saw what happened.” I chimed in with useful information instead of being about as helpful as a houseplant. “I asked a few who were standing around, and they said he appeared on the church in the blink of an eye.”
Gideon was staring at me curiously, probably wondering why I’d been out there on the streets alongside Zayne. Since he had no idea what I was, I wasn’t surprised by his interest.
“No demon is that fast,” Nicolai said. “Not even the most powerful Upper Level demons. Not even Roth.”
At the mention of the Crown Prince of Hell, I stiffened. God, for the last hour or so, I had actually forgotten about what Roth and I had done. Man, that now felt like a week ago, but how terrible did that make me? Weight settled on my shoulders.
“We’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that whatever this Harbinger is, it isn’t a demon.” Zayne glanced toward me. “We have no idea what could be behind this.”
“Meaning we have no idea what we’re hunting for,” I added, inching out of my corner. “Greene was...left in an area where we’d just been, and the same tonight. I think the locations were chosen on purpose.”
“What do you think?” Nicolai asked of Zayne while Gideon frowned.
“I think the same as Trinity.” Zayne crossed his arms. “It’s like it’s taunting us.”
“And neither of you saw anything?” Nicolai asked.
“We were having dinner at the restaurant across from the church, and then we were patrolling. We’d made it one block when we heard the screams.”
Nicolai frowned. “Dinner?”
“That’s what I said,” replied Zayne.
Nicolai’s jaw worked. “Was there anything either of you noticed that was abnormal?”
Zayne shook his head, but I thought about the sensation I’d felt and the ghost I’d seen. I had no idea if it was related to the Harbinger, but it was something.
I glanced at Gideon, unsure what I could say in front of him, and decided to go with the least amount of information as possible. “Well, I did see a ghost.”
Gideon’s head whipped toward me. “A ghost?”
Nodding, I found myself staring at Zayne. “It probably has nothing to do with the Harbinger, but the ghost was behaving weirdly.”
“You see ghosts?” Gideon asked, speaking slowly.
“And spirits,” Zayne answered, his arms unfolding as he angled his body toward me. “You didn’t say anything about this earlier.”
The tone of his voice pricked at my skin. “Well, we were kind of busy with getting back to the compound because there was a dead Warden to deal with.”
“Hold up.” Gideon stared at me. “You can see ghosts and spirits?”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal—”
“Not a big deal?” Gideon huffed out a dry laugh. “You do realize that means you have an angel perched on a limb of your family tree somewhere.”
Yeah, there was one perched right on top of my family tree. He was an archangel, and his name was Michael, as in the Michael.
Somehow I managed to keep my face blank. It took an impressive effort, because usually my face didn’t know how to not show what I was thinking. “So I’ve heard.”
“Wow.” Gideon looked at Nicolai, who appeared to be smiling...or grimacing. “I’ve never actually met someone who could see the dead. Man, you would’ve come in handy a few months back when we had a wraith running around in here. Would’ve saved all of us a world of trouble and...” He trailed off with a little shake of his head. “Definitely would’ve been helpful.”
“How was the ghost acting?” Zayne cut in before I could question any of that.
“It didn’t know I was there, which is weird. It was focused on something, but before I could figure out what, the ghost sort of jerked and then disappeared.”
“Perhaps this ghost could sense the Harbinger,” Nicolai surmised as he leaned against the side of his desk.
“It’s possible,” I said, mainly because anything was possible at this point. “Ghosts and spirits both have a habit of randomly disappearing, so it could be nothing, but...” But I wasn’t sure if I could say what I’d also felt without having to explain it to Gideon.
Luckily Gideon was moving on. “By the way, still haven’t found anything on where this school the senator plans to build is located, and I delved deep—deep-state-level deep. I’m still combing, but I’m wondering if land was purchased under a different name or company.”
“And the senator hasn’t been in the city since before the fire, when he was spotted with Bael,” Nicolai reminded us. “His aides have been handling