Gavriel frowned at me. “I sent thirty Protectors to bring this demon down, and they all failed. One came back so covered with smut, I almost thought she was you.” Righteous started coughing. Mikhail growled. I just stuck my tongue out. The smut I’d gotten from saving Growly wasn’t that bad now; whole sheets of it came off every time I showered.
Gavriel ignored me, turning to speak to Righteous. “I have faith you can keep the Guides in line for a few days. I’ve been chasing this thing on my own around the clock, and I can’t get close. It senses me coming, somehow, though it’s every bit as hidden as Feather was in her years on Earth.”
“I was hidden?”
Gavriel laughed once. “Do you believe we would have let you run around down there for centuries, without guidance orprotection, if we’d known?” I didn’t answer, and Gavriel went silent, his face flushed.
Mikhail explained, “Novices are camouflaged as humans in their first lives, as a way to keep them safe from the Abyss. They don’t even know who, or what, they are when they’re first born. Not until their Protector nature awakens. You awakened, but didn’t present as a Protector. We believe your angelic signature was somehow concealed under the smut you bore. It was pure chance we found you.”
“And this demon—it’s hidden in the same way I was?” I did not like the sound of that. I’d been so smut-covered, Gavriel really had thought I was from the Abyss.
No wonder he cut me up with the soul knife when he met me.
I looked up abruptly when I heard noises that reminded me of growling dogs. Ry and Mik were baring their teeth at Gavriel, and realized I’d said that last part out loud. “It’s okay. It’s not like I was anything to him then. I was nothing. Literally.”
Gavriel made a soft noise, like I’d punched him in the gut, then set his face in stone again and went on. “No Guides on this mission. There’s something about the traces of power this demon leaves. I don’t want a Guide—who won’t have fought a shadow creature in centuries—protecting my flank when the battle begins.” Mikhail had tried to get Gavriel to elaborate before, but Gav had been unable to explain what was so different about this shadow creature. “Some of the tabloids are calling it The Perfect Devil, and others call it Glitter Baby. If that many humans see a creature from the Abyss… well, you know how they are. They’ll panic. There could be riots.”
I frowned, worried about Earth, sure. But also wondering why those names sounded so familiar.
Mikhail chuckled. “Maybe not. Remember before we kept the Flight Hall locked, when that Protector got sex-drunk at TheMerge, wandered around in Florida a few decades back, and someone took a picture? Bat Boy, they called him.”
Righteous snorted. “That was Dignity. Not his finest hour.”
Gavriel’s eyes landed on me. “You were in America during your last life. You saw tabloids, I’m sure. Were they still reporting on those sorts of made-up creatures?”
But my mind was still whirling. “G-Glitter Baby?” I mumbled, remembering exactly where I’d heard those words. “Perfect Devil.” My gaze flew to a table across the room, one Mikhail had dedicated to his new Novices, when he was creating them from his own soul energy. There had been one covered with glitter.
I’d been trying to clean it, and I’d said a lot of things. Things likeglitter babyandlittle deviland…
“Feather, what’s wrong?”
Oh, shipwrecked motherfudgers. I didn’t… It couldn’t have been me.
I blurted out, “Naming new Protectors is a power only you have, right? Like, there’s no way anyone besides you could name a new one?”
Mikhail brushed a piece of silver hair out of my face and tilted his head. “Of course not.”
“Not even Gavriel? None of the Guides? And especially not a Protector… like I was?”
Righteous’s eyes narrowed as I spoke, and I batted my eyelashes across the table at him, thinking innocent thoughts. It only made him squint more. “What do you mean, Feather?”
“Nothing. I was just curious. I know High Angeli have powers that the others don’t. I was wondering if Gavriel could also, you know, name things. Do Mikhail’s jobs.”
Gavriel immediately shook his head, but Mikhail snorted. “Well, sweet soul, when you wore my feather, you could open mydoor, remember? It’s possible if you wore one now, you’d be able to apprentice in my Hall, if that’s what you want to do.”
“No, nope! No touching the stuff in here. Could be a bad idea. Better to keep to my glitter and hot glue,” I said, trying for casual, but sounding slightly constipated. I needed to change the subject; Ry was squinting and Gavriel glaring, their faces painted with concern and suspicion. “I’m running short on supplies, Growly. Would you share some more from your closet?”
“Everything I have is yours. I’ll share whatever you need, or want.” He whispered in my ear, “I’m good at sharing.”
I shivered, thoroughly distracted by Mikhail’s unsubtle sexy talk. I felt three pairs of eyes on me as I covered the spot on my nape where Mikhail had put his feather all those months ago. “So will I be able to open your door, even without your feather in me?” When he shrugged, I fought back a small wave of panic. “We’re still really mated, though, right? Mine’s enough? I don’t want you to cut out another one; you just got strong again!”
Gavriel cleared his throat. “Your souls are bound. Shared, in a sense. You don’t have to exchange feathers to share souls. To be truly mated.”
“You don’t? Oh, crapola. Do people ever get mated accidentally?”
Righteous rolled his eyes, but Mikhail winked. “What he means is, one feather is enough, love. But two, especially if I placed it on your?—”
Gavriel interrupted whatever perverted thing Mik was about to say. “An exchange of feathers is highly unusual. It would do more than connect… Mikhail, she needs to go to classes, maybe some sort of individual tutoring. It feels wrong to explain the basics of mating and merging with a Novice. Indecent.”
