The memory opened on a murky street corner outside Hank’s warehouse. It wasn’t the one I’d successfully broken into, rather the one Scott and I had first attempted to take pictures of. The air was damp and heavy, the stars hidden behind cloud cover. Patch moved silently down the sidewalk, approaching what could only be Hank’s guard from behind. He leaped at him, dragging him backward in a punishing embrace before the guard could so much as squawk. Patch deprived the man of his weapons, tucking them into the waistband of his jeans.
To my amazement, Gabe—the same Gabe who’d tried to kill me behind 7-Eleven—strolled out of the shadows ahead. Dominic and Jeremiah followed. All three shared a wicked smile.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” Gabe asked in a mocking undertone, brushing dirt off the Nephil guard’s collar.
“Keep him quiet until I give the signal,” Patch said, handing the guard over to Dominic and Jeremiah.
“Better not fail me, bro,” Gabe said to Patch. “I’m counting on the Black Hand being on the other side of that door.” He lifted his chin at the warehouse’s side door. “You come through for me, and I’ll forget any past grievances. You end up wrong about this, and I’ll show you what it feels like to have a tire iron rammed into your wing scars … every day for a solid year.” Patch merely answered with a cool, measured look. “Wait for my signal.” He edged up to the small window encased in the door. I followed, peering through the glass.
I saw the caged archangel. I saw a handful of Hank’s Nephilim men. But to my surprise, Marcie Mill ar stood just feet away, her posture withdrawn, her eyes wide and frightened. What could only be Patch’s archangel’s necklace dangled from her bloodless hands, and her gaze flicked surreptitiously to the door Patch and I hid behind.
There was a loud commotion as the archangel bucked wildly, kicking at the bars of her cage.
Hank’s men instantly lashed back with blue-glowing chains, no doubt enchanted with devilcraft, sending them whipping against her body. After repeated strikes, her skin adopted the same unearthly bluish glow as the chains, and she crouched in submission.
“Would you like the honors?” Hank proposed to Marcie, holding his hand out to indicate the necklace. “Or if you’d rather, I’ll place it on her neck.” By now, Marcie was trembling. Her complexion was ashen and she cowered, saying nothing.
“Come, darling,” Hank urged her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. My men have secured her. She won’t hurt you. This is what it means to be Nephilim. We have to take a stand against our enemies.”
“What are you going to do to her?” Marcie stammered.
Hank laughed, but he sounded weary. “Put the necklace on her, of course.”
“And then?”
“And then she’ll answer my questions.”
“Why does she have to be in the cage if you only want to talk to her?” Hank’s smile thinned. “Give me the necklace, Marcie.”
“You said you wanted me to get the necklace as a prank. You said it was a joke we’d play on Nora together. You never said anything about her.” Marcie sent a terrified glance at the caged archangel.
“The necklace,” Hank ordered, hand out.
Marcie backed along the wall, but her eyes gave her away—they flashed briefly to the door. Hank made a convulsive movement toward her, but she was faster. She shoved through the door, almost running headlong into Patch.
He steadied her, his eyes briefly locking on his archangel’s necklace dangling from her hand. “Do the right thing, Marcie,” he told her in a low voice. “That doesn’t belong to you.” I suddenly realized that the events of this memory must have happened moments after I’d left the warehouse with my mom—and just before I’d picked up Marcie off the streets. I’d missed Patch by a matter of minutes. All that time he’d been busy rounding up Gabe and his crew to go against Hank.
Chin quivering, Marcie nodded and stretched forth her hand. Wordlessly, Patch pocketed his necklace. Then he commanded her in a steely tone, “Go.”
Not a moment later, he signaled to Gabe, Jeremiah, and Dominic. They rushed forward, swarming through the door and into the warehouse. Patch brought up the rear, shoving Hank’s guard in with him.
At the sight of the band of fall en angels, Hank made a throttled sound of incredulity.
“Not a single Nephil in here has sworn fealty,” Patch told Gabe. “Have at it.” Gabe flashed a grin around the room, eyes landing on each Nephil individually. His gaze lingered longest on Hank, burning with something almost greedy. “He meant to say none of you strapping lads have sworn fealty … yet.”
“What’s this?” Hank seethed.
“What does it look like?” Gabe answered, cracking his knuckles. “When my buddy Patch here said he knew where I could find the Black Hand, he sparked my interest. Did I mention I’m in the market for a new Nephilim vassal?”
The Nephilim in the room held their places, but I could read the dread and tension on every one of their faces. I wasn’t sure what Patch had planned, but clearly this was part of it. He’d told me he’d have a hard time finding fall en angels who’d help him rescue an archangel, but maybe he’d found a way to recruit their help after all. By offering up spoils of war.
Gabe motioned Jeremiah and Dominic to spread out, each taking a side of the room.
“Ten of you, four of us,” Gabe told Hank. “Do the math.”
“We’re stronger than you think,” Hank countered with a malicious smile. “Ten on four. Those don’t sound like good odds to me.”
“Funny, I was thinking they sounded pretty damn enticing. You remember the words, don’t you, Black Hand? ‘Lord, I become your man.’ Start rehearsing. I’m not leaving until you sing them to me.
You’re mine, Nephil. Mine,” Gabe finished with a mocking jab of his finger.
“Don’t just stand there,” Hank exploded at his men. “Bring this arrogant fallen angel to his knees!” But Hank didn’t stick around to shout further orders. He bolted through the door.
Gabe’s laughter rang from the rafters. He strolled to the door and flung it open. His voice boomed into the night. “Scared, Nephil? You’d better be. Here I come.” At this, every Nephilim in the building fled through the front and rear exits. Jeremiah and Dominic chased after them, whooping and holl ering.
Patch stood in the vacated warehouse, facing the archangel’s cage. He approached her and she drew back with a warning hiss.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Patch told her, keeping his hands where she could see them. “I’m going to unlock the cage and let you go.”
“Why would you do that?” she rasped.
“Because you don’t belong here.”
Her eyes, ringed with exhaustion, darted over his face. “And what do you want in return? What mysteries of the world do you want answered? What lies will you whisper sweetly into my ear for the truth?”
Opening the door to the cage, Patch reached inside slowly, taking her hand. “I don’t want anything except for you to hear me out. I don’t need a necklace to make you talk, because I think once you hear what I have to say, you’ll want to help.”
The archangel hobbled out of the cage, reluctantly leaning her weight on Patch, her blue-glowing legs clearly impaired by devil-craft.
“How long will I be like this?” she asked, tears jumping to her eyes.
“I don’t know, but I think we can both agree the archangels will be able to help.”
“He cut my wings off,” she whispered hoarsely.
A nod. “But he didn’t rip them out. There’s hope.”
“Hope?” she repeated, eyes flashing. “You see something hopeful in all this? That makes one of us. What kind of help do you want anyway?” she inquired miserably.
“I want a way to kill Hank Mill ar,” Patch said bluntly.
A dull laugh. “And now that makes two of us.”
“You can make it happen.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
“The archangels have tampered with death at least once before, and they can do it again.”
“What are you talking about?” she scoffed.
“Four months ago one of Chauncey Langeais’s female descendants threw herself off the rafters of her high school gym, a sacrifice that ended up killing him. Her name is Nora Grey, but I can tell by the look on your face you’ve heard of her.”
Patch’s words shocked me. Not because what he’d said sounded foreign. In one of his other memories I’d heard myself say I killed Chauncey Langeais, but on coming out of the memory, I’d stubbornly denied it. Now there was no closing my eyes to the truth. The fog in my mind shifted, and in a succession of flashes, I saw myself standing in the gym at school, several months ago. With Chauncey Langeais, a Nephil who wanted to kill me to hurt Patch.
A Nephil who didn’t realize I was his descendant.
“What I want to know is why her sacrifice didn’t kill Hank Mill ar,” Patch said. “Hank was the most direct Nephil in her line. Something tells me the archangels have their hand in this.” The archangel stared back wordlessly. Patch had visibly cracked her composure, which had been The archangel stared back wordlessly. Patch had visibly cracked her composure, which had been whittled down to threadbare from the start. With a faint smile of mockery, she said at last, “Any other conspiracy theories?”
Patch shook his head. “Not a theory. A cover-up—the archangels’ cover-up. I missed it at first, but when I realized what happened, I knew the archangels had tampered with death. You let Chauncey die in Hank’s place. Given the problems Hank has created for you, why?”
“You really think I’m going to talk about this with you?”
“Then you get to hear my theory after all. Here’s what I think. I think just about five months ago the archangels found out that Chauncey and Hank had started dabbling in devilcraft, and they wanted it stopped. Believing Hank was the lesser of two evils, the archangels approached him first. The archangels would have foreseen Nora’s sacrifice, and they decided to offer Hank a deal. They’d let Chauncey die in his place, if Hank agreed to leave devilcraft alone.”
“Your imagination astounds,” the archangel said, but her voice came out haggard, and I knew Patch was onto something.
“You haven’t heard the end of the story,” Patch said. “I’m betting Hank sold Chauncey out. And then he sold the archangels out. Picking up where Chauncey left off, he’s been using devilcraft ever since. The archangels want him out of the picture before he passes the knowledge on to anyone else. And they want devilcraft back where it belongs—in hell. That’s where I come in. I’m asking for the archangels to tamper with death one more time. Let me kill Hank. He’ll carry the knowledge of devilcraft to his grave, and if my theory is as dead on as I’m betting it is, that’s exactly what you and the rest of the archangels want. Of course, I’m sure you have your own reasons for wanting Hank dead,” Patch added meaningfully.