5

The next morning, I woke to darkness. It was so early that not even the birds were chirping yet. It was the quietest hour of the day, before the early risers opened their eyes and after the party animals and drunks had gone home to their beds—or passed out cold on the streets.

The window was open, letting the air in. It was warm, even before the sun broke the horizon. The heat and humidity hung in the air like a fleece blanket, hot and smothering. I couldn’t help but marvel at the bizarre February weather. I should have looked outside to see ice-laden trees and snowy sidewalks—not this.

I put on my wilderness wear, thankful for the shorts and tank top. My black leather Legion uniform would have been unbearable in this heat. Even in my light clothing, a hot layer of sweat coated my skin. And it was only going to get hotter from here.

As I stuffed my night clothes into my backpack, I watched Bella sleep. She was so quiet, so peaceful. I kissed her gently on the forehead, then left the room, closing the door behind me.

The house was dark, and I didn’t turn on any lights. I crept along with softened steps, not wanting to wake anyone. I paused in front of Zane’s open door, taking a moment to send him a silent promise that I would find him. I doubted he could hear me, but just in case he could, I wanted him to know I was looking for him.

“Leda.”

I spun around, drawing one of my swords as I moved. I stopped when I saw it was only Calli. I must have been so caught up thinking about Zane that I hadn’t heard her approach. Nero would have chided me for being sloppy, and he was right. I had the heightened senses of a vampire. There was no excuse to let anyone sneak up on me. Well, except for angels. I swear they came with built-in silencers. You couldn’t even hear them breathe.

“You’re up early,” I said to Calli.

“Same as every day.”

Calli always had been an early riser. Back in the old days, she’d used those quiet hours to work in the garage, make breakfast, and to do all those small things that otherwise didn’t seem to ever get done in a household of kids who played as hard as we fought. I’d known she woke up long before us, but I hadn’t realized until today just how early her day began because I was not an early riser. As a teenager, I could have slept until noon every day of the week. I’d given up my lazy mornings and late breakfasts the day I’d joined the Legion of Angels. It was one of the things I missed—just not as much as I missed my family.

Calli looked through the open door to Zane’s room. Everything was exactly as it had been the day Zane was taken. It was waiting for his return.

“He’ll be back,” I told her, setting my hand on her shoulder.

“Of course he will. He’s a fighter.” She turned and went into the kitchen. “His mother was a fighter too.”

I grabbed a roll from the bread bowl. “You knew her?” Calli had never told me about Zane’s birth mother.

“Yes, back from my days with the League.”

The League was the world’s largest bounty-hunting company. Calli had worked there before coming to Purgatory, before raising us. Every so often, we met one of her old friends from the League, but I didn’t actually know much about the time she’d spent there.

“Her name was Cora. I hadn’t seen her in years, not since the League. She left the year before I did. I never found out why until the night she showed up on my doorstep with a young boy. Her son.”

“Zane,” I said. “He was hunted even then?”

Calli nodded, stirring her tea. “Cora begged me to take him in. She was crying hysterically, but between her pleas and sobs, I managed to piece together what was going on. The gods had learned her son was a ghost.”

Ghosts, people with telepathic powers, were very rare and highly prized. The strongest telepaths could do so much more than just read thoughts; they could see things and track people across great distances. Even angels with telepathic magic could not do this; they could only link to those they loved.

Only a handful of telepaths were born into each generation. Both the gods and the demons hunted down every one they could find to test, drug, and use as spies, as a window into their enemies’ camps.

“The gods sent the Legion of Angels to hunt down Zane and his mother,” Calli said. “They’d traveled from far away to get to me. But we all know that no place on Earth is truly safe from gods and demons.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “She knew the Legion would chase her to the ends of the Earth to find her son, so she left him with me. I saw the look in her eyes as she left, Leda. It was as if a part of her had been ripped out. She gave up her son to save him.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, my throat growing hoarse. I feared I already knew the answer.

“Cora caught a train west. The Legion wasn’t far behind her. She was trying to lead them as far as possible from Zane. So she went out on the Western Wilderness. She knew she was going to her death, but it was the best chance her son had. They found her body one week later. She’d managed to survive the monsters long enough to lead them on a wild goose chase across the Western Wilderness. To give her son a chance at life,” Calli finished, her voice shaking with emotion.

I stood there for a minute, trying to think of what to say. Cora had known the Legion had magic that could break any mind, even hers, and she’d chosen death over giving up her son’s location. There were no words to describe the harrowing beauty of that mother’s sacrifice for her son.

“Calli, why are you telling me this now after all these years?” I asked her.

“Because I know you feel guilty about what happened to Zane.”

“He went missing on my job, helping me, saving my life. He exposed himself—his power—to save me. I have every reason to feel guilty. This is my fault.”

Calli was quiet for a few moments, watching me. Finally, she said, “I taught Zane how to use his power and how to hide it, when to use it and when to hide it.” She paused. “Zane chose to save your life that day, Leda, and I would have expected nothing less of him. Of any of you. You are fantastic and giving individuals, every one of you, and I’m proud to have raised you.”

“Calli—”

“But you have to let go of this guilt. Zane knew what he was doing.”

“Just as I know what I’m doing. It’s my turn to save him.”

“That’s why you joined the Legion. That’s why you said it had to be you. Of all of you, you always were the one to get into the most trouble,” Calli said. “More than all the others combined, in fact.” She chuckled. “And you always insisted on getting yourself out of it too.”

“Of course. The one who made the mess should fix it. That’s orderly.”

Calli gave me a strange look I couldn’t decipher. “You are more like your Colonel Windstriker than you think.”

I didn’t bother to argue with her about ‘your angel’. I’d argued the point with my sisters and friends, but not with Calli. She’d always been able to see right through my bullshit. And truth be told, all pretending aside, my heart did lose a beat whenever someone called him mine or said that I was his. I tried not to think about that too much, about what that meant, because, honestly, it scared me shitless—even more than the thought of trekking to the heart of the monster-ridden Black Plains.

So I merely said, “You don’t even know Nero. How can you say we’re alike?”

“I know he’s an angel. And that’s how angels think. Cleaning up messes. Restoring order to chaos. Like you.”

Nero called me the bringer of chaos, and he was right. But so was Calli. I did feel the need to restore order after unleashing that chaos. It was a weird dichotomy that lived inside of me. A split. That’s what I was—perpetually caught, constantly tugged between order and chaos.

“Also I read about him,” Calli continued.

“Oh, really?” I imagined Calli, my badass mother, flipping through the latest tabloid column, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the image.

“I felt it prudent to know what you were getting yourself into,” she said. “Leda, he’s an angel nearly two hundred years old, so I don’t need to tell you how dangerous he is. You know the Legion of Angels doesn’t have its soldiers do the right thing, just the lawful thing. The law of the gods. This might be our world, but it’s their playground. And their rules.”

“I know, Calli. And you know I never wanted any of this. I never wanted this life. I wanted to be here with all of you, together.”

Calli set her hand on mine. “This life was never meant for you, Leda. I always knew it, deep down. I wouldn’t admit it to myself, even after you left to join the Legion. But it is the truth. You were meant for great things. You were meant to join the Legion of Angels.”

Nero had once told me something just like that. He’d told me that my path would eventually lead me to the Legion.

“Do you believe in destiny?” I asked Calli.

“For most of my life, I’d have said no. But now…” She shook her head. “I’m just not sure anymore.”

I’d never seen Calli so indecisive. It was unsettling. Calli was our rock and our glue. She’d always known what to do, no matter what problem we’d had.

“Do you know anything about my past?” I asked her, then took a bite of my roll. I was running out of time.

“Nothing before your days of living on the streets. I once looked up your previous foster mother, but I couldn’t find anything about a witch named Julianna Mather.”

“Thanks,” I said, disappointed but not surprised. I pushed back from the counter. “I have to go now.”

I walked down the dark streets of Purgatory. The town was waking up, people hurrying from one place to another, as though afraid to be caught outside in the dark. They watched me from their windows, hope in their eyes. They thought I was here to save them from the atrocities that plagued the town. My throat constricted with guilt. I wasn’t their savior.

“Come on, honey,” a male voice cooed. “Don’t go doing that now.”

I snapped my head around, looking for the man who owned that voice. I found him in the shadows of an old building. He and his buddy were wearing black trench coats. That meant they were Royal’s men.

“What is that she’s carrying?” the other man asked.

“A taser. Magitech. The boss says civilians aren’t allowed to carry weapons in town.”

A shadow beyond them shook. As I moved in closer, I saw that shadow was a woman. Trembling, she held the taser before her body. The first man smacked the weapon from her hands. It slid across the cobbled street and clinked against the stone building on the other side. The temple. Those fiends were doing this just outside the Pilgrims’ temple.

“Don’t even think about it.” The first man moved with her, blocking her from reaching the weapon. “Don’t move, or I’ll cut up that pretty face of yours.”

I hurried forward, my steps fueled by pure anger. I didn’t care that I wasn’t allowed to interfere. I didn’t even think about what would happen to me if I did. All I could see was that poor woman, those two thugs, and the end of my sword.

A hand locked around my arm like an iron clamp. I spun around to punch whoever had the gall to stand in my way of helping that woman. Nero caught my fist mid-air.

“Let me go,” I growled.

“You will not interfere in local affairs.”

I gritted my teeth, pushing against his hold. I couldn’t budge him an inch. I was stuck.

“Stop, Leda.”

I kicked him in the shin.

“This is your last warning.”

I pushed with every shred of supernatural strength I had, but I might as well have been trying to move a mountain. Nero’s hand jerked sideways. I heard my wrist snap a moment before the pain tore through my nerves. I swallowed my agony and didn’t stop fighting. I pushed and pulled and kicked.

“The Legion will punish you if you attack those men,” he told me calmly.

“I don’t care,” I spat.

“Attacking them might save her, but it won’t save anyone else here.”

I aimed another kick at him, but he deflected it. His kick broke my leg.

“How can you be so cold?” I demanded, trembling with anger and pain.

“The Legion will never let you come back here, Leda. You might never see your family again. And you’ll ruin your chances of gaining the magic you need to save Zane.”

The sound of my brother’s name made me stop—or maybe it was the firestorm of agony rushing through my body, dragging me under. I blinked my eyes, trying to stay conscious. The next thing I knew, Captain Somerset was carrying me down the hallway of the temple. Nero was nowhere in sight.

“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you, Pandora?” she said, setting me down on a chair inside the Legion office.

Nine pairs of eyes turned to stare at me. It looked like everyone was here—everyone except Nero. And the Pilgrims.

“Take this.” Captain Somerset handed me a potion. She added in a lowered voice, “No one can make a clean break like Nero. Your injuries will heal in a few minutes. Try not to break anything else in the meantime.” Then she walked over to our comrades.

“What happened to you?” Drake whispered as he sat down beside me.

I used my good hand to pop the potion, drinking it down in a single gulp. “An angel happened to me.”

“Colonel Windstriker did this to you?” Surprise flashed in his eyes. “Why?”

“The district lords—crime lords really—run this town now. People are scared, Drake. They’re hurting. I was going to stop two of the district lord Royal’s thugs from hurting a woman.” I frowned. “Nero stopped me from interfering in local affairs.” I looked for something to kick—then remembered my leg was still broken. “What is the point of all this, of being strong, if we can’t help the weak? If we can’t right the world’s wrongs?”

“There are a lot of wrongs in the world. So much evil,” Drake said. “The Legion cannot correct every wrong or banish every evil.”

“Evil doesn’t come only in ugly, monster-shaped packages. It hides behind human smiles and behind the false platitudes we tell ourselves so that we can sleep at night. I could have stopped those men, Drake.”

“But not all the others, and not the system that created them. At least not in a day.” He set his hand on my arm. “That is a longer war, the war against the evil that lies within us all.”

“Can we ever win that war?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

“How can you be sure?”

“Not everything the gods do is kind, and not everything we Legion soldiers have to do is pretty, but I truly believe we’re making the world a better place. You have to have faith, Leda, that it will happen. Faith, hope, love—those are the things that keep us going. The things that keep us fighting for what really matters.”

“You sound like the Pilgrims,” I said.

“Do I?” His eyes twinkled. “I spoke with them last night. They are doing what we do, fighting evil and preserving what is good in this world. Humanity has lost so much since the monsters overran the Earth. But we have gained a lot too. You should talk to the Pilgrims, Leda. They can help you remember that.”

I hadn’t had good experiences talking with Pilgrims, at least not the ones who handed out pamphlets on the street corners of Purgatory. They were selling blind faith, and I had a knack for questioning everything.

“Pandora, Football, do you think you could grace us with your presence?” Captain Somerset called out.

I tested my leg. When I discovered I could move it without agonizing pain, I rose to my feet. I didn’t collapse, which was a good sign. My wrist felt fine too. Whatever potion Captain Somerset had given me was top notch.

“We’re taking two trucks. Pandora, you’ll be in the first truck to show us the fastest path to the Lost City,” Captain Somerset said. “Park, you haven’t crashed Legion property lately, so you’re driving.”

Morrows snickered.

Captain Somerset snapped her head around to him. “Morrows, you always crash everything, so you’re not to go near the wheel.”

“What if everyone else is dead?” he asked solemnly.

“If everyone else is dead, then fine. Knock yourself out. But until that point, I’m going to put your talents to better use. You have first shift with the cannon. Shoot down every monster that threatens the trucks.”

Morrows grinned like his birthday had come early.

“Norman, Football, and I will also be in the first truck,” Captain Somerset continued. “Lawrence, you’ll drive Colonel Windstriker’s truck.”

Lieutenant Lawrence sneered across the room at me.

“Vance, you take the cannon. Silvershield, Greer, Cupcake, you’re in the second truck too.”

“I wonder why only some of us have nicknames,” I whispered to Drake.

“I guess only the good ones stick.”

“It’s hard to beat Cupcake.” I glanced at Maton Chambers, aka Cupcake. I actually felt bad for him. He was a really nice guy.

The door to the office opened, and Nero stepped inside with the seven Pilgrims. He nodded to Captain Somerset.

She returned the nod. “All right, get moving. The sun will be up in just a few minutes. It might feel like summer, but the days are still short this time of year, and we need to use every daylight hour.”

We headed down the hall toward the garage. I ignored Nero along the way—or ignored the back of his head anyway since he was ahead of me. I didn’t mind the broken bones; I’d had plenty of them since joining the Legion. But I was pissed off as all hell that he’d broken them to stop me from saving that woman. It was my choice whether I wanted to get myself in trouble, not his. There was this pesky little thing called freewill that he regularly forgot existed. Just like an angel. Maybe Calli was right. Maybe Nero wasn’t as different as I’d thought.

I climbed into the truck, sitting between Drake and Captain Somerset. I was so glad that Nero was in the other truck. I didn’t think I could hold my tongue all the way to the Lost City if I’d had him sitting next to me.

The trucks pulled out of the garage. As they turned around the temple to drive toward the wall, a flicker of light caught my eyes. Two bodies hung from the temple’s chimney, swinging in the wind. Royal’s men. Their throats were slit in cold, merciless strokes. They were killed quickly, before they could fight back. There wasn’t a single other scratch on them. This wasn’t an act of anger or malice; it was an execution.

I looked at the truck driving beside us. Nero met my gaze, his eyes devoid of emotion. He’d killed those men. I knew he had.

“I think he left them there for you,” Drake said, wide-eyed.

“That is one strong signal, Pandora,” Captain Somerset commented.

“But he said we’re not allowed to interfere in local affairs.”

“Technically, that’s true,” Captain Somerset said. “But Nero always took it upon himself to learn the rules to the letter. Because when you know the rules inside and out, you can find all the loopholes. Legion soldiers may not interfere in local criminal activity, unless it pertains to the mission or it takes place on the gods’ property. Such as the grounds of a Legion office or a Pilgrim temple.”

“They weren’t on the gods’ property.” They’d been across the street from the temple.

“I bet they were standing on the gods’ property when Nero executed them.”

She was right. Nero was a stickler for the rules. He’d probably lured them onto the Legion side of the border—and then killed them for their crime.

“Loophole,” I muttered.

“Proposition.”

I looked at Captain Somerset. “Sorry?”

“Nero has it bad for you. I thought a little fun could cure him, but it seems he only wants one cure. You. And now he’s stringing up dead criminals to let you know.” She shook her head. “Why couldn’t he have gone with chocolate?”

“Because he’s an angel, that’s why,” Morrows said from his seat behind the cannon. “And you know chocolate isn’t the same. Not at all.”

“Chocolate is less complicated.”

I felt like I was missing part of the conversation—a conversation about my love life that now involved everyone in the truck except for me. I glanced at Drake, who shrugged. Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get it.

“It is a fine line between loopholes and the path to self-destruction. What game are you playing?” Captain Somerset demanded.

“I’m not playing any game.”

Captain Somerset gave me a critical look. “This is how angels fall. And you just might be the catalyst to his downfall. I like you, Pandora, but if you ruin Nero, I will kill you.”

I could see it in her eyes that she meant every word. With Harker gone, she was Nero’s best friend, and she was fiercely loyal to him.

“I haven’t done anything,” I told her.

She continued to glare.

“What would you have me do?” I demanded.

“Honey, I think you know what you need to do to make him stop stringing up dead bodies.”

I returned her glare. I was not going to have sex with Nero just so Captain Somerset would stop sharpening her knives—literally. She had her weapon out and was sharpening the blade. Ok, so it wasn’t a knife. It was a sword. Which was even worse, actually.

“So, what kind of sword is that?” I asked her, trying to change the subject.

“A fire sword.” Flames burst to life, sliding in silken waves across the blade. “A fine weapon. They’re sharp and cut through flesh easily, especially when they’re nice and hot.”

I had a feeling she was talking about my flesh. “I’d better go guide our driver.” Before this conversation turned any further downhill.