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“For the record, she knew about us being buddy-buddy with Belphegor and was perfectly fine about it. Like I said: I like Sadriel. She was cooler.”
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The angel gave me the smarmiest grim he’d mustered that day yet. “That is literally why she’s been removed from your case. I’ll be watching you from now on. My name is Raguel.”
I’m not sure what possessed me that evening, but I couldn’t stop my mouth if I tried. “I misbehave the tiniest bit in the eyes of the people upstairs, and they send me a babysitter named after some pasta sauce.”
Florian didn’t even say anything this time. He just backed away from me, then shifted even farther, retreating under the shadow of a tree. The sun was already setting by then, but it seemed to set even faster as Raguel took one, two steps forward. It felt like the world itself was darkening around us.
“Let me introduce myself properly,” Raguel said. He opened his hands to either side of him, and his wings unfurled – all four of them.
Ah, nuts.
“I am Raguel,” he said. “And I am the angel of justice.”
My mind started racing. Shit. Shit shit shit. We needed a bunch of mystical swords for a ritual a while back, the whole reason Loki wanted me to track down and return Laevateinn to him to begin with. I ended up stealing one from an archangel. Not on purpose, okay? Shit. Was this the archangel I stole the flaming sword from? Were archangels supposed to even have four wings? What was the upper limit on these things?
Damn it. I really should have had the foresight to ask Raziel for some way for the two of us communicate. Rich, coming from someone who wants to go in hiding from every other supernatural creature who walks the earth. But Raziel was an exception, okay? Possibly the only exception. Angel of mysteries, right? Dude had a lot to say, much of it useful – I bet.
Raguel scoffed, his smug levels rising and threatening to go all the way off the charts. “Not so cocky now, are we? That’s right. From now on, you’ll answer to me. When you do anything shady, I’ll be there, breathing down your neck and waiting for an explanation. When you misbehave, I’ll be there with a wooden ruler, ready to smack you on the wrist. Or if you’re naughty, right on the – ”
“Run for it!”
I followed in Florian’s wake as he pulled a tight one-eighty and headed away from Raguel, which meant that we were sprinting straight towards the five bodyguard angels at the other end of the alley. We were fighting our way out, then. A better choice than sitting there and listening to Raguel gloat, I thought. I held my right hand out, summoning a weapon, then accepting eagerly as the balls and chains of my beloved morning star appeared in my grasp, clinking and clanging threateningly.
“Wait,” Raguel called out. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I shouted back, my morning star clanking as Florian and I ran faster and faster. The five angels at the end of the alley stared us down as we approached, just this huge slab of meat and menace. “Florian,” I said, huffing. “You better have a plan for dealing with this one.”
Florian didn’t even answer. He just thrust his arm out, then shoved his hand to the right, like he was pushing aside a stack of invisible newspapers.
I wasn’t expecting the sudden rush of lush green vines to explode out of the trees and bushes lining the street, their cords and tendrils forming into a massive hand that mimicked the precise gestures that Florian made. The enormous green fist slammed the angels out of the way. They yelped and shouted, smacked aside like a row of bald-headed bowling pins.
“Dude,” I shouted as we blew past the fallen angels. “That was badass. You totally knocked those jerks over.”
The look Florian threw me could have wilted entire rainforests. My heart thumped with newfound fear in the split second we made eye contact. I might have escaped the hand of Raguel, angel of justice – but it looked like I’d just stumbled headlong and straight into the jaws of Saint Florian.
13
I got the tongue lashing of a lifetime from Florian that evening. Whatever the circumstance, wherever we happened to be, I was lectured about how irresponsibly I acted, how arrogant I’d been, even by my own laughable standards.
“You’re right,” I said glumly, nodding through the first five, then ten minutes of Florian giving me the business. Thirty minutes later, when we were already safe back in Paradise and he still hadn’t given up on the thrashing, I knew he wasn’t fucking around.
I deserved every second of it. Florian was always so patient with me, and generally speaking, all I ever did was take a dump over how much leeway he gave me, whether in terms of my behavior or my, shall we say, occasional recklessness in combat situations.
And he didn’t let up. The only time he stopped lecturing me was over dinner, because even when he was mad at me, Florian was still the good kind of friend who wouldn’t want me to get into even more trouble with Artemis over my own inability to control my own mouth. But after dinner? Oh, all bets were off.
We bathed five feet away from each other in the river, but the whole time he was giving me a right good verbal whipping. When I went off to change, he stood outside my hut’s window, giving me just enough privacy to get naked and dressed up again, but never easing off the pressure. And the gist of what he told me was that I didn’t have any reason to be such a jerk that day. He was right, too.
Neither of us knew what Raguel was capable of, and thanks to me, we still didn’t know. Florian and I had a silent, unspoken understanding that knowledge was power, something we’d instinctively picked up from Raziel, but I’d thrown all of that out the window. If I’d just let Raguel say his piece, then maybe we’d have some idea of what him being “assigned” to me even meant. And was he telling the truth about Sadriel? I hoped she was okay.
And I couldn’t tell you what had overcome me, either. I vaguely recalled my skin glowing like a lamp that afternoon, my blood merrily bubbling with the pleasure of taunting and teasing someone, anyone, with no real regard for the consequences. It felt correct somehow, like something I was allowed to celebrate and savor, not just as a nephilim, but as a teenager. I recognized the feeling and the rush of power for what it was: rebellion.
It was lucky that we were so worn out from working for Belphegor – well, and from the run home as well – because it meant that I could fall asleep as quickly as possible, mainly from the exhaustion. It meant that I wouldn’t have to think about the truth behind the flaming sword, and whether Raguel was the one to look out for.
Shit. I really should have let him talk more. At least then I could see myself moving around Valero without having to look over my shoulder every two seconds.
And yet it was all I could think of the next day. Florian had cooled off, only throwing me the last three or four disapproving “I was rooting for you” glances before finally reverting to his cheerier self. I mulled it over all morning, chewing over the thoughts of archangels and wings even as I chewed my oatmeal. We spent most of the day on construction chores for Artemis, but by late afternoon, we headed out for a prior engagement. By the time we made our way through to the Black Market to meet up with Beatrice Rex and pick up my bracer, I just couldn’t contain myself anymore.
