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Those lectures from Arcshuliae about how getting some calluses on his hands was going to turn his life around had been so tedious, it had been easier to just pick up a hammer and learn the difference between a nail and a screw than sit through another litany of his lack of value. And the thing was, his pops was not wrong. Shuli was a lazy piece of shit who just wanted to look good and hook up with females. Women.
Even humans were fine for him.
Nate wasn’t like that.
He’d liked only one female.
At the end of the tunnel, there was another vault-worthy steel barrier, and when he entered the code and heard the clunk, there was the hiss of a vapor lock being released.
With his heart starting to pound, he was cautious as he opened things.
On the far side, there was a shallow concrete room lit by pods of illumination and a set of stairs. It was colder here. The night air was stronger here, too.
At the top of the steps, he entered another code at another door. And then he was in a structure that was built to appear to be a shed.
As he emerged from it, he was in a stand of trees at the far end of the neighborhood’s development. The lot was vacant, the branches and trunks thick, the ground cover just as packed in. In fact, the flora had been deliberately cultivated to deter attention and create inconvenience of passage.
The path Nate had taken was obvious, the disturbance of a set of footfalls and a big-ass body clear in the moonlight.
Shuli followed along, tracking snapped branches and crushed new growth. The smell of dirt was thick in his nose, and there was nothing else. No fabric softener now, or gunmetal. Then again, the wind was blowing at the side of him.
After what felt like a forever-distance, he finally found his friend up ahead. Through the network of budded branches and fluffy pine boughs, in the icy blue illumination that streamed from the heavens, he caught sight of the male’s head and shoulders, the back of the hoodie a clear telltale that it was Nate.
Facing away from Shuli, the male’s attention was trained on something in front of him—
The gun came up to his forehead, the suppressor lengthening the barrel, the grip steady.
Just as Shuli started to yell—
The trigger was pulled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I’m not going back, just so you know.”
When Lassiter finally arrived in the break room, Eddie was not surprised by the angel’s announcement. And also not really shocked that the guy had felt the need to delay things by having a scrub and changing his scrubs. After all, that female had been in the room with him.
What was the saying? Save water, shower with a friend.
“As if you have a choice?” Eddie indicated the vacant chair at the little table he and Ad were at. “And do you want to have a seat while we talk or just stomp around like a toddler.”
Guess we have our answer to that, he thought as the angel marched over to a vending machine.
Given the glare on the guy’s face as he considered his options, it was like the Frito-Lay Company had insulted his mother. Not that he had one.
“Look, don’t get pissed at us.” Eddie shrugged. “We’re just the messengers here. This is between you and the Creator. You got issues with this situation, talk to the one in charge.”
Although they all knew how that was going to go. Lassiter and the font of all life made oil and water look symbiotic, and not for the first time, Eddie wondered why, if an entity was in charge of creating things, He would volunteer for the likes of what He had with that fallen angel.
You’d think the Creator would have made things easier on Himself.
Lassiter jabbed at the keypad, something went whirring, and there was a drop. When the angel turned around, he had a Snickers in his hand.
Well, at least the hangry train was pulling into Satisfied Station.
As the wrapper was ripped apart, Eddie remembered when he’d first met the angel. He and Ad had just gotten out of Purgatory, and the three of them had bumped into each other in a way that could have been predestined, but might have been chance.
It had been a fender bender of sorts. Go figure.
“Do you think we’re lying about you being called home?” Eddie said. When there was no reply, he could feel himself ramping up. “Really. After everything we’ve been through. Or have you forgotten the past.”
Lassiter took a shark’s bite out of the Snickers. “None of that matters now.”
“Of course it does.” Eddie leaned forward over the table. “And there are no coincidences. We’ve been looking for you for three years, and suddenly we’re led to you? He wants you to come home now. You don’t belong in”—he glanced around at the tables and chairs, the TV, all the food—“whatever is happening here.”
