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  There were only two angels who knew about Harper’s condition, and I couldn’t believe the baby’s father would have risked his offspring, as well as his own life, by spilling the beans. That left only one angel, and my heart twisted to think of that possibility. Gregory loved me, but that didn’t stop him from fulfilling his duty as part of the Ruling Council. I couldn’t exactly interrogate him without letting it slip that I had a Hunter angel I was holding captive, so I’d have to play my cards close to my chest and watch him carefully. And hope with all my heart that what I was suspecting wasn’t true.

  –9–

  You’re not safe here.” I paced while Harper and Nyalla sat at my dining room table, watching me closely. The pregnant woman was pale, her mouth tight. She kept drifting a hand across her abdomen, pausing low as if to reassure herself that the baby was still there.

  “She’s not safe anywhere.” Nyalla voiced the words none of us wanted to say. “They’ll send someone else, and although that angel didn’t want to enter your house uninvited, he would have if you’d refused him entry.”

  Harper’s fingers curled against her stomach. “At least you have some way to fight them off. I’m useless against them. Most everyone is useless against them.”

  I eyed her speculatively. “There has to be some safe place, some way of hiding from them. Angels fall with hypocritical regularity. I can’t believe every one of their offspring is aborted.”

  “I don’t know.” Harper frowned, staring down at her knuckles. “All I know is that he wanted to take my baby from me as soon as it was born and give it to some monsters to raise. I’d never have seen my son again.”

  What monsters? Her words made me think that there must be Nephilim somewhere, and at least some of the angels knew where. “What did Baby–Daddy plan to do with you during your pregnancy?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t seem too worried about it until this past week. I’d argued with him before and told him I wasn’t going to give up the baby, ran away even, but he didn’t say anything about me being in danger until he brought me over here.”

  I blew out a pent–up breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Maybe Gregory hadn’t betrayed me. Maybe the secret had leaked before Harper had even shown up at my door.

  “Will more angels come?” Nyalla gnawed her bottom lip. “I saw you fighting that one. If you hadn’t had an elven net, I’m not sure you would have won.”

  She was right. Even with the Iblis sword, I sucked in this sort of combat. Mentally I calculated how many elven nets I’d need to order then began to laugh somewhat hysterically as I envisioned angels strung up from trees all over my property. Harper and Nyalla both looked at me, confusion in their eyes.

  “Sorry. I’m sure this is just the beginning, which brings us back to finding a safe place for Harper. Maybe these monsters would take you in. If they can manage to hide Nephilim, they should be able to hide a pregnant woman.”

  “I won’t. I won’t.” Harper’s voice rose, shrill with panic and anger. Nyalla reached out to capture her restless hand.

  So much for that idea. “Or I could send you to Hel. Totally safe from angels. All you’d have to worry about there is demons dismembering you, or elves enslaving you.”

  The woman didn’t look any more enthusiastic about that idea.

  Neither did Nyalla. “She’s not going to Hel. I’d never condemn another human to that, even if it’s just for the last few months of her pregnancy.”

  I frowned. It wouldn’t be just the last few months of her pregnancy; it would be for her whole life. The baby’s too. If Harper wanted to keep this child, Hel was the safest place to do it. And the irony of Hel being the safest alternative wasn’t lost on me.

  “There are a group of humans that chose to remain there, free in their own lands, Nyalla. She could learn Elvish, raise her baby there.”

  “And do what?” she argued. “Harper would be in the same position I’m in, not speaking a word of their language, not possessing any skills of value. Plus, what about the baby? What are Nephilim like? Do they have the same volatile nature as demon newborn? What demon would you trust to guide it and teach it control? Or would you foster the child out to dwarves like the rest of your race? Once someone realized the baby was half–angel, there would be a price on the child’s head.”

  She was right. Every demon would want the status of having a half–angel in their household. Damn.

  “I’m not going to Hel.” Harper’s eyes glittered with determination, and although she spoke as if she meant Hel the place, I got the feeling she also meant hell the metaphysical concept.

  “Then what do you propose?” I was frustrated. As much as I loved the idea of beating the shit out of angels, I doubted I could hold them off for long. And if the Ruling Council got involved… .

  “I want to stay here.” Harper glanced over at me, and I couldn’t’ miss the tentative trust in her eyes. “You didn’t turn me over to that angel. You told me to run. You risked yourself and your hellhound to defend me. And at the end of it all, the angel who came to kill my child is hanging from your barn. I want to stay here. With you.”

  Well, I guess I better hone up on my angel smack–down skills. “I’ve vowed to take care of you and the baby. And your boots. But there are limits to my abilities. I can’t guarantee that eventually some angel isn’t going to get past me and grab you.”

  She clenched her jaw and lifted her chin. “I’ll take my chances.”

  I took a deep breath, thinking that her chances were slim. “Okay. Now, we need to consider who leaked the information of Harper’s pregnancy to the angels, and how widespread the knowledge of it may be.” There wasn’t a scheduled Ruling Council meeting for another two decades, but shit kept coming up that prompted unexpected ones. I didn’t want to be blindsided by an impromptu meeting where I was accused of harboring someone in violation of one nine four whatever.

  Harper stared at me with dark, thoughtful eyes, raising one of her hands to gnaw at a stump of fingernail. “I don’t know. Ben began to be worried about my safety this past week, so maybe someone followed him to my house, or noticed him slipping out of Aaru.”

  “Would he have told anyone?” I was grasping at straws. “He wanted you to give the child up. What better way than having an angel show up with abortion on his mind to convince you that the baby needed to be elsewhere for its safety?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t see that. He wouldn’t risk the child to scare me into compliance. And I doubt he’d trust any angel with his secret.”

  So that left some mysterious angel that followed him, suspected him. Or Gregory.

  “There’s always the possibility that someone saw Harper and told.” Nyalla wrinkled her nose in thought. “I don’t think any of my friends who’ve seen Harper, or the delivery guys, would have connections in Aaru. Were there any demon or angel messengers that have been by in the last week? Would they perhaps have sensed Harper’s pregnancy somehow?”

  I shook my head. There hadn’t been a demon over from Hel since before Harper arrived, and the only angelic visitors I’d had were Gregory and Raphael. Rafi hadn’t even entered the house. There’s no way he could have sensed Harper.

  “We’ll just need to be on guard. I don’t know if our captive angel told anyone else about Harper’s location. I don’t know who he works for. I don’t even know which choir he’s with.”

  “Are we going to interrogate him?” Nyalla looked uneasy at the prospect.

  “I’m going to interrogate him. You’re both going to stay here in the house with Boomer by your side.”

  As stinky as my hellhound was, I knew he’d defend both girls to the death — especially Nyalla. There were going to be times when I would need to be away, and I hated leaving them vulnerable. I’d need to make some sort of arrangements for their protection for those occasions when I was locked up in Aaru, or in a Ruling Council meeting, or at the gym.

  I made one quick detour to call Dar before heading out to
chat with the suspended angel. The elven net with its contents still swung side–to–side, with more movement than the slight breeze would warrant.

  “I’m back,” I announced.

  “Oh, my heart sings with joy.”

  Dude had a sense of humor. I stared up at him, wondering what to do. I couldn’t risk cutting him down and releasing him from the net, but up there I couldn’t see his expression or his reactions to my questions.

  “I’m a bit insulted you came alone. I’d always assumed if angels were going to attack the Iblis, they’d raise an army. Instead they send one of you? Shit, I need to step up my game a bit.”

  He didn’t rise to the bait. “Why won’t you just hand her over? Let me down and give me the human. I assure you, no harm will come to her. She won’t even remember any of this. It’s the kindest thing to do — to leave no trace, no memory of our interference in her life.”

  Kind? He was appealing to my kindness? “No way, Jack. I’m hanging onto her until she has this baby. A half–angel in my household? Totally rocking. Plus I can blackmail the father, and rub the noses of all those Ruling Council assholes in it every meeting. I may just take to hauling the kid around with me to piss them off.”

  I heard him sigh. “Right. You’re seriously going to raise a baby. It’ll be dead in two days with you as a foster parent.”

  He had a point. I had no fucking idea how to raise a child — human or otherwise.

  “If it’s blackmail and proof of hypocrisy you want, you’ve got it. Let me down. Let me do my job, and I’ll give you the Nephilim’s body. It would be far easier to carry around a corpse, and you could still shock everyone at the next Ruling Council meeting.”

  “Nah. A live baby would create so much more of a ruckus than a dead one. And you look very nice hanging outside my barn door.”

  The bag jerked and danced. I eyed the rope, wondering if I should reinforce it.

  “I’m not the only Hunter,” he thundered. “There will be another on the trail soon, and once it’s discovered you’re harboring the Nephilim, there will be an army at your door.”

  Ah, just what I wanted to know. I’d be facing one at a time. Now if only I could find out how they knew about the baby and where Harper was, I could nip this whole thing in the bud.

  “Who do you report to?”

  Dead silence. I wasn’t surprised, but figured I’d go ahead and ask more questions he’d refuse to answer.

  “What choir are you in? How did you know there was a Nephilim, and that the woman carrying the baby was here?”

  Nothing.

  “Do you know who the father is? Did he put you up to this in order to scare Harper into giving the baby up?”

  “Seriously? I’m tasked with killing Nephilim, not scaring innocent human women into sinful compliance. If the sire wanted to do that, he wouldn’t be working with me.”

  At least that got a response. This Ben angel wasn’t off the hook, though. I hadn’t liked his attitude from the moment I saw him at my door, and Harper’s story just lowered him further in my estimation. No, angel–boy wasn’t about to let some demon raise his child. He was up to something. But in the meantime, I needed to know more about this angel swinging from the side of my barn, and what I might be facing in the next few months.

  I watched sunlight glint off the bag, sending spots of color onto the side of the barn. It might remind me of a disco ball right now, but my original impression had been piñata, and that’s what I was going with.

  The wooden handle of the pitchfork hit the net with a solid thump. The angel grunted as he swung wildly around. I kept up my rhythm, demanding answers to my questions in time with each blow. No candy came out, but a drop of iridescent liquid formed and fell to the ground. I hesitated, eyeing it with surprise. He was bleeding. He wasn’t healing. I knew these nets kept us from using our raw energy to repair wounds, but I’d never imagined they’d keep angels from healing themselves.

  “Sad way for an angel to die.” I poked the bag a few times to make my point. “Beaten to death by a demon while hanging in a sack.”

  “You’ll be signing your death warrant if you kill me,” he snapped.

  “Hmm. An angel body is found bruised and bloodied, with no sign of demon attack. What makes you think they’d suspect me? Your death would be a great mystery, pondered for millennia, the subject of all sorts of academic papers and conspiracy theories up in Aaru.”

  His silence dragged on. “Fourth choir. I report through the Grigori chain of command.”

  I felt suddenly chilled. He didn’t just report to Gregory, he was part of his choir. Had my own angel betrayed me? No, I wouldn’t believe that. If he wanted Harper, he would have just taken her the other night as I’d slept. It couldn’t be Gregory, but having one of his angels hanging from my barn wasn’t going to make him a happy angel.

  –10–

  Tell me about Ben.”

  Harper and Nyalla were sitting on my couch, each facing a different direction to better watch the entrances to my house. I noticed the pregnant woman was once again clutching a knife, several others jammed through her belt. Boomer, the most effective of their weapons, snoozed on the floor, his body half under the coffee table.

  The dark–haired woman pursed her lips. “I really don’t know much about him. I originally thought he worked at the hospital in Alaska, but after I went back to Colorado, he was there. Strange — in any other circumstance, I would have thought he was some creepy stalker, but I was always so happy when he was around. It was a fuzzy kind of happy, like when you’ve had a few too many glasses of wine.”

  Angels. No doubt Ben had worked his mojo on the woman. I’d seen Gregory entrance humans to get his way in airports and shopping malls. If Baby–Daddy had even one–tenth of his power, it was no wonder Harper had fallen in line with whatever he wanted.

  “I went back to work, but I felt like I was going through the motions. I didn’t climb, didn’t hike, didn’t want to do anything but be with him.” Harper’s eyes narrowed. “Now I look back and wonder who that was. It seems like I was watching someone else living my life. It wasn’t me.”

  “What did you do together?” Nyalla asked. “Besides have sex, obviously.”

  Harper didn’t seem disturbed by the girl’s bluntness. “I … I don’t know. I remember going out to eat, although, now that I think about it, he never ate or drank anything. He just watched me.”

  Creepy. Yeah, Gregory watched me sleep sometimes, but I always called him out on it. “How did you find out your boyfriend was an angel?”

  “When I got pregnant.” Harper bit her lip and turned her head, hiding her eyes from me. “As soon as I saw those two purple lines on the test, it was like I’d received a shot of sanity — like I woke up from whatever groggy state I was in. I wasn’t ready for a baby, and we’d never discussed marriage or anything long–term, so when I told him the news, I proposed getting an abortion.”

  Nyalla caught her breath and held Harper’s hand with a reassuring squeeze.

  The woman smiled at her and continued. “Ben went crazy. These huge wings exploded from his back in a swirl of gold light, and he glowed. For the first time since I’d met him, I was afraid. He told me there would be no abortion, and if I ever even thought of such a thing again, he’d take away my freedom and lock me up somewhere.”

  “Asshole,” I snarled. “I hope you hit him in the face.”

  “Nah. I stabbed one of his wings with a butcher knife.”

  I liked this woman. I liked her a lot.

  “He screamed and batted his wings around. There was pinkish–white blood flying everywhere. It burned holes in my carpet and drywall where it splattered. Then he disappeared. I packed a bag and was gone within five minutes.”

  “How long did it take him to find you?” She was carrying his baby, and I was pretty sure he’d marked her somehow. Baby–Daddy was probably on her before she reached the city limits.

  “Five months.”

  “Five months?�
� I sputtered. This angel sucked.

  “I know! He always seemed to know where I was before — which coffee shop I went to, stores I shopped in. Even if I did something completely impromptu, Ben always knew where I was and when. By the time he caught up with me in Boston, he looked like he’d been put through a wringer. I almost felt sorry for him.”

  “Five months?” What the hell? I glanced down at the woman’s rounded stomach and wondered if her pregnancy somehow negated the ownership mark, or if the unborn child was instinctively protecting his mother. Gregory said she would benefit from the Nephilim’s power until it was born. No doubt that was Harper’s feeling of ‘waking up’, why Ben couldn’t locate her.

  “He was contrite, affectionate, and ecstatic that I was obviously still pregnant. We’d be together always, he told me, but something had changed inside me. I could see beyond his beauty and loving words. I didn’t trust him.”

  “When did he start insisting you give the baby away?” Nyalla asked, still holding Harper’s hand.

  “This past week. Like I mentioned, he started getting nervous that I needed to go somewhere, and that’s when he ‘informed’ me I would be giving the baby up.” Harper’s mouth set in a firm line.

  So he could no longer track Harper — at least not as easily as he’d once done, and he couldn’t influence her. Somehow I doubted Ben was giving up that easily. I planned on poking this angel a bit, just to see what was inside him, but I had one last question to ask Harper.

  “What made you decide that shacking up with a demon was better than these ‘monsters’?”

  She shrugged, a smile at the edge of her lips. “If an angel could be this much of a jerk, I doubted a demon could be much worse.”

  Fair enough. “You both stay here with Boomer. I’ll be back in an hour, tops.”

  “Are you going to interrogate the angel again?” Nyalla asked.

  “Yep.” I was, only not the angel hanging outside in a bag.

  I saddled up Diablo, giving my angel piñata another poke as we headed out the barn and across the fields. Once I felt I was far enough away, I dismounted and took the little green glass ball from my pocket.