“Hank is downstairs watching TV,” I whispered. Hank had been right; sleep had done me a world of good. Upon breaking out of the dream, enough of my normal thought process had returned to make me see what I’d been unable to before: Hank had mind-tricked me into submission. I’d let him drive me home without a single complaint, let him walk inside my house, let him make himself at home, and all because I’d thought he wanted to protect me. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Patch gave the door a gentle kick closed. “I came in through the attic.” He looked me over, head to toe. “Are you okay?” His finger traced a bandage covering a thin laceration cutting across my hair-line, and his eyes blazed with anger.
“Hank has been mind-tricking me all night.”
“Play everything back, starting with your mom’s fall.”
I swallowed a deep breath, then recounted my story.
“What did the fall en angels’ car look like?” Patch asked.
“Ell Camino. Tan.”
Patch rubbed his chin in thought. “Do you think it was Gabe? It’s not what he usually drives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“There were three of them in the car. I couldn’t see their faces. It might have been Gabe, Dominic, and Jeremiah.”
“Or it might have been any number of fall en angels targeting Hank. With Rixon gone, there’s a price on his head. He’s the Black Hand, the most powerful Nephil alive, and any number of fall en angels want him as their vassal for bragging rights alone. How long were you out before Hank drove you to the hospital?”
“If I had to guess, only a few minutes. When I came around, Hank was covered in blood, and he looked exhausted. He could barely lift me into the car. I don’t think his cuts and bruises came from the crash. Being coerced to swear fealty sounds plausible.” A truly savage look sharpened Patch’s features. “This ends here. I want you out of this. I know you’re set on being the one to bring down Hank, but I can’t risk losing you.” He stood and paced the room, clearly upset. “Let me do this for you. Let me be the one to make him pay.”
“This isn’t your fight, Patch,” I said quietly.
His eyes burned with an intensity I’d never seen before. “You’re mine, Angel, and don’t you forget it. Your fights are my fights. What if something had happened today? It was bad enough when I thought your ghost was haunting me; I don’t think I could handle the real thing.” I came up behind him, threading my arms under his. “Something bad could have happened, but it didn’t,” I said gently. “Even if it was Gabe, he obviously didn’t get what he wanted.”
“Forget Gabe! Hank has something planned for you and maybe your mom, too. Let’s concentrate on that. I want you to go into hiding. If you don’t want to stay at my place, fine. We’ll find somewhere else. You’ll stay there until Hank is dead, buried, and rotting.”
“I can’t leave. Hank will immediately suspect something if I disappear. Plus, I can’t put my mom through that again. If I disappear now, it will break her. Look at her. She’s not the same person she was three months ago. Maybe in part that’s due to Hank’s mind-tricks, but I have to face the fact that my disappearance weakened her in ways she’ll probably never recover from. From the moment she wakes up in the morning, she’s terrified. To her, there’s no such thing as safe. Not anymore.”
“Again, Hank’s doing,” Patch dismissed curtly.
“I can’t control what Hank did, but I can control what I do now. I’m not leaving. And you’re right—I’m not going to step aside and let you take on Hank alone. Promise me now that whatever happens, you won’t cheat me. Promise you won’t go behind my back and quietly do away with him, even if you honestly believe you’re doing it for my own good.”
“Oh, he won’t go quietly,” Patch said with a murderous edge.
“Promise me, Patch.”
He regarded me in silence a long time. We both knew he was faster, more skilled in fighting, and, when it came right down to it, more ruthless. He’d stepped in and saved me many times in the past, but this was one time—one time—when it was my fight to pick, and mine alone.
At last, and with great reluctance, he said, “I won’t stand by and watch you go up against him alone, but I won’t kill him privately, either. Before I lay a hand on him, I’ll make sure it’s what you want.”
His back was to me, but I pressed my cheek against his shoulder, nuzzling him softly. “Thank you.”
“If you’re ever attacked again, go for the fall en angel’s wing scars.” I didn’t follow him right away. Then he continued, “Club him with a baseball bat or ram a stick in his scars if that’s all you have. Our wing scars are our Achil es’ heel. We can’t feel the pain, but the trauma to the scars will paralyze us. Depending on the damage done, you could cripple us for hours.
After stabbing the tire iron through Gabe’s scars, I’d be surprised if he came out of the shock in less than eight.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said softly. Then, “Patch?”
“Mmm.” His response was terse.
“I don’t want to fight.” I traced my finger along his shoulder blades, his muscles stiff with aggravation. His whole body was clenched, frustrated beyond measure. “Hank has already taken my mom from me, and I don’t want him to take you, too. Can you understand why I have to do it? Why I can’t send you off to fight my battles, even though we both know you win in this department, hands down?”
He exhaled, long and slow, and I felt the knots in his body loosen. “There’s only one thing I know for certain anymore.” He turned, his eyes a clear black. “That I would do anything for you, even if it means going against my instincts or my very nature. I would lay down everything I possess, even my soul, for you. If that isn’t love, it’s the best I have.” I didn’t know what to say in return; nothing seemed adequate. So I took his face between my hands and kissed his set, determined mouth.
Slowly, Patch’s mouth molded to mine. I relished the delicious pressure shooting across my skin as his mouth rose and dipped against my own. I didn’t want him to be angry. I wanted him to trust me the way I trusted him. “Angel,” he said, my name muted from where our lips met. He drew back, his eyes judging what I wanted from him.
Unable to bear having him so close without feeling his touch, I slid my hand to the back of his neck, guiding him to kiss me again. His kiss was harder, escalating as his hands ran over my body, sending hot chills shuddering like electricity under my skin.
His finger flicked open a button on my cardigan—then two, three, four. It tumbled off my shoulders, leaving me in my camisole. He pushed up the hem, teasing and stroking his thumb across my stomach. My breath came in a sharp intake of air.
A pirate smile glowed in his eyes as he concentrated his attention higher, nuzzling the curve of my throat, planting kisses, his stubble raking with a gratifying ache.
He lowered me backward against the soft down of my pillows.
He tasted deeper, holding himself over me, and suddenly he was everywhere; his knee trapping my leg, his lips grazing warm, rough, sensuous. He splayed his hand at the small of my back, holding me tightly, driving me to sink my fingers deeper into him, clinging to him as if letting go would mean losing part of myself.
“Nora?”
I looked to the doorway—and screamed.
Hank filled the entrance, leaning his forearm on the doorjamb. His eyes swept the room, his face contracted in quizzical contemplation.
“What are you doing!” I yelled at him.
He didn’t answer, his eyes still roving every corner of my bedroom.
I didn’t know where Patch was; it was as though he’d sensed Hank a split moment before the doorknob turned. He could be feet away, hiding. Seconds away from being discovered.
“Get out!” I sprang off the bed. “I can’t do anything about the house key my mom gave you, but this is where I draw the line. Do not ever come into my bedroom again.” His eyes made a slow scan of my closet doors, which were cracked. “I thought I heard something.”
“Yeah, well, guess what? I’m a living, breathing person, and every now and then I make noise!” With that, I flung the door shut and sagged against it. My pulse was all over the board. I heard Hank stand resolute a moment, probably trying to pinpoint, once more, whatever it was that had brought him up to search my bedroom in the first place.
At last he wandered down the hall. He’d frightened me to the point of tears. I swatted them hastily away, replaying his every word and expression in my mind, trying to find any clue that would prove whether he knew Patch was in my room.
I let five treacherously long minutes pass before I cracked my door. The hall outside was empty. I returned my attention to my bedroom. “Patch?” I whispered in the faintest voice.
But I was alone.
I didn’t see Patch again until I fell asleep. I dreamed I was wading through a field of wild grass that parted around my hips as I walked. Ahead, a barren tree appeared, twisted and misshapen.
Patch leaned against it, hands pocketed. He was dressed in head-to-toe black, a stark contrast against the creamy white of the field.
I ran the rest of the way to him. He wrapped his leather jacket around us, more as an act of intimate possession than to conserve heat.
“I want to stay with you tonight,” I said. “I’m scared Hank is going to try something.”
“I’m not letting you or him out of my sight, Angel,” he said with something almost territorial in his tone.
“Do you think he knows you were in my bedroom?”
Patch’s agitated sigh was barely audible. “One thing’s for sure: He sensed something. I made a big enough impression that he came upstairs to investigate. I’m starting to wonder if he’s stronger than I’ve given him credit for. His men are impeccably organized and trained. He’s managed to hold an archangel captive. And now he can sense me from several rooms away. The only explanation I can think of is devilcraft. He’s found a way to channel it, or he made a bargain. Either way, he’s invoking the powers of hell.”
I shuddered. “You’re scaring me. That night, after Bloody Mary’s, the two Nephilim who chased me mentioned devilcraft. But they said Hank had pronounced it a myth.”
“Could be Hank doesn’t want anyone knowing what he’s up to. Devilcraft might explain why he thinks he can overthrow fall en angels as early as Cheshvan. I’m not an expert in devilcraft, but it seems plausible that it could be used to combat an oath, even an oath sworn under heaven. He might be counting on it to break thousands upon thousands of oaths Nephilim have sworn to fall en angels over the centuries.”
“In other words, you don’t think it’s a myth.”
“I used to be an archangel,” he reminded me. “It wasn’t under my jurisdiction, but I know it exists.