Page 56 of Indecent

God, the angel had found them already? Daniel wasn’t ready. He still barely knew how to use his powers. He couldn’t protect Chaol. He couldn’t protect anyone.

But he was damned well going to try.

Daniel pulled the hellblade from the aether, sparing a moment of surprise when Draego drew an identical one beside him. The scent of sulfur filled the air, and the blades crackled with heat. He tapped Daniel’s blade with his own.

“Let’s go kill an angel,” he said.

Daniel took a fortifying breath. He wasn’t alone here. Facing the angel would be easier with Draego and the others by his side. Together, they could handle this. He hoped.

The others converged around them, humans with swords and demons with various weapons of their own. Shadows snapped out around Valac, on Chaol’s other side. Beside Draego, Ashmedai uttered a raspy snarl, flexing his clawed fingers. Daniel reached out with his free hand, tangling his fingers with Chaol’s. Their eyes met as the color leached from Chaol’s skin and black overtook his eyes, but wings didn’t sprout from his back yet. There wasn’t enough room in the Rink for him to fly anyway.

The leviathans stood behind them, getting into ready stances, while the halflings cocked handguns and took aim at the door.

“Are we really about to fight an angel?” a human in the crowd whispered.

They really were.

But when the door opened, it wasn’t the pale, golden-haired angel they’d fought in Hell. Instead, a dark-skinned woman strode in. Her spongy curls haloed her head like an afro, and she wore the same gauzy, white clothing and gold accents as the other angel. Her eyes, too, were the same ethereal gold.

An angel, but not the one they were expecting.

No one moved. In the stillness, the two sides sized each other up. The angel seemed to assess each of them in turn, from the demons to the humans crowded on the training mats across the room.

“She’s beautiful,” someone whispered.

She radiated power and a sense of calm, and when she made no move to attack, Daniel hesitantly lowered his blade. The movement triggered the others around him to tentatively relax. Draego’s blade dipped, and the halflings’ guns sagged.

This felt different than the attack in Hell. Daniel didn’t feel threatened.

She raised one hand, gesturing to the crowd that faced her. Even her fingernails were gold. “You are the Sentinels.” Her voice was melodic, like ringing bells.

Daniel turned his head, not quite taking his eyes off her. “We are,” he said when no one else stepped forward.

She smiled. “Good. Lay down your weapons. I mean you no harm. My name is Menadel, and I need your help.”

Daniel forgot how to breathe. He was pretty sure he wasn’t alone.

“Why should we trust you?” Talon asked. Daniel could hear the false bravado in his stern tone. He was scared, and Daniel didn’t blame him. Angels were an unknown quantity.

Daniel added, “Yeah, the last angel we met tried to kill us.”

She tilted her chin up. “Yes, I’m aware. That is why I’ve come. His name is Ramiel. He is no ordinary angel. He has abandoned the Heavenly Host, because he wishes to destroy mankind.”

Shock tore through the group. A murmur rose through the crowd at Daniel’s back. He swallowed down his own outrage and confusion to ask the one thing they all probably wanted to know.

“Why?”

Menadel lifted her chin. “He hates humans. He believes they have squandered God’s gift of life, poisoning themselves with chemicals and drugs, ending their lives with recklessness and poor choices. He thinks we should start again with a new race of beings. Something more pliant, more easily controlled. He doesn’t understand the truth.”

“Which is?” Ira asked.

A small smile graced her heart-shaped face. “Freedom is the point. Humans are allowed to make their own choices, for better or worse. A more pliant race wouldn’t be as beautiful.”

That rang a familiar bell in Daniel’s mind. It was one of the reasons he’d wanted to leave the guild. Instead of focusing on fighting monsters, they’d begun targeting people who didn’t agree with them. A pliant, easily controlled people weren’t a free people. It was surprising that even an angel couldn’t see that.

“What does that have to do with gathering demonic Wrath?” Chaol asked. “We were told that’s what he was doing in Hell.”

“Yes. What he is doing is an abomination. He is ingesting it. Doing so enhances his own power.”