had spent fighting Heaven. He still wasn’t at all sure about it.
“Lay off, Uriel,” he said. “I was just thinking about something I need to do later.”
“So I gather.” Uriel tilted his head, arching one golden brow. “You won’t mention the reason I chose this place for our meeting. I knew you wouldn’t leave her.”
Of course he’d known. Phenex had just hoped the archangel was polite enough not to mention it. No such luck, of course. Phenex shifted his weight from one foot to the other, crossed his arms over his chest, and glowered at him.
“You only know what you want to see. You don’t know shit.”
One corner of Uriel’s mouth curved, and he looked unbearably smug. “I know more than you think. I’ve watched this before. Recently. Fascinating, I think, that after all these years of you and your ilk using Earth as a destructive child uses a plaything, its women seem to be the only ones able to unlock your—”
“Don’t. Hellfire, Uriel, I haven’t even eaten lunch yet,” Phenex interjected. “I like Sofia. She’s…” He trailed off, then shook his head. “No. No, I’m not doing this. You’re not going to mess with my head.”
“I’m not trying to. And you’re awfully touchy. You didn’t used to be.”
Phenex gave him a baleful look. “You do remember that I was a lord of Hell, right?”
Uriel exhaled loudly. “You make it hard to forget. Do you still play, Phenex?”
“Sure. All the time.”
“I’m glad. You and your music…you were never replaced.” The words hit him like a fist, threatening to pull him back into a turmoil he had left far, far behind. He was struggling to lock it away as Uriel continued. “I hope you still compose?”
Phenex breathed in deeply, centering himself, and frowned. This, at least, was a concrete question. He hadn’t been composing. Except all of a sudden, he had. Sofia had no idea how often he’d slipped out of bed this past week to work, scribbling notes furiously onto paper. Whatever parts of him had closed off when he’d fallen were opening up again. He didn’t understand, except to know that it was all to do with Sofia’s presence. He had to keep her. Had to. The drive to find some way to stop her from leaving him was almost frantic. He needed what she gave him. The thought of going dead inside again filled him with a horror unlike any he’d known since he’d first looked across the barren landscape of Hell itself and realized that this was his kingdom.
“I do compose a little, yeah,” Phenex finally said, figuring Uriel would know if he was lying anyway. The archangel smiled, and to Phenex’s irritation, it seemed perfectly sincere.
“Well, that’s something I’d like to hear again, one day.”
“Hmm.” Phenex looked away, frustrated and off-balance, and angry at himself for letting Uriel get to him. The guy had ulterior motives. He always did. Angels were sneaky bastards, just as much as their dark brethren.
“I gotta go. I need to go check on, ah…”
Damn it. Way to dissuade Uriel from his redemptive daydreams.
“Go ahead,” Uriel said. “I understand the need to protect, even if I understand little else about you anymore.”
Phenex slid him a suspicious, sidelong glance on his way out. “Okay.”
He’d nearly made it out the door when Uriel’s voice carried to him, making him tense as though someone had taken a swing at him.
“She’s not a bird to be kept in a cage, Phenex. You, of all people, should understand that.”
He did. And he hated Uriel for making him remember that he ought to. For bringing the question to his lips that he’d sworn he wouldn’t ask.
“How is she? Celestine?”
Phenex would never forget the discovery of her, on a night he’d played at a wild and debauched party of Belial’s. Even then, his own restlessness and dissatisfaction had been eating at him. He’d wandered off, ignoring the bacchanal, the orgies, pulled by some force he couldn’t quite put his finger on down into the lower levels of the Prince of Sloth’s manor.
Only to find a battered and broken angel in a cage. A rare female angel, radiant even in her torment. However Belial had caught her, it was clear he’d been making use of her. It was a depravity that had stunned even Phenex. This was not done. No demon was ever kept in Heaven, no angel in Hell. It was an agreement so old it never even needed to be spoken. It was simply understood.
Phenex was still haunted