A fallen angel.
“Not surprised,” Kraven said. “There are plenty of fallen angels in the human world. Heaven has a way higher fail rate than Hell. When a demon stays in the human world, it’s usually a reward, not a punishment. Unless he’s been officially exiled.”
Bishop stared at me and I saw the pain shadowing his eyes as he absently touched his lips again. His gaze flicked to Kraven. “Did you know this?”
“Which part?” the demon asked. “I’m having trouble keeping track.”
“That I was fallen? That what was wrong with me wasn’t just disorientation caused by the barrier?”
Kraven’s lips thinned. “I saw the signs. And yeah, I thought it could be this. I wasn’t sure.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
There was nothing compassionate in Kraven’s harsh expression. “It’s not my fault you didn’t do your homework. I guess it’s just like old times, huh? Trust the wrong person, you end up screwed.”
With no warning, Bishop attacked him, grabbing the demon and slamming him down hard on the ground. If Kraven had been a human, it probably would have broken his back. Bishop even got a couple punches in, directly to the demon’s face, before Zach and Connor forcibly pulled him back and tried to restrain him. He looked completely crazy right now, and it scared me. I was frozen in place—all I could do was watch and try to make sense of all this.
“Get control over yourself,” Zach warned Bishop. “You’re only making things worse.”
It was the first time I’d heard an edge of anger in the angel’s voice. Maybe he wasn’t always the kindhearted healer.
Kraven wiped the blood at the corner of his mouth and pushed up off the ground. His eyes glowed red. “Yeah, I know. It sucks. But you can’t blame me for this. It’s not my fault.”
“You should have told me,” Bishop hissed.
“Why? What good would that have done? Your brain is toast. If it wasn’t for her—” he thrust a thumb at me “—you’d be off in a rubber room somewhere, drooling and rocking back and forth and the rest of us would be eating out of Dumpsters and sleeping on park benches. Just before the city was wiped off the face of the planet with us in it, like in your girlfriend’s vision.”
The pain on Bishop’s face tore me up inside. “What can I do?” I asked.
Kraven shot a dark glare in my direction. “You can stay the hell away from him.”
“I didn’t know this would happen.” A sob rose in my chest.
“I believe you. But it doesn’t change anything. You got a taste. Would you have taken it all if we hadn’t stopped you?”My breath caught. I’d felt it—tasted it. Bishop’s soul. I’d sensed it leaving him and entering me. And I’d wanted more.
Roth eyed Bishop as if he were damaged goods that should be taken directly to the dump. “He’d probably like that. Suck the whole soul out, and maybe he could flutter back to Heaven without that ball and chain around his ankle.”
“Or, more likely, it would destroy him completely and he’d be taking a nosedive right into the Hollow,” Connor said without even an ounce of humor. “Got a front row seat for that earlier. Not fun.”
“Why would you think something like that?” I asked, alarmed at the very thought of it.
He looked at me. “We’re not human. Well, not anymore. When we’re given the chance to be an angel or a demon, we’re changed on a base level.” He flinched. “It hurts, trust me on that. But once we’re finished with the conversion, we function without a soul. Having one—”
“Would screw us up,” Kraven finished. “But it’s a lose-lose. Without a soul, a fallen angel or an exiled demon would perish in the human world. With it, you risk getting your eggs scrambled.”
“Maybe,” Connor said with a shrug, “maybe not. When it comes to Bishop, anyway. What happened to him was a mistake, not a punishment. Maybe he’d be okay without it.”
Maybe. That word didn’t sound like something I could put even an ounce of my trust in.
Bishop had sunk back down to the ground. But he watched me, his expression raw, his eyes filled with something else—something I couldn’t name. Something aching and bottomless and filled with need. All directed at me. It scared me, because I felt like I was looking back at him exactly the same way.
He should hate me right now. But he didn’t.
Just the opposite.
I realized I was moving toward him again when Kraven yanked me back, his grip painfully tight on my wrist.
“Don’t go near him,” he growled at me.
Zach crouched next to Bishop, a hand on his shoulder as he’d begun to rise. It was to hold him back from meeting me halfway. He was the moth, I was the flame. Right now I knew I could burn him very badly. Despite a nearly overwhelming urge to struggle against Kraven’s grip on me, I stayed back.
“I feel it now,” Bishop said, pressing his hand against his chest. “My soul. It’s heavy inside me.”
“Lighter than it was, though,” Kraven added, giving me an unfriendly sneer. And here I thought we’d almost become pals. Guess not. “After all, you were just dinner for your new girlfriend.”
I hated everything about this. And there was absolutely nothing I could do to make it better.
Kraven yanked on my wrist.