Page 81 of A Serpent in the Garden

Caution makes sense if they’re trying to build a case against an angel, Remy.

I should have told you my name a long time ago. His smile was audible. I like how it sounds on your tongue.

Something else you and he have in common. I watched sconce light run down the blade. You’re both flirts.

Right. Lock me up, I’m a madman. I find a woman attractive. Cracking neck, groaning sigh. I’m guessing Finn is in his finest form just to bother me.

And does it?

Well I don’t love it.

When Finn returned with a bewilderment of wet hair and a dark red robe hanging loose to expose a golden swath of bare chest and stomach, he made straight for his bed. If Remy wanted to speak to him, the options were to either call ridiculously from across the room or join Finn where he’d flopped, a leonine blight on a pool of red blankets.

I held in a sigh and made my way over. Finn rolled onto his back, his gold eyes heavy-lidded, looking up at me when I sank onto the edge of his mattress.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a woman in my bed.” A warm hand found my knee as if by accident, his other arm pillowing the back of his head. His chest was hairless, leanly muscled like an incubus. He’d look like an angel if not for that too-casual, too-innocent gleam in his eye.

I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of pulling away, quite sure he wouldn’t be pleased until he’d sent me into a tremble of either fear or desire. “I’m not in it, I’m on it.”

“You’re very pretty.” He took my hand, pressed the back of it to his lips. I felt the residual glow of the kiss long after he’d released me. “Your skin looks like cream. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a half-breed succubus.” He gestured to the open flap of my shirt; the buttons had been torn loose when I’d gone for the blade between my breasts. “They can be very tempting. Are you planning to lull me now that you’ve gotten me alone?”

“I know very little of lulling.”

Wide crooked smile; a black and gold flicker of lashes as he blinked up at me. “You wouldn’t have to try very hard to lull me. I would be very obedient.” He looked feverish, dreamlike. I wanted to look away but I forced an expression of polite boredom onto my face instead, though I don’t think for a moment he bought it.

“Finn, knock it off,” Remy said wearily with my tongue. “I thought you had news.”

He lifted himself up onto his elbows, his trousers riding low on his hips, every exposed inch of him sheathed in gold. “Let her keep her voice. Haven’t you taken enough from her?”

I thought Remy might disregard that but he sank back into a defensive half-crouch, sharing my body, my tongue, rather than overtaking it all. “Have you found him?”

“Not yet.”

“What have all of you even been doing? Six years and nothing to show for it?”

“We have jobs, if you’ll recall.” Finn’s brows drew together. “Not all of us can run off half-cocked whenever we want. And after what you did,” he said, in a brutally delicate voice, examining a thumbnail, “we had to lay low for quite a while. Have you any idea how long it took us to round up those souls? After everything else you did, you’re lucky the council left your punishment up to your mother and didn’t decide to have your capricious little head off.”

“Everything else he did?” I asked, Remy’s heavy sigh rumbling through my chest.

Finn lifted a delighted eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He tells me very little,” I said after a sick, silent pause.

“He attacked the ferryman.” Finn ticked the offense off of one finger. “Savaged him so badly it took him three entire days to heal; you wouldn’t believe the soul backup. He defaced the holy scrolls in some ridiculous Tower of Knowledge. Being so close to a divine artifact nearly killed him. I had to leave Hell to fetch his half-dead body and he convalesced on my bed for nearly a week, hiding out from his mother. He toppled statues and spread slander and what else, Remy, I feel I’m missing something out.” Silence, then a quick flash of gold as Finn snapped his fingers. “He threatened a killing streak, said he’d murder every human who worked in Luceric’s little tower if he didn’t show himself. That,” he said, charming smile, sharp teeth, “went over splendidly. And it’s our fault that Luceric is overly cautious of late? You blame us for not finding him? Frankly I feel we’ll be lucky if we ever set eyes on him again.”

“Then what have you been doing since I’ve been gone?” Remy asked, after a baleful spell of quiet in which it felt like he might really like to stab something.

“Asking around after the ferryman.” Finn settled back into a rumple of blankets. “Talking to the demons our father spent his last few weeks with. It was really very difficult to get much information out of them in the beginning because they all thought the rest of us would pick up where you left off. We had to be subtle, something you’d know little about. Careful flattery and edging into the more delicate topics; none of it could be rushed or overdone. Protasia told me the ferryman’s always struck a bit of a melancholic figure.” A thoughtful pause, his eyes on the canopy. “He hasn’t had an easy time of it here.”

“You feel sorry for him?” Remy asked, with a throb of anger that made my voice shake.

Finn cut his gaze back to me, one brow raised. “You need to at least try to understand your opposition,” he said, after a beat or two of silence. “The ferryman is different from the rest of us. He’s isolated because of the In Between. He isn’t entirely demonic and he’s certainly not divine. He may answer to us but he’s always been treated as other here. Maybe he grew tired of it. Maybe he was promised something priceless, a new life somewhere he hasn’t dealt with millennia of disdain. If angels can change their faces I’m sure it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to grant a new one to an accomplice. I imagine if I were the ferryman I’d feel bitterly entitled to a life free of such a lonely duty. I might like nothing more than to put on a new face and begin anew. Maybe he’s been stockpiling all this coin to start over somewhere in the human world.”

Remy, who I had felt prickling with irritation the more his brother spoke, wrenched my jaw apart. “It sounds like you’re taking his side.”

“I am taking his side,” Finn said sharply. The fat, dull gold candle on the bedside table hissed as its flame burned brighter. “How else would I understand his motive? I’m sure it’s very satisfying to throw tantrums and let loose tides of damned souls, but it doesn’t get you any information. Anger makes you stupid. It took us years to put right what you did; you have no idea what it was like for the rest of us after you’d gone. I don’t suppose you ever stopped to consider that while you were staggering around with that giant chip on your shoulder.”

No, I said when I felt a bite of frost in my palms and an anger that wasn’t mine swell in my chest. Leave it be. It sounds like you left a huge mess behind for your brothers to sort through, they’ve a right to their anger just like you—