“Now. I’m afraid we’ve got to deal with an unpleasant matter, and it
will be better for you if you’re honest with me.”
“Oh?” Her voice, meant to sound confused, came out guilty and high pitched.
Rodolfo’s eyes narrowed. “For months, we’ve feared that you might be
straying in some way, but we didn’t spot anything amiss. The
council and I discussed the possibility of putting you on a specific
assignment. We understand that without a charge or mission, many
angels grow restless. We thought if we gave you a purpose, perhaps it
would put things right. But I’m afraid it’s too late for that
now.”
Angeline alternated between looking at her hands and looking through the glass
table onto the fluffy white carpet. It was so weird that there was no
dirt in Heaven.
“Angeline?”
“Yes, sir?” She looked up.
“The past couple of days when you haven’t been here, where have you
been? What have you been doing?”
“I…” He’d demanded honesty, but if they didn’t have anything, it would
only condemn her. And if they did? It would condemn her worse for the
lie. But if she’d determined to stay away from the vampire… maybe
it would blow over if she didn’t spill her guts and confess
everything.
You can’t stay away. Father Hadrian might be in
trouble if you don’t guard the king’s family.
But if she did
go, what would the angels do to her? Could she fall? Or even worse…
would they destroy her soul completely? It was the only final death.
Nothingness. Forever.
Angels only appeared to have a good deal. The truth was, they were the only
being who could really die. Or at least the only being the higher
angels had been authorized to terminate if necessary. There could be
no imperfection here. She wasn’t sure what difference there was in
an angel who fell and an angel who was destroyed. She was afraid she
may be about to find out.
“Angeline!” Rodolfo rapped a silver letter opener sharply against the glass,
snapping her out of her thoughts.
“I-I’ve just been wandering. Nothing special.” She wondered if she could
run from them, if she could hide and never come back without falling.
Falling was rumored to be too horrible… that couldn’t happen.
There had to be a way to get back into their good graces.
Rodolfo planted his hands firmly on the desk and stood, looming over it, over
her. “Tell me the truth!”
“I don’t know what truth you’re referring to. I’ve done the same
thing I’ve done nearly every night since I was elevated.”
That part was mostly true.
He looked down his nose at her. “Yes. That seems to have turned out to
have been a poor choice on our part. We were foolish to believe you
could fit in here after two hundred years drinking blood.”
Humans ate meat. And weren’t the cows innocent? And the chickens and pigs?
But she wasn’t about to contradict the angry angel.
There was a knock on the door and a blindingly blond head popped in. Kurt.
“Excuse me, sir, but one of your recently deceased charges is having a
meltdown in the streets. She doesn’t want to be here and she doesn’t want to reincarnate.”
Rodolfo’s eyes narrowed. “I hate when we get those. Belligerent is what they
are. Go deal with her.”
“She’s making a large scene and demanding to see the man upstairs.”
“Fine. Take Angeline to the black room.”
“No!”
Kurt’s eyes widened. “Is that necessary?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What do you want me to say?” Angeline said. “I did something bad, I’ll
do better. I promise.”
Rodolfo raised a brow. “Oh, now you’re ready to confess. I don’t have
time for this right now. We’ll speak about it after I’ve taken
care of the human histrionics. Kurt? Black room. Now.”
“Noooo!”
Angeline couldn’t explain why the words
black room
terrified her so
much. She had no idea what happened in there. All she’d ever seen
were the results. That had been frightening enough. She’d had a
casual acquaintance in her prayer circle nearly a decade ago that had
been to the black room. When he came back out, he didn’t talk to
anyone beyond praying for two years.
Rodolfo brushed past the warrior angel to attend to his adjustment angel
duties.
Kurt still hadn’t recovered from earlier. He still gave her that look,
and she was already calculating whether she could get him to release
her with a quick roll on Rodolfo’s glass desk.
“Just let me go. I won’t ever come back to Heaven. I promise.”
He hauled her up off the powder blue chair and led her out the door.
“You know I can’t do that. You can’t run around down there and
not come back. You’d be a fugitive, and then I would be punished,
too. He’d know you didn’t just get away from me.”
The warrior angels were always brought in to do the dirty work. They were
unimaginably strong. Rodolfo would never believe she’d escaped.
Kurt led her down the back streets, away from the prying eyes of the
other angels, whose attention had been called away by the human
spectacle on the main street. It was an exciting day up in Heaven.
“W-what happens in the black room?”
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know.”
How could he not know? Wasn’t he one of the law officers?
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know. I’m not allowed in there. Only the angelic
council goes in there. I don’t know what you did, but it must have
been bad to rate this.”
Why had she come back here? Why hadn’t she stayed with Hadrian in his
church? Maybe there was a way the vampires could have shielded her
from the prying surveillance of Heaven if she protected the royal
family. She could have been safe. But for how long?
They were getting away from town now and all the fancy mansions in this
sector. She lived in the last sector, the one said to be most holy
because you could actually see the mountains where the man upstairs
was believed to live—though he could be anywhere. Perhaps he was
invisible. Or a pure soul without a body. Or light itself.
Angeline wasn’t sure how far Heaven stretched. It was huge, and she’d
never been outside her own sector. There was the main gate that
everyone passed through, but then a secondary gate sorted angels
according to sector and transported them there instantly.
They left the golden streets and moved through a large field, and then
they arrived at a forest. The forest was too quiet. The trees were as
lush and bright green as any other trees here—and Heaven was always
suffused with so much light one could be overwhelmed by it—but
something about the forest
felt
dark, as if Hadrian could be
at home inside the tangles of trunks and tree limbs, never in danger
of burning.
“This way,” Kurt said, tugging on her arm.
“W-why does it feel this way?”
“We’re getting close.”
Inside the forest, it seemed to get darker. Up above, the light was so
bright, and yet it didn’t seem to touch anything in here.
They’d gone about a mile when Angeline tried to pull out of the warrior’s
grasp, intent on making a run for it, but Kurt’s grip was firm.
After about a mile of walking, a deep weariness set in. Angels didn’t
get tired like this. They could sleep, but they didn’t need to. And
yet at this moment she felt as if she could sleep until the
apocalypse.
“Just a bit further,” he said.
The trees thinned to reveal a clearing, but it was still dark here, with
heavy clouds overhead. She’d never seen a single cloud in this
realm. Not once. There was no weather. It was perfect and bright, and
everything was green, and nothing died or needed anything. There was
no struggle.
But here, the air was a constant tangle of struggle. The air felt gnarled
somehow. The electricity made her hair stand on end, and lightening
lit up the sky as thunder rumbled as a constant background track.
In the center of the clearing was the most rickety-looking black
staircase she’d ever seen. It seemed to spiral straight up into the
clouds.
Kurt nudged her forward. He’d lost interest in the dark sensuality he’d
wanted earlier. Now he was all business.
“I c-can’t go up there. It’ll collapse, or the lightning will strike
me.”
“It won’t,” he insisted. “I’ve been up these steps thousands of
times.”
She wondered how old Kurt was exactly. It was considered rude to ask an
angel’s age. And when one existed in a state of timeless
perfection, it didn’t matter. It was a rare occasion that one
marked time while in this realm. For all she knew, time didn’t
exist; the passage of it always seemed quite nebulous here.
“Can’t we just fly up?”
“It’s a no-fly zone. We can’t fly until we clear the top of the clouds.”
Kurt stayed behind her as she gripped the railing and climbed. It only
took a few steps for her to realize that the staircase was made of
tree trunk and limbs that had been created by some greater power to
grow this way out of the earth with steps and rails all the way up
through the clouds.
The stairs went for what looked like miles, and Angeline couldn’t bring
herself to look down. As they neared the clouds, the air turned humid
and thick, and a sense of vertigo swept over her.
“Careful,” Kurt said, steadying her.
“We could run away,” she said, a last-ditch effort at freedom, however
weak.
“They would find us. You can’t outrun them, Angeline. The only out is to
fall. And that’s provided they allow you that option. But don’t
worry. You’ll probably be disciplined and sent back. Most angels
come out of the black room and remain angels. You’ll learn, and you
won’t make the mistake again. Whatever it was. They are merciful
here.”
Most angels probably hadn’t been letting vampires drink their blood. And
how could he speak of mercy while taking her somewhere known to
traumatize their kind?
The clouds grew misty and thick as they ascended, but Kurt was right, the
lightning arced away from them. At the top, Kurt extended his wings
and Angeline followed his lead so they could continue on without
benefit of solid ground.
In front of them, a giant black glass box floated, suspended in the air.
Kurt escorted her to a platform outside the door. “This is as far as I go.”
But it wasn’t as far as she went. As if there could be any doubt, he
motioned toward the door.
Angeline hesitated. “H-how long did the others have to stay here?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you won’t be here long. You couldn’t
have done anything too bad.”
His hand pressed against her cheek and that look of desire came over him
again, He seemed to war within himself, as if he considered running
with her. A part of her was willing to do whatever it took to escape
this place, but another part wanted Hadrian.
Kurt’s vision cleared and he pulled away as if burned. “I have to wait
until you go inside.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. Just get through it. Then everything will be all right.”
She wondered if he tried to comfort all the prisoners. She took a deep
breath and pushed the door open. If she didn’t go in on her own, he
or Rodolfo would shove her in, anyway.
The door slammed behind her with a clang. Angeline pulled on the handle,
but it had locked. She watched Kurt through the darkened glass as he
flew back to the other platform and disappeared down the stairs, then
clouds rose around the building, blocking her view and making
everything feel smaller and more closed in.
The air felt humid as the clouds became thicker outside the glass walls.
The
black room
was an apt name, because it was all it was. One
giant black box-shaped room. There didn’t seem to be anything but
walls, floor and ceiling. So what could be so scary and terrible
about it?
She walked the perimeter. It seemed much smaller than it was. But then
maybe she’d walked around it more than once. Even with the corners,
it was hard to remember how much space she’d traversed.
After a while, the whispers started. At first they sounded like wind
whispering through cracks. But there were no cracks. The room was
solid. The whispers built and rose in volume, becoming more clear and
overlapping on top of each other.
“Nobody else wants you.”
“You’re such a disappointment.”
“Unclean. How could we let such an unclean demon contaminate our holy place?”
“HE doesn’t want you.”
She wasn’t sure if “he” was supposed to be the man upstairs or…
The black room responded to her thoughts. “Hadrian will never want
you.”
“If we toss you out, and he tosses you out, where will you go? Where will
you go when nobody wants you?”
“We saved you. We elevated you. We gave you glory. You
owe
us.”
“You filthy piece of trash.”
“We are the only ones who will ever want you.”
“No one else would ever be able to forgive you.”
“Hadrian will never forgive you. You don’t deserve it. You tainted his
goodness just like you taint everything else you touch. It all rots
from the inside.”
“You’re lost. Why shouldn’t we let you fall?”
“You don’t deserve those wings. You don’t deserve anything.”
“You let him defile your blood. We saw everything.”
“We saw everything.”
“We saw everything.”
She put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, but the
whispers only got louder in response, moving past her weak defenses.
The voices went on for hours. Over and over, the same words, the same
indictments. All the things she feared about herself were spoken
aloud in the darkness until she no longer feared it. She
knew
it was all true.
Chapter Six
Hadrian arrived at the penthouse several hours after sunset. Even with
vampire speed, it took a while to get from Vegas to Cary Town,
Washington. He hurried down the streets trying not to attract
attention as he made his way to the Cary Town Luxury Apartments and
the penthouse where the vampire king held his meetings.