“I don’t want you going into work tonight.”

Talia’s head whips around in surprise to stare at Andre over the dining room table. “Did you hit the lotto on the way home from work and forget to tell me?” she teases.

Andre isn’t smiling. I instantly liked Talia's husband. Quiet where she’s outspoken, Andre strikes me as someone content to let his wife and daughter have the stage, and there haven’t been any of the expected questions of how long until I’ll be out of their hair. I have the feeling I’m not the first stray that Talia has brought home.

That quiet intensity makes both of us sit back and listen. “You never call out, and you said your boss barely notices who’s there and who isn’t anyway-”

“-You never had an issue with my job before,” Talia interrupts.

Andre slaps his hand on the table. "Talia!" Instantly, he lowers his voice, looking guiltily down the darkened hallway to where he tucked Sasha into bed an hour ago. "Things are not okay out there right now." Andre shakes his head. "You know how we've been having practicals at the hospital the past few weeks? People have been coming in with these horrific injuries." Andre closes his eyes, wincing as he rubs the bridge of his nose. "I've seen things in the past week that no one should have to see. Horror movie shit. And I don't want you out there. Your job pays crap anyway. If you get fired, just move to another bar two doors down."

Talia opens her mouth to protest, but I speak up. “He’s right.”

Talia sighs, but sits back down into her chair, the matter effectively settled, at least for the moment. "It's not fair if it's two against one."

"Just turn on the TV or open up the news on your phone," I say. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I scroll through the news feed, flipping past sports and weather before coming to local events. GRUESOME DOUBLE HOMICIDE the headline reads, the lurid photo of two bodies being wheeled out of a motel room splashed across the page below.

I skim the article until I reach the phrase eyeballs appear to have been eaten. Closing the tab quickly, I flip my phone over, leaving it face down in the middle of the table as I try to push that image out of my mind.

"And that's enough internet for today." I turn to Talia, seeing her eyes widen in shock at whatever she reads from her phone screen. Her finger keeps moving, scrolling through article after article with disbelief at the escalating poison that has infected the city.

Andre reaches across the table and takes the phone gently from her, setting it down before clasping her hand. "We can afford to have you miss a couple shifts. That bar's sketchy enough on a good day, but right now places like that are going to be a beacon for whatever the Hell is going on."

Talia nods in agreement, still looking shaken from whatever she read. Andre turns to me. “Same goes for you, Grace. Since you’re hiding out here anyway, I didn’t really think you’d be planning on heading off to work.”

“Not a chance,” I reply.

“I’m not saying either of you have to stay locked in the house, but just be cautious. And stick together.”

---

For all her willingness to go along with our worry over what’s happening in the city, Talia is still practical to a fault. And the needs of her family certainly outweigh a little concern about an uptick in crime.

After two days of skipping work and not leaving the house except for the short drives to Sasha’s school, we’re both going stir crazy, but it’s the overflowing laundry basket that finally pushes Talia over the edge.

It’s Saturday afternoon, and while Sasha colors on the living room floor, her pink sock-clad feet bouncing excitedly as she fills in the outline of a cow in fluorescent orange, Talia spends her energy glaring at the laundry basket.

“Can you watch Sasha for a couple hours? Andre’s not going to have anything to wear to work Monday if I don’t get this done. Especially with the extra weekend shifts.”

Laundry day shouldn't fill me with apprehension, but every day that passes without an incident has me growing tenser. Like the last hours before a storm hits, the air feels charged. Something is coming, and I don’t want Talia on the streets when it arrives.

Forcing a smile on my face, I turn to her. "Let me go." When Talia starts to protest, I interrupt. "The Laundromat's only a mile away. I'll have my phone the whole time, and I'll be back before you know it. I could use a little alone time to think." I pause before adding, "Maybe I'll give Luke a call. It's been a few days, so maybe I'll take your advice."

Talia grins, and I push down the guilt that rolls through me at manipulating her.

But I have to do this.

Just like in the bar, Talia runs a tight ship at home. Despite my repeated offers to help, there’s never much to do. Everyone cleans up after themselves without any prodding, so I’ve been left with far too much time on my hands. The television is kept permanently tuned to the children’s channels after Andre flipped to CNN and saw another grainy crime scene photo splashed across the screen as Sasha entered the room.

She’ll learn about the ugliness in the world soon enough. Right now, we all want to shield her from what’s happening outside the house.

Instead, I stay glued to my phone, watching as the body count ticks higher with each passing hour, hating myself for every innocent person that ends up infected with a Hellbound soul and for the havoc they move on to cause.

I have to stop it.

Lucifer believes that killing Michael will put a stop to it all and set everything to rights. I don’t know if I’m still mortal enough that killing Michael is an impossible dream, but I have to try. Even if I fail, maybe Lucifer can succeed.

As I load the laundry basket in the back of Talia’s car and drive away, I only have one thought.

I’m done running.

Two days of searching for Uriel and still nothing.

Michael sighs in irritation after another day of coming up empty-handed. He has searched every chapel, every cemetery, anything that even hints at consecrated ground and still come up empty.

Up ahead the sign for the New Orleans Botanical Garden waits patiently, the heady scent of flowers and warm earth emanating past the gates, a little slice of Eden in the city center.

The day is warm but not oppressively so. The gardens should be swarmed with people, tourists looking for a respite from the man-made revels, children running through the patches of wildflowers, couples searching for a quiet spot alone among the roses. Instead, the parking lot sits empty, the gardens quiet.

Of course, that emptiness may have something to do with the tall robed man standing by the gate clutching a blood-stained sword in his burly fist.

Michael approaches cautiously. He and Uriel have never been particularly close. Even in the early days long before the Fall, Uriel had preferred his own company to the camaraderie of the garrison, and after Lucifer's defection, he withdrew even further, rarely leaving Eden. At the time, it had seemed better to leave him to his own devices.

That had obviously been a mistake.

Michael eyes the sword, the blood on the blade long since dried, the streaks of gore looking nearly black on the bright silver. “Brother, what have you done?”

"Merely dispatched a Fallen that polluted this world with his presence." He lifts the sword, admiring the blood-stained blade. "Lucifer's little lap dog. The creature actually thought he could best me." Uriel throws back his head and laughs, and Michael barely represses a shiver at the chilling sound.

Abruptly, Uriel's laugh cuts off. His expression turns expectant as he asks, "Have you come to aid me in this fight, brother?" The look he wears is as welcoming as Uriel's face is capable of producing, but the expression quickly fades at Michael's silence. Almost imperceptibly his hand tightens around the hilt of his weapon.

Michael notices.

“So it’s true then.” His face turns stony, his lip curling in disgust. “I didn’t want to believe what was said of you in the garrison, Michael. That you sympathize with these humans!”

"They are our Father's creations!" Michael explodes. "We are their shepherds, not their executioners. What you're doing to them is worse than any demon or Fallen."

"I am bringing them into paradise!" Uriel's shout echoes through the gardens, and even nature falls silent at his fury.

Michael keeps his voice even as he proceeds, knowing his brother's fuse grows shorter and shorter. "And what of the Last? She's far more than just another human. Her blood is divine. Harming her is not your place, Uriel."

Uriel spits on the ground. "She is an abomination. I meant to end her line years ago when I took her mother, but it was a fortuitous error. Her sacrifice will wash this world clean and bring forth another Eden."

Michael bows his head slightly, knowing there is no reasoning with his brother and raises his weapon.

Uriel already has his at the ready, the bloody edge glinting dully in the sun. "You remember what we used to do to traitors, don't you, brother?"

Michael has never been one for witty banter during fights. One didn't end up with the title of "God's most fearsome warrior" by focusing on anything but the most efficient way to kill.

Michael knows what name his brothers refer to him as behind his back. God's Poison. The one always willing to carry out any violent deeds his Creator demands.

And demand He did.

Uriel wildly telegraphs his first strike as he swings his blade with all the finesse of a human swinging a hatchet. Michael brings his own blade up to parry the stroke, the bones in his shoulder ringing with impact as he forces Uriel back through the garden gate.

Inside the walled garden is an explosion of color, swaths of wildflowers mingling with the more manicured plants. The tall brick of the walls blocks any breeze, leaving the air thick with the honey-sweet scent of pollen from a hundred different flowers.

Michael darts forward, aiming for a slash across Uriel's chest that never connects. With a surprising speed for his size, he dodges, and Michael ends up decapitating a few lilies, their bright orange petals scattering at his feet.

"It doesn't have to be this way, brother," Michael says, gritting his teeth as the next stroke makes contact, tearing a deep gash in Uriel's forearm. He doesn’t even glance at the wound as the blood pours down. "We've had enough wars in Heaven. If you start another, you're no better than Lucifer was."

That’s the wrong thing to say. With a snarl of incoherent rage, Uriel raises the sword above his head, bearing it down with a force meant to split Michael’s skull in two. Michael thrusts his sword upward to block, but the angle is all wrong. Uriel’s weapon glances off Michael’s enough to save him from instantaneous death, but the sharp edge tears into his shoulder.

Michael’s blade slips from nerveless fingers, and Uriel rocks back on his heels, his own weapon falling to his side as he gloats. “God’s Poison seems weaker than he used to be. All this time away from Heaven. . . it reduces you. Makes you more like them. But we all remember your little sabbatical in Phoenicia with your blasphemous little whore. Even a thousand years later her stink is still on you.”

Michael roars as he launches himself at Uriel, the uppercut snapping the angel's jaw to the sky as his sword falls to the dirt. "This isn't about me, Uriel," Michael growls. Lucifer's mention of Elissa had reopened the wound he thought long healed, but that was expected. Lucifer has always been a champion of finding any weakness he can exploit, but what Uriel lacks in subtlety he makes up for in brute force.

And it’s working. His battering ram approach will leave the city in ruins, but when winning is the only goal, the cost doesn’t matter.

Uriel grabs Michael’s injured shoulder, digging his fingers into the wound, tearing at the nerves and muscle until he touches bone. Michael snaps his head forward, colliding with Uriel’s skull with enough force to daze them both.

His grip loosens enough that Michael can wrench free, swiping his sword from the ground and backing toward the gate.

“Planning to run, brother?” Uriel taunts. “I never thought I’d see the day when Michael backed down from a fight. How things have changed since our younger days.”

Hot shame floods Michael. Uriel is right, after all. He’s the one who never backs down from a fight, who always obeys. Only once had he refused an order, and he has long since paid for that transgression.

But destroying another Archangel. . . for all of Uriel's sins, he has not Fallen. His death has not been ordered by their Father. Michael knows he’s been fighting to wound, not to kill. Uriel has no such qualms.

Spreading his wings, Michael flies.

Heaven or Hell-forged weapons are all that can injure or kill an angel. The wound had not been lethal, and Michael can already feel the muscle and sinew slowly knitting back together. He lands on a roof, some anonymous office building, all cheap tar and scattered trash from employees that use the barren spot as an escape.

Michael’s knees buckle when he lands, and he throws out his undamaged arm, barely catching himself from getting a face full of gravel. Michael rolls over, his wings cushioning his back as he stares up at the unflinching brightness of the sky, and for the second time in his long existence Michael feels doubt.

The Laundromat is deserted.

On a Saturday afternoon, it should be choked with people, every washer whirring and spinning as they fill the air with the chemical scents of detergent – acrid approximations of “clean rain” and “floral meadow.” It should be hot, the air conditioning fighting a losing battle with the heat from a dozen bodies and the humidity from the poorly sealed dryers.

Instead, the metallic ding of the sliding door echoes off the industrial beige walls. The molded plastic chairs sit empty. A few forgotten articles of clothing rest discarded on one of the scarred folding tables – mismatched socks, their mates lost in the black hole of the dryer, a bleach stained t-shirt, a frayed bandana. Even the old tube TV bolted to the corner of the room is silent.

Chiding myself at being unnerved by a Laundromat of all things, I quickly load the machines, separating out colors and whites by muscle memory as my mind wanders.

I feel the same prickling on the back of my neck telling me that however empty the building might look, someone is watching.

The metallic creaks of the overworked engines of the washers sound loud in the vacant room. I sit down on one of the chairs, the hard plastic digging into my spine as I wait, tamping down the nervous energy that makes me want to do anything but sit still.

I meant it when I said I wanted time to think, though contacting Lucifer isn’t nearly as simple as making a phone call.

The sensation of being watched increases to an almost physical heaviness pressing down on my chest. A low rumble, more vibration than audible sound, fills the room. Shards of glass fly from the tv screen as the cathode tube ruptures, the pressure releasing a loud boom. I jump up from the chair, turning to face the bank of windows that makes up the front wall.

“Lucifer?” I call, the false bravado in my voice comforting me more than it should considering that no part of me actually expects it to be him. I watch as long cracks split the glass panes, the pressure growing until even breathing hurts.

Like a sonic boom from a jet, the release of pressure hits with a thunderclap. The fissures in the glass collapse in on themselves as the windows crumble, pebbles of safety glass raining down into the street. The sounds of dozens of car alarms blare, the klaxon of different horns deafening.

I push open the door, the half-destroyed doorbell dinging on my exit like a dying animal as I walk out into the street.

No one.

I expect Michael to be waiting, but the streets are empty. I glance at Talia’s car, wincing at the spiderweb cracks across her windshield, before walking past it.

Michael found me. There’s no way I’m risking leading him back to Talia’s house.

I’m sorry, I say silently, knowing that if I disappear Talia will blame herself for letting me go.

I walk. Barren of people, the streets are quieter than I’ve ever seen them. Even in the aftermath of the worst hurricanes, the sounds of sirens and voices had still been present. Never this oppressive silence.

I turn onto the next street, my feet unconsciously taking me back toward the city center, toward Bourbon, toward The Saint.

Toward where it all started.

As I turn down Treme Street, I see the crowd, and for the barest instant, I relax before I notice the way they move. This isn't the usual group milling outside a trendy restaurant or ogling a street performer. Their movements are all wrong, slow and jerky at once, as though the simple motion of walking has become foreign to them.

Almost like they aren’t used to their own bodies.

With every step I take towards them the feeling of wrongness grows stronger, choking me like the scent of garbage rotting in the sun. The human part of me recoils in fear, but the divine part of me only pities them. But pity isn’t going to stop the boldest of them from trying something.

The hope that they’ll let me pass is short lived. The first woman that I cross paths with looks like someone's grandma, white curls fluffed out around a face twisted in an unnatural grimace. I pass granny and see a tall man wearing a fast food uniform, the garish yellow fabric stained with what I hope is ketchup.

It probably isn’t ketchup.

I move around him slowly, watching from the corner of my eye as he cranes his neck to keep staring, his black eyes focused on me.

They fill in the gap I leave behind me, closing their ranks around and trapping me in. A meaty arm darts out and grabs me, thick fingers closing around my arm and jerking me deeper into the crowd.

The tourist who has my arm wears a neon green sweatshirt with Welcome to New Orleans scrawled across the front and a few strands of purple plastic beads hang around his neck. The only thing missing is the fanny pack. His beady black eyes glint in hunger as he pulls me closer to his face, choking me with his hot, fetid breath.

Not like this.

I flail wildly with my free arm, feeling the power surge up in me, fueled by the anger at what these creatures are doing to my city and the fear for everyone I care for. I’ve never thrown a punch in my life, but when my fist connects with the side of his head, the tourist staggers back and releases my arm.

With both hands free, I spread my arms wide, calling up everything I can think of – chanting the name of everyone that matters in my head like a mantra.

Mom.

Dad.

Talia.

Lucifer.

Lucifer.

Another set of hands reaches for my shoulder, trying to pull me off balance and drag me to the ground, but this time when the hands brush my skin, they instantly flinch back like I’ve burned them. Another woman dressed in a postal uniform grabs me only to let out a pained wheeze as her fingers grow red and raw at the brief touch.

I step forward, spreading my fingers wide and pressing my palms flat against the cheeks of the man in front of me. Once upon a time, he'd been good-looking, but now half his face is a ruin of bruises and lacerated skin. When my skin touches him, he shrieks, the sound barely human. The flesh blisters and peels under my fingertips, but still, I press harder, searing the outline of my hands into his tissue before snatching my hands back.

This time, they give me a wide berth, the soul-infected humans staggering away from my poisonous touch. I move through them, and they part like water, closing their ranks behind me. The crowd grows thicker, and if not for their sudden fear causing them to give me space, I wouldn't be able to move.

I hear a scream, and through a break in the crowd, I see a woman being dragged into an alley. Further, in the distance, gunshots ring out, and the scent of burning gasoline hangs in the air from a car engulfed in flames in the middle of the road.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I freeze, turning around in a circle as I search for the origin of the voice, the crush of bodies disorienting me.

He had slipped through the crowd unnoticed, the possessed souls avoiding his touch the way they avoid mine. An angel, my mind supplies unhelpfully. The fact that it isn’t Michael standing before me offers little comfort. Dressed in worn robes that wouldn’t look out of place on a medieval peasant, he doesn’t exactly have the air of someone eager to make conversation.

But something about him is familiar. Rooted to the spot, we stare at each other, as I search the banks of my memory for the same square jaw and hate-filled eyes.

I’ve read stories where the main character receives a startling revelation and “felt the blood drain from their face," but the phrase always reminds of one of those literary affectations that never actually happens to anyone.

Until today, at least.

My blood turns to ice, the cold sensation radiating outward into my limbs. I don’t need to see my reflection to know that my skin has gone pale. My eyelids twitch in protest at being held open for so long. A quote from a half-remembered tv episode I watched in college repeats in my mind like a skipping record.

Don’t blink.

And. . . he smiles. The expression looks wrong on his face, his lips stretched too wide, teeth bared too much, as though he’s never seen a genuine smile and is working off a poorly written description. When he speaks again, his voice is a low rasp, rough and gravelly from disuse.

“You remember me then.” It isn’t a question.

---

Tom Petty was playing on the radio that day. "Free Fallin'" blared through the speakers while my parents sang along, loudly and more than a little off-key. My Dad slowed to a stop at a traffic light, drumming along with the song on the steering wheel before looking over his shoulder to flash me a grin.

“Come on, Gracie, next verse is yours!”

The light changed, and he started driving, humming along with the guitar solo. My Mom turned to ask me something, and she didn't see the tall man with wings appear in the middle of the road.

“DAD!” I screamed.

He cut the wheel hard to the right, and I felt the car tilt.

Then blackness.

Minutes or hours passed before I peeled my eyelids open, the smell of metal and gasoline thick around me. My head throbbed, and I touched my fingers tentatively to my temple. They came away sticky with congealing blood.

The Jeep had landed on the driver's side after it rolled. The radio had cut off but the turn signal still clicked, the metallic noise like a heartbeat as my fingers fumbled at the seatbelt.

I leaned forward as much as the belt would allow me. "Mom?" I whispered, my voice sounding smaller than it ever had. "Daddy?"

My father's neck was wrenched back at a terrifying angle, his eyes open and staring unseeingly out the shattered windshield. A low groan came from the passenger side, and my attention snapped to my mother. A thick shard of glass jammed into the juncture where her neck met her shoulder, the blood making her light hair look black. Her fingers pressed against the wound, trying to staunch the flood, but it continued to ooze through her fingers.

She coughed, the noise wet, and I thought of broken ribs and punctured lungs. When she spoke, blood stained her lips.

“I’m so sorry,” she croaked, her free hand reaching between the bucket seats to grab my shirt, pulling me closer to her with a surprising amount of strength. “I tried. . . I tried to protect us from this. I’m so sorry, Gracie.”

I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. I wanted to beg her to hold on, but my voice didn't work.

“Run. Run as far from this place as you can, and don’t ever come back.”

My mother’s face blurred as the sirens grew louder. The sharp scent of ozone cut through the smell of blood and burning gasoline. As I slipped back into unconsciousness, I felt the car shift and heard the sound of metal tearing like paper, and my mother's voice, stronger than a dying woman's should have been, yelling, "You won't take her too!"

---

“It was you.”

The angel dips his head toward me, the barely perceptible nod infuriating me more than an evil cackle would have.

“You took everything away from me.”

The off-kilter smile returns, and the angel takes another step closer, shoving aside a possessed human that blocks his path. "I did. It seemed only fair that your kind understand loss."

I stand my ground, drawing myself up to my full height that barely reaches the angel's shoulders. "You did this to the world." I look out at the mob at the angel's back, watching us impassively with those empty black eyes. "For what? Because you're angry that your Dad brought home a new baby and you're not the favorite anymore? And you say humans are the ones that are fucked up?"

Somewhere, Lucifer is chuckling at my words.

“You’ve been spending too much time with the Lightbringer, human,” the angel snarls. “You forget yourself around your betters.”

“And you forget that I’m not entirely human, angel,” I reply.

Playing chicken with a psychotic angel isn't the smartest decision I’ve ever made, but finally seeing the face of my parent's killer has a way of away the last vestiges of concern for my own safety.

You won’t take her too!

My mother’s last scream reverberates through my mind, the memory of the blinding light seeping in through my closed eyelids all those years ago filling me. “You tried to kill me that night, didn’t you?” I ask. “And you failed. She stopped you.”

If the angel has any concern about a repeat performance, he doesn’t show it. "You're not the white witch your mother was. What do you have? Powers you don't understand how to harness and the stink of the Fallen on your skin. It's no matter though. I don't need you pure for my purposes." The angel draws a blade from the recesses of his robes, the same long, slender weapon I’ve seen in the hands of Lucifer and Michael.

And this one points right at me.

He took my father. My mother. The happy, normal life I was supposed to have.

He doesn’t get to take me.

Not now.

Not today.

The power comes out of me like a punch, the same warm, white glow that made the tainted souls cower from me. The angel doesn’t scare so easily though. Clenching my fists, I pull every shard of pain and loss that I’d buried over the years, the emotions I swept aside like broken glass for my own survival. I compress it down into a ball of agony, dense as a dying star and dark as my father’s lifeless eyes.

“I won’t be needing this anymore,” I say, locking my eyes with the angel’s, re-building the connection between us that he forged with shattered glass and twisted metal seven years ago. “It’s yours now.”

I push.

A guttural scream rips free from the angel’s throat as it strikes him, seven years of pain tearing through the neurons and synapses like a psychic bullet and driving him to his knees.

I’m not cocky enough to think I’ve won or done anything more than buy myself time. The crowd scatters, the possessed fleeing the divine power to search for more careless prey. I weave my way through the few that linger, moving as fast as I dare, praying to anyone who might still be listening that what I just did will leave the angel out of commission long enough for me to put some distance between us.

Don’t run. It just gives them a reason to chase you.

The Saint looms up ahead, and I duck inside, slipping down the hallway. An abandoned room service tray sits by a door. I pick up the heavy black cloth napkin and wrap it around my elbow before jamming it against the fire alarm. The glass splits and I pull down the lever. An instant later, sirens blare through the hotel and doors start opening, travelers streaming out of the rooms, their faces a mixture of irritation and mild concern.

I ease past a slender redhead dragging a toddler behind her with less attention than she gives to her suitcase. In the back corner hides the service exit, the industrial red glow of the exit sign looking horribly out of place with the rest of the décor. Gratefully, I push the door open, the buzz from the alarm drowned out by the fire alarm.

I haven’t even crossed the threshold of the door when I hear it.

“Grace.”

I stop, standing in the doorway without looking back. Every cell in my body tunes to his presence.

Lucifer.

I knew he was here. I felt him the moment I entered the hotel, and if I had that awareness, there was no doubt in me that he'd known the instant I walked in.

I want to cling to my anger, to curse him for everything he put me through in the last few days. I want to tell him to leave, but I’m not stupid. The angel I just escaped from is still out there, and whether Michael is an enemy or just a bystander in this so is he. I need Lucifer. He used me, so I shouldn't have any qualms about using him to keep myself alive.

It all makes perfect sense until I turn and look at him.

He looks wrecked.

The immaculate black suit is no different, though his clothes seem like a cat obsessively cleaning itself, more of an ingrained habit than a real statement.

But everything else. . .

Lucifer scrubs his hand over the rasp of stubble on his face before letting it fall to his side. He keeps his eyes downturned, carefully avoiding meeting mine. Then I blink and the mask is up, and he turns back into the same cold monster he'd been in the suite.

But now I know. I can’t unsee what I just witnessed, but I can certainly play along for now.

Forcing myself into cool detachment, I ask. "So, what's the plan?"