I stripped and threw my clothes in the hamper. The white undershirt of Lucian's I'd been wearing was covered in cheese puff dust and drips of chocolate ice cream. How had I not even noticed?
Oh, well. I was entitled to a few days of checking out after what I'd been through.
When I finished my shower, I wrapped a towel around myself, then settled on the edge of my bed, feeling lost. Gabriel grabbed a brush and started working it through my tangled strands like he would brush a child’s hair. Again, I got the sense that I should be embarrassed, but I wasn’t.
"Dang, woman, when was the last time you brushed this mane?" He worked the brush for a minute, then sighed. "Do you have a comb instead?"
I looked through my drawers until I found a wide-toothed comb, then let him help me detangle. "Here." I handed him a bottle of leave-in conditioner. "That'll help. And it's been since the morning you were hurt."
The mist from the bottle settled on my hair and shoulders, then he was able to comb it out easily afterward. "I can't believe Lucian didn't say anything about you getting so..."
"So?" I turned and gave him a look. He was on dangerous territory.
"Upset-looking," he said delicately.
I snorted. "Nice one. I glamoured myself so I looked normal. And I did my best to act normal when he was home."
"Okay, well, that works.” He took a deep breath.
I stared. “What is it?” My stomach flipped. “Something bad?”
“No, actually, I have good news." Gabe opened my drawers and wrinkled his nose at my underwear, but threw a pair on the bed near me, then headed for the closet. "We've thought of a way to break the spell."
"Don't keep me in suspense."
Michael's voice rang out and echoed across the bedroom from the hall. "Lignum Crucis."
I gasped. "Oh, why didn't we think of that before?"
Michael walked into the room and leaned against the wall. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," I said, feeling a little irritated that I still didn’t know the good news.
"I hear you haven't been taking care of yourself," Michael said.
He must’ve been listening to us. "I took a few days off. What of it?" I asked.
"You never do that," he said. "Never."
"Well, I've also never given a child away, so let's stop worrying about how I handle that, okay?” I didn’t give him time to argue, just changed the subject. “Tell me about theCrucis. I don't know a lot about it besides that it’s powerful." It was held somewhere in Heaven, out of my reach, so I'd never really paid it much attention.
"The humans believe they have several pieces of the cross that Jesus was crucified on." I held my breath and listened. "The pieces the humans possess are tiny. The larger pieces they believe to be authentic are not. Some of them are from the crosses of the thieves that died beside Jesus, but not from his. Other ones are ones that we have replaced so that they would not have anything powerful in their possession."
"Okay," I said. "I thought all the ones the humans had were fakes."
Michael chuckled as Gabe threw me a shirt and some pants. "We want everyone to think that, because the pieces they have do have a considerable amount of power, but they're too small to weaponize."
“And it isn’t enough to break a curse like this," Gabe finished. "We've talked about grinding them down and creating a weapon with theCrucisinside it, but the fear is that any alteration of the wood would release the power within it."
That made sense. The death of the son of God, who was also, in some ways, still God Himself, would've created a disgusting amount of power. And it had to go somewhere. I'd heard stories about where the actual crucifixion had happened. People believed they could journey there for miraculous healings. In all likelihood, it was true. If they'd found the spot he died, where all his blood was spilled, it would be a Holy spot. The wood of the cross, the nails, his crown of thorns. All of it would be unbelievably powerful.
"So, the realLignum Crucisis in Heaven, right?" I asked. "And you can get to it?"
"Yep,” Gabe replied. “It's in Raphael's weapons room. If we knew where he was it would be a few seconds of our time. Since he's gone, we have to break in there. Not impossible, but neither of us are looking forward to it."
"So, you're leaving me again." I knew it. It couldn't be so easy. They couldn't just show up with the weapon and big smiles on their faces.
"I'm afraid so. It'll take us a few hours to get it."
