“Sammael’ Hank murmured, setting Eve on her feet and straightening her collar.

“I need that’ she said, pointing at the necklace.

“I can’t read you when you’re wearing it.”

“And you can’t hear me when your friend is having fits. We kill two birds with one stone this way. You can recover the piece later”

“Gotcha.”

Fred altered shape, shifting back into her lili form. Since she was naked, Eve looked away, but she heard Fred pick up the tengu and pad back into the darkness.

“You’re in deep shit,” Hank said, gripping Eve’s elbow and puffing her deeper into the room.

She was startled by the sudden appearance of a wooden table and chairs. Hank sat and she followed suit, once again wondering at the lack of gentlemanly manners.

He studied her intently. “It’s clear that neither Cain nor Abel know. If they did, you’d be locked away. Pointless as that would be.”

“I can’t say anything.”

“And your memories of Sammael are like static on a television.” Hank sighed. “Very well, then. I’ll do the talking. You just have to ask the right questions.”

Eve nodded. She had no idea how old Hank was, but there was no doubt that he held a staggering amount of information inside him. But did that information extend back to the beginning of time?

“Do you know,” she began, “exactly how much of the Eve and the apple story is true, and how much of it isn’t?”

“Ah, Genesis.. . Interesting.” Hank’s lips pursed momentarily. “The tale varies depending on who you ask. Some say the Bible is as accurate as can be expected. Others say it’s more of a fable, with hidden meanings.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Sammael’s serpent being a phallic allusion and the Tree of Knowledge referring to female sexual awakening.”

She whistled. “Holy shit.”

“There are those who go so far as to say that Cain is the son of Sammael and not Adam, and that is why he’s so good at killing.”

Eve heaved out a shuddering breath. If Satan wanted some reunion nooky, they were all fucked. Talk about disasters.

“He’s a good-looking demon,” she said. “He wouldn’t secretly pine for her, would he? He’s got endless choices.”

“You have to understand the layers that exist.” Hank rubbed the back of his neck, one of very few times that Eve had ever seen signs of stress on him.

“Go on,” she coaxed.

“It’s a misconception to say that Sammael rules over a place called Hell. Sammael rules the earth. He was banished from Heaven, but given domain here. He isn’t roasting in some fiery pit.”

“He isn’t?”

“No. He can create that visual effect and often does because we’ve been trained to fear it, but it’s just window dressing. There are layers to Heaven and there are layers to earth. Like an onion. Sammael can strip or combine layers in order to create the desired effect.”

Fred appeared from the darkness dressed in a lab coat and bearing a slight smile. Carrying a tray with a pitcher and half-filled glasses, she looked more harmless geek than killer demon.

Eve leaned back to make room for the refreshments. “Will you join us?” she asked the lili.

“I can’t, but thank you.”

Hank’s gaze followed his assistant as she retreated. “She’s worried that she’ll die at any moment. She never relaxes because of it.”

One hundred him died every day. Eve couldn’t imagine living with that hanging over her head.

“Okay, back to the layers,” she redirected. “The layer that you and I occupy most of the time is tricky to navigate for both Jehovah and Sammael. As you know, they don’t play well together. So when they want to function here with the full range of movement that mortals have—to touch, to taste, to lust—they need emissaries.”

Understanding hit her right between the eyes. “Like Jesus Christ.”

“And the Antichrist. You may feel the hand of God or the claws of Sammael in a figurative sense or through secondary beings such as demons and mal‘akhs, but you can only feel them literally if they gain access to this earthly layer through an emissary.”

“So let’s say—hypothetically—that Satan wanted to give me a gift. Not a power, but an actual thing, like a necklace, he would have to do so through an emissary?”

Hank wrapped a hand around his drinking glass, but didn’t pick it up. “Or he would use an emissary as a gateway to do it himself. If the emissary was strong enough, perhaps Sammael could even manifest separately and the two could occupy the same plane at the same time.”

If the emissary was strong enough...

Eve wondered why the room didn’t spin. She thought it should, considering how shaky she felt on the inside. “Is Cain the gateway?”

How else could Sammael have known that the original Eve would be visiting this layer?

Hank’s gaze lifted from watching his thumb draw lines in the condensation on his glass. “Now, you’re starting to ask the right questions.”

***

“Why won’t anyone give me a straight answer?” Alec rolled his shoulders back, fighting fatigue when he shouldn’t be tired to begin with. “You’ve kept me cooling my heels for hours, then you talk in circles. It’s a simple yes-or-no question.”

Uriel handed him a bottle of chilled water and sat in the wicker chair opposite him. The head of the Australian firm was shirtless and barefooted. His long, sun-bleached hair fluttered gently in the ocean breeze coming through the open French doors of his office. He was considered one of the foremost yacht builders in the world, but had recently diversified into wine making. The world economy was unhealthy, curtailing luxury purchases.

“Yes, there are only seven of us,” the archangel finally answered, after twenty minutes of evasion. “And yes, it might be by design. Is that better?”

Alec snatched up the water and downed the contents in a few greedy gulps. His body grew more feverish by the hour, leaving him with a dry throat and perspiration-damp skin.

“You really don’t want to fuck with me now,” he growled, returning the empty bottle to the glass- topped wicker coffee table with a hollow thud.

“I hope, for your sake, that you do not think we are evenly matched,” Uriel warned. “Or assume that my easygoing nature gives you an edge.”

Alec took deep, measured breaths, carefully reining back his temper.

Why can’t I feel Eve?

He hadn’t been able to feel her since they’d found the two guards. As the archangel responsible for Abel, he could sense that his brother wasn’t alarmed, but that only spurred Alec’s envy. The damned thing inside him was costing him the only thing that mattered to him anymore.

“Whose design?” he bit out, returning to his previous question. “Did you and the others practice a little sibling winnowing to get to a manageable number?”

Uriel’s brilliant blue gaze narrowed. “You tread dangerous ground with your accusations.”

“How did you convince Jehovah that seven of you were enough?”

“We have no control over Jehovah. You know that. As with anything, the pros and cons were weighed.”

Alec couldn’t help but wonder if he was experiencing the cons. Despite the cool evening air gusting in from the balcony, he was sweating. There was no doubt the chaos within him was escalating. “I’m not.. . well.”

“I can see that,” the archangel murmured, his casual pose unchanged.

“Did the others—the archangels who aren’t here anymore—experience similar. . . problems?”

“What problems are you experiencing?”

“Let me rephrase,” Alec said tightly. “Have you ever had to put down another archangel because he was out of control?”

Uriel brushed his hair back with a rough swipe of his hand. “No. We seven were created as we are, Cain. You are an aberration. An unknown. Perhaps your once-mortal body is incapable of handling an archangel’s power.”

“I was changed,” he argued. “It felt like I was being ripped apart. The pain was indescribable.”

Uriel’s mouth quirked on one side. “I bet. That doesn’t mean you are now one of us. For Abel to become a mal‘akh, he had to die. For Christ to achieve his aims, he had to die. It is quite possible that your transformation cannot be completed without shedding every vestige of your former self.”

“If I’m an aberration, is it possible that Raguel’s still alive and that’s why my ascension is fucked up?”

The sudden stillness that gripped the archangel didn’t go unnoticed. “I suppose.”

Well, that explained why none of them were actively searching for their brother. They assumed he was dead.

Restless, Alec stood and prowled. If there could be only seven archangels, he was in an untenable position. He would first have to ascertain whether or not Raguel was alive. Then, he would have to decide whether to kill, or be killed.

How badly do I want this?

The darkness in him roiled in protest. Power was like a drug, one not easily relinquished.

He moved toward the window and stood on the threshold, his damp skin chilling in the gentle gusts of wind.

Uriel’s voice came soft and coaxing behind him. “What ails you?”

“There’s something in me. It’s angry. Violent. Very strong.”

“Too strong?”

“Not yet.” Alec looked at the ocean. At night, one beach looked like another. He couldn’t help but think of nights spent with Eve. The selfish part of him wished he could share this mess he was in with her. “But I want better control over it.”

“Perhaps the ascension freed a.. . repressed part of your personality?”

“Do you believe everything you hear?”

The wicker creaked as the archangel rose to his feet. Although his approach was silent, Alec sensed Uriel coming. The rush of power he felt around a single archangel was of equal force to the rush he felt when entering a firm.