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“This is completely unnecessary and totally humiliating for him. Get him out of those restraints. Now.”
Contrary to everything I said, though, Florian looked perfectly content to be tied up in chains. He also had what looked like a golden ball gag stuffed into his mouth. I frowned, willing him to make more of an effort to look distressed and abused. He was probably getting off on it somehow. His gaze was distant, his eyes serene, like he was thinking about what we should have for dinner.
“Again,” the woman said. “This is simply a precaution. We know that you have a propensity for consorting with dangerous entities, Mr. Albrecht. And with earthly abominations as well.” She turned to Florian, wrinkling her nose.
“What, him? He’s a nature spirit! How abominable could he be? He’s a free-range, organic, gluten-free, farm raised dryad. Read: harmless. Where’s the corruption in that? Let him go.”
The clipboard angel looked between the two of us, the edges of her lips curled up into a sneer. “It is not up to me to judge the company that you keep, Mr. Albrecht. Your comrade will only be restrained for the duration of this conversation. For security’s sake, you see. We’re merely stopping by to make sure that you haven’t been stepping too far out of bounds.”
“Too far out of – so what, you people are keeping tabs on me now?”
I folded my arms across my chest, noting the glow of my tattoos on the far wall. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that my hackles were fully raised, but I had to be careful, too. Any kind of fight involving these celestial meatheads would be extremely one-sided. I’d just end up with a busted face and a trashed apartment. I didn’t like either of those outcomes.
“We’re only ensuring that your behavior falls within acceptable limits. There is a very small number of active nephilim across the planet, and we like to keep an eye on everyone.”
“Wait.” That took some of the wind out of my sails. “So there are more like me?”
“The vast majority of nephilim on earth – that is, the offspring of our fallen brethren and human women – are what we refer to as dormant cases. Limitations were placed on the abilities of the Grigori when they were cast out from upstairs, after all, and those limitations normally extend to their spawn.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Normally.”
“So the other nephilim, they’re not like me.”
“Correct. Heaven has spared them for their relative harmlessness. They are still perceived as aberrations upon the great plan, to be sure, but are otherwise inoffensive. You, on the other hand, present a unique problem. Suffice to say that I belong to a task force meant to supervise you for your own good.”
“What task force is that?”
The angel straightened up, apparently inconvenienced by the fact that she had to answer more of my questions. “If you must know, I belong to the Department of Extracelestial Angelic Delinquency.”
My forehead wrinkled as I worked out the acronym. “DEAD. That’s your department’s name? Are you kidding me? This is some bullshit.”
She nudged her glasses up her nose, the warmth dropping from both her face and her v
oice. “You may not like me, Mr. Albrecht, and you may not trust me. But know that I am one of the few people upstairs standing between you and complete annihilation.”
Something in her tone made me believe her. Then there were factions of angels, too, and at least one of them believed in keeping the nephilim around, which was a damn sight better than the first angels I ever met, who were hellbent on terminating me and wiping our kind off the planet.
“But why are you doing this?” I said.
“Enough talk,” the woman answered. “For now, consider my curiosity piqued.” She rapidly ticked off a number of items on her clipboard, then, glancing up, snapped her fingers. With a series of tinkles and clinks, the chains binding Florian’s body slid to the ground and disappeared. He rubbed at his wrists and his arms, looking a little crestfallen.
“You can’t do this to people,” I said. “I’m going to follow this all the way up the chain of command. That’s how this crap works for you celestials, right? Your damn hierarchy? I’ll find your superior, tell them about your shenanigans.”
The angel’s mouth was in a tight, straight line when she looked at me, but she grinned as she pressed her clipboard to her chest. She paced closer, her heels clicking on the ruined parquet of my apartment, the brash confidence of her body language making me way too uneasy.
“Mr. Albrecht,” she said coolly, her face far, far too close to mine. Her breath was like sweet mint, and the smell of your taxes sitting in an envelope, waiting to be posted. Orderly, in other words, yet sinister. “I see that you’re threatening me by asking to speak to my manager.” She brushed one hand under her hair, flipping it behind her as she walked away. “Just so you know?” she said over her shoulder as a shimmering portal appeared in our kitchen wall. “My name is Sadriel, the angel of order. And I am the manager.”
28
Sadriel and her goons stepped through the portal and vanished. I went out on the fire escape, still mostly naked, staring up at the darkened sky for – God, I don’t know, for a sign of the angels as they took their celestial elevator back to their great big office in the clouds. Then I rushed to the kitchen table, throwing myself at the pile of papers still scattered there, looking for a sheet that was blank.
Florian had clambered to his feet by then. He watched me warily. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I scrambled for a pen. I scrawled Raziel’s name onto the paper, drawing a huge circle around it. “Yeah, don’t worry about. You okay? Did they hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m not hurt at all. But you seem pretty agitated right now.”
“I’m okay,” I said, my heart pounding, my ears filled with the rhythm of my own blood. “Don’t worry about me.” I held out one hand just as the golden dagger I’d requested from the Vestments appeared in mid-air.
“Whoa, you’re definitely not okay. Mason, stop it. Stop!”
