That won’t happen. Orion will never let the truth get hidden away again.
Which means Horace Cooper can’t afford to let him leave the Gate alive.
He can’t afford to letanyof us leave after what we’ve seen.
Trinity’s song lilts in my ears, and I cock my head to listen to it. I think back to that moment in the aqueduct, when I pulled the melody into me and did something far beyond what I ever thought I was capable of doing. I had felt incredible, powerful, but not wrong or dangerous. Not teetering on the brink of something explosive. There hadn’t even been a hint of the song sweeping me out of control. It had felt more like a promise.
Horace is right. I think maybe saintsaredangerous. Just not in the way he keeps saying.
We’re not dangerous to Trinity. We’re dangerous tohim.
I glance over my shoulder at the Herald-angels, trying to memorize their position, to analyze their frames. They’re older versions of the Archangels—do they have the same arm cannons? Will they be able to impede my phasing like the others do? I wish I had a few more moments to think, to plan, but there’s no time.
“Val.” Halle whispers my name so softly I can barely hear it. “What are you going to do?”
The corner of my mouth curls up into a grim smile. “Something big and amazing and stupid.”
Climbing to my feet, I extend a hand and help Halle up as well. “Dusters have a saying,” I say, raising my voice. “If you bargain with a liar, you lose twice.” My fingertips tap lightly at the hilts of my knives. “You’re a liar, Horace Cooper. And I’ve never been very good at bargaining.”
Halle grunts as I shove my shoulder against her chest, sending her stumbling back into the antechamber. Wrath sings as I rip it from its sheath and drive it straight into the middle of the crystalline panel beside the door. Sparks fly, the crystal cracks and shatters, and the doors slam shut, trapping Halle safely on the other side.
And I’m left alone in the vaulted chamber to face the Last Herald.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“THE OTHER FOUNDERS LOST FAITH IN THE END, BUT I DID NOT. THEY TRIED TO MEASURE WHAT WE’D CREATED AGAINST THE ETHICS AND MORALS OF THE COMMON MAN, BUT THAT IS AS USELESS AS THE COMMON MAN MEASURING HIMSELF AGAINST AN INSECT. I SAW THAT SO CLEARLY, AND WHEN THEIR COURAGE FAILED, I DID WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE AND MADE THEM INTO THE GODS THEY DESERVED TO BE.”
—FROM THE PERSONAL RECORDS OF HORACE J. COOPER
I lunge toward Horace Cooper, but the closest Herald-angel snaps its big hand around my body, stopping me cold. I wrench myself in its grip, scraping my arm against its rough metal edges, tearing rips in my suit, opening up new cuts and lacerations all over my body. But I can’t get it to budge. I can’t—
My eyes catch on the pool of light, glowing and rippling in the center of the floor, calling to me. I let it fill my vision until the song pounds underneath my skin and blue-white light haloes my eyes.
The pressure, the impossible weight of the Herald-angel’s grip falls away. Oxygen floods into my lungs. My breath and blood are alight.
I phase.
I want to launch myself at the Herald-angels and rip them apart, strip their wings, but they’re still so big and so impossible to fight. I only have time to make one smart move.
So I go for Horace Cooper instead.
Snapping back together right in front of him, I crush a fist into his nose, then two to his stomach. He grunts and puts a hand to his face, the other reaching for me, but I phase away, molecules between his fingers, and reappear again behind him. I strike him in the kidneys, slam my foot into the backs of his knees. He’s tougher than I expect—it feels like hitting a wall—but he finally sinks to the floor. Twisting Toothpick free, I dig my fingers into his hair, yanking back to expose his throat and press the viciously sharp blade tip to it.
“Let them all go,” I growl. “Call every single one of your angels home and let Halle and everyone else go right now or you and I get to discover the limits of your immortality.”
“There are no limits to my immortality.” Horace lets out a strange sort of sigh. “And you are too smart to believe that I would truly let any of you go. No petulant threat of yours will alter that, I’m afraid.”
“Are you sure about that?” I press a little harder to show I mean business, and the point digs into his golden skin.
But there’s no blood. Instead, an oily iridescent-blue substance oozes out of the cut.
Naphtha.
I stare down at it, then at Horace’s nose. It ought to have been broken by that initial blow, but it isn’t. There’s just a slight smear of that shimmering oil above his lip. He doesn’t look at all pained or afraid; his expression is almost sympathetic. I think about the hits I landed, how it felt like slamming my knuckles into solid metal, and my stomach drops sickeningly.
“What are you?”
He twists under my hands, and I try to clamp down, keep my grip on him, but he rises anyway. Tall, imposing. There is forgiveness in his eyes, but not in his grip as he wraps crushing fingers around my neck. It’s like when the Archangels grab me, a punishing squeeze to my bones.
