Unnatural Souls (19 page)

“
Nothing,” Michael told
me, looking dangerously calm now. “What good would any of that
information have done you? You could be powerful, the demons might
want you dead, or they might want to use you. But those aren’t
answers, they are possibilities.”

“
I deserved to know them
anyway!” I yelled. My fists were balled up and I was shaking. How
could he not see how wrong he was to not tell me everything? Not
answers, but possibilities? What did that even mean? Was this more
angelic speak about higher truths and causes? Because I didn’t need
that—I needed absolutes!

I could feel my power pulsing near the
surface, sensing my anger and expecting to be called. But I wasn’t
going to fight Michael. I needed him, no matter how angry I
was.

Besides, I didn’t know what would
happen if I fought him.

“
I didn’t see a need for
it,” he said again. “The demons would have kept coming after you
either way. You can defend yourself now, like I promised, and now
that we know what your abilities are, we can use them. As we must.
Because the fates of Heaven and Earth are at risk—thanks to
you
. My plans might
fail, and your unreasonable anger will not help your brother. You
are right, however. The impossible might just be the only way to
undo what you did.”

Was he freaking serious? He was just
going pretend like this didn’t matter? How was I going to trust
him? Sure, he hadn’t completely lied, but he should have told me
everything. He did say I was special, but that was it. He should
have told me what he meant by that, and that these powers made me a
target for Hell even if he didn’t know what they wanted me for,
exactly. Michael seemed less than angelic to me right now, and he
definitely had an agenda. I felt like a pawn in a chess
game.

At least now I knew where I stood, and
that I couldn’t trust him to keep my best interests at heart. It
was his mission first, and I was just part of his plan. He didn’t
seem to see past that, or understand what he had done wrong. But I
would have to put that aside—for the moment. I had to save my
brother, for good. So I was going to listen to his plan to reverse
what I did. Because no matter how powerful I was, I still didn’t
know what I was doing. Which meant I still needed Michael. For
now.

“
There might be a way,” he
continued, his voice still dangerously quiet. “I’ve never heard of
it being done, and it shouldn’t be possible. If you pulled it off,
it would be a miracle. You’ve already done things you shouldn’t be
able to do, however, and there is a small chance that this will
work. There is no guarantee. You will have to reverse the damage
yourself.” He took a deep breath and turned his cold blue eyes on
me.

“
But let’s be clear—you
almost destroyed everything for one person. You’ve showed me that I
can’t fully trust you.”

That makes two of
us,
I thought back with fury. Because I
still wasn’t giving up on that. He could have told me—he could have
saved us all the trouble. And he hadn’t.

“
Test that trust again,”
he said. “Do anything to endanger my mission to save Heaven and
Earth. And I will send both you and your brother straight to
Hell.”

And with that he disappeared, leaving
me to stare at the spot where he’d been, wondering what I was going
to have to do—and whether it would save Ash and me from any of them
at all … or see us winding up in Hell anyhow.

Linda Foster was born and raised in
Colorado, where she still lives with her (very patient) husband,
two (very spoiled) ferrets and (equally spoiled) dog. Linda became
an avid reading enthusiast the moment she picked up her first book,
and has grown steadily worse. By the time she was fifteen years
old, her library had become too big for her shelves, and she was
forced to donate all her books to the local school, just to make
room for new ones. She started writing short novellas for her
friends in middle school, and expanded into full-length novels
several years later.