The door was locked from the inside.
I rapped on it. “Pepper, it’s Nora Grey. Open up.” I gave him a few moments, then tried again. “If you’re not opening because you sense someone else, it’s Scott. He’s not going to beat you up. Now open the door.”
“Is he alone?” Scott asked quietly.
I nodded. “Should be.”
“I don’t sense anybody,” Scott said skeptically, bending his ear toward the door.
“Hurry up, Pepper,” I called.
Still no response.
“We’re going to have to break down the door,” I told Scott. “On the count of three. One, two—three.”
In unison, Scott and I landed forceful kicks to the door.
“Again,” I grunted.
We continued to drive our soles into the wood, striking it until it splintered and the door slammed inward. I strode across the foyer and into the living room, looking for Pepper.
The sofa had been knifed multiple times, stuffing spewing from each incision. Picture frames that had once decorated the walls now lay shattered on the ground. The glass coffee table was tipped on its side, with an ominous crack down the center. Clothes from Patch’s wardrobe had been dragged out and thrown like confetti. I didn’t know if this was evidence of a recent struggle, or left over from Patch’s hasty departure nearly two weeks ago, when Pepper had hired thugs to destroy the place.
“Can you call Pepper?” Scott suggested. “Do you have his number?”
I punched Pepper’s number into my phone, but he didn’t pick up. “Where is he?” I demanded angrily to no one in particular. Everything was riding on his end of the bargain. I needed those feathers, and I needed them now. “And what is that smell?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
I walked deeper into the living room. Sure enough, I detected a noxious, acrid smell wafting in the air. A rotten smell. A smell almost like hot tar, but not quite.
Something was burning.
I ran from room to room, trying to find the feathers. They weren’t here. I shoved open the door to Patch’s old bedroom and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of burning organic material.
Without pausing to think, I ran to the far wall of the bedroom—the one that slid open to reveal a secret passageway. The moment I cracked the sliding door, a thunderhead of black smoke rolled into the room. The greasy, charred stench was unbearable.
Sealing my mouth and nose with the collar of my shirt, I called to Scott, “I’m going in.”
He strode through the doorway behind me, batting the smoke with his hand.
I’d been down the passageway once before, when Patch had momentarily detained Hank Millar before I’d killed him, and I tried to remember the way. Dropping to my knees to avoid the worst of the smoke, I crawled quickly, coughing and gagging every time I drew breath. At last my hands struck a door. Fumbling for the ring pull, I jerked on it. The door swung slowly open, sending a fresh wave of smoke billowing into the corridor.
The light from a blazing fire flashed through the smoke, flames leaping and dancing like an exquisite magic show: brazen gold and molten orange and great plumes of black smoke. An awful crackling and snapping sounded in my ears as the flames devoured the massive hill of fuel beneath it. Scott vised my shoulders protectively, forcing his body in front of mine like a shield. The heat from the fire broiled our faces.
It only took me a moment to howl in terror.
Chapter 38
I SHOT TO MY FEET FIRST. OBLIVIOUS TO THE HEAT, I charged the fire while sparks rained down like fireworks. I clawed at the towering hill of feathers, shrieking with panic. Only two of Patch’s feathers from his days as an archangel remained. One feather we held for safekeeping. The other had been taken and meticulously stored by the archangels when they’d banished Patch from heaven. That feather was somewhere in the pile before me.
Patch’s feather could be anywhere. Maybe already burned. There were so many. And an even greater number of ash flecks floated like singed pieces of paper around the fire.
“Scott! Help me find Patch’s feather!” Think. I had to think. Patch’s feather. I’d seen it before. “It’s black, all black,” I blurted. “Start looking—I’ll go get blankets to smother the fire!”
I raced back toward Patch’s studio, the smoke forming a screen across my eyes. Suddenly I came up short, detecting another body in the tunnel, just ahead. I blinked against the smoke grinding into my eyes.
“It’s too late,” Marcie said. Her face was puffy from crying, and the tip of her nose glowed red. “You can’t put out the fire.”
“What have you done?” I yelled at her.
“I’m my dad’s rightful heir. I should be leading the Nephilim.”
“Rightful heir? Are you listening to yourself? Do you want this job? I don’t—your dad forced it on me!”
Her lip wobbled. “He loved me more. He would have chosen me. You stole this from me.”
I said, “You don’t want this job, Marcie. Who put these ideas in your head?”
Tears tumbled down her cheeks, and her breathing became choppy. “It was my mom’s idea for me to move in with you—she and her Nephilim friends wanted me to keep an eye on you. I agreed to do it because I thought you knew something about my dad’s death that you weren’t telling me. If I got close to you, I thought maybe—” For the first time, I noticed the pearly dagger in her hands. It shined a lustrous white, as if the sun’s purest rays were trapped beneath the surface. It could only be Pepper’s enchanted dagger. The nitwit hadn’t been careful enough, and had allowed Marcie to follow him here. Then he’d dumped the feathers and the dagger and bolted, leaving them to fall into Marcie’s possession.
I reached for her. “Marcie—”
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “Dante told me you killed my dad. How could you do it? How could you! I was sure it was Patch, but all along it was you!” she screeched hysterically.
Despite the heat, a shiver of fear whipped up my spine.
“I—can explain.” But I didn’t think I could. Marcie’s wild, overwrought expression hinted that she was spiraling into shock. I doubted she’d care to know that her dad had forced my hand when he’d attempted to send Patch to hell. “Give me the dagger.”
“Get away from me!” She scrabbled out of reach. “Dante and I are going to tell everyone. What will the Nephilim do to you once they know you murdered the Black Hand?”
I studied her carefully. Dante must have only just learned I’d killed Hank. Otherwise, he would have told the Nephilim long ago. Patch hadn’t given up my secret, which left Pepper. Somehow, Dante had gotten to him.
“Dante was right,” Marcie spat, cold rage bubbling up in her voice. “You stole the title from me. It was supposed to be mine. And now I’ve done what you couldn’t—I freed the Nephilim. When that fire finishes, every fallen angel on Earth will be chained in hell.”
“Dante is working for fallen angels,” I said, frustration sharpening my tone.
“No,” Marcie said. “You are.”
She swiped Pepper’s blade at me, and I jumped back, tripping. Smoke pressed down on me, fully obscuring my vision.
“Does Dante know you burned the feathers?” I yelled up at Marcie, but she gave no answer. She was gone.
Had Dante switched his strategy? After an unexpected windfall of every fallen angel feather, and therefore surefire victory for Nephilim, had he decided to side with his race after all?
There wasn’t time to debate. I’d already wasted too much precious time. I had to help Scott find Patch’s feather. Running back to the fiery chamhe fieryber, I coughed and gagged my way into the entrance.
“They’re all turning black from the ash,” Scott hollered at me over his shoulder. “They all look the same.” His cheeks glowed scarlet with heat. Embers whirled around him, threatening to ignite his hair, which had turned black with soot. “We have to get out of here. If we stay longer, we’ll catch on fire.”
I ran to him in a crouch, trying to avoid the heat, which blasted relentlessly. “First we find Patch’s feather.” I flung burning heaps of feathers behind me, shoveling deeper. Scott was right. A greasy black soot smeared every feather. I made a high sound of despair. “If we don’t, he’ll be sent to hell!”
I scattered handfuls of feathers, praying I would know his on sight. Praying it hadn’t already burned. I wouldn’t let my thoughts turn to the worst. Ignoring the smoke that scratched at my eyes and lungs, I sifted the feathers with more urgency. I couldn’t lose Patch. I wouldn’t lose Patch. Not like this. Not on my watch.
My eyes watered, tears brimming over. I couldn’t see clearly. The air was too hot to breathe. The skin on my face seemed to melt, and my scalp felt like it was on fire. I plunged my hands into the hill of feathers, desperate to find a solid black feather.
“I’m not going to let you burn,” Scott ground out above the crackling whoosh of flames. He rolled back on his knees, dragging me with him. I scratched ruthlessly at his hands. Not without Patch’s feather.
The fire clamored in my ears, and my concentration was wilting without enough oxygen. I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, only to rub in more soot. I groped at the feathers, my arms feeling as though they were attached to hundred-pound weights. My vision seesawed. But I refused to pass out until I had Patch’s feather.
“Patch,” I murmured, just as an ember landed on my shirtsleeve, igniting the fabric. Before I could raise a hand to tamp it out, the flame shot to my elbow. Heat torched my skin, so bright and agonizing, I screamed and pitched sideways. It was then that I saw my jeans were also ablaze.
Scott bellowed orders behind me. Something about leaving the chamber. He wanted to close the door and trap the fire inside.
I couldn’t let him. I had to save Patch’s feather.
I lost my sense of direction, stumbling forward blindly. Bright, licking flames eclipsed my vision.
Scott’s voice, so urgent, dissolved into nothing.
Even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was in a moving car. I felt the irregular bump of tires bouncing over potholes, and an engine growled in my ears. I sat slouched against the car door, my head propped on the window. There were two unfamiliar hands in my lap, and it startled me when they moved at my command. I turned them over slowly in the air, staring at the strange black paper curling off them.
Blackened flesh.
A hand squeezed my arm in consolation.
“It’s okay,” Scott said from the driver’s seat of his Barracuda. “It will heal.”
I shook my head, imp my headlying he’d misunderstood. I licked my parched lips. “We have to go back. Turn the car around. We have to save Patch.”
Scott said nothing, just cast me a sidelong look of uncertainty.
No.
It was a lie. A deep, unimaginable fear swallowed me up. My throat felt thick and slippery and hot. It was a lie.
“I know you cared about him,” Scott said quietly.
