Cold. Hollow. Emotionless. Brittle. It’s like they’re not even alive. They follow their own rules with single-minded dedication, like machines. It’s… sad.”
“Sad?” Samiel growled low. “What’s fucking sad is that they’re still killing us and breeding and taking over London like they think it belongs to them. I don’t agree with what Djall did, killing all those people in the cauldron, but maybe it was time.”
Djall was someone else he’d have to contend with soon. The last time he’d seen her, on the Thames’s muddy bank, he’d tried to kill her, so their reunion would be interesting. She’d have to wait. First, he needed out of this building and to check in with the madam. She’d have news about Mikhail.
The elevator doors pinged open, revealing an unfamiliar trash-strewn foyer. “Where is the madam?”
Samiel jogged ahead. “Follow me, and keep your hood up and your head down. We don’t need word getting out that I have a pet angel at my heels.” He threw a smirk over his shoulder.
Pet angel? Severn chuckled and tagged behind, head down.
Mist clogged the street and muffled the noises from the occupants of nearby buildings. Snippets of conversation drifted on the breeze. A laugh here and there. A demon swooped in over their heads and landed in a jog on the street. As soon as they touched down, their wings folded away and vanished, and they ducked into the doorway of a brick-faced building. Another smoked in a doorway, the tip aglow. He flicked the ash away and eyed Severn warily.
This area was unfamiliar, too, and nothing like Dagenham’s old streets where Severn had grown up. Perhaps it was the fog, but the damp air carried with it a heavy, somber feel.
“Here.” Samiel passed through a doorway into a huge, brick warehouse. The enormous space echoed with the sounds of their boots, and ahead, waited the madam.
She whirled at their approach, came forward a few steps, and then went down to her knee and bowed her head. “Konstantin, my lord.”
Finally, someone knew how to greet him properly. Severn touched her head between her horns, and she rose. “My lord, he’s tearing the city apart looking for you. Where have you been?”
“Having my skin systematically ripped off.” He flicked a hand at Samiel. “And feeding.”
She blinked, piecing the bits together.
“I’m stuck as an angel. Hence the secrecy. My kin have already made it clear an angel among them is a fucking travesty. But I’m working on it…”
“I see.” Her wings shuddered open, their membranes torn to strips.
Severn winced in sympathy and fought off the urge to reach out. “Gods, what happened?”
She tried to stretch their arches wide but failed and panted in pain. “He thinks he’s a god. Mikhail happened.”
Mikhail’s rage was getting worse. “He did that?”
“And worse.”
“Butcher,” Samiel growled. “He took Konstantin’s wings, and now he shreds yours. Have the medics take a look at you.” He approached the madam, looking over her expanse of wrecked wing membrane, his face guarded.
“I will.” She eyed Samiel warily.
“Samiel won’t hurt you,” Severn assured.
“Konstantin, while in Whitechapel, I overheard the guards talking. Mikhail has summoned reinforcements. Another guardian is on his way to London. One called Remiel. He’s a cruel bastard, or so the angels say… in their dull words. He’s bringing with him hundreds of angels.”
One guardian was bad enough, but two? If they could both pull the stars from the skies, then London would no longer be safe for any demon. “When?”
“A few weeks.”
Two guardians. Guardians rarely worked together. Their enormous egos didn’t allow it. The extra guardian’s arrival had to be for the final push to clear all demons out of London. “How many numbers are in our forces?” he asked Samiel.
“All in, three thousand, maybe? We’ve been recruiting more, but they’re untested. Bluster and balls, but no brains. It’ll take a month to organize our full forces.”
It wasn’t anywhere near enough. Even after Aerie’s collapse, angels were better equipped, and now they had to contend with guardians. By the fucking gods, if the angels learned the demons’ numbers were so low, they’d plow right over them.
“Mikhail has slaughtered dozens of us just these past weeks,” Samiel explained.
Severn took a step back and pinched his lips closed. The words still burst free anyway. “He murdered demons while I was tied to a table?” Mikhail had lost his mind, or was close to it, that much had been obvious at Tower Bridge, but Severn could have tried to stop him before now, if the demons hadn’t been