did you come through the front door? Why stop at the front desk before going inside? Why not just charge in?”
The Interrogators regularly made a habit of coming in without ceremony and taking whatever—or whomever—they wanted.
But not this time, and I had a good idea of why that was. Damiel had turned our arrival into a very public event. He was making a statement. He wanted everyone here to know that Colonel Spellstorm, their commander, was a suspect in the Interrogators’ investigation. It was his way of showing people that no one, not even an angel, was above reproach. He was demonstrating that an angel traitor could be hunted down, shackled, and punished—just the same as any other traitor.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Damiel told the soldier with a dismissive flick of his hand that shot every item on the reception desk into the air.
The soldier jumped in alarm.
Damiel’s eyes, cold and hard, met his. “But I do expect you to have Colonel Spellstorm brought to me at once.”
The soldier gave Damiel a wobbly nod and picked up the phone. He jumped again when the floating contents of his desk suddenly all dropped out of the air and smashed against the tabletop.
I thought about what I knew of Colonel Spellstorm. I’d met him before, through my father. There weren’t all that many angels on Earth. They all knew one another. And yet I didn’t really know much about Colonel Spellstorm. He’d worked with my father a few times. From what I remembered, he was as arrogant, competent, and merciless as was expected of an angel in the gods’ army—but I’d never have pegged him for a traitor.
The doors at the back of the room opened, and someone stepped into the grand hall. Unlike the soldier behind the desk, this man was no fresh recruit. His body had been forged in battle, his face hardened by experience. His brown eyes had a seasoned look about them, like he’d seen many battles and hadn’t come out of them unscathed. The scar that cut across one side of his face, a bumpy ripple on his smooth dark skin, was a sign of that.
He must have been cut by an immortal blade. Mundane—and most magical weapons—did not leave marks on the bodies of Legion soldiers; we healed too fast. It took a particularly potent weapon or poison to scar us.
The seasoned soldier stopped in front of us. “Colonel Dragonsire. Lt. Colonel Lightbringer.” He bowed his head. “What can I do for you?”
His voice was crisp, polished. He sounded like he’d once been a high-level member of the nobility, before the war had come to Earth, before the monsters had wiped out the old ways. Nowadays, we didn’t have dukes and barons, or kings and queens. Angels ruled the Earth’s territories.
Damiel looked the soldier up and down, then declared, “You are not Colonel Spellstorm.”
“No, I’m not,” he confirmed. “Colonel Spellstorm is not here. I am Major Grant.”
“Colonel Spellstorm’s second in command,” said Damiel.
He really didn’t miss a thing. He’d probably memorized the names and faces of everyone assigned to this office before we’d come here. When it came to doing his homework, Damiel was clearly as thorough as he was in his interrogations.
“Come with us,” Damiel told Major Grant.
Then he flicked his hand, using his telekinetic magic to open the doors that brought us past the entrance hall. As we strode down the main corridor, everyone stopped to watch us. Dead silence reigned. I held my head high and exuded perfection for all I was worth, just as my father had taught me.
Damiel led on. Along with memorizing the list of Legion soldiers stationed here, he must have committed the building map to memory too. He led us down the hall like he’d walked this path hundreds of times before, like he didn’t even need to think about the way anymore, like it was second nature to him.
He led me and the Major up the many flights of stairs to the office on the roof level. Large, light, and spartan in design, it had glass walls on all sides. The room alone occupied the building’s highest level.
Clearly, the office belonged to Colonel Spellstorm. Angels liked to be on top.
There wasn’t much in the room except for a desk and chair—and a single sculpture of two angels wrestling, engaged in single combat. They were obviously fighting for their lives. The sculpture was detailed. Every hair was crisp, as were the fierce expressions on the angels’