“He ‘has a plan.’ One that will see Zoe—Genevieve—whatever you wish to call her—die and take Thorn with her.”
Grabbing the archangel’s robes, I stop him in his tracks. “No. I willnotlose her again. I have paid my debt a thousand times over, Gabriel. Two centuries as Lucifer’s plaything, another two working for the Bureau... How many souls have I saved?”
“More than your share,” he says, the resignation in his tone obvious. “There are those in this realm, Sinclair, who will never allow you back. You know this.”
“I do not care if I ever see this realm again. Banish me permanently. Take my wings if you wish. But do not force me to go through eternity without the woman I love. The woman Thorn's torture stole from my memories.”
Gabriel shakes his head and pries my hands from his robes, then stiffens. “Thorn did not take her memory from you, Sinclair. Seraphiel did.”
My entire world halts. Turned upside down with those two words. “What?”
The archangel reaches out and lays his hands on me. One over my heart, the other on my forehead. His palms warm, then start to glow, and he whispers, “Remember.”
With a violent shudder, I am thrown onto the rocks surrounding Hell. My body has wasted away from my time as Beelzebub’s prisoner, and three angels stand over me. Gabriel, Azrael, and Seraphiel.
“Sinclair,” Gabriel says, “the Almighty has seen your suffering and has granted you a brief reprieve to speak with us. Tell us why you should be freed from Hell.”
“I deserve to burn,” I rasp, my throat parched and scarred from two centuries drowning in Lucifer’s river of blood and fire. “I should have fought harder. Or ended my own existence so Thorn could not use me to inflict such pain on others.”
Azrael frowns. “We are not unreasonable, Sinclair. You helped end many lives, but you did not wield the blades, and you brought the demons down to Hell knowing you would be trapped here with them.”
“He killed the woman I loved. She was so strong. She saved me. And he destroyed her.”
“She failed because of you,” Seraphiel says, his tone edged with judgment. “That is your true crime.”
Pushing myself up to my knees, I grab on to Seraphiel’s robes. “What do you mean?”
“We created her, demon. A daughter of seraphim. Of celestial origin, though with a human body, a human mind. We sent her to the mortal realm to stop the demon who calls himself Thorn. But you interfered. She fell in love with you. That is why she did not use her power to trap his consciousness in Hell for all eternity. Because it would have consumed her as well. She hesitated, and Thorn seized that opportunity to end her human existence,” Seraphiel says, his disgust for me obvious from the sneer curling his lips.
“Her...humanexistence? She lives? In the celestial realm?” Knowing the woman I love is not gone forever gives me a reason to fight. To try to redeem myself, and I clasp my hands together in supplication. “Please. Show her to me. For only a moment. Grant me this one indulgence, and I will never ask for another.”
Gabriel snaps his fingers, and a window to the celestial realm opens before me. She is as beautiful as I remember, but there is no life to her. No movement. Her chest does not rise and fall, her eyes, bright as emeralds, do not see.
“What have you done to her?” I cry.
Seraphiel snaps, “She was inconsolable when she returned to us. Because ofyou. Our most powerful weapon against the scum of demonkind, and you made her as weak as any otherhuman. So, we have remade her. Trapped her in a prison of her own physical body and wiped her mind clean so that one day, should we ever decide to release her, she might possibly beusefulagain.”
The mournful scream rises from deep in my soul, and Azrael grabs me by the arms and hauls me to my feet. “Your time in Hell is over, Sinclair,” the angel of Death says. “You will serve out the rest of your sentence in the mortal realm. There are many souls that need your help, and when you have saved enough of them, perhaps, we may allow you to return.”
“No,” I whisper. “Please, send me back to Hell. I cannot live with the knowledge of what you have done to her.”
Seraphiel steps forward, anger burning in his golden eyes. “Then you will live without it.” He takes my head in his hands and rips away my memories one by one. Her smile. Her laugh. The scent of her skin. Her touch. The agony is a thousand-fold worse than anything Lucifer has visited upon me over two centuries, and when he is done, I collapse onto the stone, my thoughts jumbled, knowing I have lostsomething, but having no idea what.
Seraphiel arches a brow and gestures to a window into the celestial realm. The frozen image of a beautiful, yet sad woman flashes before my eyes. “Do you recognize her, Sinclair?”
The window shrinks into nothing when I shake my head, and through my confusion, I think...the seraphim smiles. “He is ready.”
“Gabriel?” I croak. “Ready for what? Why am I here...?”
The archangel drops to one knee and cups my cheek. “For redemption, Sinclair. It is time to wipe your ledger clean.”
* * *
“Sinclair. Look at me.”Gabriel kneels over me, but we are no longer on the rocks surrounding Hell. The celestial realm is so fucking white, it is almost blinding, and the archangel’s face swims in and out of focus.
“How could you let him do that to her? To me?” I shove him, and he lands on his ass a few feet away.
“I had no choice. He outranks me. I swear, I did not know who Zoe was when I first saw her with you.” Gabriel makes no move to rise. Smart. I may be powerless in this realm, but my fist still packs a punch.
