The Tenth Order (37 page)

Hash’s mouth dropped open. It was impossible, he’d been miles away…

Mika’il smiled darkly. “You should know better than to hide things from me, Hashmal. You are
mine
.
My Domination.”

The squat man dropped to his knees, pressing his head tightly to the smooth wood floor. “I beg your forgiveness, Seraphim.”

“Oh get up. You know I can’t stomach that nonsense.”

Hash rose to his feet, knees watery. Mika’il glanced at the chair and Hash almost tripped over himself rushing to sit back down. He stared at the tall woman, nostrils flaring, heart racing.

“You know I’m not in the habit of forgiving, and yet today I’ve made an exception. Twice.” She smiled at the terrified man. “I understand. There’s something about Hunter, something that makes you want to protect him. I felt it myself when we first met, and I saw its effects on you and the other
Elohim
. My question, Hashmal, is whether your loyalty is to your student,” her smile disappeared, “or your superior.”

Without hesitation Hash spoke: “My sword is, and always will be yours, Mika’il. I serve the
Elohim
.”

The Seraphim’s eyes glittered. “Good. You don’t know how happy that makes me.”

Hash’s breathing slowed, and his body sank back against the chair, trembling.
God, if you do exist…I owe you one.

“Now, my faithful soldier, I have another mission for you. One that requires your special abilities.”

Hash’s eyes grew wider and wider as Mika’il laid out his task, until he was sure they were going to climb off his face. By the end of the briefing, however, he had managed to pull himself back together. He stood, bowed, and left the chamber in one smooth motion, ignoring Phaleg’s sniveling grin as he swept through the anteroom.

Mika’il was his commander. She had been the one to take him from the streets, from a life destined to end in drugs, prison, hell, maybe worse. Hash owed her more than he could ever repay. The Seraphim had taught him how to use his gifts, had given him a place of honor in the political minefield that littered the
Elohim
. But now, as Hash hurried through hallway to his room, a terrifying thought was taking shape. His leader, his commander…was going insane.

On the other side of the mountains, separated by a few hundred miles, Karen was thinking the same thing.

She had returned to the mansion an hour earlier, riding in silence as Bath sat glowering out the window. The de facto leader of the North American
Adonai
had remained silent during their trip, and when they arrived home ordered Karen to leave him. “Say nothing of our mission,” he told her, “and do not disturb me for the next twenty-four hours. No matter what.”

Bath had walked away, leaving Karen exhausted and starving. She’d excused herself from the remainder of her small group, and retired to the courtyard for a small meal. Including, hopefully, a few minutes alone to review the night’s events.

She should have known that was too much to ask.

Halfway through a tomato salad and a steaming mug of herbal tea, Bath had entered the courtyard, looked briefly around, then walked leisurely toward her. He’d been in contact with those in the beyond, he informed Karen, and they were to cease all efforts to capture the Power known as Hunter Friskin.

“But we spent so much time planning!” Karen protested. “We almost had him. I can find him, Bath, I swear it.
We can still bring him in.
” But the Cherubim only shook his head and retreated from the empty courtyard.

Now, Karen sat alone, the musky scent of jasmine and fennel rising from her mug, the tomato salad tepid and forgotten. She looked down and ran a fork idly through the limp spinach, her mind drifting farther and farther away.

The courtyard occupied the center of the sprawling complex the
Adonai
called “the mansion,” and was filled with every kind of plant and exotic flower one could imagine. It was supposed to promote a sense of connection, a kind of Garden of Eden vibe that summed up the core aesthetic of the
Adonai
. S
he’d been told it was soothing to most Apkallu, but to Karen it just seemed a crowded mess of houseplants and bugs. Then again, she’d never been much for the outdoors. Give her a good, dense city, lots of commotion, the roar of traffic, that beating, pelting rhythm of humanity packed as tight as a sardine can.

Heaven.

Still, at least the courtyard was mostly empty during the winter months. The last thing Karen wanted right now was a crowd. She needed to think, and the cold was a welcome distraction, keeping her focused. Plus, the plants seemed less ostentatious when the weather was chilly.

What was Bath up to?
First he ignored tradition and the Law of the Grigori by trying to abduct a christened Apkallu, and now he said to leave Hunter alone?
It didn’t make any damn sense.

Bath should have been raging. Karen had seen him thwarted by the
Elohim
before, and each time he’d spent weeks alternatively screaming and falling into bouts of childish pouting. This time should have been even worse. He’d been beaten not just by an enemy, but a
human;
Bath should have been apoplectic. Instead, the Cherub was cool, collected—uncaring.

Karen didn’t like mysteries, especially ones involving herself. Something was going on, something surrounding Hunter, and Karen was beginning to think it had been planned for a very,
very
long time.

Was it chance that Karen had been the first to approach the Power? There was always a possibility the Apkallu you discovered could one day become your enemy—it was part of the game— but Karen had a sinking feeling the
Adonai
were meant to find Hunter first. What’s more, that it was
supposed
to have been Karen.

And tonight. Had they just been outwitted by the priest? Played like fools,
Adonai
against
Elohim
, a perfect distraction to steal away the Power? It should have been impossible for a human to escape the Apkallu; they had powers and senses beyond anything the priest and his pet cop could imagine. The humans had even been
outnumbered
.

They wanted him to get away
, the thought crept over Karen in a slow, numbing wave. She stared fixedly at her salad, her eyes widening.
Bath isn’t throwing a fit…because he planned this all along.

She jumped to her feet, almost knocking over the table in her haste, and fled the courtyard. If this was true, if Bath had been working with the
Elohim
all along—it would change everything.

Karen raced to her room, flying past a couple of startled
Adonai
who were roaming the halls
. Sweeping open the door, she almost stepped on the small letter before she saw it. Foot upraised, Karen looked down and saw a tiny, folded scrap of paper lying just beyond the door.

She’d never received a letter in the mansion before; if one of the
Adonai
wanted to communicate with another they could just send messages through the memory planes in the wall. B
ending down, Karen ran her fingers lightly over the envelope, ready to leap if the paper was rigged. But the folded note did nothing but bend naturally under the weight of her fingers.

Rising, Karen felt a paranoid urge to look behind her shoulder and see if anyone was watching. Taking a deep breath, she closed the door and walked to her bed.
If anyone’s watching I doubt they’d be stupid enough to let me see them
. She frowned at the scrap of paper, then shrugged and unfolded it. Inside were a few scribbled words that made Karen’s eyebrows rise. Setting the letter down, she stood and began pacing the room.

Was it a trap? It couldn’t be coincidence that Karen would receive something like this here, now, only moments after her realizations about Bath. Yet, it would be foolish to ignore the note. Maybe disastrous.

And the best way to spring a trap…

Three hours later, with the sun just passing the zenith, Karen stood in front of the old cathedral the humans called Saint Catherine's. The sunlight cut through the clear, cold afternoon, playing over the worn building in clusters of golden light. Karen had been aware of the dilapidated old church for several years, but this was the first time she’d visited. As a rule the Apkallu didn’t spend much time gossiping, but certain names and places occasionally came up. Saint Catherine's was one of those. Karen had heard rumors about the old church for years now. Whispers of a haunted past.

But really, until she received the strange message to meet at the church, Karen hadn’t given the stories much thought. Places of worship made her uncomfortable. Even before her christening, Karen had dodged religious locales, and now, fully aware of her heritage, she avoided matters of faith like the plague. All Apkallu did. Karen figured it had to do with the beyond, and the fact that no one remembered it. Who wanted to spend time thinking about a religion that might have it wrong? Plenty of time to focus on the metaphysical after the healing was done and they returned home.

The ancient concrete broke apart in tiny showers of rock and mortar as Karen made her way up the church steps. At the top, next to the entrance, stood a lone figure. He was familiar; an older black man, short, with bulging muscles and piercing eyes. She was familiar with him the same way the wolf was familiar with the wolfhound—her neck was still sore after their last meeting.

“Hash.” Karen returned the Domination’s stare. She’d known it was an
Elohim
who contacted her, the implications had been clear in the writing. But that it was
this
one—Mika’il’s personal Domination—was something she never would have suspected.

Karen looked over both shoulders, casing the street.

“Relax,” Hash said. “I didn’t ask you here to fight.”

“No?” Karen eyed him skeptically. “Why then? To fill my head with stories? You think you can trick me into betraying Bath?”

“The Cherubim’s done that himself. Hasn’t he?”

Karen didn’t want to think about it, so she ignored the question and walked passed Hash and into the church. The door creaked as she opened it, leading into a small anteroom that in turn led to a long row of pews. At the opposite ends were the traditional trappings of Catholicism: several tiered sets of candles, plenty of purple, and an enormous cross, completed with crucifixion. Karen walked slowly down the nave, still examining the exits and looking for hidden attackers. She picked a pew at random and sat down.

A moment later Hash joined her, dropping briefly to one knee and crossing himself.

“Seriously?”

Hash shrugged. “My mom wasn’t around much, but the one thing she insisted on was Sunday Mass. Some habits never die.”

“I guess,” Karen said, more to fill the silence than because she agreed. This was only the second time she’d been inside one of these old churches, and the soft, empty silence of the chapel made her bones itch. “So…”

“Zadkiel, why did you come?”

Karen sat silently for a moment, then answered, “I was curious. A letter shows up warning me not to trust Bath and to meet at Saint Catherine's if I wanted to survive the next week?” She snorted. “It got my attention.”

“I didn’t think you were going to show,” Hash said.

“I wasn’t. My first thought was to go to Bath.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I…” Karen paused, weighing how much she wanted to tell the older man. “No. I didn’t. The letter was in my room, waiting for me. Which means whoever left it was either
Adonai,
and
I had to be careful who I trusted—”

“Even Bath?”

“Or, it meant an enemy had infiltrated the mansion,” Karen continued, ignoring Hash’s question. “And it wasn’t safe to involve my commanding officer in something so obviously a trap.”

Hash chuckled softly. “So you came yourself. Ready to sacrifice your life for a Cherubim, even though you aren’t close to fully healed and you’d have to reincarnate all over again. What inspires that kind of loyalty?”

“At least I know what the word means,
Elohim
!” Karen spat, turning to Hash, eyes afire. The older man held up his hands, a small smile on his lips.

“Easy, Arch. Like I said, I didn’t come to fight. Listen, what I said in that letter was true—you can’t trust the Cherubim.”

“Like I’d expect to hear anything else from an
Elohim
. You have some special insight here, because…?”

Hash’s smile disappeared. He looked away from Karen, his eyes lowering to his clenched hands. “Because I can no longer trust my Seraphim,” he said in a low voice.

She tried not to show her surprise, consciously keeping her jaw from dropping open. She knew the fanatical devotion Mika’il cultivated amongst her followers, and would sooner expect an
Elohim
to grow wings and fly than to admit doubts about their leader. Suddenly her own suspicions about Bath didn’t seem so crazy.