The Guardian Page 9

  “Alfie Davies was an Angel of Protection named Rogan,” Azrael explained. “He and his brother Malak both worked for the Pentagon for years. They were my contacts that got all of Claymore’s security contracts.”

  “Angel brothers?” I asked.

  “Not biologically, of course, but Malak and Rogan have been together for eons. Longer, maybe. You never see one without the other. They returned to the auranos last year,” Azrael said.

  “Never heard of them,” I admitted.

  “Well, you are pretty new on the job.” My father had a teasing grin.

  “How did they work at the Pentagon if angels weren’t allowed to speak English?” Fury asked.

  “The Father worried about nuclear war, so he placed them inside the American government himself. The Council’s rules didn’t apply for that assignment.”

  “As much information was out there, I never found any photos of this mysterious Damon Claymore.” Chimera pointed at Azrael. “But once I found SF-12 in the company records, it all snowballed from there.”

  My mouth fell open. “You hacked the Claymore server?”

  “Many times. It’s how I found SF-12 and Fury. Even Sloan and yourself, eventually. It was Abaddon’s name, which I’d read in some cryptic emails, that led me to research the supernatural. The more I learned, the more my life made sense.”

  “But why send Fury the information on Sloan?” I asked.

  “Through the web of communication between Damon Claymore and SF-12, it was obvious objective number one was to keep the two of you apart. It was also obvious from her search history that Fury wanted to find Sloan. I thought if I helped her, it might get me into the company.”

  I swiveled my chair toward Fury. “You were searching for Sloan?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t look at me. “I’d heard about her for years. I was curious.”

  Chimera’s brow scrunched with doubt across the table.

  “You were curious,” I repeated.

  “Yes. I wanted to know more.” Fury shrugged. “Not a punishable offense.”

  It was clear from Azrael’s narrowed eyes, he wasn’t buying it either.

  “Why did you want in at Claymore?” Fury asked, conveniently moving the conversation along.

  Chimera sat back in her chair. “I thought I might find out where I came from. Why I was the way I was. Hell, I even wondered if the mythical Damon Claymore might be my father.”

  Azrael laughed. “Got that wrong. I’m not nearly smart enough for that job.”

  “How did you find out your father was what’s his name?” I asked.

  “He found me, actually. Not long after I sent that video to Fury. Now that I know my father is a demon, I’m sure he was probably watching Fury’s communications as well because they had taken her sister, Anya.”

  “Damn.” I looked at Azrael. “You should have had an Angel of Knowledge on staff a lot sooner.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, he’s got me now,” Chimera said proudly.

  “Why didn’t you want to work with your father?” Fury asked her.

  Chimera frowned. “Screw that guy. I’ve been kept from the human world, the angelic world, and even the fallen my whole life. I wouldn’t wish that kind of isolation on anyone. Now they’re trying to mess up another kid’s life? Hell no.”

  “Tell him about your necklace,” Azrael said.

  “Oh.” She straightened. “Did you bring the sword?”

  “No. It’s locked up in the armory right now. Why? Azrael said you knew something about it.”

  “Maybe.” She pulled a simple chain from under her collar. On it was a tiny bright-purple stone. It looked like an amethyst from across the table. “When Torman was trying to recruit me to the dark side, he told me the demons had this all-powerful stone. Said it had all sorts of powers, like the power to kill angels. That’s how we got to talking about it when Az told me about your sword.”

  She gripped the purple stone with her fingers. “He said this was made from the same stone, and that it would keep me well when he left.

  “I didn’t know what that meant at the time, nor did I trust the bastard, but once he left and the migraine started, I became a quick believer.” She blew out a sigh that puffed out her cheeks. “I put on the necklace, and the migraine went away.”

  I felt like someone had sucked all the air out of my lungs. Could she be saying what I think she was saying?

  I caught Azrael watching me, like he was waiting for a reaction. That was all the confirmation I needed. I stood and leaned both hands on the table. “Are you telling me that stone keeps your migraines away?”

  Chimera looked at Azrael. “You said he’d be excited.”

  “It can protect you from the effects of angels?” My volume jumped up a notch.

  She nodded. “I haven’t been sick once since I started hanging around you weirdos.”

  A squeal escaped my throat as my eyes flooded with tears. “I’ll pay you a million dollars for that necklace, Chimera.”

  “You don’t have a million dollars, Warren,” Azrael said.

  “No, but you do, and I’ll give her your whole damn company.”

  Azrael, and even Fury, laughed.

  “Do tell, Mr. Archangel. Why would you want my necklace?” Chimera’s playfulness already told me she knew, but I wanted to say it out loud anyway.

  The tears spilled down my cheeks. “Because I want to go home to my daughter.”

  “So here’s the bad news.”

  At least Azrael gave me a few minutes to get my shit under control before ripping the world out from under me again.

  “That necklace is priceless,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve already offered her everything I’ve got.”

  With the weight of the world back on me, I sank into my seat, drying my eyes on the back of my hand.

  “He did, but I refused. I’m a nice person, but I’ve only gotten this far because I take care of myself first.” Chimera tucked the necklace beneath her shirt again. “However…”

  Fury shifted on her chair. “Oh, thank God you said however. I was about to pull out my nine mil and shoot you.”

  I smiled, appreciating the odd solidarity.

  Chimera scooted toward the table. “I know there’s more of it down in Nulterra. From what Torman said, it powers the whole damn place.”

  “What exactly is it?” Fury asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve had several geologists and jewelers check it out over the years, but no one has ever seen it.”

  Azrael got up from the end of the table. “One of our friends at the NC State lab even said it may not be from this planet.”

  “You think it might be Nulterra-borne?” Fury asked.

  Chimera’s head tilted. “Maybe. Maybe not. There is someone who could tell us for sure, but I can’t get him to talk.”

  I gripped the table. “Point me that direction. I’ll get him to talk.”

  She smiled. “I thought you might say that.”

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Moloch.”

  “You want him to work with a gargoyle statue?” Fury crossed her arms. “That’s hysterical.”

  “Don’t discount what’s locked inside that statue,” Azrael warned.

  “What makes you think Moloch will tell him the truth? Isn’t lying the MO of the fallen?” Fury asked.

  “The sword.” I looked at Fury. “I’ve considered using it on Moloch anyway. Maybe we could make a deal.”

  “And leave the demon alive?” she asked. “That’s insane.”

  “Don’t worry,” Azrael said. “We’re working on security measures for our supernatural prisoners.”

  I’ll bet he was.

  “But it’s a statue. How will you get it to talk?” Fury asked.

  “It’s not just a statue. It’s a computer. Communication is easy,” Chimera said.

  I stood. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go have a chat with a demon.”

  Back in the vault,
Chimera attached what looked like a cell phone to the back of the statue via a USB cable.

  “You can really communicate with him like that?” I asked.

  She nodded. “You bet.”

  Fury waved her hand in front of the gargoyle’s face. “How does it work?”

  “It’s actually pretty simple. The spirit form of an angel is little more than a consciousness, and on this side of the spirit line, that consciousness is very similar to our radio waves. All you need to transmit those waves are a transmitter”—she tapped the gargoyle’s head—“and a receiver.” She held up the phone. “The receiver intercepts the waves and turns the electrical signals back into sound.”

  “That’s genius,” I said.

  “It’ll take just a second to pull up and decode the program,” she said.

  I tugged on the hem of Fury’s shirt and stepped a few feet away. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” She held it up to show off the white bandage. “But I look like a suicide failure.”

  “I’m starting to think you are.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t start.”

  “I’m not. I give up.”

  “Good.”

  “Have you heard from Flint?”

  “No.”

  “What will you do when you find him?”

  She let out a breath. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, speaking as a father who’s about to go to Hell and back for his daughter, don’t be too hard on him for wanting to protect you. It’s clear how much he loves you.”

  “I know he does. I just can’t believe he’d pull Jett and John into this.”

  After seeing Fury and John fight that day, I could think of one reason a dad might.

  “Does John hit you?” I asked gently.

  She didn’t look at me. “No. I’d kill him if he did.”

  Of that, I had no doubt. Still, even if she deserved his anger, I could have snapped his neck for coming at her like he had.

  Azrael walked into the vault after taking a call outside with Adrianne. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Not yet. Chimera’s getting set up now. How’s Adrianne?” I asked.

  “Better now that she’s had some sleep. She wants to know if the two of you will be staying with us tonight. Echo-10 is also an option if you’d rather not, but do keep in mind the pregnant woman’s wrath. It’s brutal.”

  “I don’t care where I sleep,” I said.

  “Me either,” Fury agreed. “What’s with the beach house, anyway?”

  “It took some convincing, but I got her to agree to have the baby here with our own private medical staff rather than in Asheville.”

  “How’d you do it?” I asked.

  “I bought her a beach house.”

  Fury put her hands on her hips. “Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be you. Even without your powers, you can still wiggle your nose and get your way, every time.”

  “Not every time,” he said. “But close.”

  “You guys ready?” Chimera asked.

  She flipped a switch on the front of the gargoyle as we walked back over. The crackle of static flooded the vault, just like when the Angels of Death tried to contact me. “Radio waves,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Huh?” Fury asked.

  I pointed to my ear. “Same sound when angels communicate with each other.”

  Chimera turned the volume down. “It’s probably similar to radio waves. I’ve heard this world is like a knockoff of Eden.”

  “A bad knockoff,” Azrael said.

  More static echoed around the vault.

  “Oh great. Azrael is here.” The voice coming through the phone sounded like a Speak & Spell.

  “Is that Moloch?” Fury asked, wide-eyed.

  “Were you expecting someone else?” the voice replied.

  Azrael walked up beside me. “He sounds like Stephen Hawking.”

  “It’s a similar system,” Chimera said. “Hawking’s system translates data he inputs. Here, Moloch is the data.”

  “So is he ready to talk?” I asked.

  “I’m right here,” the robotic voice answered. “What would you like to talk about, Warren?”

  I took a step closer, so I was almost nose-to-snout with the winged stone beast. I could swear the thing was staring at me. “This is weird.”

  “You think it’s weird for you,” Moloch replied. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to tell me about Nulterra.”

  “Ha,” the statue said. “No.”

  “You don’t want to talk?” I reached for the sword leaning inside the open cabinet. When I pulled it from its scabbard, the demon’s green eyes flared.

  “No need to get violent,” Moloch said.

  “Then maybe you should start talking.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Is my sister alive and in Nulterra?” Fury asked, wasting no time.

  “She is.”

  Peace washed over Fury’s face. “Was she taken across the spirit line in blood stone?”

  “She was.”

  “Did it stop burning her once she was through the gate?”

  “It did.”

  Fury looked at me as if to say, “See?”

  “I think he’s telling the truth,” Chimera said.

  My head pulled back. “Oh, you’re an Angel of Knowledge. I forgot you can do that.” I lowered the sword an inch. “Moloch, do you know where Anya is now?”

  The green eyes turned from Fury to me. “The last I knew, she was being held in the tower beyond Ket Nhila.”

  “The Bad Lands,” Azrael translated with a smirk. “How original.”

  “I imagine they were named with good reason,” Chimera said.

  “How do we find Ket Nhila?” I asked.

  There was a pause. Finally, the robot spoke again. “I honestly can’t tell you. The experience for everyone is different. What might be the Bad Lands to one might not be the Bad Lands for another. Ket Nhila will depend on your human.”

  “On me? That makes no sense,” Fury said.

  Azrael’s head tilted back and forth. “Perhaps it does. I’d imagine the Morning Star created Nulterra in the image of what he already knew…Eden. And Eden can be quite subjective.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “Sloan’s mom lives in a place exactly like her home in Asheville. I’m sure that never existed before she came to Eden.”

  “So things in Heaven are created to suit humans?” Chimera asked.

  I shook my head. “I think things in Heaven exist because humans bring the best of their existence back with them.”

  “He’s smarter than he looks,” Moloch said.

  “I’m right?”

  “Yes,” the robot voice replied. “Eden is an illusion. What exists is a projection of the spirit.”

  “We create our own heaven,” Chimera said.

  I nodded. “Kind of.”

  “But that also means…” Fury was staring straight ahead at the wall. “We also create our own hell.”

  I gave the back of her neck a reassuring squeeze, but when her eyes met mine, they were filled with worry. Understandable since she’d probably seen enough horrors in her life to level even an angel.

  “What’s down in that pit that’s going to try to kill them?” Azrael asked.

  I swear the demon smiled. “Everything.”

  “Can you be more specific?” I asked, annoyed.

  “Why should I?”

  I raised the sword again. “Because the only chance you have to continue to exist, even locked up inside that statue, lies with me. Perhaps, if you answer all my questions, I’ll let you live when I get back.”

  “When you get back,” he repeated. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it’s not a question of if, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Do we have a deal, Moloch? You keep your life if you help us get back from Nulterra ali
ve.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I tapped the statue between the eyes with the tip of the sword. “I could end you right now.”

  “Nulterra was built on a bedrock of osmium,” Moloch said.

  I looked over my shoulder at Fury. “Osmium. Write that down somewhere.”

  “No need.” Chimera raised the phone. “Everything’s recorded. I’ll send it to you.”

  “When the gate is opened and oxygen fills the entrance chamber, osmium tetroxide will begin to crystallize on the rocks. The crystals will immediately begin to vaporize. It won’t affect you, Warren, but the human will need protective eye covering and an air-purifying respirator until you get away from the gate.”

  “Goggles and a gas mask?” Fury asked.

  “That should be sufficient, but you’ve been warned. The gas will blind you, and if you breathe it in long enough, it will cause your lungs to fill with fluid and cause respiratory failure.”

  “That’s all true of osmium,” Chimera said. “Osmium tetroxide is highly toxic to humans.”

  “What else do you know about it?” I asked her.

  “It’s the densest of all known metals on Earth. The rarest, too, in the Earth’s crust.”

  “It didn’t exist in the Earth’s crust at all before Nulterra,” Moloch added. “And you’ll only see it just beyond the gate. Once you’re inside, the osmium is so far beneath the surface, it won’t be dangerous.”

  “How will we know when it’s no longer dangerous?” I asked.

  “You will know,” he replied. I could almost see his smartass face smirking through that damn statue.

  I looked at Chimera. “When you no longer see the crystals, it should be safe.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “So how would a bedrock made of osmium differ from what we have here on Earth?” Fury asked.

  “Besides its toxicity?” Chimera teased.

  Fury wasn’t amused. “Of course.”

  “Well, it’s about four times as dense as the Earth’s crust, so depending on Nulterra’s overall mass, gravity might be more intense.”

  “It is,” the robot said. “It should not alter your ability to walk, but you won’t be able to fly. Other than that, much of what you will experience there, you’re already familiar with.”