Page 10 of The Morning Star
I knelt beside him. “No mid-level demon did this. Maybe, if we were looking at a char-broiled corpse, or the guy was torn to bloody bits, or exploded from the inside out—”
“Then I would be accusing Uri.” He chuckled, a completely inappropriate sound in this circumstance. “She never liked the transmutation method of execution, always preferring something more dramatic.”
My respect for Gregory’s archangel sibling just went up a few notches. “You’re joking! Uriel seriously explodes angels from the inside out?”
He nodded, a fond smile on his face. “She’ll do the transmutation thing on occasion, but the other is her signature move. It’s distinctive. Blood from the pores and every orifice, smoking craters for eyes. Of course, that method only works if an angel is in corporeal form, and the executioner must be of sufficient power to hold the spirit-being inside the form until the death is complete.”
I had no idea Uriel had this sort of thing in her. I was approaching hero worship at this point. “Well, this guy is a pile of sand, so it wasn’t Uriel and it wasn’t me. Could a higher-level Grigori do this? Or is one of your brothers on a rampage? Maybe this guy grabbed Ahia’s ass, and Rafi lost his temper or something?”
The smile faded. “Rafael would come to me before delivering this sort of justice.”
Actually, Ahia would most likely kill the guy before Rafi could lay a finger on him, and this wasn’t really her style. “So, who?”
Gregory took my hand and shoved it into the sand. I instinctively recoiled, because…gross. This might just look like a pile of spilled sand to anyone else, but I felt the angel’s previous form, felt the scattered remains of his decaying spirit-being.
And I felt something else. There was a faint trace of energy there, cold and clear and sharp. And very, very powerful.
I removed my hand and dusted the grains of sand off on my pants leg, shooting Gregory a concerned, sideways glance. I’d never felt this energy signature before, but I’d had it described to me.
“It’s a coincidence,” I told the angel. “He’s dead. This killer is either a faker trying to freak you and your brothers out, or it’s a really weird coincidence.”
“Seven Grigori have perished within the last twelve hours. Seven. All of them dead this way and all of them bearing faint traces of this energy signature.”
“Someone is hunting them down?” I glanced around the alley. “It doesn’t look like there was a fight here. Maybe it was an ambush?”
Gregory did that raised eyebrow thing.
“Oh, don’t look like that. You might think your Grigori are the mightiest beings outside of your siblings, but it just ain’t true. Nyalla and Harper collared one and beat the shit out of him. If two human girls, one of them pregnant, can take down a hunter angel, then a gang of street-smart demons could easily lure your enforcers to their deaths. You guys underestimate us. You go in like you’re shooting fish in a barrel and make stupid mistakes. The sin of pride is really an issue with you angels.”
He winced at my mention of pride, and I remembered that had always been his weakness as well. Pride and anger, but mostly pride.
“I’m sorry you’ve lost seven of your angels.” I reached out with my spirit-self to touch him, realizing that such a thing must cause him grief. I mean, if I were to lose seven of my Lows, I’d be upset too.
“All of them enforcers,” he told me. “And they’re not as naïve as you’re claiming, Cockroach. These Grigori have been hunting demon trespassers for hundreds of years. The gate guardians cycle out every century, as do most of the Grigori, but these particular enforcers were all here a minimum of three hundred years. They understand the human world. They are confident and skilled in fighting while in corporeal form. They are not angels who would have fallen prey to a simple ambush.”
“But they’re used to fighting demons one-on-one, or maybe in pairs,” I corrected him. “We’re not big on organized activities. Yeah, there’s the occasional impromptu mob riot, but the sort of planning it would take to lure an enforcer into a situation where he didn’t even have time to launch a defense? I’m sure he wasn’t expecting this.”
“And I doubt any of them were expecting to encounter a being they hadn’t seen in nearly three million years, one they’d assumed long dead.” Gregory’s voice was wooden as he stared down at the sand.
It was my turn to wince. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. All we know is that there is someone—either a powerful Ancient or one of the rebel angels with a grudge—who is killing off Grigori.”
“I’ll be letting the others know during tomorrow’s meeting,” the angel said.
“And I get an early announcement because…?” I shot him a wary glance. This wasn’t just one of those “I’m sad that my angels died, and I want my lover to commiserate with me” things. I knew that deep down inside, there was another reason for Gregory to have me here, to let me know about this early as well as see the crime scene with my own eyes, to feel that distinctive energy signature with my own hand.
“Because the killings necessitated me putting in place some policies that adversely affect you.”
So much for progress. I gave him the go-ahead motion with my hand.
“Whoever this was, they were able to kill seven enforcers—one from each of the major gateways. It was well planned. In each case a demon came through the gateway and immediately caused human deaths as well as attacking the gate guardian.”
“And the gate guardian called an enforcer,” I finished. This was the secret-until-yesterday agreement he and I had come to. Demons were now allowed to cross with restrictions. If they didn’t vow to the gate guardian they’d abide by these, they were turned back. If they gave the gate guardian any shit, an enforcer was called to turn them back with some added violence. If they killed humans, an enforcer was called and could use any force necessary to stop the demon, including killing them.
“In each case, that enforcer never returned, but since different gateways were targeted each time it wasn’t immediately evident to the gate guardians that there was a problem.”
“But?”
“I felt the pattern. I felt the deaths and knew something was wrong. Until we discover who is doing this and stop them, I had to put new policies in place.”
