23
‘You know where this church with the stained glass is?’ asks Raffe.
‘What?’ I’m still thinking about the cult and the messiah belief swirling around Paige.
‘The church?’ Raffe looks like he wants to wave his hand in front of my eyes. ‘With the stained glass?’
‘There are a couple of churches downtown. We can just walk to there from here. What’s this about?’
‘Someone is apparently trying to meet with me.’
‘Yeah, I got that. Who and why?’
‘I’d like to find out.’ I can tell by Raffe’s shuttered expression and the tone of his voice that he probably already has a good guess.
‘Is this an angel who knows where the Resistance camp is?’
‘Probably not. Someone who can get the word out through humans but not likely to know about the camp. He was probably sent to the church by someone like her.’ He nods in the direction that the cult woman went.
I’m probably better off bringing Raffe to this mysterious person than risking him finding the camp while looking for Raffe.
I glance at Paige, who is singing Mom’s apology song to her locusts perched on the branches above her. I walk over to her. ‘If I leave for a little while, are you going to be okay on your own?’
She nods. From the edge of the shadows, Mom walks back to us. I’m not entirely sure whether Paige is better off with or without her, but since Mom is walking back alone, we must have at least a little time before her next shenanigans.
I walk back to Raffe. ‘I’m all yours. Let’s go find that church.’
I’m not as familiar with downtown Palo Alto as I am with downtown Mountain View, so it takes us longer than I expect to find the churches. The first one only has a tiny strip of stained glass, and I’m guessing that’s not the one they meant. When someone says ‘the church with the stained glass,’ I assume they mean a whole lot of stained glass.
Downtown Palo Alto used to be the hip spot to be. It was known for its waiting list restaurants and cutting-edge startup companies. My dad used to love coming here.
‘Who’s looking for you?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘But you have guesses.’
‘Maybe.’
We walk down a street lined with craftsman houses. The cute suburban neighborhood seems to have mostly survived, except for a few blocks where houses have been randomly destroyed.
‘So is it a military secret? Why aren’t you sharing your guesses?’
We turn a corner, and there’s the church with the stained glass.
‘Raphael,’ says a male voice from above.
A ghostly shape floats down toward us from the church’s roof. A painfully white angel lands in front of us.
It’s Josiah the albino. His skin is as unnaturally white as I remember, and his eyes are freakishly blood red, even in this dim moonlight. He looks like pure evil. Backstabbing creepy bastard.
My lip twitches in a snarl, and I pull off the teddy bear, gripping the handle of my sword.
Raffe stays my hand.
‘I’m glad to see you’re well, Archangel,’ says Josiah. ‘That was quite the scene last night.’
Raffe arches his brow arrogantly.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ says Josiah. ‘But it’s not true. Look, give me two minutes to explain.’ It’s amazing how a guy who so blatantly betrayed Raffe could sound so sincere and friendly.
Raffe is scanning the area. Seeing him do this reminds me that this could be a trap and that I shouldn’t get distracted by my anger toward this scum.
I glance around and see nothing but quiet shadows in what was once a sweet little neighborhood.
‘I’m listening,’ says Raffe. ‘Talk fast.’
‘I talked Laylah into agreeing to change back your wings,’ says Josiah. ‘For real this time. She swore to me.’
‘Why should I believe her?’
‘Or you,’ I say. It was Josiah and Laylah who tricked Raffe into having demon wings in the first place. There’s no reason to believe they’ll do anything but trick him again.
Josiah turns his bloody eyes to me. ‘Uriel blames Laylah for the locusts turning on us last night. He says no one else but the doctor who created them could have that kind of control over them. He has her locked in her laboratory. He would have killed her, except she’s in the middle of creating some plagues for him. That, and she’s the only one who can maintain his growing army of monsters.’
‘Plagues?’ I ask. ‘Why is everybody trying to make plagues?’
‘What’s an apocalypse without pestilence?’ asks Josiah.
‘Great,’ I say. ‘So we’re supposed to trust a known liar who’s cooking up apocalyptic plagues? And why would we even care what happens to Laylah? Serves her right for transplanting demon wings onto Raffe and playing Dr. Frankenstein with human beings. We’re not just biomass to be shaped into whatever dolls she wants to play with.’
Josiah looks at me, then back at Raffe. ‘Does she need to be here?’
‘Apparently, she does,’ says Raffe. ‘It turns out that she’s the only one I can trust to watch my back.’
I stand a little taller when he says that.
‘Laylah didn’t know.’ Josiah shifts his body to make it clear he’s talking to Raffe. ‘I warned her not to get involved, but you know how ambitious she is. Look, you can trust her this time because you’re her only hope out of this mess. Uriel will kill her when he has everything he needs from her.’
‘Kill her? You mean set her up for a fall?’
‘No, I mean kill her. He was furious with her, wouldn’t believe a word she said when she told him she had nothing to do with the locusts turning on us. He flew into a rage and told her he killed the Messenger and he could kill her too. The Messenger, Raffe. Uriel killed him.’
An image of the winged man who called himself Archangel Gabriel, the Messenger of God being shot down over the rubble of Jerusalem flashes through my mind. They looped it for days on TV.
Josiah shakes his head like he’s still having trouble believing it. ‘Uriel said Gabriel had gone insane, that he hadn’t actually spoken to God in eons, that he’d made up all the rules that God had supposedly commanded him to make. He said there was no reason why Uriel couldn’t be Messenger, that he could lie as well as Gabriel. So Uriel had him killed. Killed. He admitted it.’
They stare at each other, Raffe looking just as shocked as Josiah.
‘So what’s the big deal?’ I ask. ‘Our kings used to get murdered all the time.’
‘We don’t kill our own,’ says Josiah. ‘The last time that happened, Lucifer and his armies fell.’ He tilts his head at me as if not sure the message got through. ‘It was kind of a big deal.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard of him,’ I say.
Raffe lets out a frustrated breath. ‘I can’t do anything about it from the outside.’
‘I know,’ says Josiah. ‘That’s why you have to let Laylah fix your wings. Somebody other than Uriel has to win the election. We’ve got word out to try to find Michael, but it’s unlikely we’ll find him in time.’
‘Why does Laylah think they’d vote for me instead of Uriel?’
‘You still have loyal followers. Rumors have been flying that you’re back, and I’ve been careful to cultivate them in your favor. You have a shot.’
‘No wonder Michael is staying away. Knowing him, becoming the Messenger is the last thing he wants to do. He can’t lead armies in the field if he’s smoothing feathers and buried under administration at home.’
‘You’re the only archangel who can challenge Uriel right now. Even if Michael wins in absentia, an archangel would need to stand in for him until he comes back. If you can do that, then Laylah can stand behind you. She now has every reason to want you to have your wings back.’
‘Raffe, you can’t trust him. Not after what he’s done.’
‘I know it looks bad,’ says Josiah, ‘but have I not made the oath? A life for a life. You gave me my freedom from eternal slavery and gave me the chance to earn a life worth living. And I pledged it to you.’
I push my face toward him. ‘You didn’t look so happy to see him back in San Francisco.’
‘I thought he was dead. I thought I was free of my oath, free to make my own way. But I would never betray Raphael. Why do you think he came to me? I’m the only one guaranteed to be loyal. The only one without a clan, a lineage, or honor to protect that supersedes my allegiance to him. Do you understand?’
He looks at Raffe. ‘I didn’t know what they were going to do to you. I thought they were just going to reattach your wings. Laylah had every intention of following through, but Uriel found out you were here and she lost her nerve. But now she simply has no choice. She has no one to ally with but you. And she’s the only one who can sew your wings back on.’
That last part hits home. With Doc’s arm broken, who else can do the operation?
‘You’re running out of time, Archangel,’ he says. ‘The election is about to happen. And if you can’t stop Uriel, we’ll have a deranged murderer as our Messenger. His word will be law, and everyone who opposes him will fall. This could be the start of a civil war. We could end up having an all-out extermination of not only the humans, but all angels who oppose him.’
I can feel the tension radiating from Raffe. How can he say no? This is his chance at getting his wings back and setting things right. He can have everything he wants. He might even become Messenger and save everyone from this apocalyptic mess.
And then he would go home, never to return in my lifetime.