Raphael yelled in anger, “Gabriel, this has nothing to do with you. Leave and we’ll call it even.”
Sara watched Gabriel rise straight up in the air to stand in front of Raphael, graceful and masculine, his body tight with tension, hands in fists, voice strong and steady and confident. “It’s not a matter of anything being even. It’s a matter of doing what’s right. You know what can be done to a fallen one.”
“Yes, but if you do that to me, you have to do it to Marguerite, and you won’t. I know you won’t.”
Sara thought Raphael was wrong. Gabriel would do what was right, what was necessary. She felt it radiating from him, like the light from his fingers, a moral strength, a conviction of character, a decision. It awed and overwhelmed her to see him as he truly was, in his element, freed from the worry and torment of thinking he might have killed Anne.
He had forgiven himself and was prepared to do the right thing.
Sara’s fear eased, and she moved from behind the tomb to get a better view, to stand under the light of fallen angels.
Gabriel saw his advantage at Raphael’s words. Raphael thought he could hide behind Marguerite’s skirts, that Gabriel wouldn’t be able to punish her. But Gabriel saw no reason to protect Marguerite. She had chosen her path, she had killed innocent women, brutally and incomprehensibly, alongside Raphael. They had acted as a serial killing team. The violence and senselessness of their perversion of their power disgusted him so thoroughly that he had no qualms about vanquishing both of them. It was his responsibility to protect humans, to protect Sara, and he would do whatever was necessary.
So he used his power, allowing himself to unleash it entirely, to feel the true scope of all that he was for the first time in one hundred and fifty years. It channeled and flowed through him, all his energy, all his strength, all the goodness he had ever owned, and it rose up strong and right and sure and turned on Raphael. The impact was like a spontaneous combustion. The second Gabriel’s energy hit Raphael, the sky exploded with light, rippling out from the demon in glaring white rings, sending Gabriel’s own power rushing back over him, warm and intense.
With twin screams of shock and rage, Raphael and Marguerite fell to the ground, their bodies hitting hard, a cloud of air, dust, and light unfurling in all directions.
Gabriel dropped himself lower to get a closer look and he felt it then—the wave of sorrow, of human suffering, the release of the souls of Anne and Jessie and the other women Marguerite and Raphael had killed. It flowed over him like a humid rush of air, wrapping around him and immersing him in the pain, the grief, the tears, the magnitude of human agony.
Instead of trying to close himself off, or stagger under the weight the way he had always done, Gabriel stood straight as he hovered in the air, hands out, and accepted it, took the pain, took the pleas, and absorbed them into himself. Death was the beginning, not the end, and his responsibility, his guardian-ship, was to comfort, reassure, steer mortals in the direction of beauty and pleasure and contentment, to ease their human suffering.
He wanted to do that again.
Watch. Guide. Protect.
Sara was standing directly behind him, having abandoned her hiding place behind the tomb. She stared at him in wonder, eyes wide, cheeks pale, mouth open.
“What happened?” she asked.
“They’re dead,” he said, hoping that she could handle that reality. It had been necessary.
“Dead?” she whispered, her voice a little shaky, and she glanced down at the bodies. “How? And where’s the flashlight? I can’t really see anything.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Gabriel searched around on the ground and found the flashlight where he had dropped it, the beam pointing in the opposite direction of Sara. He went to her and put it in her hand, squeezing her gently. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“How do you know they’re dead?” she asked, pointing the light directly onto Raphael and Marguerite.
How could he ever explain what he was and what he could do? There were no answers, no explanations, no human words. Gabriel just knew. “Their mortal bodies are dead. But their souls still exist inside these bodies . . . it’s an imprisonment, which is exactly what they deserve.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I have to dispose of them. Maybe you should leave. I don’t have time to take you home though. I have to do this before the cops get here.” He was surprised the police hadn’t already shown up, given the lights and the noise they had been making. But the cemetery butted up to housing projects, the residents of which probably had no interest in getting involved in any potential crime and hadn’t bothered to call the police.
Gabriel turned and opened the gate to Anne’s tomb without waiting for Sara’s answer. He didn’t want to scare her, but he didn’t want to get caught with dead bodies either. It was highly doubtful he’d be acquitted this time around. Stepping inside, he removed the front of Anne’s tomb and opened the drawer.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sara asked, coming up behind him.
“I have to hide them, and this is actually a perfect place.” Reaching into the darkness, Gabriel extracted the bag that held Anne’s ashes and set it carefully on the path outside the gate.
Sara just stood there as he went over and lifted both Marguerite and Raphael up and carried them to the tomb. Gabriel felt terrible that she was watching, and he said, “Sara, close your eyes, babe. This isn’t going to be pretty.”
But she just shook her head. “No, I have to see. And did you know—though I’m sure you know—that when the Watchers fell, God sent the four archangels to retrieve them? Raphael bound one of them hand and foot. Gabriel destroyed some of the fallen ones by inciting them to civil war. And Michael put others in a dark cave for seventy generations. A dark cave . . . like this tomb.”
Gabriel shoved Raphael into the dark opening, sweat rolling down the back of his T-shirt even as he felt a chill at Sara’s words. “I’m not an archangel. I’m a fallen one.”
“But you’re righting a wrong . . . destroying fallen ones who were well and truly evil. And I don’t think it’s any sort of coincidence that you and Raphael were named after two of the archangels. And that my last name is the name of the third.”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence either,” he conceded, crossing Raphael’s legs at the ankles. It would have been a hell of a lot easier getting him in the tomb in a casket, but he had to make do, and as quickly as possible. Gabriel got the body fully into the hole and did the same with Marguerite.
Out of breath, he turned back to Sara. She was standing there, the flashlight slack in her hand, the beam bouncing around the ground, her face pale, eyes wide. “Gabriel. I have to close it with you. It’s you and I. We’re the ones who have to end this . . . Gabriel St. John and Sara Michaels.”
“I don’t think . . . ,” he started, not wanting her to be a part of what he was doing. Not wanting to burden her or give her further grief, or any sort of guilt. But then he trailed off when she stepped through the gate and looked up at him. She was tenacious, determined.
She was right. They needed to do this together. It made sense, brought the past to the present full circle and ended what had started all those years ago in that nasty room on Dauphine.
He nodded. “Okay.”
Her hand went over his, and they both closed the door, pushing hard. Then Gabriel sealed it shut.
The explosion sent him hurtling through the gate and crashing onto the path, flat on his back. It knocked the wind out of him and he blinked, startled, not sure what exactly had happened. His head spun as he tried to sit up, and he quickly descended again, searching in the dark for Sara. “Sara? Are you okay?”
“Gabriel!” Sara knelt down beside him, hands brushing his hair off his face. “I’m fine. Nothing happened to me. You got hit with . . . something, and it sent you flying. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Though he felt strange. Weak. Gabriel sat up quickly and almost threw up, intense nausea rolling over him.
“Sara . . .” He looked at her, looked around him, moved his legs, tested his fingers. He was fine, but he felt different. Mortal. Jesus Christ, he felt mortal. That’s exactly what he felt like. “Oh my God . . .”
“What?” She was groping all over his shoulders and pushing his hair back, checking his temples and sliding her hands over his chest. “What hurts? You’re not bleeding.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine.” He was better than fine. He was mortal, a human, like everyone else. Like Sara. Freed from his punishment, freed from eternity. He looked over at her, excited, relieved, stunned. “It’s over. I’m free.”
She just blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
Gabriel stood up and dusted off his jeans, feeling a huge sense of wonder, of clarity, of hope, of awe. “I mean that I’m no longer fallen. Nor am I an angel. I’m mortal.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know?”
“I know.” How could he explain the difference? It was like the world around him had dimmed, his limbs had gotten heavier, the visual chaos had cleared, the sound of humanity quiet, less deafening. And at the same time, without all the sensory overload, his mind felt clearer, stronger, acute, and he was conscious suddenly of ticking time and the finiteness of life and love and talent. He had a focus he didn’t remember ever really having before.
She put her hands up to her face. “Are you sure?” There was a tremble in her voice.
“Yes. I’m positive.” He leaned over, brushed his lips over her forehead, wanting to linger, to savor the feeling, her, but knowing they couldn’t. “We have to leave now.”
She just nodded as he walked over to Anne’s tomb and pulled the gate shut. Then he picked up the bag of ashes and secured it under his arm.
“Gabriel, look at the angel,” Sara said, her voice low and in awe.
Turning, he followed her gaze, looking up and over his shoulder. The weeping angel statue on top of Anne’s tomb had two red streaks trailing down her cheeks. Blood tears. It should have looked gruesome, but he didn’t sense that was its intent.
“In Him we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,” he murmured, as he felt the weight of guilt lift, the light of forgiveness wash over him.
Chapter Twenty-five
Sara stood in Gabriel’s living room as he closed the door behind them. He said he was mortal. How was that possible? How was it possible that he had ever been anything but? She felt the tightness of tears in her eyes, not of sadness or of happiness, but of emotional confusion, of uncertainty.
Where did they go from here?
But then he set Anne’s ashes down on the piano and turned to her.
The look on his face made her forget any questions she had, any fears or worries she had been about to voice. He was staring at her, intensely, but with a peace, a calm, a relief, that she had never seen from him.
She stood still as he walked up to her, sensing that he was going to touch her.
He did.
His hands touched her shoulders, his thumbs brushing her hair back, before he slid up her neck, to her jaw, her chin, then cupped her cheeks in both of his hands. Sara closed her eyes, sighing at the pleasure of his warmth so close to her, his long fingers and masculine hands holding her so gently, as if she were precious.
“I’m going to make love to you,” he whispered in her ear, his breath tickling her. “As a man.”
Sara shivered, her arousal immediate and powerful. He was going to touch her. Something she’d thought she would never have. Her knees actually trembled, and she reached out to wrap her arms around him, to mold their bodies together, but he pushed her hands down by her side.
“Just let me feel you for a minute,” he said, his nose brushing over her cheek, his lips tasting the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes drifted closed again and she stood still, overwhelmed by the simple pleasure of his exploratory kiss, his hands caressing her hair, her neck, her clavicle. His legs surrounded hers, and his waist, erection, brushed against her but shifted and moved, never coming in full contact, a soft whisper of what to expect, but a reminder that this needed to happen slowly.
Then his mouth was on hers, in a slow, devotional kiss that took her breath away. Sara sighed, her fingers reaching out and grasping the belt loops of his jeans so she wouldn’t stumble. It felt so good, so pure, so warm and lovely and sensual, to finally feel his mouth again, to taste his lips and know that he was hers. He kissed her again and again, with no hurry, with no destination in mind, but with slow and easy and worshipful presses that had her breath catching, her body aching.
“Gabriel,” she whispered.
His eyes were bright and shiny, a rich chocolate brown, as they trailed all over her face, as if he were memorizing her features. His fingers followed his gaze, chin to jaw to cheekbone, lingering on her bottom lip, slipping into the divot above her top lip. He tucked her unruly hair behind her ears, even touching the lobes briefly before brushing the backs of his thumbs over her eyelashes.
The warmth of his breath, the feel of his chest just barely touching hers, his fingers exploring, left her trembling, wanting more, all of him, yet at the same time ultimately satisfied. She was getting more than she had ever expected Gabriel would be able to give, and she felt it, understood it. Knew that connection people talked about, that feeling she had waited for and had never experienced until him, that conviction that the two of them were destined to be together, their feelings strong and amazing and deep.
That they had seen each other’s soul and found where they belonged.
“You feel so good,” he murmured. “Sara.”
She had never thought her name was anything particularly special, but when he said it, when his deep voice washed over her with such devotion, such respect, such longing, she thought she would never get tired of hearing it.