Finale

CHAPTER 35

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I DEMANDED, hitching up the bath towel to keep myself covered. “How did you find this place?”

Weapon. I needed one. My eyes scanned Patch’s meticulous bedroom. Blakely might look compromised now, but he’d been manipulating devilcraft for months. I didn’t trust him not to have something sharp and dangerous—and blue-tinted—hidden beneath his trench coat.

“I need your help,” he said, raising his palms as he crawled to his feet.

“Don’t move,” I snapped. “On your knees. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Dante tried to kill me.”

“You’re immortal, Blakely. You’re also teammates with Dante.”

“Not anymore. Now that I’ve developed enough devilcraft prototypes, he wants me gone. He wants to control devilcraft exclusively. He used a sword I enhanced specifically to kill you, and tried to use it against me. I barely got away.”

“Dante ordered you to make a sword that would kill me?”

“For the duel.”

I didn’t yet know Blakely’s endgame, but I didn’t put Dante past using forbidden—and lethal—methods to win the duel. “Is it as good as you say? Will it kill me?”

Blakely looked me squarely in the eye. “Yes.”

I tried to calmly process this information. I needed a way to disqualify Dante from using his sword. But first things first. “More.”

“I suspect Dante is working for fallen angels.”

I didn’t bat an eye. “What makes you say that?”

“All these months, and he’s never allowed me to make a weapon that will kill fallen angels. Rather, I’ve developed a whole host of prototypes that were supposedly aimed at killing you. And if they can kill you, they can kill any Nephil. Since fallen angels are the enemy, why have I been developing weapons that hurt Nephilim?”

I remembered my conversation with Dante at Rollerland, over a week ago. “Dante told me that with enough time, you’d be able to develop a prototype strong enough to kill a fallen angel.”

“I wouldn’t know. He’s never given me the chance.”

In a risky move, I decided to come clean with Blakely. I still didn’t trust him, but if I gave a little, he might too. And right now, I needed to know everything he did. “You’re right. Dante is working for fallen angels. I know this for a fact.”

For a moment, he shut his eyes, taking the truth hard. “I never trusted Dante, not from the beginning. Bringing him on board was your father’s idea. I couldn’t convince Hank not to do it then, but I can avenge his name now. If Dante is a traitor, I owe it to your father to destroy him.”

If nothing else, I had to give Hank credit for inspiring loyalty.

I said, “Tell me more about the devilcraft super-drink. Since Dante is working for fallen angels, why would he have you develop something that would aid our race?”

“He never distributed the drink to other Nephilim like he told me he would. It’s only strengthening him. And now he has all the prototypes. The antidote, too.” Blakely squeezed between his eyes. “Everything I worked for—he stole it.”

My damp hair clung to my skin, and chilled water dripped down my back. Goose bumps stood out on my flesh, from cold and Blakely’s words both. “Patch will be here any minute. Since you were apparently clever enough to find his home, I’m guessing you were looking for him.”

“I want to ruin Dante.” His voice vibrated with conviction.

“You mean you want Patch to ruin him for you.” What was it with evildoers trying to hire my boyfriend as a mercenary? Granted, he’d worked as one in a past life, but this was starting to get ridiculous—and irritating. What happened to taking care of one’s own problems? “What makes you think he’ll do it?”

“I want Dante to spend the rest of his life in misery. Isolated from the world, tortured to the breaking point. Patch is the only one I trust to do it. Price isn’t an issue.”

“Patch doesn’t need money—” I stopped, holding the thought. An idea had just come to me, and it was as devious as it was manipulative. I didn’t want to take advantage of Blakely, but then again, he’d hardly been gracious to me in the past. I reminded myself that when push came to shove, he’d driven a knife enhanced with devilcraft deep inside me, introducing me to a toxic addiction. “Patch doesn’t need your money, but he does need your testimony. If you agree to confess Dante’s crimes at the duel tomorrow in front of Lisa Martin and other influential Nephilim, Patch will kill Dante for you.” Just because Patch had already promised to kill Dante for Pepper didn’t mean we couldn’t take advantage of circumstances and position ourselves to gain something from Blakely as well. The expression “two birds with one stone” hadn’t come from nowhere, after all.

“Dante can’t be killed. Imprisoned eternally, yes, but not killed. None of the prototypes work against him. He’s immune because his body—”

“This is a job Patch can handle,” I fired back tersely. “If you want Dante dead, consider it done. You have your connections, and Patch has his.”

Blakely studied me with a contemplative, discerning gaze. “He knows an archangel?” he guessed at last.

“You didn’t hear it from me. One more thing, Blakely. This is important. Do you hold enough clout with Lisa Martin and other powerful Nephilim to turn them against Dante? Because if not, we’re both going down tomorrow.”

He only debated a minute. “Dante charmed your father, Lisa Martin, and several other Nephilim from the beginning, but he doesn’t have the history with them that I do. If I call him a traitor, they’ll listen.” Blakely reached into his pocket and offered me a small card. “I need to retrieve a few important items from my home before I relocate to my safe house. This is my new address. Give me a head start, then bring Patch. We’ll work out the details tonight.”

Patch arrived minutes after Blakely left. The first words out of my mouth were, “You’ll never believe who just stopped by.” With that captivating hook, I launched into my story, relaying to Patch every word from my conversation with Blakely.

“What do you make of it?” Patch asked when I finished.

“I think Blakely is our last hope.”

“You trust him?”

“No. But your enemy’s enemy . . .”

“Did you make him swear an oath to testify tomorrow?”

My heart sank. I hadn’t thought of it. It was an honest mistake, but it made me wonder if I’d ever be a worthy leader. I knew Patch didn’t expect perfection from me, but I wanted to impress him just the same. An idiotic voice inside my head questioned whether Dabria would have made the same mistake. Doubtful. “When we meet him tonight, it will be the first thing I take care of.”

“It makes sense that Dante would want to control devilcraft exclusively,” Patch mused. “And if Dante thought Blakely suspected him of working for fallen angels, he would kill him to keep his secret safe.”

I said, “Do you think Dante told me about devilcraft that day at Rollerland because he anticipated that I’d tell you, and you’d go after Blakely? I’ve always wondered why he told me. Looking back, it almost seems like he had a strategy: for you to snatch Blakely and bury him from the light of day, leaving Dante alone to control devilcraft.”

“Which is exactly what I had planned. Until Marcie upset those plans.”

“Dante has been undermining me from the start,” I realized.

“Not anymore. We have Blakely’s testimony.”

“Does that mean we’re meeting him?”

Patch had set the keys to his motorcycle on the kitchen counter not five minutes ago, and he reached for them again. “Never a dull moment, Angel.”

The address Blakely had given me took us to a single-story redbrick home in an older neighborhood. Two shaded windows flanked the front door. The sprawling property seemed to swallow the little cottage whole.

Patch drove around the block twice, eyes sharp, then parked down the street out of the reach of the streetlights. He gave the front door three solid raps. A light burned behind the living room window, but there were no other signs that someone was home.

“Stay here,” Patch told me. “I’m going around back.”

I waited on the stoop, glancing behind me at the street. It was too cold for the neighbors to be out walking the dog, and not a single car drove past.

The front door lock tumbled, and Patch opened the door from within. “Back door was wide open. Got a bad feeling,” he said.

I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. “Blakely?” I called out softly. The house was small enough to make raising my voice unnecessary.

“He’s not on the first floor,” Patch said. “But there are stairs leading to a basement.”

We took the stairs and turned into a lit room. I sucked in a breath as my eyes focused on the trail of red liquid smeared across the carpet. Red handprints painted the wall and led in the same direction—to a dark bedroom straight ahead. In the grainy shadows, I could just make out the outline of a bed—and Blakely’s body crumpled beside it.

Patch’s arm immediately shot out, blocking me. “Go upstairs,” he ordered.

Without thinking, I ducked under Patch’s arm and rushed toward Blakely. “He’s hurt!”

The whites of Blakely’s eyes sizzled an ethereal blue. Blood trickled from his mouth, gurgling as he tried unsuccessfully to speak.

“Dante did this?” Patch asked him, following directly behind me.

I crouched down, checking Blakely’s vital signs. His heartbeat thrummed weakly and erratically. Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t know if I was crying for Blakely, or for what his death would mean for me, but I suspected, selfishly, it was the latter.

Blakely coughed blood, his voice threadbare. “Dante knows—fallen angels’ feathers.”

I gave Patch’s hand a numbing squeeze. How can Dante know about the feathers? Pepper wouldn’t have told him. And we’re the only other two who know.

If Dante knows about the feathers, he’ll try to intercept Pepper on his way back to Earth, Patch answered tensely. We can’t let him get the feathers.

“Lisa Martin—here—soon,” Blakely rasped, each word a struggle.

“Where is the lab?” I asked Blakely. “How can we destroy Dante’s supply of devilcraft?”

He gave his head a hard shake, as if I’d asked the wrong question. “His sword—he—doesn’t know. Lied. Kill—him too,” he choked hoarsely, more blood washing over his lips. The blood had turned from red to fiery blue.

“Okay, I understand,” I said, patting his shoulder to console him. “The sword he’s going to duel with tomorrow will kill him too, only he doesn’t know it. This is good, Blakely. Now tell me whˀow tell ere the lab is.”

“Tried—tell—you,” he croaked.

I shook Blakely’s shoulders. “You didn’t tell me. Where is the lab?” I didn’t believe destroying the lab would change the outcome of tomorrow’s duel—Dante would have plenty of devilcraft in his system when we fought, but no matter what happened to me, if Patch could destroy the lab, devilcraft would vanish once and for all. I felt personally responsible for putting the powers of hell back in, well, hell.

We have to go, Angel, Patch spoke to my thoughts. Lisa can’t see us here. It doesn’t look good.

I rattled Blakely harder. “Where is the lab?”

His balled hands relaxed. His eyes, glazed that chilling shade of blue, stared vacantly up at me.

“We can’t waste any more time here,” Patch told me. “We have to assume Dante is going after Pepper and the feathers.”

I dried my eyes with the heels of my hands. “We’re just going to leave Blakely here?”

The sound of a car pulling to a stop sounded on the street outside. “Lisa,” Patch said. He shoved the bedroom window open, hoisted me into the window well, and leaped up beside me. “Any last respects to the dead have to be said now.”

Casting a mournful look back at Blakely, I simply said, “Good luck in the next life.”

I had a feeling he’d need it.

We sped off through the woodsy back roads on Patch’s motorcycle. Cheshvan’s new moon had started nearly two weeks ago, and now it hung like a ghostly orb high overhead, a wide, watchful eye we couldn’t escape. I shivered and snuggled closer against Patch. He rocketed around the narrow bends so fast that tree branches began to blur into flashes of skeletal fingers reaching out to snare me.

Since yelling above the roar of wind was impractical, I resorted to mind-speak.

Who could have told Dante about the feathers? I asked Patch.

Pepper wouldn’t risk it.

Neither would we.

If Dante knows, we can assume the fallen angels do too. They are going to do everything they can to keep us from getting those feathers, Angel. No course of action will be ruled out.

His warning came through all too clear: We weren’t safe.

We have to warn Pepper, I said.

If we call him, and the archangels intercept it, we’ll never get the feathers.

I glanced at the time on my cell phone. Eleven. We gave him until midnight. He’s almost out of time.

If he doesn’t call soon, Angel, we’re going to have to assume the worst and come up with a new plan.

His hand dropped to my thigh, squeezing. I knew we were sharing the same thought. We’d exhausted every plan. Time was up. Either we got the feathers.

Or the Nephilim race would lose more than the war. They’d be in bondage to fallen angels for eternity.