Chapter Twenty-One
Silas’s chest rose and fell in quick, struggling breaths. He lifted his hands, turning them over as if they were covered in blood.He looked like he was going to pass out.
“What happened?” Azrames was the first to speak.
“He’s been ripped from grace,” Caliban said, each word as tense as the last.
We’d had three days and change to prepare, and it hadn’t been enough. The shock of the fall still rattled me.
Silas took a stumbling step backward until he was planted against the side of the house. The dull thud of his shoulders on whitewashed brick mingled with a clang and slam around the corner. I knew it before I saw her. The French doors had been flung open.
With a swoosh of platinum hair and a huff, my mom stormed into view.
She stopped short, eyes wide in abject horror as she looked at the four of us. Her gaze darted between the fallen angels, the spiced stink of their radiant blood soaking into the grass. Wet blood drizzled from her nostrils, accompanying the early puffs of what would surely be two black eyes.
“Caliban, Azrames, meet the woman who spawned me: Lisbeth Goddamn Thorson.”
One hand flew to cover her nose. The other lifted an accusatory finger. “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”
“She”—I spoke over her, looking at the men—“tried tohave me killed. And if I’m not mistaken, she collaborated with Silas to do so.”
Azrames had Silas’s throat pinned against the house with his forearm in a second as Caliban strode toward my mother. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Congratulations,” he said smoothly as he eyed her.
She took an angled step backward, moving on unsteady footing back toward the French doors.
“It seems I misjudged you,” Caliban said to her. Every step he took forward, she matched with a step back. “Here I thought you were a pious, uptight woman of faith. But you know the lore, Lisbeth?”
She shuddered as if her name on his lips were poison.
“In the name of Jesus, I command you to get out of my house!” she hissed.
He gestured to the grass. “We’re not in your house.”
I watched his broad shoulders, the back of his neck, the easy gait of his stride as he took yet another step.
“Stay back, demon. You have no power here. I have the Lord.”
“Do you?” he asked smoothly. “Say it with me, Lisbeth. Christ was born from a virgin. The antichrist will be born from a whore. Which brings us to an interesting point… What, pray tell, were you up to before you brought Love into the world?”
My eyes were wider than they’ve ever been as I witnessed the exchange.
“What is it that you think you’re atoning for?” he pressed. One more step and he’d back her into the wall.
She clutched at the cross at her chest. She shot a frantic look to Silas, silently pleading with him to save her.
“Oh, him?” Caliban asked. “Yeah, he’s not an angel anymore. He picked your daughter. Just like I did. Just like hundreds of thousands will.”
My words stuck in my mouth. I looked at the fallen angel, unsure. My stomach curled, bile licking the back of my throat. I swallowed, battling a sickening wave of conflictingemotion as Caliban championed our cause.
I didn’t miss the way his hands twitched as if resisting the urge to spring to action. He kept them in his pockets. “Personally, I don’t think you’re worth keeping alive.” He turned with idle calm toward me. “Love? Do you have an opinion one way or the other? Because I’ve wanted to kill her for almost twenty-seven years.”
Her throat bobbed as if she was struggling to swallow. She took her final step back, misjudging the corner. She would not be making it to the doors on the backside of the house anytime soon. She and Silas were pinned to the side of the house, even if Caliban was doing little more than looking at her.
I got to my feet with slow deliberation, stepping out of my remaining heel so I could walk on even footing. I strode on the frosty morning grass, goose bumps covering my bare neck, my arms, my chest as the adrenaline cooled. I moved to Caliban’s side, savoring his formidable power as he towered above us both. Maybe I was the bark rallying the realms, the one making powerful enemies, the one eyeing my mother in the backyard, but he was the bite.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I said, crossing my arms both for seriousness and for warmth. “If it were you in my shoes, you’d defer to the judgment of the angels. Wouldn’t it be fair if I deferred to the judgment of the demons you think I serve?”
