The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(90)

TWENTY-TWO


The rasp of Arthur’s breathing combined with the sound of Luc’s pacing made Cybele want to scream. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was terrified.

It’s the waiting, she thought. I hate waiting. She fingered her touchstone, once again safe in her possession. She’d found it in Arthur’s pocket. Where and when he’d come across it, she didn’t know.

“Could you please stand still? Just for two seconds?”

Luc halted. “Sorry.”

The last two days were a blur. They’d showered and dressed in the clean clothes they’d found stashed in the bedroom dressers. While the guys’ clothing provided was basic enough—jeans, t-shirts, boxers—the feminine items had been more personal. The jeans were her favorite brand, in exactly her size. The blouses were the flowery, flowing kind she loved. And there’d been cute panties and bras. Not racy, but still. Had Michael picked them out for her? If so, just when, exactly, had the archangel done it?

She and Luc had taken turns sleeping and watching over Arthur. At the moment, they were both awake, standing on opposite sides of Arthur’s bed. If not for the scant rise and fall of his chest, punctuated by the occasional rasping inhale, they might easily have been looking at a corpse.

Maybe he won’t wake up. No. Michael said he’d wake. Surely the archangel knew what he was talking about. But if Arthur wasn’t dying, he wasn’t improving either. His face was ashen, his body lifeless.

The room’s single lamp, positioned on an old dresser, cast a half-hearted glow in the direction of the bed. Cybele took up the pacing her twin had abandoned. Luc moved to the window, his expression grim.

The new day had dawned cold and gray and had only grown darker as the morning wore on. It was now past noon. The sky was turbulent. A steady drizzle fell. Pedestrians scurried by with open umbrellas. They looked harried but not unduly panicked. They must think, Cybele realized, that what was in the sky was just weather. Stupid humans had no idea that a horde of hellfiends was streaming over their heads.

“I should leave.” Luc looked like hell. He had dark circles under his eyes and several days’ growth of beard on his jaw. His hair, straighter and a darker shade of blond than Cybele’s, was in dire need of a brush.

“No.” She left Arthur’s side and went to her twin. She wanted to touch him, put a hand on his arm, but something in his expression stopped her. “No,” she repeated. “Don’t you dare even think about leaving.”

His lips compressed into a harsh line. “Every minute I stay here makes it more likely that Mab will find us.”

“Let her look. As long as you don’t use magic, she can’t track you. And this apartment is safe. Michael promised—”

“That’s another thing I’m having trouble with,” he said. “You and that fucking archangel.”

“What about him?” Cybele asked warily.

“You can’t possibly trust him.”

“Why not?” she said. “He saved me. He saved Arthur. And you.”

Luc turned to lean against the wall, his arms crossed. “It’s got to be a trick. Some game he’s playing.”

“It’s not.” She shoved a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Michael isn’t like that.”

“You some kind of expert on archangels now?” He expelled a rough breath. “What he’s done makes no goddamned sense.”

No. It made some kind of sense. The archangel’s got a hard-on for me. She imagined saying those words to Luc. Forget it. It would sound preposterous, not to mention unbelievably conceited. Anyway, it probably wasn’t strictly true. Angels couldn’t get hard-ons. Could they?

Maybe Luc was right. Maybe Michael’s assistance was part of a larger heavenly plot against the Nephilim. That certainly wouldn’t be surprising, given her race’s prior experience with Heaven’s finest.

But the fact remained that he’d helped her, and not in a small way. “Arthur’d be in Oblivion right now if not for Michael,” she said. “I’d be on my way to being Dusek’s thrall, and you’d be dead.”

“Okay. Fine. I can’t argue with any of that. But I still think you’re a fool to trust him.”

She shrugged. “I probably won’t ever see him again, anyway.”

“Let’s hope not.” His eyes strayed to Merlin’s staff. The two pieces lay on the dresser. Leaving the window, Luc picked up the top half and peered into the crystal. “So. Arthur pulled Merlin’s lost staff from a rock and opened a portal to Hell.”

“He didn’t mean to. If he’d known what would happen, he never would’ve done it.”

“Maybe,” Luc said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You said Dusek was dragging you off. If Arthur thought the staff was his best chance to save you, he’d have grabbed it no matter what the consequences.”

Cybele looked at Arthur’s face, his sunken eyes and dry lips, and knew Luc spoke the truth.

“I really doubt,” he continued, “that an archangel would just hand over Merlin’s staff to the only Nephil who could destroy the Earth with it. We’re missing something here.”

“Michael said Arthur might be able to use it to send the fiends back to Hell.”