“Celestial ink,” Dayna explained. “Bloody painful process.”
Her skin looked clear, but she was a reaper too. “Do you have them?”
“Yes, although being promoted to Deadside means I don’t get to use them any longer.” She handed me back my comm. “It’s all set so you can receive communication from your team now.” She pressed her lips together. “It looks like someone put a block on the messages.”
No prizes for guessing who. “When do we patrol next?”
“Tomorrow night, south side,” Sariah said.
“I’ll pick you up from the quarters,” Nox said. “It will be late afternoon, Underealm time.”
“And the injured reaper?”
“You can’t help her now,” Dayna explained. “There’s a window of time that you can heal a reaper with your scythe, half an hour after injury.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry. Please, tell her to get well soon and take as much time as she needs to heal. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
Nox almost choked on his coffee.
“What?”
His brother, Nix, who wasn’t a twin, slapped him on the back.
“Well fought and well scarred is what we say,” Sariah explained.
“What you said intimates that she’s weak,” Dayna explained.
Sariah smiled, and the hard look in her yellow eyes ebbed a little. “But we understand what you mean. I’ll tell Freya you await her return.”
I looked to Dayna. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
She sighed. “Now that you’re asking …”
I was a reaper down for my Necro team. But there were other teams, several more that patrolled other regions and all reported to me. It was my job to pick up the souls they collected. It looked like the Dominus guys had been covering for me.
Not anymore.
As soon as I got back to quarters, I’d be having words with them. This was my job, and I intended to do it.
Except now I needed a ride to the Beyond.
Dayna caught the thread of my thoughts from my expression. “Shit, Nox won’t be able to take you to the Beyond. If he gets close to the portal, it’ll fry him.”
“It doesn’t like lesser demons,” he said bitterly.
“No, because we don’t have enough celestial blood,” Sariah added.
But I did, because of Samael. Although the guys hadn’t known what lineage I was at the start, they must have known I had enough celestial blood to get into the Beyond. Otherwise, why would the scythe choose me … shit, that’s what worthy meant to them. Celestials measured worth based on celestial bloodline. Conah had been telling the truth about it not mattering if you were of Lilith’s bloodline, though he just hadn’t clarified the rest.
“Shit.”
“Never fear, Malachi is here.” He sauntered into the room, looking pleased with himself.
Relief and anxiety tugged at my insides. I crossed my arms defensively. “Here to help or lecture me? I assume Azazel called you.”
“You assume correctly, and I’m here to be your chauffeur to the Beyond.”
I arched a brow, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
His expression sobered. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “About fucking time.”
Huh?
“I told Az to go easy, to give you some slack. I told him you needed to be out there two weeks ago, but I was outvoted.”
“Conah sided with Azazel?”
Mal shrugged. “I think in your world they call it alpha male bullshit; in ours, we call it looking after the little woman.”
“But Lilith is a woman, and no one tells her what the fuck to do.”
Dayna made a choking sound, and Sariah let out a bark of laughter.
“Lilith is a queen,” Mal said. “Lilith is the beginning, and everyone knows messing with your origins could get you undone.”
In other words, do not compare yourself to Lilith. “I’m done with the alpha bullshit. I do my job, my way.”
Mal nodded. “Fine. Then I’ll back you. If you need anything, you know you can come to me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, did we just become friends?”
“Don’t push it,” Mal said. But the twinkle in his eyes belied his words.
The path to the Beyond was via the rickety lava bridge, and Mal took a river straight to the other side, which meant no need to float across the bridge. Thank goodness.
Mal didn’t speak as we walked into the darkness that led to the portals. One to the Underealm, which I still had yet to explore, and the other to the Beyond. The light from the portals drifted down the path, providing enough illumination for us to see the path ahead.
His silence was disconcerting because he usually had something to say, however frivolous or inflammatory it was. I was tempted to crack my shields and read him, but somehow, that felt like a violation of his privacy. Now that I knew I could feel others’ emotions, using the ability felt like an invasion. I’d use it only when absolutely necessary.
Right now, I needed to break the silence because it was making me entirely too uncomfortable.
“Why can’t you cradle me like Azazel does?” It was the first thing that popped into my head.
Stupid mouth.
Mal gave me the side-eye. “Seriously?”
Got to stick to my guns, and now that I’d asked, I was curious. “Seriously.”
He pouted and then smiled. “It’s about the distribution of weight and the power of the wings, and please do not force me to admit that Azazel is stronger than me. That would insult my delicate masculine sensibilities.”
“Now that I’ve pissed him off, he’ll probably drop me next time he has to carry me. Just as well, I have Nox to ferry me about now.”
“Utilizing resources, handling the team. Good call, but I suspect it’s exactly why Az didn’t hook up your comm correctly.”
“You knew about that?”
“I suspected. I mean, if you’d known about the patrols and that your reapers relied on you, would you have backed down so easily when Az said no active duty?”
“No.”
Silence reigned again, and the darkness grew brighter.
“He wouldn’t drop you, though,” Mal said. “Azazel won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” I pressed a hand to my chest and affected a poncy voice. “He is bound to protect me.”
Mal didn’t laugh like I’d expected. He didn’t even crack a smile. “He’s a hard case, but he has a soft side not many people see. I think he actively works to hide it. If you find yourself on the receiving end of it, it’s a wonderful place to be.”
“Like Bea?”
He let out a bark of laughter. “You met little Bea?”
“Yep.”
“Bea adopted Azazel as her son the moment she set eyes on him a year ago. He could have set her straight, but he plays the role. She died alone. Her son was her carer, but he decided to take a weekend getaway and left her to her own devices for three days. She fell down and cracked her head open in the bathroom trying to get to the toilet.”
My heart sank, and then my familiar friend, anger, flickered to life in my chest. “He just left her alone? How could he do that? Why? I mean, why not get someone to come stay with her. He could have hired a nurse.” Poor Bea. That poor woman. Scared, alone, hungry. Bastard. “And she thinks Azazel is her son?”
“Yeah, but I guess in death, she likes to remember him as her perfect boy, and Azazel lets her have that illusion.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of this version of Azazel. It didn’t fit my experience of him. The minimal conversation, the glares, and the orders, that was the Azazel I knew.
I had to hold on to that vision. “I’m just a chore to him. A thing he has to keep alive.”
“No,” Mal said. “You’re more than that now. You’re one of the team, and I think Azazel is trying to find a way to reconcile that fact with the curse put on him. He’s … He’s not like the rest of us.”
“What do you mean?”
He opened his mouth to speak and then snapped it closed. “You ask way too many questions. You know that?”
“I have a right to know the people I’m teamed up with.”
“And Azazel has a right to tell his own story when he’s ready.” His emerald eyes were hard.
Fine, point conceded. “In that case, I’ll be waiting forever. He doesn’t like me. People don’t confide in people they don’t like.”
Which made the mark on my chest even more of a burden. Neither of us needed to be saddled with that kind of commitment.
Shit, when had it gotten this bright.
The portal stared at us in all its white, swirling glory.
“Welcome to the Beyond,” Mal said. He swept an arm toward it. “After you.”
This was the doorway to the Beyond, to heaven, and it was time to step through.
Oh, boy.
Chapter Eleven
Light melted over me in a hug that pricked the back of my eyes. For a moment, my breath was trapped in my lungs, and then a strange pull and push sensation gripped my body as if two opposing forces were fighting over me—one to pull me back into darkness, the other to embrace me in the light.
A gasp finally erupted from my lips. My eyes snapped open, and it was like being blind in reverse. There was nothing but white.
“Give it a moment,” Mal said from beside me. At least he sounded like he was beside me because there was no way to visually confirm. “It takes a moment for the eyes to adjust to the spectrum of color on this plane. Your body has the capacity to do so, it just needs a few seconds to make the switch.”
I blinked, and the world slowly bloomed to life before me like the image on a polaroid photograph. We were at the edge of a forest, boots planted firmly on grass. Trees, grass, sky, clouds, these were words that came to mind to describe the landscape, but that’s where my brain stumbled. Because the word forest seemed too small. The word grass seemed insignificant to describe the scene.