matters to me. Don’t you get that? I’ve waited thousands of years to see you again—”

“Michael, you can’t disobey.”

“What if all of this is a ruse? It all picked up since Damiel left. What if it’s a trick to keep me busy and away from you?” He linked my fingers through his and pulled me closer. This didn’t sound anything like him. The Michael I knew was bound to his sense of duty, obedient to God, and determined to ascend. Something was wrong.

“Michael, you sound paranoid,” I said, trying to keep myself calm. Seeing him this worried made me think things were a lot worse than he was letting on.

“Or maybe I’m the only one who sees this clearly.” He bent his forehead to mine, almost touching. I wanted to lean in, to soothe him, but I had to talk some sense into him.

Unlinking my hands from his, I held the sides of his face. “You have to go. You can’t—”

The rest of what I was going to say was cut off by his lips pressing against mine. His kisses were intense, angry, restless, as he leaned into me, filling a need within him and awakening a need inside me, too. I was swept away by it. I knew it was wrong, that we should stop, but I didn’t care. In no time at all I had reclined on the couch, his body pressed into mine, and I didn’t want him going anywhere.

Still on top of me, he pulled back and placed one of my hands on his chest. His heart hammered against it—as fast as my own. The look he gave me was fierce and yet gentle too, as if he saw so much more of me than I even knew existed. He stayed that way for a long time and said nothing. He didn’t have to; his look said so much. I met his stare, matching his quickened breathing, my heart pacing with his.

When he finally spoke, his voice was deep, husky. “Mia, I—”

“Can’t. I know. It’s okay.” I touched his arm lightly with my other hand. I wasn’t going to stop touching his chest. His heartbeat was steady but fast. “We should stop.”

“I love you,” he confessed. His eyes captured mine with a dazzling blue light. “I always have.”

I’d suspected he felt something for me, but hearing him say it meant more than I’d ever imagined. “I love you, too,” I whispered.

He nodded. “I can feel it.”

“You can?”

“Yes. It makes it so much harder to stop when I know your feelings, not just my own.” I couldn’t keep the look of amazement off my face. He brushed a stray hair out of my eyes and continued, “All the angels can feel, but for so long I couldn’t. I forgot how amazing it was… It’s why enthrallment is so dangerous; it reverberates. So if I make you feel something, I feel it too.”

“Michael, you haven’t made me feel anything.”

He kissed me again with a dizzying intensity and swept me up into his arms until I was on top of him, kissing his face, his neck, as he let out the softest of sighs. His hands, warm and strong, gently caressed my sides, the skin just under my shirt, and the next thing I knew my shirt was off. My soft blue lace bra was pretty, and if I didn’t know it looked good on me I would have from the look on his face: he regarded me as though I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Saying my name softly under his breath, he kissed me again and again and again. It was what I’d always wanted, but something was wrong. There was something else he was supposed to be doing—not this. He turned us again until he was on top, and removed his shirt and then the white singlet. His skin was beautiful, glowing a soft gold in the incandescent lighting of my living room like he was bathed in candlelight. His chest warm and smooth, I had to touch it, feel it against my own skin.

“Michael?” a female chorus said, the voice so familiar to me now. She had entered so silently neither of us had heard her.

Of course. If an angel is on duty and disconnects from the network, Arielle had said, we have to check in. It was creepy to even think about how visible we were.

Michael’s shoulders tensed but he kept kissing me, ignoring her, and the intensity shot up between us. I tried to stop but couldn’t. I was drawn into him, as though we were one being separated only by skin.

“Michael,” she said again more insistently.

“Go away,” he replied, his voice surprisingly cold, a stark contrast to the warmth from his kiss. He didn’t stop.

“Are you insane?” she asked. “You’ve been called. You must go.”

He kissed my throat, the side of my neck, as one of his hands stroked the side of my waist. I didn’t want him to stop. But he had to. “Michael,” I whispered between labored breaths. “She’s right.”

I started to sit up, but he held me down. His voice with me was soft, soothing, his breath hot on my skin. “It’s okay. She’ll leave soon.”

“Michael!” she bellowed, her voice a trumpet blast.

He stopped kissing me and sighed impatiently. “I’ve got to stay with her.”

With her arms folded over her chest, Arielle looked furious. I sure wouldn’t want to cross her. “Disobeying a direct order? Tell me I didn’t get brought into this so you could fall again.”

“It’s just another peripheral attack. Can’t you see? It’s a ruse. Damiel will be back, and who’s going to watch over her?”

“Can’t you see? You can’t do it.” She motioned to his position on the couch. “Not like this.” Her voice, still a chorus, was steady and calm, a contrast to Michael’s agitation.

“Why not?”

“You know why not.” She moved into him and, with inhuman force, pulled him off of me.

His temper exploded with the force of an air gun. He shook himself free of her grasp and raised a hand instinctively, like he was going to strike. I held my breath.

Fearless and ferocious, she continued, “You’re weak. You’re not in the network. There’s no power without your connection. Without it, Damiel will eat you alive! What will happen to Mia then?”

The golden glow of her halo flamed brightly even in my well-lit living room. It burst from her in a ripple of light that rushed Michael, igniting his own halo. His hand fell and he blinked at her as though waking from being drugged.

“You’ve been called. You must go. You’re needed.”

He motioned to me. “Who will watch Mia?”

“I will. She’ll be safe, I promise,” Arielle said.

He nodded slowly, accepting his task. “If anything happens to her…”

“It won’t.”

I sat up and pulled on my shirt, flattered by the fact that he looked a little sad to see me cover myself up. “I’ll be fine. Arielle knows what she’s doing.”

“Been at it a while now,” she added and threw his singlet at him.

He put it on. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I know.”

I hugged him goodbye, my body aching to be with him. Knowing he felt it too, that he could feel me, I pulled away. He hesitated a moment, gazing at my lips, compelling me to kiss him, but if I started again we wouldn’t stop. So I turned away and he left.

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” I said to Arielle, who was standing in the living room calming herself.

“He should be.”

“I mean he won’t fall again because of tonight?”

Her clear golden eyes revealed nothing. “I’ve got to go straighten out another mess. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while. If you need me, call, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She didn’t say anything, but her look acknowledged me before she left.

Standing up, I noticed that my legs were wobbly and my body still pulsed with desire. It had never been this intense before—like a drug—not even that first time we’d kissed. After being so close to him just moments before, Michael’s absence now almost hurt. I was cold and lonely in a whole new way. Was this the enthrallment I’d been warned about? Or was it just love?

Beneath it all, I was agitated from my afternoon: Damiel’s note, and then the Tarot reading—that Devil card plagued me. It seemed the longer Michael and I were together, the more likely it was that I would cause him to fall—or at least stray from what he was here to do. Knowing he could feel my feelings meant he would know how much I wanted him—which in itself was too strange to even consider. How long could I be close to him without causing a disaster? I couldn’t bear to be with him and not be close, and I couldn’t bear to be without him.

Grabbing my iPod from my purse, I found the loudest, angriest song I could. I didn’t care that it was after ten, that the neighbors were likely asleep. I hooked it into the stereo and put it on repeat with the volume loud enough for the bass to pound against my chest. Retrieving Michael’s jacket from my room, I used it as a pillow and lay on the living room floor as close as I could get to the speakers, the heavy pulsing beat filling the lonely hole in my chest. Tears flooded down my face.

I don’t know how long I lay there or how many times the same song repeated. Vibrating through the floorboards of the old house, the music was so loud I didn’t notice Arielle standing there until the music shut off.

“Hey! Put it back on!” I said, getting up.

Her halo blazed around her as she approached me with the grace of a cat. “I didn’t need to even try to sneak up on you…”

“So?”

“Dear one,” she said, her voice a musical and soothing balm, “I bring you a message.”

“From Michael?” I stood up. “Is he okay?”

“No. Think higher up than that.”

“Oh, so now God’s going to order me to stay away from one of His angels?”

“Not at all.” Arielle’s smile was kind. “Will you hear it?”

Her halo had grown so bright it was hard to look at her. I nodded, my chest tightening. I realized I was afraid to know what God had to say to me. What could He possibly want from me other than for me to get lost? No wonder. I had obviously messed things up for Michael before.

“You know Damiel is coming back.”

“Yes.”

“And you know he wants you for some reason.”

“I know.”

“Sure enough. But what you do not know is how Damiel will hurt Michael.”

“How?”

“He’s going to exploit Michael’s weaknesses. He’s going to use his past and make him believe he’s unforgivable. That’s Michael’s ultimate weakness. He can’t forgive himself for his past, and it started with what he did to you.”

“What did he do to me that was so horrible?” I said, reaching back in my memory for some kind of glimpse of what happened.

“We’d hoped that by spending time with you, Michael’s memories would return on their own. The only other witnesses are on the wrong side to be of any help.”

“Which leaves me as the only witness.” I sat on the couch.

“Exactly. We were wrong about Damiel. If you’re the only witness, it makes no sense for him to force your memories back…unless he was trying to short-circuit you and destroy those memories altogether.”

It took me a moment to process all she had said. “My memories are that important?”

“Yes. Very. We need you to remember what happened so that Michael can forgive himself before it’s too late.”

“How do I do that?”

“I have an idea.” She came over to sit beside me on the couch and her halo tingled beside me. It blazed much stronger than Michael’s.

“Does it involve going through that network again?”

“No, we need to tap into your memories,” she said, rolling up the sleeves of her beige jacket. “It’ll be different this time. Hold still and, no matter what, keep breathing, okay?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

When she placed her scorching hands on my head, a brilliant white light erupted through my brain like sheet lightning. I couldn’t help but gasp.

“I know it’s warm, but it won’t do any damage. Just keep breathing.”

“As if I’m going to stop,” I said, but I focused on my breath anyway.

My mind blanked as though it were rebooting, obliterating any thoughts I had about what we were doing or what would happen next. An exploding fireworks display of colors and images followed, pictures that came so fast I couldn’t make sense of them. I winced, inhaling sharply as a piercing pain shot between my eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Nice, deep breaths. This will pass too.” The resonant tones of her voice echoed right through me.

I closed my eyes,  the sound of her voice guiding me until the pain subsided, and a tunnel of brilliant golden light presented itself. I followed it until I saw Michael. Sitting on a roughly-carved wooden stool, he watched as I took wildflowers from my hair and placed them in a bowl of water, their silken petals limp between my fingers. We were inside the same house I’d had visions of before, and through its small round holes for windows, stars sparkled in the night sky. Next to us stood a table covered with dried fruits and cheeses left over from a feast, from some kind of celebration—our wedding.

Michael stood, his full height almost to the ceiling, and held out his hand to me. He spoke a different language, but somehow I understood it.

“Come to bed—wife.” The corners of his lips curled into a smile filled with desire and the promise of such pleasure that my skin flushed even remembering it.

Was this it? Was this what he was forbidden to do? Marry me?

But in that life, I smiled and danced, twirling around him and humming a tune from that time as I meandered toward our bed. Light from the fire flickered in the blackness of his eyes. He was different then. Even though his face held all the signs of his beauty, it was shadowed by a sadness that I hadn’t seen in him before, as if his glory had dimmed somehow. But in that moment I didn’t notice. I was focused on him, fueled as much by his desire as by my own. When I was close to the bed, he grabbed my arms, raising them above my head, and kissed me hungrily, without restraint, and a rush of passion flowed through me.

From what Michael had suggested about our past, I would have expected a wild disrobing or something forced at this part, but this was gentle, beautiful. It was strange to have a full memory of something I hadn’t done in this lifetime. I couldn’t see myself but saw it through my own eyes, as though it were happening to me, which it did. Even back then, the chemistry between us was incredible, and though it was only a memory my body responded.

Grappling for self-control, knowing that it wasn’t actually happening in the moment, that I wasn’t alone, I nervously pushed the memory aside, hoping Arielle couldn’t see it. At least Michael wasn’t with me. I would have jumped him for sure.

Next, I saw us waking with the sunrise, naked on a bed of furs, Michael peaceful as he slept. Scars ran down the length of his back where his wings had once been.

Like being startled awake, I snapped out of the memory with a pounding heart, a dry mouth, and sweaty palms. Arielle’s hands rested on my shoulders as she searched my face for an answer.

“Could you see what I saw?” I said.

She shook her head. “I could only see you were getting memories and feel your feelings.”

“All my feelings?” I cringed, thinking that some things should be private.

“You were so in love.”

“Still am,” I muttered under my breath.

Arielle hugged me. “Human love is frightening and tempestuous, but it can be beautiful, I’ll give it that.”

“I don’t understand what Michael did that was so wrong.”

“What did you see?”

“Our wedding night,” I began, then explained the image as clearly as I could, leaving out the personal, embarrassing details. Arielle asked me if I was forced or in pain at any point, but I wasn’t. There was nothing in that memory that I didn’t want to hold onto. It was beautiful and I would cherish it. “He slept. He told me that angels never slept.”

“That’s because he’d fallen,” she explained. “Angels were forbidden to mate with humans. Breaking our laws would drain him—make him mortal—so he had to be careful. Those who continued to fall would steal people’s life force in order to survive.”

“You mean Damiel?”

She nodded pensively. “Would you be willing to look again? Perhaps a different memory?”

“Yes. But I’m thirsty,” I said, and got up to pour myself a glass of orange juice. The muscles all over my body were strained and achy. My legs wobbled, so on my way back from the kitchen I stopped to stretch them out. As I bent forward and clasped my hands behind my back, one of my ribs popped back into place at least, but the pain in my muscles frustrated me.

“What you’re remembering isn’t coming from your mind in this life. It’s coming from your soul. I’m taking you so far into your soul’s past that your mind can’t process it, so it resists with physical pain. You may also experience fatigue or anger,” Arielle said, smiling kindly at me. “You’re doing really well.”

“How will this ever help Michael?”

“Are you ready to try again?” she asked. “You’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll be right here.”

“Yes.” I tried to not betray the sense of anticipation that welled inside me.

When she placed her hands on my head again, the heat was less intense than before. The images came as soon as I closed my eyes.

This time, I saw more of the ancient city where we used to live. It was near the sea. A huge sandstone wall surrounded it like a fortress, and in the center of the city was a great sandstone ziggurat. The house I lived in was on a farm near the edge of the city. It belonged to my family. Not sure where to go next, I thought about Michael.

Next thing I knew, I was in the woods outside the city walls. Michael stood before me wearing a long robe, and his downy white wings glowed behind him in the shade of the trees. Physically, he was huge. The top arc of his wings reached a good two feet above his own head, compounding his size as he towered over me. Seeing him filled me with a mixture of dread and awe that drove me to my knees. My breath came in gasps and I was dizzyingly afraid, astounded by this wondrous creature.

He caught me and lifted me back to my feet, shaking his head. Kneeling before me, he bowed his head and stayed there, motionless, until my fear subsided.

From a pouch on his belt, he presented me with a small ornate jar, carved from a clear crystal. Each incision captured the light, refracting into colored spectrums—like the light from his wings. When I opened the jar, the oil inside smelled of flowers and amber from the trees. He motioned for me to put some on my wrist, so I did.

“What are you seeing now?” It was Arielle’s voice, interrupting my memory.

“A meadow. He’s giving me perfume,” I said. The image wobbled slightly as I spoke. It was difficult to talk and focus on it at the same time.

“Try to see what happens next,” she offered.

“Okay.” I strained to concentrate. The images flickered slightly and faded out.

“Relax a bit more. You can’t force it.”

I tried to relax, but a flash of light erupted between my eyes again, followed by that short, stabbing pain. Instinctively, my hand gripped the bridge of my nose. Then the image flickered and shorted out, giving way to darkness.

I let out a groan of frustration. “It’s gone now.”

“It’s late,” Arielle said. “You’re tired. We should take a break.”

“What about the other memories?”

“The soul’s memories are delicate. They’re between a person and God. As an angel, I can take you to them but we can’t force it. If we do, we could damage them, which is what Damiel tried to do,” she said firmly, “and I won’t do that.”

“When can we start again?”

“A few hours. I’ll be right here.” Leaning forward on the couch, she tilted her head sideways and closed her eyes, listening. I imagined it was the way she tuned in to the others. “Michael’s fine.” She waved me off. “Get some rest.”

As strange as it was to have Arielle babysitting me, it would be pointless to argue about it, and when I lay down exhaustion took over. As soon as I closed my eyes, my dreams came in heatedly, almost too numerous to track. One of them was the dream about the birds I’d had the first day of school. This time, they were angels—Michael and Damiel destroying each other—and I still wasn’t able to stop it.

I woke up with the sunrise on Saturday morning, filled with panic. Heart racing, I got out of bed, my muscles complaining as though I’d overdone it in gym class. The coppery metallic tang of adrenaline filled my mouth, so I went to brush my teeth. Splashing cold water on my face to wake up, I caught my reflection in the mirror, surprised to see that the eyes staring back at me belonged to a stranger. They were mine but not mine, like I was looking at myself from a different life—that life. Brown skin, long black hair, a slightly more streamlined nose, higher cheekbones, and a smaller mouth. I was me but not me, the face unfamiliar and yet strangely so.

As soon as it appeared, it faded, and my own face stared back at me again.

Trying to shake it off, I jumped into the shower, hoping the hot water would soothe my sore body and frazzled nerves. It did. When I got out and got dressed, I realized Mom was already home and in bed. I had nothing planned for the weekend. I’d been keeping the day open to spend with Michael, and his absence left an enormous hole. I didn’t think about Arielle until I went into the living room and found her sitting on the couch. I nearly jumped when I saw her.

“Good. You’ve rested,” she said. “Are you ready to try again?”

I nodded, seating myself beside her.

“I want you to go back to the memory you were having last night, about the perfume,” she said. “We can use it as a marker and move forward from there.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just think about the memory. I’ll do the rest.” She placed her hands on my head as she had the night before. This time they seemed to burn even less. The images returned instantly.

“Got it.” I could see Michael in the forest, the perfume bottle, Michael encouraging me to try some. In the vision, he smiled at me and left.

“Try going forward now.”

I focused again, trying to both relax and concentrate at the same time. The image advanced quickly, as though I were chasing a dream.

I was in the woods, collecting ingredients to make dyes for the cloth I was weaving. The sky grew increasingly darker and it was time to head back. As I gathered the last few red flowers and placed them in my basket, Michael stepped onto the path. Darkness surrounded him. His once-white wings were gray and tattered, as though they’d been singed, and his eyes, usually clear and blue, took on strange red hues. They were rimmed with shadows. He looked stricken with—what was it? Anger? Need?

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

A haunted smile touched his lips. “I fell.”

Not fully understanding, I shook my head.

“It was the only way,” he said. Tears filled my eyes, shocked by the realization of what he’d done. Brushing my cheek, he leaned into me until his face was inches away. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”

Then he kissed me, and the feelings I’d been trying to hide around him flooded through me. They were met by an even stronger force: him. I let myself be taken by that force like a storm. It wasn’t right to want an angel this way. The tribal elders had warned all of us, but I didn’t care what anyone else thought. In that moment, none of those barriers existed. We flowed smoothly together, and when he swept me up into his arms, I was no longer afraid of anything.

My memory jumped forward a few minutes. This time, I was partially disrobed under the shadow of the trees, cool in the moonlight. His warm hands—strong and rough from working the fields—held me back as I strained to reach for him. The more he hesitated, the more I wanted him closer to me, mesmerized by the darkness. In him, it was beautiful. He stopped and gazed at me as the blue returned to his eyes. They were still mostly black, and something urgent and inhuman flickered behind them, something he was holding back.

I kissed him again as he slid out of his robes. His body was lean and incredibly strong. It both frightened and excited me. His skin burned against mine as I traced the muscles of his chest, down the tight ridges of his abdomen to the corded muscles above his hips, and he moaned softly, his lips pressing against the side of my neck.

The next thing I heard was a deep, musical voice—several of them. A bright light shone above us.

“They’re over here.”

I tried to see who was there, whose voices made the chord of music that spoke, but I couldn’t see over the cover of Michael’s wings. Whoever they were, their approach had been as silent and stealthy as hunters.

Michael didn’t pay attention to the voices. Exploring the length of my body, he held me, locked in some kind of trance.

A few things happened at once. Two sets of huge, strong hands grabbed him by the chest and lifted him off of me as he let out a snarl of frustration, trying to struggle from their grasp. Another set of hands grabbed the skirt of my dress, covering my body before the others could see it. I turned to the person who covered me. It was Arielle. She glowed the same as she did now, but back then was the first time I’d ever seen it, and it frightened me.

“You were there!” I spoke out loud to the Arielle in the room with me. As I did, the memory shook like a glitch in worn filmstrip.

“Stay with it,” Arielle said. “Stay with the memory.”

I returned my full focus to the vision playing in my mind’s eye and saw the two larger angels hold Michael back. They were also huge. Though he looked different, one of them was Damiel.

“Leave now, Arielle,” Damiel said. “You do not need to witness this.”

She bowed her head obediently and turned to walk away; the forest dimmed as she left. My attention returned to the two other angels who held Michael captive. Though Damiel was slightly smaller than Michael, the other angel with them was huge. He towered over both of them, his hair the color of wheat, his eyes a golden fire. His wings were white and clean, with the slightest graying around the edges. The light around him shone brilliantly, not as bright as Arielle, but brighter than either Michael or Damiel.

Damiel slapped Michael’s face. “I warned you about this.”

The other angel touched Damiel’s arm, restraining him. He spoke directly to Michael, his voice stern, condemning. “Do you know what your crime is?”

Michael nodded, his head bowed.

“Speak it.”

“Lust.” His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

“You admit it freely?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware of the punishment?” the angel asked, walking around to face him.

“Banishment,” Michael answered, bracing himself.

“So be it,” he said firmly, not seeming to take the slightest pleasure in his work. “Michael, third rank in the Order of Grigori, in the name of God, I banish you. You are no longer welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven.” The blond Grigori’s words hit Michael like a blow to the chest. He exhaled sharply and his shoulders slumped in defeat.