My father shook his head as he glanced in my direction.Oh no.“Not about Eloise.”
“Explain,” Hudson demanded.
“If this is some outdated elitist attitude about half angels, I don’t want to hear it,” I snapped. Angels were snooty, and my father was no exception, but ever since I was kidnapped and tortured, he’d softened a little.
“No, not that. No one would dare defy me, and you have a no touch order. It’s more the rumblings of interest from higher up.”
“Higher up?” Dave asked. “Who is higher than an archangel?”
Oh shit.Rebecca’s gaze caught mine. The unflappable English princess was dumbstruck.
“God?” Sebastian snorted. “Are you telling me God is sniffing around our little earthly problem when he sat back during countless wars, which cost millions of lives? That God is interested in Eloise Roberts orchestrating a supernatural war?”
Abaddon popped the top of his can and took a sip with a sigh. They don’t have soda in Heaven—I asked. “No, he is not interested in Eloise. He is, however, curious about Cora, because she straddles both worlds. It’s been a long, long time since there was a being that was born of Heaven but placed on Earth.”
No. Nope. Not happening. I was not a freaking savior. I fixed broken bones, turned down the beds of supernatural guests, and occasionally dabbled in supernatural mysteries.
Hudson’s hand squeezed my knee under the table. “Cora, breathe.”
I was breathing. I just wasn’t ready for a visit from God. I’d never thought of the family tree situation. Were archangels considered his children? Did that make God my grandfather? Did I need to add Him to the Christmas card list? Because I didn’t want to piss off the Almighty with a perceived slight at not being included in my well wishes. We had enough enemies.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Aunt Liz asked. “Is He going to help?”
Yes, was the Lord about to smite Eloise Roberts and solve all our problems? Abaddon shook his head. “He has a firm company policy about not interfering in what occurs on Earth. Some pain has to be experienced for evolution to occur. If he waved his hand to stop every trouble, then you would get lazy and not learn to deal with issues yourself. It’s akin to letting a child make mistakes in order for them to develop.”
“Pretty sure war doesn’t enable us to evolve,” Sebastian muttered.
“I disagree,” Dave said. “War, while terrible, forces us to face our mistakes and learn from them so we can avoid those situations.”
Was it too late to send a Christmas card for last year? What was the next religious holiday? Easter? Aunt Liz cooked a mean ham dinner for the occasion, and thoughts of war were the furthest things from our minds when we were in carb comas. Maybe a belated hand-knitted scarf from Aunt Sophia? Did it get cold in Heaven, or was it permanently sunny? We always got matching pjs at Christmas and onesies at Easter. We could definitely include Him and my father. Did God sleep? I knew Hetook a day off, but did He need eight solid hours to be at peak performance for miracles and prayer answering?
“What do you think, Cora?” Rebecca asked.
Harry floated back and forth a little too fast. His arm kept passing through Sebastian, making him shudder every so often. “He won’t force me into the light. He gifted us with free will, and I won’t have it stolen from me,” Harry grumbled. Umm, no, my resident ghost was not being dragged to Heaven. I would fight anyone who tried.
“About what?” I answered as everyone went silent and stared at me. Clearly, I had missed some vital part of the conversation while I was trying to figure out how to butter up God.
“Do you think Eloise is about to make her move?” Abaddon asked.
Oh wow, I had definitely missed something. “She’s in the same place she was when we met five days ago.”
“But the rumblings from Hell are that she’s trying to make contact with demons sympathetic to her cause,” Lucifer added.
“Are your sources reliable?” I wondered.
Abaddon laughed, making me blink. My father rarely laughed, and when he did, I always expected the heavens to rain down fire. “They are demons. They breathe deception. No, they cannot be trusted, daughter.”
“Unless they are speaking to the Devil,” Lucifer said with a smirk. “They literally cannot lie to me.”
That was handy to know. “Are these demons she’s contacting speaking to you directly? Or is it being leaked?” I asked.
“Both.”
I hummed. “Then I would guess she’s done licking her wounds and is gathering power to force us into a war.”
“It’s inevitable at some point,” Rebecca added. “With the way technology is advancing, more and more unexplained events are being documented. Someday soon, even without Eloise’sencouragement, the human world will need to face the fact they aren’t alone and never have been.”
“Agreed,” Hudson said. “But Eloise is trying to ignite a war, to light a flame under the humans to come for us, so that the only way to survive it is to band together.”
