The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(54)
Stupid angel.
He sure hoped the little guy was okay.
***
Maybe, Michael reflected, it was a good thing Raphael had called him back from Devon. Things had been getting a bit out of hand. Trouble was, the scene he’d witnessed through the window at T?’r Cythraul was burned permanently into his brain. Getting things back in hand wasn’t going to be easy.
He was currently in Prague, carrying out Raphael’s latest orders. His heart, however, yearned for England. His heart—and another part of his anatomy, which, even though it didn’t function properly, insisted on making its needs known.
He couldn’t stop thinking of Cybele. Scenarios and dialogues played like video in his brain. In some scenes, he was himself. In others, he was human. In one incredibly disturbing daydream—one that shamed him to remember—he’d cast himself as a Nephil.
Each time, in every scenario, Cybele turned her back on Arthur and took Michael’s hand. His hand, and his...
No. He had to stop this. Lustful rumination wasn’t healthy. It was, in fact, a sin.
What was she doing this very moment? Bathing? Eating? Copulating? His brain stuttered over that last one. Maybe Gabriel was watching her doing unspeakable things with Arthur right now. The very thought made Michael want to punch something.
His mood was grim as he flew over the old quarter of the city. With effort, he wrenched his mind from Cybele and tried to concentrate on the streetscape below. The medieval city center boasted a veritable forest of church spires. On another day, in another mood, he would have found it beautiful.
He landed on the sidewalk across the street from the Prague Institute for the Study of Man. Michael folded his wings into his back and changed from spirit to flesh form. A bicyclist nearly ran him down.
He leaped out of the way just in time. Get a grip, he told himself sternly, turning his attention to the building before him. As schools of higher learning went, the Institute’s campus was modest. Its facilities consisted of a single, largish seventeenth century mansion, fronting on four lanes of twenty-first century traffic. He peered up at the baroque fa?ade but could discern nothing that might be happening beyond its windows.
The Institute’s main entrance didn’t front on the public street. It lay beyond a pair of iron gates, tucked inside a central courtyard. A cobblestone carriageway connected the road to the interior yard via a short, barrel-vaulted tunnel.
He crossed the street, ignoring horns and shouts. The intricate scrollwork on the gates had caught his attention. The pattern on the right formed the figure of an angel. Raphael himself, if Michael wasn’t very much mistaken. The flowing robes and gilded wings were unmistakable. True, the proportions of the Sword of Righteous Vengeance were a bit off. But in general, it was an excellent likeness.
The figure on the left was a dark-winged Nephil. The creature rose from a fissure in the earth. It gripped a jagged bolt of hellfire in its left hand, the tip aimed straight at Raphael’s heart. Michael snorted and shook his head. As if his brother could ever be bested by a Nephil.
The gates were closed and locked. Michael pondered his options. He could open the lock, or reassume spirit form and simply pass right through the iron bars. He opted for the former. Interacting with the Institute’s denizens in the flesh might prove more helpful than just drifting through and observing them unseen. With a touch of his fingertip, he sprang the lock’s mechanism and opened the angel side of the gate a couple feet. He walked in and shut the gate behind him.
The courtyard was surprisingly green, planted with trees and flowerbeds within a circular drive. A fountain, topped by a variety of marble statues, occupied the center of the garden. The subject of the artwork was, again, angels and demons, this time locked in hand-to-hand combat. The day was warm for the spring season, with a touch of sun. A handful of students, heads bent over laptops or phones, were scattered about at tables and benches. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Michael scanned the ground. If Fortunato had flown this way, he’d left no trace.
He rounded the fountain and approached the main entrance. Twin mahogany doors, ten feet tall and burnished to a dark, glassy sheen, stood at the top of a marble stair. The stone medallion over the door bore the school’s coat of arms. He was annoyed, yet unsurprised, to note yet another angel/demon motif on the escutcheon. Really, this theme was getting old.
“Sir. May I help you?” The offer, spoken in accented English to his back, was spiced with disapproval.
He turned to find a darkly handsome young man. Longish black hair, olive complexion, soulful brown eyes. Not a Nephil. A human. He wore shirt and tie, pressed black slacks, and a blazer sporting the Institute’s crest. He seemed, to Michael’s eye, less than comfortable in the restrictive garb, as if he were used to more casual attire.
Michael stood a little straighter and concentrated on projecting a relentlessly human aura. His black jeans and vintage military jacket presented exactly the look he wanted. For today, he’d added a messenger bag, its strap slung across his chest. A nice, casual touch of human student realism, if he did say so himself.
“This courtyard is private,” the man said. “Students and faculty only.”
“I didn’t realize.” Michael offered an apologetic smile. He tried to place the man’s accent. Middle Eastern, he thought. Israeli, maybe? “I came through the gate and—”
“Impossible. The gate is kept locked.”