Biting Cold (28 page)

It could have been, but as we stood there, I came to realize an important difference between Seth and Dominic.

“I can tell them apart,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “They smell different,” I sheepishly added.

Seth smiled a little, but the vampires’ reactions weren’t encouraging.

“They
smell
different?” Lindsey asked. “You want us to trust him because he smells different?”

“Seth smells like lemon and sugar. He always has. When Dominic unfurled his wings, he smelled like sulfur. Sulfur and smoke.” I looked at Seth. “Right?”

“It’s the wings. They darkened, much like his aura. His soul.”

“He could be making this up,” Lindsey said, her sword still tipped at Seth’s neck, but I shook my head and pulled my little secret weapon from my pocket—the worry wood.

I held it up for all to see. “This is worry wood. It works against old magic. The powerful stuff. Add it to my natural resistance to glamour, and there’s not much chance he could put something over on me.”

The crowd’s murmurs were a little more supportive but still not convinced. I had one more weapon in the arsenal. I looked at Lindsey. “You’re the empath. What’s he feeling right now?”

She shook her head. “He’s a blank canvas to me. I have no idea.”

That might have been true psychically, but not physically. There was no doubting the grief and guilt etched into his face. He was still handsome, but he looked like he’d aged a few years in the last few days.

“I swear on all the deep dish, red hots, and rib-eyes in Chicago that this isn’t Dominic. And believe me, I would know better than anyone.”

No need to get into the gory deets of what he’d put me through, but having been around both of them, I now had a pretty good sense I could pick them out.

Lindsey slowly lowered her sword again. “Okay, Sentinel. You feel okay about this, I’m going to trust you. But one false move, and he gets it.”

And now Lindsey was stealing lines from movies. Maybe she and Luc dating wasn’t such a great idea.

I looked back at Seth and gave it to him frankly. “By ‘it,’ she means thirty-two inches of honed steel. And she’s no slouch with a weapon. I’d believe her.”

Seth nodded. “I’m here to talk. Not make trouble. There’s been far enough of that.”

I was fine with talking, but—given the curious and worried looks around us—it seemed we should do it somewhere else. I glanced at Lindsey. “We need a room. Any thoughts? I assume the bigwigs are in Ethan’s office.”

She frowned. “Training room? Ballroom?”

I didn’t like the training room idea. There were too few exits in the basement in the event I was wrong about Seth. I didn’t think that was likely, but they didn’t pay me fancy Sentinel wages to take those kinds of chances.

The ballroom was on the second floor. Closer to our living quarters than I would have liked, but it was a big, mostly empty room, and it was right beside the stairs.

I glanced around, looking for Luc or Malik or Ethan or anyone actually in charge of the House. But it was just us. Me and Lindsey and the other Novitiates in the foyer. I was the highest-ranking person in the room, and I was going to have to make the call.

God willing I’d make the right one.

“Ballroom,” I decided.

Lindsey nodded, then looked around the room. “Show’s over, everyone. Get back to business.”

But they didn’t move, either too curious or too worried to simply turn around and walk away.

“Okay, let me try this another way,” Lindsey said, her voice firmer now. “Get back to work before Darius feels the magic, comes out here, sees this one lounging around our foyer, and strokes out.”

It still took a moment—they seemed loath to leave Seth here with us or me here with him—but they finally got moving and filed back down the hall and up the stairs.

Lindsey, Juliet, Seth, and I were left in the foyer.

Lindsey pointed at Seth. “You, follow me. Cause any trouble and you’ll be wearing steel in very uncomfortable places.”

“Duly noted,” Seth said.

She looked at me and Juliet. “You heard him. Any funny business and you have his consent to skewer him like a kebab.”

I wanted to laugh, but this didn’t seem like the time. “I’ll take the rear,” I told her, then looked at Juliet. “Can you find Ethan?”

Juliet nodded gravely and disappeared, and Lindsey started for the stairs. His hands crossed before him obsequiously, piously, Seth followed her, the rough fabric of the cassock
thrush
ing as he
walked. It didn’t sound especially comfortable. I imagined stiff, starched fabric rubbing raw skin, and the thought gave me cold sweats.

Had he found religion? Did he feel guilty for what he’d done, or for what Dominic had done? Was the garment, as itchy as it sounded, some kind of personal punishment?

We rounded the stairs at the second floor. Lindsey opened the double doors to the Cadogan ballroom, watching suspiciously as we filed in. When we were well inside, she shut the door behind us.

The room was large, with oak floors, golden walls gilded with framed mirrors. Chandeliers hung from the high ceiling above us. They’d once held hundreds of candles, but those had been replaced with lightbulbs after an attack by a group of rebel shifters. The bulbs didn’t offer as much ambience, but one less fire hazard in a building reviled by people who’d once carried torches to flush out monsters seemed like a good precaution.

Seth walked into the room. He stopped beneath the chandelier, then turned a half circle as he looked up at it. “This is a beautiful space,” he said.

“Your approval is appreciated,” Lindsey said. “Start talking.”

Seth looked at me, and I nodded. He began to talk, less a discussion than a monologue. A sermon.

“Millennia ago, the world was a different place. The divisions between humans and others were…less rigid. Humans were aware of supernaturals. We, the messengers, bridged the gap between them. Messengers like me arbitrated for peace. Messengers like Dominic administered judgment. At first, humans called us angels and deemed us virtuous.”

“And then what happened?” I asked.

“The angels of judgment, the
others
, grew to love violence,” Seth said. “They satisfied their lust for it, their compulsion for it,
by meting it out for any perceived slight. Humans, so often the victims of that compulsion, didn’t appreciate it. They called them the Dark Ones, and they deemed them fallen. Demonic. Devilish. The source of evil.”

“And so humans began to distinguish between good and evil.”

Seth looked at me thoughtfully. “You remembered what we talked about when I was incarcerated.”

I nodded.

“Humans wanted the violence to stop, but the fallen angels were arrogant and refused to believe their actions were wrong. And so a war was waged between humans and messengers. Incensed by the humans’ conceit, the justice givers delivered redemption on their own terms, destroying human cities and salting the earth so nothing could grow again.”

“Carthage,” I quietly murmured.

“You said messengers, plural,” Lindsey said. “There are others of you?”

“There are many, although our roles are diminished. Our magic is old, and our ways are old. We aren’t part of this world, not in the way we once were.”

“And the
Maleficium
?” I asked.

“When humans grew sick of the destruction, they called their magicians, who separated evil from good and placed it into a vessel that would contain it. The
Maleficium
, the book, was created to hold the evil they’d separated out. But it wasn’t just a thing. A power.”

“What was it?” Lindsey quietly asked, transfixed by the story.

Suddenly, it all made sense. Well, most of it.

“It was
them
,” I said. “The fallen angels. The
Maleficium
was created to separate good and evil—they thought the fallen angels were evil. Which means the
Maleficium
was created to hold the fallen angels. Dominic and the others.”

“The magicians didn’t know how to kill them,” Seth said, “so they thought to lock them away for eternity. At least until Mallory came along. Mallory’s spell at the silo—what was she trying to do?”

“It was a conjuring spell,” Lindsey said. “It does seem like she conjured someone.”

But I shook my head. “The
Maleficium
didn’t release Dominic. He didn’t pop out of the book. He split off from Seth.”

“Is that why you look alike?” Lindsey asked.

Seth’s expression was sad. “No,” he said. “I’m afraid the answer is much simpler. Messengers of justice and of peace were always born to earth in pairs. It was an innate way of keeping the world in balance.”

The magical world was big on balance. Good and evil. Dark and light. The reason Mallory’s first attempt to unleash the
Maleficium
on the world caused so much havoc in Chicago was precisely because dark and light magic were thrown out of whack.

And humans thought magic was all about fairy tales and simple stories. Little did they know.

“You are twins,” Lindsey said. “Real-life twins.”

“We were.
Are
,” he corrected, his expression slinking toward despair. “Although he and I are very different creatures. We always have been.”

Before any of us could react to that, the door burst open. Ethan stood there, Juliet and Luc behind him. A perk of magic filled the air, and Ethan had the fire of a devil in his eyes.

He moved toward Seth, his strides long and determined. His hair had come loose from its tie, and it streamed around his face as he moved like he was a warrior moving into battle.

“Ethan,” I said, but he threw me a silencing look. The look of a Master vampire whose irritation at me was matched only by his irritation at the party crasher in his House.

He grabbed Seth’s cassock by the shoulders and pushed him backward. Seth stumbled but stayed on his feet, and stared back at Ethan with equal intensity, but much less hatred.

“Are you looking for a fight, Tate? Because I will show you a fight.”

Oh, God. Ethan didn’t know this wasn’t Dominic—the man who’d tried to kill me—and he was ready for war.

“You would have killed her, goddamn it. Do you understand that?”

Seth’s eyes went wide, and his gaze snapped to me. “Merit?”

“I’m fine,” I said, eyes shifting between him and Ethan. “Ethan, this is Seth. Not Dominic.”

“Merit can tell the difference between them,” Lindsey said.

But neither Ethan nor Seth was willing to listen; they were both too wrapped up in their own emotions. Ethan thought the man who’d tried to kill me was here again. Seth, who’d known me since I was a child, had only just learned his twin brother had tried to kill me.

“This will not stand,” Ethan said.

“He hurt you?” Seth asked.

“Dominic decided I’d interrupted his work. He put me in the sun. But I’m fine now.”

Seth looked horrified but turned back to Ethan. “I am sorry,” he said, and there was no mistaking the sincerity in his voice. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have come here if I’d known.”

The words finally seemed to shake Ethan out of his fury. Chest heaving, he ran his hands through his hair, then linked them atop his head and walked away from us. Just a few feet away, but enough to gain distance. Enough room for him to think.

He didn’t walk toward me. He wouldn’t even make eye contact.

My stomach tightened with worry.

“Lindsey?” Ethan asked. “You allowed this man to enter our House?”

She looked nervously at me, and I nodded. “This is Seth,” she said. “Merit believes she can tell the difference.”

Ethan looked back at me, expression flat. “Can she?”

“I can. But he can prove it better than me,” I said. After all, I’d seen the pictures in the
Kantor Scroll
. There was at least one difference between demon and angel, even if it wasn’t normally visible.

Even if
they
weren’t normally visible.

I looked at Seth. “Show them.”

Seth looked at me for a moment, debating the request, then looked at Ethan. “I can prove what I am.”

He unclasped the top button of his cassock, then continued down the row until each was unclipped. He wore simple dark pants and a shirt beneath. He dropped the cassock onto the floor, then pulled the T-shirt over his head. His chest was well carved with planks of muscle, but that wasn’t the feature attraction here.

“Back up,” he said, and we did, stepping farther away from him. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders.

I knew what was coming, but that didn’t diminish the effect of actually watching it happen.

With a
whoosh
of air, he unfolded his wings. Like Dominic’s, they were at least twenty feet from tip to tip. But unlike Dominic’s, Seth’s wings were still feathery and white. The top ridgeline was iridescent and downy, while the long, straight feathers below were sharp and crisp. His feathers arced along the top and bottom to points at each end that gleamed like opals.

The smell of lemon and sugar filled the room—the sugar-cookie smell of a millennia-old angel in twenty-first-century Chicago.

“They’re beautiful,” I said. But neither the extension of his wings nor the sentiment lifted the veil of sadness from his face. Seth looked, in a word, tortured. As if embarrassed by what he’d done, he whipped his wings into hiding again.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said, but Seth shook his head.

“He is Dominic’s twin brother,” I explained. “Seth, the angel. Dominic, the demon. Born together but with different roles in the world. The
Maleficium
was created, in part, as a prison for Dominic and the others like him.”

“So Dominic was inside the
Maleficium
?” Ethan asked. “How did he split apart from you?”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned to pull his T-shirt back over his head. His wings, apparently magical in nature, had completely disappeared. But there in the middle of his back between his shoulder blades was a gruesome scar, a vaguely star-shaped burst of raw pink.

“Your back,” I began. “What happened?”

“Magical burn. It happened when I touched the book.”