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“Well, shit.” Florian looked around the room, settling on gazing out of the window, like he was looking for signs of an archangel attack.
“That’s why I left the Boneyard,” I said. “Some of my friends there were undead. Angels don’t play well with the undead. They’re really, really good at killing them, too. And I realize you don’t fit the bill, but if you want to move out because of this, I’m not going to blame you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Florian said, folding his arms and planting both feet squarely on the floor. “I’m staying right here.”
I gave him a weak smile. “That’s everything, honestly told this time. It’s why I want to scrounge up the money for Beatrice so badly. She can craft me an enchantment that’ll make me invisible to all of these entities that keep coming after my blood.” I leaned back into the bed, folding my hands behind my head as a pillow. “Just imagine. No more demons hounding me at every turn. No more demon princes, either.” I made sure to meet Florian’s eyes as I said the next thing. “Also, it doesn’t have to be a jockstrap. Beatrice just likes to give me a hard time about that part.”
“So I guess I just have one question left. Why are you staying in Valero?”
I sighed. Florian really was asking all the tough questions. “Because I wouldn’t know where else to go. Because no matter where I go, the things that want to find me will always find me.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re staying because you still want to see them, these friends of yours from the Boneyard. Because there’s a chance you might run into them at the supermarket or something. You might not admit it, but you still care.”
“Of course I do,” I said irritably, rubbing my temples and sighing. “There’s no denying that. You’re smarter than you look, Florian.”
He perked up, sticking his chest out and smiling. “Thank you.”
I sat up again. “So now I have to decide whether it’s worth risking my hide to get involved with the Rodriguez witches, or to avoid that whole scene entirely.”
Florian beat a fist against his chest. “I’ve got your back, no matter what you pick.”
He was never the brightest grape in the bunch, but I could never say that Florian was a bad friend. “Thanks, man. But right now, the best I can do to protect us is put up more of these sigils I learned from the Boneyard. A little warding magic is better than none at all, I suppose.”
I pulled a notebook out from under my bed, where I kept the scant few notes and little bits of magic I’d retained from Carver, my old boss. He was a lich, and a wildly talented sorcerer. When I first moved in, I’d hidden some pretty simple wards around the place, just folded up squares of paper with very basic symbols scrawled into them. It couldn’t hurt to try and replicate the bigger, stronger wards that Carver used to keep the Boneyard’s dimensional walls secure.
Flipping through the pages, I finally came across a symbol I recognized. I stabbed at it with my finger. “This one.”
Florian leaned on the front two legs of his chair as he peered into my notebook.
“We can probably just
copy it out on some paper and paste these against the window,” I said. “Just plaster them everywhere. Landlord’s gonna kill us if we vandalize the place.”
“On it,” Florian said. “We should have a couple for the windows in the living area, and one right here for your bedroo – ”
Florian happened to be looking at the window just then, and he fell off his chair, crashing to the ground at the sight of what was lingering there. My heart was pounding, too, seeing the tremendous pair of wings and the flutter of feathers that almost certainly did not belong to a pigeon, unless that pigeon was six feet tall and vaguely glowing with golden light.
“Archangel,” Florian hissed at me from the floor as he tried to push his huge bulk under my bed frame.
I called for the Vestments, wishing I could summon more than one armament at a time. A weapon and a shield would come in real handy for fighting off an entity that liked to kill things with a flaming sword. But the face that peered into the window didn’t belong to an archangel at all. I frowned, dismissing the link to the Vestments, then pressing my fingers into my temples.
“Florian,” I grumbled. “It’s okay. Get up. It’s just Raziel.”
24
Raziel clambered in through the window, his wings disengaging and disappearing into nothing as he stepped lightly onto the ground, first one foot, then the other. Tap, tap, delicate as anything. I wondered if other angels were as graceful. I wondered if archangels made such elegant entrances.
“Oh, thank God,” Florian said, crawling out from under my bed, brushing the dust off the front of his pants as he clambered to his feet.
Raziel blinked at us questioningly. “What’s with you two? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Never mind that,” I snapped. “Why can’t you use the front door like everybody else, Raziel?”
He smoothed down the creases in his shirt, then swept his hair back out of his face. “This way is more fun. If I went the regular route, I’d have to wait for someone to open the door for me, then go up some stairs, or take that death trap you call an elevator. I like flying. Flying’s fun. You should try it sometime, Mason.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.”
A wry smile was Raziel’s only answer. I never questioned his mysterious expressions and motives anymore. I just assumed it was all part of his portfolio, being the angel of mysteries and all. I swept up my notebook and some stray bits of paper, dug up all the pens I could find in my backpack, then dumped everything onto the kitchen table.
