Page 32 of The River of Hatred

I frown down at Jessica’s head, the strawberry blonde of her hair looking dull and gray in this desolate lighting. Did I say that out loud? Ithuriel’s looking back at me over his shoulder, a frown on his unblemished face.

Great.

“Did you ever meet him?”

It takes me a second to register Jessica’s question.

I look back down at her. “Who?” I ask, bewildered.

“Caiaphas?” Her voice is careful, unsure.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I really am acting like a complete lunatic.

“No, dove. He died centuries before I was created.”

I realize I’ve been gliding my hand over her arm as we walk together. Having her near has been surprisingly comfortable.

“Which was when?” she asks.

“The fifth century,” Ithuriel speaks for the first time in a while.

“A while before he was,” I tell the mortal.

“No,” the angel denies and a grin spreads over my face at the familiar argument.

“Why don’t you check with an archivist next time you’re in Elysium?” I tease. We always said we would but never did.

“It is a shame Syriniana perished before we came into existence,” Itha says next. “She would have accurately corroborated.”

I snort and Jessica looks up at me with curiosity. “Who was Syriniana?”

“A legendary archivist of old,” Ithuriel says wistfully before I can even open my mouth. She’s always been a role model for him.

“She died on the battlefield in Hell eons ago, during the peak of the Celestial Conflict,” I continue. “Just before corrupt mortal souls began entering Hell as their final place of unrest. Around the time Ash offered what’s now known as Purgatory as a place of in-between.”

I see Itha’s lip curl in my periphery. He needs to get over this reaction to anythingFather.

“Can angels be killed then?”

I nod at my poppet. “If catastrophic damage is dealt repeatedly, the bindings holding us together don’t have the energy to reform. And since we don’t have souls, there’s no afterlife for us. We return to the ether.”

Her face falls and I squeeze her against me in answer.

“There was one being with a particularly large death toll,” Itha continues the story, oblivious to Jessica’s discomfort.

“Ah, yes. Good old Nephithar. Ash was never a fan.” I don’t know why I’m avoiding addressing him as Father in front of the angel. “Then again, Father is a fan of exactly one and a half people, the half split up between me, my cousin Naamah, and Uncle Asmo.” Why do I feel a bit nauseous?

“Why did you call him a being instead of a demon?” Jess asks, distracting me from the expression on Ithuriel’s perfect face.

“Demon wasn’t a word that was thrown around a lot around the inception of this place. It came later. Besides, Nephithar was something… other.”

Itha takes over. “He was Lucifer’s attempt at making his own angel. He made Nephithar in his image and called him his son.”

“Though, according to Ash, he’s never mentioned him since his death. And he hasn’t made another like him.” I shrug. “Maybe he considered it a failed experiment.”

“It merely shows us that you can call someone Son but that does not make them one,” Ithuriel mumbles.

I groan. “Don’t be a fucking hypocrite or you’ll get a cloak of your own. Or did you stop addressing God as Father? Ash hasn’t.”

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