We spent several minutes grilling her on specifics, but it drilled down to her knowing lots about his motivations, his feelings, and dreams, but very little about Raphael's actual plans. He held them close to himself.
When I was sure we'd gotten all we could from Genevra, I nodded at Michael. "Okay, she's done."
Before he did his work on her memory, I did the same thing I had with Ezekiel. "When this is over, use your second chance at life to make something good of it. Help humans. Raise your child with honor. We will be watching."
She wouldn't remember it, but my words would stick with her. She'd just never know why.
Chapter Fifteen
Taking Ezekiel and Genevra back to their hidey-holes was simple enough. Returning to figure out what to do with Uriel was another story. Lucifer, Michael and I stared at him with the ward up.
"Give him to Joel?" I suggested.
Michael winced. "I don't know. Joel's very by the book. He will turn him over to the angelic courts."
"He'll end up Fallen," Luc said. "And free."
Considering what I knew of our creator, I had to disagree. "God will possibly kill Raphael for this. He might kill Uriel, too."
"Then we end up with his soul in Hell," Luc said. "But we aren't there to make sure it's handled well."
"We can't kill him." Gabriel had a point. "It's high treason to kill an Archangel, even in circumstances such as this."
God was fond of his Archangels. We were the first. Raphael and Uriel's actions would wound him. "He probably already knows," I mused. "He's not completely omniscient like people think, but he's really close."
"If these two aren't using magic to block their true thoughts, their idiots," Luc said. "We all learned how to do that thousands of years ago."
"Well, we can't stand here in this bloody barn and stare at him until the demons break loose either." Michael turned away from Uriel to face us. "It's going to have to be Joel. We don't have time to babysit him to make sure he doesn't break out of this temporary prison."
It wasn't exactly Azkaban, our little barn. He had a point. I sighed and let my head drop. "Joel!" I shouted to the ceiling. "We need you!"
He appeared a few seconds later. "I live to serve," he said dryly. "You've got to stop summoning me like a servant."
"I'm sorry." He was right. He wasn't my husband to order around. I chuckled to myself at my joke but didn't say it out loud. He wouldn't have found it as funny. "Can you take Uriel? Give him to the courts to determine his fate. They can force him to speak the truth. Maybe God will take notice and intervene with Raphael."
Joel gave me an incredulous look. "God hasn't intervened in anything since Jesus came home. He did a big, huge thing, which should've had the effect Raphael is going for here. Humans stoically hate to admit there is a higher power." He shook his head. "But I digress. He won't intervene."
"Yeah, we don't truly think he will either. But he will punish Uriel," Lucifer said. "That much we're confident on."
Joel chuckled. "Yep. Agreed."
He took Uriel to Elysium and out of our hair. With a wave of his hand, Michael cleaned up the barn and removed all the blood. It had been getting rancid in there. "I don't know about you guys, but I need food and sleep."
It was almost twilight, and I'd lost all track of the days. Without any leads or possibilities, we had nowhere to go. Nowhere to look.
"Maybe if we all rest, something new will come to us tomorrow," I said. There was nothing else to try. My poor human body was near breaking down. I felt the strain of the magic on it, too, even with the barrier I'd put in place.
We all needed showers again. I wasn't sure if it had been one or two days since we last took one, before we went after Ezekiel and Genevra. Or had it even been a whole day yet?
However long it had been, I felt gross, and though I could magically clean my body, I craved the feel of hot water rushing over my skin.
"I'm going to order pizzas," Luc said. My stomach growled on cue. I moved me and Luc to the kitchen and Gabe and Michael followed of their own accord. We could've magicked ourselves some dinner, but the food had to come from somewhere. We didn't have the ability to create it out of thin air. We didn't like using magic for things like obtaining food, because it might take it out of someone else's mouth. Better to do the right thing and pay for it, even if that meant another forty-five minutes.
Now that I had nothing driving me to the next task, my hunger and exhaustion moved to the forefront of my mind. "I'm going to shower while we wait."
Gabe grimaced. "I'll join you, keep you company."
We trudged up the stairs and into the bedroom. "We need a home on Earth," Gabe said. "Somewhere we can go even in our angelic bodies. Like a vacation."
